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Jonathan Karl
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Jonathan Karl
ABC News
Jonathan Karl is the chief Washington correspondent for ABC News and co-anchor of This Week with George Stephanopoulos. He is the author of multiple books, including Betrayal: The Final Act of the Trump Show and Tired of Winning: Donald Trump and the End of the Grand Old Party.
The following interview was conducted by the Kirk Documentary Group’s Mike Wiser for FRONTLINE on March 7, 2024, prior to Joe Biden’s withdrawal from the presidential race. It has been edited for clarity and length.
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Building the Trump Brand
So I'll start with talking to you about Donald Trump and how you understand him.And I know you run into him first, I think, in 1994, for the first time.I mean, who is Donald Trump at that point when you first run into him?
Well, he's the ultimate showman.Or, you could say, huckster.I mean, he was a guy who was all promotion, all promoting Trump, the Trump brand, his name, his brand, his business; his very being all wound up in the same thing.And that is Trump: I'm the greatest.I'm the guy that is the master of business, the master of New York real estate.And you know, there's some magnetism to that.There's some charisma.He's kind of interesting.You can kind of– you can make fun of it because it's a non-stop promotional reel.But it's who he is.Everything has always been all about Trump.
And how important, you were in the press, how important was the press to him and how did he relate to the press in those days?
I don't know if we've ever quite had a public figure that has courted the press, fought with the press, but courted the press, as aggressively as Donald Trump has over the course of his life.I mean, I first met him when I was a very young reporter at the <i>New York Post</i>.And I mean, I was just like, you know, barely out of college and he was Donald Trump.I mean, his name was on the buildings.And I got to the point where I could just call him up on a slow news day and never—I mean, almost instantly get through to him.And he would be willing to engage.He loved seeing his name in print.And I was at the <i>New York Post</i>, which I think at the time was probably his favorite newspaper.So he was always game to talk to this young, nobody reporter at the <i>New York Post</i>.
I mean, I guess the question we're trying to figure out is like, where does that come from?Where do the other parts of him come from?Is there anything when you look at his past of growing up in Queens and his dad, the empire that he inherited, that stands out to you as key to understanding who he would become?
I think it's all—I think throughout it all, there's this sense of the suspicion that people weren't taking him seriously, that he had, you know, he was the guy from Queens, he wasn't the guy from Manhattan.You know, he was in the shadow of his father.And to respond to that, he just built this persona that he was the biggest, the greatest, the most successful, even when he just flat wasn't.I mean, he even kept that going when he was going through all his bankruptcies.I mean, he's a guy that went through, depending on how you count it, six different bankruptcies.1
1
NBC News: Trump Bankruptcy Math Doesn't Add Up
But throughout it all, he always kept up the appearance of being, you know, Mr. I Can Do Everything—the richest, the greatest, the best—at a time when he was barely staying afloat.
It's interesting you mention that because one thing some people say about Donald Trump is like when he goes into Manhattan, maybe he's looking for some sort of elite acceptance in Manhattan and that he never gets it.I mean, is that true?I mean, you knew him in the '90s.Do you think he was searching or maybe in the '80s had been looking for some kind of acceptance that he didn't get?
I think he's been, throughout his life, looking for acceptance and looking to be something that he wasn't.I mean, this is why he was so obsessively focused on the Forbes list of the richest.He was, you know—he wasn't the richest guy in New York by a long shot, the richest person in the country, the world.But he wanted to portray himself as such because I think there was always a sense that he knew, I mean, he knew as well as anybody, that there were a lot of developers, just in his own city, who had projects that were much bigger than his, who had, you know, portfolios that were much more valuable than his, who were much more successful than he was.But he wanted to create this persona, not just that he was in that league, but that he was better than them all.
Trump’s Appeal to Working Class Americans
The other thing that's interesting about him is, he's a millionaire.He's Donald Trump.He's, you know, this elite in America.When he becomes a politician, his appeal is largely to working class Americans.I mean, when you knew him, even back in those days could you see that in Trump, some clue that helps us make sense of that?
I mean, as I—I have a photo standing with him in Trump Tower when I had gone and done a story and he'd given me a tour of Trump Tower and he asked me, Hey, do you want a photo?A photo of what?He meant, like, a photo of the two of us.And I look at that and I think back at that moment, I mean, I was doing it kind of on a lark.I wanted to talk to him about his great building, and at the time Michael Jackson and Lisa Marie Presley were staying there just after they got married.And, you know, to me it was just kind of a, you know, a not-very-significant story, but kind of a fun story.
I never in a million years would have thought that he would be anything in politics, let alone president of the United States.And the weird thing about it is, he ended up being president of the United States at the very time when I was the president of the White House Correspondents' Association and covering him.
But no, I never, I never really saw him in that kind of a serious light.It was always, you know, Trump—there was obviously always a dark side, but it was fun.He was the guy that was over excessive about everything—all the gold, the big name everywhere.But no, to go in and sit in the same Oval Office as FDR [Franklin D. Roosevelt] and Ronald Reagan? No. No.
And the blue collar billionaire persona.Did you see hints of that back then?
It's one of the bizarre things about this whole story, is that he's this ostentatiously wealthy, pretending to be more wealthy than he is, but ostentatiously wealthy guy who has reached out and connected with working class people all over the country.He's the New Yorker who connects with the people in the heartland.
It's because that story he tells about himself as being the most successful guy ever, I think the root of that appeal to those people was he came out and he said: Yeah, I am the biggest, the richest and everybody, and most politicians, they try to pretend that they're just, you know, poor working stiffs.I mean, they're actually pretty rich, too.But I'm not going to pretend anything.I am the richest guy, and I'm going to do for you and for America what I've done for myself.
