November 17, 2025 • 38 mins
Today on The Breakfast Club, Jonathan Karl Talks New Book 'Retribution', Trump Administration, Free Speech, Biden. Listen For More!
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Don't know.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
Every day a waygo click up the Breakfast Club.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
Finish, y'all done?
Speaker 2 (00:06):
Morning.
Speaker 3 (00:07):
Everybody is DJ Envy Jess Hilarious, Chelamage the guy. We
are to breakfast Club, law l the Roses here as well,
and we got a special guest in the building. Yes, indeed,
he has a new book, Retribution from Donald Trump and
the Campaign that changed America.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
John Call, Ladies and gentlemen.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
Hey, thanks for having me.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
How would you fail?
Speaker 4 (00:25):
How are you?
Speaker 1 (00:25):
I'm doing it all right, I'm doing it right, crazy times.
Speaker 4 (00:27):
This is your fourth book on Trump?
Speaker 2 (00:29):
Yeah, you like jobbing yourself crazy?
Speaker 4 (00:31):
Huh?
Speaker 1 (00:31):
Oh my god. I I wrote one almost six years ago,
and I thought that would be the only one. But
this is fifteen hundred pages on this stuff. But you know,
I mean I felt like I was watching history unfold
and I saw people trying to rewrite the history as
it was happening. And that's why I've you know, I've
poured my heart and soul into these books.
Speaker 5 (00:52):
Well feels different about this, this this face, this era
of Trump.
Speaker 1 (00:56):
If anything, if it does feel different, I mean it does.
I mean, I think what's what we're seeing now is
as suggested by the subtitle of this book, It's changing
in America. His first term was chaotic. I mean, the
attention of the world was on the White House. There
was all this controversy swirling. But you know, he left
(01:18):
and it was done. I mean there was nothing, no
real lasting impact. I mean, now look what he's doing.
And symbolically you could look at like tearing down the
East Wing, you know, changing paving over the Rose Garden.
He's changing the physical layout of the White House. But
what our country is changing, I mean the use of
executive power. You have a president that's shown you can
(01:38):
just basically ignore Congress, get into the precipice of ignoring
the courts. We're in a totally different phase, I think.
Speaker 3 (01:47):
I think the first term was more of to see
how far or what he could get away with.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
And then when he came back, he just started.
Speaker 3 (01:54):
I mean he started at first day desk signing all
types of part is, signing things into play immediately.
Speaker 2 (01:59):
So I think the first time was let me see
what I can get away with.
Speaker 1 (02:02):
Yeah, and you know, he he had all these people
around him in the in the first firm, who had credentials.
You know, he felt like he almost like trophies on
a wall his cabinet. You had the four star marine generals,
you had the CEO of Excellent Mobile, you had the
retired judge and senator he put in charge of the
of the Justice Department, and every one of those people.
(02:23):
You know, you could say, well, you know, Trump has
no experience in the government, but they do. And he
felt betrayed by all of them. They all tried to
keep him, to a degree in line. And now that
they're all gone, they're all gone.
Speaker 5 (02:36):
You know, you begin the book with an admission, you
say you believe that Donald trump come back was highly unlikely.
Like what was the moment or series of moments in
your reporting when you're when you're thinking shifted.
Speaker 1 (02:48):
You know, the It wasn't really until pretty close to
the election, when I saw how the Kamala Harris campaign
was approaching it, and I saw their almost desperation to
have another debate with Donald Trump. I saw her go
on Fox News after resisting all kinds of interviews, something
you had said she should have done a long time ago.
(03:11):
And I report in the book how she actually her
campaign actually approached Fox and asked them if they would
host a debate. This is in the end, you know,
in October and Trump and Fox said sure, but Trump
had no interest in doing it again. And that's where
I saw. She wouldn't have been doing that if they
didn't see that she was likely to lose.
Speaker 5 (03:31):
When you realized that not only was the comeback possible,
but that the campaign was built around this idea of
retrobution in a structural way, when did you realize that?
Speaker 1 (03:40):
Really early on? I mean I I was there in
mar A Lago when he announced his campaign shortly after
the midterms in twenty twenty two. It puttered along, It
was nothing. It was you know, Ron DeSantis was leading
in the polls, if you remember, double digits by the
end of twenty twenty two. And then he gave this
speech at Sea Pack where he used that line. You know,
(04:03):
he said, I told you I am your voice in
twenty sixteen. Now I tell you I am your retribution.
And that gave his his campaign this energy. And then
you had the the the indictments coming in. You had
he started his campaign. The first rally of his campaign
was it Waco, Texas. I mean, I wrote a book
(04:24):
like thirty years ago this December, I wrote a book
called The Right to bear arms, the rise of America's
new militias, about the right wing militia groups, Timothy McVeigh
and all of that, and you know, the Waco, Texas
was the rallying cry for those people. It was as
the symbol of like the government out of control and
coming after you. And now Trump is going to Waco.
(04:44):
So I saw and then sitting through that trial in
New York, the hush money trial, and I could just
see the seething resentment that he had that he had
to go to that court room every day, four days
a week. You've been down, there's one hundred centers. He
is a dingy dark you know, dirty. I mean I
(05:06):
described when I because I went down and sat through
several days down there, and you go through the front
door of the courthouse. The first thing I notice is
this big rat traps inside, you know, I mean, And
and he's got to be there, and he can't leave
even like during the lunch breaks. He's got to be
there in some dark, cold room. And he just you
could see he was plotting, I am going to get
(05:27):
even with all of these people if I get back
into power.
Speaker 6 (05:30):
Do you feel like there will ever actually be like
retribution that he thinks because there's always something new that
he feels like he has to like get back. I mean,
he's getting people back, but like, is there a place
where it stops, Like where he gets to the point
where he's like, yo, I didn't got yaut and did enough?
Speaker 1 (05:44):
No? No, no, I mean you think, first of all,
you would think that the guy he got back to
the White House and he won, you would think that
maybe at that point you'd be like, Okay, you know,
I've proved everybody wrong. I'm here, I'm in power again. No,
he's going to keep going. And here's the thing. It's
not just political opponents. It's not just the Democrats, it's
not just the prosecutors. It's not just the people that
(06:06):
literally went after him. I think that the thing that
motivates him the most is getting back at Republicans who
he believes didn't sufficiently support him. Really yeah, I mean yeah.
The other day Steve Bannon said something. Steve Bannon said
that that Bill Barr belongs in prison. Bill Barr. I mean,
(06:27):
this is like, you know, and his bars sin was
that he didn't back Trump on the efforts to overthrow
the twenty twenty election. And you know, I mean, so
his first motivation, that the beginning of the retribution campaign
actually begins in the days after he leaves the White House,
(06:48):
he goes to mar A Lago. He's really seen as
a pria even by most of the Republican leadership. He's
banned on Facebook and Instagram and Twitter and all of that.
Corporations are saying they're not going to give money to
Republicans that backed him in overturning the election. And he's
in a very dark place. I mean, I described this,
you know, pretty graphically in my previous book about his
(07:10):
exile down there. But what is the first project he has?
His polster gives him a membo that shows him that
Liz Cheney can be beat in Wyoming, Liz Cheney who
voted to impeach him, and that is the beginning. He
is now focused on, first time, going to go after
those damn those ten Republicans that voted to impeach me
(07:30):
in the House. They're gone, and he defeats Liz Cheney.
So he you know, I mean, he expects Democrats to
be his opponents. He knows prosecutors do what prosecutors do.
It's those Republicans So.
Speaker 5 (07:42):
Is that to put fear in the team that's around
him now, to let y'all know, y'all better always go
along with me, because if y'all get out of line,
then it'll be retribution against y'all too.
Speaker 1 (07:50):
That's a huge factor, and it's pretty damn effective. I mean,
this is the other thing to talk about. What's different
from the first time. The first time you had Paul
Ryan and Mitch McConnell as the leaders in the Congress,
neither one of them had any loyalty whatsoever personal loyalty
to Trump, and in fact had opposed him strongly in
the case actually in both cases in twenty sixteen in
(08:13):
the Republican primary. And now you have I mean, Fune
has a degree of independence. But like I mean, like Johnson,
the Speaker of the House, he's almost behaves like he's
a member of the of the Trump's staff. I mean
that the House is there to do the will of
(08:33):
the White House.
Speaker 3 (08:34):
I mean, you didn't have that before when you were
writing this book and you spoke to a lot of people.
Would do in this book was did anybody not want
to do it or was scared to talk with you?
Speaker 4 (08:44):
Speak with you?
Speaker 2 (08:44):
Because they said he might come back for me.
Speaker 1 (08:48):
You definitely, It's always always and yet you know, and
what I really tried to do with this book was
to get people who would talk to me on the record.
And I succeeded in some of the big you know,
some of the key players I mentioned Steve Bannon, I
mean hours of conversations with this guy. Bobby Kennedy was
somebody I was talking to throughout the campaign. On the
(09:10):
other side, Hunter Biden like really opened up to me.
And what I did with with with some of these
people is I said, Okay, talk to me, tell me
the story. I am not this is for a book.
It's not going to affect anything. Just talk to me,
and it's for history. And that kind of draws them out.
