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0:32

Hey,

0:32

everyone. John here, and welcome to Helen

0:34

High Water in my podcast about politics and culture

0:37

on the edge of Armageddon. It's

0:39

determined if dubious committed

0:42

if Kukui for cocoa puffs often

0:44

wrong, but rarely in doubt exercise in

0:46

elevated gas baggery. And

0:48

neither rain nor snow nor heat nor gloom

0:51

of night nor the toxic

0:53

rantings of thenut house right. A

0:55

president attempting to invalidate a legitimate election

0:57

and stage an auto coup complete with

0:59

an armed dissection of the United States capital

1:02

nor more broadly and arguably

1:04

even more disturbingly. The capture

1:06

of a decent sized chunk of our political, social,

1:08

and civic spheres by a cadre of

1:10

incoherent, insidious, conspiracy,

1:13

adult, conspiracy craving, authoritarian

1:16

worshiping lunatics, hustlers, grifters, nihilists,

1:18

and nincampups. None of it. None

1:20

of it has kept us from our

1:22

duly sworn duty and obligations.

1:25

Giving you our listeners a fresh

1:27

episode of this podcast week after

1:29

week after week after week. Maybe

1:31

not without fail because,

1:33

you know, hashtag epic fail

1:36

is one of our many models around here,

1:38

but certainly without a pause. We've

1:40

been doing that for more than two

1:42

years. Haven't had a break. All

1:45

of which is to say that

1:47

I am plumb shagged

1:50

out and desperately in need of

1:52

some R and R. And with the midterm

1:54

election now comfortably in the rear

1:56

view mirror in our democracy, amazingly,

1:59

if I will admit little unexpectedly, still

2:02

intact, it seems like a

2:04

suitable time for the Heilemann Water

2:06

home office to give itself a

2:08

fucking break. And so for the next

2:10

few weeks, that is exactly what

2:12

we are gonna do, and we'll see you back here

2:14

on the other side of the holidays. Tanned,

2:17

rested, refreshed, revitalized, and raring

2:19

to go. Ready to get

2:21

back to cranking out more tasty

2:23

content. In the meantime, Don't

2:26

despair. We're not leaving you

2:28

entirely in the lurch for these weeks.

2:31

To the contrary, every Tuesday morning,

2:33

per usual, You will find a

2:35

hopefully unfamiliar episode of

2:38

the podcast doing the backstroke in

2:40

your feed. Drop there by the

2:42

Abel AI fact totems who'll

2:44

be mining the store while we're away. And

2:46

while these episodes come

2:48

over the next few weeks, may not be fresh

2:50

or strictly speaking new, they

2:52

will be piping hot, a carefully

2:55

curated series of hell in high water golden

2:57

oldies, which those of

2:59

you who've been around from the start may remember,

3:02

I hope fondly. And those of you

3:04

who came along sometime later may never have

3:06

encountered at all. Given

3:08

our focus on politics these past few months and

3:10

our desire not to take a dump on

3:12

your mood of holiday inspired good cheer, we've

3:15

these encore presentations will avoid that topic

3:17

like the plague. And focuses dead on culture,

3:19

entertainment, technology, and such with a run of some

3:21

of our most favorite guests in those realms over

3:23

the past two years. Including this

3:25

beauty right here, which whether

3:28

or not you've heard it before, you will not

3:30

want to miss. And so with that,

3:32

we leave it to it with a hearty and heartfelt

3:35

Nice day.

3:50

Hey, 1, John Heilemann here, and welcome to

3:52

in high water, my podcast from the recount

3:54

and iHeartRadio with big ups to the one

3:56

and only Riza for our dope theme music.

3:59

We are back back in the saddle.

4:02

After a brief hiatus and we have some

4:04

badass guests lined up for the rest of

4:06

the summer and into the fall, And I

4:08

really think that you all are gonna dig picking

4:10

up what we are laying down here at High

4:12

Water. The launch ourselves back

4:14

into the fray, we are returning to

4:16

an all two familiar topic,

4:19

Donald Trump. Now, I'm

4:21

well aware that for many, if not

4:23

most, If not all

4:25

of us here in High Waterland, we

4:28

all had dearly hoped that by now

4:30

the former guy would be in our collective

4:32

rearview mirror, but Even after

4:34

being banned from social media, even

4:36

after being exiled tomorrowago, Trump

4:39

has proven it is capable And

4:41

now a veritable tidal wave of books

4:43

about Trump twenty twenty, his reelection campaign

4:45

in his final days in office, is about to

4:47

come crashing down on the reading

4:49

public. With the authors of those

4:51

books trying to surf that wave on cable news

4:53

and podcast like this one. You will

4:55

be relieved, I am certain. To

4:57

hear that I have no intention of interviewing

4:59

all of them or even many

5:01

of them or even a few of

5:03

them. But today, I am

5:05

interviewing one of them. A guy

5:07

who not only happens to hit the beach first,

5:10

but whose book is particularly valuable

5:12

both for history and the present day. Rock

5:14

Solid and its porting shocking in its news

5:16

breaks and deeply revealing about the former president's

5:18

character. The author is also a friend

5:20

and former colleague of mine. His book

5:22

is called, frankly, we did win this

5:24

election. The inside story of how

5:26

Trump lost, and his name

5:28

is Mike Bender. The state of Donald

5:30

Trump's post presidency is surprisingly

5:33

influx. 1 of the things I think this book

5:35

shows is how dangerous it was inside

5:37

the White House, how close to the

5:39

brink things really got for this country.

5:41

And Republicans in twenty

5:43

twenty one and twenty twenty two are

5:45

heading into these midterms eyes

5:47

wide open on who Donald Trump

5:49

is and what his governance style looks

5:51

like.

5:54

Michael c Bender is the senior White House

5:56

reporter for The Wall Street Journal, the

5:58

winner in twenty nineteen of the Gerald

6:00

r Ford Foundation journalism prize for

6:02

distinguished reporting on the presidency, and

6:04

in twenty twenty of the National

6:06

Press Club Award for political analysis for

6:08

a series of stories that Bender wrote on the

6:10

details and sights and sounds in inner workings of

6:12

Trump campaign rallies of which he has

6:14

been to way too many. Borne

6:16

Raising Heilemann, is a newspaper guy

6:18

and a hardcore reporter of the highest caliber

6:21

whose career has taken him from covering local and

6:23

state politics at the Grand Junction, Colorado

6:25

Daily Sentinel, Dayton Daily News, The

6:27

Palm Beach Post, and The Tampa Bay

6:29

Times, to National Politics at Bloomberg

6:31

News, and now The Wall Street Journal.

6:33

Bender and I first crossed paths at Bloomberg politics

6:35

where I was co managing editor during the

6:37

twenty sixteen presidential Heilemann Bender

6:39

with his background in Florida politics

6:42

covered the Republican front runner who

6:44

everyone in the establishment assumed would be

6:46

Hillary Clinton's inevitable opponent. Jeb

6:48

Bush, remember him? Trump, of course, made

6:50

mincemeat of Jeb and everyone else in twenty

6:52

sixteen. Bender moved on to the journal

6:54

and started covering the GOP nominee. The

6:56

president, now ex president, eventually

6:58

publishing more than eleven hundred stories

7:01

on Donald Trump over the course of five

7:03

years. Man, what an amazing

7:05

and also utterly depressing prospect.

7:07

And now, Binder has a

7:09

whole book on Donald Trump. Frankly,

7:11

we did win this election. The

7:13

former guy, as everyone knows, is back to his

7:15

rallies, back to bestowing endorsements on

7:17

mega friendly republican candidates, back to

7:19

talking to Fox News, and other arms of the right wing

7:21

propaganda machine, back to cranking

7:24

out almost as many email press

7:26

releases every day as he used to blast out

7:28

tweets. And, of course, and most

7:30

of the point, continuing to perpetuate

7:32

the big lie that the twenty twenty election

7:34

was stolen and exerting his sway

7:36

over the GOP just as profoundly and

7:38

even more perniciously than

7:40

he did when he was in the Oval Office.

7:42

All which is why Trump is still relevant

7:44

unfortunately today and why I wanted to

7:46

have Bender on the podcast to talk about

7:49

his fantastic new book which is chalk a

7:51

block with fresh reporting perspective and

7:53

insights that won't likely change many

7:55

minds about Trump, but will reinforce in

7:57

powerful ways the unique dangers he

7:59

posed to the country in

8:01

his time in the White House. My conversation

8:03

with vendor was sowing grossing that the

8:05

two of us could not stop

8:07

talking and so Not for

8:09

the first time, we've decided to turn this episode

8:11

of the podcast into a special two parter.

