Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Newsroom

Bush 43's Conversation with Bush 41's Biographer; Six Year Old Shot in Louisiana. Aired 7-8p ET

Aired November 08, 2015 - 19:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[18:59:51] JON MEACHAM, GEORGE H.W. BUSH BIOGRAPHER: You have to say and do certain things that you might ingest badly to get to where you want to be. The test becomes, that's just the business of politics. That's been true since the Athenians. What is important is what do you do once you have that power?

And one of the examples is as the President says, in 1964, George H.W. Bush was not exactly the biggest fan as a Goldwater Republican of the United Nations. But he gets that job, he gets that power and he works like a dog to make the U.N. matter as much as it can for foreign policy. And to help his president which was his duty at that time.

And there is example after example of where he would win power and always at that point put the country ahead of his own political interest. And that is a rare political story.

GEORGE W. BUSH, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: When you write the book on me, you're not going to find anybody predicting I would be president.

MEACHAM: We'll have to find another angle.

BUSH: Yes. Let me ask you this --

MEACHAM: Give me time.

BUSH: Yes. So let me ask you this. How long does it take for historians to get a clear-eyed view of a presidency? In other words, the difference between history and journalism. You mentioned that earlier.

MEACHAM: Yes. You know, I think it's 20 to 25 years where you let the dust settle. Our friend, Michael -- our mutual friend, Michael Beschloss, has a 25-year rule. At that point, you can begin to see things more fully.

It's very clear to me at this point that particularly on the domestic sphere, people did not think your dad had much of a domestic agenda. Well, walk into a public restroom or try to enter a public building anywhere in this country and you'll find that disabled Americans can get into buildings they couldn't get into before he was president of the United States.

Most sweeping pieces -- the most sweeping piece of civil rights legislation since the middle of the 1960s was signed by George H.W. Bush, the Americans Disabilities Act. And he compared it to the fall of the Berlin Wall -- that barriers were coming down.

His interest in that was rooted in fair play -- his interest, another example of where he said one thing and then did another once he had the power was he opposed the 1964 Civil Rights Act as a candidate for the senate in Texas.

What does he do in April of 1968 when he's actually in congress with a vote? He votes for fair housing So that the African-American soldiers who are fighting in Vietnam when they come home will have every right to buy a house wherever they want to buy it.

And he came down here to Memorial High School and he faced an immense amount of hate. A lot of words that we don't use were thrown at him. And he told me, a big guy came up to him and said, we didn't send you up there to do this, but he stood there and he took the heat because he thought it was the right thing to do.

So he might have done one thing in '64 when he said he was not for it, but when he had the power, when he had the responsibility, the authority, what did he do? He put the ultimate interest of the country directly ahead of his political interest. His district didn't want it.

He tells a story about getting on the airplane to fly back to Washington and a woman's coming at him and -- you know this. Politicians can tell when people are coming at you with a look in their eyes you basically want to be as far away as possible.

So he's brace -- he's sitting in the airline chair and he's just been through all this. He's thinking oh, God, here it comes again. She walks up and she says, "I'm a Democrat in your district and I'm always going to vote for you now." And he sat back and flew on.

And I'm convinced that because he thought that was right, I know he did it because he thought it was right, and I think it taught him that if you put the country first, then ultimately politics takes care of itself.

BUSH: In this case, he ran unopposed.

MEACHAM: Yes.

BUSH: 18 months later.

MEACHAM: Right.

BUSH: Yes. One of the things when I wrote my book that most people in this audience have not bought yet --

MEACHAM: I don't think that's true. I don't think that's true.

BUSH: I'm sure it's true. Otherwise the royalty checks would be a little heavier.

But one of the things that surprised me, and I didn't realize this, which speaks to dad's character is how much the '92 campaign stung him.

[19:05:00] You alluded to that on his dictation of election night. But he never showed any of the angst.

MEACHAM: Yes.

BUSH: So, you had any impression about when he greeted Bill Clinton, anything in the diaries there about --

MEACHAM: Oh, yes.

BUSH: -- welcoming the guy who beat him to the White House?

MEACHAM: And on that very night, classic George H.W. Bush, on the night he's calling him a draft dodger and saying I can't believe we just elected someone who duplicitously avoided service to his country. Another line in that diary entry was, "I like Bill." Yes. So when they met, it was right when -- it was the day before your grandmother died.

BUSH: Yes.