But there are and then there were some people that
just didn't want to don't want to be seen with
(09:31):
me or with a reporter because then they might be like, aha,
he saw this. Like you know, there was a Todd
blanche you know now obviously at the Justice Department, but
was the lead on his defense cases during the transition.
Somebody took a picture of him meeting with a CNN
reporter and like put it all out of one of
the is if this was like proof he's not sufficiently
(09:53):
on the team.
Speaker 6 (09:54):
I saw Hunter Biden told you that he was really
upset when Obama led Biden off the state in that
viral video. So when you are talking to people about
these moments, that will bring these moments back up again,
Like he's upset it when viral in the first place,
He's upset Obama did it. But then he sits down
and talks to you, which brings it back.
Speaker 1 (10:11):
Up again, right, exactly what is.
Speaker 6 (10:13):
The conversation I guess after the book comes out and
people pick that up because that was the main folks
of the news conversation.
Speaker 1 (10:18):
Now you're seeing it again exactly.
Speaker 6 (10:20):
So does Hunter Biden then call you back and be
like we need to do another interview where like how
do you handle the not the backlash, but the conversation
that comes back up because of your book from these
people that you sit down with.
Speaker 1 (10:28):
By the way, that was such an interesting conversation with
Hunter Biden. So I talked to him over the phone
a lot during the course of the campaign, including when
you know there was that big effort to get his
father to drop out, and he was like one of
the few people actually talking to President Biden every day.
I mean even like his top aides were, you know,
many of them were isolated. I mean the chief of staff,
(10:50):
Jeff Science. When Biden had the final meeting where he
decides he's not going on again, the chief of Staff's
not even there. He's not even part of the meeting.
He gets called later, by the way, I decided I'm
not going to run. But Hunter was so passionate in
his anger towards Obama. He said he was there at
that fundraiser, went for that viral moment, and he wanted
to jump up on the stage and say, you don't
(11:11):
touch the President of the United States. And then he
also is angry about the George Clooney op ed, which
he blames Obama for. He's also saying, I guess we
just have it. We Biden's have a different idea of
what it means to be a friend.
Speaker 5 (11:26):
So you're mad at George Clooney for telling the truth,
shouldn't you be kind of mad at your father for
running again for a second term. He probably wasn't gonna
be in the best condition to.
Speaker 6 (11:35):
And then throws Obama in the mix.
Speaker 2 (11:36):
Obama's not Obama.
Speaker 1 (11:37):
Yeah, yeah, Obama, who's not didn't write the thing.
Speaker 4 (11:39):
So Obamas, you just got him wandering around the stage.
Speaker 1 (11:42):
I mean, I mean it is first of all, a
few of those people really close and tight around Obama
are I mean Biden are still absolutely convinced that he
could have won and that this was a tragedy that
the Democrats forced him out.
Speaker 5 (11:59):
I mean, we should never talk through those people that
I'm not even joking. We should leave those people in
the past like they should be out the pastors.
Speaker 1 (12:06):
Just like, here's the thing, I this sometimes the biggest
news and is what didn't happen. The most consequential decision
of Joe Biden's life professional life was the decision to
run again. I mean it the race is virtually everything
that he did as president. And they never had a
(12:30):
meeting on it. They never sat down and said, what
are the pros and cons running again? Not running again?
What does it look like? I mean, Hunter himself said,
the machinery just went. We never really discussed should we
And then that's that is the biggest decision.
Speaker 5 (12:43):
That's one of the biggest you know, that's one of
the most glaring things from the Vice President's BOK one
hundred and seven days that.
Speaker 4 (12:48):
I feel like people didn't discuss enough.
Speaker 5 (12:50):
When she said that the Bidy shouldn't have been able
to make that decision alone.
Speaker 4 (12:53):
I think I'm para for them a little bit.
Speaker 5 (12:56):
It was reckless for him to make that decision on
his own, And I'm like, why would that ever be
a decision?
Speaker 4 (13:00):
Let him make one?
Speaker 1 (13:01):
Yeah, and all the you know, it's not just the
it's not just the party. It's not just the White
House leadership, the vice president. It's the whole democratic apparatus.
I mean, nobody going in and saying, wait a minute,
let's think about this.
Speaker 5 (13:14):
Yeah, And I you know, that's to me, that's a
whole other book. But at some point somebody's gonna have
to sit down and talk about how that decision and
the decision to hire Merrit Garland is why we ended
up where we currently.
Speaker 4 (13:25):
Are right now.
Speaker 1 (13:26):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (13:27):
And in the book, you describe how a new team
was formed around Trump with the goal of a of
a new world order.
Speaker 4 (13:33):
Can you walk us.
Speaker 5 (13:34):
Through like one or two behind the scenes organizational, our
strategic decisions that reveal how his team, how this team
operated differently than previous politically.
Speaker 1 (13:43):
Well, I spent a great deal of time describing what
was actually happening at mar A Lago. And if you remember,
there was some political commentary at the time saying, man, Trump,
this time arounds got it more together. There's less drama
surrounding the transition. They're putting out their nominees and a
quicker pace. It I mean no, uh, it was. It
(14:05):
was total chaos. Yes, you had, you had you, I
mean you had. The campaign transition office was actually a
couple miles away in West Palm Beach where the campaign
it was the old campaign office became the transition office.
Mar A Lague was actually a pretty small place. There's
only one office, which is Trump's office. And but so
(14:30):
you had you had all these transition people working two
miles away, but none of it mattered. They were preparing
lists and interviewing potential candidates and and doing their vetting.
And then it was like Trump deciding on his own
and surprising the people that were running his transition. So
you know, Pete Hegseth I described the mar A Laga.
(14:53):
There's a place called the living room. It's really the lobby,
and people would go and wait for their their meetings,
either with Lutnik and the transition team or upstairs to
go and have their big meeting with Trump. And there's
a scene where there's a candidate for attorney general sitting
on the couch next to a candidate for for Energy secretary.
(15:14):
You know, Matt Gates is running around. He's not even
considered an attorney general candidate. He's just considered, you know,
a guy that's helping out. And Pete Hegseth shows up
and they all think he's there to interview Trump because
he's the Fox weekend guy. And so Trump didn't even
like talk to his like people about this. It was like,
(15:34):
Pete's the man, We'll just do him. So, you know,
it's it's really the way it was all centered around
Trump and and and and his whim and what he wanted.
It was, you know, you didn't have anybody and actually,
let me let me back up a second. The one
(15:55):
thing that is very different is that, first of all,
he knew his way around, so he didn't think he
needed to rely on anybody for advice. But you also
had some of the people that had been with him
all along had been preparing for what they would do
if he got back into office. Stephen Miller started a
group called America First Legal, and they'd worked for three
(16:17):
plus years thinking about executive orders that they would do
if Trump got back in preparing drafts.
Speaker 4 (16:24):
One of these things.
Speaker 1 (16:26):
This even this predates Project twenty twenty five, but yeah,
absolutely project twenty twenty five. So they were ready with
an agenda, and it's ultimately Trump's agenda, but they were
ready with here's the roadmap. Here is how you're really
going to do it.
Speaker 5 (16:41):
What surprises you most about how I guess American presidential
campaigns and governance, Yeah, are changing.
Speaker 1 (16:50):
It's the absolute power that we're seeing vested in the executive.
I mean, we have a system of checks and balances
in this country. You know, it's I mean, that's the idea.
I mean, that's a great question. Do we still have that?
It is very much putter. I mean, the House of
Representatives has just been out of session for fifty four
days and did it matter?
Speaker 4 (17:09):
Nope?
Speaker 1 (17:10):
I mean, was there anything different? To quote Bannon again,
he called and I don't know if he was being
complimentary or not, he called the Congress the equivalent of
the Russian Duma, which is just like, I mean, not
even a rubber stamp. You don't even need to be stamped.
So Trump this flurry of executive orders tariffs, I mean,
(17:32):
the Supreme Court case will be the most interesting thing
to watch in this term of the Supreme Court. I
mean the fact that the idea that a president can
come out and impose tariffs on virtually every country in
the world. The Constitution makes it clear that Congress controls
the power to tax and imposed duties. And I mean,
(17:54):
I think about my life covering politics. The debates over
trade are big debates. You know, NAFTA, the US Mexico
Free Trade Agreement TPP, all these things that are negotiated
and then Congress needs to ratify them and if they don't,
they don't go into effect. And Trump just holds a
press conference in the Rose Garden and suddenly you have
(18:15):
these mass tariffs. So we'll see if that gets knocked down.
I mean, the Supreme Court seemed pretty damn skeptical of it,
but you know, he has I mean pushed. It's not
enough to say push the bounds of the power of
the executive, but beyond anything we've ever seen, why do.
Speaker 5 (18:33):
We even still believe in the Supreme Court, Like the
Supreme Court had not been a legitimate institution for a
long time.
Speaker 1 (18:38):
Well let's see what they do on this.
Speaker 5 (18:40):
We say that about every single time, but they have
proven where their loyalty lies.
Speaker 1 (18:46):
Yeah, I mean, I mean, I mean there's no question
that that conservative majority has served Trump very well, especially
in terms of knocking down or freezing the rulings of
all those low courts.
Speaker 5 (19:01):
And I think it's ridiculous when people say things about
Trump and they'd be like, you know, he's committing crimes.
