The FRONTLINE Interviews
Charlie Sykes
Political Commentator
Charlie Sykes is a contributor to NBC and MSNBC and is the founder and editor-at-large of The Bulwark. He is also the author of several books, most recently How the Right Lost Its Mind.
The following interview was conducted by FRONTLINE’s Jim Gilmore on Jan. 14, 2021. It has been edited for clarity and length.
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Trump and the Republican Establishment
As a candidate, as the nominee for the Republican Party back in 2016, Trump is an insurgent candidate.… Did the GOP actually really understand the kind of president he was going to be?… And what was their calculation when it came to the point that it was obvious that he was going to be the Republican candidate?
Well, Donald Trump told us who he was right from the beginning.And so the Republican Party ought to have been on notice, because there was nothing secret about Donald Trump, the man, his attitudes, his character.And yet they did decide that they were going to go along with him.I think in the beginning, they didn’t take him seriously.No one thought this man coming down the golden escalator could possibly become president.So sure, he would make things up.He would lie.He was clearly a narcissist.He would insult others.He would insult prisoners of war.But people figured, OK, you know, he’s not going to win.We don’t want to antagonize his base.
And that was early on.It became this fear of antagonizing the Trump base, the fear of the flying monkeys—and I may use this phrase again.And so what happened was, they developed almost a muscle memory for ignoring or minimizing some of the obvious flaws in Donald Trump.And then, of course, they were able to tell themselves all kinds of comforting myths, that he would grow or that he would pivot or they could control him or that—or they told themselves that all right, the tweets are bad, the man has character issues, but if we ignore the man and focus on the issues, we’ll get a lot of things we want.
And that’s the essence of a Faustian bargain.In a Faustian bargain, you get lots of good things.You get beautiful women; you get wealth.It’s only later you find out that the price was so much higher than you thought, that the price is your soul.But they did figure, look, why antagonize his base?Why risk the tweets?So let’s look the other way at Charlottesville.Let’s look the other way, even though he imposed a Muslim ban, or he fired the FBI director, or he behaved in a way that would have been unacceptable for any other politician.As long as we got tax cuts.As long as we got judges.As long as we got regulatory reform.
And I think one of the great ironies, one of the great ironies is how important the judges were to Republicans and to conservatives, to have conservative judges who would uphold the rule of law, that would uphold the Constitution.And so they looked at Donald Trump, who had no interest in actually the rule of law, who was clearly a con man and a chronic liar and somebody who really didn’t understand the whole idea of checks and balances, but he gave them what they wanted.
What’s ironic, of course, is that in the end, those conservative judges didn’t give Donald Trump what he wanted, because fundamentally, he did not understand the kinds of people he was putting on the bench.He didn’t understand the way the courts operated.I know I’m getting ahead of myself here a little bit, but this was one of the moments where you keep asking yourself, if Donald Trump had been more competent, if he would have understood his power in the way government worked, could he have done more damage?Could he have been more dangerous?
… So what was the decision when it came to Vice President Pence, or to-be Vice President Pence, when at the RNC or before that, it was decided that he would be the man?Trump supposedly was not that excited about the idea.He was pushed by leadership in the GOP.… What was the idea behind the leadership that they were interested in pushing Pence, and what was Pence’s attitude towards what his role would be in this partnership?
Well, Mike Pence was obviously very, very attractive to social conservatives and evangelical Christians, who became a huge part of the Trump base.And this was—in many ways, this was Pence’s job, that he could be the ambassador to the social conservatives, to reassure them that this thrice-married New York billionaire was somebody that they could trust.
When I met with him during the campaign, and I was very solidly established as a Never Trumper, he went out of his way to say that he was really a Paul Ryan guy, too; that he actually knew many of the reform-minded conservatives and sort of to reassure, ”Yes, Donald Trump, you know, may say some of these things, but, you know, when I golfed with him, and Donald Trump asked me, ‘What do you think of Paul Ryan?Do you like Paul Ryan?,’” and Pence told me, “I told him, ‘No, no, Mr. Trump.I don’t like Paul Ryan.I love Paul Ryan.’” And that was—that was his pitch.
So he was, I have to say, I was surprised to the degree to which he became the robotic loyalist that he was.But he was a very safe choice.And he did, in fact, shore up a crucial part of the Republican base at a time when it was not necessarily certain that they would—they would go along with Donald Trump.
