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2:03
Hey,
2:03
everyone. John Heilemann here, and welcome to Helen High
2:06
Water. My podcast about politics and culture
2:08
on the edge of Armageddon. It's
2:10
determined if dubious, committed,
2:13
if cuckoo for cocoa puffs, often wrong,
2:15
but rarely in doubt exercise, in
2:17
elevated gas baggery. Than
2:20
neither rain nor snow nor heat nor gloom
2:22
of night nor the toxic
2:24
rantings of thenut house right. A
2:26
president attempting to invalidate a legitimate
2:28
election and stage an auto coup
2:30
complete with an armed dissection of the United
2:32
States capital nor more broadly
2:34
and arguably even more disturbingly.
2:37
The capture of a decent sized chunk of our political,
2:39
social, and civic spheres by a cadre
2:41
of incoherent, insidious, conspiracy
2:44
adiled, conspiracy craving, authoritarian
2:47
worshiping lunatics, hustlers, grocers, nihilists,
2:49
and nint compoops. None of it. None
2:51
of it has kept us from our duly
2:53
sworn duty and obligations. Giving
2:56
you, our listeners, a fresh episode
2:58
of this podcast week after week after
3:01
week after week. Maybe not
3:03
without fail because, you
3:05
know, hashtag epic fail
3:07
is one of our many Mottos around here, but
3:09
certainly without a pause. We've
3:12
been doing that for more than two
3:14
years. Haven't had a break. All
3:16
of which is to say that I
3:18
am plumb shagged
3:21
out and desperately in need of
3:23
some R and R. And with the midterm
3:25
election now comfortably in the
3:27
rearview mirror in our democracy, Amazingly,
3:30
if I will admit a little unexpectedly, still
3:33
intact, it seems like a suitable
3:35
time for the High Water home
3:37
office to give itself a fucking
3:40
break. So for the next few weeks,
3:42
that is exactly what we are gonna 2. And
3:45
we'll see you back here on the other side of the holidays.
3:47
Tanned, rested, refreshed, revitalized, and
3:49
raring to go. Ready to
3:51
get back to cranking out more
3:54
tasty content. In the meantime,
3:57
Don't despair. We're not leaving
3:59
you entirely in the lurch for
4:01
these weeks. To the contrary, every
4:03
Tuesday morning pre usual, you
4:05
will find a hopefully unfamiliar
4:08
episode of podcast doing
4:10
the backstroke in your feed drop
4:12
there by the able AI fact totems
4:14
who'll be mining the store while we're away.
4:17
And while these episodes come over
4:19
the next few weeks, may not be fresh, or
4:22
strictly speaking new, they will
4:24
be piping hot, a carefully
4:26
curated series of hell in high water golden
4:28
oldies, which those of
4:30
you who've been around from the start may remember,
4:33
I
4:33
hope fondly. And those of you who came
4:35
along sometime later may never have encountered
4:38
it all. Given our
4:40
focus on politics these past few months and our
4:42
desire not to take a dump on your
4:44
mood of holiday inspired good cheer, we've
4:46
decided these encore presentations will avoid
4:48
that topic like the plague. And focus is set
4:50
on culture, entertainment, technology, and such with a
4:52
run of some of our most favorite guests in those
4:54
realms over the past two 2, including
4:56
this beauty right here, which
4:59
whether or not you've heard it before, you will
5:01
not want to miss. And so with
5:03
that, we leave it to it with a
5:05
hearty and heartfelt Nice day.
5:21
And we are back for the second installment of
5:24
this very special two part episode of Helen
5:26
High Water with my guest and friend Mike Bender
5:28
of The Wall Street Journal, the author of the
5:30
Fantastic New Book. Frankly, we did win
5:32
this election. The inside story of how
5:34
Trump lost. But before we resume,
5:36
Mike, let's take a listen
5:39
to a little bit from the man of the hour.
5:41
Donald Trump at one of his recent
5:43
post presidential rallies. I don't know if they
5:45
still make you go to these rallies. Is that something that's
5:47
still part of your job description when you're not on book leave?
5:49
Anyway, let this is one of
5:51
those recent post presidential
5:52
rallies. This one at the Lorraine County Fairgrounds
5:55
in Ohio. Together, We
5:58
will send Joe Biden and the
6:00
fake news media. There's a lot of
6:02
people back
6:03
there. Look at
6:05
that. Look
6:08
at that. Do
6:12
you miss me? They miss me. Famous.
6:21
I know. They
6:22
look at their bad ratings and they're
6:25
saying we miss this guy. So
6:27
there he is. Donald Trump
6:29
in Ohio late June
6:31
talking about the press, doing a thing, you know, we've been
6:33
watching Mike. We've watched him do this for years. Right? We're
6:35
gonna do rallies of, like, one of the standard Trump things.
6:37
Pointing to the point of the
6:38
riser, talking about the fake news media. I've
6:41
often been on this rise because you've been on a lot
6:43
of risers
6:43
or in a lot of places where the press file
6:45
is, where the president's pointing and mocking,
6:48
deriving, sometimes stirring up
6:50
near or more than near violent animus among
6:52
his crowds towards the press and rather
6:54
sometimes very uncomfortable circumstances. And
6:56
he's still doing it, talking about fake news media, but there's a
6:58
thing in that thing. I wanna talk about how you became
7:00
a member of the fake news media. Mhmm. Well,
7:02
let's talk about that and then we'll talk about whether Trump's
7:05
right. The press actually does miss him. Okay. The bender
7:07
story begins in
7:07
Ohio. Right? Mhmm. Tell me about how
7:10
you got bit by the journalism bug. I
7:12
didn't really even consider journalism
7:14
until I was college. I mean, I grew up in Cleveland.
7:16
The Cleveland plane dealer was dropped at my driveway
7:18
every morning. It was a race between my
7:20
dad and I to get the paper to, you know,
7:22
to grab the sports page first. Which
7:25
I blame him for, you know, the I
7:27
just can't look away from the browns. Those orange
7:29
helmets are like the Cleveland Indians or calves. It's
7:31
really a
7:31
curse. But They'll win they'll
7:32
win eventually. Don't ruin my this
7:35
year. This year. I went
7:37
to Ohio State and was taking my
7:39
round of electives. And for
7:41
a degree in US history, and it was journalism one
7:43
on one class. And it dawned
7:45
on me there that this kind of
7:47
had all the things I was looking for. I really
7:49
enjoyed writing, This offered me
7:51
something to write about and write about different
7:54
things every day. And having
7:56
grown up in Cleveland and gone to school in Columbus,
7:58
I was sort of like looking for a different
8:00
kind of experience after college,
8:02
trying to maybe live somewhere else for a little
8:04
bit and see what that was like. And
8:06
at the time, every town in America had
8:08
a newspaper this year, but I graduated in two 2. And
8:11
some 2, so that
8:14
sparked a newspaper career. I went to the I just
8:16
ended up working for the college paper,
8:18
some internships in Columbus,
8:20
and I worked for newspapers in
8:22
Ohio, Colorado, and
8:24
Florida for the
8:27
the first dozen
8:27
years, first twelve, thirteen years in my career.