MEACHAM: Third week of November in 1992. And he was grace itself. We have footage of it from the White House videographers. They had a long conversation. Covered everything you could imagine. He showed him the sauna, showed him the -- what he called his little world there with the study and the dining room and he said, you know, Clinton's reaction was, wow.

And he personifies -- and I'd love for you to test me, see if you think I'm overstating this. I actually think that culturally and temperamentally your father has more in common with Franklin Roosevelt, Theodore Roosevelt, and even the founding fathers than he does with many people in his own time.

BUSH: Really?

MEACHAM: I really do. Where public service was an extension of yourself, it was expected of you. If you could get to the very top, it was fabulous. But at any level, I mean he always -- we all know the story, but it's worth telling again. It's his -- it's December 7th, 1941, he's walking across the campus at Andover, passes Cochran Chapel, finds out the news of Pearl Harbor broke over the radio about 2:20 in the afternoon on December 7th, that Sunday. He immediately decides he wants to serve. He immediately knows he wants to be an aviator.

And he told me, and I think this is the first time -- I'd never heard it, couldn't find it -- that he even considered at that point joining the Royal Canadian Air Force because you didn't have to be 18 and they were already mobilized obviously because of the war with -- because of the existing situation with the war in Europe.

He gets to June 12th, 1942. He has already written letters to the Navy to get signed up. He -- Henry Stimson, the secretary of war, gives an impromptu speech at the Andover graduation saying, I think many of you should go on, get a couple years of college, it's a long war, you'll be more useful then.

Your dad -- your grandfather says afterward, well, did Secretary Stimson change your mind? He said, no. Breaking away from what his father wanted which was also a pattern here in his life. He wanted to strike out on his own.

So on June 12th, a Saturday, 1942, he graduates from high school, he turns 18, he goes up to Boston and takes an oath as a naval enlistee. At the age of 20, again on Saturday September 2, 1944 he shot out of the sky. He flew 58 combat missions I think.

When we talked about his military career, we talked about the two men who died -- Dell Delaney and Ted White. I said is there ever a day that goes by that you don't think about them? He said, no. I say, what do you wonder?

And he said he wondered two things. Did I do enough to save them? And the answer's yes. All records, all -- he followed every procedure. But then he said, and the other thing I wonder is why was I spared?

And I'm convinced that that experience as well as the loss of your sister imbued in him a code that every minute counted and that life -- he told me this -- I said, what did you learn from Robin's loss? And he said that life is unpredictable and fragile. And he knew that he had been given so much in life -- loving parents,

what seems to be one of the greatest mothers in the history of the world, loving brothers and sisters. I think he realized at that point that he had been given this chance, and as our Lord taught us, to whom much is given, much is expected.

[19:10:04] BUSH: One of the interesting portraits in the book is Nixon. And can you talk about dad's view of Nixon and their relationship?

MEACHAM: Your father's view of Nixon was that he was a tragic figure. He wondered -- he was -- your father was everywhere. This is one of the things about this -- one of the reasons it took 17 years to do this.

BUSH: And only 800 pages -- 41 is very short.

MEACHAM: I think, you know, having both is really the way to go. I mentioned before, I'm an Episcopalian. We believe in the middle way. So, the --

BUSH: Nixon.

MEACHAM: Nixon. Thank you. He's -- thank you, Mr. President. Retirement's not working out quite like you thought. He was in the east room when Nixon gave that famous speech about his mother and his father and he did a diary entry that night saying, "What kind of a man is this really? He only showed us who he really was at the very end."

He appreciated Nixon's patronage. Nixon made it a lot possible for him. He made his life hard with Watergate, but he gave him the U.N., he gave him the Republican National Committee.

Now, Nixon's view of your father is one that's really important because it endured in parts of the political culture. And your father told me this and it's in the papers, too. Nixon didn't think your dad might -- he doubted your father's toughness consistently. He thought he was a loyal appointee. Nixon once said to George Schultz, Bush takes our line beautifully. But that was his job.

His -- you know, he served in these nonexecutive jobs where, and one of the reasons I think he might have had a little bit of trouble articulating the vision thing later is he was never in an executive job where you had to do it, so you were, in fact, encouraged to subsume your vision because you were serving the President of the United States.