And when he’s standing up on that stage next to Donald Trump, what does he believe he’s doing for the party?
You know, anytime you ask me to get inside people’s heads, it is—it is always risky.I think that—look, Pence has decided that he is going to be the ultimate loyalist, that he would do whatever Donald Trump asked him to do.He would keep his mouth shut when he had to, and he would lavish Donald Trump with praise.So for four years, there was not an inch of distance between Mike Pence and Donald Trump.
And this was a clear decision.I mean, look, Mike Pence used to be a talk radio host.He was a well-known congressman.He was prominent in Congress.He was the governor of his state.And yet he turned himself basically into almost a wax—a waxworks vice president, where he just stood there and said nothing.But I think he felt that, that’s how I can be influential.And he knew that there were two things.You never criticize Donald Trump, you never disagree with Donald Trump, and you lavish him with praise whenever possible.And that’s the coin of the realm, and he spent it as lavishly as anybody in the administration.
How Republicans Misjudged Trump
It appears that, and from what people have said, the Republican leaders in the beginning saw Trump as, you know, of course, inexperienced, not a politician, never governed, never was in control of anything like the size of what the federal government is.They sort of realize that, in some ways, though, that he would be a pen to sign the bills that needed to be moved forward.Talk a little bit about that, that initial sort of point of view and how they misjudged him.
Well, let me answer this, and you can cut it out, because, you know, at the end—at the end of this presidency, those of us that were Never Trump from the beginning, we feel vindicated, but we also have this real strong sense of frustration, because we warned them.We saw who Donald Trump was.And I think part of the problem was, you look at Donald Trump and ask yourself, how do you—how do the rest of you not see this?How do you not understand the dangers of putting a demagogue, would-be autocrat in the White House, somebody who is this erratic, someone who is this ignorant of history and contemptuous of the law?What did you think was going to happen?
And so part of that is that frustration, that well, a lot of us looked at Donald Trump and said, “This is exactly the kind of man that the Founding Fathers had warned against, that hundreds of years of Western civilization had erected checks and balances to keep from power."And yet Republicans went along with it.So there were a lot of voices out there yelling into the wind, saying, “Don’t you see who he is and where this is going?Don’t you know how this is going to end?”
And so that’s—there’s an element of frustration there, because Donald Trump, the Donald Trump that we see today is the same Donald Trump that came out and was saying, “I, Donald J. Trump, want to ban all Muslims,” or would make up stories.This is the Donald Trump who launched his campaign by coming up with a racist conspiracy theory of birtherism.
So we’re now living through the consequences of the big lie.But he’s always been the candidate of the big lie.This is not something new.And so the frustration is, how did you think this was going to play out?If you marry yourself to the lie, where do you think this is going to go?And of course, here we are.
And the answer to your question is?How could they?
I don’t know.The power of rationalization and the power of—I mean, and the attraction of being close to power, and just the transactional nature of American politics.They thought that he would give them what they wanted.So as a Wisconsinite, I saw, you know, two polar alternatives, people like Paul Ryan, who’s a good friend, decent guy—you may disagree with him—versus Donald Trump, and sort of watched—and he fought.He pushed back against it.But the Republican base, the grassroots made a decision back in 2016, even in states like Wisconsin, they were going to go with Donald Trump, not somebody like a Paul Ryan.
And I think that after the election, what happened was you had the transactionalism, but also you had something that can’t be overstated, which is the fear of the Republican base, the fear that he would loose his supporters against them.And that has been a dominant factor in Republican and American politics for the past four years.
Was there a turn?I mean, this is kind of old territory, but it’s worth understanding step by step.Obamacare was one of the first things out of the gate.Trump wasn’t involved.He doesn’t know how to pass legislation.He didn’t want to be involved.So McConnell and the rest of the GOP sort of worked to push it through.That was the partnership; that was the agreement.They failed.They didn’t get it through.And immediately Trump jumps on them, and he really realizes something different, that these guys are not to be depended upon, or whatever you think that he felt.Talk about that moment of Obamacare and how relevant it is, how important it was in designing the relationship that was evolving between those in power in the Capitol building and Donald Trump in the White House.
Well, I think that they both realized that they were unreliable partners at that point, that Donald Trump was not that interested in policy, could not be—get focused on policy.And they realized that, rather than being an asset, that he was a liability.I thought one of the interesting moments was, after the House passed the repeal of Obamacare, they had a big celebration.It was kind of a victory lap, and I think it was within a few days, the president is out there saying how cruel and mean it was.So he cut them off at the knees.