8:29
Just to go back, right, your love of newspapers
8:32
really started --
8:32
Mhmm. -- you know, with a plane dealer
8:35
landing every day in your driveway and
8:37
you, you know, racing out of the house to try to beat
8:39
your dad to get a hold of it. And get hold of the
8:41
sports pages really. Right? You're you're
8:44
I'm sitting here like having a an acid
8:46
flashback to my youth -- Mhmm. -- where
8:48
my dad was the same as your dad. He got
8:50
the LA Times like exclusively for
8:52
the sports section, it could throw out any part
8:54
of the paper that didn't mention either the dodges of
8:56
the
8:56
Lakers. If it didn't have one of those two teams reporting,
8:58
it was, like, fuck that. I don't need it. And it
9:00
sounds like your parents were kinda like
9:02
that not I
9:03
mean, my dad paid attention to news, but not
9:05
like I'm pouring the newspaper for
9:07
foreign news it sounds like your parents were a little like
9:09
that too. So I'm
9:11
curious, like, what they thought when you
9:13
started talking about becoming a
9:15
journalist? Did they think it was,
9:17
like, a legit profession and they were, like, oh,
9:19
we're so proud, or they
9:21
kinda, like, oh, shit. Like, we wanted a
9:23
doctor or a lawyer. You know, my parents,
9:25
like, They were very encouraging at whatever
9:27
I wanted to do, but I can't say they
9:29
totally understood, like, what the journalism
9:32
racket was all about. So
9:34
I feel I'm wondering whether yours
9:34
did. Yeah. Yeah. No. It's a really fair
9:37
question. And it was different than anything
9:39
in my family. My grandfather was
9:41
a scientist and became
9:43
an executive my aunts and
9:45
uncles are accountants and
9:47
businessmen and business women, dads and
9:49
accountant. And here I came by
9:51
offering journalism. My parents were actually they
9:53
were always supportive. I think two things. One is, like,
9:55
I'd never really talked seriously about a career with
9:57
my mom since I wanted to be become
9:59
a baseball player for the Cleveland Indians. So
10:01
my parents were just both thrilled that I had
10:03
shown like, was showing some interest in
10:05
a specific career path. And my
10:07
dad my dad didn't want to become an account.
10:09
He wanted to have a big family and he saw
10:11
accounting as a way to support a
10:13
big family and 2 his wife stay Heilemann
10:15
raise us all. So he was
10:17
he was thrilled that I was excited
10:19
about something and was pursuing, wanted
10:22
to pursue a career that that wanted to 2
10:24
its own sake as as opposed to as
10:26
it means to an
10:26
end. Right. Dave and you say you're a history man,
10:29
but were you, like, a politics junkie back then?
10:31
No.
10:31
I I really wasn't. I and and
10:33
and still wouldn't consider myself
10:35
a junky. Sounds weird. But my
10:37
interest really was history. The classes I
10:39
liked growing up the social studies and
10:41
history classes. I I liked the stories
10:43
and I liked writing and
10:45
what attracted me to politics was
10:47
both of those. Was the history of the
10:49
moment And when I write about
10:51
policy, like, I I don't really feel strongly about
10:54
particular policies. I mean, it really is true.
10:56
Like, and it's not like a journalism joke.
10:58
Like, I've never really identified myself
11:00
as a Republican or a Democrat,
11:02
and that sort of bleeds into these different
11:04
policy issues. I don't have super strong
11:06
feelings on, you
11:06
know, what should be done with the infrastructure bill
11:09
or what
11:09
corporate tax rate should be. What
11:12
fascinates me is the stories behind that,
11:14
the relationships and the interactions and
11:16
the negotiations that are
11:18
all at play. To get these deals done
11:20
and to get these policies written. Right? I mean, it's
11:22
a relationship business. It's a people business.
11:24
And these things don't get done because of
11:26
necessarily who has the best idea
11:28
It's who's put the work in to build the relationships
11:31
and knows how to leverage that stuff,
11:33
which is endlessly fascinating to me.
11:35
And so
11:35
this is where, you know, you end up writing a whole bunch
11:37
of different places in Florida covering a bunch of stuff
11:39
in Florida in that period around two
11:41
thousand ten. Basically, the tail end of Jeb Bush --
11:43
Mhmm. -- and then Charlie Chris you're at the
11:45
Tampa times, right, when when Rick's got rent
11:47
for
11:47
governor. That's right.
11:48
I'm kind of like compressing all of your Florida experience.
11:50
You went Tallahassee for a while. Because
11:52
that's all the stuff you did right before Bloomberg discovered
11:54
the talents of Mike Bender down there covering Florida
11:56
politics, which is a serious thing. I mean, there
11:58
are a lot of places in the country where
12:00
The leap from from local or state politics
12:02
or city politics to national politics is
12:04
is a leap. Right? And I think, you know, as
12:07
a big institution like Bloomberg, where you and I
12:09
worked together for a period of time, is looking
12:11
around. You look at, like, what are the places where you're gonna go
12:13
find someone who has the chops to make the
12:15
jump from state to national politics? You
12:17
look at places like Florida. That big state
12:19
with a bunch of people like Jeb Bush, people like
12:21
Rick Scott, people who had national aspirations right now.
12:23
Ron DeSantis is arguably beyond
12:25
Donald Trump. Yeah. The Republican who people
12:27
think has the best shot at twenty twenty
12:29
four. Mhmm. You can make what you will of that. But
12:31
it's an interesting place to learn the ropes in
12:33
politics. I'm curious about how you found covering
12:35
Florida politics and what you learned there
12:37
that came in handy as she made the move to national
12:38
politics. One thing
12:39
I learned in this career
12:41
path is working for metros and even
12:43
community newspapers, writing about people who are
12:45
actually gonna read the paper
12:47
that morning. Right? Getting the paper delivered that
12:49
morning. And you have to see in the
12:52
grocery store the next day or out
12:54
in the neighborhood and the accountability that brings
12:56
with, you know, you're not just firing something
12:58
off into the 2 on a blog for
13:00
someone in, you know, in the other side of the country
13:02
to read and interpret whatever they want. I
13:04
mean, it was really important
13:06
for my career and understanding the
13:08
business and understanding how
13:10
to report and how to fact check and how to get things
13:12
right and how to talk to a lot of people to
13:15
do that. You know? And then, as that
13:17
apply to Florida, I mean, Florida is, as
13:19
you were saying, I mean, it's first paper in
13:21
Florida was the Palm Beach Post. The Palm Beach Post is
13:23
competing with Florida Sun Sentinel. South Florida Sun Sentinel
13:25
is competing with the Miami Herald. And the
13:27
Palm Beach Post is a fraction of the size both of those, but
13:29
we're punching above our weight and trying to compete with
13:31
everyone all in the same
13:33
space in, like, some of the most
13:35
fertile ground for news in the
13:37
country. You have all these different
13:39
demographics. All these age ranges -- Right. -- like, they
13:41
have all thrown together on, like, a very
13:43
on a continuous stretch of of beach,
13:45
you know, for ninety miles there. And you
13:47
haven't even mentioned that the same peak times, which was, you
13:49
know, for
13:49
peak times, like, back in in my
13:52
somewhat earlier day,
13:54
among this level newspaper was, like,
13:56
one of the, I mean, the incredible talent came out
13:58
of Saint Peter Peterburg. Like, an amazing -- Yeah.
