Latest / The Breakfast Club / INTERVIEW: Jon Karl On Trump's Dangerous Return To Power, Loyalty Wars, Political Futures, New Book + More

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INTERVIEW: Jon Karl On Trump's Dangerous Return To Power, Loyalty Wars, Political Futures, New Book + More · The Breakfast Club

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Wake that answer up in the morning.
• 0:02
  Speaker 2: Breakfast Club Morning, everybody is DJ Envy, Jess Hilarious, Charlamagne
• 0:08
  Speaker 2: the Guy. We aret a breakfast club. We got a
• 0:10
  Speaker 2: special guest in the building. Yes, indeed, got a thing
• 0:12
  Speaker 2: called welcome, Thank you, thank you.
• 0:14
  Speaker 3: How's it going.
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: How you feeling I'm feeling great. I'm feeling great. It's
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: great to be here.
• 0:18
  Speaker 3: Toe of people who Jonathan call lived if they don't know.
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: I'm the chief Washington correspondent for ABC News. I covered
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: the White House for more than a decade as the
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: Chief White House Correspondent, including all of Obama's second term,
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: all of Donald Trump's term. I've written three books on
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: that guy on Trump, and I'm the co host of
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: This Week And.
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: How did you get into politics? So people that don't know,
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: how did you your life? Say, you know, I want
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: to do politics. When I was a kid, you know,
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: how did you get into that?
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: I mean, you know, I got to tell you. I
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: mean ever since I was like a little kid, I was,
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: you know, fifth grade, I was like grabbing for the
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: New York Times sports section first, you know, which was
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: pretty lame at the Times, and then the op ed
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: page to read the op Eds. My mom and my
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: stepfather went out to South Dakota at about that time
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: and we went to Mount Rushmore and they ended up
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: doing a project. And by the way, neither one of
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: them went to college. My stepfather had been a cab driver.
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: He was working running a factory in Stanford, Connecticut. We
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: went out there, we ended up moving to South Dakota,
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: and then went on this project to interview all the
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: people that worked on Mount Rushmore. There were three hundred
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: and some people, most of the miners who built that
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: freaking you know, you know, sculpture, that mountain, and that
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: was like journalism. I went, I missed a lot of school,
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: ended up going to school to town with three hundred
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: and fifty people out there for a couple of years,
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: and so I think that was the beginning. I never
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: really looked back.
• 1:45
  Speaker 3: Who was better for business? Obama a Trump? You know,
• 1:50
  Speaker 3: we're just talking about the business nothing now, it's just
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  Speaker 3: the business of what you do. Who was better for Okay?
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: So I'll tell you this being at that White House
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: for the transition, and by the way, I was in
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: the Oval Office the one and only time that Barack
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: Obama and Donald Trump met, and that was on November
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: tenth of twenty sixteen, two days after Trump won, Obama
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: invited him in, and you know, seeing the two of them,
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: I mean, we've never had two more different presidents, of
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: course in American history together. The one time I saw
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump in a room where he was not in charge,
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: because you know, Obama was the president and it was
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: Obama's meeting. Obama invited you know, me and the other
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: press in the for the little photo op. At the end,
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: Obama made the first comment, invited Trump to speak, and
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: Trump almost seemed humble for a moment. He even said
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: some nice things about Obama. Lasted for about thirty six hours,
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: still kept on saying some nice things about how well
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: he was welcomed by missus. Oh and you know the president.
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: But sort of who who's better for business? Let me
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: answer it this way with the advents of that. From
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: that moment on, the interest in what was going on
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  Speaker 1: at the White House was completely off the charts. And
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: I'd been in there. I first worked. I was at
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: CNN for eight years before I came to ABC Bay
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: during the Clinton year, so I did a little bit
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: of White House work in Clinton. I was there for
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: fair amount of Bush. But you knew that the world
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: was watching what you were doing, and it was reflected
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: in the ratings and the business for sure. But you know,
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: I've got kids, they were at that point, they were
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: in middle school, high school, and their friends would come
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: home and they would want to ask me questions about
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  Speaker 1: was that never happened before? They weren't asking me about,
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: you know, what was going on in the Obama White House.
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  Speaker 1: So is that good? I mean, I guess it's good
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  Speaker 1: because the ratings are high. Is it good for the country,
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: You know, that's a whole, entirely different question.
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  Speaker 4: It was unprecedented, right because I mean it was the
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  Speaker 4: executive producer, celebrity as a notorious eighties nineties celebrity becomes
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  Speaker 4: president of the United States of America.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, I mean, and he and it was a show.
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: I mean, that's why my first book I wrote was
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: front wrote at the Trump Show and this is what
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  Speaker 1: it was. And he cared, He tracked the ratings, he
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: beat up on the critics. You know, he programmed. He
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  Speaker 1: was the executive producer. That's why he went through so
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: many communications directors and press secretaries and all that, because
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: he was he was the chief of staff. He was
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  Speaker 1: the spokesperson, he was the executive producer, he was the director,
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  Speaker 1: and every day he was thinking how can I get
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  Speaker 1: more attention?
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  Speaker 3: You know?
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  Speaker 1: One thing, you know that the Twitter thing was obviously
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: something that defined the Trump years. But he would do
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: this little parlor trick. Sometimes we had people coming to
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: the dining room off the Oval office where he spent
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: most of his time, had a big TV is to
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  Speaker 1: watch this and he would tweet and then count the
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  Speaker 1: minutes until the tweet was on the cables.