So I think that that was—that was when they were trying to get the measure of one another.It was also a moment at which the Trump administration was at great risk of failing, because this was their most important domestic piece of legislation.And when they failed, they didn’t have anything to show for it, which is why the subsequent vote on the tax cuts was so important for Republicans.
And McConnell’s sort of view, when all of a sudden this president is attacking him viciously?
Well, yes.And it is worth remembering how bitter the relationships were.It’s worth remembering how bitter the relationship was between Donald Trump and McConnell.I mean, it was no secret that he and Paul Ryan couldn’t stand each other.But the McConnell relationship was extremely rocky.And that’s where I think that McConnell made the decision that he was going to set his own priority.And for McConnell, after that, it was as if he locked in on the idea of the judiciary.And as long as he could get the judges, he was going to put up with the insults; he was going to put up with the abuse and the erratic nature as long as he could do that.And that was going to be his legacy.
And interestingly enough, Donald Trump gave him what he wanted, and he gave Donald Trump what he wanted.That was a perfect transactional relationship up until close to the end, where Mitch McConnell, working with the Federalist Society, would come up with the judges.Actually, one of the reasons why this was a success for Donald Trump is he outsourced the entire thing.He outsourced to the Federalist Society and to people like Mitch McConnell.And he made the appointments, and Mitch McConnell got them through.It was a perfect bargain between the two of them until the end.
The Response to Charlottesville
Charlottesville.The reaction of the GOP to this is interesting.Here we have the president saying some pretty outrageous stuff and very little blowback from it.There was some complaints, and those people got attacked, because Donald Trump would not back off.And so the Jeff Flakes of the world and the [Bob] Corkers of the world were batted down pretty harshly.But the rest of the—McConnell, Pence, basically were quiet or supportive.How important is that moment, Charlottesville?How big a warning shot was it? …
I’m really glad you’re asking this, first of all, because I really feel that what happened last week was very much like Charlottesville.It felt like it, because look, Charlottesville was a long time coming.Even during the campaign, Donald Trump’s flirtation with white supremacist organizations and the “alt-right” was a real problem.This, again, was not a secret.He gave them “winks, winks.”He would go on some of the conspiracy theory shows, their podcasts.He gave them encouragement.
So the alliance between Donald Trump and his willingness to use this "alt-right," these "alt-right" activists from the sort of dark corners of the fever swamps was not a new development.This had been building for a long time.So when Charlottesville happened, you could easily say the same thing that you could say about Jan. 6.This was inevitable.It was always heading toward this.You have a president of the United States who is willing to give tacit approval to some of the darkest elements of American politics.And even when it goes wrong, even when it turns ugly, he’s unwilling to denounce it, because at some point in his mind or in the mind of Steve Bannon, these were allies.Or these were allies that were useful, and you didn’t want to alienate them.
But again, in 2016, this was one of the things that people warned about: that Donald Trump had this dark alliance with people on the far right.And you know, look, conservative Republicans have wrestled with this for a very, very long time.And back in the ’60s, the famous story, William F. Buckley Jr. said, “Look, if we’re going to have a conservative movement, we need to excommunicate the John Birchers and the Klansmen and the anti-Semites.Get them out of the movement.”Well, those folks were being brought back into the political mainstream by Donald Trump, and Charlottesville was the moment.
And the other point that was crucial was when the Republican Party didn’t push back, that was the moment you realized that their—their surrender was complete, that they were not ever going to stand against him.If you didn’t break with Donald Trump for Charlottesville, then basically you were saying, “We’re done.”So that was a—the acquiescence of Republicans after Charlottesville, I think, was really an inflection point.
The next thing that will come up in the film is the tax bill ceremony, that amazing ceremony where the leadership of the Senate and the House just laid the praise out there for Donald Trump.What does that signify, that moment?Was the party just too comfortable with this Faustian bargain that they had made, or was there something different?What was your view of that?
Oh, you’re giving me all kinds of flashbacks now, remembering all of that.What I most remember about that was, OK, it was a victory, but did you have to turn it into a, you know, North Korean, “praise the Great Leader” moment?And that was—that was another one of those moments, where, look, Republicans have been cutting taxes forever.This is what Republicans do.So that’s not that unusual.But the need to lavish him with the fawning praise, I mean, it was Kim [Jong-il] level of sycophancy.And that was, again, another one of those milestones in the way the Republican Party had adapted itself to Donald Trump, which was if—if the price of getting him to sign your tax cut is for you to lavish the Great Leader with praise, they were willing to do it.