And so your dad said in diaries, he said it to me that he thought that some of the beginning of the sense that he was a wimp or didn't quite have the guts to do it began with Nixon. But the other critical element there is one of the reasons Nixon thought that is because as chairman of the Republican National Committee, your father saw his duty as the protection of the party, not the protection of the President.

So Chuck Colson and these other guys would send over these attacks and say, go out there and tell everybody that this -- bitterly attack Nixon's opponents and he wouldn't do it because he believed that the party's interests and Nixon's interests were growing farther apart as the scandal broke out.

BUSH: Yes, what's interesting as well is the resignation. The cabinet meeting which I thought was fascinating.

MEACHAM: Yes, it's -- Chairman Bush was one of only three people who actually had the guts to say to Richard Nixon to his face that he thought he should go. Nixon walks in on August 7th -- August 6th, 1974 and says I think it's time for us to discuss the most important issue facing the country -- inflation.

Big issue, but perhaps the fact that you're about to be impeached is a little greater. And so they -- it's -- the attorney general, Bill Saxby, says something to him, and Bush says that whatever's going to have to happen about the President's future has to happen soon because it's August of an even numbered year and your dad is looking at congressional numbers which are just a total nightmare and your father also said, because Nixon was saying, well, I have all this support in the senate. He said, no, you don't. You know, someone's not giving you the truth and you know as president how eager are people to come give you bad news?

BUSH: Rarely.

MEACHAM: Yes. So what he does is leaves this cabinet meeting and writes a letter urging the President to resign. So the chairman of the Republican National Committee has now written a letter to Richard Nixon, telling him -- his patron to whom he owes his last two jobs -- that it's better for the country for him to go. BUSH: When people read this book, what would you like them to take

away about 41?

[19:15:00] MEACHAM: That he viewed politics as a noble undertaking. That he was someone uniquely who put the country before his own narrow political interests. One of the great examples as president for that was the 1990 budget deal. He broke "read my lips". He thought that the country facing deficit required it. He had a rebellion brewing on the right with Newt Gingrich, chiefly.

Remember President Bush goes out to announce the deal and Gingrich says he can't do it so he goes out the front door while President Bush goes out to the Rose Garden to announce the deal. He says in his diary, Newt just wants to criticize -- he has no plan of his own. I can't -- this is President Bush speaking -- I can't be off in a corner falling on my ideological sword.

At that point as well as you know, you write about in "41", it's October, and what -- June 27th, 1990 is when the no new taxes pledge was broken and the statement was released. August 2nd, 1990, Saddam invades Kuwait. The budget negotiations roll in to Columbus Day.

The last thing George Herbert Walker Bush is going to do is put the troops in the field at risk with a government shutdown, a possible market dip when he has Americans in harm's way.

And Gingrich went to him -- Gingrich told me this -- Gingrich went to him and said, just don't do it now. Take the pledge back, go into the midterms in November and say, if you want a tax increase, you vote for the Democrats. If you want lower taxes, vote for the Republicans. And I honestly don't think that was in your father's imaginative capacity as he's building an army to reverse aggression to do that kind of political gamesmanship.

BUSH: In reading his diaries, what was his attitude during my presidency? Like, was he worried about things? Was he concerned about me?

MEACHAM: He -- well, there were no diaries, so this is just interviews along the way. He stopped -- he actually stops on January 20th, 1993 --

BUSH: When did you start interviewing him?

MEACHAM: 2006.

BUSH: Oh, really?

Of course, he was worried about you and about Mrs. Bush and about your daughters -- and I mean you know all the stories. He watched too much news. He read "The New York Times". That was a big mistake.

BUSH: Yes. No, I agree. Yes. There's another difference. I didn't read "The New York Times".

MEACHAM: Well, yes. But that honestly was. He did worry a lot about it, of course, and I think one of the great fascinating questions, obviously, which I asked you at length, and I should parenthetically say this insofar as this book is true, as I hope it is, as close to the truth as I thought I could get, a great deal of that I owe a debt to President Bush 43 for giving me an immense amount of his time and his insights and his wisdom. He sat there far longer than he wanted to answering questions --

BUSH: Wait a minute.

MEACHAM: But I --

BUSH: You know why I did it? Because I knew Jon would be fair. I was a little concerned, frankly, when he approached me about the book and, you know, a little skeptical, frankly, but I was able to read his intentions. And it's a damn good book and a really fair book.

MEACHAM: Thank you, sir. Thank you.

But can I ask you to read this thing?

BUSH: Yes.