8:14

So after you listen to this first installment,

8:16

be sure to check back tomorrow when

8:18

we're dropping part d. Of

8:20

my exploration of twenty

8:22

twenty, January sixth, and all

8:24

things related to the forty fifth president of the United

8:26

States and parrish the thaw, the

8:28

twenty twenty four Republican front runner with

8:30

a one and only Mike Bender here

8:32

on Heilemann High Water.

8:36

This is

8:38

a fraud on the

8:40

American public. This is

8:42

an embarrassment to our country.

8:45

We were getting ready to win

8:48

this election. Frankly,

8:50

we did win this election. So

8:57

there

8:57

it is. Not only

9:00

a moment

9:01

that I think will be written about

9:04

talked about in American history

9:06

forever, but also

9:09

that gives our guest today, Mike

9:11

Bender. Hi, Mike. Again,

9:13

the title for his book. Mike Bender,

9:15

my friend, and former colleague -- Mhmm. --

9:17

the author of, frankly, we didn't win this

9:19

election, the inside story of how Trump

9:21

lost. It's great to

9:23

see you, me too. Here,

9:25

as we sit here on the brink of the bender

9:28

rollout, which of course has been -- Mhmm. --

9:30

the pre rollout has been masterfully

9:32

orchestrated. Thank you. The nuggets are

9:34

are appearing, the scoops are

9:36

popping, everyone's talking about binder.

9:38

You must be feeling great

9:41

right

9:41

now. Yeah. It feels really, really good. It's

9:43

been such a slog. I mean, everybody's

9:45

twenty twenty. Everyone's life got turned

9:47

upside down. It routines were upset. It was

9:49

hard on everybody. And so it

9:51

was mine, but it feels really good to get this

9:53

thing right on the brink as you said, out

9:55

there and the reception so far

9:57

has just been so nice. It's

9:59

really reaffirming to see, you know, my colleagues,

10:01

my peers, treating the material

10:04

the way I think it should be treated. And as

10:06

very

10:06

newsworthy, and buzzy. I'm really excited to get

10:08

this thing out and get it in front of people. Yeah.

10:11

Congratulations. The book is fantastic, and

10:13

we're gonna talk I I really wanna

10:15

start talking about what's in the book because I

10:17

know as an author, the most the most important

10:19

thing is like, you know, the scoops

10:21

in the book have been in a strategic way you

10:23

guys have been putting out for weeks. You've built

10:25

a lot of anticipation, a lot of Heilemann. But

10:27

there's been no word the bender bender

10:29

there's been a bender embargo. So this is your

10:32

first chance to just talk about the and I

10:34

want to give you a chance to talk about it right off the

10:36

bat. The book is great and you deserve

10:38

congratulations for it. But that I think maybe

10:40

the thing that you deserve the greatest congratulations for the

10:42

fact Donald Trump's trashing you on the eve of

10:44

the publication. Right? Yeah. Third rate

10:46

reporter Michael Bender. Now, I was gonna say that I

10:48

rarely agree with Donald Trump about anything,

10:50

but in my experience, third rate reporter Michael

10:52

Bender is right on the nose, kidding.

10:54

I yeah. I think it's like the

10:56

best combination you could have. The president who, for

10:58

a period of time, referred to me exclusively as

11:00

that motherfucker curve. To me, third rate

11:02

reporter Michael Bender is the greatest compliment you can get, and

11:04

we'll also juice book sales. So another piece of

11:06

good news for you. Tell everybody

11:08

What's in the

11:08

book? What did you set out to do here?

11:11

Yeah. And tell us what the book is.

11:13

So what I set out to do here is completely

11:15

different from where it ended up. I mean, I agree to do this

11:17

back in the summer of twenty nineteen where you and your

11:19

listeners will remember there was or maybe it's hard

11:21

to remember there was a period of that time where

11:23

there was kind of a

11:25

relative calm. Trump had

11:27

survived Mueller and he

11:29

hadn't called the Ukrainian president at.

11:31

Right. And I was getting home

11:33

every day at six to leave the

11:35

nanny. Right? Like, and I was

11:36

like, oh, a book. Like, I mean, I spent all of twenty

11:38

twenty writing about the campaign.

11:40

Like, that sounds very doable. And then

11:42

twenty twenty ended up being something much different.

11:44

So what this book ends up being, I

11:46

think it's gonna be unique even

11:48

in the flood of Trump books that are

11:50

coming out this year. This is gonna be the only book

11:52

that goes behind the scenes for how

11:54

Trump oversaw a series of

11:56

crises in the country in twenty twenty that

11:58

also goes behind the scenes of the

12:00

campaign infrastructure and explains how they

12:02

struggle to

12:03

respond. And thirdly, and

12:05

I think most importantly for me

12:07

is, gives twenty twenty

12:09

from the eyes of Trump's most

12:12

dedicated supporters --

12:12

Right. -- the folks who went to rally

12:15

after rally and rally and tries to

12:17

explain why even in a pandemic

12:19

and the threat of coronavirus

12:21

that they showed up time and time

12:23

again. And I think at the end of the day, what

12:25

this shows is just really how much more

12:27

dangerous it was behind the scenes than we

12:29

really thought or that we knew at the

12:31

time and how close to the

12:33

brink we got of uniform military

12:36

soldiers in the streets and,

12:38

you know, some of the campaign tactics

12:40

that Trump wanted to push on

12:43

and and ends up

12:44

giving, I think, the most complete portrait of

12:46

Putin Trump is as president. Like I said before,

12:48

these guys have been doling out a bunch of scoops.

12:50

And people have talked a lot about some

12:52

elements of them. You know, Trump having a shouting

12:54

match with Mark Milley -- Mhmm. -- around the

12:56

time in the post George Floyd period. A lot of

12:58

your reporting around that period, around

13:00

Lafayette Square. Some of that stuff is

13:02

out. One of the things Trump has mad at you

13:04

about is an account that you've given there of some tension

13:06

to fight with him and Mike Pence earlier

13:09

over Corey Lewandowski and that that gets in

13:11

then to Trump's relationship with Pence. At the end

13:13

when he was pressing Pence to do something he

13:15

was constitutional and unable to do, which was to

13:17

overturn the election. You know, when you think

13:19

about not just things that are

13:21

busy. Mhmm. But when you think about

13:23

what the scoops in the book are

13:25

that you think with the

13:27

passage of time are things that have the greatest,

13:29

both historical import. Like,

13:31

the scoops that matter -- Yeah. -- and

13:33

either that matter to how history will look

13:35

on Trump or that are super

13:37

illuminating about

13:38

Trump. Mhmm. Things where it's like, this is

13:41

a story that's not only new,

13:43

but illuminates something about Trump

13:45

that's really essential. I think the

13:47

historical sweep of this,

13:49

for me, one of the most important

13:51

scenes is the back and forth of Mark Milley and

13:53

Donald Trump, the joint chiefs of staff

13:56

chairman in charge of the most powerful military in

13:58

the world. And it's Trump and

14:00

Milli and the whole circle the

14:02

whole universe of Trump world and and

14:04

military and defense advisors in the Oval

14:06

Office on June first. And he

14:08

views the protests, the civil rights protests

14:10

in very personal ways Maggie

14:12

Haberman and Peter Baker had broken the story

14:14

about Trump hiding in the

14:16

bunker a couple of nights earlier. He

14:18

was embarrassed by that. And

14:20

he wants military on the

14:22

streets in order to he

14:24

thinks sort of buttresses his 1 order

14:26

image. And in this scene, you have

14:28

Mark Milley, trying to

14:30

calm Trump down and

14:32

not having any luck. And finally,

14:34

Millie sitting in front of the Resolute desk points

14:36

to the portrait of Lincoln behind

14:39

Trump and says, that

14:41

guy, mister president, had an

14:43

insurrection. What we have is a protest.

14:45

And I think that's a important

14:48

scene. We have a couple of those in the

14:50

book that show Trump's

14:53

lack of interest in the history of any of

14:55

these moments --

14:55

Right. -- and not caring about the difference between an

14:57

insurrection and a protest.

14:59

And I think that leads into your second question

15:01

here about what it illuminates. What

15:03

was fascinated to me at every

15:05

level whether it's the West

15:07

Wing or the administration or the

15:09

campaign is how many

15:11

people told me, well, I was one of the

15:13

people who leveled with Trump. Like, I told Trump

15:15

the way it was supposed to be. Right. I was the truth

15:17

teller. And then when you scratch at that

15:19

a little bit, it's not exactly

15:21

the case. And everyone was sort of

15:23

telling Trump their own truth in their own

15:25

way, in a way that Trump

15:27

could hear the lie.

