good evening, everyone, and welcome to politics and prose. i'm brad graham, the co-owner of the store, along with my wife, lissa muscatine. and we're very excited to have with us this evening one of my favorite journalists, the ever entertaining mark leibovich, who's to talk about his revealing amuse and ultimately quite alarmed my new book, thank you for your service to donald trump's washington and the price of submission. mark has enjoyed a distinguished career in journalism with with some of the nation's best

newspapers and publications. after starting with the phenix boston and the san jose mercury in california, he landed here in d.c. with the washington post, where he spent a decade, then joined the york times in 2006 as a national political correspondent working out of the washington bureau, it became clear that one of mark's particular talents was profiling political and media figures. in fact, he won a national magazine award in 2011 for profiling the life and times of fellow journalists mike allen, then with politico. the following year, mark became chief national correspondent for the new york times sunday magazine, where he had a great run for nearly a decade and until last december, when he left to start a new job writing for the atlantic. he's also the author three previous books, including the number one bestseller nine years ago this town about the political culture of washington.

that book was wonderfully witty, incisive gossipy, but cynical takedown of washington's power elite, and it reinforced mark's reputation in the words of a of an npr reviewer as a wicked satirical. in his new mark employees much the same talent in lampooning number of donald trump's key enablers in the republican establishment. people like kevin mccarthy, graham, rudy giuliani and other slavish devotees drawing on interviews with many of those he features, mark frequently uses their words to explore why they facilitated or at least tolerate so much of trump's in office and in the process allowed themselves and their party to spiral down into sycophancy and cowardice. but while mark's of his subjects and his many entertaining turns

of phrase offer much to chuckle about the underlying message of his book, this time is deadly serious. he concludes on a note. considerable foreboding. the fringe, he observes, has become the standard. and looking ahead, he says, it's harder for see the next republican in congress ushering in a sober period of reflection, pragmatism and and mutual benefit. so on that happy accord, please join me in welcoming mark leibovich. thank you, brad. it's really it's a great beach. read a laugh. it's like despite the last part of the introduction. so thank you all for coming. wow. you don't you don't know who's going to show up in these covid days. so this is great. so thank you for being here, everyone. it is the politics and prose is

the ultimate home game for me. i love coming here. i feel like, you know, i've grown up here. my kids have grown up ever since we've lived d.c. for the last 20 years. this has been very much a second home and. it's always been like the go to place, you know, when i've had books, but also to bring my kids and our and, you know, the cafe and everything. and i'm just so pleased to be here also to see how it's evolved and has thrived under lissa and brad and everyone by your books here and you know, one of the things when i come, there's always like a back and forth in head, like, should i read to people, should it read from the book? and i never really love reading from books. i don't feel like, you know, i feel like a library teacher and people be sitting on floors and everyone's in third grade. i figure if people want to be read to, they'd get the get the book on tape. so get the book on tape that is

available, i assume through pmp on the website. okay. don't buy through amazon. so buy the book on tape. you want to be read too? i'm not going to read to you unless you want to. i'll do privately. so thank you for being here. it is. it's always a great experience to sort of be alone with this thing that you don't know if you're going to finish and then be able to talk about it. finally, this is a book. was not fun to write. it not easy to write and one of the central challenges of writing a book is trying to you you always have to expend a great deal of effort to make it look effortless, to make it look enjoyable. but the years were not for a journalist fun to live through, which is a bit of a misconception because people would always come up to me and say, oh, you must be having a blast in washington. you know, the circus is in town getting so much great copy. donald trump is so colorful and

so much news and i never really got that memo. i always thought that it was a serious presidency it was not fun to be made into the enemy of the people. it was not fun to be at the new york times washington bureau. when have new armed security guards, you know, installed after a couple of years, you know, it made me realize in a very kind of converse way i didn't fully appreciate before how much i cared. and that's an interesting thing that i never expected to be saying because have a reputation of being a bit of a cynic, you know, with this town and books that, you know, do take a fairly cynical eye towards politics. and i come to that honestly, and i stand by my cynicism in many cases. but if there was a kind of perverse message or surprise for me about covering these last few years, it's that i actually do care.

and i actually feel more patriotic. and i feel like the stakes have never been higher. you know, i'm also a cheerleader for journalism. i'm big. you know, i will certainly talk to and maybe not even to defend a lot of the journalism that's gone on in the last few years. but i am in awe of some of the investigative work spot news work sort of short term white house reporting, tweeting in essays. i've had more common cause with conservatives than i've had ever. mostly never. trump conservatives and what i wanted to do here is write a book that was about donald trump's but was not about donald trump himself. difficult needle to thread a lot has been written about donald trump. a lot of stories have been told about donald trump. books have been written about donald trump. more books will be written about trump. some of them will be good books. some of them i won't read. many of them i have read and

weren't very good books, but some of them have been very good. and then there's obviously a lot to the man and don't really want to add to that. i feel like there's a great body of work about what went on in the white house. i think many books have brought the story forward about, you know, oh, here are ten more incredible anecdote about donald trump feeding dog food to mike pence or hanging jeff sessions over the truman balcony by the ankles or something like that. i don't really play that game. i wanted try to write a book through the perspective of the under appreciated under-covered part of this washington iteration, which is the people who allowed him to happen, the enablers, the republican, the people who basically you know with some exceptions, but were largely derelict in their responsibility to check and balance him to walk away if needed. these are the kevin mccarthy's