Actually he's not because of the Supreme Court presidential immunity.
Speaker 1 (19:09):
I mean, this was the amazing thing about this election
is that for Trump himself, he faced like two possible outcomes.
He loses and he might go to prison. I mean,
there's a really decent chance he's gonna go to prison,
or he's gonna spend the rest of his life fighting
to stay out of prison. Or he wins. He doesn't
just become president again, he becomes the most powerful president
(19:31):
of our time because the Supreme Court says, basically, you
can do anything you want as long as it's tied
in some way to your job. You have immunity. So
the one place that the Supreme Court did defy him,
and there have been a couple of instances, but one
big one in recent years was he really thought the
Supreme Court was going to ride to the rescue and
(19:52):
nullify the election in twenty twenty, and they refused. So
we'll see. I think the tariffs thing will be a
big test because you know, you talk to conservatives, judicial conservatives.
I mean, there's no way that a president has the
power to unilaterally impose tax you know, tariff's taxes on
(20:12):
the rest of the world. So what do they do
on this? And Trump is trying to pressure on them,
me saying if we don't, you know, if they rule
the wrong way, we want to have a country anymore,
et cetera, et cetera. But let's see. I actually think
that they're going to slap them down on this.
Speaker 5 (20:25):
But we'll say, what legacy do you think this will
have on like future campaigns, future governance, because I feel
like this this only.
Speaker 4 (20:32):
Works for Trump.
Speaker 1 (20:34):
Yeah yeah, I mean there's no Republican that I can
see that would just suddenly inherit the movement and everybody
would do what they've done for him, which is total
loyalty even when they disagree with him. Well, we don't
disagree with him anymore. I mean J. D. Vance doesn't
command that kind of power. Marco Rubio doesn't command that
kind of power. But I do think that the rules
(20:56):
of the game have changed, and I think the next
Democrat president. I mean, you see what Gavin Newsom did
on the on the redistricting, and he's quite clear about it.
It's like we can sit here and talk about our
good government stuff that we but no, they've they've fought
dirty and basically saying we have to fight dirty back.
So this, this governing by executive order, you know, is
(21:21):
something and we'll see how much of it gets knocked down.
But I mean, I think this is part of the
part of what's going to happen now. So you don't
see a third term. You don't see him trying for what.
Speaker 5 (21:29):
I don't even like that conversation. Yeah, like we shouldn't
even be having that conversation.
Speaker 1 (21:33):
Twenty second Amendment says it is. It just can't happen.
Speaker 3 (21:35):
Yeah, there's so many things that they said that can't
happen that he does that happens.
Speaker 1 (21:40):
You know. I had a conversation with John Kelly shortly
after he left the White House as chief of Staff.
So Trump was still in power, and I was having
its kind of it's amazing to think back at it,
but I was. I was just wondering. I was beginning
to write my very first book on all of this,
and I was just what happens if Trump doesn't leave office?
This is first term, you know, way before January sixth
(22:02):
and all that, and I was just like, what what happens?
So I asked Kelly this again, retired four star marine general,
you know, a guy who's seen a lot. And he said,
oh no, no, he's gonna leave. Trust me, he's going
to leave. And and and then he paused and he said,
and you know, and if he doesn't want to, he
could chain himself to the resolute desk and there will
(22:24):
be people will quietly go into the Oval office and
cut the chains and take him out. So, you know,
I don't know if that's you know, I thought there
was just such a vivid image that we do have
a system. But you know, he has he has installed
loyalists everywhere, and I think it's going to be very
hard for him to leave office. But he can't run again.
(22:45):
According unless you make our constitution doesn't mean anything.
Speaker 4 (22:48):
I mean, I mean, they kind of treating like I
don't mean anything.
Speaker 1 (22:49):
Now.
Speaker 5 (22:50):
I want to ask you, did you talk to any
of those generals and admirals who went to that meeting
a couple months ago where they basically was trying to
get them the pledge allegiance to them.
Speaker 4 (22:58):
That's what it felt like to me.
Speaker 5 (22:59):
It felt like they were trying to get th old
general and the pledget leaders to them and not the Constitutes.
Speaker 4 (23:02):
Did you talk to anybody?
Speaker 1 (23:04):
Yeah, I've I've I've kept in touch with a number
of our senior military leaders who will privately say that
they were horrified by what happened and horrified what happened
earlier in the year at Fort Bragg. Do you remember
this one when Trump went to give a speech at
(23:24):
Fort Bragg and they actually somebody brought in onto the base, Uh,
these these tents to sell merchandise, Trump campaign merchandise. The
troops cheered him on as he gave a very political speech,
attacking Gavin Newsom, attacking the mayor of Los Angeles, attacking
(23:45):
the Democrats in the Senate, and it looked like a
campaign rally, and there was a It turned out that
there was a memo that they went out to some
of the troops at Fort Bragg saying basically saying, if
you don't you agree with Trump, you don't have to
come to this and have people that are going to
be fully supportive. And you know, the military is a
is a non partisan institution. It has to be. It
(24:09):
has to be for our country to you know, for
our democracy to mean anything. And and those senior military
officers for the most part take that really seriously. And
that's why I think when you know, when hegseeth brings
them in to do that and gives that speech and
you see them not respond. They weren't clapping and cheering.
(24:30):
They were, you know, there they have to follow the orders,
and they come and they look, but they were not
going to be political props.
Speaker 4 (24:37):
That's good, That's refreshing.
Speaker 1 (24:39):
Yeah.
Speaker 6 (24:41):
Okay, let's talk about the media side of it, right,
because we all know that Trump has his thing with
the media that he likes and he dislikes. So there
was the question that you asked him about the hate speech. Yeah,
after Charlie Kirk's death right, and he verbatim said to you,
you asked, what will happen you?
Speaker 1 (25:00):
I asked him, I said, Pam Bond. He says she's
going to go after hate speech. Some of your own
allies say, hate speech is free speech.
Speaker 6 (25:06):
Yes, And he says that she'll probably go after people
like you because you treat me so unfairly, you have
a lot of hate in your heart. Maybe they'll come
after ABC. ABC paid me sixteen million dollars recently for
a form of hate speech. Your company paid me sixteen
million for a form of hate speech. You'll maybe they'll
have to go after you. Yeah, direct back and forth
like that. Yeah, you're still out here asking these questions
and covering. People are very scared at their jobs right
(25:27):
now in the media space, behind the scenes. What's the
feeling of like, what does media even look like six
months from now if Trump is able to do and
say things like this and then we actually see action.
Speaker 1 (25:38):
How do you feel after he said that? Well, I'll
tell you that was that was intense because I was
you know, you don't get surprised much anymore of anything,
he says. But when he said that, maybe she'll go
after people like you, like personally, and then he goes
on and he says, you know, because you've been unfair
to me, So you're saying that the First Amendment doesn't
(26:00):
apply to a journalist who the president thinks hasn't been fair.
I mean, that was that was intense as matter. He said,
you have a lot of hate in your heart. I
have to tell you that this is a strange thing.
I was so taken aback by the notion that the
President the United States was suggesting that it would because
hate speech is one He's actually going way further than
(26:22):
what Pam BONDI said. He's saying, you know, maybe the
Justice Department will go after reporters who I don't think
are fair. To me that I didn't even like process.
The next thing he said, which you have a lot
of hate in your heart, I didn't even like. I
don't know something. It's just it just I mean he did.
Speaker 2 (26:39):
He's saying, as you next.
Speaker 1 (26:40):
Yeah, it went by me. So when when the whole
thing ended, one of the photographers behind me said, man,
do you have hate in your heart? I didn't know
what he was talking about. I look almost like so,
I you know, he's he says, he's look, he's taunted.
He's uh, he attacks journalists. Uh, he attacks journalists. And
(27:03):
then he takes phone calls from reporters. You know, I
mean at shortly after he said that it was actually
in response to the same question, because he went on
and on and on. He started going off about how Washington,
d C. Is safe again now that we have the
National Guard, and you should take your beautiful wife out
to dinner tonight after you just told me I might,
(27:24):
maybe I should go next. Yeah, And later in the
day he he had an event in the Oval Office
and he turned it into one of these like long
press conferences, and I continued my questioning about free speech,
and he got very irritated with me, and he said, uh,
you know, and you you you think you're a wonderful person.
(27:47):
You're not a wonderful person. You are a terrible reporter.
You know it, I know it. Everybody knows it. And
he goes on and again, this is the President of
the United States is a reporter. You're not usually in
a you don't think you're gonna you're gonna have this
kind of a situation. I what I've done, what I've
always done, is is I ignore the taunts because it
doesn't matter. I don't want to make it about me,
(28:07):
so I don't. I just don't. I just get back
to you know, the subject, free speech. But when when
it ended and they tell the press to get out
of the Oval office because the photo op is over,
he motioned to me to come towards the resolute desk
and he motioned like this, and he said, ye know,
we're okay, We're okay. And I was like, you were
you were tough there, and he's like, no, no, you
(28:28):
were tough. And he starts laughing and then says thank you,
thank you. As I'm walking out, thank you, John, thank
you John. So it's like it's like a it's a
it's a performance. But so and I my one of
my daughters, uh as I'm get this book's coming out
and uh just did a quick little I guess at
(28:50):
Google search. But but to compile some of the things
that Trump has said about me over the years, it's
a really long list. But you know, I I to me,
it's like, I don't care, it doesn't matter, and just
do my job. And I don't now if he follows
through with that, and I like, you know, he starts,
you know, jailing reporters or trying to jail reporters because
(29:11):
he doesn't like the reporting. You know, we're in a
whole different place. But you know, to me, A lot
of it is He's just it's a bit of a game.