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  Speaker 3: Wow. Really, But that's the other thing too.
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  Speaker 4: He's also probably, yeah, probably the first president that had
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  Speaker 4: the full benefit of social media. Like social media and
• 4:54
  Speaker 4: it's full of form as we see it now. He
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  Speaker 4: had full advantage of that for since twenty sixteen.
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  Speaker 1: Do you know how how many times the Obama campaign
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: tweeted in two thousand and eight.
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  Speaker 3: Once it wasn't.
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  Speaker 1: It it was a new thing, they tried it out.
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  Speaker 1: It was like, so, yeah, it was. And Obama made
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: a lot of use of social media, to be sure.
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: But Trump would do another thing, which is he had
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  Speaker 1: this guy Dan Scavino who was actually he had been
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: his caddie, you know, and he met him, met him
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: at one of his golf courses and been with him,
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  Speaker 1: the guy that's been with him the longest outside of
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: his family in that White House. And you know another
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: thing Trump would do, we'd have somebody and I witnessed
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: this myself. You know, he'd come into the Oval office
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: and you can see how we're doing. He's good, Dan,
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: what's the number? And then Dan would come out from
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: this little office or outside and tell him the number
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  Speaker 1: of Twitter, Facebook, Instagram followers he had, the combined number.
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  Speaker 1: He was tracking that by the minute.
• 5:50
  Speaker 4: I feel like Donald Trump has changed politics forever. And
• 5:54
  Speaker 4: I think he's actually if he's changed them in a
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  Speaker 4: sort of good way if other politicians are willing to adjust,
• 6:03
  Speaker 4: meaning that you don't have to be perfect, you know,
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  Speaker 4: you can be a flawed elected official like I think
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  Speaker 4: he shows that the American people, you know, don't need
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  Speaker 4: their politicians to be perfect, They just need them to
• 6:17
  Speaker 4: be effective. How come it seems like the Democrats haven't
• 6:20
  Speaker 4: gotten that memo?
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: Well, you know, one one thing that he did along
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: those lines is there was and and by the way,
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: this is for good and for bad and mostly frankly
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: for bad. But there were instance where clearly was beneficial.
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: It's kind of totally break down the bureaucracy and the
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: bureaucratic process, you know, because presidents, you know, the old
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: thing is but by the time a decision gets to
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  Speaker 1: the President's desk, it goes through you know, god knows
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  Speaker 1: how many and and and it's a it's a decision,
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: and and it's made. But that process can take forever.
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  Speaker 1: The Abraham Accords, which was one of you know, the
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  Speaker 1: actual true successes of the Trump White House that brought
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: together you know that that had between Israel and and
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: and and and and three Arab countries happened because they
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: basically bypassed all of the national security process. I mean,
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: there was no the State Department didn't really have any
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: input on it. It was basically you know, uh, you know,
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  Speaker 1: Jared had had a big roles on along. I had
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  Speaker 1: no real formal process in that and no role in that,
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: and it got done. I think that would have been
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  Speaker 1: caught up under Bush or under Obama. It just never
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: would have gotten out of the out of the starting gates.
• 7:27
  Speaker 2: Do you think Biden could beat Trump? And if you
• 7:29
  Speaker 2: do feel that way, what does he have to do
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  Speaker 2: to make sure he has the support of the people
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  Speaker 2: out there.
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  Speaker 1: Uh, I actually think that Biden is probably the front runner,
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: even though it doesn't look like that in the polls.
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: Right now, why do you feel Trump has Uh? And
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  Speaker 1: I document this and and in my I had a
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: book out a few months ago, I'm tired of winning
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: and I and I kind of go through. Trump does
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  Speaker 1: a great job of convincing everybody that he is the biggest,
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  Speaker 1: the most powerful, the greatest winner of all time. He's
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: actually been a tremendous loser in politics. He's won one
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  Speaker 1: election and that was twenty sixteen, and he led the
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  Speaker 1: Republicans on a series of losses. And primarily you can
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  Speaker 1: track the losses. Almost all the major defeats can be
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: tracked to something Trump did. Either. He was the one
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  Speaker 1: that basically chose the candidate. He meddled, you know, inserted
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  Speaker 1: himself in a way that was not active. So he
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: doesn't have a good electoral track record at all. Now,
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: he did just run through the Republican nomination in what
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: turned out to be a very weak field. Most of
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: the candidates he was running against didn't even want to
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: like criticize it until it was way too late. Yeah,
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: Chris Christie, who had one fundamental flaw Christy had us.
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: He was the guy that basically helped Trump win in
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  Speaker 1: twenty sixteen. But so I think that Trump comes into
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: this election with far more negatives than he had in
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  Speaker 1: twenty sixteen when he won, and certainly then in twenty
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  Speaker 1: twenty when he lost. The whole experience of what happened
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: through January sixth, and then what he did after he
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: left the White House, and this is what I spent
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: and I spent a lot of time documenting. I mean this,
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  Speaker 1: this does not look like a former president of the
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: United States, let alone somebody that has a chance of
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: coming back the You know, he wallowed in these conspiracy
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: theories for more than two years that he had won
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: the election, and he actually believed and this is this
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: is nuts, but he believed that he could be put
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: back into the White House before the next election. He
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: believed that the world would see what had really happened
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: in twenty twenty and Biden would be basically evicted and
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: they would put him back in. You know, Dinner with
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: Kanye and Nick Fuentes, you know, white supremacist a week
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: after he announces his campaign selling NFTs, you know, these
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: digital trading he looked like a look like a guy
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: just trying to make some money off the whole thing.