these are the lindsey graham's. these are the rudy's these are the marco rubio's. and ted cruz's and people who over a four or five year period basically wave the white flag and allowed him to run fairly roughshod over a lot of our institutions. so the working title, this book, as i was working on it, was they all knew better because they did i talked to all of them pretty much one of the defining strains of all of these conversations was there was always a major, major between what they were saying privately, contemptuously, often about the president and what they were saying publicly, which was adulation, which was, you know, complete capitulation, submission, whatever you want to call it. one of the challenges this book, by the way, was finding fun synonyms for like words like this. my favorite, by the way, was the brigade know, the dutiful brigade of republican turd

polishers. that was from sykes of the bulwark. i shot him out in the book for being the author of that, but no mean this was the central dynamic of the republican over these years. i tried to tell a story about a six year period in washington through the lens of this sort of steady and. one of the interesting characters this book was not actually a person. it was a place the sort of leitmotif of this book is the trump hotel. so anybody ever been to trump hotel? wow. it's more than i actually would have thought. the trump opened in late 2016. the trump international hotel. it was the local property. it was a beautiful hotel. i will say it. i, you know, didn't think i would say this, but it's in the old post office building. it's halfway between the white and the capitol on pennsylvania avenue. there's glorious like four or

five star hotel, which for about a year period was the capital of republican washington. it was american cafe. it was cheers for the trump world, except instead of like norman sam sort of giving each other -- about like norms tab, they would be like talking about, i don't know, some lobby deal for a saudi or like, you know, a $20,000 bar tab for someone who wanted a pardon. i mean, it was like, oh my god, gambling is going on here. do you believe it? i'm shocked. shocked. but it was like that. it was an incredible, bizarre be acr. it was bizarre, too. but you would have, you know, dozens of republican congress men and women, mostly men at all hours at the bar running up tabs, often instagramming their tabs and making sure the white house knew about it.

so the president could see that congressman so-and-so had spent $20,000 on a bottle of champagne. and it goes right to the president's bottom line. it sounds like a joke, but actually happened you had the president's cabinet, you had members of the white house staff, you had members of the administration. you had, you know, rudy, you had rudy see rudy going out to smoke a cigar, his undone tie and often red wine staining his shirt. i think that was the night of the wedding. steven mnuchin, the secretary of the treasury, had a place there for while his wife had a little purse dog that she carried her all over the place. brit himself had a place there. you had a lot of members of the press there. we get a lot of work done there. you could see white house officials after a rough day, often not having fun, doing. they were doing ready to commiserate a of them were drinking. this is not the kind of place would want to spend a lot of time left to my own devices. i'd probably rather spend my

time after pretty much anywhere except or maybe go home or some something like a normal person would do, but it was unlike anything i'd ever seen covering washington over the last 25 years and it was the ultimate scene. and i remember people would ask always, especially when i'd leave town, what's it like there? what's it like in washington? and i would always sort of settle on this scene and the ultimate part of the scene was that, you know, maybe 30 or 40 times in the course of his presidency, or at least the president himself would come into the trump hotel, donald trump would agree to eat at exactly one establishment in all of washington outside of the white house. and that was the steakhouse at the trump hotel. that was place he needed to. first of all, he was never terribly at home at the white house. he would always get restless. he was always being hassled. he felt. he needed the big applauded. he needed people to be standing

on chairs, chanting his name. he needed to wave. he needed cameras, he needed a fuss. he needed his 40 ounce tomahawk steak. well-done. he needed his shrimp cocktail, his french fries, and his chocolate cake for dessert. sometimes pie and always a bucket chilled diet coke because, you know, the diet got to be careful. the day got to take care of himself. so he would you know, it was just quite a scene and you'd have these anthropological people like me and other journalists, and sometimes even people who hated trump, who would just go in on the hope that maybe you get to see cinderella coming into the castle, you know, himself. he'd have tourists in from tennessee. they would expect, like, okay, you go to disney world, you don't expect to see cinderella herself, but at least we'll get a few pictures of the castle. but wow, there he is. and he'd come in and they were chant his name and there'd be these paparazzi and they'd be asking him, like, what you have for dinner, mr. president? and he'd look in the eye and say, steak, that'd be it.

bizarre, right? so was the polar palace. that's what called it some people. they had all these nicknames that the trump hotel regulars had for the place headquarters, the home office, the america's living room was another one i called it the polar palace. so you go through there, and that was sort the center of washington. but one of the but it was a very poignant scene in some ways because you'd see lindsey graham going from table to table, kevin mccarthy going from table, table, being thanked for all of the great things they were doing, for our great president. and a guy like lindsey graham, who knows better very, you know, savvy veteran senator, best of john mccain, who loved alpha dogs, loved hanging around with the alpha dogs. john mccain many years, his own father for many in a bar that his own ran in south carolina and.