The First Impeachment
Impeachment.So we’re moving up pretty quickly through the years here.So Trump rallies the base; McConnell is able to hold the line.Why—why McConnell held the line and how he did it, how successful he was?
Well, I think in order to understand everything that happened, you have to understand the way in which the Republican base had embraced Donald Trump.And so the Republican Party, by the time of the impeachment, had a leadership problem in Congress, the unwillingness to stand up against Donald Trump, but they had a much more fundamental followership problem, which is that the core constituency of the Republican Party was not going to tolerate anything other than loyalty to Donald Trump.
And this had been building for some time.And what they had done very, very effectively is to say to Republican grassroots people, “They’re not coming after me; they’re coming after you.”And one of the extraordinary developments, I think, of the Trump years, has been the way that Republicans and conservatives have embraced the victim culture, that “We are victims; that they are coming for us, that they want to destroy us, and therefore we must rally around Donald Trump, who now is the symbol of everything that we stand for and believe in,” which, again, is absurd when you think about who Donald Trump is.
But that’s one of the reasons why you didn’t have a single House Republican vote for the articles of impeachment.That was the first shot.And I think it was an indication how—that was a shock, and that was an indication of just how intense the pressure was on elected Republican officials to stick with Donald Trump.
Mitch McConnell saw the same dynamic.And Mitch McConnell’s agenda has always been to protect his members, his majority.He’s not that concerned about protecting Donald Trump necessarily, but Donald Trump is his conduit to power, and he wasn’t going to put that at risk.And when they voted not to even hear witnesses, it was an indication of how far they were willing to go for Donald Trump, that they would vote against even hearing witnesses at a time when there were some substantial issues being raised.But the Republican Party had become absolutely determined to look the other way and to enable Donald Trump and not hold him accountable.
Trump in Lafayette Square
… So the Black Lives Matter protests, and especially Lafayette Square and the way that Donald Trump handled that, handled the protesters and bringing down the force of the troops.… At that point, where are the voices of the GOP, and is this just one more step?
Well, this was one more step.But it was also—I mean, this is, you know, each one of these seems like they’re the same pattern, but they weren’t going to push back on Lafayette Square because they understood this is who Donald Trump was.He was enjoying that.He loved this.Look, the thing about Donald Trump that is no secret is he has a fetish for strength, for violence.He likes the cruelty.He likes the show of force.This was Donald Trump’s id.
And again, this had been something that had been building all along, his fascination with the use of the military: Who was strong, who was weak, who is on top?You know, one of the great ironies of the Trump era, given the way that Christians have embraced him, but the reality is that Donald Trump’s worldview is very Nietzschean.It’s very much will to power.And so that moment was really—Donald Trump probably enjoyed that as much as he’s enjoyed anything in his presidency, this use of force and pushing back.Again, you know, for years he’d been celebrating violence against protesters.He’d been talking about, you know, “When the looting starts, the shooting starts.”
In his mind, this is something that I think—I think that he fantasized about that for some time.So yes, why didn’t they push back against Lafayette Square is because they knew that that’s a break with Donald Trump.This is who Donald Trump was.
I will say that one of the most significant things that happened after Lafayette Square, however, was the pullback by members of the military, who, if they were in any denial about what Donald Trump had in mind for them or what he thought they would do, this, I think, you know, eliminated that.So the fact that you had [Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff] Gen. [Mark A.] Milley, who said, “Look, this was a mistake.I should not have been there.I should not have been in fatigues.This is not the role of the military”; I think that Mark Esper, who had been a loyal yes man as secretary of defense, was shocked by this.
And I think that this was a—this was a real moment of introspection for the American military.I mean, ironically enough, the American military had the moment of introspection that the national Republican Party did not have, saying, “This is not who we are.We are not going to go along with this man.We are not going to be complicit in another event like Lafayette Square.”
Trump Sows Doubt on the Election
… Before the election, Trump is on a ramp-up here of talking about the fake election that will come if he loses.He can’t lose.If he ever lost, it would prove that the Democrats were stealing the election again.… And it’s a very dangerous game.And the GOP, again, accepts it.… What did you see in the ramp-up to the election before election night?
