Best of Alex Witt’s “Office Politics” – Part 2

>>> in today's office politics we bring you a best of edition featuring nbc's lester holt , best accepting author john mitch up, the "new york times" nicholas christophe and our own chris matthews . we begin with a photo of chris who's writing a book on the storied relationship between president reagan and house speaker tip o'neal.

>> this is a book that maybe everybody on capitol hill could pick up and read.

>> i think it's an interesting story. it's not the schmaltzy story about two old irish guys drinking and passing bills. it's much more interesting about two guys who both recognize that elections matter, their offices matter, we have to keep the government going and keep making compromises because it's the only way to keep the government going. all kinds of issues they found a way to keep it going . so real philosophical differences but i'm going to tell the truth. there's a lot to tell. it went on for six years and i was there.

>> that picture was taken in northern lebanon. it was several years ago when hezbollah and israel were going -- hezbollah was firing rockets into israel. i went there. they had just hit -- the israelis had just hit a building they believed had some hezbollah leaders. we rushed over there to do pictures and stand up an on camera piece. i remember telling the camera person i could hear the israeli drone overhead which means they were still checking it out. maybe they wanted a followup strike. i said one take and we were out of here. i'll never forget i nailed it in one take. to the camera. i didn't like the lighting. let's do it again. i'm like dude. i remember three takes. that's it we're done. we got out of there. but it's really unnerving because you can't see the drones. you can just hear this sound as it's flying over. very freaky.

>> another critical moment , actually, that's reagan in '76 in kansas city . coming out. if you look closely at the picture you can see the whole history of the republican party in the modern era . bob dole , gerald ford , nelson rockefeller , and reagan has just lost the nomination to ford. ford has just given his acceptance speech. and then made a critical mistake. i admire this he gave rag gant last word. he summoned reagan down in kansas city . reagan got up and stole the show.

>> it's amazing that you travel around iran , and it feels like the most pro western country in the middle east . everybody they find out you're an american. they just want to talk to you. they practically want to hug you. i took my family with me, two of my kids with me on my last trip. and so we took a long road trip across the country.

>> cross iran ?

>> across iran .

>> you drove in a car with your kids across iran ?

>> exactly. it was a little bit crazy.

>> interesting vacation.

>> yeah. i was a little nervous child protective services was going to have a word with me when they found out about this.

>> this wall and all the photos that cover it, i mean, it is wonderful.

>> a lot of this is david human kennerly who was a very young pulitzer prize winning photographer in vietnam, was president ford 's white house photographer, shot for "time" and "newsweek" and a lot of other folks through the years. nixon at the grand ole opry . that's david's contact sheet from nixon leaving the south lawn on august 9th , '74.

>> i was there.

>> that's ed clark who was a "life" magazine photographer, fdr's funeral. that's the accordion player at warm springs .

>> that's very touching.

>> yep.

>> well, tomorrow at this time we're going to have more best of office politics with a focus on the president and the first family both out on the campaign trail and just recently on inauguration day .