And there was a base appeal to that: I'm going to go and hire the biggest and most killer negotiators who helped me get so rich, and I'm going to allow them to do it for the country.This was the basis of Donald Trump, Trump's appeal.
Because how many politicians have we covered over the years who try to do, like, I'm just like you; let's go to the supermarket.And you know, remember, George H.W. Bush marveling at the scanner in the supermarket because he hadn't really been in a supermarket very often.But they try to, like, pretend, you know: I've got problems just like you.They try to hide their wealth.They try to hide the special access they have.They try to—but Trump threw it all out there.And it was, I think it was central to his appeal as he was first running for president in 2015/2016.
I mean, it's so interesting, too that he projects himself in that period.He's seen as like the self-made guy, the American dream.I mean, he comes from a family with so much money, but he somehow he comes to be a symbol of, you know, you may not have it, but it's possible.
Yeah.I mean, look, so much of the story is a complete fraud.I mean, he inherited money from his father.He inherited the business from his father.His empire was leveraged, built on debt.He avoided paying taxes.I mean, all of that.But what he portrays: Look, I'm the guy that literally is going around in a helicopter with my name on it.I've got my own airplane.And I'm–that's how rich I am.Look at all the gold everywhere.And I'm not going to hide that.I'm going to do for the country what I did for myself.
And yes, part of it was the self-made man.I don't think that was the real basis of it.It was like: I am a genius.I am a rich, crazy guy.And I screw people over all the time on the behalf of my company, you know.And the stories about Trump obviously stiffing contractors, not paying his bills are legendary.And he didn't even really hide from that because the message was: Now I'm going to do all that on behalf of the country.
Trump’s Business Practices
I mean, you mentioned his life story and fraud and a court in New York has found him and the Trump Organization liable for fraud.You mentioned in one of your books about an incident where he constructs a--earth movers to help convince a bank to invest, and you wrote: That might sound like fraud to some, but to Trump, he was boasting about that, about that story.I mean, when you look back at that period and knowing what we know now, which is this liability for fraud, how did Trump approach what appears to be fraud, but the court thought was fraud, his business dealings, you know, his shame, or lack thereof, about how he operated?2
Look, for Trump, the truth is kind of irrelevant; I don't think that it matters.He just wants to do, say whatever, as he often says, sounds better, what is better.Trump, when you're in Trump's presence, he wants to make you seem even more important than you are, like, this is the greatest guy.Like, he would say to me, with other people: This is the great Jonathan Karl of ABC News.You know, just after he had been complaining viciously about something I had done.But he wants to build everything up because it makes him seem bigger and more important than he is.
But yeah, I mean the—he, in an old interview with Barbara Walters, was outright bragging about fooling banks that were investing in his projects to give the impression that a project was under way when it wasn't.I think he found a way to be a little more careful when he was under oath and he was giving depositions.This is a guy that has given more depositions, has testified under oath probably more than just about anybody in public life.And he manages to kind of walk a line and not be, up until now, you know, not be guilty of perjury.But when he's not under oath, I mean, the truth is—the truth is just irrelevant, absolutely irrelevant.
He walked around Trump Tower with me to show me how amazing and wonderful the place was.And I was thinking about that as I'm seeing this civil fraud trial go underway, where exaggerating Trump Tower is central to the case.You know, he claimed his apartment was 33,000 square feet.It was about a third of that.
Even the number of floors in Trump Tower is essentially a fraud.He skips, from the lower floors, he skips a bunch of numbers so that the top floor looks higher than it actually is.I mean, the building is the building; the building is, the height of the building is the height of the building.But it has more floors than any other building of the same height because he basically cheated.You go in the elevator.You can't go to the 7th, 8th, 9th, or 10th floor because they don't exist.
Trump Doesn’t Lose
I mean, is that a quirk in Trump that believes that the rules don't apply to him, or is it a part of his method?Because the reason I asked is we've been looking at all these moments in his life, from <i>Access Hollywood</i>, to the impeachments, to the bankruptcies, where he just comes through and he seems unstoppable.And is that part of this idea that the rules don't apply a part of a method or is it just who he is?
I think the idea that the rules don't apply to him is actually part of Trump's method.It's how he has portrayed himself.He has portrayed himself as something that he is not.I mean, he has portrayed himself as the greatest successful business guy at times when he was actually a failure.And he's never been anywhere near as rich as he has pretended to be.
Even to the point of the election.So Trump cannot acknowledge that he has lost the election in 2020 because his entire political career and much of his business career is built on being somebody who doesn't lose.And how does he do that?It's by operating in a way where the rules just don't apply to him.
He doesn't pay his contractors.He doesn't need to go by the same rules when counting votes.I mean, he came out on election night and declared himself a winner, obviously, in 2020, when there was absolutely—he wasn't.I mean, we didn't know who the winner was, but that didn't matter.He blew past all of the rules.
As president, he did this repeatedly.The norms, the rules that had constrained presidents of both parties since the dawn of the Republic, as far as Trump was concerned, whatever.He didn't have any regard for them.
And when you meet him in '94, it's not that long after the bankruptcies, after everything has seemed to crash down.I mean, how important was this method to surviving that crisis, to cementing an approach to who Donald Trump would become?
Donald Trump has written many books, <i>Art of the Deal</i> most famously.He also wrote one called <i>The Art of the Comeback</i>.But it's actually the one he never talks about and sort of pretends doesn't exist because he did have a comeback from those bankruptcies.And we can talk about how that happened.He did have a comeback from those bankruptcies, but now wants to pretend that they never happened, that it's been one total non—the comeback story doesn't exist to Donald Trump.I mean, it's one of the most American stories—you lose and you come back, which could have been part of his political story: Losing in 2020 and then I'm going to, you know, go back.But no, he has to pretend he didn't lose.Because he doesn't believe in the comeback story.He's created this whole image, again, it is not just politics, it's his business, which is that he never loses on anything.He is, you know, he is a guy that everything he touches turns to gold.Which has never, ever been true.
