The FRONTLINE Interviews
Carol Leonnig
Co-author, I Alone Can Fix It
Carol Leonnig is an investigative political reporter for The Washington Post. She is also the co-author of two books about Donald Trump, A Very Stable Genius and I Alone Can Fix It.
The following interview was conducted by the Kirk Documentary Group’s Mike Wiser for FRONTLINE on March 7, 2024, prior to Joe Biden’s withdrawal from the presidential race. It has been edited for clarity and length.
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Donald Trump’s Youth
We'll talk to you about Trump, since you've written so much about him, and thought a lot about who he is.… When you look back at his back story, when you look back at his childhood, his dad, Fred Trump, what do you see in his childhood that helps shape him, that helps you understand the man he would become?
The relationship with his father is so formative in a lot of ways.But the most probably serious is the way in which his father excoriated and humiliated him as a child and basically had told Donald Trump that he was likely to be a failure.And he needed to go to military school in order to sort of shape up.The father was pretty brutal in his assessment of Donald Trump.
And later, as time went on, the father actually begins to, instead, ridicule and excoriate his older brother, and holds up Donald as sort of the heir-apparent, the person who will carry on his legacy as a mover and a shaker and a developer in New York.
Winning his father's approval becomes really central to Donald Trump's story, and his desire to basically win that most important person's favor, regain his favor.
It's interesting the way you're describing him, between Fred Jr.and Donald, and I guess maybe Robert's out of the picture as far as the sons go.But it's almost like The Apprentice.Is it like a competition for winning the mantle of approval of his father?Is there a competition in Donald Trump's life that early?
Well, certainly, in Donald Trump's mind, there is a competition.And I think it's dangerous for any of us to become dime store psychologists.I'm a journalist.But it's really clear that that is wounding to Donald Trump, but also incredibly motivating.It's essentially conditional love from the most central person in your life.And Donald Trump is always on a quest to win that love and win that favor.
It's interesting, because you mentioned his brother.And that seems like such a complicated relationship.Because he's talked about it since, and his brother sounds like a nice, warm person, but doesn't win the approval.Also an alcoholic.And Donald Trump goes on not to drink.How important was that relationship, do you think?
It's devastating for Donald Trump to see what happens to his brother.His brother had wanted to be a pilot.And Frederick Trump did not support this in any way, also ridiculed that aspiration of his son.And thought it was silly, and said so to all the family members, and to his son.A really wounding, painful experience, the same way that it was wounding for Donald Trump to hear, “You're a loser.You're probably going to bomb out.I'm going to have to send you to military school.You just can't get it together.”
And yet, what happened with his brother, Donald Trump witnesses a person sort of broken from the inside out, by his father's words.And ultimately, turns to a life of alcohol as a solution, and dies from it.
But the other thing about Donald Trump, as you look at him as an adult, is that he's somebody who is unstoppable.Through bankruptcies, through <i>Access Hollywood</i>, through being voted out of office, through all of these things, he just keeps going.Is that something that you think goes back to those years?
Well, there's certainly a fierceness that Donald Trump learns at the shoulder of his father.There's a “take no prisoners” quality to his father's way of operating with unions, political leaders, mobsters, that Donald Trump certainly inherits and tries to emulate.There is also something else Donald Trump embraces, and perfects, to be fair to him.And that is, it doesn't matter what's true.What matters is what you promote and what you claim and how often you claim it.
And so, for example, Donald Trump keeps rising from the ashes of failure in the course of his business career.He is not the billionaire that he says he is when he inherits his father's riches.He is not a self-made man.He is not a successful casino magnate.In fact, they are essentially burning underneath his feet, as he leaves Atlantic City.And yet, what is important, and what is successful, is the outside.What Donald Trump promotes and claims and continues to harp on, if he can successfully convince others what the surface is, that is his route to grandeur.And he perfects it, and he succeeds over and over again, including until he becomes president, and after.
The Influence of Roy Cohn
The other person that people point to is, as an influence in some of this territory, is Roy Cohn.How important do you think that Cohn was in shaping Donald Trump as the businessman, as the politician?
Roy Cohn is a really important figure for Donald Trump because he teaches him two things.One is that you win through a bare-knuckle, take-no-prisoners strategy.Dirty tricks are fine for getting what you want.And the second thing that Roy Cohn teaches him is loyalty.I will be loyal to you, and everyone else that is loyal to you is central to your success.It's not always—in fact, it's rarely a two-way street.But loyalty is what you will demand, almost like a mob boss demands of his capos.Those two features define Donald Trump, especially in his incredible success as a politician.
...Do you think he gets some of his approach to the law, to handling these matters, from Roy Cohn?
Well, absolutely.I think about a moment in the Oval Office, it's in 2017, and Donald Trump is looking at Don McGahn, who is his White House counsel at this point.It's his first year of his presidency.And Donald Trump is almost moaning, like, “Where is my Roy Cohn?Why isn't the attorney general, Jeff Sessions, and why are you, Don McGahn, not behaving like my Roy Cohn?Why are you not serving my personal needs?”