And he does get angry and he does get pissed off.
He thinks that everybody should be talking about how wonderful
he is at all times. But you know, I mean,
I'm not gonna do that. And I'm also not going
to sit there and get like my backup because he
(29:32):
calls me a name.
Speaker 6 (29:32):
So no real fear, there's no I'm asking. I mean,
is there real fear that people have because we on
this side it looks like and it feels like.
Speaker 1 (29:38):
Yeah, I mean I think that some for some people, yes,
But I can just speak for myself and for my colleagues.
I mean, another one of my colleagues, Rachel Scott, has
come under withering attacks from Donald Trump. I mean just
just relentless. Uh. And she's and by the way, she's
like ridiculously young. And I don't know where the the
(30:00):
poise and the you know, I mean, I've been true
so much of this, but Rachel has got I mean,
her heartbeat doesn't rise. She just keeps focused on the issue.
And you know, I mean, does it bother people? Yeah,
But you do what Rachel does or what I've tried
to do, which is just stay focused on what you're
trying to ask and you can't be intimidated.
Speaker 5 (30:22):
Yeah, there is a normalization that I feel continues to
happen with Trump, not just from the media, but from
like other politicians, especially Democrats. It's like people for some
reason continue to act like this is just politics as usual.
Speaker 1 (30:36):
Yeah, it's not.
Speaker 4 (30:37):
No, And I even saw that with the government shut down.
Speaker 5 (30:39):
I'm like, why are y'all talking like y'all can actually
negotiate with MAGA on this issue? Like they got everything
they want in the big beautiful bility. They have no
reason to make concessions when you continue to act like
these are the reasonable politicians who are going to say,
you know what we do care about you know, people's
health care benefits, Like now you know they're not, so
why do you keep acting like that and even trying
(31:01):
to sell that to the people.
Speaker 1 (31:02):
You know that this was the shutdown? I mean, my god.
So the Democrats realized they had zero leverage except for
being able to, you know, withhold their votes for keeping
the government open, and that's the only leverage they had.
Otherwise the Republicans can just you know, push all this
(31:23):
even with I mean, the Republican majority is really small,
It's tiny. I mean it's like it's incredible what's what's
gone through the House when you consider that, you know,
they have this this majority that it's almost tied. I mean,
they can only lose a couple of votes on a
couple of Republicans on any one issue. But look, they
(31:44):
so they use the leverage, and you know, in a
normal world you would think, yeah, I mean, like there's
so much pain. Look at the Look what's happening to
the airports. Look what's happening.
Speaker 7 (31:54):
Funeral workers that haven't been paid in forty yeah, yeah,
forty million plus people you know, rely on these snap benefits,
and not only are they not as the White House
not doesn't seem concerned about that, they.
Speaker 1 (32:07):
Actually fight efforts by the court, by by by the
States YEA to continue funding the the snap benefits and
take it all the way to the Supreme Court, for
God's sake to try to stop it. So I think
what what the Democrats saw quite vividly is the pressure
is not going to work this because when when you're
(32:28):
playing with somebody that doesn't care.
Speaker 4 (32:31):
Well, why did they think it would to begin with?
Speaker 5 (32:33):
It's like we've been watching ten years in so right, Yeah,
like what made them think it would work to begin with?
That's what I mean when I say the normalization of it,
because but whatever reason, people haven't adjusted their brains to
realize this. Ain't your grandparents Republicans, Joe. Yeah, if you
can't use words like authoritarian and fascism and not treat
them as such.
Speaker 1 (32:52):
Yeah, yeah, so what they will. The way the Democrats
think that this is ultimately played out is they didn't
succeed obviously in dealing with the health with healthcare, you know,
the Obamaca. They'll get their vote, it's not going to
succeed even if it succeeds in the center. They're not
going to vote on it in the House. Even if
(33:14):
they somehow voted on in the House. Trump's not going
to sign it into law. I mean, there's they're not
going to get it. They're just not going to get it.
But what they believe that they have done is they
have succeeded in making it vividly clear to the world,
to the country that he is going to do nothing
for the twenty plus million Americans that are going to
see their health insurance skyrocket on January first, that he
(33:38):
would do nothing to help the forty plus million who
were losing access to snap benefits that make it possible
to feed their families.
Speaker 4 (33:46):
To go create.
Speaker 1 (33:47):
So, I mean, they've been promising a healthcare bill for
what is it, like eight eight plus year I mean
a healthcare plan. It's a secret plan, Like it's like
Nixon's a secret plan to the Vietnam War.
Speaker 5 (34:02):
What do you see as the greatest risk to American
democratic institutions in the coming years.
Speaker 1 (34:07):
I think that the greatest risk to our institutions is
the erosion of the idea of truth. I think this
is more beyond any single policy thing, beyond even Trump himself.
Is we now live in a world where you know,
you can ask someone are you gonna believe me? Or
your own lion eyes? And it's unclear what they're going
(34:31):
to believe. It's if you can't agree on what the
facts are, how do you overcome divisions? How do you
get anything done? And you know it's Trump has accelerated this.
He didn't start it. He has accelerated this. And now
throw into the mix artificial intelligence. I mean it's like
(34:52):
we are in an we are in a crazy land.
And by the way, I see it on the left
as well, where you know the crazy conspiracy theories you know,
of late have been the province of the of the right,
all the wacky conspiracy theories around twenty twenty and you
(35:12):
know Sydney Powell saying the dead Venezuelans rigged voting machines,
or voting machines were controlled by spy satellites. I mean,
the crazy, crazy stuff. And now I mean I can't
tell you many people, I'll come and tell you that
you know, Trump brigged the twenty twenty four election, and
it was Elon Musk and it was Starlink and they
controlled the voting sheets. It's like the same conspiracies. It's like,
(35:33):
can we just try to establish facts? And that's the
business that I am in, and I'm desperately trying. That's
why I wanted to write these books again because I
wanted to. First of all, I felt I had the
access and I had the vantage point I to be
able to shed new light on the events that were
going through. But I also wanted to make sure that
(35:54):
people don't rewrite it and pretend things that happened that
didn't happen.
Speaker 5 (35:58):
Yeah, right, So that means all your books are getting banned,
so yeah, soon whether they're done. If you were looking back,
this is my last question, if you were looking back
in ten to twenty years at this campaign, what will
historians say it did to the Republican Party, What would
they say it did.
Speaker 4 (36:12):
To the presidency and the media.
Speaker 5 (36:14):
And what do you hope your legacy will be as
a chronicler of this era.
Speaker 1 (36:19):
I think that it utterly it completed the utter transformation
of the Republican Party from the Republican Party to the
Trump Party. It started before the campaign, but it was
absolutely solidified. This is not Reagan's Republican Party. It's not
Bush's Republican Party. It's not Paul Ryan's, it's not Mitt Romney's.
This is an entirely different Republican Party, both substantly, substantly
(36:42):
in terms of policy and just in terms of the
the force of the personality of Trump. How long that lasts,
what it means after there is no longer a Donald
Trump remains to be seen. But I don't think you
suddenly go back to the old Republican Party that's gone
the country. I think it it just solidified that division
(37:07):
in our country. That is not going to be overcome
after Trump is gone. I mean, we are in a
we are in a place where we have a we
have a political and cultural divide in the country that
I don't think is going to go away. And you know,
in terms of my legacy on this or I don't
(37:27):
know if I even look at it that way. But
what I hope people will say is, look, fifty years
from now, one hundred years from now, people are going
to want to ask what the hell was that all about?
And I hope that these books, especially this one, somebody
can say, read this and you'll get a sense of
what it was like and how it happened.
Speaker 3 (37:48):
All right, get it before his ban j'all's resolution down
Trump in the campaign that changed America.
Speaker 2 (37:54):
Jonathan Coll Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for joining us.
Speaker 1 (37:56):
Hey, it's awesome to be with the Breakfast Club. Thank you.
Speaker 2 (37:58):
It's this club.
Speaker 1 (37:59):
Good morning.
Speaker 5 (38:00):
Hold up every day I wake up, click your glass
up the breakfast clubs.
Speaker 4 (38:05):
You're dumb, h
Don't know.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
Every day a waygo click up the Breakfast Club.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
Finish, y'all done?
Speaker 2 (00:06):
Morning.
Speaker 3 (00:07):
Everybody is DJ Envy Jess Hilarious, Chelamage the guy. We
are to breakfast Club, law l the Roses here as well,
and we got a special guest in the building. Yes, indeed,
he has a new book, Retribution from Donald Trump and
the Campaign that changed America.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
John Call, Ladies and gentlemen.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
Hey, thanks for having me.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
How would you fail?
Speaker 4 (00:25):
How are you?
Speaker 1 (00:25):
I'm doing it all right, I'm doing it right, crazy times.