15:29

Very rarely was anyone point blank?

15:32

No. Right. Or that's not

15:34

correct. Right. It was always well,

15:36

maybe, that could be, and that even

15:38

brings us to the scene with Pence. In the

15:40

days before January sixth, Mike

15:42

Pence knows the history.

15:44

He has qualified good

15:46

lawyers telling him but is not

15:48

something he can do or should do

15:50

and tells Trump, well,

15:52

we'll we'll look at what you give us

15:54

but I don't think this is right. But but we'll we're happy

15:56

to look at

15:57

whatever, you know, and and the president here's

15:59

the last part -- Yeah. --

16:00

and sees that as his opening. And

16:02

So the the kind of management

16:04

aspect of this book managing down and

16:06

managing up is one of the strings

16:08

that is threaded

16:09

through, you know, these scenes in in West Wing and the

16:11

campaign headquarters and the R and C, frankly. You

16:14

know, there are some challenges here about how your

16:16

reportable collect this, especially when you're dealing with a

16:18

group of people who are. Mhmm. To

16:20

one degree or another, you know, no one is as big

16:22

a liar as Donald Trump, but a lot of

16:24

the people around him were liars and enablers

16:26

and there's challenges that brings to the reporting

16:28

process, which I'll which I'll come to later. Oh,

16:30

yeah. But I do think that that is important. I

16:33

think that interplay that you're talking about is

16:35

really important because so many people justify their service in the

16:37

administration and buy, well, I need to be a

16:39

guardrail. Mhmm. If we weren't here, you know,

16:41

God knows what happened and I was, you know, doing

16:43

those I may not have be may have been

16:45

compromised in certain ways, but I was fighting a good fight

16:47

for the country and in their minds, I guess, they think

16:49

they were. But if you go back as the book shows over

16:51

and over again, they push back a little bit.

16:53

They try to weedle. They try to cajoled, but they don't

16:55

really ever just stand up and say no.

16:56

Yeah. Trump. Or you're wrong. Wait.

16:58

And I don't know how different at the end of the day

17:01

that is from other presidents. Right? I

17:03

mean, once you get close to that kind of power

17:05

center, you wanna keep it.

17:07

Right? Yes. And I mean, obviously,

17:09

Donald Trump is a much different president than we've

17:11

seen before, and and the rules here are different or

17:13

should be applied differently. But the way

17:15

they described themselves as you know,

17:17

the truth tellers, but really what they end end up

17:19

being are kind of at best

17:21

or speed bumps. Right. Right? And

17:23

I think the book shows is the

17:25

dangerous thinking that Trump had

17:27

in the office, you needed more than a speed

17:29

bump. You needed a cold attack. Right? You know,

17:31

everyone thought they just have to give

17:33

Trump his own time and let him

17:35

process the laws and he'd find his own

17:37

off ramp into this sort of outside of

17:39

reality and eventually get himself to

17:41

figure out how to, you know, concede.

17:43

But Trump had been telling us for years, this

17:45

is what was gonna happen. And -- Yes. -- when

17:47

Mike Pence and Ronald McDaniel,

17:50

Bill Stepyan, give him the

17:52

space to process it. All set

17:54

does is create an opening for

17:57

Rudy Giuliani. Right? And his band of

17:59

conspiracy theorists to come in and we know how that

18:01

story ends.

18:01

There's no doubt. Every president's surrounded by yes men

18:03

and women -- Mhmm. -- the difference is that

18:06

most of the people in prior administrations, the vast,

18:08

vast majority of them would not describe themselves

18:10

as being a constraint or

18:13

being a guardrail of democracy. Right. There's

18:15

times when you have to tell president

18:17

no or what times when the president's worse

18:19

impulses should be curbed, but

18:21

we've never had a president whose impulses were as bad as Donald Trump, and we've never

18:23

had a president or so many people around

18:25

him were fully aware of the notion

18:27

that the president was these

18:30

are agree with them, was intellectually,

18:33

psychologically, emotionally, characterologically

18:36

unfit for office. Right? This

18:38

is their testimony. Again, not, you know, some liberal

18:41

attack. They all looked at Trump and

18:43

said, this guy's dangerous. And

18:45

then they justified staying in the administration as I could help temper

18:47

the danger.

18:48

Yeah. I agree. And every president

18:50

needs management. Right. Donald Trump is a special case,

18:52

but previous presidents have

18:55

you need a lot of people around you to make that place work.

18:58

And Trump didn't have that. The people he had

19:00

around him, I think this book also shows is the

19:02

people he had around him were around

19:03

him. turns out not as

19:06

guardrails, but for their own gain, for one

19:08

reason or another. You know, it's like that there's that saying,

19:10

like, you, you know, you lay down with dogs, you wake up

19:12

with fleas. Right? I think it's a little bit different in this

19:14

case. It's like, you know, the kinds of people who are

19:16

attracted to working for a grifter tend to be

19:18

grifters themselves in a lot of

19:20

cases. But here's one of your 1 Right? And

19:22

-- Mhmm. -- and I wanna get back to some of that,

19:24

you know, the -- Sure. -- new material in

19:26

the book. But here's one that's already out

19:29

there. Right? Trump goes to Europe in twenty

19:31

eighteen for the hundredth

19:33

anniversary of World War one -- Mhmm.

19:35

-- and says flattering things about,

19:37

you know, Hitler. In

19:39

the presence of his chief of staff, John Kelly. Mhmm. So tell

19:41

this story, and then I'm gonna

19:44

ask you about Trump's reaction or

19:46

lack of reaction to

19:47

it. So far in public. Yeah. So this

19:49

is in the realm of of his chief of staff, his

19:51

team around him, breathing him, and what the

19:53

event is, who's gonna be there, and

19:55

why it's important. Some of the basic things

19:57

that any president, governor,

20:00

kind of commissioner, any of that stuff would expect

20:02

from their staff. And the conversation

20:04

quickly evolves when Kelly

20:06

and others realize that Trump doesn't really have a

20:09

good grasp on who the

20:11

allies and enemies were. And

20:13

John Kelly, who's very very much a

20:15

history buff, walks through some of it with

20:17

him and tells him how this

20:19

opens the door for World War two and Adolf

20:21

Hitler, and Trump's response

20:23

is that, well, Hitler

20:25

did do some good things. And

20:27

what Trump is talking about here is

20:29

Germany's economy. Right?

20:32

Which shouldn't be surprising in that That's what

20:34

Trump kinda latched on to. Like, Germany had some

20:36

good years under Hitler in their

20:37

economy, but that's not

20:40

really the point. Right?

20:42

And and

20:43

and And there's

20:44

a chunk of Try to refrain from laughing, but,

20:46

yes, not I mean, it's both horrifying and hilarious.

20:49

But yeah. Go ahead. Right. And

20:50

John and John Kelly tells him, well,

20:51

you know,

20:52

those people would be much better

20:55

off

20:55

poor. Right? I mean, even if you given

20:58

the economy point, these people would be

21:00

much better off poor than what they end up

21:02

going through under Hitler. So

21:05

let's not say that. Do not say

21:07

this ever publicly. Right?

21:09

And I, you know, I I do think I it includes in the

21:11

section of the book of the George Floyd stuff.

21:13

Right. And the point that I tried to use

21:15

this to illustrate is that it's not that

21:18

Trump doesn't no black

21:20

history. Like Trump doesn't really

21:22

know white history. Yes. Or like any kind of

21:24

history. He just doesn't care

21:26

about it. And this is the example that

21:28

resonated most with me when it came to that

21:30

point. So forget

21:32

about

21:32

history. Yes. Trump is an ignorance when it

21:34

comes to I'm not saying he's an idiot. Which

21:36

is a different thing. We could discuss that. But he's nigguramous

21:39

about about almost everything. Doesn't know very

21:41

much. Is intellectually uncurious? Doesn't

21:43

know history know about a lot of things. Right?

21:45

Mhmm. Fast acreage of things that

21:47

Trump doesn't know about isn't curious

21:48

about. This is actually one of the many things that makes

21:50

him problematic as president.

21:53

It's just hard to imagine they're, like, just trying to think

21:55

about whether in your life,

21:57

not just public officials,

22:00

but anybody. Like forming

22:02

the words. Hitler did

22:04

a lot of good

22:04

things. It's something that like most people --

22:07

Yeah. --

22:07

these words would just never come out of your mouth

22:09

under a circumstance. Because you would

22:11

be like, even if you might, Vebs tried to

22:13

think, well, what were the things that made Hitler

22:15

attractive to some number of people?