Donald Trump doesn't really seem to get that the role of the president is to represent the country, defend the national security, be our commander in chief and look out for all of the people in America, not just the ones that voted for him.And instead, every piece of the government apparatus is to serve him.And therefore, the laws are sort of irrelevant to Donald Trump.Whether or not something is legal, or appropriate, or breaks some sort of ethical boundaries, totally irrelevant to him, because that was totally not the Roy Cohn mode.
It's like he brings the Roy Cohn approach.He's not bringing the Washington lawyer approach.He wants the guy who's loyal, and who's going to fight for him.
Absolutely.I remember, too, when Donald Trump was interviewing lawyers for sort of his criminal defense, if you will, in the Mueller investigation.Remember, Robert Mueller, special counsel, is investigating Russian operatives' contact with Trump campaign folks.He's also investigating Donald Trump as president for trying to obstruct this criminal investigation.How much more complicated can it be?Your first year as president, you're under investigation for trying to obstruct the Department of Justice's query into what happened here.
And while Donald Trump is interviewing lawyers, he's asking them, “Do you think I could pardon myself or my family members?What's the law on that?Can I get away with that, essentially?” Can you imagine a moment where a president in history, in his first six months in office, is trying to figure out if he can pardon himself?Not the most sort of winning statement about the state of the presidency at that time.
Trump as a Master of Branding
All of these challenges that he somehow survives, goes through.One you mentioned already was his bankruptcy, the period of going into Atlantic City after he becomes sort of a national figure.When you look back on that period of his life, of what got him into it, and how it was that he couldn't be stopped, that he got through it, what do you take from that?
I've often said that Donald Trump's superpower is his mastery of the megaphone.He is able to promote and market and brand himself as something, it's the Wizard of Oz.There's nothing behind the green curtain.
He's able to get these enormous loans and investments, and get unions engaged in this work in the casino projects, that are clearly financially, for any smart financial investor that's looking at them, that are about to explode.But it's his mastery of being able to sell, that everything is going to be rosy, that everything is going to come up roses.And indeed, it doesn't.
But what does Donald Trump do while he's selling that sort of fraud?He is also very, very successfully protecting himself, and looking out for himself.Because when he basically flees or evacuates Atlantic City, so many of those debts fall on his partners hardest.Those people are repaid last, if ever.But he gets out, not unscathed, but he gets out with a lot of his debts paid and washes his hands of the whole bloody mess.
You say he almost has almost like a superpower of being able to brand his way out of it, of being able to create a reality.Is it also a superpower of his to be able to just keep going in a situation like that, where other people would have either collapsed and said, “This isn't the business for me,” or failed?Because it's just amazing to us that he just keeps pushing forward.
Well, that's interesting, when you think about how that's tied to his quest, to prove to his father that he has the stuff, that he has the special sauce.And it's been such a successful series of cycles for Donald Trump.He was successful in claiming that he was a billionaire.How did he succeed?He anonymously called Wall Street reporters and financial markets reporters, pretended to be a man named John Barron, describing the amazing wealth of Donald Trump, and got Forbes to claim that he had all this wealth that he didn't have.1
1
The Washington Post: Trump lied to me about his wealth to get onto the Forbes 400. Here are the tapes.
He succeeded in becoming, at least physically, like the owner of Atlantic City.His name was on every super-gorgeous, glimmering casino, the Taj Mahal, all of these things that are iconic about the glory of casinos in Atlantic City, that was his brand.And yet, it all failed.Powering through is what got him the presidency.When he was first a candidate for office, he was described as one of the many, many of the passengers in the clown car of Republican candidates for the presidency in 2017.And in fact, powering through, insisting that he was a serious guy, and connecting with voters, branding himself as an outsider who was their future savior, was successful for him once again.
Trump’s Early Interest in Politics
So let's talk about Donald Trump the politician… He makes a visit to New Hampshire in 1987, and there's another moment in 2000 where he seems like he might be interested in the Reform Party.So politics doesn't come out of nowhere for him.It's something he's hovered around for a while.Why do you think that is?What's the attraction of politics to Donald Trump, who's now a successful celebrity and a reality TV star?
Donald Trump had always been interested in the last 10 years, in a potential political run.And it coincides, honestly, with the popularity of choosing celebrities for high positions, including the presidency.It coincides with the governor of Minnesota being an incredible heavyweight wrestler, right.It coincides with a lot of people rising on the scene, through their television fame.But honestly, the clear motivation of Donald Trump to move into this field is, once again, that same moment of trying to prove himself, and sort of prove wrong the doubters.It comes when President [Barack] Obama sort of makes fun of Donald Trump at the White House Correspondents Dinner, and says, essentially, “OK, here are some people that are here.And Donald Trump, you're still here.Why?” That is such a painful moment for Donald Trump.I happened to be at that dinner, and watched his face fall.And also turned into a teeth-gritting anger.
