November 1, 2023 • 50 mins
She found herself smack dab in the middle of a political firestorm during the Trump administration . . . now the former White House aide is telling all in her new book, "Enough."
Cassidy Hutchinson joins Sophia to discuss the events leading up to the January 6th Capital attack, Trump's gleeful reaction to the chaos, his refusal to send a tweet to diffuse the situation for hours, and her bombshell testimony before the House committee investigating the attacks and the fallout.
Plus, Hutchinson shares her journey to the White House, why she aligned herself with the Republican Party, and taking accountability for being complacent during the attacks on the Capital.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
Welcome back for another episode of Work in Progress. Friends.
I am so excited about today's guest. I am a fan,
an admirer, a person who has questioned their experience legacy.
I have wondered about everything from motivation to courage where
(00:26):
today's guest is concerned. Because we are joined by none
other than Cassidy Hutchinson today. Cassidy's desk, as you likely
know from the January sixth hearings, was mere steps from
the most controversial president in recent perhaps total American history,
and in her book Enough, she is providing a riveting
(00:47):
account of her extraordinary experiences as an idealistic young woman
who was thrust into the middle of a national crisis
where she wound up having to risk everything to tell
the truth about some of the most powerful people in Washington. Today,
I get to ask Cassidy what made her aspire to
(01:09):
work in government, why she loves this country, about her
working class family background, and what led her to go
and work for Republicans on the Hill and past that
the dramatic turn that her life took on January sixth,
twenty twenty one, when it just twenty four years old,
(01:30):
she found herself smack in the middle of one of
the most extraordinary and unprecedented calamities in modern political history.
Cassidy was faced with a choice between being loyal to
the Trump administration or loyal to our country by revealing
what she saw and heard in the attempt to overthrow
a democratic election. And it's wild for me to think
(01:53):
about what it must have been like for her, you know,
just a few years out of college to become one
of the most pivotal witnesses in the else January sixth investigations.
Her testimony transfixed to the nation, it transfixed to me.
I'm sure it's stunned all of you. And today she's
here to talk to us about what this experience was like.
So let's dive in, Cassidy. Obviously, we will talk about
(02:32):
the book and the wildness of the last couple of years,
certainly in your life. But I really like to jump
back with everybody because I find that so many of
the people I get to interview, you know, we know
from a seismic moment or a project or whatever that's
(02:53):
happened in your adult life. But you, I'm really interested
in how you and so many people who come on
the show came to be you know the person who
we all know today. So you talk about it in
the book. Certainly you know your early life and your
childhood and your family. But I'm curious, you know, for
(03:17):
folks who haven't read the book yet, can you give
our listeners a little bit of background and you know
where you grew up, what your life looked like, say,
when you were I don't know, five or ten.
Speaker 2 (03:30):
Yeah, yeah, thank you too for having me on today. Yeah,
so we're not five, five and ten, two very different
stages of my very young.
Speaker 3 (03:40):
Youth at that point.
Speaker 2 (03:41):
When I was five, well, I grew up in New
Jersey in a working class family. My father owned a
landscaping company. When I was five, my parents were together.
We had just moved to Indiana temporarily for about six months.
My father's in Jersey and then came to Indiana and
(04:02):
decided he couldn't move, so we moved back six months later.
We moved around a lot though in Jersey when I
was a child, and my dad didn't like to stay
put in one place very long. So that was very
normal to me and sort of growing up in an
environment that I look back on now and realize and
(04:24):
understand wasn't always the most stable or reliable. But I'd
never thought of it that way then, because you know,
it was my normal. I was pretty close with my
dad as when I was young, but you know, he
started to, how do I diplomatically say this, He started
(04:47):
to sort of get a little bit more distance from
our family.
Speaker 3 (04:52):
So it was.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
Really my mom, my brother, and I that relied on
each other. And I talk about this in the BO too,
So it's this profound moment for me because I didn't
grow up in a family that really ever talked about politics.
But I remember sitting with my dad on the college
one night and he had just gotten home from work.
(05:13):
It was pretty late outside, and he had The Apprentice
on TV.
Speaker 3 (05:19):
At that point.
Speaker 2 (05:20):
I mean, I said, at that point, I was probably eight,
so a hour approaching ten, and he was obsessed with
Donald Trump. And I don't look at that as a
formative moment in my life for why I was drawn
to work for the Trump administration. It's more formative in
my mindset now looking back of how I accepted some
(05:45):
of the behavior and natter. There are a lot of
parallels between my father and Trump in some ways not
necessarily negative, but he really admired Trump as a businessman.
So that was sort of my first exposure to who
Trump was and that he was supposed to be the
seismic figure that people admired and he was a hard worker.
(06:10):
Ten years old, Sillving, Jersey. At that point, my parents
had divorced. My mom, brother and I moved out and
it was a very tumultuous divorce. My dad didn't really
he actually would not keep in contact with my mom,
so I sort of became the middleman between their relationship
(06:31):
until I graduated high school and then even through college
a little bit. So that's sort of the very short
response to that. You know, but I don't look at
anything in my upbringing as a disadvantage at all, you know,
I look back now and again I realized that there
(06:51):
were some moments that, of course, like I wish were different,
but like I my mom and then eventually I call
him in the book my chosen father, Paul, But were
my rocks growing up and even despite how tumultuous the
relationship my mom's relationship with my dad was, and eventually
my relationship with him, you know it, See I always
(07:15):
try to look at things with the glass half full,
and it starts to some advantage, but yeah, starts to
help dress here.
Speaker 1 (07:24):
Yeah, well it is interesting I think to you know,
as you say, as adults, we can look back in
hindsight and see the connections, you know, how everything sort
of coalesces in your life to get you where you are.
And it's not lost on me that you know, as
a kid having to manages the eldest and a family
(07:46):
going through a split and essentially being the go between,
Like what you're really doing is practicing early lessons in
diplomacy when you have to sort of play in your family, right, Yeah,
And I guess I wonder you know, looking back on it,
you can remember, you know, watching that show with your
(08:08):
dad obviously when you know my I always joke that
like it's the industry of my day job. You know,
the sort of pomp, pomp and circumstance of television that
that really did to your point, like make this person
look like a great you know, businessman and figure on
reality TV for a long time. Obviously, we say, at
(08:28):
a different vantage point now looking.
Speaker 3 (08:33):
At the media.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
Still, yeah, I mean, media still played a huge role
in crafting his twenty fifteen twenty sixteen campaign. A presidential
persona oh yeah, I mean it's all it's all still related.
Speaker 1 (08:47):
Absolutely, but is it Is it interesting now, you know
to look back at that sort of as perhaps a
temp pole moment. You know, you write about what it
was like as a child to you know, hear about
then watch news footage of nine to eleven. You know,
these sort of big moments in your life. Do you
(09:07):
see how all those things tied together to create this
goal of you know, working for the country, these political
aspirations that you had, you know, where do you really
remember that coming from.
Speaker 2 (09:22):
Less much less the apprentice all that, But I'm sure
we'll get to that scene too. When I was in
you mentioned the nine to eleven stuff, and that was
formative for me. But I think the first like true
formative moment. So I was very close with my mom's
sister Steph and her husband, my uncle Joe, and he
(09:45):
was in the military, and he was the first person
that I had been introduced to that worked in the government,
served their country, and I both of my parents, but
more so my father is very, very skeptical of the government,
which again I look back now and I have thoughts,
(10:06):
but you know, at the time that was normal to me.
I didn't I heard negative things about the government. I
heard negative things about the police force. But then I
met my uncle Joe.
Speaker 3 (10:17):
He was phenomenal.
Speaker 2 (10:19):
He was a formative person in my life growing up
and he is today. He was deployed to Afghanistan after
nine to eleven, and I think that that is probably
the first tent pole moment when I look back on
my childhood where I had this concept of giving back
to your country and serving your country.
Speaker 3 (10:39):
You know.
Speaker 2 (10:39):
I wasn't like I want to be in a military
or go into public service at that point, but that
was the first time that I really felt that passion
for serving my country because I saw it in somebody
that I deeply admired. You know. So as I'm like
growing older and I have, I started to have loose
aspurys about public service.
Speaker 3 (11:02):
You know, I'm still in.
Speaker 2 (11:03):
An environment where it's not really looked it's not really
looked at as something that's a positive. So it was
sort of difficult to navigate it in that aspect in
some ways, and I wasn't really ever discouraged. But I
also didn't really ever talk about it with my family,
So it was sort of this like private thing for me.
(11:25):
As I was trying to figure things out. And then
it was the twenty twelve presidential election between then President
Obama and Mitt Romney, and I was assigned a project
for school to watch one debate, and I just turned
it into this case study of both political parties. And
I think that was probably the tent pole moment for
me where it clicked. And at that point, I didn't know,
(11:47):
like I want to go into politics, but I knew
I wanted to go into government service. I felt drawn
towards Mitt Romney's platform and his campaign. Wouldn't have described
myself as somebody hyper political by any means at that point,
but that was the moment where I, you know, I
had that clear goal and I knew what I was
working towards to go to college and to study with
(12:10):
the ultimate goal of coming to d C or going
to d C.
Speaker 1 (12:16):
So when you go to college and you start studying
political science, how does that turn into internships?
Speaker 4 (12:23):
You know? In the Senate In my house.
Speaker 2 (12:26):
I used to say I was in the right place
at the right time. Now I look back and I
sometimes wonder if I was in the wrong place, wrong time.
Speaker 3 (12:35):
Or wrong time. It's sort of subjective.
Speaker 2 (12:39):
Yeah, I still like to think I was in the
right place at the right time, because I you know,
despite everything, I think it's important where I am now,
and all those experiences were formative to get to where
I have where I am now. But no, So I
was in college and I took a class about Congress,
and I was like, Okay, I want to all intern
(13:01):
in Congress because I knew I wanted to get to DC.