I mean, how did he come back, then?Because some people have said, well, the way he came back was by pretending he had never gone away and his brand mattered.And you know, that that was part of the comeback.How do you think he came back then?
One of the bankers who was with Trump during this period of his bankruptcies much later told me that the bank basically faced a situation where they had to decide whether or not to cut off Trump's personal line of credit because there was so little liquidity.And they realized that the only thing that he really had of value that wasn't entirely leveraged was his name and his image.So they had to keep up the personal line of credit so he could continue to be the guy that's riding around in limos, flying around on, you know, private jets, who was the—you know, he could keep up the image of being a super rich guy, even when he had no money at all.
So part of how he came back was to—was, very basically, pretending that he didn't have any problems in the first place.Now, obviously, he had to go through the actual bankruptcies with his casinos and everything else.But he, throughout those bankruptcies, he actually had the people that he owed money to continue to give him money to keep up the appearances of being super wealthy.Because that's all he had, was the appearance of being a successful rich guy.
Do the people you know, the people in the media look back now at that period and see it differently, the, you know, that it seemed like fun to be getting scoops like this from Trump?Are there regrets of how he was covered back then?
You know, I look back in doing that story back in 1994 about Trump Tower and, like, it was a fun story; we put it on the cover.We told all these stories.He was an easily accessible source and good copy.But yeah, you look at it, you look back at it differently and you realize that it's this kind of endless self-promotion, only vaguely tied to the truth.I didn't realize how—I was a young reporter; I didn't realize how little the truth mattered to him, frankly.
But I think you have to look back at those days and say, my God, look where he is now.And when you're lying or exaggerating how wonderful Trump Tower is, it doesn't really matter, or it doesn't seem to matter.But when you're lying, exaggerating, outright making stuff up about the basic tenets of our democracy, obviously the stakes are entirely different.
The Apprentice
The guy you knew, do you think he changed as you're watching him on <i>The Apprentice</i>, on reality TV?Was he the same guy?Was there something about that that gave him new tools or would help him for his political career?
<i>The Apprentice</i> was obviously a breakthrough moment, but that personality, that persona was something that he had before that show started.I think that show just kind of captured a bit.And that was a perfect show because it was all fake, you know.And by the way, the boardroom that they used for <i>Celebrity Apprentice</i> became the office for the Trump Campaign in 2016.When I visited there in late 2015, the boardroom was still there.It was just kind of like, you know—and it's all, of course, it's all fake.You know, the door that they go out after they've been fired goes to nowhere.I mean, obviously it's a TV set and it was only used for that purpose; it wasn't an actual Trump Organization boardroom.It was a TV set in Trump Tower.
And it's just interesting that it was there, kind of, you know, in mothballs, while the Trump campaign was starting.And then as the Trump campaign expanded, you know, they moved the stuff out and it became the offices of the Trump campaign.But all built on a fiction.
What Draws Trump to Politics?
So one of the big questions we have had with both of the candidates, we're trying to figure out, but with Donald Trump right now, is what draws them to politics?Because talk starts in the early '80s and in '87 he visits New Hampshire.And in 2000, he has his thing with the Reform Party.I mean, what do you think is the attraction for somebody who has had success, at least in the branding and celebrity world, to get into politics?
Usually what draws people to politics is power.I don't think that's actually the case with Donald Trump.I think that he was drawn to politics for an opportunity to prove himself to be a great winner and to get attention for himself.I don't think he actually cared about power, per se.I think he actually had very little interest, after four years of covering his White House, virtually every day, he had very little interest in the actual mechanics of governing or exercising power, except as exercising that power would bring attention to himself.
So he loved the big moments.I mean, Kim Jong Un?Those summits?They didn't resolve the North Korean issue at all.North Korea had more of a nuclear arsenal after it was over than they did before.But those were huge moments on the world stage, maybe some of the biggest moments in the history of the presidency in the television era, seeing, you know, Trump side by side with Kim Jong Un walking into North Korea and then walking back out.I mean, it was never about the substance of arms control.It was about the moment on the world stage.
So why did Trump get into politics?I think it was the biggest stage in the world, the race for the presidency.
There was a very interesting interview–Trump had an interview in 1987 with Barbara Walters where she asked, she was trying to get him to say whether he would run for president because he had just made a trip to New Hampshire.And he was saying, eh, you know, not really, not really.And then she says, What if they would just make you president and you didn't have to go through the campaign, would you want that?It seems like an easy answer.Well, yeah, give me the presidency.But Trump says, No, I wouldn't want that because, I think, to me, what's most exciting is the fight, you know, is—and I think that's true.I think the campaign energized him much more than actually being president.I think that may be the same place right now, although obviously it's complicated now because you have this question of, you're going to the White House, or maybe you're going to prison.
But yeah, that's answering your, what brought him in?It is the, it was the attention.It was the fight.It was—I don't think he actually thought he could win, but he was always going to pretend that he was going to win, that he had won.
Yeah, that's really interesting, the idea that it's the attention.I mean, and the other part of it is, how is it that he frames himself and presents himself, right.And you can go back to '87 and he says some of the same things about NATO and about trade.And he has the Central Park Five.Where is he getting, you know, especially with like Central Park Five, do you have a sense of what it is that's in his background or why he's attracted to a pretty contentious racial issue in that case?