But I'm not trying to see inside Donald Trump's brain, but there's no question, from talking to his friends and colleagues after, that it was an incredible motivator for, again, proving his doubters wrong.You'll see.You'll see.And he sure did show them.
Can you just tell me what it was like to be there in that moment, in that dinner, with Barack Obama at the podium, and Donald Trump at the table?
You know, the White House Correspondents Dinner gets a rap for being sort of the nerd prom of journalists, where journalists bring a bunch of celebrities to tables, and get to dress up one night.And, to be fair, the event is full of roasting.Presidents are encouraged, in their speech, to make fun of themselves, and make fun of their opponent, lightly or to singe them quite harshly.
And President Obama, at that moment, you may remember, is the victim of Donald Trump claiming that he's not a real American citizen.Donald Trump has, at that point, tuned in and become sort of the forerunner, or the most public face, for claiming that Barack Obama doesn't have a birth certificate from America.And of course, this is ridiculous.Of course, it's silly.But it really taps into a group of Americans who are livid that a Black man is the United States president.
So Donald Trump has connected with a group of extremely disaffected voters who are troubled by President Obama being their president.And this claim of the birth certificate has won him a lot of support and popularity in some dark corners of America.There is, at that dinner, you can feel the low-level hatred between the two men.There's no question that President Obama is really, really disturbed by these claims, and offended.And it's not a gentle roasting when he turns and says, “Donald Trump, what are you still doing here?”
Donald Trump was sitting at a table with some people that I knew and maybe two tables away from the front of the stage.I hadn't thought very much about Donald Trump until that night, and turned to look at his face, with his celebrity hosts, and all of them turned to him to watch how he reacted.And it was—it was pretty painful.
And this is also the first moment of many, where there's this question, whether it's the birther conspiracy theory, whether it's the deep state, or China and COVID, or the election was stolen, let's talk about the birther one, though.Does he see it as a political opportunity?Does he believe it?Can we know?
I don't know.Sorry.
It's interesting, though, that the conspiracy theories keep coming back.
It strains credulity that Donald Trump believes that Barack Obama is not an American citizen.And I can't tell you if he believed it or not.What I can tell you is that later, there are many moments in his presidency and after, where it's obvious he knows something is false that he is promoting.I could give you countless examples of times when aides told him, “That's not true.That's not how it works.” People he loves and trusts and confides in and relies upon tell him, “No, that's not the case.” And he's on television, later that afternoon or evening, saying it again.
The Role of Roger Stone
Roger Stone is somebody who comes back, time and time again, starting in '87 when he goes out there, Roger Stone is by his side.And he's by his side as he's entering politics.And he's going to be there on Jan.6, not at the White House, but in Washington.How important do you think Roger Stone is to Donald Trump and to his approach to politics, and this conspiracy theory idea?
Well, Roger Stone is almost like a carbon copy of Roy Cohn, without the law degree.He is all about pulling dirty tricks, ever since he did so in the Nixon administration.He's been a long-time friend, a loyal friend, an adviser on politics to Donald Trump.And he has also been incredibly successful at promoting things that are complete frauds, to undermine the candidacies or the success of Democratic foes of his Republican bosses.
I think of all sorts of crazy stories that Roger Stone promoted, that helped, really, if not create the downfall, painfully harmed the political candidacies of certain Democratic foes.And he is enlisted by Donald Trump to do that very same thing.
When you look back at that moment of <i>Access Hollywood</i> during the race, it's not only people are asking him to step out, but there's a widespread belief that it's like a near certainty that he is going to, that he can't survive that.And when you look back at that decision, what do you think influences Trump from his past?Why is he unstoppable in that moment, where almost everybody, including his own advisers had written him off?
The Access Hollywood Tape
In that moment, when my colleague, David Fahrenthold, broke the story of the <i>Access Hollywood</i> hot mic moment, it wasn't just the media saying, “This guy is a goner.” It was Reince Priebus, one of his top campaign advisers.It was Mark Meadows, one of his congressional supporters, the most loyal of those who thought he is absolutely going to be toast.It's over.Those folks had expected him to win the presidency because Hillary Clinton's campaign was showing some serious vulnerabilities and some problems.
They have given up.But what has Donald Trump learned over the course of his lifetime?Over and over again, he rises from the ashes by refusing to give up, by insisting that, “Oh, this is just locker room talk, no problem.” And that is exactly what he says.No apologies.No show of weakness.Just trudge forward.And that's what he does.And he is actually pretty successful.
It doesn't hurt, however, that Putin's government in Russia is, at the same time, trying to find ways to distract the American voter from this moment, and try to encourage people to see Hillary Clinton as a corrupt candidate, who's going to make their lives miserable and who's going to harm their ability to get jobs and harm the future of their children.