then donald trump, who he kind of glommed on to not long after john mccain or even before john mccain died and would follow him on the golf course, be golfing all the time. he'd be on the phone with them all the time. he'd be advertising. oh, i just got off the phone with the president. mccarthy would do that. they all would do that. and they all knew better. again privately. and i have a lot of this on the record they would say, man, this is a rope. it's really stressful. graham was extremely open about the game he was playing about how he was sort of playing donald trump and how well, you know, if you really want to get something out of, just tell him obama will do the opposite and don't flatter him too much. only him 80% of the way because he'll work for that last 20%. you can get what want. you can do a deal. i mean, i've never i mean it was stunning. i mean, he lindsey made the calculation that, you know, his voters in south carolina are not going to read the new york times. and they aren't going to read this book. i assume he's and he just did it and. i think if he did and trump found out about it he wouldn't

care. he liked the idea that he was being talked about. so again, so i try to move through time in this book while telling the stories of these people who again, kind of learn to make the trump years work for them, whether it's just getting whether it's getting onto the golf with the president, whether it's getting to be speaker, the house, which is pretty much all kevin mccarthy wants at this point, and they all need donald trump's blessing. do that so fast to the end of the administration. would that would have been that easy. the trump hotel was pretty much a ghost town. covid, like most hotels, like most establishments. covered, basically ruined business and then trump did something unfor given lee off brand which is he lost and it was not a lot of people coming around much anymore no one was there. i'd still stop periodically,

like in through 2021 and early 2022, just to sort of get the flavor of the ghost town of the trump hotel. occasionally you'd a madison cawthorn or a lauren boebert or a marjorie taylor greene in the place. i mean, they were like, really? people who were hanging around. so it was sort of a of the times. and then late in 2021, the trump organization sold the property to a miami investment group for a $100 million profit, which is another very familiar washington story which is failing upward. right. it's this basically scorned and abandoned property sells for a huge profit for the owner i mean, granted it's great location, beautiful building. so you can see why it be desirable for someone. but at the same time the the profiteer here is someone left office in utter disgrace impeached twice lost the house,

the senate, the white house, the only first president in 100 years to do that. first president in 150 years ever. not to be to his successor's inauguration. you know, if you want to pander republicans, you can say you know he lost to joe biden. not easy to do. and, you know, i probably a lot of people like joe biden here, but, you know, it's like he there's every reason for republicans to run away him. and for some reason, they're too scared to. and i don't know why. because of this. because they're to enable him. he will probably for president again in 2024. and, you know, i assume if he does, he'll be a clear front runner to win the nomination and then who knows what's going to happen. so, again republicans are complicit here. they could have stopped this. they could stop this. and it is not like there been a shortage of courage around the rest of the world. mean in a non political context,

you know, ukraine right. i mean the resistance is real and noble and, you know, inspiring to watch even the conservative party in england they rose up they said, you know enough, enough. boris johnson, you're gone. these incredibly brave men and, women, many of whom worked for donald trump in the white house, coming before the january six committee at great risk to themselves despite threats what have you. revenge you know and and also the outliers like liz cheney, adam kinzinger and mitt romney, not a lot of others, but, you know, there are examples of this which do me and sometimes when i speak a little bit to enthusiastic about how inspired i am by liz cheneys of the world, i kind get looked askance. you from people who say oh but about her father and the iraq war so forth or well, look what mitt romney did in 2012 when he was running against a i'm of the

belief that it's never too late to do the right thing and to stand up for something as precious for it as democracy and you know i hope that things turn i have real doubts that the republican party at this moment has the fortitude and the will and frankly the courage to do anything about what they all consider privately to be the existential problem for their because it's not conservative, you know, it's been disastrous many ways. it could cost us dearly as a democracy and that sounds again i've been very encouraged that people seem to be laughing on every page. i think there's a lot of undermined ridicule, scorn towards a lot of these figures that has been under utilized. and i try to bring it to life in a lively and fun way. but yeah it is definitely serious and i do cop to being a much more. i guess maybe much less cynical figure of much more. it may be again, idealistic

figure in thinking about the country and thinking about what the stakes are because think it's very important. i left the new york times about six months ago, and i loved the new york times. i had 16 great years there. and before that, nine great years of the washington post. and they i mean, i loved working for great newspapers, institutional. it was a very, you know, heady and weighty and actually kind of pressure filled activity and place to work. but i also feel like i'm a new stage of my career where i am now writing about freely. but i do feel it's at a moment where the stakes higher and i am i am sort of using a new voice. and i think that try out a lot of this here. you know, unfortunately was was, you know, execute it during difficult times and also during the pandemic. and it was cold and i was between jobs and i was probably

not a lot of fun to be around as my family can attest to there's a my wife shaking her in the back but again having said all that i do think it's a fun book. i hope you'll read it. i also hope you'll ask questions because i as a print reporter, much more enjoy interactive formats and sort of being able to hone in on what people are actually interested in rather than trying to win it from from a microphone. so but most of all, thank you to brad and lissa and politics and prose and thank you all for being here and i'll take your questions and go to the mic and then i'll take your questions. if you can't get to the mic for some reason, just like shout out the question and i'll repeat it. so we have an oh, we need you out of the mix if possible can you go to the mics or yeah or sorry. all right. excellent. well, come on up. we'll do first and then carol. we'll go second. so thanks for for efforting to