I think that likely goes back to the experience in watching his father.Look, I think that Trump has been—well, let me let me put it this way.I mean, Steve Bannon is, of course, former chief strategist, has said he's Archie Bunker.He's Bunker.And I think there's a lot to that.Now, Archie Bunker, who was a total racist, fictional character obviously, lived in a small house in Queens.Trump lived in a big, you know, tower in Manhattan.But the personality, the view of the world, I think that's actually a pretty keen insight.And it wasn't coming from an enemy of Donald Trump; it was coming from a guy who helped to get him elected president.
Birtherism and Other Conspiracy Theories
… What do you think it was about the birther conspiracy theory that Trump, you know, decided to grab onto even as he's a reality TV star?
It may come back to this idea as Trump as Bunker, as Archie Bunker.I mean, he's—It's remarkable, the number of, like, blatantly racist causes that he has championed.And how prone he is to, if not believing—and there's a debate whether or not he believes some of this stuff, or whether he just uses it—but promoting crazy conspiracies.I mean, it was really a foreshadowing of what would come after the election when he was pursuing and spouting, I mean, some of the absolute craziest conspiracies about, you know, foreign governments using spy satellites to overturn—you know, to connect with voting machines, to change Biden—you know, Trump votes to Biden votes.
These are crazy conspiracies.And Trump was actively promoting them and asking, as the president of the United States, asking to use—ordering the Department of Justice, the Department of Defense, the intelligence agencies to pursue this stuff, conspiracy theories.
And you know, the birther thing is, I mean, there was never any evidence, obviously, for it at all.I interviewed Trump in 2013.I think it was the first television interview of the 2016 cycle.And I asked him about the birther stuff.He had moved on, theoretically, but he engaged me.He's like, he said, I couldn't prove that Obama's birth certificate was real.Was that really his birth certificate?I mean, he still, after it's all done, he's still clinging to it.
Now, eventually, when you got into the actual presidential campaign, he was convinced that it was hurting him and he very quickly dismissed it.But he's never really dismissed it.I mean, it was like he held one ridiculous event at Trump Tower, where he said, I'm not going to be talking about it anymore, suggesting that he no longer was questioning Obama's birth.But I mean, he was basically forced to do that when he was convinced that his promotion of that conspiracy theory had hurt his campaign.
I mean, should we have taken it back then in the birther thing, his attachment to conspiracy theories, to going on Alex Jones, more seriously, as part of who he was as a politician and potential leader?
I think one of the reasons why none of that stuff was taken very seriously is nobody really thought he had a political future.You know, when Trump first started talking about running for president, before he even announced he was doing so, the perception, widely held, was that he was just doing it to get attention for <i>The Apprentice</i>, that it was just a way to promote his television show, and that he was never actually going to run.And if he did, if he was going to run, he was never going to do it seriously; it was just to promote his television show and his business.And if he did take it seriously, it was never going to go anywhere because he's Donald Trump and nobody's going to vote, you know, I mean, come on, he's not going to—he's not going to get elected.
So I think that there was a very long period where Trump is building more and more support and becoming more and more formidable, where he's not taken seriously.As a result, he gets away with a lot of this stuff.
There's a group called American Bridge, which is a Democratic interest group that had gone through, in 2016, in the lead-up to 2016, and created an opposition book of all the negative things of all the various potential Republican presidential candidates were.And it was a, there were like something like 16 or 17 candidates they went through and had all the negative, you know, what was wrong with each of them.I still have a copy of the book because it's an artifact, because Donald Trump is not in the book.I mean, not even, like, the leading Democratic, you know, opposition research group for the presidential race took Donald Trump seriously enough to do opposition research on him.
The Access Hollywood Tape
And yet, he finds himself in the election.You talked about Rudy Giuliani during the <i>Access Hollywood</i> moment.It's one of a number of moments.We keep coming back to this idea, like this guy is unstoppable, for whatever reason, and we're trying to figure out what that reason is.And that's one of the moments where it seems like he's going to be stopped and the people around him think he's done for and that he should get out.But he doesn't stop.What was it about Trump in a moment like that?How does he survive something like that?What is it about him?
Trump learned a lesson from the <i>Access Hollywood</i> situation, and it wasn't the lesson you might think.He initially comes out and expresses sort of a degree of regret and remorse.And then he blows past that and goes on the offensive.And that's when you have that debate, that final debate with Hillary Clinton, and he invites the women over the years who have accused Bill Clinton of sexual assault, sexual harassment, and highlights them, and shows absolutely no restraint.
And the lesson is that if you admit anything, if you do anything that even remotely resembles an apology, it doesn't work.But if you go and you just fight back and you fight through it and you, like, pretend you've never done wrong, and it's the other people that have actually done the horrible things, your opponents that have done everything wrong, that's what works.Because he wins.He wins at a point when all the, you know, the top Republicans think he's done.I mean, Speaker [Paul] Ryan writes him off, Reince Priebus, the chief of staff—I mean, the chairman of the RNC effectively writes him off.
And Trump goes in and just starts firing back: It's not me that did something wrong; it's those other people; it's my opponents that did something wrong.And he wins.
Just one little thing, because what you said is fascinating, this idea of Donald Trump, who doesn't have regrets, has some regret about—I think it's that moment they call the hostage video.I mean, what is it that he regrets about that, this guy who doesn't have regret.When he sees that, what does he see that he doesn't want to do again?
I think the only thing that Donald Trump regrets or regretted, even in the immediate aftermath of <i>Access Hollywood</i>, was that he made that video in the first place, giving the impression that he had said something wrong and he was somewhat apologetic about it.He just thought that he looked weak in that moment and that he was acknowledging a weakness, which Trump can never do.