And he wins in the end of that.He doesn't take a lesson from <i>Access Hollywood</i>, because he'd already believed you just push through these things, and you fight back?Or does it confirm that this can work even in the highest office in the land?Is he becoming more a believer in himself, as the story goes along, is sort of what I'm wondering.
The <i>Access Hollywood</i> moment, in any normal political story, would be the end.It's over.Even in Donald Trump's trajectory, it is a stunning gut punch.But he's had a lot of gut punches.He's had a lot of embarrassments over the course of his career.And he, by pushing forward, by refusing to acknowledge, refusing to apologize, and just sailing over and continuing to promote his brand, has risen out of the ashes.He's succeeded.And here he does it again, jumping over a hurdle no one, no one but maybe a handful of people thought was possible.
The Steel Dossier and Russia
Before Jan.6, 2021, there was Jan.6, 2017, which is when the DNI [director of national intelligence], and the intelligence agencies go to Trump Tower to brief Donald Trump about the dossier and about Russian interference.How important do you think that briefing?How important do you think the talk about Russia was to shaping Donald Trump as the incoming president?
There are many people who have said to me that they believe this moment really alters the arc of Donald Trump's presidency.Because it's days from him taking office, and he is met with the senior-most top national security intelligence officials, telling him, in a defensive briefing, “There is some pretty horrendous material being circulated about you.It happens to involve prostitutes in Moscow urinating on you.”
Donald Trump doesn't take this as a defensive briefing, like, “We just want to make you aware.” He takes it as an attempt to humiliate him by the deep state.And folks have said this really changes his relationship with the administration, so that he is incredibly distrustful of them, and actually quite hateful towards them.And he begins to villainize them over the course of his presidency.
I don't think we can say that this moment so dramatically changes what Donald Trump was always going to do as a president.He was always going to be distrustful of career bureaucrats He was always going to come in and say, Day One, we're going to ban Muslims from trying to seek asylum here in America, which is what he and his attorney general did.He was always going to cast himself as the superhero who was saving Americans from this expensive, wasteful government.
But that moment is incredibly important, because he begins to shape the narrative of a deep state that's after him, and after Americans.After him, to try to stop what Americans want.But really, it is deeply humiliating for him to have this briefing.And Bill Barr has said, his future and then former attorney general, has said, he thought the presidency would be very, very different, were it not for Trump feeling so humiliated and back on his heels, days before his inauguration.
At the time it came out, there were questions, like maybe he's upset about it because it's true.But what do we know now about the dossier?And does it change or clarify anything about that moment?
We don't know 100% what is true or not true in the dossier, still.Although many parts of it have been disputed, and there are more doubts about the most humiliating story, for example, about the Moscow prostitutes incident.There are far more doubts about that ever happening.But there are parts of the dossier that have not been thoroughly disputed or ruled as factual.It's sort of unclear.
And it leaks, too.And he has this press conference at Trump Tower on, I think, the 11th, a few days later, where you talked about the deep state.But it also seems like it's the press, as they're asking about it.Can you help me understand how it shapes his approach to the press, that the dossier leaks, that the newspapers are reporting the questions about Russia, about whether there was interference, about whether his election was legitimate in his own mind.
This moment is so important in how Donald Trump decides to come out swinging against any of the intelligence suggesting Vladimir Putin and Moscow were trying to help his presidency and hurt Hillary Clinton's campaign.He refuses to accept that there was any effort by Putin to interfere in the election, which is palpably false.…
But he cannot accept or acknowledge that that happened.And he tells friends that I've spoken with and interviewed, that acknowledging that means his election is illegitimate.He essentially says, if he accepts this, then it means he isn't the rightful president.And once again, if you think about it, it's Donald Trump trying to prove to his dad he's good enough to run the Trump Org.It's Donald Trump trying to prove, once again, that he is a billionaire to Forbes.It's Donald Trump, once again, trying to prove to President Obama, “You think I can't run for president.You just watch me.”
Thank you.I think that's fascinating that that's what it goes to, because I'm not sure the rest of the world saw it in those terms.But that's how he saw it.
Yeah.[Former Director of National Intelligence James] Clapper says that they tried a million times to explain to him that they could not show that Putin's operation made the difference between Trump winning and Hillary Clinton losing.He tried to explain to him, over and over again, “We don't know that there was this effect.We know they interfered.And here are the ways they did it.Here's how they promoted conspiracies that supported you and denigrated her on Facebook and other social media platforms.Here is how they tried to light up middle America over the risks of a Hillary Clinton presidency, for them and their children.” But Donald Trump couldn't hear that, could not accept that and rejected it every time, with his fists pumping on the table.
But in that press conference, after the dossier leaks, and it's very combative, does it help change or shape the way he's going to approach the media in his presidency, the media's questions about Russia, the dossier?And I guess as you're saying, questions about whether, in his mind, if he won legitimately.
As he always has, Donald Trump comes out swinging, and it's performative.He has succeeded so many times with channeling his message to the media, speaking directly to them just as when he was John Barron, pretending to be this figure, explaining to reporters over the phone about the starlets that Donald Trump was dating, and all the money he was making, and all the amazing deals.