I was studying political science and I was on a
pre law track, so I thought, okay, the first natural
place for me to go would be Congress.
Speaker 3 (13:10):
That sounds great, sounds fun.
Speaker 2 (13:12):
So I remember holding myself, pulling myself up in the
library one afternoon and applying to every House Republican office
and I got four or five interviews. I got a
small number of interviews, and then I was selected for
two internships, and I chose the internship with then Majority
Whip Steve's Galise, which, despite everything like that, I really
(13:36):
think changed the trajectory of my life because the Majority
Whip's job is to have relationships with every member of Congress,
to know how they're going to vote on legislation, and
to know what you can sort of border and trade
with them in return. Further vote on things. So I
was very involved from the onset of my time in Congress,
(13:59):
get getting to know members, getting to know like what
made them, to getting to know their staffs, which I mean,
it's an invaluable job in regardless of your party. I
think it's to have a job and leader to work
for any member of Congresses and honor, but to have
a job in leadership, especially when you are working something
like member services, you know, that really shaped the trajectory
(14:24):
of my career. And I was fortunate enough. The guy
I was dating at the time, his parents lived just
outside of DC, and I never would have been able.
I worked during the school years, but I never would
have been able to afford housing that summer. I mean,
DC is extremely unaffordable, and no matter what people say,
internships really are for wealthier student college age students, which
(14:51):
I think is a massive disadvantage. And at the time,
I think congressional internships are actually paid. Now I think
the Democrats passed the bill where they're paid. That's when
I was there, like a travel site. It was like
you kind of like have to rely on family. Well,
so they really opened that door for me, and then
I went and worked for crews for the rest of
(15:12):
the summer, which was not exactly planned, but I decided
after being with Scolice and I want Senate experience too,
and he happened to.
Speaker 3 (15:20):
Have an opening.
Speaker 2 (15:21):
But I did send an application to all Senate, all
the Senates, so Republicans and Democrats.
Speaker 3 (15:28):
I just wanted to say on Capitol Hill at that point, Yeah,
so can I ask.
Speaker 1 (15:32):
And I think it's really fascinating right when we get
to bring all of our different experiences and vantage points
to the table. So I I want to be clear
that I just really like to learn about what makes
people take I think the Internet has made it seem
like unless you agree with someone on everything, you must
look at them as an enemy, which just isn't how
(15:55):
I feel. But I am curious, like, what what was
it as a young woman at that particular time, you know,
in our political history that made you want to work
for Republicans? Like what what made you go? Like that's
the side of the line that I think I identify with,
(16:15):
because obviously I know what you've been through and as
you say, like things obviously have your world has been rocked. Yeah,
but I just I'm so curious about your mindset, you know,
at that time, and to kind of hear about.
Speaker 2 (16:35):
It, it's a super valid question, and it's one that
I have troubled addressing sometimes for two reasons. One, you know,
I'm very cautious treading into political territory, especially right now,
just because I think that this moment is so much
bigger than yeah, party politics. Like to me, it is
(16:58):
and this is my personal opinion, but it's so worthless
to debate Republican politics. And I'm using air quotes around
Republican because the current Republican agenda and platform is so
far from what the tradition, what I define is the
traditional Republican agenda is. Second, I mean I also have politically,
of all Dair, I never considered myself a very far
(17:22):
right Republican, but I had personal.
Speaker 3 (17:26):
Beliefs that were a little bit more conservative.
Speaker 2 (17:29):
Still more moderate though, and I always gravitated towards more
modern members of Congress, even Democrats, whilst interning on the
Hill and working at the White House, you know. But
I think at the time I had mentally defined myself
as a Republican, so it made sense for me to
apply to all House Republican offices.
Speaker 3 (17:51):
Again, I didn't.
Speaker 2 (17:52):
Have this, like the hindsight that I have now, Like
my goal is just to get my foot in the store.
Speaker 3 (18:01):
But again, I think I'm.
Speaker 2 (18:04):
Trying to figure out it diplomatically say this because you know,
but it is important because the Republican Party now is
to me, it's unrecognizable even from what it was when
they over Trump left the White House in twenty twenty one.
I mean, it had shifted so far beyond a rational point.
(18:26):
But then we look at the midterms in twenty twenty
two and we had some of the last i say
sane for some of the last good Republicans that were
voted out because of their stance on January sixth and
their stance on Donald Trump. And that just shows the
power that he has. And you know, I'm fortunate to
(18:47):
have that hindsight right now.
Speaker 1 (18:49):
Yeah, it strikes me what you're talking about, that kind
of power, the sort of intoxicating sway of authoritarianism.
Speaker 3 (18:57):
Right yeah.
Speaker 1 (18:58):
And it's not lost on me that you know, your
experience around January sixth, around you know, having to testify
about what you saw that puts so much pressure on
your shoulders as a woman in her mid twenties, and
you know, watching you in those hearings, watching you know,
(19:19):
the incredible work of Liz Cheney, who did get voted out,
but who obviously put country over party, and how important
it was to have her set that example. It is
it is a wild thing to realize that so many
people are willing to, you know, throw the country away
for the party benefit.
Speaker 2 (19:38):
And well it's wild too because the Republicans don't see
it that way, or the people that I currently identify
as Republicans largely do not see it that way. I
don't want to project my opinions on everybody. It's just
a look what happened with the speaker's race a few weeks.
So Congress was paralyzed from the neck down for three
weeks because they couldn't decide on who to put in
(20:01):
that chair.
Speaker 3 (20:02):
Like that is just as to me, And that's the
point that we're at.
Speaker 1 (20:07):
Yeah, and that they put an election denier in that seat.
Speaker 2 (20:10):
Yes, so I won't answer a question about the twenty
twenty his decisions run he tells.
Speaker 3 (20:16):
Twenty election it's really wild. Yeah, yeah, it's it's insane.
Speaker 1 (20:23):
And now for our sponsors, so when you when you
look again, you know, hindsight's twenty twenty, Like, we have
so much clarity now on how sort of out of
control things have gotten. But when you were on this track,
(20:43):
you know, working in the House, applying to work in
the Senate, you wound up going to work for Senator Cruz.
How how did you then work your way to being
aid to Mark Meadows because at the time he's Trump's
chief of staff. How does that sort of connection get drawn?
Speaker 2 (21:04):
So was another one like right place, the right time,
I guess. So I finished the internship with Cruise. So
that was the summer going into my junior year of college.
I had one more college summer left. After working Member Services,
I made a lot of great connections.
Speaker 3 (21:20):
Obviously, at the time Trump.
Speaker 2 (21:21):
As president, I didn't have the I never went into
this with the goal. I mean, I also would like
to say I did vote for him in twenty sixteen,
but I never thought he would win. And I look
back now and I wish that I hadn't. But it
(21:41):
was a vote more of defiance. And I don't say
that without shame, but it was a more of a
vote of defiance. Again, I didn't think he would ever
be in the Oval office. I was shocked at the
House the next morning and he was declared the winner.
But so I the next the most natural next place
(22:02):
for me to go, based off of the conversations that
I'd had with people that I worked with in on
Capitol Hill, was the White House, and specifically the White
House Office of Legislative Affairs, which is sort of I
like to describe the office as the bridge between the
Executive Branch and the legislative branch. Pretty Much, everything that
(22:25):
happens in the Executive Branch, which also encompasses all of
the agencies and departments and the White House and the
President's agenda goes through the Office of Legislative Affairs gets
filtered through or over to the Capital. So Aulay's job
is to have relationships with both Democrats and Republicans to
(22:47):
one get things done on Capitol Hill and to pass
the president's agenda. So I got that internship, worked on
the House Team. Then I graduate college and I was
hired back full time in ala as like the Member Services.
I forget my exact job title, but it was the
(23:07):
Member Service essentially in the Member Services role. Yeah, I'm
still a pretty moderate Republican at that point, but that's
all pre meados. I built a relationship with Mark during
the first impeachment trial, and then he became the chief
of staff and asked me to come work for him
(23:28):
in the West Wing, which wasn't an easy decision at
the time, but.
Speaker 1 (23:32):
Really so that's what I wanted to know, because, as
you say, it's during the first impeachment trial, and you know,
despite the sort of hysteria on a lot of conservative
cable news media, I know that people who are working
in DC were like, this is bad, Like what the
president did is bad and he's getting impeached because there's
(23:55):
reason for it. Was how did you kind of make
sense of what was wrong in the administration? I would
imagine it sort of is on a seesaw right of
like this is all of this is very negative and
we you know, Houston, we have a problem. And then
(24:16):
on the other side, there's a lot of people going
but we've got to keep the ship afloat, like you
have to keep American democracy moving. You can't just let
you know, the White House self emilate. So a lot
of people talk about how they stayed to try to
ensure that things functioned. And as a young, you know,
(24:40):
person with political aspirations who's working and working their way up.
You know, in this environment, are you having to weigh
all of these things or are you in a position
where you're thinking, well, here's all the adults in the
room and they must know what to do. Or is
it a little bit of.
Speaker 2 (24:56):
Both, specific to the first impeachment or just the overall
mentality and the Trump administration.
Speaker 1 (25:02):
I guess, you know, being in the environment of the
impeachment and then knowing that you know you've got this
job offer and so you're kind of going to go
deeper into the administration. I just feel like for someone
in their early twenties, that's a lot of pressure.
Speaker 2 (25:19):
No, that's a really interesting question, but you know, it's
the first and preachment sort of too pronged for me too,
because on one hand, I think this also goes yeah,
so as well into the overall Republican messaging point and
like the one thing I will give Republicans and then
(25:40):
I don't say this a flattering way, but they are
very powerful messengers, especially Donald Trump and not the Democrats aren't.