22:17

if you are making a list of assets liabilities will be

22:20

on the cop like, these are things that are reasonable things

22:22

to think about, but the words Hitler

22:24

did some good things. It's just not something like a

22:26

normal person would ever say. Right?

22:28

Right. And so that

22:30

is an unpalatable thing. Trump

22:32

knows that he that he's responsible for the

22:34

Holocaust. He knows that much. Right? Mhmm.

22:37

And so know, the greatest antisemite in history, killed

22:39

six million or more Jews. Like,

22:41

for anybody who knows just that

22:43

much, those words. Elph Hitler did some

22:45

very good things. They would just never come out of someone's

22:48

mouth. So it's a question about what that

22:50

says about Trump's psyche that such words could

22:52

come out of his mouth. That

22:54

leads again to my question, which is so

22:56

Trump is, like, pushing back on parts of your book.

22:58

Mhmm. He's saying, Mike Bender, third

23:00

rate reporter. Mhmm. He's saying, the story about

23:02

me and Mike Pensacor Oendesk isn't true. Mhmm. So it's

23:04

not like Trump's being silent about you and

23:06

your book. Mhmm. Mike? And yet,

23:08

mhmm. Strangely, Trump has not said a word

23:11

about your claim that he praised Adolf Hitler.

23:13

Mhmm. What is that about? What does that let's

23:15

say that Trump apparently thinks that,

23:17

like, as of now, at least,

23:19

he does not feel the record needs to be corrected on the question of

23:21

Adolph

23:21

Hitler. There was pushback

23:24

and some very threatening language

23:26

used by his team to me

23:28

when I was fact checking this and trying to

23:30

stop me from using it. But

23:32

my sourcing on this particular conversation

23:35

is rock solid and I knew that

23:37

it was it's correct, which is

23:39

why I included it in the book. And

23:41

so it was surprising to me that when it

23:43

came out, the president didn't

23:45

himself he used a spokesman to basically attack John Kelly

23:47

instead of really refuting this.

23:49

And I do think that part of

23:52

it is a couple of things. Like, at the very

23:54

least, Trump has a very imprecise way

23:56

of speaking. And it's

23:58

almost politically a

24:00

gift in that anyone can kind of come

24:02

away from Trump's speeches

24:05

hearing different things, taking different things away

24:07

from it. This one

24:09

is hard to

24:11

parse. Right? I mean, this one is nearly

24:13

impossible for his own supporters

24:16

to

24:16

defend. And so that may be partly

24:19

why he hasn't put it out there more

24:21

vigorously and is just hoping it'll go

24:23

away and not wanting to draw

24:25

more

24:25

attention to it. Yeah. Or even,

24:27

like, forces people. Like, he I don't know that he he must

24:29

know that no one will defend him on this one.

24:32

Right. And I think that's what's most

24:34

dangerous about president Trump here is that

24:36

he's so imprecise with the way he

24:38

speaks that in an instance like

24:40

this and others, it can

24:42

really have unintended consequences.

24:44

And again, that bring us to explain what

24:46

happened on January

24:46

sixth. And I do think part

24:49

of his attack on the Pence bid was

24:51

just the attention that this book has gotten --

24:53

Yeah. -- I

24:53

think has finally gotten to

24:55

him. Yeah. And I think that was a big part

24:57

of it and that he was reacting to the

24:59

anecdote and more to that story being picked

25:01

up by other outlets. And you

25:04

know what? Donald Trump knows how many

25:06

people I talked to. For this

25:08

book. He knows people

25:10

very close to him that

25:12

talked to me for this book and didn't talk to

25:14

other

25:14

reporters.

25:14

Right. He knows the sourcing I have on this all

25:17

told him, and I think that he's nervous about

25:19

that. Right. And

25:19

you said, I mean, I just just for the records

25:22

that when you talk about the Hitler thing, when you said Brock's

25:24

outsourcing, that's this a I believe

25:26

I suck rent some more that's, like, just rock solid

25:28

but a multiple source thing that were, like,

25:30

more than one person who 1 present for

25:32

the utterance of those words. Yeah.

25:34

I had that source with people who were present and who had been briefed on

25:36

it. Right. Yeah. I have to tell you that. Yeah. Yeah.

25:39

So, you know, he does Rehvie gets

25:41

again with another topic, which is that one of the

25:43

things that happen Trump has now said not

25:45

just attack Mike Bender, a third rate reporter, third

25:47

rate Michael Bender, which puts you in the category of the

25:49

failing New York Times. You know, he

25:51

also says, you know, but I saw this

25:53

piece last Friday where he says it seems to me that meeting

25:55

with authors of the ridiculous number of books being written

25:57

about my very successful administration or me as a

25:59

total waste of time. Trump said in a statement which

26:01

he accused the authors of producing pure

26:03

fiction. These writers are often bad people who write whatever

26:05

comes to their mind or fits their agenda has

26:07

nothing to do with facts of

26:09

reality. Now Trump trashing the

26:11

press is not new. Yeah. I'm just like, feel like

26:13

an idiot, I'm saying that right. The guy who invented the

26:15

notion of fake news and, you know, and me the people and all

26:17

that stuff. And and third great reporter Mike Bender,

26:19

again, falls into the pub, like, a familiar

26:21

genre. And again, when she's sitting

26:23

next to the failing New York Times, which is, you

26:25

know, when Trump said something like that, you're

26:27

like, oh, must buy must be doing well because, you

26:29

know, it's opposite stay. But

26:31

it's also the case that it's interesting to

26:33

me that to

26:35

your point about the amount of

26:37

coverage you've been getting, and then some of the

26:39

other books I've been getting already. It's like

26:41

he's already having second thoughts about having spent

26:43

time with these quarters. Right? And it was

26:45

always a question to me about whether you kind of like to

26:48

me, you sort of saw this coming a mile away

26:50

when Trump decided, I'm gonna do a bunch of interviews with book

26:52

authors. He's gonna end up regarding this, and we're gonna get to this

26:54

point. But we're already here where he's like,

26:56

you know, why the fuck that I spent all the time with all these

26:57

reporters? It's like, well,

27:00

Okay. Well, the answer to that is

27:02

two things. One is it wasn't to make

27:05

sure Donald Trump's reason for sitting down

27:06

with, I think, whatever it was. Twenty or twenty five

27:08

of us or whatever his count is, maybe up to

27:10

fifty nine thousand. Not not

27:12

collectively, by the way, just frame me as confused about this. Not like Trump

27:14

did a group interview with book authors. He

27:17

just had individual interviews with individual --

27:18

Yeah. -- authors, some of them more than once,

27:21

including Mike Bender. Yeah. I sat down with him twice. It

27:23

was it was very generous of him to spend as

27:25

much time as he did. After our first interview,

27:27

he invited me to stay for

27:29

dinner at Mar a Lago out on the

27:31

terrace. You know, he was very generous with his

27:33

time as he was with the press for four

27:35

years in the White House. And that

27:37

is to his credits. Correct.

27:39

But what became clear to me was that the reason he was

27:41

sitting down with us was not to set

27:43

the historical record. I brought him anecdote

27:45

after anecdote after anecdote of things

27:47

that important scenes from twenty

27:49

twenty and earlier that I

27:51

thought illustrated bigger points, and he would not play

27:54

ball. I mean, he would talk about what these

27:56

meetings were like. He didn't wanna talk

27:58

about what his reactions were. He didn't wanna

28:00

talk about what his recollection

28:01

was. Almost every question I asked, he

28:04

would turn it back to election fraud. Right.

28:06

About

28:06

missing ballots in Detroit. Right. Right? About all

28:08

of the problems in Georgia that he had

28:10

won Arizona. And I wasn't really there

28:12

to litigate that. Right. So that

28:14

was one is that wanted to get his

28:17

message that he had won the election -- Right. --

28:19

into these books. Right. I mean,

28:21

it's the title of my

28:23

book. So -- Right. -- he should, you

28:24

know, he should basically, the job

28:27

was

28:27

already done with you. I mean, in terms of, like, Trump's interviewing

28:30

representatives right there on the cover, I'll say

28:32

it again, but he's He's the entire quote

28:34

of his for the book. You know, the title of the book.

28:36

I don't know why he's so what what he's upset

28:38

about. But the other point and this is really fascinating

28:40

and very and just like a classic Trump

28:43

moment is the other big reason he

28:45

sits down with all of us. Well, you know the

28:47

one person he doesn't sit down with. Throughout

28:49

all this. Yeah. What word? Bob, what word? Because

28:51

he's still he's he's mad at all. What happened?