The media is his conduit to the American people.And he uses it to great effect.And he does so in that press conference, which is, again, “I'm not going anywhere.This is nothing.And I'm your president.These people are making this stuff up.”
Trump’s First Six Months as President
As he comes in, what do you think he thinks the job is in those first six months?What is the promise that he's making?What is his approach to the presidency as he comes into office?
First, he comes into office with all of these accusations that he's not a legitimate president.So he's fighting and warding that off.He's trying to remind people, “I was chosen duly by you.And people in the press, and in the intelligence community, and the deep state, who try to tell you that there was some Russian interference game, are trying to stop you, the American people, from getting what you want.” He tries to essentially make himself the martyr, an important theme over the course of his presidency and after.
In his first days, he wants to immediately shake things up.He does so stunningly in his first days in office by announcing an executive order to ban people from Muslim countries coming to the United States.It is, on its face, a violation of American principles, of not discriminating based on religious affiliation.One of the core principles of how America was founded.But he knows that this issue really motivates and enrages some Americans.And he is going to deliver a juicy win for them in trying to stop so-called terrorists from coming to the United States.It causes a huge rift with the career bureaucrats, which only better serves Donald Trump, right.It shows the Americans, “I'm fighting for you against this deep state.”
The other things that are important to him are telegraphing through the media his power, his unique ability to, as a single man, as a single heat-seeking missile, to deliver on his promises to make America great again.It's a very vague promise, to be fair.But he is successful in convincing people that he is working for them.Again, one of the first things he starts working on is tax breaks that overwhelmingly go to the rich.Hardly something that helps the voters in Iowa who were so supportive of him.And yet, they still are delighted by his ability to try to cut taxes and his move to do that.
The other big thing that first year is Charlottesville.And it's another moment like <i>Access Hollywood</i>, where everybody says it's obvious what a president should say in a moment like that.And he goes a different direction.What do you think that that is, that he doesn't follow the standard presidential protocol of condemning the alt-right marchers?Why is he different than other presidents?
A dominant conversation in the Oval Office during those first six to nine months of Donald Trump's presidency is Donald Trump turning to Reince Priebus, or to his deputy chief of staff, or to his White House counsel, and saying, “Whatever we do, I need to please my base.I need to keep them happy.”
And it's such an interesting period, because he's tapping into what they want, and he's figuring out what they want, what makes them happy.He's seen what's been successful on the campaign trail.And he wants to replicate that over and over again inside the Oval Office.He knows that the birther conspiracy, he knows how successful that was, because of a group of Americans who are enraged by a Black man holding the presidency.
And Charlottesville, where alt-right white supremacist organizations are rallying against what they view as the over-progressiveness of America, and where a white supremacist kills a woman by driving into a crowd, and injures dozens, something so terrifying, Donald Trump knows what spurs that. ...…
Because it's such a—it's that period where there are still some Republicans criticizing him, and coming out, even some prominent ones, some of them are not long for the Republican party.And obviously, Biden says that it's the thing that motivates him to run.How important was Charlottesville in Donald Trump's presidency, if not a turning point?
Charlottesville is a really important moment, because so many political advisers are worried about whether Donald Trump is going too far.People who are supportive of him, advocates for him, is he connecting now and publicly saying that white supremacy is just fine and dandy with him?But I have to say, this is part of the arc of all of Donald Trump's presidency, which is, Republican supporters of him, and mainstream Republicans who want him to succeed and may not have supported his candidacy, but want him and the party to succeed, are convinced this is craziness.Many moments they are convinced Donald Trump is going to go down in flames as a result of embracing this extremist view of not apologizing, as he didn't apologize for <i>Access Hollywood</i>.It happens over and over again, where people say, “Oh my gosh, this is it.No president can survive this.” Quite the opposite.Donald Trump will prove, at this moment, and many others to come, that nothing defeats him.
And there are these other things that happen, right.There's “s---hole countries” moment.There's family separation and the border.Is race, and pushing past assumed lines on race, a recurring theme in Trump's presidency?
Race was so central to the reason he got into the presidency, what elevated him as a potential candidate.Race was critical to his actual campaign, the way he stoked racial divisions and anxiety about the former president.
Race is critical to him continuing to bait and encourage and soothe his base.And race will stay with him throughout this presidency, and after.Remember that he is the person who describes immigrants coming across the border as Mexican criminals and rapists.Interesting, because the Department of Justice statistics actually show that crime among immigrant populations is far lower than it is among white rural males who arguably form the most important part of Donald Trump's support.
Trump’s Use of Power as President
… But as he learns about the presidency, learns about the people around him, changes the people around him, how does he change in the way he uses power, and in the way he is president over those years?