MEACHAM: I want to ask you something because --

BUSH: Even though we're out of time, go ahead.

MEACHAM: They're all your helicopters. I do want to ask one thing because the central legend is that Bush 41 didn't think you should go into Iraq in 2003.

BUSH: Right.

MEACHAM: I'm asked this all the time. I'm going to ask you to read something.

BUSH: Ok. Good. It's called a role reversal. Ok. Good. Campton ladies sing this song. Yes. Sure this is it? Ok. It's on age 571.

[11:20:01] "He admitted, however, that Iraq was one issue where I wanted to know what he thought." That's me.

MEACHAM: You. Let me set up the context.

So spent a lot of time talking about how much did President Bush 43 ask President Bush 41 for advice? President Bush 43 often said not much. He said, send your briefers.

I did a line-by-line read of decision points, the bestselling presidential memoir in American history including U.S. Grant. If we want to make this the presidential biography that meets that, that would be fine.

But what I also found is that actually there was a lot, particularly on personnel questions, that you all did talk a little bit more. I said to President Bush, I think you downplayed sometimes how much you talked to your dad about some things because you didn't want people thinking you were overly dependent on the previous generation. President Bush said, that's not a bad observation. I took that as a yes. But this is 2002.

BUSH: He admitted, however, that's me, I admitted, however, that Iraq was one issue where I wanted to know what he thought. At the Presidential retreat, where his father had spent so many hours in times of peace and of war, George W. Explained where things stood.

I told dad I was praying we could deal with Saddam peacefully but was preparing for the alternative. Bush 43 recalled in his memoir, I walk him through the diplomatic strategy and my efforts to rally the Saudis, Jordanians, Turks and others in the Middle East.

The older Bush's reply ratified the younger Bush's course. You know how tough war is, son, the elder Bush said, alluding to Afghanistan. And you've got to try everything you can to avoid war. But if the man won't comply, you don't have any other choice.

MEACHAM: So my question about that is why the legend keeps persisting? You wrote --

JBUSH: That's a great thing about objective historians finally showing up. That's how you destroyed legends, by actually printing the truth.

MEACHAM: So here's a letter by fax that the 41st president sent the 43rd president on the day that you ordered the Operation Iraqi Freedom. You wrote your dad saying, "I know I have taken the right action and do pray few will lose their lives. Iraq will be free, the world will be safer. I know what you went through. Love, George." You want me to read your --

BUSH: Yes, go ahead. I didn't do a very good job of reading it.

MEACHAM: You know, I'm -- it's, again, you had nuclear weapons. I don't. So here's the reply. Here's the 41st president to the 43rd president.

"Dear George, your handwritten note just received touched my heart. You are doing the right thing. Your decision just made is the toughest decision you've had to make up until now, but you made it with strength and with compassion.

It is right to worry about the loss of innocent life, be it Iraqi or American, but you have done that which you had to do. Maybe it helps a little bit as you face the toughest punch of problems any president since Lincoln has faced. You carry the burden with strength and grace. Remember Robin's words, I love you more than tongue can tell. Well, I do. Devotedly, Dad."

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: And there you have it. A very candid eye- opening conversation between the biographer of the 41st president George H.W. Bush, Jon Meacham, sitting down there for a conversation with former President George Bush -- Bush 43 -- about a wide-ranging interview about his father's time as president -- this new 800-plus- page book that comes out this week. Jon Meacham, of course, will be on "NEW DAY" tomorrow morning speaking more about it.

But I do want to speak again with David Gergen, former presidential adviser to four presidents including the 41st president; and M.J. Lee who's with me now as well -- CNN politics reporter.

David Gergen, to you. Wow -- we're going to hash through all of this. Just your reaction to the last half an hour of what we heard.

DAVID GERGEN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, it was very moving especially toward the end. And I think it did address very directly and contradict the legend that 41 never talked to 43 and 43 really didn't like going into Iraq. It was very clear they did talk, that the father did give his blessing and was devoted to his son in that way.

[19:25:10] I think it's also very striking as you hear this, this conversation. You know, George W. Bush wrote a memoir, a book about his father published last year called "41" and as he said, himself, it's a love story. It's about his relationship with his father.

And in many ways Jon Meacham -- is not a love story, but he does seem to have fallen in love with the character of George H.W. Bush. He doesn't always agree with his decisions but he respects him so much as a sort of noble figure, almost out of a different age -- the patrician, the wasp who's come to power and believes so much as his father did, Prescott Bush who instilled this in him, the belief in service and loyalty and courage..