do this here. it'll be worth it. i'm not going. okay. thanks, joe. c-span's here, by the way. so, you know. yeah, that's at c-span here. that's good. that's a very enjoyable. thank you. thanks. and i just wondered if you could talk for a few minutes about. well, just the big joke and the cost for people of the big joke. it's a great question. it's one of my favorite recurring sort of features in the book and. so there's an expression in washington called, well, so-and-so gets the joke and i remember it was first used when i was reporting on this town when a democratic lobbyist said, oh, well, you know, my lobbying partner who was a republican lobbyist, he gets the joke. and finally said this enough. and there's jack quinn, who was the white house counsel under clinton, and his lobbying partner was gillespie, who ran for governor and a couple of other offices in in in virginia.

and he was, you know, sort of a high level republican operative. and i finally i asked jack, i said, what is the joke? what do you what is this you keep saying? and he would say, you know, it's like the unspoken thing that we all know, but we don't really say like, well, what is that? and this was ten years ago. and he said, well, know basically that we're all, you know. i might be a democrat and ed might be a republican but we're all kind of in business together and we all kind of know what the deal here, which is we're all getting rich. so that's the joke. so joke has since evolved. the joke is whatever the unspoken truth that people do not say on the record happens to be at the moment in the republican party. in most cases, the joke was that the guy who was leading our party that we pledge utter allegiance to. is himself a joke is someone we don't have respect for. we think is not fit to be president. at worst, he's a criminal you

know, he's a criminal he dangerous. i mean, again, they all knew that. and yet whatever power they had, they refused to use that in this. trump was very sad but it was the joke. and i heard it again and again and again. so, yeah, yeah, great. so the way up here was actually looking back here profile of chris christie and glad that the question was asked about the joke. you know, you you mentioned that chris christie seemed get the joke right absolutely back. in 2014, one line stood out, though, which is that you quoted as saying that he went to a governor or a donors convention. right. and he was big on swagger low on substance. yeah. and i was just wondering right at. what point that change right. from 2014 where the republicans put up a premium, i guess on substance and not swagger where they nominated. what in your reporting what yeah i mean it's funny because christie's kind a classic case of a guy who fairly nakedly not literally nakedly but fairly

fairly blatantly was. happy to lay out the game. chris christie is a smart guy. he's very savvy. he's someone who is frankly, you know, he's fun to talk to. you can. you know, he's like a political operative in some ways, like a wise guy. and he loves the sort of game of it, but he's also on some levels a very guy, but he's also he's more of a game player than a serious guy. i mean, he got a lot or a fair amount done as governor of new jersey. he is the kind of person who could have given trump a run for his money in 2016 because they were running against each other. but he basically said, right, i'm folding my tent. and i think you know, christie's basically a small town jersey guy who was afraid of the big bully with dyed orange hair from queens. you know, his rap when he was in new jersey was, you know there are two ways to deal with a bully. one is to sidle up to him and one is to sort of smack him in the nose.

and i like to smack him in the nose, which, of course, was the 180 degree opposite of what christie did. so i don't know. i think christie just didn't have the fortitude to do it. i don't know if he would change now, but i had a conversation with him a few months ago. you know, he's out of office. he's trying to you know, he's a commentator, got consulting jobs and stuff. he making noises about running for president again. i don't think will do terribly well. but i also i don't see him as real, really. you know, the fortitude to take trump on if trump runs again you know any more than he did before. so you know kind of a disappointing ultimately so yeah hi hi thanks for providing a different spin on the enabling of the joke, but how much you've been with many of the different mainstream publications that we all follow, how much of the

enabling is due to the mainstream media instead of like, why does the mainstream media i know it's news give them so much. yeah, why do we not, you know, put it where it belongs in the back, maybe next. the obituaries, you know, why does it so much air? you know, it's a great question. i get it a lot i get it actually more now than when i left. after i left the new york times and i feel like i can answer it. i don't think i ever answered it dishonestly, but i feel like i feel free to answer that question. i think would say a few things. one, media is that organized. it's it's not like we have a meeting at the beginning every day. okay. how are we going to, you know, get clicks today by as much trump in the newspaper or tv as possible? i also am of the belief that he was the republican frontrunner for most of the 2016 campaign. he was the president of the

united states. you can't wish someone away by ignoring them. i realize that the ten crazy tweets that donald trump might have written overnight, all horrific and stupid and nonsensical and not deserving of any news. but on the other hand, is the president, the united states and this should be, you know, if he's going to outrageous things that are actionable that people are going to listen to that are going to affect markets the republican the democratic party offend large swaths of the population. i think it needs to be out there. i don't think it can be washed away. and i take your point. i think there is a real conversation and an important conversation that should had about the proportion of donald trump's rallies being broadcast live on cnn, you know, that go on for hours i mean hours and that happened for a fair amount