28:54

Yeah. So this is all a

28:56

big part of that. You

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29:31

This is just vengeance on one author -- Right. --

29:33

which is also kind of fascinating.

29:35

So Yeah.

29:36

It's I mean, I it's totally

29:39

fascinating. And I interviews

29:41

with Trump are incredibly frustrating as a

29:43

general matter.

29:43

Like, I you know, they're always it's

29:45

very hard. Yeah. His

29:46

tendency to filibuster and to take

29:49

questions and not answer them and you can't it's

29:51

like you can be as determined and

29:53

dogged as you want and go back to a twenty five times and

29:55

try to keep him on to get the direct

29:57

answer to the question you're asking. And if someone really doesn't answer

29:59

your question, they're willing to just kind of constantly

30:01

divert the conversation. There's only so much

30:03

you can do. It's like there's a thing he wants

30:06

to say, he's gonna say those things and doesn't matter how many

30:08

angles you come at him

30:09

from, he can still bounce

30:12

away from your question and they can be

30:14

insanely frustrating. Not

30:16

only that, then you can't

30:18

pin Trump down very easily.

30:20

And if you try, he'll

30:22

end the interview. Like, you you'll scare

30:24

him away. I mean, I will say, like, I had some good luck interviewing

30:26

him with The Wall Street Journal of Ford for in

30:28

a daily news cycle when he was in office. Yep.

30:30

You know, in the Oval Office, under

30:33

force one, during the

30:35

campaign in Trump Tower and by just

30:37

having a conversation with him. And

30:39

for me as a daily news reporter,

30:42

I was always kind of thinking, like, what am I come out of this interview with?

30:44

Right. As a headline today, right

30:46

now, when I walk out of here. Right?

30:49

Yep. And he's very comfortable talking about

30:51

news of the day, you know, what's in the newspapers,

30:53

what's on cable news that day. Right. That's

30:55

his main concern of of winning the moment.

30:57

And everything else is kind of a problem for

31:00

his future self or his press team's

31:02

future selves. But the blue thing was really

31:04

hard for me because I

31:06

needed things to hold. Right? And if

31:08

he was gonna make news, I

31:10

just knew that he would say that in

31:12

an email or at his next speech and I

31:14

would I would lose him. So so I do

31:16

think, like, what what was nice about and I I

31:18

think what is in the book, he does respond

31:20

to a handful of things. I should

31:22

say that. And his voice from that interview is threaded through the

31:25

book, but the epilogue is the

31:27

scene of Trump in transition

31:29

from leader of the free world

31:32

to president of Palm Beach. And he'd replaced

31:34

his rallies with this nightly

31:37

affirmation of standing ovation

31:39

from his dinner crowd and

31:41

his club

31:41

members. I mean, both of my interviews were in the main sitting

31:44

room of Mar a Lago's right

31:46

before dinner hours. So all of his club

31:48

members were coming in

31:50

And I'm so sorry. Circus does do

31:52

an interview with with anybody. Yeah. But it was

31:54

so fun because, like, Trump would, you know,

31:56

lean over and be, like, well, you know, off the

31:58

record, this

31:59

guy, is is worth as much money,

32:01

Wall Street Journal. Right. It was, like, worth as much

32:03

money or, like, he his

32:04

wife left them or, like, he's very gossipy, but

32:06

then -- Right. Loudly say, hey, I'm sitting here with the Wall

32:08

Street Journal. Right. Like, that somehow validates the

32:11

forty fifth president of the United

32:12

States. Yeah. You know, he was in a good mood for

32:14

my interview, so that was Yeah.

32:16

It sounds like it.

32:19

I think this is a good place for us to

32:21

take a break mic. And when we come back, we will

32:23

dive a little deeper into

32:25

all the ways that Trump ruined his chances for

32:27

reelection. As you described in your book, frankly, we

32:29

did win this election, the inside story of

32:31

how Trump lost. So we take this quick break.

32:33

We will listen to some messages and we'll come

32:35

right back to this episode of High

32:38

Water.

32:42

And we're

32:49

back on Helen High Water with

32:51

Mike Bender. So let me let me come back to the campaign in the book.

32:53

Yeah. We talked a little bit about the George

32:55

Floyd stuff of, like, you think about

32:57

I mean, so much happened in this campaign,

32:59

Mike. It's like you think about

33:01

of the challenges a reporter covering these things. Like, you this

33:03

is your nightmare. Right? Which is that Trump was

33:05

constantly making news. Mhmm. Many

33:07

days, there were or four things that Trump would

33:09

do on a given day that in any previous

33:12

presidency would have occupied the new cycle for a week or

33:14

sometimes a month. And he literally was

33:16

doing it two or three times a day. Right?

33:18

Mhmm. You're constantly chasing

33:20

the things I think that history will remember

33:22

on the Trump side because they are the

33:24

things history will remember about twenty twenty.

33:26

1 of them obviously anything related to the

33:28

racial justice reckoning and the other obviously we can

33:30

COVID. Right? So in some ways,

33:33

like everything else so much in

33:35

Trump's world, things happen that are often shocking but not

33:37

surprising. Mhmm. One of my favorite

33:39

phrases around Trump, shocking but not surprising. This is so much

33:41

of Trump is exactly that. And

33:43

Trump getting COVID certainly qualifies as a

33:45

shocking but not surprising. On some level,

33:47

completely inevitable. On another level, the greatest

33:49

actor ever surprise in history, Let's listen to Donald Trump

33:51

talking about it in the aftermath because this goes

33:53

directly to one of the scenes in the

33:54

book. I wanna when I hear Trump's voice here and then talk about

33:56

how you write about this in the book and what you learned

33:59

about it. I said it right at the beginning, the cure cannot

34:01

be worse than the problem itself

34:03

can. The cure cannot be

34:05

worse, but if you don't feel good about it, if

34:07

you wanna stay sane, relaxed

34:09

day. But if you want to get out there, get out. One thing with me,

34:11

the nice part. I went through it.

34:13

Now they say, I'm immune. I can

34:15

feel I feel

34:18

so powerful. I'll walk into that audience.

34:20

I'll

34:20

walk in there.

34:21

I'll kiss everyone in that

34:23

audience. So let's talk

34:26

about that. You write about COVID, a a giant

34:28

policy, challenge, public health emergency,

34:30

once in a generation, once a

34:32

century crisis.

34:34

That shaped the presidency, shaped the last year, the presidency, shaped the campaign,

34:36

and a huge political challenge, or potentially

34:38

some would say it would have been a huge political opportunity.

34:41

If Trump had done it well, Trump had made his the pandemic well. I think everyone agrees he

34:43

be people would have been reelected with

34:46

ease given when 1 saw his

34:48

performance was having fucked it up

34:49

completely. So just talk about the COVID of it all. COVID

34:52

is obviously a string throughout this book here

34:54

and I think what's new about

34:56

this book comes

34:58

to the policy response

35:00

and the administration's response

35:02

is that there were people in

35:04

the administration who said this is a big

35:07

deal. We need to get masks on immediately. We

35:09

have to have responses to this

35:12

immediately. I mean, in January of

35:14

twenty twenty, while Trump was still

35:16

having a Beijing delegation into

35:18

the White House to celebrate the his trade

35:20

deal. Right? But the

35:22

thing that was striking to me and going back and

35:24

rereporting all of this was that, at that

35:26

point, all the things that Trump had

35:28

survived. Right? I mean, going back to twenty

35:30

sixteen, he'd ridiculed

35:32

John McCain just John McCain

35:34

John McCain's military service. Yeah.

35:36

And nothing mattered. Right? And example exam

35:38

after example of that Robert Mueller

35:40

doesn't really dent him impeachment

35:42

in, you know, December and January of

35:44

twenty nineteen, twenty twenty, he comes out of

35:46

stronger access Hollywood, which

35:47

you've for which you've built. But,

35:49

right, there's

35:49

just incredible things. Right? I mean,

35:51

yes. Yes. So, like, I mean, in one 1, you

35:53

you can sort of understand how they would think, like,

35:56

well, this is just the next news cycle

35:58

to survive. And it's that attitude that the reason

36:00

why alerts from Peter

36:02

Navarro and all his executive orders

36:04

or Matt Potinger, a

36:06

former soldier, military intelligence,

36:08

who had spent time in Asia and

36:10

had first hand experience with SARS

36:13

over there. He's, you know, waving

36:15

flags and raising alarms, and

36:18

they're treated as alarmists. And then it

36:20

just becomes too late. Right? If they can't

36:22

catch up, all of that is missed time.