The only time they pushed back on him was when he actually suggested, at one point, that he might delay Election Day, that he might delay the presidential election, which was so shocking that Republicans pushed back.And interestingly enough, Donald Trump dropped it immediately, which is an indication that if they did push back, they might get him to push—they might actually have an influence.
So for people who wonder, “Well, they didn’t push back because nothing would happen,” that was—that’s a counter-indicator that they weren’t going to go along with changing the date of the election.But I think the rest of it was that this is Donald Trump being Donald Trump.This is what he does.
… So look, at some level, you go, look, Donald Trump is never going to acknowledge he ever loses anything.So I think this is, you know, part of the mental quirk that you have people on the right going, “Oh, ignore his words.That’s just Donald Trump on Twitter.Pay attention to the substance.”What I think they missed was that what you saw on Twitter was the substance.This is who Donald Trump was.
So to your point, I wasn’t surprised by the fact that he kept saying that the election was going to be rigged because there’s two things working here.Number one is Donald Trump’s psychological inability to acknowledge his own defeat, so that Donald Trump was never going to be beaten.He would never lose.He could only be cheated, and he could only be stabbed in the back.
… The real danger here, of course, was that Donald Trump would do long-term damage to the American democracy by questioning the legitimacy of the election and that this was a real danger and that Donald Trump was capable of doing this.We all knew this.Republicans knew that Donald Trump would throw them under the bus.They knew that he was willing to risk the democracy in order to protect his ego.
I don’t think they anticipated it was going to get as bad.What I will admit, and I spent months warning about this, saying, “You know it’s going to be ugly.That period from the election to the inauguration is going to be one of the most dangerous periods, because Donald Trump will do everything possible to undermine public support.”What I did not expect, I will be honest with you, is the degree to which Republicans went along even with that.
I figured that Donald Trump would be out there saying, “I didn’t really lose it.”What I did not expect would be that the grownups in the Republican Party, to the extent that there are any left, would go along, first by indulging it, saying, “Oh, what harm is there in not—you know, in indulging it?What harm is there in letting him work through his feelings?,” and then later actually embracing some of the conspiracy theories.
So once again, what you had was Donald Trump making it very clear what he intended to do, people warning that there could be real danger and damage to the Constitution and the Republican Party going, “Eh, let Donald be Donald.Let’s play along.And how bad could it get?”
We found out.
We found out.
Trump Alleges Election Fraud
Election night, he comes out, and he will not concede, or the days after, or even that Saturday, or even that week after, or even today.And the power of his lying about the amount of proof, the fact that he could eventually—he says that he won by a landslide—grows and grows and grows.And what does that—how does it affect his base? …
Well, this is the culmination of years of accepting the lie.This is what happens when you live in a post-truth society.For a lot of people, maybe it was completely theoretical.What happens when we create these alternative-reality silos?What happens when we have millions of Americans that don’t believe anything that they hear except from the lips of Donald Trump?Well, we’ve now found out what the price of that is, that there’s always been a link between truth and democracy.
But we’ve really seen how far I think the American political culture has been poisoned and damaged.Donald Trump dropped this poison directly into the American political culture.But the American political culture had already been poisoned.I mean, I guess that’s kind of a lesson is that we have been a culture that is so vulnerable to the big lie.And this is something, again, that we’ve been warned about.But I think people thought, well, it can’t happen in America.How bad could it get?
… And the extraordinary thing was that the lies were refuted in real time by Republicans, by every court that looked at them, by Republican election officials, by judges, by legislatures.And it didn’t make a difference, because he had created a media ecosystem that was going to amplify it.But at the same time, the people, the trusted voices in the Republican Party once again stood down.Once again, they didn’t stand up.Mitch McConnell did not acknowledge that Joe Biden was the president-elect until the middle of December, and even that was perceived as a huge betrayal.
So, I mean, we are living in this bizarre world, but it’s been a world that Donald Trump has insisted on.And I think that for those of us that said, “You know, the election of Donald Trump as president will do incalculable damage to the American political system,” even those of us who had made all of these warnings could not really have imagined how deep it would be.But the complicity of the Republican—I know you’re going to ask me about this more, but the complicity of the Republicans here can’t be overstated.
