- Hi, I'm Steve Adubato.

I'm not sure when the last time I did an interview, a program that had a greater impact or potentially has a greater impact on our representative democracy, on the role of the media, on the Trump presidency, particularly the final days of it and what we can learn from it.

And the gentleman that is about to join us can tell us more than anyone I know.

He is Jonathan Karl, ABC News Chief Washington Correspondent, and the author of this book.

You'll see it up there.

It's called "Betrayal: The Final Act of the Trump Show."

Jonathan, Good to see you.

- Thank you for having me, Steve.

- So we're taping on the 14th of December at the end of 2021, be seen in 2022.

I want to start with this.

We're not a news program.

You can check out our "MetroFocus" series and "NJ Spotlight News" here in our region on Public Broadcasting.

They'll tell you what's going on every day, not to mention the folks at ABC.

But that being said, put in perspective the texts we are seeing in the Mark Meadows dump, if you will, data dump turned over to Congress.

We don't need to talk about the news of the day, but those text messages from Donald Trump Jr. from Fox News hosts like Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham and others who were saying on January 6th, "Mr. President, you gotta do something now.

It's out of control.

There's a siege going on."

And the president not seeming to respond.

Not my opinion, but a fact.

What does that tell us about January 6th, the president's final days?

And does it add to what you have here about January 6th in "Betrayal"?

It's a loaded question, I know.

- Well, what you're seeing is extraordinary insight into what was going on with the people who were closest to Donald Trump while the rioters were rampaging through the Capitol building.

You're seeing it.

This is just kind of one window into it.

And it's Mark Meadows's text messages.

It's the messages that were not even on Mark Meadows' official government cell phone.

These were his private cell phones.

He had two different cell phones he frequently used.

Somewhere on there, there are messages from me to Mark Meadows as well saying, "What is the President doing to stop this?"

I texted him shortly before three o'clock as the rioters were inside the building, "What is the president doing to stop this?"

And then I asked him, "What are you doing to stop this?"

He never answered that.

- Wait a minute, he never answered?

- No, he never answered that.

And what you see in these messages is, you know, a look into the minds of his closest supporters.

I mean, this is his son, his namesake, Donald Trump, Jr. apparently unable to get directly through to his father himself, goes to Meadows- The basic text was, "You gotta stop this S-H blank now.

Get the president to be a leader."

- Yeah, it's time to lead.

He needs to give an oval office address and to tell these people to go home.

That was what Donald Trump Jr. was saying.

And now we see also that's what the people that were the strongest supporters of Trump on Fox News were also saying.

Sean Hannity is saying, "Can he come out and give a speech, tell these people to go home?"

You know, Laura Ingraham.

So look, I spent a lot of time in "Betrayal" trying to understand what was going on inside the West Wing during those three to four hours when the riot was underway and we weren't hearing anything from Donald Trump.

And remember, what you're seeing from Meadows is just one window.

This is his private text messages.

These are people who don't work at the White House.

There's a lot more to come.

I mean, in "Betrayal," I talk about the Deputy National Security Advisor a guy named Matt Pottinger who was so horrified by what he was seeing he went down to the Oval Office to try to get in to the President, and the President wasn't there.

He was in his dining room next door, and they wouldn't let Pottinger in.

He runs into Meadows and saying, "What is this?

Where's the National Guard?

What is happening here?"

He's so upset with the answers he's getting, or the lack of answers that he's getting that the Deputy National Security Advisor walks back down the hall in the West Wing into the National Security Advisor suite of offices and he writes his letter of resignation, which he submits a little before four o'clock on January 6th.

- So I'm gonna read this quote right from the beginning of the book.

This is you.

By the way, your interviews with the President, I want to make it clear, you have interviewed the President.

And this was from an interview that you did with the President.

Was it at Mar-a-Lago at the beginning?

- Yes, it was, it was on March 18th of 2021 in Mar-a-Lago.

- And by the way, Jonathan will give his description of Mar-a-Lago and what he saw down there in just a minute.

This is Jonathan Karl to the President.

"Were you worried about him," meaning Vice-President Pence, "during the siege?

Were you worried about his safety?"

The President, President Trump, "No, I thought he was well-protected.

I had heard that he was in good shape.

No, because I had heard that he was in very good shape."

Jonathan Karl, "Mr. President, because you heard those chants, that was terrible.

You know those," and the President interrupts and says, "Well, the people were very angry."

And Jonathan Karl says, "They were saying, 'Hang Mike Pence.'"

And Trump responds, "Because it's common sense," dot, dot, dot.

What am I missing, Jonathan Karl?

- I mean, the most charitable thing you can say about that truly shocking, I think it's the most shocking thing I've heard Donald Trump say, and he's said a lot of stuff that has shocked the conscience, but.