36:24

Like, there's a world in which he could

36:26

have easily won this race. Even with

36:28

COVID, I was a newspaper reporter for a

36:30

long time in Florida. Been watched. People

36:32

like, you know, Trump is not gonna like this

36:34

comparison. Jeb Bush, you know, the

36:36

hurricanes Florida gets hit by

36:38

hurricane after hurricane after hurricane when he

36:40

is governor. And two thousand three, two thousand four, two thousand five.

36:42

And no one blames

36:44

Jeb for the hurricanes. It's

36:46

the response.

36:48

Right? And Trump just never you know, this is the this is the president

36:50

who shot baskets with paper

36:52

towels in Puerto Rico after

36:54

hurricane. Well, there are

36:56

two elements here. Right? I mean, one element

36:58

of it is we know now from Woodward's

37:00

last book that Trump in real time

37:02

that Trump was not in the dark. Trump understood how dangerous

37:04

COVID was, and he decided to

37:06

publicly downplay it. So that's

37:09

one thing. Right? And then later as we heard in that clip that

37:11

we played when Trump gets COVID in October -- Yeah. --

37:13

there were those around the president, as

37:16

you might as you report in

37:18

the book, who think like this could

37:20

be a turning point. Right?

37:20

So, you know,

37:20

everything's looking bad for Trump. At that point, the polls are bad. The first

37:22

debate had gone terribly. For him, it's

37:24

really late in the fourth quarter. Here,

37:28

you know, in the Trump campaign. And some people around Trump, maybe

37:31

delusionally, still thought that he could turn

37:33

it around. Mhmm. Although say

37:35

delusionally, but given Trump's actual performance on

37:38

election day, you know, maybe they weren't so delusional

37:40

after all. Everyone was shocked. Right? I mean -- Oh, he's

37:42

on TV. -- like, I was shocked. You were shocked.

37:44

Election analysts were shock, bolsters were

37:46

shocked. Republicans were shocked. Democrats were

37:48

shocked. Everyone was shocked when Trump

37:50

ends up getting ten

37:52

million

37:53

more votes. In twenty twenty than he did

37:55

in twenty sixteen. Yeah. I had this

37:56

in the book. I mean, that he outperformed

37:59

his own team's expectations by

38:01

fifteen percent. As in sixteen. The same thing.

38:03

Right? So the point that I was making was that

38:05

he will round him thought, well, maybe this could

38:07

be a moment humanizing moment,

38:10

a moment where Trump's gotten COVID. This

38:12

could be an inflection point. I'm not to ever surprise

38:14

at worst store advantage. And then he does what

38:16

he does, both in terms of how he handled

38:18

going the whole state of Walter Reed and then coming back doing his one

38:20

perone thing from the from the South

38:22

balcony. What I wanna ask you about is,

38:24

like, those decisions of how Trump

38:27

decided to downplay the virus at first, and

38:30

then how he decided to portray

38:32

his own, having

38:34

been infected with it, then those

38:36

are political choices that president made. And I'm curious

38:39

about what the book reveals about how

38:41

the White House process those

38:44

choices. Or how Trump process those choices with the calculations he was

38:46

making and what they reflect about his psyche,

38:48

what they reflect about his view of of

38:50

the

38:51

election, etcetera, etcetera, Yeah. I

38:54

mean, he goes back to how he first

38:56

approached COVID and

38:58

that he survived all of these crises and

39:01

had reason to believe that he could impose

39:03

his reality on a pandemic

39:06

as well. And that's what he tries to do. I mean,

39:08

even when he gets

39:10

the virus, Even when he gets a virus, John, in in the book, I have some back and

39:12

forth, there are people

39:14

who told me that Trump

39:16

tested positive

39:18

The same morning hoped it. The morning he went to

39:20

Bedminster and had a fundraiser. Right? But

39:22

thought it was a false positive. Right?

39:26

It's not a false positive. It turns out he and he gets

39:28

very, very sick. And this is where they what you're

39:30

talking about is folks like

39:32

Bill Steppian and Jason Miller,

39:35

Hope Hicks. See, for a moment

39:37

there, Trump is is humbled by this

39:39

thing. He is very, very sick. Right?

39:41

I mean, we know that. We knew some

39:43

very good reporting even at the time about -- Right.

39:45

-- how yeah. Behind the scenes how sticky was, and a

39:47

light seems to have gone on with -- Right. -- about about

39:49

how serious this is. He thought he was gonna die

39:52

at one Right? I mean, like, I

39:54

think that's been reported that he was

39:56

he was very sick much bigger than they were letting

39:58

on publicly at the time and that

40:00

he was he's very phobic about about his health and very phobic about

40:02

death. And he was, like, again, at one point under the he

40:04

was, like, god, this is it. Could this could be the end for me.

40:06

That's how serious it

40:07

was. In his mind, Yeah.

40:10

I mean and I do think there is more reporting to be

40:12

done about what exactly was happening behind

40:14

scenes and how sick he actually was.

40:17

And how he was being treated even in the White House

40:19

by his doctors. But yeah. I mean, you talk about

40:21

his phobia. I always was amazed that

40:23

Trump didn't use it as

40:25

an opportunity to Trump has

40:28

been using hand sanitizer for

40:30

years. You know, after rallies, he

40:32

uses dozens

40:34

of wipes. To, you know, to wake himself, like, if there's anyone who knows how to use hand

40:36

1 sanitizer, how to put on the mask the right

40:38

way. Right? It's Trump. Like, you know, like,

40:41

why don't you lean into your strength there guy and but he

40:43

he wanted to downplay it. But, yeah, he's sick. Like,

40:45

the team thinks there's a moment where

40:47

he can be empathetic. Right? He was so

40:49

excited. This is what in the book too. He was so

40:51

excited about the treatment he got.

40:54

Right? That he calls ends up calling the

40:56

cure. Right. But

40:58

they even see that his team sees that as an opportunity to talk about

41:00

the advances in medicine and

41:02

as a way to talk about

41:04

COVID in an optimistic way of

41:07

like, we're, you know, we have good treatments. Like, things help us

41:09

on the way type of stuff. Right. And it

41:11

doesn't even last the marine

41:14

one ride back to the White

41:15

House. Right? Like, he starts

41:18

jokingly, at least partly,

41:20

arrive on the south lawn and rip open his

41:22

shirt this show Superman's side. Right? I mean, that's like, it just the

41:24

moment is is there and gone. Any

41:26

hope they had for for for redefining

41:28

or or pivoting on this message

41:31

was with short lived. Yeah. Definitely short lived.

41:34

And this is, I guess, a good place speaking of short

41:36

lived. This is a good place for us to take another

41:38

quick break, a short

41:40

lived break. And when we come back, we'll talk about the Trump campaign's last

41:42

hope to win the election. And your

41:44

involvement in that drama, as you

41:46

describe it in your new book, frankly, we did win

41:48

this election.

41:50

The inside story of how Trump lost by Michael c Bender. So let's take that

41:52

quick break. Let's listen to some messages and we'll come

41:54

right back to this episode of

41:57

Hell and High Water.

42:06

We are back with

42:08

Helen High Water with my

42:10

friend Mike Bender, author of the new book, frankly, we

42:12

did witness election. The inside story of

42:15

how Trump, lost. I wanna take a deep dive into the very end

42:17

of the campaign with you, Mike, when you got

42:19

dragged into a plan,

42:22

hatched by Donald Trump, Steve Ben, or Rudy

42:24

Giuliani, the three horsemen apocalypse, who

42:26

had all decided that they had discovered a

42:28

silver bullet that would kill Joe

42:30

Biden, and the silver bullet turned out to

42:32

be his

42:34

and is now infamous laptop. And in those final days,

42:36

that's all we heard about from Trump. We heard

42:38

a lot from Trump. I mean, constantly all we heard

42:40

from Trump was about Hunter Biden, Hunter, Hunter.

42:43

Anyway, this is what it actually sounded like caring about Hunter

42:46

from Donald

42:46

Trump. Joe's son

42:47

Hunter got thrown out of the Navy and then he

42:50

became a genius on Wall Street in about

42:52

two days.

42:53

By the way,

42:54

whatever happened to Hunter,

42:56

where the hell is he?

43:03

Where's Hunter?

43:06

He fellas, I

43:07

have an idea for a

43:09

new t shirt. I love the cups,

43:11

but let's do another t shirt.

43:14

Where's Hunter?

43:16

Where's it?