But the fact is that if Republicans had done what people in American politics have done for decades, which is to acknowledge the results of an election that wasn’t terribly close, it wouldn’t have stopped the spreading of lies, but it certainly would have made a difference.It would have limited the damage.If everybody would have stood up on that Saturday when Joe Biden was declared the victor and said, “Congratulations.This is who we are as Americans.One thing that unites us is the peaceful transfer of power in this country,” this is the lowest possible bar.If Republicans wanted the easiest possible exit ramp from Trumpism, that was it, that we are united as Americans in acknowledging the democratic system and the peaceful transfer of power.And Donald Trump blew that up, and they went along with it.
Let’s talk a little bit about Georgia, the phone call to [Secretary of State Brad] Raffensperger.What’s your take on that?Take your time.I mean, here he is, actively attempting to overturn the election.
… For a while there, I was thinking that OK, Trump himself has got to know that he didn’t win the election; that this is really part of a grift; that he’s using this in order to protect his ego, create his brand.So he’s going to go off into the sunset.He’s going to create his own media empire, and his base will believe that he’s a victim rather than a loser, and he’s going to raise hundreds of millions of dollars, and that’s what his goal was.
What I think we realized was no, he believes this, and he’s trying to overturn the election.The president of the United States is trying to use his power to steal an election.And I’m not sure that people have fully grasped the full import of that, that here is somebody who not only spent weeks spreading and propagating lies about the election, he pressured members of state legislatures to nullify the votes in their states and overturn the Electoral College.He pressured government officials in Georgia, the governor and the secretary of state, to “find” him enough votes to overturn a presidential election.
And then he tried to pressure his vice president into violating his oath of office by nullifying a presidential election.All of this is before the assault on the Capitol.This is a president of the United States who has made it impossible to have a peaceful transfer of power.He was not concerned about counting legitimate votes; this is not about election integrity; it is not about—it is not about fairness.This was a raw power play.
And I think that, once again, this is who Donald Trump always was.And it’s been a—it ought to have been a shocking, clarifying moment, even for people who had been enablers.
… Talk a little bit about McConnell’s situation at this point.He would view it as being between a rock and a hard place.He is worried about the two runoff elections.He’s trying to get Donald to get on message, but it’s not working.And he understands that there’s a cross coming due.And so he plays the game, you know, as he has in the past.Talk about his situation and how he—
Right.You’re talking about—we’re now at the week before the riot, right?
Well, I’m talking about, at the time of—or before the elections and sort of how he dealt with what the Georgian officials were saying and his being quiet about it.
Well, I think that’s very, very interesting, because there was a clear break between Donald Trump and McConnell after McConnell acknowledged Joe Biden’s victory.That was perceived as a real betrayal.And I think you can see the break between the two men right there.So even before the Georgia runoffs, I think Mitch McConnell was done with Donald Trump.I think he washed his hands of him.I mean, think what happened that week before, where you had Mitch McConnell presiding over the first veto override of Donald Trump, overwhelming repudiation of Donald Trump’s veto of the defense bill.That was a big deal.
Mitch McConnell brushing off Trump’s last-minute attempt to have the $2,000 checks sent out.I mean, remember that.They had negotiated this huge package under the assumption that the president would sign it.You know, Donald Trump did what he’s done so many times in the past.He cut them off at the knees, and Mitch McConnell basically said, “Screw you.We’re just going to go ahead, and we’re going to do it.We’re going to pass the thing.I’m not going to even allow your proposal, Mr. President, to come to a vote.And by the way, we’re overriding your veto.”
And so I think you saw a level of—a level of independence from Mitch McConnell that you hadn’t seen before.
… Obviously, Georgia colored everything.And what was very apparent is that Donald Trump didn’t give a damn who won the Georgia Senate elections.He’d become obsessed about himself.And so while all of the other Republicans are saying, “Mr. President, it’s really, really important that we win these Senate seats,” for Donald Trump it was about himself and his own obsessions.It was me, me, me, me, me.And they were—there was growing anger, you could say.But again, you know, who could have known?It was, you know, if only they had been warned that Donald Trump would betray them, would throw them under the bus, that this is a narcissist, a man with no loyalty whatsoever.To be surprised that Donald Trump had no loyalty, you would have to not pay attention to anything for the last five years.
The Mob at the Capitol
Jan. 6.You talked a little bit already about Pence, but let’s talk specifically Pence’s situation.He’s asked to reject the certification of the electoral votes by the president.He’s told by—he knows; he’s a smart man.He’s told by his advisers that this is an impossibility, totally illegal.It’s not what you’re supposed to be; it’s not what your job is.What’s the position this puts him in with Donald Trump and with Donald Trump’s base?