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: So now he's leading in the poll, and he is
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: consistently leading in the polls, and most importantly in the
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: in the polls of the battleground states. But I truly
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: think that most Americans have kind of checked out. And
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: you know, for all that intense focus on what I
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: was doing when I was the White House correspondent, that
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: I felt at the Trump White House, who's paying attention
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: to what's going on in the Biden White House? You know,
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: in the in the public at large? And who is
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: really the media's fault?
• 10:27
  Speaker 4: Though I say that all the time because you know,
• 10:30
  Speaker 4: every single thing Donald Trump does, the media amplifies, but
• 10:34
  Speaker 4: you have to search to see what the Biden administration
• 10:37
  Speaker 4: is even doing.
• 10:38
  Speaker 3: What Trump does is front page news headlines.
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: Every yeah, a crazy tweet gets like dominant network.
• 10:45
  Speaker 3: And that's what bugs me out about the left so much.
• 10:48
  Speaker 4: I expect that from the right they should push the
• 10:51
  Speaker 4: narrative of the of the person that they want in
• 10:53
  Speaker 4: the White House.
• 10:53
  Speaker 3: But the left, why do you all respond to the
• 10:56
  Speaker 3: right all the time.
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: Well, we're not the left or the right, But but
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: but I I mean, I see, you know, look, I mean,
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: so much of it is driven by what people are
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: interested in. I remember, like I had this like kind
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: of righteous position that I was taking when when Trump
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: came in. It was like, we're not going to pay
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: attention to the bullshit. We're going to talk about what
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: he's doing, not what he's saying. It's kind of like
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: the way the way I the way I looked at it.
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: And one day he tweeted about Mika Brzhinsky, this horrible
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: tweet saying that she had blood coming out of her face,
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: remember this whole thing that, you know, suggesting that she
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: had had plastic surgery, and she was, you know, when
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: they came to visit them at more a Lago, and
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: I said, you know what, We're not going to cover this.
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: I mean, this is this doesn't matter. This doesn't matter
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: to anybody's life. And I made that case internally and
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: it worked for a little bit, and then the next thing,
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: you know, within a few hours, the Speaker of the
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: House is making a statement condemning the Republican Speaker of
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: the House is making a statement condemning what Trump has said,
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: and all these other people are coming out and she's
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: responding and you can't and what are you gonna do
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: just ignore a story that's like I mean, in the end,
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: I was covering it too.
• 12:05
  Speaker 3: Yeah, but yeah, it's it's.
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: Look but Biden, I don't think that he is going
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: to win because suddenly the world is going to look
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: at his accomplishments as president, and there have been considerable accomplishments,
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: some failures too. Obviously. I think that the reason that
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: he is slightly favored, in my view, in this race
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: is because they will just tear Trump down methodically. I
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: mean that there's so much material for them to use.
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: When this campaign gets going, it's not going to be
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: so much.
• 12:40
  Speaker 3: I don't think people.
• 12:41
  Speaker 4: Could Jonathan, because it's been the same He's been the
• 12:45
  Speaker 4: same guy since twenty sixteen. There's nothing Trump is going
• 12:48
  Speaker 4: to say are due frankly over the next five to
• 12:51
  Speaker 4: six months that's going to make people all of a
• 12:53
  Speaker 4: sudden be like, you know what.
• 12:54
  Speaker 3: He's a terrible person. The people who support him support.
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: Well, the people that support them support him. What percentage
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: of the country is.
• 12:59
  Speaker 3: That, I mean, it seems like fifty percent.
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: I think you've got thirty five to forty percent. That
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: really really support him, and you have another and we'll
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: see if it's ten percent or it's more. Who says
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: you know what, I think that I was better off
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: four years ago. You know, I didn't like all the
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: stuff Trump did and said, but you know, the country
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: was better infulation was lower. And that's where the battle
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: will be is those people. And part of what a
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: big part of what the Biden people will do is
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: try to remind those people what Trump is all about,
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: because I do think there has been a bit of
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: a there has been some amnesia. I don't think that
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: people truly remember what he was all about. And my
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: point in this book is it's not what he was
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: about when he was president last time, it's how this
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: time will be different. And I truly believe it would be.
• 13:50
  Speaker 3: I believe that wholeheartedly.
• 13:52
  Speaker 4: But do you think it's a good strategy to play
• 13:54
  Speaker 4: the decency card?
• 13:55
  Speaker 3: Though?
• 13:55
  Speaker 4: Like Joe Biden is more decent than Donald Trump. I
• 13:59
  Speaker 4: don't think those people who cares.
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: When you hear it, Yeah, I don't think that's going
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: to get very But.
• 14:04
  Speaker 4: That's all I see him banking on that he's more
• 14:06
  Speaker 4: of a decent man. They don't care about that.
• 14:10
  Speaker 3: Yeah, this man. He got elected after he said I
• 14:12
  Speaker 3: grabbed you by the pussy. But they don't care about decency.
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: When it was right frushing people trust people.
• 14:18
  Speaker 4: I don't understand. I don't understand that that that that logic.
• 14:20
  Speaker 4: I don't think that's a good strategy.
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I mean, and especially with if you if
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: you watch any Fox News, they'll they'll make it seem
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: like the Biden family is the is the is the
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: main crime family in the country. I mean, so, so
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: the other side is trying to tear down that sense
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: of decency, and they have been methodically for four years,
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: more than four years. I mean, it's been going on since.