Speaker 4 (00:27):
This is your fourth book on Trump?
Speaker 2 (00:29):
Yeah, you like jobbing yourself crazy?
Speaker 4 (00:31):
Huh?
Speaker 1 (00:31):
Oh my god. I I wrote one almost six years ago,
and I thought that would be the only one. But
this is fifteen hundred pages on this stuff. But you know,
I mean I felt like I was watching history unfold
and I saw people trying to rewrite the history as
it was happening. And that's why I've you know, I've
poured my heart and soul into these books.
Speaker 5 (00:52):
Well feels different about this, this this face, this era
of Trump.
Speaker 1 (00:56):
If anything, if it does feel different, I mean it does.
I mean, I think what's what we're seeing now is
as suggested by the subtitle of this book, It's changing
in America. His first term was chaotic. I mean, the
attention of the world was on the White House. There
was all this controversy swirling. But you know, he left
(01:18):
and it was done. I mean there was nothing, no
real lasting impact. I mean, now look what he's doing.
And symbolically you could look at like tearing down the
East Wing, you know, changing paving over the Rose Garden.
He's changing the physical layout of the White House. But
what our country is changing, I mean the use of
executive power. You have a president that's shown you can
(01:38):
just basically ignore Congress, get into the precipice of ignoring
the courts. We're in a totally different phase, I think.
Speaker 3 (01:47):
I think the first term was more of to see
how far or what he could get away with.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
And then when he came back, he just started.
Speaker 3 (01:54):
I mean he started at first day desk signing all
types of part is, signing things into play immediately.
Speaker 2 (01:59):
So I think the first time was let me see
what I can get away with.
Speaker 1 (02:02):
Yeah, and you know, he he had all these people
around him in the in the first firm, who had credentials.
You know, he felt like he almost like trophies on
a wall his cabinet. You had the four star marine generals,
you had the CEO of Excellent Mobile, you had the
retired judge and senator he put in charge of the
of the Justice Department, and every one of those people.
(02:23):
You know, you could say, well, you know, Trump has
no experience in the government, but they do. And he
felt betrayed by all of them. They all tried to
keep him, to a degree in line. And now that
they're all gone, they're all gone.
Speaker 5 (02:36):
You know, you begin the book with an admission, you
say you believe that Donald trump come back was highly unlikely.
Like what was the moment or series of moments in
your reporting when you're when you're thinking shifted.
Speaker 1 (02:48):
You know, the It wasn't really until pretty close to
the election, when I saw how the Kamala Harris campaign
was approaching it, and I saw their almost desperation to
have another debate with Donald Trump. I saw her go
on Fox News after resisting all kinds of interviews, something
you had said she should have done a long time ago.
(03:11):
And I report in the book how she actually her
campaign actually approached Fox and asked them if they would
host a debate. This is in the end, you know,
in October and Trump and Fox said sure, but Trump
had no interest in doing it again. And that's where
I saw. She wouldn't have been doing that if they
didn't see that she was likely to lose.
Speaker 5 (03:31):
When you realized that not only was the comeback possible,
but that the campaign was built around this idea of
retrobution in a structural way, when did you realize that?
Speaker 1 (03:40):
Really early on? I mean I I was there in
mar A Lago when he announced his campaign shortly after
the midterms in twenty twenty two. It puttered along, It
was nothing. It was you know, Ron DeSantis was leading
in the polls, if you remember, double digits by the
end of twenty twenty two. And then he gave this
speech at Sea Pack where he used that line. You know,
(04:03):
he said, I told you I am your voice in
twenty sixteen. Now I tell you I am your retribution.
And that gave his his campaign this energy. And then
you had the the the indictments coming in. You had
he started his campaign. The first rally of his campaign
was it Waco, Texas. I mean, I wrote a book
(04:24):
like thirty years ago this December, I wrote a book
called The Right to bear arms, the rise of America's
new militias, about the right wing militia groups, Timothy McVeigh
and all of that, and you know, the Waco, Texas
was the rallying cry for those people. It was as
the symbol of like the government out of control and
coming after you. And now Trump is going to Waco.
(04:44):
So I saw and then sitting through that trial in
New York, the hush money trial, and I could just
see the seething resentment that he had that he had
to go to that court room every day, four days
a week. You've been down, there's one hundred centers. He
is a dingy dark you know, dirty. I mean I
(05:06):
described when I because I went down and sat through
several days down there, and you go through the front
door of the courthouse. The first thing I notice is
this big rat traps inside, you know, I mean, And
and he's got to be there, and he can't leave
even like during the lunch breaks. He's got to be
there in some dark, cold room. And he just you
could see he was plotting, I am going to get
(05:27):
even with all of these people if I get back
into power.
Speaker 6 (05:30):
Do you feel like there will ever actually be like
retribution that he thinks because there's always something new that
he feels like he has to like get back. I mean,
he's getting people back, but like, is there a place
where it stops, Like where he gets to the point
where he's like, yo, I didn't got yaut and did enough?
Speaker 1 (05:44):
No? No, no, I mean you think, first of all,
you would think that the guy he got back to
the White House and he won, you would think that
maybe at that point you'd be like, Okay, you know,
I've proved everybody wrong. I'm here, I'm in power again. No,
he's going to keep going. And here's the thing. It's
not just political opponents. It's not just the Democrats, it's
not just the prosecutors. It's not just the people that
(06:06):
literally went after him. I think that the thing that
motivates him the most is getting back at Republicans who
he believes didn't sufficiently support him. Really yeah, I mean yeah.
The other day Steve Bannon said something. Steve Bannon said
that that Bill Barr belongs in prison. Bill Barr. I mean,
(06:27):
this is like, you know, and his bars sin was
that he didn't back Trump on the efforts to overthrow
the twenty twenty election. And you know, I mean, so
his first motivation, that the beginning of the retribution campaign
actually begins in the days after he leaves the White House,
(06:48):
he goes to mar A Lago. He's really seen as
a pria even by most of the Republican leadership. He's
banned on Facebook and Instagram and Twitter and all of that.
Corporations are saying they're not going to give money to
Republicans that backed him in overturning the election. And he's
in a very dark place. I mean, I described this,
you know, pretty graphically in my previous book about his
(07:10):
exile down there. But what is the first project he has?
His polster gives him a membo that shows him that
Liz Cheney can be beat in Wyoming, Liz Cheney who
voted to impeach him, and that is the beginning. He
is now focused on, first time, going to go after
those damn those ten Republicans that voted to impeach me
(07:30):
in the House. They're gone, and he defeats Liz Cheney.
So he you know, I mean, he expects Democrats to
be his opponents. He knows prosecutors do what prosecutors do.
It's those Republicans So.
Speaker 5 (07:42):
Is that to put fear in the team that's around
him now, to let y'all know, y'all better always go
along with me, because if y'all get out of line,
then it'll be retribution against y'all too.
Speaker 1 (07:50):
That's a huge factor, and it's pretty damn effective. I mean,
this is the other thing to talk about. What's different
from the first time. The first time you had Paul
Ryan and Mitch McConnell as the leaders in the Congress,
neither one of them had any loyalty whatsoever personal loyalty
to Trump, and in fact had opposed him strongly in
the case actually in both cases in twenty sixteen in
(08:13):
the Republican primary. And now you have I mean, Fune
has a degree of independence. But like I mean, like Johnson,
the Speaker of the House, he's almost behaves like he's
a member of the of the Trump's staff. I mean
that the House is there to do the will of
(08:33):
the White House.
Speaker 3 (08:34):
I mean, you didn't have that before when you were
writing this book and you spoke to a lot of people.
Would do in this book was did anybody not want
to do it or was scared to talk with you?
Speaker 4 (08:44):
Speak with you?
Speaker 2 (08:44):
Because they said he might come back for me.
Speaker 1 (08:48):
You definitely, It's always always and yet you know, and
what I really tried to do with this book was
to get people who would talk to me on the record.
And I succeeded in some of the big you know,
some of the key players I mentioned Steve Bannon, I
mean hours of conversations with this guy. Bobby Kennedy was
somebody I was talking to throughout the campaign. On the
(09:10):
other side, Hunter Biden like really opened up to me.
And what I did with with with some of these
people is I said, Okay, talk to me, tell me
the story. I am not this is for a book.
It's not going to affect anything. Just talk to me,
and it's for history. And that kind of draws them out.
But there are and then there were some people that
just didn't want to don't want to be seen with
(09:31):
me or with a reporter because then they might be like, aha,
he saw this. Like you know, there was a Todd
blanche you know now obviously at the Justice Department, but
was the lead on his defense cases during the transition.
Somebody took a picture of him meeting with a CNN
reporter and like put it all out of one of
the is if this was like proof he's not sufficiently
(09:53):
on the team.
Speaker 6 (09:54):
I saw Hunter Biden told you that he was really
upset when Obama led Biden off the state in that
viral video. So when you are talking to people about
these moments, that will bring these moments back up again,
Like he's upset it when viral in the first place,
He's upset Obama did it. But then he sits down
and talks to you, which brings it back.
Speaker 1 (10:11):
Up again, right, exactly what is.
Speaker 6 (10:13):
The conversation I guess after the book comes out and
people pick that up because that was the main folks
of the news conversation.