This is one of the most fascinating moments in I think this entire story, where you have the loyalest member of Trumpworld being asked to do something that he knows he cannot do.And so Mike Pence would do anything that the president asked.He would say anything the president asked up until this point.And what the president wanted him to do was to stand up there and say, “As vice president, I’m not going to count the electoral votes of these six states.”This was a nonsensical idea.This was a crazy idea.
If the vice president had the ability to overturn an election, I think Richard Nixon might have done it back in 1961.I think Al Gore might have—it might have crossed his mind back in 2001.It was a bizarre idea.This was one of the stupidest ideas out there.… But it’s an indication of how deranged this had become, that the president of the United States actually thought that he could get Mike Pence to do this.
So, I mean, think about where Donald Trump was.He tried to get the courts to overturn the election; they refused.He tried to get Republican legislators to overturn the election; they refused.He tried to bully governors into overturning the elections; they refused.He went after the secretaries of state, one after another, and failed.And so this was the final thing: “Mike, I made you.You have to do my bidding.”And Mike Pence, who would do anything for Donald Trump, finally found the moment where he was going to say no.
And I have to say that I didn’t know where it was going to go, except that the idea was so stupid, except that the idea was so obviously unconstitutional.So Mike Pence had to make a decision that I’m sure he never wanted to make.He never wanted to be the bad guy.And what Donald Trump did was to make him the scapegoat, to basically say, “Look, I’m going to ask you to do something that is completely illegal.And if you don’t do it, you’re going to be the bad guy.”And once again, Donald Trump values loyalty more than anything else until he doesn’t.And it only goes one way.
I mean, this was so Shakespearean, the level of the betrayal of Mike Pence. …
So Trump is not happy.He’s not happy with Pence.He’s not happy with McConnell.He goes out, and he gives that speech, you know, after the very angry speeches of Giuliani and his son and daughter-in-law and others.Talk a little bit about that moment, what he does, what he tells that crowd, and your view of what his responsibility is for what happens next.
I think it’s important not just to focus on what he said but on the entire context of the way he had been spreading the big lie, that he had gathered people together … to Washington, D.C., for Jan. 6, specifically for this moment.They were going to challenge what Congress was going to do.And then when he says, “We’re going to march on the Capitol, and I will be with you”—and then of course he did not go with them—what he was doing was pushing his supporters to go to, number one, intimidate members of Congress who were doing their constitutional duty, or to stop them from doing it.
And I think this is the important thing.Donald Trump has been talking about Jan. 6.His supporters have been talking about Jan. 6 for weeks.They had circled it on their calendar.He had emphasized it.This was sponsored by the president of the United States, who had lied to his own supporters and convinced them that something could happen on Jan. 6 that would change the outcome of the election.
… So this is the most important thing here.This is not just some spasm of violence.And I know the Republicans want to compare this to some of the urban disorders.What this was was a concerted attempt to stop the Congress of the United States from counting and certifying a presidential election, and they came very close to succeeding in doing that.In fact, we came very close to being a mass-casualty event.
But the president’s goal was to stop the Congress from certifying his defeat in a presidential election.What the president was doing was using this mob in order to hold onto power.This is without precedent in American history.And what was really striking about it was the way that he turned the mob on Mike Pence, that that was the moment when he realized that Mike Pence was not going to violate his oath of office and nullify the election.That’s when the crowds became incensed, when they realized that this was the final option.
And you had the people rampaging through the halls, saying, “Hang Mike Pence.”Mike Pence went from being the loyalest Trumpist in the world to being the object of people who were erecting nooses outside the Capitol and saying, “Let’s assassinate him, because he wouldn’t do Trump’s bidding.”And Trump’s bidding was, keep me in office as president of the United States.
And it really is something.It was breathtaking to live through in real time.It’s going to be extraordinary to, I think, to see how historians put it in context, that this actually happened in the United States, because we had prided ourselves—what is American exceptionalism except, you know, pride that we have this great democracy, that we have a peaceful transfer of power?Well, here’s the reality: This time around, we are not having a peaceful transfer of power because of Donald Trump.
… The McConnell speech before the crowds came in, just before the actual attack happened, he breaks from Trump.He says some very important things.Why now?How did you view that speech?