- Where was his loyalty to his vice-president who had been loyal to him for four years?

Where was his sense of loyalty?

- Yeah, and he's saying, you know, I'm saying the most charitable thing you'd say is, he's not saying it's common sense that Mike Pence should be, that we should hang him, but it's common sense that they are angry and so angry that they're chanting that because Mike Pence is, in Trump's twisted analysis of this, failing to stop a fraudulent election.

And you know it's just, but the callousness, the utter lack of concern.

Those people were chanting, "Hang Mike Pence."

They had erected a gallows outside the Capitol building.

Pence was hustled out of the Senate chamber and into the basement of the Capitol complex where he was holed up for several hours.

His life was in danger, and Donald Trump has not a bit of concern about it.

In fact, what he's doing in that exchange that I had with him at Mar-a-Lago is he is justifying the actions of people who were calling for Mike Pence's execution.

- Jonathan, do you think, and this is difficult to get inside the head of the brain of Donald Trump or anyone, Joe Biden or anyone who was in a position like this.

Do you think that when he was speaking to you at Mar-a-Lago and told you, "come on," and then, again, the Trump texts that ultimately went out on the 6th tells people, "I know you're hurt.

I know you're feeling pain, et cetera, et cetera.

We have to have peace so go home.

We love you.

You're very special."

Okay, people can decide for themselves.

I have a lot of friends who not only voted for Donald Trump, but who say, "Steve, stop making, you in the media, stop making such a big deal about January 6th."

Do you think that President Trump understood that when he was saying to you what he was saying to you about Mike Pence, and now that these texts are out, that others who are in the Trump orbit were saying, "This is horrific, it's terrible."

Afterwards they said some very different things about Antifa was involved, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Not just to my friends, but to millions of others, particularly those who watch Public Broadcasting right now, help them understand what you believe the President believed was serious or not serious about democracy being imploded that day.

- First of all, I have to say, Steve, I wrote this book in large part, I mean, first of all, I wanted to get the history down and I wanted to get it down in a very factual way and an undisputable way.

I think it's a very important history to remember and to know, but I also wrote this book primarily for those who believe the lies.

These are not dumb people.

These are not bad people.

There are tens of millions of people who truly believe the stuff that Donald Trump has been saying, and I think that they have reason to believe it.

I mean, first of all, Trump has repeated it so many times.

He was in such a position of authority.

He was the President of the United States.

He's saying this stuff- - Well, how many courts would have to have said there wasn't evidence?

Sorry for interrupting, Jonathan, but how many courts, many courts, with Republican-appointed judges with attorneys general from states that are Republican, those attorneys general being Republican themselves, secretaries of state said, "No, there is no evidence of this steal."

Because Donald Trump said there was a steal, you're saying millions upon millions of Americans, 2/3 if not 3/4 of Republicans believe he won, this was stolen because he said it, one man?

- Yes, but it's more than that.

Okay, first of all, he said it so many times.

And you know the saying, you repeat a lie often enough people think it's the truth.

Okay, but it's not only that.

It's not just that.

The way the vote came in on election night was confusing because different states had different rules for counting the ballots.

Pennsylvania had a, frankly, a screwy system where they weren't even allowed, the votes weren't even allowed to be prepared to be counted until after the polls closed, all those mail-in votes.

And you have a whole series of procedures that are put in place to make sure that people aren't casting fraudulent votes, to make sure that people aren't voting twice, to make sure that they're actual residents and registered voters so that all takes time.

So, you know, if you tuned in on election night, you thought Donald Trump was well on his way to winning because that's what it said on the board.

- How about a month after, two months after, three months after, still, still?

- Well, no, yeah 'cause during those interim days while the votes are being counted, you have the most powerful person in the country telling you, somebody who you have supported telling you that now they're bringing in illegal votes.

Now there are vote dumps and you know, truckloads of ballots and ballots in ditches and ballots here.

It's all nonsense.

It's all not true.

But I think you need to take the time to explain it, which I do in "Betrayal."

I go through and I look, what really happened?

You know, the president made this allegation that, for instance, I mean, there are many of these, the ballots under the table in Georgia.

I look at that, but Georgia, but Michigan, Detroit.

Detroit, Michigan, why did these votes come in late in the city of Detroit?

Well, I looked at it.

There's a reason it happened.

That's the way the vote processing works there.

And by the way, Donald Trump says that's why he lost Michigan?

Donald Trump did better in Detroit in 2020 than he did in 2016 when he won the state.

He didn't lose because people brought in illegal votes in Detroit.

He lost because he lost decisively in the suburbs, mostly among women.

- Can we shift gears to Donald Trump and COVID?

Again, you wrote the book at a certain time.

It goes to press, certain things are found out later.