Speaker 1 (10:18):
Now you're seeing it again exactly.
Speaker 6 (10:20):
So does Hunter Biden then call you back and be
like we need to do another interview where like how
do you handle the not the backlash, but the conversation
that comes back up because of your book from these
people that you sit down with.
Speaker 1 (10:28):
By the way, that was such an interesting conversation with
Hunter Biden. So I talked to him over the phone
a lot during the course of the campaign, including when
you know there was that big effort to get his
father to drop out, and he was like one of
the few people actually talking to President Biden every day.
I mean even like his top aides were, you know,
many of them were isolated. I mean the chief of staff,
(10:50):
Jeff Science. When Biden had the final meeting where he
decides he's not going on again, the chief of Staff's
not even there. He's not even part of the meeting.
He gets called later, by the way, I decided I'm
not going to run. But Hunter was so passionate in
his anger towards Obama. He said he was there at
that fundraiser, went for that viral moment, and he wanted
to jump up on the stage and say, you don't
(11:11):
touch the President of the United States. And then he
also is angry about the George Clooney op ed, which
he blames Obama for. He's also saying, I guess we
just have it. We Biden's have a different idea of
what it means to be a friend.
Speaker 5 (11:26):
So you're mad at George Clooney for telling the truth,
shouldn't you be kind of mad at your father for
running again for a second term. He probably wasn't gonna
be in the best condition to.
Speaker 6 (11:35):
And then throws Obama in the mix.
Speaker 2 (11:36):
Obama's not Obama.
Speaker 1 (11:37):
Yeah, yeah, Obama, who's not didn't write the thing.
Speaker 4 (11:39):
So Obamas, you just got him wandering around the stage.
Speaker 1 (11:42):
I mean, I mean it is first of all, a
few of those people really close and tight around Obama
are I mean Biden are still absolutely convinced that he
could have won and that this was a tragedy that
the Democrats forced him out.
Speaker 5 (11:59):
I mean, we should never talk through those people that
I'm not even joking. We should leave those people in
the past like they should be out the pastors.
Speaker 1 (12:06):
Just like, here's the thing, I this sometimes the biggest
news and is what didn't happen. The most consequential decision
of Joe Biden's life professional life was the decision to
run again. I mean it the race is virtually everything
that he did as president. And they never had a
(12:30):
meeting on it. They never sat down and said, what
are the pros and cons running again? Not running again?
What does it look like? I mean, Hunter himself said,
the machinery just went. We never really discussed should we
And then that's that is the biggest decision.
Speaker 5 (12:43):
That's one of the biggest you know, that's one of
the most glaring things from the Vice President's BOK one
hundred and seven days that.
Speaker 4 (12:48):
I feel like people didn't discuss enough.
Speaker 5 (12:50):
When she said that the Bidy shouldn't have been able
to make that decision alone.
Speaker 4 (12:53):
I think I'm para for them a little bit.
Speaker 5 (12:56):
It was reckless for him to make that decision on
his own, And I'm like, why would that ever be
a decision?
Speaker 4 (13:00):
Let him make one?
Speaker 1 (13:01):
Yeah, and all the you know, it's not just the
it's not just the party. It's not just the White
House leadership, the vice president. It's the whole democratic apparatus.
I mean, nobody going in and saying, wait a minute,
let's think about this.
Speaker 5 (13:14):
Yeah, And I you know, that's to me, that's a
whole other book. But at some point somebody's gonna have
to sit down and talk about how that decision and
the decision to hire Merrit Garland is why we ended
up where we currently.
Speaker 4 (13:25):
Are right now.
Speaker 1 (13:26):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (13:27):
And in the book, you describe how a new team
was formed around Trump with the goal of a of
a new world order.
Speaker 4 (13:33):
Can you walk us.
Speaker 5 (13:34):
Through like one or two behind the scenes organizational, our
strategic decisions that reveal how his team, how this team
operated differently than previous politically.
Speaker 1 (13:43):
Well, I spent a great deal of time describing what
was actually happening at mar A Lago. And if you remember,
there was some political commentary at the time saying, man, Trump,
this time arounds got it more together. There's less drama
surrounding the transition. They're putting out their nominees and a
quicker pace. It I mean no, uh, it was. It
(14:05):
was total chaos. Yes, you had, you had you, I
mean you had. The campaign transition office was actually a
couple miles away in West Palm Beach where the campaign
it was the old campaign office became the transition office.
Mar A Lague was actually a pretty small place. There's
only one office, which is Trump's office. And but so
(14:30):
you had you had all these transition people working two
miles away, but none of it mattered. They were preparing
lists and interviewing potential candidates and and doing their vetting.
And then it was like Trump deciding on his own
and surprising the people that were running his transition. So
you know, Pete Hegseth I described the mar A Laga.
(14:53):
There's a place called the living room. It's really the lobby,
and people would go and wait for their their meetings,
either with Lutnik and the transition team or upstairs to
go and have their big meeting with Trump. And there's
a scene where there's a candidate for attorney general sitting
on the couch next to a candidate for for Energy secretary.
(15:14):
You know, Matt Gates is running around. He's not even
considered an attorney general candidate. He's just considered, you know,
a guy that's helping out. And Pete Hegseth shows up
and they all think he's there to interview Trump because
he's the Fox weekend guy. And so Trump didn't even
like talk to his like people about this. It was like,
(15:34):
Pete's the man, We'll just do him. So, you know,
it's it's really the way it was all centered around
Trump and and and and his whim and what he wanted.
It was, you know, you didn't have anybody and actually,
let me let me back up a second. The one
(15:55):
thing that is very different is that, first of all,
he knew his way around, so he didn't think he
needed to rely on anybody for advice. But you also
had some of the people that had been with him
all along had been preparing for what they would do
if he got back into office. Stephen Miller started a
group called America First Legal, and they'd worked for three
(16:17):
plus years thinking about executive orders that they would do
if Trump got back in preparing drafts.
Speaker 4 (16:24):
One of these things.
Speaker 1 (16:26):
This even this predates Project twenty twenty five, but yeah,
absolutely project twenty twenty five. So they were ready with
an agenda, and it's ultimately Trump's agenda, but they were
ready with here's the roadmap. Here is how you're really
going to do it.
Speaker 5 (16:41):
What surprises you most about how I guess American presidential
campaigns and governance, Yeah, are changing.
Speaker 1 (16:50):
It's the absolute power that we're seeing vested in the executive.
I mean, we have a system of checks and balances
in this country. You know, it's I mean, that's the idea.
I mean, that's a great question. Do we still have that?
It is very much putter. I mean, the House of
Representatives has just been out of session for fifty four
days and did it matter?
Speaker 4 (17:09):
Nope?
Speaker 1 (17:10):
I mean, was there anything different? To quote Bannon again,
he called and I don't know if he was being
complimentary or not, he called the Congress the equivalent of
the Russian Duma, which is just like, I mean, not
even a rubber stamp. You don't even need to be stamped.
So Trump this flurry of executive orders tariffs, I mean,
(17:32):
the Supreme Court case will be the most interesting thing
to watch in this term of the Supreme Court. I
mean the fact that the idea that a president can
come out and impose tariffs on virtually every country in
the world. The Constitution makes it clear that Congress controls
the power to tax and imposed duties. And I mean,
(17:54):
I think about my life covering politics. The debates over
trade are big debates. You know, NAFTA, the US Mexico
Free Trade Agreement TPP, all these things that are negotiated
and then Congress needs to ratify them and if they don't,
they don't go into effect. And Trump just holds a
press conference in the Rose Garden and suddenly you have
(18:15):
these mass tariffs. So we'll see if that gets knocked down.
I mean, the Supreme Court seemed pretty damn skeptical of it,
but you know, he has I mean pushed. It's not
enough to say push the bounds of the power of
the executive, but beyond anything we've ever seen, why do.
Speaker 5 (18:33):
We even still believe in the Supreme Court, Like the
Supreme Court had not been a legitimate institution for a
long time.
Speaker 1 (18:38):
Well let's see what they do on this.
Speaker 5 (18:40):
We say that about every single time, but they have
proven where their loyalty lies.
Speaker 1 (18:46):
Yeah, I mean, I mean, I mean there's no question
that that conservative majority has served Trump very well, especially
in terms of knocking down or freezing the rulings of
all those low courts.
Speaker 5 (19:01):
And I think it's ridiculous when people say things about
Trump and they'd be like, you know, he's committing crimes.
Actually he's not because of the Supreme Court presidential immunity.
Speaker 1 (19:09):
I mean, this was the amazing thing about this election
is that for Trump himself, he faced like two possible outcomes.
He loses and he might go to prison. I mean,
there's a really decent chance he's gonna go to prison,
or he's gonna spend the rest of his life fighting
to stay out of prison. Or he wins. He doesn't
just become president again, he becomes the most powerful president
(19:31):
of our time because the Supreme Court says, basically, you
can do anything you want as long as it's tied
in some way to your job. You have immunity. So
the one place that the Supreme Court did defy him,
and there have been a couple of instances, but one
big one in recent years was he really thought the
Supreme Court was going to ride to the rescue and
(19:52):
nullify the election in twenty twenty, and they refused. So
we'll see. I think the tariffs thing will be a
big test because you know, you talk to conservatives, judicial conservatives.