Oh, gosh.In the early portion, the first half, I'd say, of Donald Trump's presidency, he has a series of guardrails around him, in the form of, obviously, Republican appointees that he chose, that support him, who were telling him, “Mr.President, you don't want to do that.Here is why you don't want to do that.” Rex Tillerson, his secretary of state, tries to explain to Donald Trump why he should be wary of Vladimir Putin, why he should be wary of Saudi Arabia, why he should be careful with the crown prince, MBS.Why these people are dangerous to America's security.
His chief of staff, John Kelly, tries to advise the president against taking certain steps that he thinks will be against the law or be dangerous for America.
His attorney general tells Donald Trump that he can't personally intervene or investigate Russian interference in the investigation, because he was a member himself, Jeff Sessions, of the campaign.It's a conflict of interest.He's trying to explain to him the basic ethics and public policy, good government rules to Donald Trump.These are the guardrails.Kirstjen Nielsen, secretary of Homeland Security, explains why it's a violation of law to block immigrants from crossing the border or seeking asylum.2
None of them are completely successful, but they are partially successful.What Donald Trump learns over the course of his presidency is, "I don't want any more of these people who try to talk me out of what I think is best.” Donald Trump's always thought he was his best lawyer.He was his own best communicator, press aide.He was his own best campaign strategist.And here he believes he is his own best cabinet.
He keeps fighting with them.And as the presidency goes on, he increasingly decides, “I just need people that are going to do what I want to do.” He replaces Jeff Sessions with Bill Barr, who largely supports the president, and believes that the Russian investigation is poorly founded.He replaces his White House counsel, Don McGahn, who tried to stop him from interfering in the Russian investigation, with a White House counsel that he believes will deliver for him.He fires his Homeland Security secretary and brings in Chad Wolf, who he believes will do what he wants to do.He fires his secretary of Defense, Jim Mattis, who tries to convince Donald Trump that being a part of NATO protects all of Americans.And as his presidency goes on, he just keeps ripping those guardrails away, so that what he wants is the thing that actually gets implemented.
It raises a big question about a second term.Will he be going in with a different approach than he went in, in January of 2017?
Absolutely.I think that Donald Trump was perfecting the ability to get complete fealty, and to implement his will in the last two months of his presidency.It was after he lost the election, when he was able to put his thumb on every single part of government to try to overturn a free and fair election.One that was ruled by experts as the most secure election in history, he was able to reach into his Department of Justice, to reach into his Department of Defense and Homeland Security, and to have all of those wheels working to try to get his presidency illegally extended.
Trump’s Response to COVID
And just stick to 2020 for a second, because a lot of people kept saying, “What's going to happen when he faces a real crisis, when he faces a war, when he faces something?” And then COVID happens.Was COVID the great crisis for Trump's presidency that people had been waiting for?And what did his response say about his leadership, about him as president?
This was one of the most important points in Donald Trump's presidency.The pandemic, which really starts in December of 2019, but becomes much more public in January of 2020, spells the end of Donald Trump's presidency.But he doesn't know it yet.It is the way that he reacts to it that fails him with so many sort of middle-of-the-road independent voters.He's already lost with Democrats.And he's already won with a core group of Republicans.
But there's a large group of people who see that the way that Donald Trump reacted to this pandemic put them and their loved ones in danger, and led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Americans.His reaction doesn't work well with a global fatal health threat.And his reaction is one of, “I don't want any pictures of me wearing a mask, because it reminds people something bad is happening.So I'm not going to wear a mask.” Even though wearing masks reduces the danger of people dying and spreading the infection.
He refuses not to campaign.He insists on campaigning in the late spring and early summer of 2020, in public huge amphitheaters Most famously in Tulsa, Oklahoma, which create super-spreader events and lead to more deaths.3His actions are actually causing deaths in his effort to try to deny that this pandemic is serious.
There were moments in the early days of the pandemic when Donald Trump could have exercised incredible leadership, not just by wearing a mask, not just by refusing to do these huge public events, where he sickened his own supporters, but where he could have exerted influence on the Chinese government to turn over critical clues and information that would help us get on top of this pandemic earlier, and stop its spread, or at least reduce its threat.He doesn't do that.
Instead, because he wants to claim everything's good, everything's great under my America, he continues to promote a relationship with Xi, the Chinese president, and say that they're making a great economic deal.And that's all because of Donald Trump."It's all because of me." At the same time, he fails to force Xi to turn over these critical clues and the genomic sequence for the virus that would have helped us prevent more deaths.
… In a way this seems like the strategy that he had after the bankruptcy, that he's had in the other crises, which is, “Say it's not a problem.Nobody's died in the U.S.The numbers aren't that bad.” I mean, is the way he responds to COVID a continuation of a strategy that had worked for him, largely up until that point?
His reaction to COVID totally fits his playbook for all the other crises that he not only waged and waded through, but triumphed over.It's just that this one is sort of so undeniable.People are dying.Donald Trump has a moment in the Oval Office where he's telling his advisers he doesn't want these cruise ships that are out at sea to come back into America, that happened to have some very sick people, folks who have the virus and need to get medical attention.He says, “I don't want those cruise ships coming back and landing, because that will just increase our numbers.”