That's the way George H.W. Bush tried to live his life and obviously what George W. and Jon Meacham so much respects.

HARLOW: And you get from what we heard from Jon Meacham there -- the diaries, these diaries that he handed over, four years' worth of diaries including what President George H.W. Bush said when he lost the election in '92. That night talking about his deep pain of losing and also about his reflections, M.J., on the generation. And he talked about sort of a lack of commitment to country.

M.J. LEE, CNN POLITICS REPORTER: Yes, and I think something else that was really striking was this idea that running through the Bush family is this idea of sort of destiny that when H.W. Bush was a younger man that he would hear from family members saying, hey, this is George, and he's going to be the President.

And this is something that he confronted and I think felt as maybe even a burden or a pressure even when he was just senator and he was not close to even being, you know, vice president, president.

And clearly these are themes running through Jeb Bush, a candidate that I'm covering now on the road and, you know, seeing him confront these questions about both his brother and his father, I was so struck a couple weeks ago in Iowa, I was at a local diner and one of the people in the audience asked Jeb Bush, what would you consider to be the biggest mistake from your political career? And before he could answer, someone else from the audience jumped in and said, the biggest mistake of your political career is that your last name is Bush. And he actually handled the - question quite well, but these are not sort of unusual questions that he's getting on the road as he tries to become the third Bush president.

HARLOW: There's certainly so much talk in there about destiny. What struck me the most, David Gergen, was at the end and that was the reading of the letters, the handwritten letters from Bush 43 to his father the day that the United States invaded Iraq and he said, I know that I have taken, you know, a big risk here, and he said I hope and I pray that few lives will be lost.

His father writes him back and says, you're doing the right thing, your decision just made is the toughest decision a president can make, but you made it with strength and compassion. You have done that which you had to do.

Is this the first time, David Gergen, we are seeing truly how much communication there was between father and son, especially on Iraq?

GERGEN: I think it's what we have is one of these naked moments in politics, as we call them, when you can look behind the curtain, see through, there are no handlers around and what you have is a pure expression of the emotions of the actors, in this case, the father and the son. I think what we see is that I'm not sure that -- I don't think it says that George W. Bush was consulting his father regularly. I think what it says is his father was there for him in the moments of trial. And that he knew he could count on his father and turn to his father in the extreme moments.

He didn't call him every day. It wasn't that. But rather they -- there is within the Bush family, I cannot tell you how strong this is, it runs from generation to generation, starting with Prescott Bush, most of obviously the grandfather and through the father George H.W. Bush and down to the two sons, Jeb and George W. and, indeed, others within the family. There is a sense of immense loyalty to each other.

It reminds you a little bit of the Kennedys, but it's different. It's very much more of a Wasp-y kind of more gentile age that is speaking to us here. Prescott Bush was a wonderful man, too, and there's a nobility that runs through these men, that Jon Meacham as a -- I must tell you, as a southerner, a lot of us always take pride, the best writers come out of the south.

[19:30:08] HARLOW: Absolutely. I had the pleasure once of sitting next to Jon Meacham at a dinner and was just very struck by him and struck by - we lost David, but how humble he was for all he has accomplished in 17 years writing this book. 800-plus pages.

M.J. Lee, to you. You know, one thing that wasn't talked about at all was the two very controversial statements that come out in the book about Vice President Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld. So Bush 41 saying about the vice president at the time, Dick Cheney, he had his own empire, he marched to his own drummer. And then saying about Donald Rumsfeld, that he served the president badly. That he served his son badly. When you look at those revelation, David Gergen had called them surprising because President George H.W. Bush rarely, rarely would speak ill after leaving office.

LEE: Right. I think the surprising part is that the family, as he pointed out, is so loyal and we've seen that over the years. It's not actually surprising, there have been so many books written about the Bush family and the two Bush presidencies. We know that the two Bush presidents had their differences. They were different sort of in temperament. They were different in the way that they viewed national security issues.

George W. Bush was clearly more hawkish in his tendencies than his father was. It's not necessarily surprising that H.W. Bush would have felt that way about Bush's - his son's presidency and some of his top advisers, but I think what's sort of startling is seeing H.W. Bush sort of in the twilight of his political career and his life come out and so openly and candidly talk about that as if he's, you know, very much unshackled from these, you know, obligations and family obligations he had felt for a while that made him sort of hold his tongue.