14:00
-- amazing pulsing
14:01
throbbing, thickened newspaper
14:04
environment in Florida for a very, very long
14:06
time. Yeah. But and for different reasons. Right? I mean, you
14:08
you you the the people and the reports you you
14:10
sort of think about coming out of South Florida, and those
14:12
papers are our news grinders. Right?
14:14
I mean, it is a it is a
14:16
doggy dog world and and and that stretch
14:18
of the state. When I was there and
14:20
before me for news. In
14:22
crazy news. Right? Like, the guy
14:24
who bit off the side of the other other
14:26
man face a, you know, a few years ago, you know,
14:28
that kind of stuff. And Saint Pete's is sort of the
14:30
sleepier side of
14:31
Florida. But but Saint Pete develops
14:34
to compete is the best writer's
14:36
paper in the country.
14:37
Right. Yes. That doesn't pull surprises
14:39
mostly for for their writing
14:41
and, you know, deeply reported pieces and
14:43
and that all that all comes together in
14:45
politics. You know, and you have a a
14:47
state producing all of these
14:49
politicians who are national figures.
14:51
Right? I mean, it's it's the biggest battleground state in the
14:53
country for for decades at this point.
14:55
Yeah. If you rise to the top there, you're immediately
14:57
a national figure to draw back to
14:59
journalism a little bit. I mean, again,
15:01
it's just so important to
15:04
2 people fairly. Right? I'm not,
15:06
you know, I'm not
15:08
saying 2 be easy on them, but if they
15:10
know you're getting a fair shake.
15:14
And Marco Rubio was a house majority
15:16
leader when I started in Tallahas see.
15:18
You know, I sat in his office and
15:20
his house speaker at the Florida House and
15:22
watched the NFL draft one year. Right?
15:24
I mean, we all knew he was ambitious. We didn't you
15:26
know, but, like, my my point being, like, those
15:28
people, like, all became he
15:30
and the people around him are are now in
15:32
movers and shakers in Washington on a
15:34
national level. And, you know, these are it's
15:37
again, politics is a relationship business. So
15:39
is journalism. The only currency
15:41
we have is or trustworthiness.
15:44
And, you know, if you blow that,
15:46
chasing a a city council
15:48
story or a state
15:50
legislative story, or, you know, an attorney
15:52
general race that that stuff will not just
15:54
will will come back to haunt you.
15:56
And, you know, I think I've been been lucky in
15:58
that respect to have created some good
16:00
relationship is a good
16:01
foundation, not just in Colorado, but also in
16:03
Florida that has helped me in Washington
16:05
too. So here here you come out of
16:07
Florida. Yeah. Bloomberg brings you
16:09
on down in Florida initially and
16:11
then up to 2. And
16:13
this is kind of around, you know,
16:15
in twenty sixteen, twenty fourteen, twenty fifteen is when
16:17
our paths crossed -- Mhmm.
16:18
-- yours
16:18
in mine. And, you know, I I think
16:21
about that time because it also is when
16:23
all of our when your path all of these things
16:25
intersect around Donald Trump in the twenty sixteen
16:26
campaign. I can't remember. Were
16:28
you were you were you the original Trump assignment
16:30
that we had for you at Bloomberg Project? Or were
16:32
you the first person we assigned to Trump? No.
16:34
Because No. Surly. Yeah. Because I was covering
16:36
the front runner. John, I was covering the front runner. Right. You're
16:38
following guys. Jeb and Rubio. Right? Like,
16:40
I those are the guys I knew. Right. And
16:42
I I remember having a conversation
16:44
with you and the editors about, like,
16:46
Trump's polling and that it
16:48
should be, right, that everyone's
16:50
kinda making front of him, but he was, you know, you
16:53
his pulling suggested otherwise.
16:55
Yep. And, like, okay.
16:57
Bender, you, you know, you check-in oh,
16:59
no. No. No. Not me. You know, it's a good
17:01
idea to cover him, but I'm covering the
17:03
front runner here, guys. I can't, you know, be
17:05
possibly bothered with this guy. Yes. So so,
17:07
no, I didn't I didn't end up covering I covered Jeb
17:09
till the end. I really wanted to write the end
17:11
of that story. And -- Right. -- even
17:14
the the Jeb Obit that I
17:16
did with John remains
17:18
now If not, the favorite one
17:20
of the favorite stories I've ever written in,
17:22
you know, twenty years in this business. I'm gonna
17:24
have to go back and read that now. You know, John Hellman's for people
17:26
who don't know a famous long form magazine editor
17:29
who have edited me at New York magazine for
17:31
twenty years, and I who I
17:33
brought with me to Bloomberg and ended up editing
17:35
a bunch of other talented young
17:36
people, including Binder
17:39
here, who learned who were like, I've heard
17:41
this guy's kind of a genius and
17:43
it turns out he really was a genius
17:44
and who just passed away about a year
17:46
ago, tragically from various
17:49
cancers, and we all miss him every day.
17:51
Yeah. Seriously, there was there was a lot of moments in this book,
17:53
John. I would tell you that I could hear you
17:55
I can I can hear home. It's telling me in the
17:57
background, you know. That's that's a score. Right? That's a score.
17:59
Yeah. I was talking to somebody the other day about all the
18:01
number of columns I wrote in New York Magazine for John
18:03
where we'd be getting close to the
18:06
deadline the deadline was always for my
18:08
deadlines were always, like, artificially
18:10
late because I could never make a deadline in
18:12
my life. And at some point, I always knew
18:14
I was really getting really pushing the thing to the point where if I didn't
18:16
get it in soon, there was gonna be blank pages in
18:18
the magazine when I would get an email from homes at homes
18:20
that would just say, How's the
18:22
my friend? How's the poetry, my friend, was
18:25
basically like the four alarm fire that
18:27
that I was about to cause a real problem
18:29
in New York magazine. How's the poetry,
18:32
my friend? So, yeah, I mean, miss him, miss
18:34
him to death. And and I think, you know, if
18:36
you're if you're like everybody else with John, you probably
18:38
learned a lot just from having done some amount of
18:40
work with him in that period
18:42
at Bloomberg. And I now remember, of course, you are covering
18:44
Jeb because as people now, it's hard to
18:46
remember. It's hard to believe that
18:49
Jeb Bush with the front runner in twenty
18:49
And that was, like, everyone was, like, it's gonna be Jeb
18:52
versus Hillary. Jeb versus Hillary. And so a
18:54
plumb job was, hey, Mike Bender from earlier
18:56
that
18:56
he knows Jeb really well. You're gonna be covered
18:58
with the front runner, maybe the next president of the United States.