of time. you know, the election, you know, into his presidency. i think that happened more than it should happen. i think you could definitely make a case that there was disproportionately too much attention given to the hillary email story. i mean, that was that hit home for me. this is my paper mean. it's not like i was in those meetings and. i was making those calls. but i will say and again, i don't say it defensively, just say it as someone who was sitting in newsroom for for for all those years as there is a lot of care and and really responsibility sort of put into you know whether you can use words like racist and lie the front page of the new york times. i think we the times went back when it was we it was easier to do after a while because it was sort of beyond argument but yeah i, i don't pretend that they got that right or we got that right

every day. no, thanks. well, fair. but yeah. as a i can understand, while he was president that he gets all the air. but why now and why when he was in campaigning. yeah. i mean, you're still getting all this air now for his he i think he's the frontrunner. i think he's the frontrunner for the republican party. i don't think he's getting as much air as he used to mean, partly because he doesn't have a twitter account. but i mean, i get it. i mean, a lot of it is nonsense. but look, i mean, he's the most coveted endorsement in the republican party. i mean, people are going down there to kiss his ring. i mean, ridiculously, i mean. if you think about this, by the way. i mean, when jimmy carter got blown out by ronald reagan in 1980, democrats weren't like going down to plains, georgia, kiss his ring to like get his blessing. i mean, when george herbert walker bush lost to bill clinton in 1992, you know, it's not like republicans were going up to kennebunkport saying, you know, please endorse. i mean, this is a whole different animal and. you could say, well, maybe because the media spends so much time building him up.

i just think it's it's a product of his complete force of personality, shamelessness. the republicans unwilling this just to cut him loose, which i think they can now, but they're not so, you know, are we getting that right? every day? maybe. maybe not. but, you know, i still think it's important to sort of put what's what people who could be president are saying out there. so thank you for your question this. in the last few days there have been reports that rupert murdoch has begun criticizing trump's handling of january sixth. and you say something about the role of the murdochs in this scheme of things are they trying to control trump or are they just being used like everybody else? probably a little both. it's a good question. i mean, first of all, i think the impetus for people this discussion now has been basically a single editorial in

the new york post, which is his tabloid in new york, which which the murdoch family owns. i think the impact of any power of fox news and the primetime lineup on fox news is about a thousand times greater. and i think until fox news turns against donald trump, he's got a great, you know, chance of sort of surviving and getting rehabilitated through everything. i'm of the belief that richard nixon probably could have survived watergate if. he had fox news at his disposal if he had, you know, and not to mention someone like kevin mccarthy, i, i, but i do think fox news a game changing you know resource for republican presidents who want to keep stay on his right side and yeah are they each other? probably because you know, the ratings are great. you know, the fox viewers love trump pretty much. he's entertaining. you know, there's a there's a theory that the murdochs want to move to ron desantis. i'm dubious because. i don't think ron desantis be as

good box office. and ultimately murdochs are extremely cynical business people. they want ratings and they don't really care what the from what i can tell don't care what the effect on, you know, our our government and our society is. so i don't know. i'm dubious. i also think that the second trump you know sort of flexes his muscle muscles if if rupert still alive, he'll he'll follow along. and, you know, if rupert's kids or i just i see that changing anytime. so that's just me. all right. i consider that trump criminally sent people into to do violence and potentially murder. is there anything from his past where he has done that kind of thing? not directly, but encourage people to contribute to violence, you know, he's a

pretty amoral character. wouldn't surprise me mean and also overcome he's survived a lot whether it's by just sort of using the law to his advantage or just hiring or just lawyering up or just or just litigating up what have you. i mean, i'm i don't pretend to know what the justice department thinking when they see this. but as a viewer, i'm consist i've consistently been just flabbergasted this and i just keep asking myself is that legal isn't that i mean how how is that like allowed it's just you know i get why not every little thing prosecutable i mean i get why you know kellyanne conway running up you know hatch violate like parking tickets is not you know getting the prime attention of the justice department. i mean there are these sort of line stepping instances with every administration a bit.

i don't know, it just i think it's pretty blatant. so whatever he's done in his past i mean, i hope someone's taking a look at it. so yeah. yeah. thank you for writing your book. thank you. i think i heard correctly that you said at one point that he could have been stopped. i think so. and, you know, as i read your book and i'm not quite finished with it, but it just seems to me this all the characters you're writing about come on singly and i mean, mccarthy went up to the michael mccarthy something. graham did they come on as individuals? yeah. so just thinking about it seems to me he he could have been stopped only people joined forces. absolutely. now, what were you thinking, though? what was i thinking. yeah. that he could have been stopped. i think he could have been stopped. well, okay. i think he could have been stopped impeachment. one maybe not. it wasn't clear cut. it was a little complicated.