HARLOW: Again, the title of the book "Destiny and Power." David Gergen to you, on the point of destiny, you know, Jon Meacham just recounted this story that he learned writing a book, that back when President George H.W. bush was 41 years old, he'd barely been elected to any office. He said, it's my destiny, I want to be president.

GERGEN: Well, it is remarkable. I do want to caution, Poppy, on that kind of point. It turns out there's a fair number of people who decide early on they want to be president. Al Gore when he was an undergraduate at Harvard told people he wanted to be president. Franklin Roosevelt told people that he wanted to be president when he was in college. I think Teddy Roosevelt did the same thing. It may be there are lots and lots of people think they're going to be president. Many are called. Few are chosen.

HARLOW: Absolutely.

GERGEN: So I think that destiny in this case is really about what's built into the family. And it's - I just -- the ties in this family are so strong and they push people forward. You know, and just as Joe Kennedy wanted his oldest son to run and then when he died in the war, they turned to Jack Kennedy and helped him to become president. Families have these kind of traditions. And there have been a few families in American life starting with the Adams family, going to John Adams and John Quincy Adams. I do want to go back to one point, if I might, Poppy.

HARLOW: Sure.

GERGEN: And that is how remarkable it is we have just learned about all these diaries.

HARLOW: Right.

GERGEN: And Jon Meacham has been in there having interviews since 2006. This has been a nine-year-long project. This is a big, big deal. Who knew that he kept all these audio diaries? I think it's positive for the country that they're there. You wonder in the internet age how much this is going to disappear on servers over time. But here things were preserved and you actually had the feeling at the moment. That comes in a valuable, valuable for historians. Really valuable for the long term.

HARLOW: Especially since many of them were audio recorded and so you really get the feeling --

GERGEN: Absolutely.

HARLOW: -- and the tone and the voice. Not just what was written on the page. A final thought, M.J., and final thought, David. M.J., to you first.

LEE: I think that seeing the two Bushes, the two former president Bushes, and seeing the sort of side of themselves that we haven't been able to see before especially through something as personal as a diary, is kind of telling in the way that political reporters now would cover someone like Jeb Bush.

I'm really struck by the fact that Jon Meacham clearly was struck, himself, by this sense that H.W. Bush really lived thinking that it was his obligation and responsibility to be a public servant, and public servant, you'll notice, is something that Jeb Bush uses a lot on the road.

[19:35:00]

That he feels like it's his responsibility to sort of do the right thing and serve the country. So clearly this is a grandson who is channelling his grandfather and I think that dynamic is fascinating for someone for whom his family is, can be a burden on the campaign trail at times.

HARLOW: And David Gergen, to you, this comes at a time when Jeb Bush is grappling with declining poll numbers. What does this all mean for Jeb Bush in this election?

GERGEN: I don't think it's going to have a direct rub-off on Jeb Bush's campaign. I don't think it will revive his campaign. He's going to have to do that on his own. And the comments about Rumsfeld and Cheney, those weren't meant to change the election campaign. These were conversations that President Bush had with Jon Meacham a long time ago, well before this campaign started. What I do think, and what Jon Meacham is celebrating here, is there's the idea that politics can be a noble undertaking. And a campaign which has had so much theatre and entertainment and brashness, and sort of the Trump, all the different kind of people who have been coming through this campaign, it helps us to remember what politics was meant to be about and what character should be in politics. It's not pure as George H.W. Bush said to Jon Meacham but it can be a noble thing. I think that can lift up, maybe it can help to lift the quality of this campaign. HARLOW: We'll watch. M.J. Lee, David Gergen, thank you so much. So good to have your perspective on both sides. This, again, we just heard from the 43rd president speaking candidly about his father and the new biography about his father, President George H.W. Bush. "Destiny and Power." That is hitting bookshelves this week. Like CNN's own Jake Tapper. He made it the subject of this week's State Of The Cartoonion.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST, 'STATE OF THE UNION" (voice-over): The new Jon Meacham biography of our 41st president is full of newsy insights. You've probably already heard of his own secretary of defense and his son's vice president, Dick Cheney, President Bush said, "he just became very hardline and very different from the Dick Cheney I knew and worked with. Just iron ass.