19:00
And it took about, you know, I
19:02
think by about August. And
19:04
that first debate, you looked up and went madgev
19:06
is just not this is not gonna be his
19:08
game. That's
19:09
true. With Trump. So I I guess I
19:11
that is the question I wanted to ask you. Right? So you
19:13
left
19:13
Bloomberg going to work for for in
19:16
the course of twenty sixteen. And Trump becomes your life
19:18
-- Mhmm. -- as you had
19:21
observed that campaign starting
19:24
and seeing the way in which he was
19:26
decimating
19:26
everybody. Yeah. The giant field
19:29
seventeen candidates, Trump just mowed down
19:31
everybody. Right? From the very
19:33
beginning, and it became clear that he was gonna be the nominee.
19:35
I just I'm curious what you kind of how
19:37
you thought about why having watched him, the
19:39
way in which he did what he did and the way in
19:41
which he produced Jeb to dust
19:43
so quickly. How did you greet the prospect of
19:45
okay. Yeah. Now I'm, like, the Donald Trump reporter --
19:48
Yeah. -- and the fact that you want to keep your life for
19:50
five years. I mean, I know.
19:52
There there there's two moments where I have to,
19:54
like, confront that question. One is when he becomes the
19:56
nominee. And you're right. It was basically
19:58
August where Trump it was it
20:00
was cleared that Trump had was
20:02
resonating. And I remember
20:04
telling the jet people that, like, Trump
20:06
is gonna be the nominee. Like, there's no doubt
20:08
in my mind. Like, there's no way he's he's
20:10
disappearing. And I say that
20:12
and like a, you know, like, sure
20:14
vendor, like, in hindsight. Yeah. Of
20:16
course. But to say that when he became the
20:17
nominee, I immediately talked myself out of
20:19
That's how I kind of dealt with it was that, like, Hillary
20:22
Clinton, lover or
20:24
hater, was the most
20:26
qualified presidential candidate on
20:28
paper of my
20:29
lifetime. Right. And
20:29
she had a machine, and she had
20:32
just beaten a guy in a Democratic
20:34
primary who was drawing arena
20:37
sized crowds. Right? Like, these
20:39
crowds don't mean anything. Right? Because, like, Hillary just showed,
20:41
like, that it's not actually
20:44
one to one
20:44
thing. So Right. I was convinced I was
20:47
just writing, you know, the death of the Republican
20:49
party at that point, which turns out
20:50
to be wrong. And But,
20:53
you know, there
20:55
is there is a, you know, election night twenty
20:57
sixteen, even in in the Wall Street Journal's
20:59
Washington Bureau as a night, I will
21:02
never never forget and and how much copy had to be
21:04
written be written on the fly that night. But
21:06
then there's the question of, like, covering him
21:08
as president. Right? And we were I
21:10
was one of a five member
21:12
team covering Trump as the Republican nominee,
21:14
and exactly one of
21:16
us went into the White House. All of
21:18
my other colleagues were like,
21:21
no fucking way. Right? Like, you
21:23
know, next time, thanks, but no thanks. I've
21:25
had my fill. You know, it it it is
21:27
more just like like you were talking about before, like the two
21:29
or three new cycles that Trump dominates
21:31
in a single day, the journal for some
21:33
reason only wanted to pass for one of those new
21:35
cycles every day. And, you know, and
21:38
if you had in a journal, like 2 were
21:40
saying before, it's mostly, you know,
21:42
veteran reporters who have years in the in the
21:44
business have families. Right?
21:46
And Trump had shown that he was willing
21:48
to create news at any time of the day
21:50
over anything create policies on
21:51
Twitter, and it's just exhausting.
21:53
But, like, on the other
21:55
hand, it was the opportunity to
21:57
cover the
21:58
White House for the Wall Street Journal and,
22:01
like, the two didn't even compare 2 me. I was
22:03
just like, I was all in. I was I was ready to
22:05
go. And in in a weird way, I
22:07
much rather cover campaigns than
22:09
than the White be out, you know,
22:11
at stops in Iowa, New Hampshire
22:13
talking to people in South Carolina making
22:15
reservations for dinner and
22:17
you know, in in Columbia. But in
22:19
a weird way, Trump was a lot more fun
22:21
at rewarding to cover in the
22:23
White House because none of that stuff happened
22:25
in twenty sixteen. Right? It was the plane would
22:27
would land in in
22:30
Nashville. The campaign would stay on the on the
22:32
plane. Trump would come out screaming us
22:34
all for two hours, get back on the plane, fly back to
22:36
New York. Like, there were no improvements
22:37
to, like, catch them at the best
22:40
western in the White House, they were all
22:42
contained. Right. Right?
22:42
And everyone was there. They couldn't get away from us. So, like, it
22:45
was it was much it it was more of a
22:47
campaign feel in the White House than it
22:49
that campaign itself. So Giuliani just wrote this piece, which is basically
22:52
that's been getting a lot of attention in our world, which
22:54
is kind of a the press missing
22:56
Trump in some ways. Her thing
22:58
is kind of like how a reporter should cover
23:00
Trump dealing with the
23:02
transition to 2, the reduction
23:04
in adrenaline, the
23:06
different tempo, it be
23:08
more different. Right? Black and white. How is everybody kind
23:10
of coping with them? There's a lot in the piece. I'm just curious
23:12
about your view about that. Like, what it's
23:15
been like it was an enormous challenge to to cover the
23:17
past administration. But also, I
23:19
mean, time when the the press never felt more
23:21
important. Right? I mean, everybody was
23:23
on that of, like, this is a moment when the
23:25
stakes are very high every day. When it
23:27
felt like, you know, the basic bedrock
23:29
of it, it did. I not only felt that way, but
23:31
it was. Where the basic kind of
23:33
underpinnings of of American democracy seemed to be.