43:19

You think about

43:19

period at the end of the campaign. You know,

43:22

October, the debate has

43:24

happened. Trump has

43:26

gotten COVID, there are October surprises or varying dimensions happening

43:28

almost every day. And in the middle

43:30

of all of it is what becomes

43:34

the last hope on the Trump side of the thing that

43:36

they think somehow will take down Joe Biden, which

43:38

is the Hunter Biden thing. You

43:39

know, within a week

43:42

of when Biden gets into the race used when Ken Vogel wrote that New

43:44

York Times about Hatter Biden and Burisma,

43:46

which set in motion the events

43:49

that led to Trump calling the president of Ukraine --

43:51

Mhmm. -- that got him impeached the first time. Rudy's already been for a

43:53

year, has already been obsessed with Ukraine, but

43:55

that's Biden's been in the race literally six days

43:57

when the first

44:00

big Hunter story hits, and it never goes away.

44:02

And at the end, we have an attempt

44:04

to inject Hunter into the bloodstream and

44:06

make Hunter Biden be the thing that will take

44:09

Joe Biden down. And you have an incredibly interesting version of this

44:11

story, of course, because -- Yeah. -- they've decided

44:13

that they

44:14

wanted the Wall Street Journal and Mike Pence and

44:18

Primatore on the material that

44:20

was derived from Hunter's laptop. And I want you to tell

44:22

that story, and I think what's so fascinating about it, I

44:24

will say, before I let you let you

44:26

rip here, is that I spent

44:28

the night of the first debate at

44:30

Hofstra with Steve Bannon

44:32

watching the first debate from

44:35

their hold room from the first

44:38

debate in twenty sixteen. This was a conceit.

44:40

Okay. This was a conceit from the circus. We would go

44:42

back with Bannon -- Yeah. -- watch the

44:44

debate that was happening

44:46

in Ohio with Bannon from the whole room where they had

44:48

done the first debate in twenty sixteen, and he

44:50

would then reflect on what was going on. We viewed your

44:52

commentary on

44:54

the debate. And also reflect on what had happened in twenty sixteen, that would be of

44:56

gray television. Right? Mhmm. The next morning

44:58

banner called me on the phone and told me about

45:02

Connor's laptop. And that he was working with

45:04

Rudy to get it into the

45:06

hands of of some friendly outlet turned out to

45:08

be the New

45:10

York Post. So that is happening. The New York Post became the

45:12

conveyor belt for their version of Hunter and

45:14

Hunter's laptop. You were on a

45:16

whole different thread

45:18

here. Right? Which was the the more, you know, the attempt of the get

45:20

some kind of of more credible

45:22

imprimatur put on this

45:25

material. Mhmm. Talk about that

45:27

from your perspective because it's a really interesting part of the

45:29

book. Yeah. I mean,

45:30

the stuff with Hunter Biden is worthy

45:33

of attention. Right? And there

45:35

are the way he operated in

45:37

more of of political largess

45:39

and how people try to

45:41

capitalize on that. And,

45:44

you know, I've always thought that was worthy

45:46

of attention and worthy of questions. Right?

45:48

But the the problem is that Trump and

45:50

his team saw this as you say

45:52

as a silver bullet, which is not. At

45:54

least nothing we've seen has

45:56

anything to do with Joe

45:58

Biden specifically. And the

46:00

problem for them was that the

46:02

only people paying attention to this

46:04

really were were right

46:06

wing media. The the right way media was willing to sort of make the points that Trump

46:08

wanted to make without having the facts to

46:10

back it up. And that had gotten

46:12

ignored by

46:14

us at the journal and the Times and the Post because, like,

46:16

there just wasn't those details. So what

46:18

they tried to do with me was

46:20

they said that they had documents.

46:23

Right? They had documents that showed Joe

46:25

Biden was involved. I mean, this is

46:27

the holy grail now in

46:29

in Trump world. And that Biden was involved in in the

46:31

hunter pursuits around the world. So I went to meet them.

46:33

I took any right? And like these are their

46:36

people I've known for a

46:38

long time, there was no promises obviously and

46:40

and this is where they introduced me to a man

46:42

by the name of Tony

46:44

Bobolinski. And I

46:46

think, like, Bogleheadsky is a real person. Yeah. You know, I it looks like

46:49

the documents they have are real. That

46:51

the text messages they have our

46:54

actual documents and that the stuff

46:56

hasn't been just made

46:57

up. Right. But even though

46:58

when they walked me through all of the stuff,

47:01

I tell them, like, I think it's a fact it really is

47:03

it's a rare look under the hood

47:06

of international business dealings at

47:08

really the embryonic stage. Between two

47:10

economic superpowers in

47:12

the US and China and businessmen

47:14

in both countries who are

47:16

young, ambitious, and well

47:19

connected. Hundred 1 on the US side. And for

47:21

a place like The Wall Street Journal, I mean, this is in a

47:24

it's a fascinating story.

47:26

Right. It's not the one

47:28

they want. It's not what they think it is. There is nothing that hits

47:30

Joe Biden that that will take down his

47:32

presidency certainly in the final days of the

47:34

campaign. And

47:37

honest and forthcoming with them about that is that

47:39

I'm willing to bring this back to the journal because it

47:41

is a fascinating story. It's not a

47:43

front page Joe Biden did it. Story. So,

47:45

like, if you're trying to get that, you gotta bring

47:47

it somewhere else. Yeah. And

47:49

and

47:49

it's really interesting to me that to get back to what

47:51

I was saying earlier, they want

47:53

me to go forward because what they

47:55

want is a mainstream

47:58

news organization to say that there

48:00

is something here worth looking at. Yeah. Right? At least

48:02

that much. And it's not just a

48:05

wild, totally wild conspiracy theory.

48:08

But unbeknownst to me, and I think unbeknownst to

48:10

them, Trump has a parallel

48:12

operation going with Bannon

48:14

and Giuliani in his laptop

48:17

and their story comes out first. Right? I

48:19

mean, obviously, clearly. Right? I mean, the journals has the

48:22

journal is known for its rigorous editing process.

48:24

Mhmm. Like, we're not gonna

48:26

like, the New York Post just puts the damn thing on online. Right? Yeah.

48:28

And that was the first time a lot of the people

48:30

at the campaign knew what Ben and Giuliani

48:32

were up to. Yeah. So that night,

48:35

posteroid comes out. And I see it, obviously, and I was like, well, this is some

48:38

like, our stuff is gonna be in this laptop.

48:40

If they have the laptop, our stuff's gonna be in

48:42

there. But I still feel like it's

48:44

probably worthwhile for a story for us, and I

48:46

don't really actually make a that big of a deal out of

48:48

it at the time. I don't think it,

48:50

like, really affects our purposes. But

48:52

that night, Bana calls

48:54

me in just enough fury. Right?

48:56

And was

48:57

like, what's this? I hear about you,

48:59

you know, working on this

49:01

Bubba Linski story I hear you have a

49:03

team of a dozen journal reporters and

49:06

you're coming out with a front page story in like

49:08

two

49:09

days. And it

49:10

was clear to me what was happening was that was that the people I was working with were

49:12

not telling Bannon to to shut

49:14

the hell up. Yeah. Kinda knock it off.

49:17

Like, we're I mean, I obviously had not made any of those promises, but

49:19

that was the point where I realized that none of

49:21

them had been talking to each other and that

49:23

this is gonna come to a head in a very

49:25

bad way for quickly. And it does when Trump bursts

49:27

out in public that the journalist working on a

49:30

story about hundred

49:31

Biden. And You know? I'm

49:34

just like, fuck. Yeah.

49:36

I don't think he mentioned your name, but I know.

49:38

No. No. He just said journal. Yeah. I think this

49:40

continues to be a a subject of interest, and

49:42

I'm curious what you about it. There

49:44

is no doubt that accusations

49:47

of, especially when Joe Biden was vice president

49:49

of the United States, pursuing

49:52

certain aspects of American foreign policy

49:54

spearheading some of them including in Ukraine.