and i think, look, once he's president, you get a berth, right? i mean the two times when he could have been stopped were i mean, election day. i mean, election day within a 72 hour period. i mean, he lost. okay. it was clear within 48 hours that this was trending clearly towards biden. the numbers were moving that way. that is traditionally when every single leader of the party falls line. okay, the whole like, oh, well, the president has to you know, he's fully in his rights exhaust every legal recourse or whatever. you know, that's just absolute --. and the reason they weren't like lining up to that is because they were dealing with a toddler they were. i mean, there's this now infamous quote that ran a blind quote that ran in the washington post within 48 hours of the election where some senior house adviser said, oh, what's the use in humoring him for just a

little bit of time, like let him work off a steam, then eventually he'll stop tweeting or and we can all get on with our lives, paraphrasing. but yeah, mean. humoring him was essentially the republican platform still is. i mean, the literal republican platform as certified, inscribed and voted upon in 2020 was whatever donald wants. i mean, it sounds like paraphrasing and i am, but it's basically three lines of whatever donald wants and but yeah, they were terrified of him. they terrified mitch mcconnell was terrified of the january three, january 5th, a runoff in georgia. there was a senate runoff there were two senate seats that he figured they needed to keep. trump and that's what would republicans in georgia four coming out from coming out. trump was engaged, but he went to georgia at least once a day, maybe, and basically made it all about him. he said, oh, the election was stolen. do you believe this know we won the election and you know, when

you basically tell republicans, georgia, you know, your vote doesn't count it's not going to bring people to the polls, especially when the republicans on the ballot are not trump. so they lost that, but they were just mostly scared. they just thought he'd go away. they thought that the problem would take care itself. then january 6th happens. okay. there was like a four or five day period when they could have cut him loose like that. i mean, they could have gotten the impeachment votes, conviction votes, i'm almost certain. but first, mitch mcconnell decided, he didn't want to do this and he deftly just despite condemning trump in the most, you know, in the strongest possible terms, he basically said we can we're not doing impeachment until after the inauguration. unclear why. i mean, they could have done that in two days. i mean, everyone lived through what they saw, what happened, they know exactly it started and how it got to, where it did. but mcconnell basically punted this till the inauguration. that gave everyone an easy

answer. it's like, oh, why impeach a president who's no longer president? it doesn't make sense. i'm voting no. so. and then eight days later, kevin mccarthy goes down to mar a lago, kisses the ring. a few weeks later, mitch mcconnell says, oh, well, of course, support the nominee. and 2020. i mean, you know, and he's back, right? so. one of my favorite off color but i'm going to use it anyway. quotes in his four years was susan glasser. the new yorker wrote a profile of mike pompeo, the secretary of state, and she quoted some of the state department who said that pompeo is like a heat missile for donald trump's --. that's a great quote. and i use that as often as possible, including in the atlantic a few weeks ago. and basically, you know, the heat seeking missiles were launched from washington down mar a lago even after the posterior of the former president was rehomed to mar a lago. it's still there. it's a really sad state of

affairs, but here we are bit into a scare affairs and it's scary. it seems to have this incredible. so i think absolutely there's no question about that. anyway, thank you but enjoy the book. yeah it's, it's fun. yeah. yeah it's scary situation and my mind. yeah very frightening that our democracy is on this precipice really. but i was thinking about liz cheney that you said to you know you were in spite of her politics, admiring her. and i certainly have i think we all have. but she's going to go down in flames. it's clear it looks that way. so what's happened then when she loses and then she's going to be off the committee? not immediately. i mean here's what i think is going to happen. there. i think there's a chance she wins. i probably am wrong. i think it's unlikely. i mean, wyoming is the i think i think the smallest in the country or at least the continental u.s.. it's also the trump state in

country. you know, 70% of the vote in 2020, you know, liz cheney got more votes than trump did. but yeah, it doesn't seem like a ideal place for her. i mean, but, you know, she's getting i mean, yeah, i think it's unlikely she wins. i don't think that will stop her from sort of pursuing this. i think she could very well for president or you know, i think kinzinger might if she doesn't, i think you know, i think she has made it very clear and i admire the hell out of this. she's playing for history. she's playing keeps. and she's one of the very few people that i interviewed in doing this book that was was willing to say that their legacy that she thinks about, her legacy cares about what her grandkids are going to read about in history books about how their grandma or mother performed during these days. and i guarantee you that you, my grandkids, if they up on history, will will it liz cheney

will come out looking a lot better than elise stefanik or kevin mccarthy or any of that. now, is that just pollyannish northwest washington guy giving a book talk maybe, but i think that counts for something. i think she's doing an incredible service. i think hearings have been great. i think they've been performed really. i think i think they've been a joy, not a joy but i think they've been a they've been very effective and i hope they continue. and look, i mean, yeah, i think if republicans win the house, that thing's going to probably disband pretty quickly. but but they're, you know, once the truth gets rolling, it's kind of hard to stop. and and you the justice department still has some time to do their work. and that's pence being able to stand up against not good no, i don't see them doing it. i mean, i think i'm sort of amazed. i remember watching the last hearings and seeing those, hearing the radio of his secret service detail, actually talking about saying to their families

and, and i'm thinking, you know, pence, if he's watching this and he can't just, like, go up and testify the committee like that. so i mean yeah he did the bare minimum on january, which was important i don't want to under value that at all. i think even the bare minimum at a moment of truth is important, but you know, i'd love to see mike pence of step out of his role a little bit. yeah. because he could testify. yeah yeah i don't know who. hi. hi. sorry, i'm just going to ask the obvious. i don't it, i'm confused, i'm befuddled, i do not understand where he gets the power does he have like the on everybody. is it like j. edgar. does he have the does he know who's gay and in the closet or what? i mean, really, like once he