23:35
Trump was at trashing institutions
23:37
and norms every day. And so the
23:39
stakes seemed really high and the role of
23:41
the press was it's
23:43
always there, but it was much more front center,
23:45
much more obvious. You 2 a little bit about whether
23:47
you felt like that in the process of covering it
23:49
and in writing the book. And how you
23:51
feel about it now that you're on the other side and the book
23:53
is written and and it's kind of the summation in a lot
23:55
of ways of your whole of this whole period
23:58
of your of your professional
23:59
career. Everything you said about Trump's
24:01
driving interest in politics and and
24:03
journalism again is is all definitely true. And and I've
24:05
heard you actually speak about this 2. It's all
24:07
part of a trajectory. I mean, Trump amplified it, no question,
24:10
but the American public has been getting more
24:12
and more interested in in
24:14
American politics. For decades now, really. Right? And
24:16
there's data that that shows this.
24:18
But not only did Trump supercharged
24:20
that, but, like, during the pandemic,
24:22
he was the only thing on TV. Right? You
24:24
know, you liked sports. Like, you 2 in to
24:26
his news conferences to see the game. Right? If you
24:29
liked kind of like drama shows in in the evening,
24:31
like, nothing new has been made really, so you
24:33
tuned into his COVID newspapers to see what the drama
24:35
was. I mean, it was Trump
24:37
has a gift for attracting
24:40
eyeballs and driving news. And,
24:42
you know, that is not only is that different
24:44
from Biden, but but
24:46
this was Biden's campaign promise.
24:48
Right? Like, he promised to basically be the
24:51
boring guy. Like and so that he didn't have to turn on
24:53
your TV every day to see what the president was gonna
24:55
say. So on one sense, I would say that
24:57
it's not surprising at all. You know,
24:59
I I don't feel nostalgia for that
25:01
chain. I mean, and I'm just talking as a
25:03
journalist covering. It was exhausting. I'm a
25:05
big fan of Julia, and I I talked to her for
25:07
that piece. And -- Yeah. --
25:09
she she doesn't exactly say this, but there's a
25:11
sense that that it was easier during
25:13
Trump. Right? And that, like, there was all this news and
25:15
and now it's so much harder. I
25:17
would say that they're covering these two presidents
25:20
present equal challenges. The the
25:22
challenge of these two guys are are are equal.
25:24
One is that Trump was such a flood of
25:26
news. There was so much happening and
25:28
he was such an unreliable narrator of it
25:31
all that it did make it
25:33
easier for my profession to
25:35
cut corners. Like, I mean, there's it's just a
25:37
fact. I mean, West Wing didn't know how to
25:39
push back, it didn't know how to manage these
25:41
stories. And and there was very limited
25:43
opportunity for them to anyway because of how rapidly the
25:45
next story was coming. So if you wanted to
25:47
tell an accurate story, Like
25:50
you had to talk to way more people and put in
25:53
way more work for these stories than you would
25:55
have for any other administration where
25:57
there's generally an agreed upon
25:59
version of what happened in that meeting. Right?
26:02
Which is the challenge now is getting that
26:04
agreed upon version. You have to talk to a
26:06
lot of people in order to find someone
26:08
who's willing tell you what happened. I
26:10
mean, the nice thing is is that there's not as
26:12
many competing versions of
26:14
that, but it I I think the challenges are
26:16
equal and they're it's just as
26:18
hard.
26:18
I don't know about equal because
26:20
I do think there are special
26:23
challenges involved when you're dealing
26:25
as a reporter with an environment like
26:27
this one where, you know, led by
26:29
the president, the default mode
26:32
is to deceive. If for no other reason then there's
26:34
a lot more, in fact, to
26:36
be deceitful about. And I wanna come
26:38
back to this point in a particular
26:41
challenges that it poses for anyone like you,
26:43
Mike, who cares a lot about the
26:45
truth, and is trying to capture that truth between
26:47
hard covers in a book for history
26:49
with sources like
26:51
those in Trump world, it sounds kinda
26:53
tricky to me. So we're gonna take a
26:55
quick break, listen to some
26:58
advertisements. And then we will talk about
27:00
all of that on the other side here
27:02
on hell high water with my guest, Mike
27:05
Bender. And
27:09
we
27:15
are back with second
27:17
installment of a special two part episode
27:19
of Helen High Water with my pal Mike Bender.
27:21
Before the break, Mike, we were talking about your
27:23
experiences reporting on Trump have a very particular
27:25
question that goes directly to the book
27:27
writing process, which is how
27:29
to deal with the problems
27:31
posed by sources who
27:33
are what we call in
27:35
the news business, unreliable
27:37
narrators. Unreliable narrators are a great term of
27:39
art for a lot of things, covers a lot of sins.
27:41
But the unreliable narrator problem is
27:43
an even bigger problem in dealing with Donald
27:45
Trump's team who were famously a
27:47
bunch of that fucking lying liars
27:50
who lied all the time, speaking
27:52
of which, let's say, listen to Steven Miller,
27:54
the ultimate unreliable narrator,
27:56
as borne out by recent appearance here with
27:58
Sean
27:58
Hannity. No president in history
28:01
has been dealt a better hand on
28:03
day one than president Biden.
28:05
About what President Trump left him and what has
28:08
become. We have cities out of control with
28:10
crime. We have open borders. We have the
28:12
Middle East in tatters. We have
28:14
Afghanistan falling to pieces. We have
28:16
an economy with
28:18
massive inflation runaway spending,
28:20
and we we have jobs that should be
28:22
filled, not to be filled, but unwise
28:25
fiscal stimulus policy is keeping
28:27
workers out of the
28:27
workforce. This is
28:28
a disaster.
28:29
Where is it leaving
28:30
listening to that, Mike,
28:32
I can't help but ask.
28:37
How did you deal with? The unreliable
28:39
narrator problem and that it wasn't just Trump as
28:41
the most unreliable narrator at all time. It's that a lot
28:43
of people around Trump are incredibly unreliable
28:45
narrator. And I mean this in a very specific way
28:47
when it comes writing a book, you know, having done a couple of them
28:49
-- Mhmm. -- that relate to 2
28:53
history. Things you did not witness -- Mhmm. -- you know,
28:55
where you were not in the room, and you
28:57
were relying on the memories, sometimes
29:00
contemporaneous notes. Mhmm. Sometimes you
29:02
get lucky and someone's tape recorded something -- Mhmm. -- or
29:04
audio recorded something. But, you
29:05
know, notes emails,
29:09
documentation, memos --
29:10
Text messages. -- messages,
29:12
voicemails, text messages, all of that.
29:15
Sometimes contemporaneous, sometimes after the
29:17
fact. Sometimes you're just relying on their memory
29:19
because you're doing an interview after the fact. But it all
29:21
you're putting it all together, right,
29:23
to to write a scene in
29:25
your book -- Mhmm. -- or in a book like game
29:27
changer. Mhmm. And if
29:29
you're trying to exhibit the highest fidelity
29:32
to the closest approximation of
29:34
the truth. Sometimes you get
29:36
very ideally, you get very lucky
29:39
where you you talk to everybody who is in the room,
29:41
you get all the evidence put and and although there's
29:43
some small disagreements about matters that
29:45
are marginal, on the important big
29:47
things that happened, fundamental agreement and you you're
29:49
you're never gonna get perfect. You weren't there. Right.