But there's much more in these riveting pages. A scene from April of 1969 when Congressman George H.W. Bush flies to see LBJ. He's thinking about running for Senate and LBJ says, "the difference between being a member of the Senate and a member of the House is the difference between chicken salad and chicken [ bleep ]."

Then there's the legendary moment, the day after Christmas 1973, when 27-year-old George W. Bush crashes into some trash cans after a night of drinking. Barbara Bush sends George W. to go see his father. "I understand you want to see me" W. says. "You want to go mano a mano right here?" George H.W. Bush lowers the book he's reading and looks his son in the eye. The silent stare, Meacham writes, send George W. back out of the room.

Human moments about at the 1980 Republican convention when it looks as though Ronald Reagan is going to pick Gerald Ford to be his vice president, not George H.W. Bush. Jeb says, "this isn't fair, dad. This isn't fair to you." His dad tells Jeb, "what are you talking about fair? Nobody owes us a damn thing."

Fast forward eight years and George H.W. Bush is about to pick his own vice president. He learns that Donald Trump has mentioned his availability as a vice presidential candidate. Bush thinks the overture strange and unbelievable. On his friend James Baker's short list for VP, Clint Eastwood. This book is for political junkies and it will -

UNIDENTIFED MALE: Go ahead.

TAPPER: Make your day.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[19:42:58]

HARLOW: A six-year-old boy shot to death in the front seat of his father's car. Now two Louisiana police officers are charged with his murder. Puzzling story made even more strange because the motive of the shooting still a mystery. Investigators trying to piece together why these two officers chased the father down a dead-end street in Baton Rouge and then started firing when the father was not even armed.

CNN's Nick Valencia is in Marksville, Louisiana.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROXANNE COUVILLION, JEREMY MARDIS' FORMER TEACHER: He was just an innocent little boy.

NICK VALENCIA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Nearly a week since the death of Jeremy Mardis.

COUVILLION: He always was an angel.

VALENCIA: There are still two big questions - why would law enforcement chase the boy's father down a dead end road and why would they use lethal force? The boy was buckled into the passenger seat of his father's car, when police opened fire. He was hit five times, in the chest, and head. His father, Chris Few, was also hit and critically wounded.

EDMONSON: Jeremy Mardis, six years old, he didn't deserve to die like that. And that's what's unfortunate.

VALENCIA: Days after the shooting, the head of Louisiana's State Police announced two marshals face second-degree murder and attempted murder charges. 32-year-old Derek Stafford and 23-year-old Norris Greenhouse Jr., taken into custody, and placed on administrative leave. The incident was captured on police body cameras.

EDMONSON: I'm not going to talk about it. I'm going to tell you this, it is the most disturbing thing I've seen. I will leave it at that.

VALENCIA: Two other marshalls were also present during the shooting. Stafford and Greenhouse so far the only two arrested.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He has his wings on earth and now he's soaring in heaven.

VALENCIA: Roxanne Couvillon was Jeremy's special needs teacher. The child was nonverbal autistic. He was one of her favorite students. She especially loved the way his eyes lit up when he smiled.

COUVILLION: He loved class. I sent all of the pictures that we have to the family members so they have all of those momentos. He loved the dress-up centers we had, pretend play, doing the alphabet puzzles. He was an awesome boy.

[19:45:10]

VALENCIA: At a nearby convenience store, (INAUDIBLE) says he heard gunshots on his way home from work. He says he knows the officers well.

UNIDENTIFED MALE: I know Derek and Norris, they're like my brothers, two of them.

VALENCIA (on camera): Tell us about them because we don't know anything about them.

UNIDENTIFED MALE: They're cool people. They ain't bad for nothing, sir. Never did nothing bad.

VALENCIA (voice-over): In fact, neither marshall has been convicted of a crime but according to local news reports in 2011, Stafford was indicted on two counts of aggravated rape, the case was eventually dismissed. Both marshalls are expected to make their first court appearance on Monday.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HARLOW: Nick Valencia reporting for us this evening.

Straight ahead, deep anger on the campus of the University of Missouri after a series of race-related incidents. Now football players are calling for the man in charge to step down. One student there on a hunger strike. The details next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HARLOW: Dozens of football players for the University of Missouri right now saying no football, no practices, no games until the university system president steps down. You got dozens and dozens of players including starting running back Russel Hanbro (ph) making the announcement on twitter claiming that the president of the university system, Tim Wolf, repeatedly acted too slowly when a racist incident would happen.