• 14:43
  Speaker 4: And the other thing the right does that I think
• 14:45
  Speaker 4: is great is that they will constantly talk about things
• 14:49
  Speaker 4: Trump has done. Whether they say, they'll say the border
• 14:53
  Speaker 4: was safe for under Trump. They'll talk about the economy
• 14:56
  Speaker 4: under Trump. You know, yeah, they'll talk about it.
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: I remember signed I remember, like that was unbelievable. When
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: is the present.
• 15:07
  Speaker 4: First step back? But I'm saying, they'll talk about all
• 15:09
  Speaker 4: the things he's actually done. Meanwhile, on the left, they'll
• 15:12
  Speaker 4: just talk about how terrible of a person.
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: He Yeah, yeah, and this is this is a challenge
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: because I you know, I mean I see it. I
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: see what the what the Biden campaign will be, and
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: it's going to be it's going to be a very
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: negative campaign. And and and frankly, Trump doesn't talk about
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: his accomplishments very much. All he talks about is ripping down.
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: I mean, I mean it's you know, I mean, it's
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: like this is going to be not the most uplifting
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: and you know, inspiring next six months.
• 15:41
  Speaker 2: What do you think about the effects of some of
• 15:43
  Speaker 2: the celebrities like Steven A. Smith saying that he's relatable
• 15:46
  Speaker 2: because of his arrest, or him sitting down with people
• 15:49
  Speaker 2: like Kanye West and all these other artists that are
• 15:51
  Speaker 2: going for him. Do you think that is a big
• 15:53
  Speaker 2: influence to help him out or do you think it
• 15:56
  Speaker 2: had hurt him?
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: You know, I I I don't think I don't think
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: Kanye particularly helped him. I thought it was that whole
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: episode was so bizarre.
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: I mean it sales millions of records, had a number
• 16:08
  Speaker 2: one record, So I know people hate him, but somebody
• 16:11
  Speaker 2: supporting him.
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah, And it's interesting because he you know that that dinner,
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: which and what did Kanye say afterwards that he was
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: offering Trump to be his vice president. But but he
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: he he brings Nick Flentese. This is a guy who
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: is like, you know, most people didn't know him until
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: they saw the stories about this. But this guy is
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: like an actual white supremacist. I mean that that's his
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: that's his brand. And Kanye has a thing for Adolf Hitler,
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: which is really strange. And and so Trump gets you know,
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: everybody condemns this meeting. Trump to this day has not
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: criticized either of them and hasn't said like, maybe I
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: shouldn't have done that, or if I you know right,
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: or I did it, I'll meet with anybody, but I
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: don't believe in what they believe in. He hasn't done.
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: He hasn't not not not a hint of criticism. So
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: he clearly senses that this is good. I think Trump.
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: The other thing that he's done is he is he
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: is afraid of alienating anybody who is he sees as
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: his supporter, even even if they're totally off the deep end.
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: So that's why he David Duke. He didn't get around
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: to condemning David Duke until, by the way, after the
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: Louisiana primary in twenty sixteen. But I mean only after
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: it really became I there's a crazy story that I
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: talked about in Front Round the Trump Show about how
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: you know, RAN's previous and Chris Christi and all these
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: people that were around him were basically like just pleading
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: with him and begging him to just disavow the endorsement
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: of David Duke because David Duke Hauld endorsed him, and
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: Trump didn't want to do it, didn't want to do it.
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: Finally he got browbeaten into doing it. By the way,
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: that's the stuff that he's not going to get brow
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: beaten into doing anymore.
• 17:52
  Speaker 3: No, that's normal. Yeah, why did the Grand Old Party
• 17:56
  Speaker 3: come to an end?
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: Well, I think you alluded to it when we started
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: this conversation. I think that the Republican Party is the
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: Trump Party now. I mean there are elements and there
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: are you know, little bits and pieces of the Old
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: Party out there. I mean, look at look at the
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: this debate over Ukraine. So this big debate of whether
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: or not we're gonna you know, support Ukraine, continue to
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: support Ukraine in the war against Russia, and it passed overwhelmingly. Eventually,
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: you know, when when the when the Republicans finally agreed
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: to have the vote overwhelming in the House, overwhelming in
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: the Senate, but in the House a majority of Republicans
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: voted against it. I mean, this is the party of Reagan,
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: not anymore. It's the party of trumpture of.
• 18:35
  Speaker 3: The Republican body.
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: Well, I think the Republican Party has a real challenge once,
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: you know, I mean when when Trump is gone. I
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: think that he's done such a good job of basically
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: decimating what was there before. I think that they've got
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: they've got some you know, some real definitional problems. What
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: do they stand for? What? What does make America Great
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: Again mean? Because if you look to remember what the
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: what the Republican platform was in twenty twenty.
• 19:04
  Speaker 3: And twenty make America Great Again?
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah, there was no platform except for that for that statement.
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: There was no platform usually Like I mean, I've been
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: covering conventions, right, you know, you have all the detailed
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: what we stand for in domestic policy, foreign policy, you know,
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: the cultural issues. Nothing. It was just like Trump's make
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: America Great Again plan? So you know, what do they
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: standing for? You know, when he's gone? Now, look, there
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: are the Democrats have huge problems and you see, I
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: mean the fact that we see more Hispanic voters than
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: we've seen voting Republican and in the reflection in the
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: polls supporting more black voters. It's still you know, Democrats
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: dominate both groups. But the fact that they're losing the
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: fact that Democrats are losing supports among blacks and Latinos
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: to Donald Trump is a sign that Democrats have some
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: problems too.