29:51
Memories are faulty, but you're like, okay,
29:53
I've cross tabulated
29:53
this. I've looked at this from every possible
29:56
Heilemann I think I'd know what happened in that room
29:58
in in every important
30:00
dimension. Then there's the other the other extreme, which
30:03
is like fundamental disagreements between people in
30:05
the room. Mhmm. Like, where you can't square
30:07
the circle and you don't really
30:09
trust anybody you're talking to. Yeah. And unless
30:11
you have a contemporaneous recording of that
30:13
event, you're having to somehow render
30:16
professional judgment about who to
30:18
believe and and how do you try to get to
30:20
a point where you're comfortable writing this thing as if
30:22
it happened without saying
30:24
so and so said the following and the other person said there
30:26
was, you know I mean, obviously, one of the ways out of this
30:28
to 2 say, you know, the memories differ or that people
30:30
dispute what happened in the room. But if you're trying
30:32
to get to the point where you can write, like, what
30:34
you think has really happened,
30:37
It's a real challenge when you have either unreliable
30:39
ryan operators or fundamental disagreements. This
30:41
is a hard problem even when you're not dealing with with
30:43
a bunch of pathological liars.
30:45
This is an incredibly difficult thing
30:47
to deal with. Did you find it as difficult
30:49
as I imagined it to be? And
30:52
then, if you did, how did you cope with that trying
30:54
to do a book for history where you wanted
30:56
to get somewhere close in the same zip
30:58
code at least with the
30:59
truth. If not, and without ever being able to know
31:01
exactly whether you got everything
31:03
exactly right in every detail. It was extremely
31:05
hard. It was extremely hard. And I
31:07
went down a lot of rabbit holes and
31:09
and struggled in real time with how to handle
31:11
these
31:11
questions. Right. I kind of sort
31:14
of
31:14
divided it in two ways. There were some things that
31:17
were just either happened
31:19
or didn't happen. Right?
31:21
And other things that people's impressions could be
31:23
different. Right? And their interpretations of a
31:25
conversation or a
31:25
moment. So I kinda tried to first sort
31:27
of separate those depending on how much time
31:29
I would devote to a a
31:32
detail. A colleague of mine Ted Mann, he wrote
31:34
a book at The Wall Street Journal. He was a
31:36
helpful person to talk to 2 me for for this
31:38
process. And some point, he just told me that, you
31:40
know, these competing stories, you know, that's the
31:42
story at some point. Right? Instead of trying
31:44
to figure out exactly what was said or
31:46
exactly what happened or know who
31:48
made this decision to
31:48
what, the fact that there are all
31:51
these senior people around
31:53
Trump disputing
31:54
that, that's its own story. Right? That's its
31:57
own fact. And is maybe
31:59
more illustrative of what
32:01
was going on and what
32:02
happened. Than exactly who said what. Yeah. So
32:04
there's a couple instances in the book. Right? I try
32:06
to just say, like, these these are the different
32:08
versions of what happened. Trump's
32:11
COVID test is one of those. And
32:14
I just made sure that I talked
32:17
to as many people as I
32:19
could gave people as many opportunities to
32:21
discuss scenes in the book that they're
32:23
involved in
32:24
or, you know, decisions that they were
32:27
part
32:27
of. That's a good answer. And you're basically
32:29
saying to me, like, it's really fucking hard. The
32:31
one thing I learned in working on game changer double down
32:33
was just how flawed memories
32:34
are. You can probably
32:34
be only trying to tell you the truth. A
32:37
hundred percent. I mean, it's amazing. The
32:39
problem of memory is a huge problem for people
32:41
who are writing history and non fiction is
32:43
that even people in who have great
32:45
memories in good faith they changed their
32:47
story. You you interview them in February, and
32:49
then you interview them in May. And they tell you something
32:51
different between the two things, and they're not actually trying to lie
32:53
to
32:53
you. They're just like -- Yeah. -- they've just
32:55
in the course of three months, they they and you're like, what are
32:57
you gonna do with that? Like, that that was a technique I
32:59
used too. Like, I sort of like a police investigative
33:02
because it's just sort of, like, ask the in
33:04
in some of these instances, I have to ask the
33:06
same people, the same questions, like, a few different times.
33:09
And if you know, depending on
33:11
whether their stories change over time
33:13
or don't. Like, that was informative
33:14
too. Right.
33:15
It's very, very hard. But, man, I mean, having
33:17
to do that, having to go back ask the same questions over and over
33:19
and over again. Right. It was a long
33:22
process putting this thing
33:22
together. It does,
33:23
as I say, leads to my last question about this
33:26
matter, which is this. Heilemann,
33:28
one of the challenges it seems to 2, and this
33:30
gets into a 2 very large potential discussion
33:33
about, you know, the way that the press
33:35
broadly handled Trump. But
33:37
I'll ask it in a very specific way.
33:39
I mean, I think, like, you know, there everybody
33:41
talks about media bias in a variety of different ways.
33:43
I think there are a lot of reporters
33:45
and I I put myself in this category who looked at Trump and
33:47
were like that he was just categorically
33:50
different from anybody else we never covered. And it
33:52
wasn't about like disagreeing
33:54
with his policies or, like, it just has to
33:56
do with, like, reaching some kind of assessment you thought
33:58
this person's unfit for office. Did this
34:00
issue come up for you. Did you grapple with that question in
34:02
the course of your coverage over the course of four
34:04
years? Yeah. I mean, it informed
34:07
the way I did the
34:09
job. It it helped, I think, for me, not being again, I
34:11
mentioned a little bit earlier that I'd never really
34:13
identified as a Republican or Democrat. Like, it
34:15
wasn't really a conversation growing up.
34:17
You know, I would fight you to the death if
34:19
you're a Michigan Wolverine, but, you know, it really
34:21
doesn't remember just a so that that sort of
34:23
helped. But the way Trump behaved in
34:26
the office, it did for me was I knew there was gonna be more to the
34:28
story. This is sort of like the gift of Trump.
34:30
There's always a kernel of truth in what Trump
34:32
is saying.