Donald Trump is literally fighting what he considers to be a numbers game at that moment, not wanting for the ticker tape to go up on the television screens showing how many Americans have this horrendous virus.And very mysterious and scary virus.But keeping those ships at sea doesn't change a virus that knows no borders.It doesn't change the trajectory of what's going to happen.What could have changed the trajectory, if he had shown leadership and listened to his own advisers about how to get in front of this virus and take it seriously.
Trump Denies Election Loss
From what you know from behind the scenes, or what you know of Donald Trump, what is it that leads Trump to say what he says, the election wasn't stolen, it was rigged, in that period between Election Day and Jan.6?What leads Trump to take that approach?
His political advisers and his campaign advisers and his incredible guru data crunchers are all telling him the election does not look good for him.Bill Barr had warned Donald Trump, in the spring of 2020, “The way you are running this government, and the way you are handling this pandemic, I believe you are going to lose.” It was déjà vu for Bill Barr.He remembered going to George Bush in 1992, basically at the same time in the campaign, and saying, “My sense is you are going to lose.And you have to make some changes.”
Donald Trump really didn't make those changes as Barr advised him to.He knew his campaign was not going off a cliff, but not doing well.And so starting in April and May, Donald Trump started to sow the seeds of distrust in the ultimate results, to start to tell people that there might be fraud, to tell people that he was worried about absentee ballots.Now that's something else that he had learned from his advisers, that because we were in the middle of the pandemic and there was a effort, a reasonable effort, to make sure voters could vote without coming to the polls, his advisers had told him that Democrats were most likely to be the larger group voting in absentee methods, because they were actually genuinely afraid of the pandemic, as opposed to Republicans, who often believed, or at least some portion of Republicans, who believed Donald Trump's message that there was a lot of over-hyped drama about the spread of the infection.
So he knew absentee ballots were going to go hard against him.So he started talking about conspiracies about those ballots, and how they could be rigged and fixed against him.Sowing that distrust from the spring of 2020 and increasing and amping that up as the months went on.
And so the answer, though, to why he does it?Is it his insecurity?Does he believe he can get the results overturned?Does he tell anyone behind closed doors during that period what he's doing?
Donald Trump always planned to challenge, and said so publicly that he would challenge the results if he did not win.He didn't say he'd challenge the results if he won.He was very clear that any election he did not win was automatically dubious.
The period the January 6th Committee calls the 187 minutes, when he's at the White House and aides, family members, Kevin McCarthy, others are pleading with him to do something, to intervene, and he's tweeting about Mike Pence, there seems to be a disbelief among his aides about how he's handling it.When you look back in that period, that crucial moment, how do you evaluate it?Is it hard to believe how he responded?What's going on in the way he's responding, as the attack is happening?
Donald Trump issued a tweet Dec.19, 2020, saying, “All of my supporters come to Washington for this rally on January 6th to stop the steal, to stop Biden from stealing the election from me.Will be wild.” He wanted a show of force to come to Washington and to try to block the certification of Congress of that vote.He wanted to keep Biden's victory from being officially affirmed.And so it is no surprise that when he actually sees his supporters, who he's encouraged to go to the Capitol and fight like hell, when he sees that they have actually gone to the Capitol, climbed the ramparts, leapt up onto the scaffolding that's set up for Biden's inauguration in a few days, and started to break the glass, and push through the doors and let each other into the Capitol, and started to storm the halls, when he sees that on television, it is no surprise that he is feeling vindicated and affirmed.
I interviewed him in March of 2021 and asked him, with my co-author, Phil Rucker, “What did you want that day?And did you want that violence?What did you want?” And he said, “I wanted what those supporters wanted.” And it is not surprising to me that he sat by for hours, three, while one of the most horrific domestic extremist attacks on our democracy unfolded on live television.
And when he talks to you, he doesn't have a regret about it.He doesn't have a regret about what he said in the lead-up to it, or what he did during it?
None.He does have a little bit of an alternate reality explanation for what happened.One is that all of his supporters were loving, friendly families coming to support him, and that there wasn't violence, and the Capitol police on the scene, who were being maced and bear-sprayed and bludgeoned, he thinks that they were all welcoming the protesters in the doors.He sees key moments and seizes upon them, and airbrushes out the violence of that day.
He believes that his supporters are patriots and says so, who tried to stop a rigged election, despite the fact that there is not one person in his own administration who believes the election was rigged.Even Mark Meadows, the chief of staff, who in early November thinks there's possibility that there's fraud, eventually comes to conclude that there is no evidence that would support a change in the results.
He survives so many things, as we've talked about, from the bankruptcies to <i>Access Hollywood</i>.Now, this moment of being out of the presidency, as Joe Biden is sworn in, and it’s being assumed, once again, by almost everyone, that his political career is done.Can you help me understand?It sounds like you talked to Donald Trump in that period, after he loses his efforts to stay in office, he's lost the election, he finds himself at Mar-a-Lago?