• 19:55
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I think that I think that might be a
• 19:57
  Speaker 3: little overstated, though. When I look at the numbers that
• 19:59
  Speaker 3: they're saying for black people, it's like this, it's like yeah,
• 20:01
  Speaker 3: it's like, yeah, twenty two percent. I'm like, I don't
• 20:03
  Speaker 3: see that.
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: No, no, but but it's but it's definitely you know,
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: it's up from near zero.
• 20:11
  Speaker 4: When you talk about what a Trump White House will
• 20:13
  Speaker 4: look like if he gets back into White House, can
• 20:16
  Speaker 4: you can you talk to that?
• 20:17
  Speaker 3: Can you speak to Project twenty five? Yeah?
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: So this is this is really important and I don't
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: think people understand and this is something that I think
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: people have to understand before they go and vote when
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: Trump comes back in, if he comes back in, the
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: first test for anybody in a position of authority and
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: power is going to be loyalty to Donald Trump. I
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: spent a lot of time reporting and documenting the work
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: of a guy named Johnny McEntee, who was the guy
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: that carried Trump's bags. He was actually one of the
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: first guys I met on the Trump campaign in twenty fifteen.
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: He'd been like a very junior. He was a kid
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: just out of Yukon. He'd been a college quarterback. He
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: came to volunteer for the Trump campaign right after Trump
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: announced the first time around, and ended up carrying his
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: bags for much of his presidency. He came back in
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: twenty twenty. He had been briefly thrown out of the
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: White House by the way, because he had issues related
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: to his gambling that were flagged by the FBI, so
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: John Kelly, Trump's chief of staff, fired him. After Kelly
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: was gone, McAtee came back and was putting charge of
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: Presidential Personnel, basically the HR Department for the whole, you know,
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: executive branch of the US government. And he went about
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: in the beginning of twenty twenty to try to do
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: a series of loyalty tests interviews. He sent his people out.
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: Most of his buddies, like these are kids in their twenties,
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: he was thirty years old at the time, to interview
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: from cabinet secretaries on down, you know, testing their support
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: of Donald Trump. And he engineered the biggest thing he
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: engineered was the firing of the Secretary of Defense right
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: after the election, Esper. Remember Esper was the one that
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: opposed the use of the use of the Insurrection Act
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: to bring active duty troops in American cities during the
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: George Floyd protests. Fired top four people the Pentagon fired
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: replaced by people devoted to Donald Trump. So now mcintee
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: is part of this thing called Project twenty twenty five,
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: which is to create a list of who can serve
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: in the next Trump White House. And you're not going
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: to have people. Trump brought in some people of real stature,
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: General Baddis, General Kelly, his White House Council Don McGann,
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: later White House Counsel Pat Sibaloni, you know, later Bill Barr,
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: people that had served in previous administrations or were top
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: military figures who ended up standing up to Trump and
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: refusing his demands to break the law. Essentially, those people
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: and people like them will not be back. It'll be
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: people that Johnny mcintee and his and this group have
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: decided are truly loyal to the king.
• 22:57
  Speaker 3: And what type of threat to democracy? Think that pulls?
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: Well, Look, do.
• 23:03
  Speaker 4: You think it's overstated when people say that that he's
• 23:05
  Speaker 4: a threat of democracy.
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: I don't think it's overstated because he actually tried to
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: bring down a presidential election, so he has done that.
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: But I think that underappreciated. Is you heard the Supreme
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: Court arguments on this idea of immunity. And by the way,
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: when Trump talks about immunity, and he talks about it
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: a lot in his campaign rallies, he's not talking about
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: acts tied to his official duties. He's talking about immunity.
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: He's talking about shoot him on Fifth Avenue immunity. And
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: so you have somebody who is making the case that
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: the president is above the law, who is running to
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: be president again. I think that raises real questions about
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: what does the rule of law means. You know, there
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: is a theory, the unitary theory of the executive branch.
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: It is put forward by some serious legal you know,
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: constitutional scholars that basically says that that the president is
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: the law. So the way Nixon put it, you remember
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: in his interview with David Frost after you know, after
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: he had resigned. It's not illegal if the president does it.
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: I mean, there's a whole theory that goes along with that,
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: and that's what essentially Trump is putting out there. So
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: I worry. You know, there was a big question that
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: that that I explored after January sixth about what would
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: have happened if Mike Pence had done what Trump wanted
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: and what Trump really wanted. By the way, it was
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: Pence to just throw out those electoral votes and and
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: and and declare him president.
• 24:40
  Speaker 3: Didn't he didn't have the power to do that though.
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: Well, absolutely not. But who had the power to stop him?
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: And this is a very this is like, this is
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: somewhat this is a mind blowing thing. And by the way,
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: the law has been changed now to be clarified. But
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: who had the power to stop him? Some people say, well,
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: the Supreme Court would have Stoppedhi. Well, first of all,
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: it's not clear at all that the Supreme Court has
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: any jurisdiction over the rules of Congress in counting electoral votes.
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: But so let's say the Supreme Court, the Supreme Court
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: in what army? I mean, there was I talked to
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: you know, you know Judge Luttig who testified in the
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: January sixth Committee. I talked to him about it, and
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: he he said, look, this would have plunged us into
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: the greatest constitutional crisis that we have ever seen, because
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: it is it is we didn't Pence did not have
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: the power to do that. But basically it's unclear if
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: anybody had the power to stop him.