But the power of the Republican Party and their messaging
machine is I don't I don't know exactly what it
is or how they have been able to harness that power.
But in the administration it was very very easy because
(26:03):
even when I would you know, first impeachment. Throughout my
tenure working for the Chief of Staff, there were a
lot of moments where I was like, my alarm bells
were going. I was like, this is not right. But
then it's I would talk to someone, or I would
turnel on Fox News or just watch TV or like
whatever it might be, or just listen to what my
colleagues around me were saying, and I was instantly just
(26:27):
I look back that like sort of tricked, or my
mind would just go back, oh, no, actually what they're
saying is right. And you know, I don't say that
in a flattering way for myself either, but in that environment,
it was very very easy to not only get caught
up in the everyday politics of it, but to buy
into what they were selling and to buy into the
(26:49):
fact that he was completely innocent. The press was after him.
But you know, going into my tenure with Mark and
I sort of touched on this too. It especially during
COVID Day, a lot of people also knew that we
were handling things poorly, but there is that the element
(27:12):
of excuse and what else.
Speaker 3 (27:15):
Could he be doing? And this is why what we're
doing is right.
Speaker 2 (27:21):
But I also saw my job as for in legislative affairs.
Speaker 3 (27:28):
It was partisan.
Speaker 2 (27:29):
I'm not going to deny that I was working for
then President Trump, mister Trump, but I saw my role
in legend fairs largely as administrative. And I was given
a job and it was my job to make that happen.
And that's how I sought out to define my role
(27:49):
with Meadows too. And when I had the conversation with Mark,
when he asked me to work for him, you know,
I was well positioned in legislative affairs. In case we
didn't win the election in twenty two, I need to
get a job on the hill. Ideologically, I also knew
I didn't align with Mark. Again, he was known as
(28:09):
a very far right wing partisan. I was the founder
of the Freedom Caucus, which is a very far right
wing group. So ideologically knew we didn't align. But so
when I had the conversation, but it also is like
it's a great office to work in, you know, so
I wanted to give.
Speaker 3 (28:27):
It an element of consideration.
Speaker 2 (28:29):
So when I talked to him about taking the job,
I was specific about two things. One that I was
working for the chief of Staff of the White House.
I wasn't working for Mark Meadows, and to me that
there isn't At the time there was, but there still
is a very clear difference. To me, I wasn't coming
in to be his his personal person or to help
(28:55):
him accomplish whatever he might want to personally accomplish.
Speaker 3 (28:57):
In that role. I saw my value him because I had.
Speaker 2 (29:01):
The relationships with members of Congress, I knew a lot
of people within the White House, and he was coming
from the Hill, so I could serve him well. The
second thing, I asked him for us to have a
clearly defined role because I was worried not having that
clear job title, and I was very common in the
Trump administration has sort of given him bigious or a
morphous job titles, so you could encompass a lot of
(29:22):
responsibility or nothing, and you could get blamed for things
that might not be your fault. And that was the
one thing that I didn't get from the start. Though
he defined my role as his being his eyes and
ears and to be his person as the White House
(29:44):
sheep staff, so I didn't have that sense of loyalty
to him from the start.
Speaker 3 (29:50):
But it definitely grew as our time war on together.
Speaker 1 (29:56):
We'll be back in just a minute after a few
words from our favorite sponsors. So can you tell us
what what does a typical day look like? You know,
being Mark Meadow's aid, being the aid to the chief
of staff, what is your job?
Speaker 2 (30:21):
Yeah, this is probably one of the most difficult questions,
and it was very difficult to answer to every government
investigator and to Keven writing the book, because there was
not a typical day. It's ailing the Trump administration. He
sends one tweet and we could have a schedule for
him for the day, or we could have a loose
plan on what he was going to do. He would
(30:43):
send a tweet in the morning that nobody knew he
was going to send in Our whole day would shift
and suddenly we've worked in seventeen eighteen hour day and
we were putting out fires that never should have existed.
But I would say, largely loosely defined. I was the
gatekeeper to Mark. You know, he had a scheduler who
(31:03):
was phenomenal at her job, so she put everything on
his calendar. But it was really my job to filter
through what meetings he should be taking, who wanted to
talk to him, if there were cabinet secretaries that wanted
to speak with him, if they couldn't reach Mark directly,
they would oftentimes go through me. Members of Congress would
oftentimes reach out to me before they would reach out
to Mark. I formed a relationship with the President, so
(31:27):
I was sort of their condo it too. And then
with also a senior administration officials, they would oftentimes come
to me before they would meet with Mark, or I
would go into meetings with him. So I really I
had an incredible amount of access. And I don't use
incredible the sense of flatter. It's more like a very
(31:49):
a huge amount of access that I and I think
that I did my job as well as I could
have at the time, but you know, I didn't have
the experience, and I was from a lot of days.
I talked to my friend alisaf Fair about this lot,
but like our days were oftentimes like hair on fire days,
and because we never knew what really to expect. And
(32:10):
at the time, you know, we're approaching the twenty twenty election,
there is a global pandemic that we were not handling well.
That summer there was it was the summer of civil
unrest after the George Floyd was murdered.
Speaker 3 (32:22):
So it was just this.
Speaker 2 (32:25):
Series of unfortunate events that all came together at once,
and it was difficult to navigate. But again, when you're
in that environment and you're living that life, you're just
in such a robotic mode that you don't really have
time to step back and think about everything at the time.
You're just sort of living, especially in the administration, living
minute by a minute, and it was sort of a
(32:47):
means of survival.
Speaker 1 (32:49):
I'm sure that that that environment of chaos. You know,
when you keep people in fight or flight, you keep
them in a trauma response, they begin to be less
able to stop. It's hard to get off the train
once it's left the station. And I would imagine it
was a very strange experience as a young woman looking
(33:11):
around at all of these you know, quote unquote grown
ups in the room and going, well, they're all saying
this is normal. They're all saying, this is my job.
Speaker 4 (33:21):
You know.
Speaker 1 (33:21):
My girlfriends and I that did our first show together
talk about that that we'd never had another boss before.
We had a boss who was creepy and terrible to
us as young women, so we didn't know that it
wasn't normal, And I just every so often when I
think about, you know, you being in your early twenties
(33:42):
moving through this world, I'm just like, I have this
really interesting, like sympathy pain for you, because I know
how pressurized it felt for me on the set of
a television show, like not in the actual White House,
trying to keep the United States afloat, and.
Speaker 3 (34:00):
I couldn't imagine the stress, the pressure and stress email.
You know, it's like it's just.
Speaker 2 (34:05):
Completely different, but yeah, it's But I also, you know,
the female thing is interesting to me too because I
didn't really ever viewed through a gendered lens, and that
was also something that I think a conditioning of the
environment I grew up in. But also the Trump admistration
was very big on pushing back against any negative connotation
(34:27):
with that Trump doesn't like women. He had the highest
number of West women working in the West Wing. So
I didn't look at it like that at the time,
but when I look at it now, it's sometimes I'm like,
oh my god, like because it.
Speaker 3 (34:39):
Is it was insane and crazy, but.
Speaker 2 (34:44):
It uh, you know, I did oftentimes feel that a
lot of pressure and stress. But you know, you said
the fight or flight thing, and I resonate with that deeply,
especially you know, moving through the after the election and
post Trump White House. But turning off your emotions and
the Trump administration was a means of survival and that
(35:07):
was something that I was very good at as a
product of how I grew up. And again I didn't
and don't look at that as a disadvantage. It helped
me in that job. It helped me be successful in
that job. But it's not a healthy way to live
or survive at all. And I recognize that now, but
(35:31):
it wasn't really that abnormal to me at the time
because I was sort of used to it when I
had to just sort of live and be this robotic
character that got things done for the principles I served
the chief of staff to the President of the United
States and the President of the United States. It was
just sort of a means of accomplishing the end goal
(35:51):
and means of surviving that day.
Speaker 1 (35:54):
Yeah, yeah, I totally get it. You don't realize how
good you become at being a performer and being a
good soldier and a good worker, you know, until you
get on the other side of something that forces you
to do the work to heal, and then you go, oh, wow,
look at how good at dissociating I was, and I
got rewarded for it, like, oh, that's so surreal.
Speaker 4 (36:18):
So I sa same, been there, even going through on
a order a little bit here too, though, but going
through the whole process of testifying and switching legal council.
Speaker 2 (36:30):
It wasn't really until after I had testified and writing
the book that I came to that realization when I
remember the day that that hit me like a brick wall.
And I was fortunate to work with a great collaborator.
And again, well we can go back to this, but
so I make this point here because I collaborated worked
with Mark Salter like sort of would try to cue
(36:51):
me in to this, and I just was sort.
Speaker 3 (36:55):
Of in the state of denial. Even at that way.
I said, no, I wasn't disassociating. I was doing my job.
Speaker 2 (36:59):
And it was one day we were writing about the
coronavirus pandemic and how I was going up to the
hill and I was basically fielding everything from the Speaker
of the House, Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer on behalf of
the Chief of Staff and President, and it hit me
that I just had turned my emotions off, and I
took a week off of writing.
Speaker 3 (37:19):
I just couldn't handle.
Speaker 2 (37:21):
It because I saw very clearly then how far gone
I was from the person that I wanted to be,
but also that I was an active participant in something
because I was like, my emotions were being manipulated and
taken advantage of in that way. And I think that
(37:41):
Trump has an ability and a talent for finding people
that sort of have that capability to turn off their
emotions and it is exploited where I can say that
now being on the outside and also knowing people that
have gone through similar experiences with them.
Speaker 1 (37:57):
Isn't that really interesting being able to see that you
had a predisposition that made you like an easy mark,
and also being that easy mark, that person who could
be manipulated in that way, also made you a person
who was able to excel and perform at a level
(38:18):
that is, you know, often looked at as impressive. You know,
you worked for the Chief of Staff of the White House.