We actually have an interview with your colleague at ABC News, former governor of New Jersey, Chris Christie coming up about his book in just a couple of weeks, Chris Christie has said publicly, you know this very well.

He's spoken to you offline as well.

He's convinced he got COVID directly from Donald Trump.

Mark Meadows in his book, I believe, while he did not make it public to those who were around the president in his final days that the president had tested positive, he puts it in his book, unless I have this wrong.

Did Donald Trump, President Trump have COVID and was not only out there with his advisors and prepping for a debate, but then went with Gold Star families face to face in close indoor quarters?

I have to have that wrong.

This must be fake media.

- Yeah, no, you have this directly from Mark Meadows.

You have this directly from the book that Donald Trump endorsed when it came out as the truth.

If you want the truth about what happened, read Mark Meadows' book.

And what Mark Meadows tells us is that Donald Trump tested positive for COVID two days before the debate.

And he went out and he did an event.

He went and he spoke to reporters on Air Force One that afternoon.

One of those reporters ended up testing positive for COVID and getting sick himself.

And he ended up the next day going to an event with Gold Star families.

And you know, what Meadows says is it was a false positive 'cause the sample was retested and came back negative.

I mean, I have to see proof of that.

And by the way, you know well that COVID tests are not perfect, but false negatives are the problem, not false positive.

If the virus is present, it is shown.

You don't get false positives.

You're 150 times more likely to get a false negative if there is a mistake.

False positives are unicorns.

They don't happen.

And so if you have one positive and one negative, you don't go on, like, as if nothing has happened.

You don't go on, and he went and Lord knows how many people he exposed, probably including Chris Christie.

- You know, I'm gonna do this.

I hate doing rapid fire because we in Public Broadcasting try to go deeper, but there's so many subjects here.

Is it true that Johnny McEntee, who I believe played quarterback for, I don't know.

- University of Connecticut.

- Thank you.

See, you got that information.

He was the head of some personnel operation within the White House.

He was the President's guy who would carry whatever he had to carry with them, and then he got this position.

Was there a so-called loyalty test?

And were people pulled in, and you write about this in the book.

I was reading it last night in preparation for today.

Was Johnny McEntee, on behalf of the president, calling people in asking, "Did they vote for Trump?

Have they ever voted in a Democratic primary?

Why did you vote in the Democratic primary?

Do you agree with everything Donald Trump says?"

And anyone who was questionable was either fired, demoted, didn't get a raise.

- That's exactly correct.

It was the Presidential Personnel Office.

It's the most important human resources organization in the country, and they went through and they interviewed officials up to, you know, high and low and tested their loyalty to Donald Trump.

And those that were deemed insufficiently loyal, by the way, they also asked about social media postings.

If you posted something that seemed pro, that seemed insufficiently pro-Trump, you were questioned and possibly fired.

- When someone says, "Come on, Biden, does it.

Obama did it.

Everyone, Bush, they all did it.

Clinton they all do the same thing," you say?

- No, not like this.

Trust me, not like this.

He turned that Presidential Personnel Office into what people in the West Wing who had to deal with them something like the East German Stasi, like a secret police, internal rooting out people that weren't loyal enough.

- Give me a minute on this, approximately.

The photo op in front of the church with Mark Milley, who you talk about extensively in the book, General Milley walking across the street in military fatigues and what happened to those protestors who were largely peacefully protesting.

- Yeah, I mean, this was one of the most horrific moments in the history of the American presidency.

Lafayette Square, the space above it had a peaceful protest going on and the place was cleared out rather violently with police on horseback, tear gas batons, I mean, the whole thing.

And he came out right after it was done.

It wasn't cleared, it doesn't seem, specifically for his photo, but it was so close that they could still smell the tear gas when they walked out of the White House and over to St. John's Church.

Mark Milley and Mark Esper the Defense Secretary and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff were walking behind him along with the Attorney General.

They all said that they were blindsided.

They were told to come to the White House for a briefing on the efforts to deal with civil unrest and the meeting, the briefing never happened.

They were just told to wait.

The President was speaking in the Rose Garden and then they walked out together and all of those men, all of those men see this as a real mark of shame on their careers that they were there.

- Out of loyalty to their president.

What's gonna happen, Jonathan, when when not only my friends but others send me text messages and emails and they see this show and they say, "Look, Adubato, you had the guy on from ABC news.

You're all part of the liberal media elite, and you're just anti-Donald Trump and you did a hatchet job for a half an hour on the President for Karl to sell his book."

- Well, I mean.

- 'Cause that's said by some.

Others won't say much.

You have no horse in this race, and I have said this many times, neither do I.

Neither do we in Public Broadcasting.

This is coming from Mark Meadows.

These are text messages.

These are many people who voted for Trump who are Republicans, they're saying it.

Chris Christie was the first person who lost in 2016 to endorse Trump.