It was an excellent speech.It was impassioned, it was on target, and he should have given it back in November.This is the problem here, is that the delay allowed the lie to spread and to metastasize.
… And, you know, again, it’s counterfactual.But what if Mitch McConnell and every other elected Republican had given a speech like that on Nov. 9 instead of waiting until the last moment?So yes, give a lot of credit for Mitch McConnell for saying the right things, but again, he should have said it much, much earlier.
… Do you think Pence and McConnell actually even understand or know—they’re smart men—understand that the decisions they made for four years is what helped make this happen?
You know, one thing I’ve learned is the incredible powers of rationalization.And I’m sure that they’re going to continue to tell themselves that, “You know what?We did a lot of good things, and we prevented a lot of worse things from happening.”There’s all kinds of stories that you can tell yourself about all of that.And you hear that from the Trumpworld, like, “OK, so there was some bad stuff, but if I hadn’t been in the room, it would have been really, really crazy.The president would have done X, Y and Z.”
And we’re getting kind of a glimpse of what they might have seen, what they might have stopped that is no longer being stopped.So I don’t know.It’s very, very hard to say that—to admit that you’ve been wrong for four years, or at the most important moment of your life that you had fundamentally failed.Very few people do that.
… So once the Capitol building is cleared out of the mob, half the Republicans in the House decide to vote as they were going to before the attack.How is history going to view that? …
I don’t want to use the phrase, “That was the most shocking thing,” because there were so many other shocking things.But when you reflect on the fact that the U.S. Capitol had an attack, people had died, people had been killed, blood had been shed, and they came back in, and 138 House Republicans voted to embrace the big lie, they voted to throw out the electoral votes of the state of Pennsylvania, many of them voted also to throw out the votes in Arizona, they made themselves complicit in exactly what had led to this moment.
And this is the thing that, once again, tells you how fundamental the transformation of corruption of the Republican Party has been, that even faced with this insurrection, even seeing all of the consequences and watching as the president incited this mob to overturn a presidential election, to attack Congress, they still voted with him.They still supported him, that they were willing to do what the rioters had failed to do, which was to stop the count of this Electoral College vote.
So that’s breathtaking.But again, this has been building a long time.This is what’s been happening when a political party sells its soul to one man.And I think that that was the moment where it very graphically became clear the Republican Party is not about ideas, it’s not about principle, it’s not about protecting the rule of law.It is about protecting the political ambitions of this one man.
And so there’s a lot of loose talk about how the Republican Party has become a cult of personality.That was a moment of choosing.That was a moment where Republicans could have said, “OK, this is where we, along with the Democrats, are united in our support for the democratic process.We are going to stand against this attempt to overturn the election.”You could have had a moment like after 9/11.Instead, you have the scene of two-thirds of Republicans in the House of Representatives voting, again, to ratify Donald Trump’s big lie. …
And I’ll also say this thing, that as we’re taping this, it is not over.This is not an attack on democracy that took place.This is an ongoing attack on democracy.The big lie is still out there.It’s not a matter of getting through Jan. 20.This is now prologue to what I think is going to be a feature in American politics for sometime, that if lies and conspiracy theories will be embraced by this many people, if one of the two major political parties is not willing to push back against it, this becomes part of the reality.
After four years of an administration rooted in anger, in division, in conspiracy theories, should anyone be surprised that this is how it ends?
Well, that’s—that’s what I’m thinking right now.I sit here, and I go, “What did you think was going to happen?,” to my fellow Republicans.“How did you think this was going to turn out?What do you think would happen if you put this narcissist and this demagogue and this chronic con man into the Oval Office and gave him this much power and emboldened him and enabled him?How do you think this was going to end?”
I mean, maybe there were alternatives, or, you know—I really do wrestle with this—whether or not this was all inevitable; whether or not, if other people had stood up, it might have made a difference.Did it have to end in fire and fury, the way that it’s ending right now?Does it have to end with Washington being in a state of siege?
I mean, I wake up, and I look at these pictures, and I go, this is America.We were promised American greatness, and we have America under siege.Literally and seriously, this is Donald Trump’s America.And yet we were warned over and over and over about it, and we ignored all of that.So here we are.And again, I would hope that you would have members of the Republican Party that would take this occasion to look in the mirror and say, “What did I do?How did this happen?Why was I looking the other way?Why did I think that I was going to be able to ride this tiger?”
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