34:34
Right? Like, I always try to remind myself
34:36
of that of what he was actually trying to say
34:38
here. Like, give it a second. Think about
34:42
this again. And I think it happened to me and other
34:44
2 colleagues, like, you you sort of
34:46
hear what you wanna hear with Trump, but
34:49
to do this job and and, you know, report on
34:51
a daily basis, you really have to kind of go back
34:53
and look at what he said again and then
34:55
make your judgment how that story should be played. And -- Right. --
34:57
to your point of, you know, 2 whether he was fit for
35:00
office or not. I mean, that's
35:02
ultimately a choice for voters. And what I
35:04
could do
35:06
was tell them what was happening behind the scenes. And
35:08
knowing what I know about Trump and learned
35:10
about him along the way,
35:13
2 understand where there was gonna be more to the story and where like,
35:15
what he was trying to keep from, not
35:17
just us, but American people
35:19
were at large. And felt like my
35:21
job was to to tell stories and then let people decide for
35:24
themselves. My admiration for
35:27
you and for everybody who did this job on a daily basis
35:29
over the course of the four years could not be higher. It really
35:31
is what, like, one of the great challenges I think, you
35:34
know. Again, I think the stakes are incredibly
35:36
high for and I also think it was
35:38
really hard to do this for all these reasons
35:40
because reporters had to confront a
35:42
bunch of questions about the
35:43
presidency, about their job, about the
35:46
proper relationship between their job and and
35:47
the institution they're covering. In a way that, you know, no one
35:50
covering the Obama administration or the
35:52
Bush administration
35:54
or the Clinton administration or the Bush administration or the Reagan administration
35:56
had to do because of the unique nature
35:58
of Donald Trump.
35:59
Yeah. You know, if
35:59
you take that, those set of
36:02
existential kind of questions, really
36:04
deep questions about the
36:06
endeavor, you know, what its point is
36:08
and how to do it. You layer those
36:10
on top of the fact that
36:12
you're running it's seventy miles an hour constantly with your hair on fire and the the
36:14
thing was moving so fast and was
36:16
this information overload and the news cycle was sped
36:18
up the way it
36:18
was. If you take all of that into I'm
36:21
just surprised there were
36:22
not more reporters who ended
36:24
up in mental institutions wrapped in
36:26
straight jackets. So I should say
36:28
that I did literally finished this book
36:31
inside a therapist's office. It was
36:33
a it was a it was down the street.
36:35
She was the the therapist was subletting the space because of
36:37
the pandemic. She couldn't actually see
36:39
patients in her office, so she was subletting
36:41
it, and I took it over.
36:44
So, you know, somewhat unironically
36:46
finished this book literally inside a therapist's office. But will say
36:48
that, you know, all of those challenges you you
36:50
mentioned, and on top of
36:52
that is
36:54
a extremely competitive
36:56
industry. Yes. Right? And you have,
36:58
like, a lot of elbows not just, you
37:00
know, aimed at each other or competitors in
37:02
the press, but a lot of times, like, on the same team
37:04
in the same media outlets. Sure. Sure. And
37:07
-- Sure. -- how I kind of coped it all
37:09
of it was was two things. One is 2 was really
37:11
lucky at the journal to be a
37:13
part of a team of veteran
37:16
reporters who really did, like, look out for
37:18
each other. I mean, we looked out for each other schedules,
37:20
make sure we get we're getting home to
37:22
our families And, like, you gotta you're gonna fight with your editors about what the
37:24
story is. You're gonna go to the White House and fight with
37:26
them about every little thing. And there was a sort of
37:28
collective agreement from the
37:30
beginning that, the one place we didn't
37:32
need to fight was with each other and -- Right. -- I really was very, very lucky
37:34
with that. And also
37:38
to have really the the
37:40
unconditional love for my my my my wife and my
37:42
family and and really my friends
37:44
who did not blame me
37:46
for disappearing you
37:46
know, for years and not tending to those relationships like I I wanted to and
37:48
should have. When you hear the 2 of Ashley
37:51
Parker vendors, for anybody who doesn't know,
37:53
Ashley Parker from the Washington Post,
37:56
Benders' wife who who is,
37:58
you know, -- The best. -- just absolutely the best.
38:00
Yep. One of the great professionals in our business
38:03
and also just spectacularly wonderful human being.
38:05
I mean, it's not just that she's too good
38:07
for you. I mean,
38:10
truly, you've used up your
38:12
lifetime of good luck and good
38:14
fortune to have ended up in their relationship you're
38:15
in. A hundred percent true. And I'm sure it has been
38:17
incredibly helpful to have a wife who understands really all of
38:19
the dimensions of this. Yeah.
38:20
It's like
38:21
part of the way you survived. She's my
38:23
best friend, she's my best editor, she's my best publicist in
38:25
this process. And therapists. And therapists. Yeah. A
38:27
hundred percent. Yeah. This
38:31
is a great spot after finishing our joint
38:33
in Comioms to your wife, Ashley, for
38:35
a stick and brake. And when we come back,
38:37
we will dive into the horror show that
38:40
was a January sixth. And in particular, what was going on behind the scenes
38:42
with Donald Trump and Mike Pence, something that
38:44
our guest Mike Bender, has fresh
38:46
reporting on in his new book. Frankly, we
38:48
did
38:49
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41:08
And we are back on Helen High Water with Mike Bender of Wall
41:11
Street Journal. Brand new soon to
41:13
be number one 2 selling
41:16
author. Frankly, we did win this election to talk about the
41:18
insurrection at the capital on January
41:20
sixth, but let's first listen
41:24
to some recent comments about that fateful day, first by Mike Pence,
41:26
and then by Donald Trump. January
41:28
sixth was a dark day
41:29
in the history of the
41:32
United States
41:32
But thanks to
41:35
the
41:35
swift action of
41:38
capital police, and
41:40
law
41:41
enforcement. The violence was
41:42
quelled. The capital secured.
41:47
And we
41:47
reconvene the congress the very same
41:50
day. So that whole
41:54
event, unfortunate event, just went
41:56
through Congress and a report was issued, and
41:58
my name wasn't even mentioned.
42:00
And I appreciate that.
42:02
I say
42:02
though, however, people are being treated unbelievably
42:06
unfairly.
42:06
When you look at people
42:08
in prison and nothing happens
42:11
to antifa and they
42:13
burned down cities and
42:15
killed people. So that's Mike Pence at the Reagan
42:17
library saying that January six was
42:19
a dark day, that law
42:21
enforcement was heroic. And, you know,
42:24
constitutional order was, thank God,
42:26
eventually restored. And then you have Donald
42:28
Trump butted right up against it
42:30
with him calling it and fortunate
42:32
event, the insurrection,
42:34
the deadly riot at
42:36
the capital where people were killed
42:38
and and others were beaten senseless
42:41
with fire extinguishers and American flags
42:44
and their
42:46
own shields in
42:48
the case of police, Donald Trump, an
42:51
unfortunate event. Yeah. So a pretty stark
42:53
difference there, Mike. And I
42:55
said something earlier about
42:58
shocking, but not surprising.
43:00
And in some ways, the capital interaction is the
43:02
ultimate example of
43:04
shocking, but not surprising. I mean, I was up there that day
43:06
and it was shocking for sure
43:08
-- Mhmm. -- and horrifying and
43:10
and depressing
43:12
and upsetting and
43:14
traumatic. But in some ways, it almost
43:16
seemed inevitable, not surprising.
