PG: Which president does Hillary most remind you of?

RM: Fascinating! It’s so hard not to factor gender. Which dude is she most like?

DKG: It would have to be someone who had a lot of experience in different forms. Teddy Roosevelt probably came to the presidency with most experience: police commissioner, Civil Service commissioner, state legislator, governor, vice president, president. Bush Sr. also had a lot of title positions and brought an array of experiences.

RM: But there’s often an alienation factor when people — like Hillary or Bush Sr. — come to you with all those experiences. They’re no longer seen as a person to have a beer with. It makes it harder for people to empathize with them. I think George H. W. Bush suffered from that enormously.

DKG: They become personages rather than people.

PG: Have you met the candidates?

RM: I met Hillary in a professional capacity. I interviewed her. But what happened off-camera was almost more interesting. I don’t think of her as an extrovert, but when we were done, she met every single person on set, my entire staff, the whole floor, including the cleaning crew. Shook hands, took pictures. She was being kind to people who had an interest in her. But to see her do that, willingly, at the end of her 11th event of the day, that surprised me.

PG: And Trump?

RM: I’ve only spoken to Trump on the phone. He was warm and charming. I enjoyed talking to him. But a funny thing happened when I was negotiating with his staff. They insisted that the conversation was off the record. I could never even refer to the fact that it had happened. But at the end of it, Mr. Trump said: “Well, this has been a good conversation. You can run it.” I said: “I’m not taping it. Your people said I couldn’t even refer to it.” And he said, “This wasn’t on TV?”

PG: I bet you’re a go-to person for candidates, Doris, with your presidential patina?

DKG: I was on the radio when my Roosevelt book came out, talking about how most of the action takes place on the second floor of the White House. Roosevelt invited all these people to live with them during World War II: His foreign policy adviser moved in and never left; Lorena Hickok, who had a crush on Eleanor; Princess Martha from Norway. Winston Churchill would stay for weeks at a time. So, I said, “I’m obsessed with all the great conversations they must have had in their bathrobes.”