You do get rewarded, and it can be I think,
very confusing to sort of realize you've been in the spin,
Like when the spin cycle stops and you kind of
get to crawl out and look around and go, holy,
(38:39):
this happened to me, you know what a wild thing.
Speaker 3 (38:44):
And as you.
Speaker 1 (38:45):
Said, the events of that year, I mean the pandemic
beginning and the summer of protest and so many people calling,
you know, for social justice and leading into an election,
I mean, it was just a relentless year. Were you
(39:06):
so focused on, you know, the upcoming election in Mark's
office or were you guys really trying to put out
all of these fires at once? Were you dealing with
the mishandling of the pandemic response and the you know,
I'm not going to sugarcoat it, like fascist response to protests,
which is a constitutional right. Like did it really feel
(39:28):
like everything was on fire all the time or were
you given a specific lane?
Speaker 2 (39:33):
I mean, things white literally work like there are fires
literally outside of the po oh my god.
Speaker 3 (39:38):
No, it definitely felt like things were on fire all
of the time.
Speaker 2 (39:41):
Like there I don't really remember a day looking back
where I you know, I say I could turn my
emotions off, but I do remember feeling stressed or just
very very stretched thin. And my first boss and legislative
affairs warned me when I was in Ledge affairs and
warned then he left, But then he warned me. I
talked about this in the book, but before I took
the job with Mark, that I was going to burn
(40:02):
myself out. And he was really worried about that. This
is before all that happened, and I was just in
this against state of denial, like I'm not capable of
for anny od, I am fine, but no that summer.
That summer was focused more on like the day to
day issues, many of which that we created.
Speaker 3 (40:21):
And then I think really the turning point for.
Speaker 2 (40:24):
Us was after the president got COVID.
Speaker 3 (40:28):
Uh really why when we switched more to election mode.
Speaker 2 (40:35):
He was very worried that he was going to get
the coronavirus before the election, and he because he viewed
that as a sign of his a weakness of his
immune system.
Speaker 3 (40:48):
And I say.
Speaker 2 (40:49):
That sarcastically because it was ridiculous. It's ridiculous, not even
say it out loud. But that was sort of the
mark where we many people in the administration were like, Okay,
this could be a turning point. We could maybe turn
this around, Maybe he could switch his message and kind
of as somebody that now is sympathetic to people who
(41:12):
have suffered from the coronavirus or people who have had
family members and loved ones pass away from the coronavirus.
But he just dug his heels in more and he
just went into full election mode after that. And at
that point too, is we were traveling every day and
the mission at that point was get through the election.
Speaker 1 (41:32):
Okay, And when obviously we have so much to talk
about with January sixth as the day, but now again
in hindsight, like when when did you begin to be
aware that they were creating this plan? Because obviously now
we know, you know, we've seen the timelines, we've seen
the hearings, we know when this election denying plan was hatched,
(41:55):
and you know, the fake elector schemes and all of
these crazy things that feel like something out of a
mystery novel. It's wild to think that this really happened
and that a group of people conspired to overthrow the
US government. Like when as a staffer in the White House,
were you like, wait, what are you talking about in there?
What's going on?
Speaker 2 (42:15):
Like?
Speaker 1 (42:16):
Was there were there moments where you realized like, oh,
a very very bad thing is happening, or was it
in your experience predominantly leading into the actual sixth and
that riot, Like when did the alarm bells start going
for you around around the election?
Speaker 3 (42:33):
You know, I want to back pedal a little bit,
just to you know, I want to call myself out
slightly on this because I had my blinders up for
a lot of things, and there's a lot that I
don't know, and that maybe we'll be uncovered in the
Justice Department's investigation to maybe not some of this. But
the first time I.
Speaker 2 (42:51):
Remember hearing the phrase stop the steal was we were
at was in May of twenty twenty Camp David Retreat
with members of Congress, and Kevin McCarthy that night asked
me if I heard what the President had said to
him during the movie You're watching Once Upon a Time
in Hollywood, And I said, I told Kevin I didn't,
And Kevin said that President had a tweet teet up
(43:14):
that he wanted to send out something like stop the steal.
Speaker 3 (43:17):
That was the first time that I had heard that,
was like, stop the steal? What is he talking about?
Speaker 2 (43:22):
So throughout the summer of twenty twenty, you know, I
he was a president was very concerned with mail and ballots,
so I was overlooking a lot of these things.
Speaker 3 (43:32):
Then we lost the elections.
Speaker 2 (43:34):
I was going to get fast forward back to this, right,
But there were warning signs before all of this, like
before we lost the election.
Speaker 3 (43:44):
And we lost the election, make that clear. I had career.
Speaker 1 (43:49):
Facts matter, isn't it?
Speaker 2 (43:54):
Facts are facts are still facts. But I had the
crown us right after the election. So when Joe Biden
was actually declared the winner, so I think it was
actually a few days after the general election, I was
very confident at that point that Joe Biden did win
the election. But then I returned to the White House
and I learned that we were or the administration was
(44:17):
filing lawsuits and states where the vote count was close,
and in some congressional districts there was a close vote count.
And I think that every candidate for office, regardless of
the level, has the right, the constitutional right, and the
right in themselves if they feel like they might have
won and the margins were slim enough, they can ask
(44:38):
for a recount.
Speaker 3 (44:41):
So I was fine with that.
Speaker 2 (44:42):
I was just hoping we would get through that phase,
then he would be willing to concede and we could
go about our lives. Throughout December and leave with our
dignity in January. The first big turning point for me
was the night of December eighteenth, when mister Trump had
Mike Flynn, who was I don't even like to call
(45:04):
him in general, but his rank was a general of
the US Army and Patrick Byrne and Sydney Pellell, like
three big conspiracy theorists in the Oval Office of the
White House at first without any lawyers or White House
lawyers talking about potentially invoking martial law or the Insurrection Act.
Speaker 3 (45:25):
And that meeting went.
Speaker 2 (45:27):
On for hours that night, and it was really it
was a traumatic night then and it's very traumatic to
look back on that night now knowing what I know
in hindsight. But also that was the first trigger point
for me because he pushed out a tweet later that evening,
come to something to the effective, Come to January sixth
on DC. Big protests be there will be wild.
Speaker 4 (45:49):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (45:50):
I remember thinking, like knowing how chaotic and at points
violence things were in the Oval Office. And then eventually
they went upstairs to his residence because he wanted to
go upstairs meet dinner and may recon be in the
meeting upstairs. How terrible that was then seeing that tweet.
But in the days leading up to January sixth, as
(46:10):
I began filtering through reports from the Secret Service and
other administration officials about the protesters coming to d C,
and there's reports that we were getting from TSA or
maybe TSA, but essentially reports that the Secret Service was
filtering through the government of people that were planning to
(46:31):
come to DC or that had checked into d C
hotels with weapons. And Rudy Giuliani was at the White
House one night, and he left and talked about going
up to the Capitol, and I went and talked to
Mark about it, and Mark it's like, yeah, we we
might go up there the president, you know it. That
was really just this like moment where I heard Rudy
(46:53):
say this and then markt saying this, and that was
like I sort of knew things were going to get
bad again.
Speaker 3 (46:58):
I didn't know how bad. I just had a really.
Speaker 2 (47:03):
I think it's female intuition, honestly, but a really bad
gut feeling about that day.
Speaker 1 (47:10):
Yeah, So what do you because obviously, you know, between
December eighteenth and January sixth, we're looking at basically three weeks.
You know, what do you remember about the actual day,
where there are moments leading up to the morning of
the sixth where people were trying to figure out what
to do, or did it all really feel like that
(47:33):
morning everything just went to hell in a handbasket. I mean,
did you know what was going to happen being in
Mark's office or was there perhaps like a danger and
then a hope that it wouldn't.
Speaker 2 (47:46):
I would lean towards the latter, And I just want
to be careful the way I answer this to you,
because I don't want to speculate too much about other
people's mindsets or what the actual goals were. You know, again,
the January sixth, we needed incredible work, but there are
still ongoing investigations and I think that hopefully soon we
(48:07):
will know a lot more about what the concrete plans were.
But in my experience in the days leading up and
on January six but more specifically on January six, I knew,
(48:27):
sorry is it's this day is like very difficult to
talk about too, but you know, I knew how bad
things potentially could get. But I also did hold on
to this hope that maybe they weren't. Maybe I was overthinking.
That is sort of something that I'm still trying to
untrain myself and thought process and thought pattern for myself.
Speaker 3 (48:49):
I'm not overthinking things.
Speaker 2 (48:51):
It was that bad, and but we were getting a
lot of reports about people that were armed in DC.
We are getting and then we were down at the
Ellipse and I heard the President say, take the man,
take the eving magnatometers away.
Speaker 3 (49:06):
They're not here to hurt me.
Speaker 2 (49:07):
Because the Secret Service was not letting people through the
magnetometers onto the Ellipse rally with weapons or what they
deemed as weapons. Some of that was fly poles, the
sharpened spear, some of that was guns. Embarrassed pray and
the President we had TVs in the rally ten and
he could see on the TVs that there are people
(49:27):
standing in the trees on the National Mall just to
get a glimpse of him, and he wanted them all.
Speaker 3 (49:32):
To come through.
Speaker 2 (49:33):
And I remember in that moment just thinking like this
is insane, Like somebody has to do something, somebody has
to stop this. But there still were conversations about us
potentially making a movement to go to the Capitol that day.
I was like, that can't that can't happen, Like one
logistically impossible. We've had these conversations with Secret Service too,
like the streets are not clear, we don't have these
(49:55):
security assets to do this, and like that is just danger.
Speaker 3 (50:00):
It was just this good bread flag danger, danger, danger, guys.