left. why didn't he? how can he still. i don't get it so completely. yeah, that's really an and i think many of us are sort of stunned. how is it that nobody has the balls to say to slap him down? is it that they are that we are all they are all intimidated by a tweet and they're afraid to be made fun of. and nobody wants to look stupider. i mean, it's just sort of stunning to me that nobody i don't know, maybe you know, the answer to oh, i don't know. letting him know. i got a book on it. you got you got the thing. i'm ready. i'm ready. when they answer no, i actually bait and switch. i don't i don't really know. but i think i will say this i will say this. i even though this is a trump book. i spent a fair amount of time with him during the 2016 campaign and. you know, it wasn't it got old

pretty quickly. you know, i got lot of access to him. i got a lot of like i mean, he's very one thing about him, especially early on. i mean, he allowed himself to be, you know, in cars and is and golf courses and holding rooms and everywhere plane and i saw his effect on people mainly his supporters that's a superpower to be able to hold a segment a very loyal segment of the population and sort of controlled those voters and that's scares you know republican who need those votes. but he also said something to me early on that i have not forgot which is we were heading back from a debate at the reagan library in simi, california, in late 2015. and it was one of those things where there's, you know, about a dozen people on stage and he totally stole the show. you know he was insulting

people. he wasn't making a lot of sense. you know, he got maybe 80% of the attention and and questions and he was right in the center. and he said to me, he said, you know, i'm going to win. i'm going to win because i have a skill. and that is i can sense weakness and people and i can identify it and i can exploit it. very self-aware for him and. those people on the stage with me, they're pretty weak. i can i, they're going to really come around to me. i'm just going to keep pushing and you know, it might take some a while might take ted cruz a while and i take little marco or while might take jeb a while but will come around because i'm just to take and i'm just going to take it i'm just going to like win and i'm not going to really care. and so he's got a few superpowers. one, he's got the spell over his voters. and two, he's got shamelessness. like shamelessness creates a kind of warfare, right i remember interviewing hillary

right before the election, maybe three or four weeks before the election in toledo, and she is she's an amazingly thoughtful person to talk to one on one. it's cliche, and it doesn't come out enough. and that's a whole other story. but, you know, she she has a really good of things and of people and of how they are playing and so forth and she at one point, we're pretty late in our discussion and she was tired. everyone was like, oh, hillary is going to win. there's no way she can lose. and, you know, she she clearly looked worn down and she had pneumonia, maybe about few, few weeks earlier. and still kind of feeling the effects. but she said, i. so you ever get, like, nervous about this? because, i mean, look, i mean, you're you're like on the precipice of being the first woman president and you know history and you know you've wanted your whole life and it looks great and he just did this access hollywood thing. i mean, and he said, i don't go

there. she said, i don't go there. and i said, what do you mean? she goes, well, know, it looked like she was not enjoying contemplating it looked like she was probably contemplating something. she might have had a sixth sense about, which is the incredible burden on the person running against donald trump, losing like she could be. not only the person whoes the presidency, but the person loses the presidency to donald trump and she at one point, you know, if i were going if i were running against mitt romney, mean, yeah, we'd have our differences. but i wouldn't a pit in my stomach every night and she wouldn't think about defeat but it was clear that she was when i was sort of pressing around and she was thinking about what it might mean if this didn't go well. and i think she probably knew on some level that what trump had was not being fully measured by the i mean, anyone who was like in trump's orbit, knew there was something there that might not counted. i mean, there was just block after block of supporter tears

and it was like, wow, there's this is unlike anything i've seen. and she looked at me as i was leaving and she said, just, i'm the last thing standing between you and the apocalypse, which i thought was good sound effect, right? it was like we planned it just that train whistle in the background. but so and it was i was actually the last line of the story. i think they made it headline of the story. the u.s. this is hilarious here. we go so so this was it was the headline of the piece and i remember actually talked to her for another story about maybe a year ago and i said, you know, i'm secretary. haven't talked to you since toledo ohio october of 2016. and the last thing you said to me was, i'm the last thing standing between you and the and, you know, i happened quote you on that and and put it in the paper. it was a front of the new york

times magazine. so yeah, you warned us. and she said, yeah, you should. you know what? i been meaning to tell you this. see, i told you, and it was kind of funny, but not that funny. anyway, i forgot how we got there. but he he had something. there was that whole campaign was out of whack. and i think he still has whatever that is, he still has it. it might not be real, but it won't be real until someone fights against it. so that was probably a good place to start. but if you don't mind, one more question. sure. i appreciate what you say about his shamelessness, and i appreciate what you say about his ability to cash in on people's weaknesses. yeah, but i think basically this is my thesis that reason why he has a lot of support is that it's basically a racist agenda. we have a lot of racism that. he has tapped into that. people don't want to talk about whether it's how he humiliated obama, the birth certificate and everything he has done, how much of his agenda is racist agenda,

do you think? i think that's the 35% that he gets. you know, look, there's a lot wrapped up in that. i think i will say this, you know, without making a judgment on all his supporters and, you know, whether they're racist or not, i mean, i think people are complicated, but i would say this. i think i wouldn't underestimate the level of just sort of resentment that a lot of his supporters have to frankly, people like us, people who. they feel doesn't don't share their values people who they feel have contempt for them, people that they feel, you know, they i mean, again, everyone's different. but there was something that always stuck out for me. there's a concern. votive theorist, very controversial conservative theorist named charles murray who wrote an essay about trump's