I mean, there's no way that a president has the
power to unilaterally impose tax you know, tariff's taxes on
(20:12):
the rest of the world. So what do they do
on this? And Trump is trying to pressure on them,
me saying if we don't, you know, if they rule
the wrong way, we want to have a country anymore,
et cetera, et cetera. But let's see. I actually think
that they're going to slap them down on this.
Speaker 5 (20:25):
But we'll say, what legacy do you think this will
have on like future campaigns, future governance, because I feel
like this this only.
Speaker 4 (20:32):
Works for Trump.
Speaker 1 (20:34):
Yeah yeah, I mean there's no Republican that I can
see that would just suddenly inherit the movement and everybody
would do what they've done for him, which is total
loyalty even when they disagree with him. Well, we don't
disagree with him anymore. I mean J. D. Vance doesn't
command that kind of power. Marco Rubio doesn't command that
kind of power. But I do think that the rules
(20:56):
of the game have changed, and I think the next
Democrat president. I mean, you see what Gavin Newsom did
on the on the redistricting, and he's quite clear about it.
It's like we can sit here and talk about our
good government stuff that we but no, they've they've fought
dirty and basically saying we have to fight dirty back.
So this, this governing by executive order, you know, is
(21:21):
something and we'll see how much of it gets knocked down.
But I mean, I think this is part of the
part of what's going to happen now. So you don't
see a third term. You don't see him trying for what.
Speaker 5 (21:29):
I don't even like that conversation. Yeah, like we shouldn't
even be having that conversation.
Speaker 1 (21:33):
Twenty second Amendment says it is. It just can't happen.
Speaker 3 (21:35):
Yeah, there's so many things that they said that can't
happen that he does that happens.
Speaker 1 (21:40):
You know. I had a conversation with John Kelly shortly
after he left the White House as chief of Staff.
So Trump was still in power, and I was having
its kind of it's amazing to think back at it,
but I was. I was just wondering. I was beginning
to write my very first book on all of this,
and I was just what happens if Trump doesn't leave office?
This is first term, you know, way before January sixth
(22:02):
and all that, and I was just like, what what happens?
So I asked Kelly this again, retired four star marine general,
you know, a guy who's seen a lot. And he said,
oh no, no, he's gonna leave. Trust me, he's going
to leave. And and and then he paused and he said,
and you know, and if he doesn't want to, he
could chain himself to the resolute desk and there will
(22:24):
be people will quietly go into the Oval office and
cut the chains and take him out. So, you know,
I don't know if that's you know, I thought there
was just such a vivid image that we do have
a system. But you know, he has he has installed
loyalists everywhere, and I think it's going to be very
hard for him to leave office. But he can't run again.
(22:45):
According unless you make our constitution doesn't mean anything.
Speaker 4 (22:48):
I mean, I mean, they kind of treating like I
don't mean anything.
Speaker 1 (22:49):
Now.
Speaker 5 (22:50):
I want to ask you, did you talk to any
of those generals and admirals who went to that meeting
a couple months ago where they basically was trying to
get them the pledge allegiance to them.
Speaker 4 (22:58):
That's what it felt like to me.
Speaker 5 (22:59):
It felt like they were trying to get th old
general and the pledget leaders to them and not the Constitutes.
Speaker 4 (23:02):
Did you talk to anybody?
Speaker 1 (23:04):
Yeah, I've I've I've kept in touch with a number
of our senior military leaders who will privately say that
they were horrified by what happened and horrified what happened
earlier in the year at Fort Bragg. Do you remember
this one when Trump went to give a speech at
(23:24):
Fort Bragg and they actually somebody brought in onto the base, Uh,
these these tents to sell merchandise, Trump campaign merchandise. The
troops cheered him on as he gave a very political speech,
attacking Gavin Newsom, attacking the mayor of Los Angeles, attacking
(23:45):
the Democrats in the Senate, and it looked like a
campaign rally, and there was a It turned out that
there was a memo that they went out to some
of the troops at Fort Bragg saying basically saying, if
you don't you agree with Trump, you don't have to
come to this and have people that are going to
be fully supportive. And you know, the military is a
is a non partisan institution. It has to be. It
(24:09):
has to be for our country to you know, for
our democracy to mean anything. And and those senior military
officers for the most part take that really seriously. And
that's why I think when you know, when hegseeth brings
them in to do that and gives that speech and
you see them not respond. They weren't clapping and cheering.
(24:30):
They were, you know, there they have to follow the orders,
and they come and they look, but they were not
going to be political props.
Speaker 4 (24:37):
That's good, That's refreshing.
Speaker 1 (24:39):
Yeah.
Speaker 6 (24:41):
Okay, let's talk about the media side of it, right,
because we all know that Trump has his thing with
the media that he likes and he dislikes. So there
was the question that you asked him about the hate speech. Yeah,
after Charlie Kirk's death right, and he verbatim said to you,
you asked, what will happen you?
Speaker 1 (25:00):
I asked him, I said, Pam Bond. He says she's
going to go after hate speech. Some of your own
allies say, hate speech is free speech.
Speaker 6 (25:06):
Yes, And he says that she'll probably go after people
like you because you treat me so unfairly, you have
a lot of hate in your heart. Maybe they'll come
after ABC. ABC paid me sixteen million dollars recently for
a form of hate speech. Your company paid me sixteen
million for a form of hate speech. You'll maybe they'll
have to go after you. Yeah, direct back and forth
like that. Yeah, you're still out here asking these questions
and covering. People are very scared at their jobs right
(25:27):
now in the media space, behind the scenes. What's the
feeling of like, what does media even look like six
months from now if Trump is able to do and
say things like this and then we actually see action.
Speaker 1 (25:38):
How do you feel after he said that? Well, I'll
tell you that was that was intense because I was
you know, you don't get surprised much anymore of anything,
he says. But when he said that, maybe she'll go
after people like you, like personally, and then he goes
on and he says, you know, because you've been unfair
to me, So you're saying that the First Amendment doesn't
(26:00):
apply to a journalist who the president thinks hasn't been fair.
I mean, that was that was intense as matter. He said,
you have a lot of hate in your heart. I
have to tell you that this is a strange thing.
I was so taken aback by the notion that the
President the United States was suggesting that it would because
hate speech is one He's actually going way further than
(26:22):
what Pam BONDI said. He's saying, you know, maybe the
Justice Department will go after reporters who I don't think
are fair. To me that I didn't even like process.
The next thing he said, which you have a lot
of hate in your heart, I didn't even like. I
don't know something. It's just it just I mean he did.
Speaker 2 (26:39):
He's saying, as you next.
Speaker 1 (26:40):
Yeah, it went by me. So when when the whole
thing ended, one of the photographers behind me said, man,
do you have hate in your heart? I didn't know
what he was talking about. I look almost like so,
I you know, he's he says, he's look, he's taunted.
He's uh, he attacks journalists. Uh, he attacks journalists. And
(27:03):
then he takes phone calls from reporters. You know, I
mean at shortly after he said that it was actually
in response to the same question, because he went on
and on and on. He started going off about how Washington,
d C. Is safe again now that we have the
National Guard, and you should take your beautiful wife out
to dinner tonight after you just told me I might,
(27:24):
maybe I should go next. Yeah, And later in the
day he he had an event in the Oval Office
and he turned it into one of these like long
press conferences, and I continued my questioning about free speech,
and he got very irritated with me, and he said, uh,
you know, and you you you think you're a wonderful person.
(27:47):
You're not a wonderful person. You are a terrible reporter.
You know it, I know it. Everybody knows it. And
he goes on and again, this is the President of
the United States is a reporter. You're not usually in
a you don't think you're gonna you're gonna have this
kind of a situation. I what I've done, what I've
always done, is is I ignore the taunts because it
doesn't matter. I don't want to make it about me,
(28:07):
so I don't. I just don't. I just get back
to you know, the subject, free speech. But when when
it ended and they tell the press to get out
of the Oval office because the photo op is over,
he motioned to me to come towards the resolute desk
and he motioned like this, and he said, ye know,
we're okay, We're okay. And I was like, you were
you were tough there, and he's like, no, no, you
(28:28):
were tough. And he starts laughing and then says thank you,
thank you. As I'm walking out, thank you, John, thank
you John. So it's like it's like a it's a
it's a performance. But so and I my one of
my daughters, uh as I'm get this book's coming out
and uh just did a quick little I guess at
(28:50):
Google search. But but to compile some of the things
that Trump has said about me over the years, it's
a really long list. But you know, I I to me,
it's like, I don't care, it doesn't matter, and just
do my job. And I don't now if he follows
through with that, and I like, you know, he starts,
you know, jailing reporters or trying to jail reporters because
(29:11):
he doesn't like the reporting. You know, we're in a
whole different place. But you know, to me, A lot
of it is He's just it's a bit of a game.
And he does get angry and he does get pissed off.
He thinks that everybody should be talking about how wonderful
he is at all times. But you know, I mean,
I'm not gonna do that. And I'm also not going
to sit there and get like my backup because he
(29:32):
calls me a name.
Speaker 6 (29:32):
So no real fear, there's no I'm asking. I mean,
is there real fear that people have because we on
this side it looks like and it feels like.