Speaker 1 (50:05):
This conversation is so good, so detailed, so fascinating, and
I know none of you are shocked. I have so
many more questions for Cassidy. So we are going to
take a break and we're going to come back with
part two of this conversation because I am just not
ready for this to end.
Welcome back for another episode of Work in Progress. Friends.
I am so excited about today's guest. I am a fan,
an admirer, a person who has questioned their experience legacy.
I have wondered about everything from motivation to courage where
(00:26):
today's guest is concerned. Because we are joined by none
other than Cassidy Hutchinson today. Cassidy's desk, as you likely
know from the January sixth hearings, was mere steps from
the most controversial president in recent perhaps total American history,
and in her book Enough, she is providing a riveting
(00:47):
account of her extraordinary experiences as an idealistic young woman
who was thrust into the middle of a national crisis
where she wound up having to risk everything to tell
the truth about some of the most powerful people in Washington. Today,
I get to ask Cassidy what made her aspire to
(01:09):
work in government, why she loves this country, about her
working class family background, and what led her to go
and work for Republicans on the Hill and past that
the dramatic turn that her life took on January sixth,
twenty twenty one, when it just twenty four years old,
(01:30):
she found herself smack in the middle of one of
the most extraordinary and unprecedented calamities in modern political history.
Cassidy was faced with a choice between being loyal to
the Trump administration or loyal to our country by revealing
what she saw and heard in the attempt to overthrow
a democratic election. And it's wild for me to think
(01:53):
about what it must have been like for her, you know,
just a few years out of college to become one
of the most pivotal witnesses in the else January sixth investigations.
Her testimony transfixed to the nation, it transfixed to me.
I'm sure it's stunned all of you. And today she's
here to talk to us about what this experience was like.
So let's dive in, Cassidy. Obviously, we will talk about
(02:32):
the book and the wildness of the last couple of years,
certainly in your life. But I really like to jump
back with everybody because I find that so many of
the people I get to interview, you know, we know
from a seismic moment or a project or whatever that's
(02:53):
happened in your adult life. But you, I'm really interested
in how you and so many people who come on
the show came to be you know the person who
we all know today. So you talk about it in
the book. Certainly you know your early life and your
childhood and your family. But I'm curious, you know, for
(03:17):
folks who haven't read the book yet, can you give
our listeners a little bit of background and you know
where you grew up, what your life looked like, say,
when you were I don't know, five or ten.
Speaker 2 (03:30):
Yeah, yeah, thank you too for having me on today. Yeah,
so we're not five, five and ten, two very different
stages of my very young.
Speaker 3 (03:40):
Youth at that point.
Speaker 2 (03:41):
When I was five, well, I grew up in New
Jersey in a working class family. My father owned a
landscaping company. When I was five, my parents were together.
We had just moved to Indiana temporarily for about six months.
My father's in Jersey and then came to Indiana and
(04:02):
decided he couldn't move, so we moved back six months later.
We moved around a lot though in Jersey when I
was a child, and my dad didn't like to stay
put in one place very long. So that was very
normal to me and sort of growing up in an
environment that I look back on now and realize and
(04:24):
understand wasn't always the most stable or reliable. But I'd
never thought of it that way then, because you know,
it was my normal. I was pretty close with my
dad as when I was young, but you know, he
started to, how do I diplomatically say this, He started
(04:47):
to sort of get a little bit more distance from
our family.
Speaker 3 (04:52):
So it was.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
Really my mom, my brother, and I that relied on
each other. And I talk about this in the BO too,
So it's this profound moment for me because I didn't
grow up in a family that really ever talked about politics.
But I remember sitting with my dad on the college
one night and he had just gotten home from work.
(05:13):
It was pretty late outside, and he had The Apprentice
on TV.
Speaker 3 (05:19):
At that point.
Speaker 2 (05:20):
I mean, I said, at that point, I was probably eight,
so a hour approaching ten, and he was obsessed with
Donald Trump. And I don't look at that as a
formative moment in my life for why I was drawn
to work for the Trump administration. It's more formative in
my mindset now looking back of how I accepted some
(05:45):
of the behavior and natter. There are a lot of
parallels between my father and Trump in some ways not
necessarily negative, but he really admired Trump as a businessman.
So that was sort of my first exposure to who
Trump was and that he was supposed to be the
seismic figure that people admired and he was a hard worker.
(06:10):
Ten years old, Sillving, Jersey. At that point, my parents
had divorced. My mom, brother and I moved out and
it was a very tumultuous divorce. My dad didn't really
he actually would not keep in contact with my mom,
so I sort of became the middleman between their relationship
(06:31):
until I graduated high school and then even through college
a little bit. So that's sort of the very short
response to that. You know, but I don't look at
anything in my upbringing as a disadvantage at all, you know,
I look back now and again I realized that there
(06:51):
were some moments that, of course, like I wish were different,
but like I my mom and then eventually I call
him in the book my chosen father, Paul, But were
my rocks growing up and even despite how tumultuous the
relationship my mom's relationship with my dad was, and eventually
my relationship with him, you know it, See I always
(07:15):
try to look at things with the glass half full,
and it starts to some advantage, but yeah, starts to
help dress here.
Speaker 1 (07:24):
Yeah, well it is interesting I think to you know,
as you say, as adults, we can look back in
hindsight and see the connections, you know, how everything sort
of coalesces in your life to get you where you are.
And it's not lost on me that you know, as
a kid having to manages the eldest and a family
(07:46):
going through a split and essentially being the go between,
Like what you're really doing is practicing early lessons in
diplomacy when you have to sort of play in your family, right, Yeah,
And I guess I wonder you know, looking back on it,
you can remember, you know, watching that show with your
(08:08):
dad obviously when you know my I always joke that
like it's the industry of my day job. You know,
the sort of pomp, pomp and circumstance of television that
that really did to your point, like make this person
look like a great you know, businessman and figure on
reality TV for a long time. Obviously, we say, at
(08:28):
a different vantage point now looking.
Speaker 3 (08:33):
At the media.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
Still, yeah, I mean, media still played a huge role
in crafting his twenty fifteen twenty sixteen campaign. A presidential
persona oh yeah, I mean it's all it's all still related.
Speaker 1 (08:47):
Absolutely, but is it Is it interesting now, you know
to look back at that sort of as perhaps a
temp pole moment. You know, you write about what it
was like as a child to you know, hear about
then watch news footage of nine to eleven. You know,
these sort of big moments in your life. Do you
(09:07):
see how all those things tied together to create this
goal of you know, working for the country, these political
aspirations that you had, you know, where do you really
remember that coming from.
Speaker 2 (09:22):
Less much less the apprentice all that, But I'm sure
we'll get to that scene too. When I was in
you mentioned the nine to eleven stuff, and that was
formative for me. But I think the first like true
formative moment. So I was very close with my mom's
sister Steph and her husband, my uncle Joe, and he
(09:45):
was in the military, and he was the first person
that I had been introduced to that worked in the government,
served their country, and I both of my parents, but
more so my father is very, very skeptical of the government,
which again I look back now and I have thoughts,
(10:06):
but you know, at the time that was normal to me.
I didn't I heard negative things about the government. I
heard negative things about the police force. But then I
met my uncle Joe.
Speaker 3 (10:17):
He was phenomenal.
Speaker 2 (10:19):
He was a formative person in my life growing up
and he is today. He was deployed to Afghanistan after
nine to eleven, and I think that that is probably
the first tent pole moment when I look back on
my childhood where I had this concept of giving back
to your country and serving your country.
Speaker 3 (10:39):
You know.
Speaker 2 (10:39):
I wasn't like I want to be in a military
or go into public service at that point, but that
was the first time that I really felt that passion
for serving my country because I saw it in somebody
that I deeply admired. You know. So as I'm like
growing older and I have, I started to have loose
aspurys about public service.
Speaker 3 (11:02):
You know, I'm still in.
Speaker 2 (11:03):
An environment where it's not really looked it's not really
looked at as something that's a positive. So it was
sort of difficult to navigate it in that aspect in
some ways, and I wasn't really ever discouraged. But I
also didn't really ever talk about it with my family,
So it was sort of this like private thing for me.
(11:25):
As I was trying to figure things out. And then
it was the twenty twelve presidential election between then President
Obama and Mitt Romney, and I was assigned a project
for school to watch one debate, and I just turned
it into this case study of both political parties. And
I think that was probably the tent pole moment for
me where it clicked. And at that point, I didn't know,
(11:47):
like I want to go into politics, but I knew
I wanted to go into government service. I felt drawn
towards Mitt Romney's platform and his campaign. Wouldn't have described
myself as somebody hyper political by any means at that point,
but that was the moment where I, you know, I
had that clear goal and I knew what I was
working towards to go to college and to study with
(12:10):
the ultimate goal of coming to d C or going
to d C.
Speaker 1 (12:16):
So when you go to college and you start studying
political science, how does that turn into internships?
Speaker 4 (12:23):
You know? In the Senate In my house.
Speaker 2 (12:26):
I used to say I was in the right place
at the right time. Now I look back and I
sometimes wonder if I was in the wrong place, wrong time.
Speaker 3 (12:35):
Or wrong time. It's sort of subjective.
Speaker 2 (12:39):
Yeah, I still like to think I was in the
right place at the right time, because I you know,
despite everything, I think it's important where I am now,
and all those experiences were formative to get to where
I have where I am now. But no, So I
was in college and I took a class about Congress,
and I was like, Okay, I want to all intern
(13:01):
in Congress because I knew I wanted to get to DC.
I was studying political science and I was on a
pre law track, so I thought, okay, the first natural
place for me to go would be Congress.
Speaker 3 (13:10):
That sounds great, sounds fun.