He's the guy who doesn't lose.He's the guy that doesn't go bankrupt.He's the guy that doesn't have any missteps.Of course, that's all false.He's been bankrupt six times, lost a presidential election, on and on and on.But he believes that weakness begets weakness.
Trump said to a biographer the year before he announced he was running for president that, You can't lose because you appear to be a loser, and then people won't follow you.It's this very simplistic thing, but it's like his—I mean, that is the motto of Trump's life: You cannot lose; by extension, you cannot be weak or appear weak.Otherwise, people won't follow you.
And he's got these fervent followers with the red hats.He says, you know, “They would love me even if I shot somebody on Fifth Avenue.”But what he doesn't say, but what he's thinking, is, “They would still follow me if I shot somebody on Fifth Avenue, but they might not follow me if they see me as a loser.”Which is why he can never admit he has lost.
Trump is Briefed on Russian Election Interference
Right before he goes to the presidency, it's actually January 6th, but it's 2017, the DNI—
Oh, my God, yes, yeah.
—briefing.They go to Trump Tower with the dossier.How important do you think that was in shaping how Donald Trump would go into the presidency, the talk of Russia, the talk of the dossier?
Trump is a believer in conspiracy theories, and conspiracy theories are all, at some level, often rooted in a sense of paranoia.So Trump is the president-elect, and he's getting briefed by the—this is his kind of crowning moment, you know, that they're briefing him on the threats to the nation; he's got access to all the intelligence.But they pull them aside and tell him about the Steele dossier.And I think that it crystallized in his mind that these people that were coming in were against him in some way.
He hadn't started talking about or using the phrase "deep state" yet, but I think that it's—I think it's a moment where he is a bit worried, you know, about where this is going to go, and feels that he has to push these people out.
A lot of people in the intelligence community were genuinely worried about Trump becoming president, and were genuinely worried that there was—that he had ties to Vladimir Putin and the Russian government, that the Russians, that Putin did make an effort to interfere in the election, as they found, as the intelligence community concluded.And that the interference was designed to get Donald Trump elected president.And that there was a reason for that.They thought that he would be easy, he'd be friendlier to Russia, that he would be easier to manipulate.But Trump senses this, senses that these people who are now his intelligence, or about to become his intelligence community are really, in a way, out to get him.
And then it leaks, and when it leaks, I guess, you know, even just the talk of Russia in some way also goes to what you're saying, which is like, is he a winner, did he win the election?
Yeah, I mean, this gets at the core question of, did Trump really win?I mean, the suggestion is, Trump only won because—I mean, this is not the conclusion of the intelligence community, but it's the impression, well, the Russians interfered, that's why Donald Trump won.So he didn't win on his own.It was a victory for Vladimir Putin, not for Donald Trump.And he has to push back aggressively.
And you know, Trump repeats things over and over and over and over and over and over again.It's how he gets people to, you know, I think, one way he gets people to believe things that just aren't true.But there have been very few things that he has repeated more frequently than the idea that the Russia investigation was a hoax—the Russia hoax, Russia, Russia, Russia.
Well, it's not a hoax.I mean, it's very well-established that Russia interfered in the 2016 election.It's also well-established that there were people in Trump's orbit that were very welcoming of the idea of Russian help.3The thing that was never established, to be provable in a court of law was that there was actual collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russian government.But there's a lot to this notion that the Russians wanted Trump elected president.And there's a lot to the idea that in many ways they got exactly what they wanted, which was a president who was much more friendly towards Russia than they would have gotten if Trump had lost.4
3
The Washington Post: The truth about Russia, Trump and the 2016 election
4
Trump’s Relationship with the Press During his Presidency
The other part of it, his approach to the press, I mean, he has a press conference at Trump Tower a few days after that, after the dossier leak.
Yeah, I was there.
I'd like you to tell me about it.I mean, it’s so combative.And the question is, does it set a tone for what his approach is going to be throughout his presidency, this guy who had sort of flattered you and welcomed you before.I mean, tell me about that press conference and whether it was a signal of the approach Trump was going to take.
That press conference in Trump Tower in early January of 2017 with Donald Trump as the president-elect was one of the—I mean, it was the most raucous, bizarre scenes I've ever seen in terms of a president or a president-elect press conference.I mean, it was just nuts.
First of all, Trump Tower is a public place.So anybody can go in there.By law, it has to be open to the public.So, I mean, it was, there were all kinds of people in the lobby, all kinds of news organizations, so-called news organizations, people I'd never seen before covering a political campaign were there, jammed in.And so it was loud.There was a cacophony of noise, and you know, people running around.
Trump comes in and he—that set the tone, that's what he wants.He wants the press to look like a bunch of, you know, hyenas out there just like out of control, screaming questions.He takes, he takes a bunch of questions and he does battle with the press.
Now, we know, I know, because I've known him for a long time, he actually loves to engage with the press and he's more likely—a reporter that was actually covering that campaign who had any access to him knows that you were more likely to get through to Donald Trump than any other major presidential campaign.I mean, there were times during the campaign when he called my cell phone because he had read something that was like, whatever, just like cold-called.That's not particularly normal during the course, you know, for the candidate to be kind of cold-calling reporters.
He's very accessible.He likes to engage the press.He likes to try to use the press.But the most powerful way to use the press is to fight with the press and to show his people that he's beating up against these, you know—he hadn't really started using the fake news thing as much as he would later.
But you know, we're fighting with the liberal media, the media, because—I mean, look, politicians have been vilifying the media forever, but Trump turns it into almost like a WWE kind of thing.This is brawl time.It's not a press conference, it's brawl time.That was the feeling that you had at that press conference.