There's a certain Napoleon element to Donald Trump's evacuation from Washington to his private club in Palm Beach.It's almost like he's returning to nurse his wounds and continue to live in that alternate reality where he won the election.It was unfairly taken from him.And he's still the president.
I'll never forget some of the things that I saw when I visited Mar-a-Lago.Donald Trump, in his foyer, points out to you the model of Air Force One that he redesigned, a model that was never actually implemented, but he likes to almost pretend that this is how Air Force One really looks, the way he designed it.
He has a series of visitors to the club filing in, and all greeting him as "Mr.President" when they come for the dinner on the patio at the club.And they all come to sort of kiss his ring.Among them are a number of Republicans who want his support, even in the spring of 2021, because they know the base he connects to.They know the group of voters that he can deliver.And they're still seeking his endorsement, just as Kevin McCarthy, who called President Trump and begged him to do something on Jan.6, is flying down to Mar-a-Lago to apologize and to make amends with Donald Trump and still get his great legion of supporters behind Kevin McCarthy and support his speakership.
At the club, after all the diners are seated, President Trump, former President Trump is told it's time.He begins to exit the foyer and go out onto the veranda.And a band is playing in the background, “Hail to the Chief.” The diners stand, almost saluting him, and clapping as he enters.And he goes from table to table after the song is done to greet his members and his guests.
He is still reigning as president in those moments, and not the person who incited a riot that led to five deaths and potentially threatened our peaceful transfer of power for the first time in U.S.history.
Trump in the 2024 Election
Was it ever a question that he was going to try to go back, that he was going to run for the president?Just based on knowing him and who he is and his life story, is it part of who he is, that he needed to run again?
My co-author, Phil Rucker, when we visited him asked Donald Trump exactly this question in March 2021.It was the number one thing we wanted to know: would he run again?And he didn't say yes, but he sure indicated that he would keep that idea open, that he was considering it.And yes, it seemed to me inevitable that he would try again.
Despite whatever the business practices were, he had avoided indictments and the criminal law for his life, following the Roy Cohn playbook.And then he finds himself in this period, indicted, four separate cases and 91 indictments.What is the meaning of it for Trump, for the potential return to the presidency, that he now faces this legal jeopardy?
The 91 felony counts against Donald Trump, again, you would presume, as a logical thinker, would be the end of Donald Trump's ability to have a second term.4But in fact, Donald Trump has used them to great effect.And he has hailed them as an example of, once again, the deep state, the evil career bureaucrats, the elite politicians trying to keep him off the stage, trying to keep his supporters from getting what they want.
I find it so compelling, the way he has universally, when he talks about being persecuted, saying, “You are being persecuted” as he speaks to his voters.“You and your wishes are being denied because of this group.” It's a perfect martyrdom model.And it's been an amazing success for him on the campaign.
Donald Trump's poll numbers were fair to middling, and starting to actually sort of flatten out and suffer, right before he was indicted by Special Counsel Jack Smith.That indictment, strangely enough, ironically enough, actually gave a huge boost to Donald Trump's poll numbers.They started to markedly rise after that.Of course, encouraged by Donald Trump's own claim that this was an effort to take him off the campaign trail, this was an effort to take him off the ballot, and to deny Americans their right to the president they choose.
So there's appearances where he comes out on the courtroom steps, or he's in the hallway, and he's turned it into a campaign appearance.How is he drawing on his life experiences, in the way that he's really remarkably reframing what would be a humiliating moment to almost anyone?
Over the course of his life, Donald Trump has learned there is no bad press.There is no bad publicity.It's never bad to have a huge crew of cameramen and reporters chasing after you and turning their lens to you.And so even when he is facing felony counts for fraud, conspiracy, a multi-part effort to overturn a Democratic election, when he is facing claims that his entire business was run on a pack of lies, he is jumping in front of that camera in the court house, on the court house steps, to telegraph to his supporters, “Here I am, firm, resilient, still strong, unbeaten.And I will beat this.I will beat this.And I will protect you.I will be your shield.I will take these slings and arrows, because I care so much about you, the American supporters of Donald Trump, to make America great again,” or in this version, “to keep America great, the way I made it for you.”
… So how do you think that Donald Trump sees the stakes for this election, or being returned to the presidency?How important is it to him?And why is it important to him?
...Donald Trump is not just fighting for his public impression of being a winner, his long-held belief that he's a winner.He is not just fighting to prove to his father, to the naysayers, to Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama or Joe Biden, that he is stronger than they are.He is fighting for his freedom.
If he does not win this election, it's conceivable that he will face trial for 91 counts of crimes that could put him in jail for the rest of his life.Winning the presidency is equal to him staying out of jail, and so there is nothing more important to him.Before, I would have said the most important thing to him is protecting his brand and Trump Org and his reputation.But right now, winning this election is the most crucial battle he has ever faced.
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