He's the one who said Trump gave him COVID.

He's the one who's saying we can't look in the rear view mirror.

- Look, I can just tell you and if I could tell anybody that says that to you.

- And to you.

- I have received a lot of feedback from this book, from people who worked in the West Wing of the White House of people who had top positions within the Trump administration.

And by and large, almost exclusively, the commentary has been, you nailed it.

This is right on.

This is factual.

This is the story that needed to be told.

Nobody has disputed any of the significant details in this book, not even Trump, besides a blanket condemnation saying that it's fake news.

Trump knows that I've treated him fairly.

Trump knows that he praised my last book.

"Front Row at the Trump Show" is one of the few books that he felt treated him fairly.

I don't take sides.

I don't take sides.

That's not a journalist's job.

And when I covered the Obama White House, there were many Obama officials who thought that I was too tough on Barack Obama.

It's not a matter of being too tough or too easy.

It's a matter of following the facts, and that's what I did.

I think it's really important here because there's a real effort to try to change the history of what happened.

And I document very extensively everything I'm talking about in this book.

- And by the way, the other reason you should read this is there's a story, one of the stories in "Betrayal" that I was moved by is the Tulsa, (sighs) the Tulsa rally that the president insisted on having that did not have a lot of people there, mostly 'cause they were afraid of COVID, and people got sick at that rally.

It was one of the first rallies that was held indoors.

People got sick, really sick, including Secret Service people and supporters of the President and staff of the President.

And according to Jonathan Karl and sources, direct sources, the biggest beef the President had was that there weren't a lot of people at the rally and it made him look bad- - He was enraged.

I mean, this is a guy that can draw a crowd.

I mean, whatever you want to say about Donald Trump.

- Yes.

- It's one of the most impressive mass movements of our time, the phenomenon of the Trump rally.

People lining up for hours during the campaign in ice-cold conditions, in blazing heat.

I mean, nothing stops them, but- - But he was told by health officials in Oklahoma not to have the rally, it was dangerous.

The timing was wrong and he said, "I'm having it."

- Yeah, the timing was wrong and there was a lot of fear and was the first major event, really in the world after the lockdown, certainly in the United States.

And it was indoors, and Trump was just absolutely enraged that there were empty seats, and there were a lot of empty seats.

- Did he fire the organizer of the event?

- And there were because he can grab a crowd.

People were fearful.

And as it turned out, one of his own campaign staffers, I report for the first time in the book, became so sick- - Very sick.

- After that rally that they were hospitalized in Tulsa and the staffer believed he was going to die, but spent several days in the hospital in Tulsa left behind long after the rally was over.

- Did the President reach out for him?

- No, not that I know of.

- Okay.

And by the way, according to Chris Christie, the President asked him, President Trump asked him one compelling question.

when Chris Christie was in the ICU in a hospital here in New Jersey, quote, "You're not gonna tell anyone that you got COVID from me."

And Christie had no idea.

Christie will talk for himself, but he had no idea when he was asking that.

Real quick in spite of everything you said, in light of everything you said, Trump 2024, realistic?

- I don't think he's gonna run.

No, I don't think he- - You know him better than most.

- I don't think he's gonna run.

I think that he doesn't want to face the possibility of losing again.

He still believes- - What about if he just says it was a fake election, they stole it.

He can say that anytime.

- Well, I think he'll spend his time talking about how the last one was fake.

I don't think he wants to go through and do that again.

I may be wrong.

and I will say that people around him, many of them say he is going to run, but I just, I don't see it happening.

He's announced he's selling the Trump International Hotel on Pennsylvania Avenue just down the road from the White House.

I think if he truly thought he was coming back to Washington, he would want to still have that hotel.

I don't think he's gonna go through with it.

That said, he's gonna wanna make us believe he is because that makes everybody pay more attention.

So I don't know at what point he finally pulls the plug and says he's not running, but I don't believe that he will be a candidate in 2024.

- Hey, Jonathan, I really, on behalf of everyone in the Public Television family, I can't thank you enough for taking the time to not just break down the book but talk about the implications of your reporting here and the contents of this book.

And again, it's not even a question whether people agree or disagree.

There are sources and they're solid sources.

And many of them are people who are supporters of Donald Trump, not enemies of the people.

- Many of them are on the record in this book, on the record 'cause I really made an effort not just to have anonymous sources, but put your name to this stuff.

So, you know, thank you.

Thank you, Steve.

- "Betrayal," Jonathan Karl's book, "The Final Act of the Trump Show."

All the best to your family over the holiday season into the New Year and to your colleagues at ABC.

Thank you, Jonathan.

- Thank you, appreciate it.

- I'm Steve Adubato.

Way more importantly, that's Jonathan Karl.

Thanks for watching.

We'll see you next time.

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