And adding to the chaos around it is just the surroundings.It's in the lobby of Trump Tower, which is just not a very controlled place.
I mean, was it a signal for how he was going to deal with the press in his presidency?Do you think it was a change from before?
Trump had battled with the press throughout the campaign.That wasn't new.But now he was the president-elect and the stakes and the stays were just so much higher that this would set the tone for what we would see, frankly, in his first press conference inside the White House.Now that one was in the East Room of the White House, the grandeur of being at the White House, it's not in the lobby of Trump Tower.But it was very much the same thing—it's time to do battle with the press.
Did you feel like you're being used?
As a reporter covering the Trump White House, I think you always had to be on guard and have a sense that they were trying to use you.And one of the things that I was always worried about was that they would—somebody in the White House would pass some information on to me that was false, knowing that it was false, and that I would report it, and then they would come out and say, "Ha, they have no credibility to their report."Because there was, all of the regular rules were broken with how a White House deals with the press.You know, it was just, it was just chaos.Fighting with, vilifying, freely dispensing with information that was false.It was just an entirely different–
Keep in mind, I had been covering the Obama White House for a good four-plus years before Trump came in.I mean, the contrast was—the Obama White House liked to complain about press coverage quite a bit, no doubt.But there was a certain, you know, there was decorum, there were certain rules that were abided by, and the Trump White House was just entirely different.
When you go back to that press conference in Trump Tower, the circus-like atmosphere was what he brought into the White House.It wasn't really new for Trump.I mean, Trump did battle with the press during the course of the campaign, but it was something entirely different for a White House press corps.And there was talk by some of his advisors—Sean Spicer, Steve Bannon—wanted to move the press out of the West Wing of the White House to a location off White House grounds.Trump never wanted that.He liked the fact that the press was there around him, penned into a, you know, smaller area, and the attention was so intense.He wanted everybody there so that it would look crowded, loud and chaotic, and he was the powerful one just kind of there.You know.
Trump’s Response to Charlottesville
How important is his response to Charlottesville?
Trump's response to Charlottesville, I think, is a very key moment in his presidency.And you had a similar situation with <i>Access Hollywood</i>, where, actually, forgotten by almost everybody because of what happened later, Trump gave an initial response to Charlottesville, which did condemn the hatred and the racism and the anti-Semitism.And it was very flat; he read it on teleprompter, and the minute he read it he regretted, he regretted it.And he yelled at John Kelly, who was his brand new chief of staff, I'm never doing something like that again.And it was following that, in Trump Tower, where he famously said "very fine people on both sides" and showed total defiance.
It was another step in this process of Trump moving further and further away from the idea that there would be any constraints on his behavior and on what he said.You know, Trump is faced with this situation where you literally have people marching at the University of Virginia with torches saying, “Jews will not replace us.”I mean, you literally have people protesting in Nazi garb.It's, and it's at the University of Virginia.It's at Thomas Jefferson's University of Virginia.It's the easiest thing in the world to condemn.I mean, this is horrific.And not to mention a counter-protester gets killed.So it's a deadly racist, violently anti-Semitic display.And Trump doesn't have it within himself to really condemn it.
And I mean, that will forever be a stain on his presidency, and was very revealing about who he is and how he operates.
Trump’s Final Year in Office
So that goes to what my next question was going to be, which was the talk at the beginning of the presidency, that grown-ups will be in the room, will constrain him.Does he learn?Does he change over those four years in regards to who he surrounds himself, the advisors, his ability to be constrained by the establishment Republicans, by others?Is there a change during his presidency?
Throughout Trump's presidency, there are the so-called grown-ups in the room, who see it as their role to try to prevent him from doing damage both himself politically and to the country.Rein him in.Do it subtly.Try to yes him to death and then not, do what he says.That's a theme throughout the first three years, but where it changes is the beginning of 2020.And that's when Johnny McEntee comes in, his, you know, loyal aide who had been kind of carrying his bags, the so-called body man for the president and the ultimate loyalist to Trump, who gets the job as being the head of presidential personnel.And goes about trying to root out from the administration anybody who would be the so-called adult in the room, anybody that is insufficiently loyal to Trump.
So there is a big change, but it doesn't really happen until that final year of the Trump presidency.John Kelly is gone.Obviously his cabinet is very different.[Former Secretary of Defense] Jim Mattis is gone.Rex Tillerson is gone out of the State Department.By the time Trump gets to his final year in office, he's got his most loyal lieutenant sweeping away anybody who would try to rein in the president.
And that, I think as much as anything, explains to you how January 6th happened and how it became so entirely unhinged after the election as Trump tried to overturn his loss.
One other place to stop, which is also perhaps related, which is a moment where maybe saying everything, that he's winning doesn't work for him, is COVID.How did the, you know, the president's life method come into conflict with a pandemic, and did it reveal something about him?
Yeah, Trump thought he could go out and kind of do the bravado of COVID.I remember at one point, he said, We need to stop testing because the only reason why we have more cases is because we keep doing the testing.But this was not a situation where you could get up and say, I've beaten COVID and COVID is done.I mean, it was still there, people were still dying.
This was not—and Trump started calling it the Invisible Enemy, which I think—COVID was a crisis, was an opponent that he couldn't just lie away, that he couldn't bullshit away.It was there, it existed.It was a disease.It had to be combated.And it didn't care what he said.
That's why I think the conversations that we learned that he was having with [journalist] Bob Woodward were so revealing because you actually see that Trump actually did have an understanding of how serious it was.5But he was pretending something entirely different when he was out in public because he thought he could treat COVID the way he had treated any other problem he had faced.
I mean and then right before the election he finds himself in the hospital.I mean, like the impact of that?