One example, someone smeared a swastika with human feces in one of the dorm's bathroom walls. CNN national correspondent Polo Sandoval with me now. When you look at this, you also have a student who has been on a hunger strike there calling for the president to step down since November 2nd.

POLO SANDOVAL, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Grad student there in Missouri, Jonathan Butler, in fact, I spoke to him a few minutes ago, he's one of so many players that are involved in this at this point. Not only, Poppy, the players that you mentioned there, part of the team, but also this individual here, a grad student who insists that there's widespread discrimination, sexism, and homophobia among other things on that campus.

[19:50:07]

What's interesting here, now you have the university president as you mentioned coming forward, Tim Wolf saying, yes, in fact, there's at least a problem with widespread really major issues there of discrimination and at this point we did get an opportunity to speak a few moments ago with Butler who is the student who is in the middle of this hunger strike. We asked him why he's doing this. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JONATHAN BUTLER: So I'm in this because it's that serious. We're dealing with humanity here and at this point we can't afford to continue to work with individuals who just don't care for their constituents. And when you see what's happening on campus now, with the racial incidences, with the graduate health insurance and everything that's going on. We just have a leadership that doesn't care about its student body.

From the side of the university, I think the policy is where we're still lacking, we still don't have anything substantial for students. If you talk about what's happening on campus in terms of people reaching out and saying they're having difficult dialogues with their white peers, people having these, talking about homecoming demonstration in their classrooms, people inserting this into the curriculums already. I think that's a huge impact because regardless of what happens with my life, people are really starting these conversations that are necessary and that's what's going to bring about the change in the long term. People having dialogue and people using radical love to really change our society.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANDOVAL: You know, Poppy, during our conversation what really stood out his is constant reference to what we referred to as systemic oppression there at the university system. What's interesting here, the president, Tim Wolf, is actually coming forward saying recognizing, yes, there are changes that need to be made here. School officials need to meet, try to come up with a plan to really encourage diversity. They do say that officials will be meeting from now until possibly April of next year. This is the actual statement, the very latest one that's been put out in which President Wolf actually says, "it is clear to all of us change is needed and we appreciate the thoughtfulness and passion which have gone into the sharing of concerns."

Now at this point the conversations that we expect really in the months ahead, expect to be very heated and very passionate ones, Poppy.

HARLOW: And you wonder what will happen to the student who hasn't eaten -

SANDOVAL: He says he'll do it as long as it takes.

HARLOW: OK. Polo, thank you.

SANDOVAL: You bet.

HARLOW: My thanks for Polo Sandoval for that. Quick break. We're back on the other side.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[19:56:14]

HARLOW: Well, despite calls for Greg Hardy to be kicked out of the NFL, the Cowboys defensive end will be suiting up for their game next hour. On Friday, dead spin released dozens of photos showing a bruised and battered Nicole Holder, Hardy's ex-girlfriend, from an assault last year, that was when Hardy was playing for the Carolina Panthers.

Before I show you these photos, I do want to warn you they're graphic. CNN has not independently verified the photographs. What you see there is Nicole Holder battered and bruises. Cowboys' owner Jerry Jones has given his unwavering support to Greg Hardy. Hardy's only statement today regarding the photos, a tweet saying in part, that he, "regrets what happened in the past."

Also take a look at this. An enormous sinkhole today in Mississippi. Take a look at how far down this drone footage goes. More than a dozen cars were swallowed up by it when part of this IHOP parking lot in Meridian, Mississippi, just collapsed. Customers say they heard a series of booms before it happened. No word on what caused it but the area has gotten a lot of rain recently. Fortunately, no one was hurt. No one was in those parked cars. The IHOP had just opened for business a few days ago.

And a mysterious light streaks across the night sky and sends California residents into a tizzy.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What is that? Oh, my god. This is scary. This is, like -

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh, my god.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It looks like a UFO.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: Videos like that one had people wondering all over social media what they were seeing. Was it a UFO? Some even panicked and called the police, but U.S. military has come out and said that it was just a pre-planned missile test.

Thank you so much for being with me tonight. At 9:00 Eastern, we have a brand new episode of "Parts Unknown" in Istanbul. Remember, you can get breaking news any time right here at cnn.com and on our mobile app.

I'm Poppy Harlow. Have a great week.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)