• 25:33
  Speaker 3: You think, to jam it, what the hell does that mean? Though?
• 25:36
  Speaker 4: So that means that there's no system in place to
• 25:40
  Speaker 4: prevent things like that from happening to chooses to do it.
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: It means that we have a system of laws that
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: also depends on there being people of honor and responsibility
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: to enforce those laws. Wow, and and it it's you know,
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: you can if you have somebody who was in charge
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: of the entire system who was willing to just say
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: screw it, it's unclear what you do about.
• 26:11
  Speaker 3: It, which he did. I mean, well, he at least
• 26:13
  Speaker 3: asked for it.
• 26:13
  Speaker 4: He said, we should, you know, get rid of this,
• 26:15
  Speaker 4: terminate the constitution and overdoor the results of an election.
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: I asked John Kelly once way before twenty twenty. So
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: it was like while he was still Chief of Staff
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: twenty eighteen or so, what would happen if Trump refused
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: to leave? I mean it turned out to be kind
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: of a the would become the question. But I was
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: just asking hypothetical, and he's like, oh no, no, no,
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: He's like, there are people that will make him go.
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: It's like, what do you mean there are people. It's
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: like he could chain himself to the Resolute and there
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: was somebody, there would be people that would come in
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: and cut the chains and escort him out. But I'm
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: not who.
• 26:51
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I don't believe it. Yeah yeah, yeah, who Yeah,
• 26:53
  Speaker 4: especially if they're on his side. But you know, some
• 26:55
  Speaker 4: people do feel like presidents should be immune from certain crimes.
• 26:59
  Speaker 4: Like there's people that a point to what's going on
• 27:00
  Speaker 4: in New York and they'd be like, that's nothing to
• 27:02
  Speaker 4: take a guy. Yeah, that's nothing to have a president
• 27:04
  Speaker 4: on trial for my co Holts here says he feels
• 27:06
  Speaker 4: like he should be immune to some some crimes.
• 27:09
  Speaker 2: I don't say that. I just said I don't. So
• 27:11
  Speaker 2: I said I don't think a president will go to jail.
• 27:14
  Speaker 3: That's not what you said.
• 27:15
  Speaker 2: What I said, Yes, I said, I said immune from
• 27:18
  Speaker 2: some crimes.
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: I don't think he will go to jail. That that's
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: my whole thing.
• 27:21
  Speaker 3: I don't.
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: I don't think. And as I was gonn asked, do
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: you think he'll go to jail.
• 27:24
  Speaker 3: I don't think Trump will.
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: Go to jail. Even if he's fould guilty on all charges.
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: I don't think he'll go to jail. Let me let
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: me take the first part of that. Is there a
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: case for a president being immune from some things? I
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: think there is a serious argument on this, and that's
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: why you had a Supreme Court debate in there. And
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: this is it's something that's net the Supreme Court is
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: never defined and the Constitution doesn't give you any any
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: guidance on you know, the example of Barack Obama taking
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: out on Alackey in a drone strike, ordering the drone strike.
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: He was an American citizen. He was also an al
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: Qaeda terrorist. So you don't want a situation where Obama
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: leaves office and then he's you know, brought up on
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: charges for killing an American with a drune strike. So
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: the so there are there is gray area here. By
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: the way, what and this is not the constitution, it's
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: it's uh, it's what they call an OLC memo. It's
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: it's the Justice Department has established policies going back to Nixon, Uh,
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: that you cannot prosecute a sitting president. They have to
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: wait and which which kind of makes sense because you
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: don't want the and and and and. By the way,
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: let's say, just to take your hypothetical a little further,
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: let's leave aside this New York case, which is a
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: little strange, but the Georgia case, which would mean real
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: jail time, this case might not mean in jail time,
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: even if he's guilty, probably won't in New York. What
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: do you do if a guy is because the Georgia
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: trial is going to happen, you know, not this year.
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: It's gonna it's it's gonna it's gonna be put back
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: a while. But are they gonna do it? If Trump
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: gets elected and he's president and and and Georgia sentences
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: him to fifteen years in prison, what is the Georgia like, Uh,
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: you know, the state police going to go up and
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: uh and handcoff them. No. No, So I think that
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: I don't think we'll ever see Donald Trump actually behind bars. Now.
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: He may be convicted, and there may be you know,
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: if if you were trying to imagine what would be
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: best for the country. You can imagine a situation where
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: he's convicted and the president pardons him. He expresses That's
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: what I was saying.
• 29:29
  Speaker 2: I was saying, I can't see a sitting president or
• 29:32
  Speaker 2: a president of the United States going to.
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: Jail house arrested mar A Lago.
• 29:36
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 29:36
  Speaker 2: I just can't see that happening, not here, not how
• 29:40
  Speaker 2: it would look to the world. I just can't see
• 29:41
  Speaker 2: that happening.
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, no I I And and then what
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: does the Secret Service do? Because the Secret Service is
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: responsible for protecting a former president. Are they sitting in
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: the cell or maybe outside the cell or what's it?
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's it raises some really strange question.
• 29:58
  Speaker 4: Yeah, America didn't prepare for any of this. America never
• 30:00
  Speaker 4: thought they would see. We never thought we would be
• 30:03
  Speaker 4: here with you know, former president are a potential future president.