Trump gets COVID and he gets really sick.I mean, for a while he has to get oxygen.He has to get medevacked to Walter Reed, for God's sake.And you would think that experience would have somehow changed his perception of the disease and maybe even injected a little empathy into him because he could relate to, you know, how sick people had gotten.But it had no such impact whatsoever.
I mean, if you remember, when he came back to the White House, again via helicopter from Walter Reed, and you can tell he's straining because his lung capacity is down because he's just recovering from COVID.But he walks up the stairs.Trump never walks up stairs.I challenge you to find pictures of Trump walking upstairs outside of, like, going into Air Force One.It's just not something he does.But he walks up those stairs to the Truman balcony because he knows how powerful that moment is.Again, he wants to pretend that he's really never been that sick and he's stronger than ever.
And he did, it is absolutely true that he did talk to his advisers about putting a Superman shirt on underneath the dress shirt he was wearing so he could rip it open and have the big S, you know.They talked him out of that one.But he believed that COVID could be treated like anything else, just, you could kind of lie it away.
Trump Won’t Admit Defeat
We've talked a lot about the run-up already to January 6th and we can use some of those things that we've talked to you about before, some of the details of what happened.But talking about the biography that we have, what leads Donald Trump, the politician, the man, to insist that he won the election, to fight all the way to January 6th and beyond with the claim that he won the election?
At the root, January 6th, at its core, is the ultimate expression of Trump's belief that he can never acknowledge a loss.And what is remarkable about it is that it didn't end even after the disaster of January 6th, and it didn't end after he left the White House on January 20th.He actually kept pursuing an effort to overturn the election, even after he left office.This was something most people didn't pay attention to and didn't realize.But Trump came to believe that there was a way, at least he talked to people in a way that made it seem like he believed that there was a way that the fraud, that didn't exist, would be exposed and that Joe Biden would be ejected from the White House, forced to leave, and Trump would go back and reclaim what was rightfully his.
I mean, it's bonkers.You have to be entirely divorced from reality to believe such a thing.But I have gone through and documented multiple instances which demonstrate, without a shadow of a doubt, that this was something that he was aggressively pursuing for well over a year after he left the White House—the notion that the election could be overturned, still, even after all of that.
I mean, as you say, like but if you look at his life, then maybe it's not surprising in retrospect, the claims that he made.It does seem like that even the people who knew him were surprised by his actions when the January 6th committee calls what the January 6th committee calls the 187 minutes, you know, when he's getting pleas from [then-House Minority Leader] Kevin McCarthy, from his family.I mean, even they seem to be surprised that in the face of violence he doesn't do more.I mean, was that a surprising moment?What does that moment say about him?
Perhaps the darkest moments of the Trump presidency were when he was sitting in the West Wing of the White House and absolutely refusing to do anything to stop the violence, something that was horrifying to everybody around him, including his own family.I mean Ivanka, his daughter, made, you know, multiple trips down to see him to try to plead with him to do something.You know, his son, Don Jr., is texting Sean Hannity to try to get his father to do something.
Nobody is listening.I mean, he's not listening to anybody.And it's a moment of crisis.It's one of the few moments of crisis in the Trump presidency, outside of COVID, that he faced.And he is absolutely unable to do anything.He's paralyzed.He's sitting there in the dining room right off the Oval Office, watching it unfold on TV.And we now know he didn't make a single call to any law enforcement entity whatsoever.No effort to get the National Guard involved.Nothing.He doesn't speak to the speaker of the House, to the leaders in the Senate.He doesn't reach out to his own vice president who is there, the target of the mob's rage.He sits there.And he does absolutely nothing for over three hours.
I mean, it's dereliction of duty.It's the reason why some of the Republicans, the handful of Republicans who voted to impeach him, that was the moment.I talked to Tom Rice who was the conservative House member from South Carolina, and, I mean, you know, he didn't have some of the concerns that other people had about efforts to overturn the election.But when– or even think his speech was out of control at the Ellipse.But when you have a president sitting there and the Capitol is under attack and he doesn't– not only does he not do anything, he doesn't try to do anything.
And I looked back at an interview that I did with him in March of 2021, and he told me that he actually wanted to go up to the Capitol, not immediately after his speech, he said that he wanted to do that, but he also wanted to go back up after the problem had started.And then, he pauses and he says to me: And I'll tell you this—if I had gone up there, I would have been very well received.
It's this acknowledgement that those people were doing his will.He would have been very well received.He's acknowledging that he would have had the power to call them off, and he didn't.
It's amazing that he looked back on it because there's the inaction that you mentioned.There's the comments to Kevin McCarthy, you know–
There's the action of the inaction, yeah, yeah.
—maybe they want it more than you.There's the [Mike] Pence, maybe he deserves it.And then there's the action that happens after of how he views the January 6th rioters, attackers, whatever the phrase is.What does it reveal about the violence?Is he comfortable with it, does he want it?
Whether or not Trump actually wanted the violence, I mean, I think it's hard to say.But the evidence is absolutely incontrovertible that he didn't care once it started.He didn't care enough to lift a finger to do anything to stop it.So did– was that his intention?Did he literally want his supporters to break through the entrance of the Capitol, to run over police officers?I mean, you know, his conscience will have to, you know, examine that.But he expressed no concern about it.
One of the remarkable things about this is he has never expressed– forget regret or remorse or any of that.He's never expressed any level of concern or empathy, or anything.I asked him, "Were you worried about your vice president?""No, I thought he was– I heard he was very fine.""But they were chanting, Hang Mike Pence."And he says, "Well, the people were angry."I mean, there's not even a moment, just a second to take a step back and to say, "Yeah, you know, that was really unfortunate.I mean, you know, I mean, I was mad at him, too, but I don't want people to kill him."No, he doesn't, for a moment, express any level of concern about it.