Speaker 1 (29:38):
Yeah, I mean I think that some for some people, yes,
But I can just speak for myself and for my colleagues.
I mean, another one of my colleagues, Rachel Scott, has
come under withering attacks from Donald Trump. I mean just
just relentless. Uh. And she's and by the way, she's
like ridiculously young. And I don't know where the the
(30:00):
poise and the you know, I mean, I've been true
so much of this, but Rachel has got I mean,
her heartbeat doesn't rise. She just keeps focused on the issue.
And you know, I mean, does it bother people? Yeah,
But you do what Rachel does or what I've tried
to do, which is just stay focused on what you're
trying to ask and you can't be intimidated.
Speaker 5 (30:22):
Yeah, there is a normalization that I feel continues to
happen with Trump, not just from the media, but from
like other politicians, especially Democrats. It's like people for some
reason continue to act like this is just politics as usual.
Speaker 1 (30:36):
Yeah, it's not.
Speaker 4 (30:37):
No, And I even saw that with the government shut down.
Speaker 5 (30:39):
I'm like, why are y'all talking like y'all can actually
negotiate with MAGA on this issue? Like they got everything
they want in the big beautiful bility. They have no
reason to make concessions when you continue to act like
these are the reasonable politicians who are going to say,
you know what we do care about you know, people's
health care benefits, Like now you know they're not, so
why do you keep acting like that and even trying
(31:01):
to sell that to the people.
Speaker 1 (31:02):
You know that this was the shutdown? I mean, my god.
So the Democrats realized they had zero leverage except for
being able to, you know, withhold their votes for keeping
the government open, and that's the only leverage they had.
Otherwise the Republicans can just you know, push all this
(31:23):
even with I mean, the Republican majority is really small,
It's tiny. I mean it's like it's incredible what's what's
gone through the House when you consider that, you know,
they have this this majority that it's almost tied. I mean,
they can only lose a couple of votes on a
couple of Republicans on any one issue. But look, they
(31:44):
so they use the leverage, and you know, in a
normal world you would think, yeah, I mean, like there's
so much pain. Look at the Look what's happening to
the airports. Look what's happening.
Speaker 7 (31:54):
Funeral workers that haven't been paid in forty yeah, yeah,
forty million plus people you know, rely on these snap benefits,
and not only are they not as the White House
not doesn't seem concerned about that, they.
Speaker 1 (32:07):
Actually fight efforts by the court, by by by the
States YEA to continue funding the the snap benefits and
take it all the way to the Supreme Court, for
God's sake to try to stop it. So I think
what what the Democrats saw quite vividly is the pressure
is not going to work this because when when you're
(32:28):
playing with somebody that doesn't care.
Speaker 4 (32:31):
Well, why did they think it would to begin with?
Speaker 5 (32:33):
It's like we've been watching ten years in so right, Yeah,
like what made them think it would work to begin with?
That's what I mean when I say the normalization of it,
because but whatever reason, people haven't adjusted their brains to
realize this. Ain't your grandparents Republicans, Joe. Yeah, if you
can't use words like authoritarian and fascism and not treat
them as such.
Speaker 1 (32:52):
Yeah, yeah, so what they will. The way the Democrats
think that this is ultimately played out is they didn't
succeed obviously in dealing with the health with healthcare, you know,
the Obamaca. They'll get their vote, it's not going to
succeed even if it succeeds in the center. They're not
going to vote on it in the House. Even if
(33:14):
they somehow voted on in the House. Trump's not going
to sign it into law. I mean, there's they're not
going to get it. They're just not going to get it.
But what they believe that they have done is they
have succeeded in making it vividly clear to the world,
to the country that he is going to do nothing
for the twenty plus million Americans that are going to
see their health insurance skyrocket on January first, that he
(33:38):
would do nothing to help the forty plus million who
were losing access to snap benefits that make it possible
to feed their families.
Speaker 4 (33:46):
To go create.
Speaker 1 (33:47):
So, I mean, they've been promising a healthcare bill for
what is it, like eight eight plus year I mean
a healthcare plan. It's a secret plan, Like it's like
Nixon's a secret plan to the Vietnam War.
Speaker 5 (34:02):
What do you see as the greatest risk to American
democratic institutions in the coming years.
Speaker 1 (34:07):
I think that the greatest risk to our institutions is
the erosion of the idea of truth. I think this
is more beyond any single policy thing, beyond even Trump himself.
Is we now live in a world where you know,
you can ask someone are you gonna believe me? Or
your own lion eyes? And it's unclear what they're going
(34:31):
to believe. It's if you can't agree on what the
facts are, how do you overcome divisions? How do you
get anything done? And you know it's Trump has accelerated this.
He didn't start it. He has accelerated this. And now
throw into the mix artificial intelligence. I mean it's like
(34:52):
we are in an we are in a crazy land.
And by the way, I see it on the left
as well, where you know the crazy conspiracy theories you know,
of late have been the province of the of the right,
all the wacky conspiracy theories around twenty twenty and you
(35:12):
know Sydney Powell saying the dead Venezuelans rigged voting machines,
or voting machines were controlled by spy satellites. I mean,
the crazy, crazy stuff. And now I mean I can't
tell you many people, I'll come and tell you that
you know, Trump brigged the twenty twenty four election, and
it was Elon Musk and it was Starlink and they
controlled the voting sheets. It's like the same conspiracies. It's like,
(35:33):
can we just try to establish facts? And that's the
business that I am in, and I'm desperately trying. That's
why I wanted to write these books again because I
wanted to. First of all, I felt I had the
access and I had the vantage point I to be
able to shed new light on the events that were
going through. But I also wanted to make sure that
(35:54):
people don't rewrite it and pretend things that happened that
didn't happen.
Speaker 5 (35:58):
Yeah, right, So that means all your books are getting banned,
so yeah, soon whether they're done. If you were looking back,
this is my last question, if you were looking back
in ten to twenty years at this campaign, what will
historians say it did to the Republican Party, What would
they say it did.
Speaker 4 (36:12):
To the presidency and the media.
Speaker 5 (36:14):
And what do you hope your legacy will be as
a chronicler of this era.
Speaker 1 (36:19):
I think that it utterly it completed the utter transformation
of the Republican Party from the Republican Party to the
Trump Party. It started before the campaign, but it was
absolutely solidified. This is not Reagan's Republican Party. It's not
Bush's Republican Party. It's not Paul Ryan's, it's not Mitt Romney's.
This is an entirely different Republican Party, both substantly, substantly
(36:42):
in terms of policy and just in terms of the
the force of the personality of Trump. How long that lasts,
what it means after there is no longer a Donald
Trump remains to be seen. But I don't think you
suddenly go back to the old Republican Party that's gone
the country. I think it it just solidified that division
(37:07):
in our country. That is not going to be overcome
after Trump is gone. I mean, we are in a
we are in a place where we have a we
have a political and cultural divide in the country that
I don't think is going to go away. And you know,
in terms of my legacy on this or I don't
(37:27):
know if I even look at it that way. But
what I hope people will say is, look, fifty years
from now, one hundred years from now, people are going
to want to ask what the hell was that all about?
And I hope that these books, especially this one, somebody
can say, read this and you'll get a sense of
what it was like and how it happened.
Speaker 3 (37:48):
All right, get it before his ban j'all's resolution down
Trump in the campaign that changed America.
Speaker 2 (37:54):
Jonathan Coll Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for joining us.
Speaker 1 (37:56):
Hey, it's awesome to be with the Breakfast Club. Thank you.
Speaker 2 (37:58):
It's this club.
Speaker 1 (37:59):
Good morning.
Speaker 5 (38:00):
Hold up every day I wake up, click your glass
up the breakfast clubs.
Speaker 4 (38:05):
You're dumb, h
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If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Ruthie's Table 4
For more than 30 years The River Cafe in London, has been the home-from-home of artists, architects, designers, actors, collectors, writers, activists, and politicians. Michael Caine, Glenn Close, JJ Abrams, Steve McQueen, Victoria and David Beckham, and Lily Allen, are just some of the people who love to call The River Cafe home. On River Cafe Table 4, Rogers sits down with her customers—who have become friends—to talk about food memories. Table 4 explores how food impacts every aspect of our lives. “Foods is politics, food is cultural, food is how you express love, food is about your heritage, it defines who you and who you want to be,” says Rogers. Each week, Rogers invites her guest to reminisce about family suppers and first dates, what they cook, how they eat when performing, the restaurants they choose, and what food they seek when they need comfort. And to punctuate each episode of Table 4, guests such as Ralph Fiennes, Emily Blunt, and Alfonso Cuarón, read their favourite recipe from one of the best-selling River Cafe cookbooks. Table 4 itself, is situated near The River Cafe’s open kitchen, close to the bright pink wood-fired oven and next to the glossy yellow pass, where Ruthie oversees the restaurant. You are invited to take a seat at this intimate table and join the conversation. For more information, recipes, and ingredients, go to https://shoptherivercafe.co.uk/ Web: https://rivercafe.co.uk/ Instagram: www.instagram.com/therivercafelondon/ Facebook: https://en-gb.facebook.com/therivercafelondon/ For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iheartradio app, apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com