• 30:08
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: I mean I've been covering politics for a long time,
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: and some of the most memorable speeches that I've ever
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: seen political speeches were speeches that were given by people
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: who lost. And one of them that I is like
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: burned in my brain is because I covered every minute
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: of the campaign was al Gore. After the Supreme Court
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: shut down the Florida case, the election was over, Gore
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: gave the best speech of that campaign, and it was
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: gracious and it was generous. He was bitter. His people
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: were ready to his people were ready to storm the
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: you know, maybe not break into the Capitol, but they
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: were I mean, I mean the anger among Democrats all
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: over the country. And he was angry, and people were angry,
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: and some of them didn't want to even you know,
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: to wanted to continue to challenge the Supreme Court. And
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: he came out and he said it's over. And not
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: only is it over, but I offered or whatever I
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: can do to help George Bush be a successful president.
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: And then the other another there have been several of these,
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: but another one that really sticks to me was John
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: McCain when he lost to Obama and he congratulates Obama,
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: and the people in that crowd start booing, and he says, no, no, no, no, no.
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: So what we do We not only congratulated and wish
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: him well, but we must all work with him to
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: make him a successful president. And then that's what we
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: that's what we've come to be used to, you know,
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: is an idea that there are hard fought campaigns and
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: then for a minute at least before the next campaign,
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: you know things are over. But we've never had a
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: situation or even consumplate a situation where somebody would refuse
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: to accept the results of an election.
• 31:41
  Speaker 4: Do you feel if al Gore would have fought back
• 31:43
  Speaker 4: in two thousand that might have presented prevented what we're
• 31:47
  Speaker 4: currently seeing now, because there's plenty of people who feel
• 31:50
  Speaker 4: like that that that election was stolen from alga.
• 31:54
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: I mean, I don't think he had a He had
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: a constitutional or illegal avenue to do it, which is
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: why he conceded. So I think that that I think
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: that would have backfired by the way I was when
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: when Bush was inaugurated on January twentieth, Gore was of
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: course up on the stage and you know, as they
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: always do, it was a really bitter and cold, you know,
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: winter day in January, and I was on you know,
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: they do this thing if you ever watched the presidential inauguration,
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: there are a couple of flatbed trucks that go in
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: front of the presidential limo and you usually have you know,
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: network correspondent to network correspondents on each one and we
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: kind of we follow along, we do commentary, and we
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: have the cameras that you I was it was like
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: it was a frightening ride actually because there were more
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: protesters on the on the parade route than there were
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: Bush supporters, and at one point they started to throw
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: eggs at the presidential limo, and you know, you did
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: feel for a moment like the country was a little bit,
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: a little bit on edge, and Gore, to his credit,
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: I think, kept it, kept it steady. No, I think
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: the thing that would have I mean, we're getting off
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: this is a totally different subject. But the thing that
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: would have prevented where we are now was what that
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: president did two years later, which was, you know, invade Iraq.
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: I mean the you know that the Iraq War, which
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: leads to I mean, you probably don't have a President
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: Obama and you don't have a President Trump either if
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: that hadn't happened.
• 33:26
  Speaker 3: Oh, you think that Obama was a.
• 33:30
  Speaker 4: What would you call that, like a I want like
• 33:33
  Speaker 4: a reaction from people like I want to dig, an
• 33:35
  Speaker 4: extreme reaction, Like.
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: It wasn't that he was an extreme reaction, is that
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: he was one of the few Democrats who were adamantly
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: opposed to that war from the start, and that's how
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: he made his name. If you remember, like all the
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: you know, that war was supported by Hillary Clinton, by
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: John Kerry by I mean that that vote, it was
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: a very bipartisan vote in favor of the invasion of Iraq.
• 33:59
  Speaker 3: Ooh.
• 34:00
  Speaker 4: So with that said, you know when this upcoming election,
• 34:02
  Speaker 4: you see all of these kids on these college campuses. Yeah,
• 34:05
  Speaker 4: and you know, they're very anti war, like, they're very
• 34:08
  Speaker 4: against you know, all of these various wars that are happening.
• 34:11
  Speaker 4: You know, you know Joe Biden funding Israel's military, you know,
• 34:14
  Speaker 4: funding Ukraine. Like, they're just against war. Well, how do
• 34:18
  Speaker 4: you think that's going to have an impact in November?
• 34:21
  Speaker 4: I think neither one that the presidents are against.
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: No, no, I mean you know they certainly, Uh, Donald
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: Trump is not going to police these people more than
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: more than Biden. I think it's a real problem for
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: Biden and for the Democrats, Uh, for two reasons. One
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: is that he needs he needs he needs support from
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: core Democratic constituencies. In one of those is young voters,
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: and young voters have turned decisively against him almost entirely
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: because of and and he can say, look, we've forgiven
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: student loans. That's not what they I mean, they're they're
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: fired up about this. If they either stay home or
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: you know, vote for a you know, Bobby Kennedy or
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: or you know, you know, vote third party, that's a
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: major problem. Uh was on a.
• 35:12
  Speaker 4: Cluck Atlanta campus Friday, and a lot of those kids
• 35:16
  Speaker 4: say they voting for our kid junior.
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, and and and that's that's that's a
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: real problem. But the other thing is the feeling of it.
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: We'll see where these protests go. But you know, the
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: the wall to wall coverage that you're seeing on you know,
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: cable news, and you get the sense like things are
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: falling apart and it's lawless, and and that place right
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: into Trump. It's like, look, this is Biden's America. Look
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: at these people.
• 35:41
  Speaker 3: Just the images.
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: Just the images.