43:18
Like, this was how Trump's term
43:21
kind of had to end when you consider the
43:23
build up to it. So Mike -- Mhmm.
43:25
-- you know, in the book, you'd break
43:27
down the the different experiences in Trump's world and in
43:29
Pence's world and where they stand relative to the
43:31
whole thing today. Mhmm. Yeah. A lot of people are
43:33
still trying to, you know, get their head around
43:35
what happened and
43:38
Yeah. Just like what happened and why it happened who is responsible and
43:40
what it means. And also, another thing
43:42
that is hard for people to
43:45
wrap their heads around is
43:47
the fact that it still looks to a lot of people
43:49
like Donald Trump basically was perfectly
43:52
happy, fine
43:54
with seeing his
43:56
slavishly loyal vice
43:57
president, hung, strung
43:59
up by
44:00
the mob. Mhmm. Because
44:02
there was Trump stoking the mob
44:05
Yeah. Criticizing Pence on Twitter
44:07
even as Pence and his family
44:09
were hiding in a secure
44:12
location afraid for their
44:13
lives. that if you would, please. Yeah. So
44:15
III think I I would start to talk about
44:17
January second. I think what this book adds is some of
44:20
the context
44:22
on January fifth. He's basically been Trump has been
44:24
fighting with Pence over this idea of
44:26
of overturning the election. I've I've object
44:28
into the certification of the results
44:30
on January sixth. And, you know, has another
44:32
art, you know, not really an argument,
44:34
but another back and forth where it's
44:38
Trump tells me that Pence never told him no.
44:40
That Pence never told him he wasn't gonna do
44:42
it. Yeah. I think the truth is that
44:44
Pence didn't make it explicitly
44:48
clear. But regardless, he didn't tell Trump yet,
44:50
and Trump ends this meeting -- Right.
44:52
-- the evening of January fifth,
44:55
he's got a stack of legislation on his desk. He's
44:57
got a sign from congress and papers.
44:59
And he hears the rally
45:01
goers outside the Oval Office across
45:03
the south lawn already lining up and and and
45:05
partying basically near the ellipse where they really is gonna happen
45:08
the next morning. And he
45:10
calls his
45:12
mid level staffers who are still at the White House at that point, into the Oval Office, opens
45:14
the door. This has been January in Washington.
45:17
It's, you know, basically freezing
45:19
in Washington. And instructs
45:22
them to sit and listen to all of the energy outside, all of the
45:25
party, all of the enthusiasm for him out there.
45:27
And -- Right. -- you know,
45:30
and his bobbing along to the 2 rock playing outside
45:32
and and and asks the the
45:34
folks in the room, you know, do
45:36
you think there's gonna be
45:38
violence tomorrow? And
45:40
it's a one of the deputy press directors tells them no. Right. A
45:42
lot of their concern a lot of the concern around Trump
45:44
at the time was how the Trump rally
45:47
goers were going to interact with
45:49
the Trump protesters and whether there was gonna
45:51
be a confrontation there. So Trump has
45:53
basically told no, you know, unless the protesters
45:55
and the rally goers really,
45:58
you know, mix. You know, there's
46:00
there's some interaction between the two of them. Everything
46:02
will be fine. By Trump protests, assuming
46:06
anti Trump processors like --
46:07
That's
46:07
right. -- there might be violence between the protesters versus the Maggot protesters. That's
46:09
right. So Trump is told, no. There's not gonna be
46:11
any violence tomorrow unless those
46:14
two 2. Mix.
46:16
And Trump stops and looks at him and says,
46:18
you know, I don't know. Remember,
46:20
my people are really fired up.
46:24
Which, you know, it it didn't really
46:26
talking to the people who are in the room at the time didn't
46:28
really strike them as anything until
46:31
The next day, right,
46:34
when thinking about that conversation and
46:36
hindsight gave some of those White House staffers
46:38
some chills. Yeah. When
46:40
the sixth happens, we know the broad strokes of
46:42
what happens that day, but but my report on
46:44
it 2 to the stories that Trump was
46:46
excited to see these people, his
46:50
supporters, the links they were willing to go for him.
46:52
That's how he viewed
46:53
it. Inside the capital, Pence
46:56
was inches away
46:58
from the riders laying
47:00
eyes on them. Yeah. Secret service put them
47:02
in a in a little height away. Like,
47:05
when they put him in that room, had it been
47:07
a minute later -- Yeah. -- there would have been writers out
47:09
in the hallway. You know? And I have details from
47:11
a call, it depends calling
47:14
into the Pentagon. You have Mario Bowser, the mayor of Washington,
47:16
calling Mark Meadows, asking him to step
47:18
in and have Trump call him off.
47:20
Kellyanne Conway is calling into the
47:22
Oval Office trying to get
47:24
Trump to call these folks off. Staff
47:26
who was in the office were trying to get his
47:28
attention focused on the right thing
47:30
here. Meanwhile, Pence is in a
47:32
conference call with the nation's
47:34
military and defense leaders in the
47:36
Pentagon, basically saying get
47:39
the down here now. Right? I mean, it it falls to pants
47:41
-- Right. -- to bring down the National Guard who ends up
47:44
needing several hours to clear
47:46
the capital.
47:47
The account in your book Mike is
47:49
incredibly engrossing and it's one of many reasons
47:51
to buy the book. And there's questions
47:53
I think people still have
47:55
And I do wanna just 2 tease out them with you
47:57
a little bit. I mean, I think -- Mhmm. -- immediately,
47:59
I think the day after it was
48:02
been SaaS Republican senator from Nebraska who I think was
48:04
quoted saying that he had heard
48:06
reports coming out of the White House that said
48:08
that Trump
48:10
was watching the insurrection
48:12
on television and was psyched by what he was
48:14
seeing. He was psyched by the fact that his people
48:16
were showing strength, which, you know, he
48:18
told people to come to this rally. He said it would be wild.
48:20
He said, at the rally, you gotta
48:22
show strength. He said over and over again,
48:24
he wanted to stop the steal. So
48:27
you know, perfectly plausible that Trump was in some primal
48:30
way pleased to see his people
48:32
on his behalf going to the capital and trying to
48:34
disrupt the proceedings. Right? He didn't tell
48:36
them directly specifically to do that,
48:38
but, you know, we think about everything he said. The
48:40
totality of his message, you know,
48:42
makes a lot of sense. And as I say, there's some
48:44
reporting that suggests that true. But
48:46
I've been waiting eagerly for more
48:48
reporting on it because it
48:50
does go to the heart of two
48:52
crucial questions. That are, you know,
48:54
underlie not just how he was behaving in the in
48:56
that moment, which I think is of interest, and I
48:58
want more reporting on that.
49:00
But it goes to these deeper
49:02
questions. One, is does Trump truly believe
49:04
really, actually believe that the election was stolen,
49:06
that in formulating the big lie,
49:08
does he know it's a lie?
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