Speaker 2 (13:12):
So I remember holding myself, pulling myself up in the
library one afternoon and applying to every House Republican office
and I got four or five interviews. I got a
small number of interviews, and then I was selected for
two internships, and I chose the internship with then Majority
Whip Steve's Galise, which, despite everything like that, I really
(13:36):
think changed the trajectory of my life because the Majority
Whip's job is to have relationships with every member of Congress,
to know how they're going to vote on legislation, and
to know what you can sort of border and trade
with them in return. Further vote on things. So I
was very involved from the onset of my time in Congress,
(13:59):
get getting to know members, getting to know like what
made them, to getting to know their staffs, which I mean,
it's an invaluable job in regardless of your party. I
think it's to have a job and leader to work
for any member of Congresses and honor, but to have
a job in leadership, especially when you are working something
like member services, you know, that really shaped the trajectory
(14:24):
of my career. And I was fortunate enough. The guy
I was dating at the time, his parents lived just
outside of DC, and I never would have been able.
I worked during the school years, but I never would
have been able to afford housing that summer. I mean,
DC is extremely unaffordable, and no matter what people say,
internships really are for wealthier student college age students, which
(14:51):
I think is a massive disadvantage. And at the time,
I think congressional internships are actually paid. Now I think
the Democrats passed the bill where they're paid. That's when
I was there, like a travel site. It was like
you kind of like have to rely on family. Well,
so they really opened that door for me, and then
I went and worked for crews for the rest of
(15:12):
the summer, which was not exactly planned, but I decided
after being with Scolice and I want Senate experience too,
and he happened to.
Speaker 3 (15:20):
Have an opening.
Speaker 2 (15:21):
But I did send an application to all Senate, all
the Senates, so Republicans and Democrats.
Speaker 3 (15:28):
I just wanted to say on Capitol Hill at that point, Yeah,
so can I ask.
Speaker 1 (15:32):
And I think it's really fascinating right when we get
to bring all of our different experiences and vantage points
to the table. So I I want to be clear
that I just really like to learn about what makes
people take I think the Internet has made it seem
like unless you agree with someone on everything, you must
look at them as an enemy, which just isn't how
(15:55):
I feel. But I am curious, like, what what was
it as a young woman at that particular time, you know,
in our political history that made you want to work
for Republicans? Like what what made you go? Like that's
the side of the line that I think I identify with,
(16:15):
because obviously I know what you've been through and as
you say, like things obviously have your world has been rocked. Yeah,
but I just I'm so curious about your mindset, you know,
at that time, and to kind of hear about.
Speaker 2 (16:35):
It, it's a super valid question, and it's one that
I have troubled addressing sometimes for two reasons. One, you know,
I'm very cautious treading into political territory, especially right now,
just because I think that this moment is so much
bigger than yeah, party politics. Like to me, it is
(16:58):
and this is my personal opinion, but it's so worthless
to debate Republican politics. And I'm using air quotes around
Republican because the current Republican agenda and platform is so
far from what the tradition, what I define is the
traditional Republican agenda is. Second, I mean I also have politically,
of all Dair, I never considered myself a very far
(17:22):
right Republican, but I had personal.
Speaker 3 (17:26):
Beliefs that were a little bit more conservative.
Speaker 2 (17:29):
Still more moderate though, and I always gravitated towards more
modern members of Congress, even Democrats, whilst interning on the
Hill and working at the White House, you know. But
I think at the time I had mentally defined myself
as a Republican, so it made sense for me to
apply to all House Republican offices.
Speaker 3 (17:51):
Again, I didn't.
Speaker 2 (17:52):
Have this, like the hindsight that I have now, Like
my goal is just to get my foot in the store.
Speaker 3 (18:01):
But again, I think I'm.
Speaker 2 (18:04):
Trying to figure out it diplomatically say this because you know,
but it is important because the Republican Party now is
to me, it's unrecognizable even from what it was when
they over Trump left the White House in twenty twenty one.
I mean, it had shifted so far beyond a rational point.
(18:26):
But then we look at the midterms in twenty twenty
two and we had some of the last i say
sane for some of the last good Republicans that were
voted out because of their stance on January sixth and
their stance on Donald Trump. And that just shows the
power that he has. And you know, I'm fortunate to
(18:47):
have that hindsight right now.
Speaker 1 (18:49):
Yeah, it strikes me what you're talking about, that kind
of power, the sort of intoxicating sway of authoritarianism.
Speaker 3 (18:57):
Right yeah.
Speaker 1 (18:58):
And it's not lost on me that you know, your
experience around January sixth, around you know, having to testify
about what you saw that puts so much pressure on
your shoulders as a woman in her mid twenties, and
you know, watching you in those hearings, watching you know,
(19:19):
the incredible work of Liz Cheney, who did get voted out,
but who obviously put country over party, and how important
it was to have her set that example. It is
it is a wild thing to realize that so many
people are willing to, you know, throw the country away
for the party benefit.
Speaker 2 (19:38):
And well it's wild too because the Republicans don't see
it that way, or the people that I currently identify
as Republicans largely do not see it that way. I
don't want to project my opinions on everybody. It's just
a look what happened with the speaker's race a few weeks.
So Congress was paralyzed from the neck down for three
weeks because they couldn't decide on who to put in
(20:01):
that chair.
Speaker 3 (20:02):
Like that is just as to me, And that's the
point that we're at.
Speaker 1 (20:07):
Yeah, and that they put an election denier in that seat.
Speaker 2 (20:10):
Yes, so I won't answer a question about the twenty
twenty his decisions run he tells.
Speaker 3 (20:16):
Twenty election it's really wild. Yeah, yeah, it's it's insane.
Speaker 1 (20:23):
And now for our sponsors, so when you when you
look again, you know, hindsight's twenty twenty, Like, we have
so much clarity now on how sort of out of
control things have gotten. But when you were on this track,
(20:43):
you know, working in the House, applying to work in
the Senate, you wound up going to work for Senator Cruz.
How how did you then work your way to being
aid to Mark Meadows because at the time he's Trump's
chief of staff. How does that sort of connection get drawn?
Speaker 2 (21:04):
So was another one like right place, the right time,
I guess. So I finished the internship with Cruise. So
that was the summer going into my junior year of college.
I had one more college summer left. After working Member Services,
I made a lot of great connections.
Speaker 3 (21:20):
Obviously, at the time Trump.
Speaker 2 (21:21):
As president, I didn't have the I never went into
this with the goal. I mean, I also would like
to say I did vote for him in twenty sixteen,
but I never thought he would win. And I look
back now and I wish that I hadn't. But it
(21:41):
was a vote more of defiance. And I don't say
that without shame, but it was a more of a
vote of defiance. Again, I didn't think he would ever
be in the Oval office. I was shocked at the
House the next morning and he was declared the winner.
But so I the next the most natural next place
(22:02):
for me to go, based off of the conversations that
I'd had with people that I worked with in on
Capitol Hill, was the White House, and specifically the White
House Office of Legislative Affairs, which is sort of I
like to describe the office as the bridge between the
Executive Branch and the legislative branch. Pretty Much, everything that
(22:25):
happens in the Executive Branch, which also encompasses all of
the agencies and departments and the White House and the
President's agenda goes through the Office of Legislative Affairs gets
filtered through or over to the Capital. So Aulay's job
is to have relationships with both Democrats and Republicans to
(22:47):
one get things done on Capitol Hill and to pass
the president's agenda. So I got that internship, worked on
the House Team. Then I graduate college and I was
hired back full time in ala as like the Member Services.
I forget my exact job title, but it was the
(23:07):
Member Service essentially in the Member Services role. Yeah, I'm
still a pretty moderate Republican at that point, but that's
all pre meados. I built a relationship with Mark during
the first impeachment trial, and then he became the chief
of staff and asked me to come work for him
(23:28):
in the West Wing, which wasn't an easy decision at
the time, but.
Speaker 1 (23:32):
Really so that's what I wanted to know, because, as
you say, it's during the first impeachment trial, and you know,
despite the sort of hysteria on a lot of conservative
cable news media, I know that people who are working
in DC were like, this is bad, Like what the
president did is bad and he's getting impeached because there's
(23:55):
reason for it. Was how did you kind of make
sense of what was wrong in the administration? I would
imagine it sort of is on a seesaw right of
like this is all of this is very negative and
we you know, Houston, we have a problem. And then
(24:16):
on the other side, there's a lot of people going
but we've got to keep the ship afloat, like you
have to keep American democracy moving. You can't just let
you know, the White House self emilate. So a lot
of people talk about how they stayed to try to
ensure that things functioned. And as a young, you know,
(24:40):
person with political aspirations who's working and working their way up.
You know, in this environment, are you having to weigh
all of these things or are you in a position
where you're thinking, well, here's all the adults in the
room and they must know what to do. Or is
it a little bit of.
Speaker 2 (24:56):
Both, specific to the first impeachment or just the overall
mentality and the Trump administration.
Speaker 1 (25:02):
I guess, you know, being in the environment of the
impeachment and then knowing that you know you've got this
job offer and so you're kind of going to go
deeper into the administration. I just feel like for someone
in their early twenties, that's a lot of pressure.
Speaker 2 (25:19):
No, that's a really interesting question, but you know, it's
the first and preachment sort of too pronged for me too,
because on one hand, I think this also goes yeah,
so as well into the overall Republican messaging point and
like the one thing I will give Republicans and then
(25:40):
I don't say this a flattering way, but they are
very powerful messengers, especially Donald Trump and not the Democrats aren't.
But the power of the Republican Party and their messaging
machine is I don't I don't know exactly what it
is or how they have been able to harness that power.