appeal. and basically the thesis of his essay was. a lot of trump supporters don't want to defend him. they don't particularly want their kids to grow up to, be like them, like him. they don't want emulate him, but what they love about him is he's a murder. he actually won he actually was the republican, you know, for the time in a long time, won an election. and through him they could exact revenge. again, very simplistic. it's generalizing, but i think there's a lot to the notion that trump off a lot of people that they really hated they hated being supporters. and i think it goes far beyond, you know, racist or illiberal views that that many of them might hold. i think that's probably part of it i think, you know, you can't underestimate race on any cultural issue in america right now or ever. but i think there's a lot going on. so. hi. hello. so what are your thoughts on,

joe biden so far? do you think he's succeeded in lowering the temperature in washington after the trump? yeah, yes. and do you expect him to serve a second term? he hasn't lowered the temperature. it's hot as hell outside. it's so biden is unfortunately. you know, i wrote a piece for the atlantic about a month ago saying essentially that essentially explicitly that he's too old and he shouldn't run again. it a little controversial, but i stand by. i think the problem of joe biden is that he in november of 2020, i mean, he will not perform a more important service america than he did in november of 2020. and you know, and then unfortunately had to go serve out a four year term in the midst, a pandemic with all kinds of, you know, derangement divisions in the country. and i think he did come the thing down. i mean, he wasn't tweeting like

a madman he gave a pretty good inauguration speech and, you know, then he went into a spiral. i mean, afghanis. and look, i'm of a belief if he stepped aside, said, look, it's time to sort of turn this party over to the next generation. you know, let the bench out a little bit, whoever it is. i think the bench will probably come into some focus after the midterms. if a couple of candidates like maybe john fetterman in pennsylvania or tim ryan in ohio do well, stacey in georgia, whoever i, i think. but i would really love to see some new blood and some new ideas and someone younger, maybe 60, trying to do this. i don't covet thought of a biden trump rematch at all. i don't know a lot of people do. so yeah, i think i think it would be a great for him to step aside or maybe wait till after the midterms if you wanted to do that. but, you know, it's it's one

man's decision. so it's like so anyone else. but yeah, i'd love to sign some books, but we have one more question. thank so much, if i may. yeah, i haven't the book, but it sounds amazing. read the book i won't get back to i will read the book i promise. one thing you said earlier that really caught my interest is that you've interviewed a lot of these people directly and you find them to be very and that they candidly admit you that they privately disagree with him. and i'm just wondering, people like graham or chris christie, do they think about the potential for him to become something like hitler if he gets? and how do they answer those kind of hypotheticals? how do they reconcile that this is how they answer hypothetical questions? don't answer hypothetical questions. now, look, i mean, first of all, they don't they agree with a lot stuff. they don't have a lot of respect for the i mean, it's like a difference between i mean, they get a lot of their policy.

i mean, they get their judges, they get their tax cut. i mean, they get a lot of their deregulation. i mean, there is some like there's quite a bit of republican that that donald trump has for the party. you know, i don't think privately they like graham and christie don't really respect his intelligence. they don't like chaos. they don't like the the i think they're probably troubled, the anti-democratic bent and so forth. but, yeah, they don't i mean, as much as far as i would get from from them on the record is, you know, lindsey graham would be like lindsey had this way really annoying way of doing the under sort of this, you know the kind of the what's the word keystone cops response like oh he's so incompetent he could never have with the russians right? he's never run for city council. how is going to like, you know, figure out how to to rig an election with with i mean so he was always like i remember once

someone asked graham in a press gaggle, you know, does it bother you that donald trump lies all the time? because now we all accused of lying during the during the during the primaries. i'm like, okay, i mean, like, you know, it was always kind of a glib sort of answer. and i don't think, i think to a person and there's a whole bunch of examples of this in the book. i mean, they don't let themselves talk about they they are either so shallow or so scared or so dismissive of the question they believe that, you know, anything that gets in the way of the short term expediency of keeping donald trump in the day to day or getting to their next election is not worth their time. and maybe they're too ashamed to contemplate it, but never really got very far. so i remember one sexual aspect. kevin mccarthy, i said, so do you worry about, you know, history or, like how you'll be remembered? and he said, oh you mean the jeff flake thing? and i mean, what do you mean he goes, jeff flake is a senator

from arizona, objected to trump. you know, significantly, you know, spoke out him basically lost his viability and, you know, mccarthy's point was, where's the statue to jeff flake in the house, you know, so what's he doing now like he's not he's not office so i don't want to end up like him and so forth. you know, you would think he's also ambassador to austria. so, you know, joe biden appointed him. so anyway, thank you all for coming. this was a really great series of questions and i'm happy to your books. and as always, thanks to poppy and support poppy, thank.

well, joining us now on book tv is a prolific who has been on many times. he's got another new book out, george guilders. most recent book is called life after capitalism life after gambling. what does that title mean, mr. guilder? it means the emergency is social. was we've been undergoing, you know, where government of declare emergencies ass