49:56

But there also are allegations related to

49:58

China, Mexico, and other places. That

50:00

the the notion that that Joe Biden's son

50:02

was trading on his family's name

50:04

for self enrichment is a serious

50:06

allegation and should be examined. Has been

50:08

them and buy a lot of people. Number one. Number

50:10

two, there is the question then of going on now,

50:13

right, today, and in the time when Joe Biden

50:15

was in office as opposed to

50:18

a private citizen. The questions of whether Joe Biden was

50:20

compromised in some way, whether

50:22

affected policy or whether he was

50:25

also enriched by that is also a worthy

50:28

thing to be examined. Those are legitimate

50:30

questions. You know, what happened

50:32

in the fall in this period we're

50:34

talking about is that

50:36

a number of things happened. One of the things that

50:38

happened was the possibility that the laptop,

50:40

an argument that was made by many

50:42

people, serious people, that the laptop might have been to

50:45

one either in whole or in

50:47

part fake and potentially

50:49

an outgrowth of Russian

50:52

disinformation campaign was something

50:54

that a lot of people in the press took very seriously

50:56

given what happened in twenty sixteen. So there was a lot of

50:58

hesitance about Exactly. Doing what

51:00

the your post did, which was just dumping the

51:02

laptop content in its pages

51:04

online. The post focused a lot on

51:06

on hundred sex and drugs. And not as much

51:08

actually on the on some of the business things, although they

51:10

focused on both. So you had the press

51:12

generally being gun shy about this.

51:14

Now the now

51:16

conservative say press was a gun shy. The press was just trying to protect Joe Biden.

51:18

Right? But it is the case that there was a

51:20

blackout on a lot of this information for a

51:22

period of time. An explicit one

51:24

on social media. Yeah. You know, Twitter and

51:26

Facebook basically said, rock up. Put it into this hundred bytes and

51:28

stuff. Anybody puts us up, we're gonna take it down. They took the New York

51:30

post down. When the New York Post tried

51:32

to post this up. So this is a matter of some controversy. And

51:34

as you know, there are a lot of conservatives still angry about

51:36

this and who will contend that it's

51:38

continuing to this day. That hunter is

51:40

like a no go area and the liberal press is

51:42

protecting Biden on this question. And I

51:44

raise all that partly because it's an ongoing area of

51:46

interest and partly because you and I

51:48

both

51:48

agree. That there is a very good question. Was Hunter Biden

51:50

trading off his family's

51:50

name in some way that was either

51:53

unethical, illegal, unseemly? And was

51:56

Joe Biden implicated in? That's the relevant

51:58

question for the campaign. Right? And this is the

52:00

question I believe that this is where we get to

52:02

my bender. Because what they want to I I I'm

52:04

reading your account of it. It's

52:06

still a little unclear exactly what their

52:08

fondest hopes were

52:10

from you clearly they wanted the journal in your

52:12

Imprimatore that there was something here. There's that's quite

52:14

that there's no doubt about that. Yeah. But the

52:16

only way you could reasonably believe this

52:19

a silver bullet. Was that if you wrote a piece that

52:21

basically said, yes. Hunter

52:24

Biden not just was Hunter Biden trading off his family's

52:26

name for enrichment. But

52:28

Joe Biden is directly implicated, either

52:30

financially or in terms of policy

52:32

implications. Right? And the big takeaway,

52:34

when your story came out, I believe it came out the day of

52:36

the and debate if I remember correctly. When your story comes out

52:38

is -- Mhmm. -- The Wall Street Journal has looked into

52:40

it and basically is saying that's the headline

52:44

was Joe Biden was not involved. Hunter Biden

52:46

maybe did a bunch of bad things, but Joe Biden was not

52:48

involved. Therefore -- Yeah. -- correct? Right? That's the that's

52:50

as I recall it. What

52:53

the import of this ends up being. So not only do give them what they were looking

52:55

for, but the Biden people would wave the Wall

52:57

Street Journal and Mike Benders reporting around and saying,

52:59

look, here it is. Nothing

53:02

here. Tony Bobolinski, who fucking cares. He's

53:04

just a really interesting thing to me that,

53:06

like, that that's where we ended up

53:09

Right? The Trump people not only did it not get what they wanted, but they

53:11

got the exact opposite of what they

53:13

wanted. Your reporting became the nail in the coffin on

53:15

the hundred Biden story -- That's right. -- in in October

53:17

of twenty twenty. Yeah. And

53:19

they put the nail there for us to hit with

53:21

the hammer. Right? I and I told them in

53:23

the room that night that

53:26

everything they had It was gonna

53:28

be easily refuted by the Biden

53:30

campaign, showed nothing

53:32

concrete. Right? And the the places where they wanted me

53:34

to take a leap were on

53:36

text messages that Hunter had said or,

53:38

like, kind of coded loaded language that Hunter

53:40

was using. And I was, like, well,

53:42

okay, is Hunter this, like, drug

53:45

a adult idiot who can't be trusted at anything? Or is

53:47

he a secret mastermind who's who's funneling

53:49

money to his father?

53:52

Right? Like, you can't really have it both ways and that's gonna

53:54

be a difficult narrative for

53:56

anyone to pull off. What they wanted Heilemann they

53:58

were trying to stop

54:00

the bleeding. They were trying to

54:02

here even if it wasn't

54:04

Joe Biden did it. Right? Or

54:06

even close

54:08

to that that Hunter's business dealings were worthy

54:10

of examination. That's

54:12

all really they wanted just and kinda I

54:14

think what they wanted to do then is to try to

54:17

see what gonna happen after that. And just could sort of like hope that

54:19

one thing led to the next and maybe they find their

54:21

silver bullet at one point. But

54:23

the problem is the rigorous editing and reporting

54:25

processes of the Wall Street Journal are

54:28

anthema to Trump World. Right.

54:30

Right. And it's just it it was never

54:32

gonna work

54:34

because he's like, the president already already has Bannon and Giuliani

54:36

on on his parallel track, and

54:38

they just force our hand to

54:40

write a story about Biden's involvement

54:43

instead of punters involvement. It's like the this is the great paradox

54:46

and the great irony of the whole thing, right, is that the reason that they

54:48

want you guys is because you are like a

54:50

gold standard especially on a story

54:52

like this that involves money and

54:53

business. Mhmm.

54:54

Why are you the gold standard? Because you're incredibly rigorous

54:56

and you have incredible, like, standards and you report the

54:58

hell out of everything. You have, like, editors who question

55:00

everything. That's why you're the gold standard. And and that fights -- Yeah. --

55:02

what they also want, which

55:03

is speed. Which is like they want this. They want you guys to

55:05

be the gold standard and be slippephot simultaneously,

55:08

which is kind of

55:10

like the things are kinda fighting each

55:11

other. Yeah. There was no one around Trump that was gonna be able to, like, to

55:13

to use the hunter by and stuff as a

55:16

political cultural in the final days of the campaign

55:18

after, like,

55:20

after he had been impeached for this very basically, this very thing trying to

55:22

go after Hunter. Right? Yeah. Like, there was no one

55:24

around him that was gonna be able to thread the

55:28

needle on this to make it work.

55:30

And Trump spends most of his final

55:32

rallies -- Yeah. -- talking about Hunter

55:35

instead of Joe. And we haven't even talked

55:37

about, like, the messaging problems Trump had in

55:39

twenty twenty versus twenty

55:40

sixteen. And this is a prime example

55:43

of it. Yeah. A hundred percent. I mean, actually, there

55:45

is a lot that we haven't talked

55:47

about, including Mike. I promised you when you

55:49

came on this podcast, I said, we're gonna

55:51

talk about Mike Benters We're gonna make

55:53

bike to prominence as iconic

55:56

and mythic as, like, you

55:58

know, Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward. So

56:01

We haven't done that. We haven't painted the portrait of a young

56:03

buck eye on their eyes through the swam blend

56:05

of Florida to the swam of

56:08

Washington DC. Along with January sixth and the symbiotic

56:10

relationship, Donald Trump, the DC

56:12

press corps, the difficulty of locating

56:14

the truth.

56:16

For a book like yours where every single source

56:18

is a pathological liar, and the future of both

56:21

the Republican Party and Donald

56:24

Trump as its leader. That's a lot we haven't covered.

56:26

We don't have enough time in this episode

56:28

to cover all of that. But worry

56:32

not. Say to listeners? Why not Mike Bender? We've

56:34

got all of you covered. We have decided to

56:36

put the rest of this conversation with Mike

56:38

Bender in the

56:40

second segment of the special two part

56:42

episode. So we're gonna cover all that

56:44

ground in that second part, which will

56:46

drop tomorrow, Wednesday morning,

56:48

July fourteenth. So be sure to download that copy when it appears on app

56:50

you happen to use to enjoy the

56:52

splenders of the podcast universe since you

56:55

won't wanna miss. The rest of this epic epic talk

56:57

with my pal Mike Bender on his great new

57:00

book. Frankly, we did win this election.

57:02

The inside story,

57:04

Hut Trump, lost. Even though, like, you know,

57:06

Trump, you didn't win. You lost.

57:08

Anyway, come back tomorrow. We'll see

57:10

you then.

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