But in the administration it was very very easy because
(26:03):
even when I would you know, first impeachment. Throughout my
tenure working for the Chief of Staff, there were a
lot of moments where I was like, my alarm bells
were going. I was like, this is not right. But
then it's I would talk to someone, or I would
turnel on Fox News or just watch TV or like
whatever it might be, or just listen to what my
colleagues around me were saying, and I was instantly just
(26:27):
I look back that like sort of tricked, or my
mind would just go back, oh, no, actually what they're
saying is right. And you know, I don't say that
in a flattering way for myself either, but in that environment,
it was very very easy to not only get caught
up in the everyday politics of it, but to buy
into what they were selling and to buy into the
(26:49):
fact that he was completely innocent. The press was after him.
But you know, going into my tenure with Mark and
I sort of touched on this too. It especially during
COVID Day, a lot of people also knew that we
were handling things poorly, but there is that the element
(27:12):
of excuse and what else.
Speaker 3 (27:15):
Could he be doing? And this is why what we're
doing is right.
Speaker 2 (27:21):
But I also saw my job as for in legislative affairs.
Speaker 3 (27:28):
It was partisan.
Speaker 2 (27:29):
I'm not going to deny that I was working for
then President Trump, mister Trump, but I saw my role
in legend fairs largely as administrative. And I was given
a job and it was my job to make that happen.
And that's how I sought out to define my role
(27:49):
with Meadows too. And when I had the conversation with Mark,
when he asked me to work for him, you know,
I was well positioned in legislative affairs. In case we
didn't win the election in twenty two, I need to
get a job on the hill. Ideologically, I also knew
I didn't align with Mark. Again, he was known as
(28:09):
a very far right wing partisan. I was the founder
of the Freedom Caucus, which is a very far right
wing group. So ideologically knew we didn't align. But so
when I had the conversation, but it also is like
it's a great office to work in, you know, so
I wanted to give.
Speaker 3 (28:27):
It an element of consideration.
Speaker 2 (28:29):
So when I talked to him about taking the job,
I was specific about two things. One that I was
working for the chief of Staff of the White House.
I wasn't working for Mark Meadows, and to me that
there isn't At the time there was, but there still
is a very clear difference. To me, I wasn't coming
in to be his his personal person or to help
(28:55):
him accomplish whatever he might want to personally accomplish.
Speaker 3 (28:57):
In that role. I saw my value him because I had.
Speaker 2 (29:01):
The relationships with members of Congress, I knew a lot
of people within the White House, and he was coming
from the Hill, so I could serve him well. The
second thing, I asked him for us to have a
clearly defined role because I was worried not having that
clear job title, and I was very common in the
Trump administration has sort of given him bigious or a
morphous job titles, so you could encompass a lot of
(29:22):
responsibility or nothing, and you could get blamed for things
that might not be your fault. And that was the
one thing that I didn't get from the start. Though
he defined my role as his being his eyes and
ears and to be his person as the White House
(29:44):
sheep staff, so I didn't have that sense of loyalty
to him from the start.
Speaker 3 (29:50):
But it definitely grew as our time war on together.
Speaker 1 (29:56):
We'll be back in just a minute after a few
words from our favorite sponsors. So can you tell us
what what does a typical day look like? You know,
being Mark Meadow's aid, being the aid to the chief
of staff, what is your job?
Speaker 2 (30:21):
Yeah, this is probably one of the most difficult questions,
and it was very difficult to answer to every government
investigator and to Keven writing the book, because there was
not a typical day. It's ailing the Trump administration. He
sends one tweet and we could have a schedule for
him for the day, or we could have a loose
plan on what he was going to do. He would
(30:43):
send a tweet in the morning that nobody knew he
was going to send in Our whole day would shift
and suddenly we've worked in seventeen eighteen hour day and
we were putting out fires that never should have existed.
But I would say, largely loosely defined. I was the
gatekeeper to Mark. You know, he had a scheduler who
(31:03):
was phenomenal at her job, so she put everything on
his calendar. But it was really my job to filter
through what meetings he should be taking, who wanted to
talk to him, if there were cabinet secretaries that wanted
to speak with him, if they couldn't reach Mark directly,
they would oftentimes go through me. Members of Congress would
oftentimes reach out to me before they would reach out
to Mark. I formed a relationship with the President, so
(31:27):
I was sort of their condo it too. And then
with also a senior administration officials, they would oftentimes come
to me before they would meet with Mark, or I
would go into meetings with him. So I really I
had an incredible amount of access. And I don't use
incredible the sense of flatter. It's more like a very
(31:49):
a huge amount of access that I and I think
that I did my job as well as I could
have at the time, but you know, I didn't have
the experience, and I was from a lot of days.
I talked to my friend alisaf Fair about this lot,
but like our days were oftentimes like hair on fire days,
and because we never knew what really to expect. And
(32:10):
at the time, you know, we're approaching the twenty twenty election,
there is a global pandemic that we were not handling well.
That summer there was it was the summer of civil
unrest after the George Floyd was murdered.
Speaker 3 (32:22):
So it was just this.
Speaker 2 (32:25):
Series of unfortunate events that all came together at once,
and it was difficult to navigate. But again, when you're
in that environment and you're living that life, you're just
in such a robotic mode that you don't really have
time to step back and think about everything at the time.
You're just sort of living, especially in the administration, living
minute by a minute, and it was sort of a
(32:47):
means of survival.
Speaker 1 (32:49):
I'm sure that that that environment of chaos. You know,
when you keep people in fight or flight, you keep
them in a trauma response, they begin to be less
able to stop. It's hard to get off the train
once it's left the station. And I would imagine it
was a very strange experience as a young woman looking
(33:11):
around at all of these you know, quote unquote grown
ups in the room and going, well, they're all saying
this is normal. They're all saying, this is my job.
Speaker 4 (33:21):
You know.
Speaker 1 (33:21):
My girlfriends and I that did our first show together
talk about that that we'd never had another boss before.
We had a boss who was creepy and terrible to
us as young women, so we didn't know that it
wasn't normal, And I just every so often when I
think about, you know, you being in your early twenties
(33:42):
moving through this world, I'm just like, I have this
really interesting, like sympathy pain for you, because I know
how pressurized it felt for me on the set of
a television show, like not in the actual White House,
trying to keep the United States afloat, and.
Speaker 3 (34:00):
I couldn't imagine the stress, the pressure and stress email.
You know, it's like it's just.
Speaker 2 (34:05):
Completely different, but yeah, it's But I also, you know,
the female thing is interesting to me too because I
didn't really ever viewed through a gendered lens, and that
was also something that I think a conditioning of the
environment I grew up in. But also the Trump admistration
was very big on pushing back against any negative connotation
(34:27):
with that Trump doesn't like women. He had the highest
number of West women working in the West Wing. So
I didn't look at it like that at the time,
but when I look at it now, it's sometimes I'm like,
oh my god, like because it.
Speaker 3 (34:39):
Is it was insane and crazy, but.
Speaker 2 (34:44):
It uh, you know, I did oftentimes feel that a
lot of pressure and stress. But you know, you said
the fight or flight thing, and I resonate with that deeply,
especially you know, moving through the after the election and
post Trump White House. But turning off your emotions and
the Trump administration was a means of survival and that
(35:07):
was something that I was very good at as a
product of how I grew up. And again I didn't
and don't look at that as a disadvantage. It helped
me in that job. It helped me be successful in
that job. But it's not a healthy way to live
or survive at all. And I recognize that now, but
(35:31):
it wasn't really that abnormal to me at the time
because I was sort of used to it when I
had to just sort of live and be this robotic
character that got things done for the principles I served
the chief of staff to the President of the United
States and the President of the United States. It was
just sort of a means of accomplishing the end goal
(35:51):
and means of surviving that day.
Speaker 1 (35:54):
Yeah, yeah, I totally get it. You don't realize how
good you become at being a performer and being a
good soldier and a good worker, you know, until you
get on the other side of something that forces you
to do the work to heal, and then you go, oh, wow,
look at how good at dissociating I was, and I
got rewarded for it, like, oh, that's so surreal.
Speaker 4 (36:18):
So I sa same, been there, even going through on
a order a little bit here too, though, but going
through the whole process of testifying and switching legal council.
Speaker 2 (36:30):
It wasn't really until after I had testified and writing
the book that I came to that realization when I
remember the day that that hit me like a brick wall.
And I was fortunate to work with a great collaborator.
And again, well we can go back to this, but
so I make this point here because I collaborated worked
with Mark Salter like sort of would try to cue
(36:51):
me in to this, and I just was sort.
Speaker 3 (36:55):
Of in the state of denial. Even at that way.
I said, no, I wasn't disassociating. I was doing my job.
Speaker 2 (36:59):
And it was one day we were writing about the
coronavirus pandemic and how I was going up to the
hill and I was basically fielding everything from the Speaker
of the House, Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer on behalf of
the Chief of Staff and President, and it hit me
that I just had turned my emotions off, and I
took a week off of writing.
Speaker 3 (37:19):
I just couldn't handle.
Speaker 2 (37:21):
It because I saw very clearly then how far gone
I was from the person that I wanted to be,
but also that I was an active participant in something
because I was like, my emotions were being manipulated and
taken advantage of in that way. And I think that
(37:41):
Trump has an ability and a talent for finding people
that sort of have that capability to turn off their
emotions and it is exploited where I can say that
now being on the outside and also knowing people that
have gone through similar experiences with them.
Speaker 1 (37:57):
Isn't that really interesting being able to see that you
had a predisposition that made you like an easy mark,
and also being that easy mark, that person who could
be manipulated in that way, also made you a person
who was able to excel and perform at a level
(38:18):
that is, you know, often looked at as impressive. You know,
you worked for the Chief of Staff of the White House.
You do get rewarded, and it can be I think,
very confusing to sort of realize you've been in the spin,
Like when the spin cycle stops and you kind of
get to crawl out and look around and go, holy,
(38:39):
this happened to me, you know what a wild thing.