Trump’s Post-Presidency
When you go down there, I mean, I mean, I think a lot of people thought he left in disgrace, twice impeached, you know, loser in the election, former president.I mean, when you go down there, is that the Trump that you find, or is he a president in exile?Who is the Donald Trump in that period after January 6th?
I visited Trump a little less than two months after he left the White House.He was still very much a pariah to many in the Republican Party.Kevin McCarthy had gone down to see him, but Kevin McCarthy had been roundly criticized for going down to see him.So you know, Trump had not reasserted his power over the party yet; he was still very much a president who had left in disgrace.The impeachment trial had just ended a month earlier.Seven Republicans in the Senate had voted to convict him in the impeachment trial, and many others, like [Sen.] Mitch McConnell, who didn't vote to impeach him, said effectively they still found him responsible for what happened and condemned his actions on January 6th.
But what I found when I got there was a guy that was already pretending that nothing bad had happened and he was still the king of the universe, the most powerful and important Republican in the land.Which, by the way, he would become again.But he wasn't at that moment.He was pretending it to be the case.And that again, getting to his method, helped him to make it be the case.
But when I go down to see him, he's talking about how every Republican who's running for office wants to come down here and get my endorsement.He said, It's like Grand Central station.They're all coming here because they want to see me.They want my support.And there were a number of Republican candidates who were going to be running in primaries who wanted Trump's endorsement, even at that point.
But for the most part, the party leaders—again, outside of McCarthy—were keeping a very much arm's length approach to him, and very few people, including McCarthy, by the way, at that point, really thought Trump was going to make a comeback.
And over those years, leading up to today, I mean, is he rebuilding himself as almost a parallel president who can tell the House of Representatives what to do on Ukraine or something else?I mean, what does he rebuild at this point where we are going into this election?
When Trump first left the White House, he was clearly in a state of some form of depression.People described to me that he, for the first week or so, he would get up and he'd go and have dinner at his club, but he would get up before the meal was done and disappear.There was at least one occasion where he went to play golf and he didn't finish the round of golf.He was angry.He was, you know, snapping at his aides and– but pretty soon, he started to create the impression that he was still the president of the United States.
He even has a desk in his office at Mar-a-Lago that is kind of modeled to look like the Resolute desk in the Oval Office.He's got the office set up in some ways to make it look and feel as if it's the Oval Office.He was trying to create the impression, and still, I think, goes around as if he is the legitimate president.
And he, the remarkable thing is he was doing this even when he was a pariah to almost everybody in the party.And he has managed to make a comeback to the point where it's largely true—he is the most powerful and influential and important Republican in the land, yet again.It's his party.
The indictments, I mean, the 91 indictments or the four cases pending against him.6
Ninety-one counts, yeah.
With Trump in the middle of running, what does it say about him?What is his response to it reveal about Donald Trump?
Trump has responded to the indictments the way he's responded to any major challenge that he's faced, and that is to go on offense.He's not, you know, there's no sense of, I might have done something wrong and I regret this and I'm looking for leniency.Forget that.It is to go on offense against those who have accused him, and to accuse those who have indicted him of acting in a way that they have accused him.So Trump–
He faces four indictments.He could acknowledge that he's made some mistakes, and he could have tried to head off these indictments, perhaps.But he's taking the exact opposite perspective, which is the way he faced– the way he operates whenever he is challenged, and that is to go on offense against those who are coming after him.
I mean, this is now the centerpiece of his campaign, his effort to get even with the very people that he says are responsible for his indictments.
Trump Seeks a Second Term
As he goes in looking for a second term, a second time looking for a second term, should we see Donald Trump differently?Will his second term be different from 2016?Is he a different person?Is his approach to the presidency going to be different?
If there is a second Trump term, in some ways it will look very much like what we saw the first time, but it will be much more so.Trump went in with absolutely no exposure to Washington, no experience whatsoever in government.Now he, if he goes in again, he will understand that there are people around him that are trying to constrain him and trying to keep him from doing what he really wants to do.Perhaps the most important office in this, inside the White House, may be the White House counsel's office.Because he had two White House counsels, Don McGahn and Pat Cipollone.White House counsel was a group of lawyers that basically tried to, you know, ensure, in Trump's case, that the law is followed.And they were forever, you know, stopping Trump from doing things, saying, "No, it doesn't work that way."It's kind of the traffic cop within the White House.
Don McGahn was the White House counsel that kept him from firing [special counsel] Robert Mueller.That's a decision Trump regrets.Pat Cipollone was the one that was trying to keep Trump from breaking the law as he was challenging the election results and the one that was trying to keep him from pressuring his vice president to overturn the election.He ends up jettisoning Pat Cipollone, but Pat Cipollone is there until the end.Almost resigned on January 6th.And if he weren't there, I don't know what those last 14 days of the Trump presidency would have looked like, I really don't.
January 6th was the end of the first Trump term.If he comes back, I think that's the starting point.It's a president that doesn't accept restraints.It's a president who believes that he is essentially above the law.It's a president who has openly said, I mean, he's actually said it, I'm going to be a dictator.He says it's on day one, just on day one.I don't know many dictators that stop being a dictator after a day.
But I really think that in some ways a second Trump term will be so much more so that it will be qualitatively different.It is a president that has proven that he can get away with it.What is going to restrain Donald Trump if, after all of this—the impeachments, the indictments, the way he has been called out by the people that served him in his White House—if he's endured all of that and he wins again, what constraints is he going to abide by?And why?Why would he?
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