• 35:43
  Speaker 4: Yeah, and I wonder, you know, when when you rile
• 35:46
  Speaker 4: all of these kids up and then you tell them, okay,
• 35:49
  Speaker 4: but in November, we're gonna need you to turn around
• 35:51
  Speaker 4: and vote for Biden.
• 35:51
  Speaker 3: How are you gonna flip that switch?
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: So far?
• 35:53
  Speaker 4: Are even what's going on in Michigan where you're telling people,
• 35:55
  Speaker 4: you know, go right in non committed or whatever, I
• 35:57
  Speaker 4: can't remember. How are you gonna flip the switch come November? Yeah,
• 36:00
  Speaker 4: after you've gotten him so energized to go against Biden.
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: It's it's interesting. So you've had like all these numbers.
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: You had it in Michigan, but you also had it
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: in Minnesota, in North Carolina, in Virginia where Democrats were
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: not voting for Biden in a primary where he had
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: no opposition. Sometimes it was noncommitted. Sometimes they were voting
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: for you know, you know, no name candidates. And at
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: the same time, you've had Trump running without any opposition
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: now and Nikki Haley is still getting upwards of twenty
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: percent of the vote, which she did in Pennsylvania, and
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: she's not running. So twenty twenty had massive turnout, twenty
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: sixteen had massive turnout. Trump really turned people out, both
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: in terms of for him and people opposed to him.
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: What's this election going to be? I mean, this could
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: be a very different situation.
• 36:49
  Speaker 4: Whose votes do you think are going to be the
• 36:50
  Speaker 4: determining factor? Like will it be women because they're they're
• 36:53
  Speaker 4: they're fired up that Roe v. Wade got overturned. Is
• 36:55
  Speaker 4: it going to be African Americans? Is it gonna be Latino,
• 36:58
  Speaker 4: it's gonna be you voters, like, who do you think.
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: Look, you've got six, maybe seven battleground states, and if
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: it's if it looks anything like the last two elections,
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: it could be a matter of one hundred thousand votes
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: spread across those states or maybe even less. So any
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: one of those groups can be decisive. But certainly suburban
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: women are a huge group of voters. It turned pretty
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: decisively against Donald Trump in twenty twenty. And we're more agnostic.
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: I mean, he didn't win them in twenty sixteen, but
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: they turned decisively against him in twenty twenty. I think
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: that's probably the most important, you know, single group. But
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: any I mean you could have I mean Georgia, I mean,
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: Arizona states were it's just a matter of a few
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: thousand votes.
• 37:47
  Speaker 4: Yeah, you went to the White House courtspondent then this weekend. Yeah,
• 37:50
  Speaker 4: and Joe Biden said he was frustrated with how the media,
• 37:54
  Speaker 4: you know, covered him, But he just made me put
• 37:56
  Speaker 4: out a challenge for the media to do better when
• 37:59
  Speaker 4: they're talking about you know that Trump is what'd you
• 38:02
  Speaker 4: think of it?
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: You know, I I think there's something to that. I
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: never put too much stock into presidents criticizing the media
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: because they they always do it. It's it's it's the
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: easiest thing.
• 38:14
  Speaker 3: You know.
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: If only they were covering what I was doing better,
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: I'd be you know, I'd be out of a seventy
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: five percent approval rating. I don't think that that's the case,
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: but I do think that this is this is a
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: really difficult election for journalists to cover because it's not
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: like any other election. It's not even like twenty or
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: twenty sixteen. This is different, you know. And if we
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: are simply like doing horse race coverage and who's up
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: in the polls and who's it down, and what the
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: latest side by side policy differentially, you're not getting at
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: the point, and the point Biden was getting at is
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: that you know, Trump is in a real way running
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: on an anti democratic agenda. And it's not just what
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: happened on January, but it's all this talk of using
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: the power of the federal government for retribution and revenge
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: against anybody who you know has crossed him. Uh, it's
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: it's it's a it's a different election. It can't really
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: be covered in the same way.
• 39:16
  Speaker 3: Yeah, none of this is normal. So why do we
• 39:17
  Speaker 3: act like it is.
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: It's it's not normal. And I worry in some ways
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: that the country seems to be kind of sleep walking
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: towards you know, something that nobody's really come to terms
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: with because they're you know, this, this is, this is
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: And by the way, you made a point when we
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: spoke a few months ago about you know, the kind
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: of cried, crying wolf notion that we have seen. And
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: for how many cycles have we heard people say this
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: is the most consequential election of our lifetimes. You know,
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: Mitt Romney is like, and I destroy America if he's elected.
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: I mean, I mean, now you're getting to an election
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: that actually is the most consequential of our lifetimes. And
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: people are like, Okay, I've.
• 39:58
  Speaker 3: Heard this before.
• 39:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, yeah, wow, Well this book is out right
• 40:03
  Speaker 2: now tired.
• 40:04
  Speaker 3: You could definitely pick Donald Trump at the end of
• 40:06
  Speaker 3: the Grand Party.
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: Hey, thank you.
• 40:08
  Speaker 3: Absolutely, We're gonna.
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: Need you back up here when we get closer to
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: that November.
• 40:11
  Speaker 3: Anytime.
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: I'm up here, I'm up here a lot. So this
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: is fun. It's good. And you're right up the road
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: from gm A.
• 40:16
  Speaker 2: So Jonathan, call ladies and gentlemen. It's the breakfast club,
• 40:19
  Speaker 2: good morning
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: Wake that ass up in the morning breakfast club