Speaker 3 (38:44):
And as you.
Speaker 1 (38:45):
Said, the events of that year, I mean the pandemic
beginning and the summer of protest and so many people calling,
you know, for social justice and leading into an election,
I mean, it was just a relentless year. Were you
(39:06):
so focused on, you know, the upcoming election in Mark's
office or were you guys really trying to put out
all of these fires at once? Were you dealing with
the mishandling of the pandemic response and the you know,
I'm not going to sugarcoat it, like fascist response to protests,
which is a constitutional right. Like did it really feel
(39:28):
like everything was on fire all the time or were
you given a specific lane?
Speaker 2 (39:33):
I mean, things white literally work like there are fires
literally outside of the po oh my god.
Speaker 3 (39:38):
No, it definitely felt like things were on fire all
of the time.
Speaker 2 (39:41):
Like there I don't really remember a day looking back
where I you know, I say I could turn my
emotions off, but I do remember feeling stressed or just
very very stretched thin. And my first boss and legislative
affairs warned me when I was in Ledge affairs and
warned then he left, But then he warned me. I
talked about this in the book, but before I took
the job with Mark, that I was going to burn
(40:02):
myself out. And he was really worried about that. This
is before all that happened, and I was just in
this against state of denial, like I'm not capable of
for anny od, I am fine, but no that summer.
That summer was focused more on like the day to
day issues, many of which that we created.
Speaker 3 (40:21):
And then I think really the turning point for.
Speaker 2 (40:24):
Us was after the president got COVID.
Speaker 3 (40:28):
Uh really why when we switched more to election mode.
Speaker 2 (40:35):
He was very worried that he was going to get
the coronavirus before the election, and he because he viewed
that as a sign of his a weakness of his
immune system.
Speaker 3 (40:48):
And I say.
Speaker 2 (40:49):
That sarcastically because it was ridiculous. It's ridiculous, not even
say it out loud. But that was sort of the
mark where we many people in the administration were like, Okay,
this could be a turning point. We could maybe turn
this around, Maybe he could switch his message and kind
of as somebody that now is sympathetic to people who
(41:12):
have suffered from the coronavirus or people who have had
family members and loved ones pass away from the coronavirus.
But he just dug his heels in more and he
just went into full election mode after that. And at
that point too, is we were traveling every day and
the mission at that point was get through the election.
Speaker 1 (41:32):
Okay, And when obviously we have so much to talk
about with January sixth as the day, but now again
in hindsight, like when when did you begin to be
aware that they were creating this plan? Because obviously now
we know, you know, we've seen the timelines, we've seen
the hearings, we know when this election denying plan was hatched,
(41:55):
and you know, the fake elector schemes and all of
these crazy things that feel like something out of a
mystery novel. It's wild to think that this really happened
and that a group of people conspired to overthrow the
US government. Like when as a staffer in the White House,
were you like, wait, what are you talking about in there?
What's going on?
Speaker 2 (42:15):
Like?
Speaker 1 (42:16):
Was there were there moments where you realized like, oh,
a very very bad thing is happening, or was it
in your experience predominantly leading into the actual sixth and
that riot, Like when did the alarm bells start going
for you around around the election?
Speaker 3 (42:33):
You know, I want to back pedal a little bit,
just to you know, I want to call myself out
slightly on this because I had my blinders up for
a lot of things, and there's a lot that I
don't know, and that maybe we'll be uncovered in the
Justice Department's investigation to maybe not some of this. But
the first time I.
Speaker 2 (42:51):
Remember hearing the phrase stop the steal was we were
at was in May of twenty twenty Camp David Retreat
with members of Congress, and Kevin McCarthy that night asked
me if I heard what the President had said to
him during the movie You're watching Once Upon a Time
in Hollywood, And I said, I told Kevin I didn't,
And Kevin said that President had a tweet teet up
(43:14):
that he wanted to send out something like stop the steal.
Speaker 3 (43:17):
That was the first time that I had heard that,
was like, stop the steal? What is he talking about?
Speaker 2 (43:22):
So throughout the summer of twenty twenty, you know, I
he was a president was very concerned with mail and ballots,
so I was overlooking a lot of these things.
Speaker 3 (43:32):
Then we lost the elections.
Speaker 2 (43:34):
I was going to get fast forward back to this, right,
But there were warning signs before all of this, like
before we lost the election.
Speaker 3 (43:44):
And we lost the election, make that clear. I had career.
Speaker 1 (43:49):
Facts matter, isn't it?
Speaker 2 (43:54):
Facts are facts are still facts. But I had the
crown us right after the election. So when Joe Biden
was actually declared the winner, so I think it was
actually a few days after the general election, I was
very confident at that point that Joe Biden did win
the election. But then I returned to the White House
and I learned that we were or the administration was
(44:17):
filing lawsuits and states where the vote count was close,
and in some congressional districts there was a close vote count.
And I think that every candidate for office, regardless of
the level, has the right, the constitutional right, and the
right in themselves if they feel like they might have
won and the margins were slim enough, they can ask
(44:38):
for a recount.
Speaker 3 (44:41):
So I was fine with that.
Speaker 2 (44:42):
I was just hoping we would get through that phase,
then he would be willing to concede and we could
go about our lives. Throughout December and leave with our
dignity in January. The first big turning point for me
was the night of December eighteenth, when mister Trump had
Mike Flynn, who was I don't even like to call
(45:04):
him in general, but his rank was a general of
the US Army and Patrick Byrne and Sydney Pellell, like
three big conspiracy theorists in the Oval Office of the
White House at first without any lawyers or White House
lawyers talking about potentially invoking martial law or the Insurrection Act.
Speaker 3 (45:25):
And that meeting went.
Speaker 2 (45:27):
On for hours that night, and it was really it
was a traumatic night then and it's very traumatic to
look back on that night now knowing what I know
in hindsight. But also that was the first trigger point
for me because he pushed out a tweet later that evening,
come to something to the effective, Come to January sixth
on DC. Big protests be there will be wild.
Speaker 4 (45:49):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (45:50):
I remember thinking, like knowing how chaotic and at points
violence things were in the Oval Office. And then eventually
they went upstairs to his residence because he wanted to
go upstairs meet dinner and may recon be in the
meeting upstairs. How terrible that was then seeing that tweet.
But in the days leading up to January sixth, as
(46:10):
I began filtering through reports from the Secret Service and
other administration officials about the protesters coming to d C,
and there's reports that we were getting from TSA or
maybe TSA, but essentially reports that the Secret Service was
filtering through the government of people that were planning to
(46:31):
come to DC or that had checked into d C
hotels with weapons. And Rudy Giuliani was at the White
House one night, and he left and talked about going
up to the Capitol, and I went and talked to
Mark about it, and Mark it's like, yeah, we we
might go up there the president, you know it. That
was really just this like moment where I heard Rudy
(46:53):
say this and then markt saying this, and that was
like I sort of knew things were going to get
bad again.
Speaker 3 (46:58):
I didn't know how bad. I just had a really.
Speaker 2 (47:03):
I think it's female intuition, honestly, but a really bad
gut feeling about that day.
Speaker 1 (47:10):
Yeah, So what do you because obviously, you know, between
December eighteenth and January sixth, we're looking at basically three weeks.
You know, what do you remember about the actual day,
where there are moments leading up to the morning of
the sixth where people were trying to figure out what
to do, or did it all really feel like that
(47:33):
morning everything just went to hell in a handbasket. I mean,
did you know what was going to happen being in
Mark's office or was there perhaps like a danger and
then a hope that it wouldn't.
Speaker 2 (47:46):
I would lean towards the latter, And I just want
to be careful the way I answer this to you,
because I don't want to speculate too much about other
people's mindsets or what the actual goals were. You know, again,
the January sixth, we needed incredible work, but there are
still ongoing investigations and I think that hopefully soon we
(48:07):
will know a lot more about what the concrete plans were.
But in my experience in the days leading up and
on January six but more specifically on January six, I knew,
(48:27):
sorry is it's this day is like very difficult to
talk about too, but you know, I knew how bad
things potentially could get. But I also did hold on
to this hope that maybe they weren't. Maybe I was overthinking.
That is sort of something that I'm still trying to
untrain myself and thought process and thought pattern for myself.
Speaker 3 (48:49):
I'm not overthinking things.
Speaker 2 (48:51):
It was that bad, and but we were getting a
lot of reports about people that were armed in DC.
We are getting and then we were down at the
Ellipse and I heard the President say, take the man,
take the eving magnatometers away.
Speaker 3 (49:06):
They're not here to hurt me.
Speaker 2 (49:07):
Because the Secret Service was not letting people through the
magnetometers onto the Ellipse rally with weapons or what they
deemed as weapons. Some of that was fly poles, the
sharpened spear, some of that was guns. Embarrassed pray and
the President we had TVs in the rally ten and
he could see on the TVs that there are people
(49:27):
standing in the trees on the National Mall just to
get a glimpse of him, and he wanted them all.
Speaker 3 (49:32):
To come through.
Speaker 2 (49:33):
And I remember in that moment just thinking like this
is insane, Like somebody has to do something, somebody has
to stop this. But there still were conversations about us
potentially making a movement to go to the Capitol that day.
I was like, that can't that can't happen, Like one
logistically impossible. We've had these conversations with Secret Service too,
like the streets are not clear, we don't have these
(49:55):
security assets to do this, and like that is just danger.
Speaker 3 (50:00):
It was just this good bread flag danger, danger, danger, guys.
Speaker 1 (50:05):
This conversation is so good, so detailed, so fascinating, and
I know none of you are shocked. I have so
many more questions for Cassidy. So we are going to
take a break and we're going to come back with
part two of this conversation because I am just not
ready for this to end.
Host
Sophia Bush
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