The FRONTLINE Interviews
Mark Leibovich
Staff Writer, The Atlantic
Mark Leibovich is a staff writer for The Atlantic. He was previously the chief national correspondent for The New York Times Magazine and is the author of Thank You for Your Servitude: Donald Trump's Washington and the Price of Submission.
The following interview was conducted by the Kirk Documentary Group’s Mike Wiser for FRONTLINE on May 3, 2022. It has been edited for clarity and length.
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Ted Cruz and the 2016 Election
… Who is Ted Cruz in 2016 during the Iowa caucuses?
Ted Cruz saw himself as a conservative, a true conservative alternative to Donald Trump.He took great pains in most of the months preceding the Iowa caucuses, for almost a year, not to cross Donald Trump, not to get into like a mudslinging match with him.He thought that he could win the goodwill of a lot of conservatives who were hard-core Trumpist voters and not alienate them at the same time by getting on the wrong side of Donald Trump.
I think Ted Cruz, like many of the other candidates, believed that Donald Trump was going to blow himself up.He was not going to be there at the end, and they wanted to be there to inherit the whirlwind.
Ted Cruz, I think eventually started threatening Donald Trump a great deal, and they started going after each other, and it got ugly pretty fast.But I think Iowa was a very good state for Ted Cruz.Ted Cruz is—a lot of grassroots conservatives, a lot of evangelicals, and he catered very, very carefully to them, and he kind of anticipated going into the Iowa caucuses that Donald Trump was going to claim that the election was rigged.I mean, this is not a new move for Donald Trump.He claimed that the Emmy Awards were rigged a few years earlier.He claimed that the election was rigged in favor of Barack Obama in 2012.Again, time-tested maneuver.Donald Trump never takes responsibility for his losses, and Ted Cruz said as much in the next few days after the Iowa caucuses.He said, "Look, Donald Trump never loses; this is right out of his playbook, and we're seeing what we kind of expected all along."
So look, Ted Cruz did win Iowa.It was a very narrow victory.And then we sort of went from there.But clearly, we saw the early seeds growing of Donald Trump demonstrating what he does in the case of voters not coming his way in the way that he expected.
Lindsey Graham and the GOP Establishment
… Can you help us understand Lindsey Graham?I don't know if he's a good example of the GOP establishment, but Lindsey Graham is asked at one point about the choice between Ted Cruz and Donald Trump and which way does he want to die.Can you describe the feeling of Lindsey Graham and maybe the GOP establishment towards this moment in the party?
Yeah, it was horror.It was abject horror.It was like, how could we as good-conscience conservatives abide by this person who is antithetical, meaning Donald Trump, who is antithetical to everything we have argued for over the last three or four decades—personal responsibility, fiscal responsibility, character?Just go down the whole list.Donald Trump violated every principle.Even Ronald Reagan's amendment—what was it?The 13th Amendment of, "Thou shalt not speak ill of other Republicans."I mean, Donald Trump was burning it down.The Republican Party never fashioned itself a burn-it-down party.
So Lindsey Graham saw this for what it was.And again, he had no problem saying it.And I think, like Ted Cruz, Lindsey Graham had no expectation that Donald Trump was going to be the nominee of the Republican Party, and even less expectation that he was going to be the president of the United States.So I think they adjusted their expectations accordingly and their behavior accordingly, but I think at the time they sort of figured that there was nothing to lose, because they figured Donald Trump was going to go away and be like a weekend in Vegas that no one speaks of anymore after it's over.
Ted Cruz’s Evolution on Donald Trump
Can you describe that spring and what goes on between Trump and Cruz and the types of attacks that they're both making on each other?And I guess that's one of the questions, is the attacks from Trump, are they qualitatively different from what Cruz was doing?Can you describe that conflict?
Yeah, it was really ugly.It got right—it got as deep into the mud as I can remember any primary contest getting.And certainly primary battles can be very, very fierce; they can get very personal at times.But this was next level.Donald Trump was implying that Ted Cruz's wife was unattractive, trafficking in all kinds of horrific rumors about Cruz's family, Cruz's father, suggesting that Ted Cruz's father was involved in the Kennedy assassination.I mean, one thing after another.
And I remember, there was one moment, I think it was in May or June, when Ted Cruz was asked about it, and he just, at one point, just lost his train of thought, threw his hands up and said, "This is nuts.This is absolutely nuts." …And he just didn't know what to say.He was at a loss for words.And that continued well into the summer.
Ted Cruz, there was a legitimate chance, at least from the outside, that it looked like Ted Cruz was never going to come around.Ted Cruz, if he was truly a principled conservative, which is what he was selling himself as, was going to be someone who could never abide Donald Trump and his behavior.And you could say, why should he?I mean, he's going after my family.Any kind of normal, objective person would understand the rage and fury and unforgivableness of what Donald Trump was doing to Ted Cruz and doing to the Republican Party.
And it was a very long and difficult, but remarkably successful acceptance that Donald Trump was able to win from the party that he effectively took over.
Ted Cruz had once been the rebel.He had once been the guy who helped shut down the government and who was hated by the establishment and who was sort of breaking rules, and he comes here up against Donald Trump, who seems to be doing things—there's violence at some of these rallies; he's playing with racial rhetoric; he's—as you say, he's attacking Cruz on things that are personal, and also untrue conspiracy theories.When we look back on it now in the wake of Jan. 6, was Trump playing from a different playbook than a Ted Cruz or a traditional—and should there have been a warning there in what he was doing?
Well, first of all, the warnings were just everywhere.And yes, Donald Trump was playing by a very different playbook.I remember there was a debate in Michigan, probably about March or so, and things were really ugly.There was all kinds of scorched-earth rhetoric in the course of the debate.I remember Trump, Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz and I think John Kasich, the governor of Ohio, were up on the stage, and the last question was, "Given what we've heard tonight, will you still support the Republican nominee?Show of hands."And Donald Trump did not raise his hand, which was considered, no, you must support the nominee.And everyone else did.And that to me was a signal that OK, we might be crossing all kinds of lines, and we might be going all kinds of scorched earth on each other, but these guys are playing by the same playbook, and this guy is not.
And what Donald Trump understood better than everyone else is that voters weren't playing by any playbook at all; they didn't care.They liked that Donald Trump was tearing up the playbook.They liked that he wasn't following someone else's rules.And, you know, Ted Cruz could be standing up there, and Donald Trump could be going after his family, and he's still going to support the nominee?I mean, that's a strange thing for many voters to look at.
Let's talk about that conversion for Ted Cruz, because he has this famous moment at the convention.Can you describe what that calculation was that he made and what happens at the convention and whether—the question we have is, was that moment that things changed for Ted Cruz?
Ted Cruz had this moment at the Republican convention that—I think it was August.Actually, no, it was in July.That July he had a moment where he gave a speech.There was a lot of back-and-forth over whether Ted Cruz, given the heat of his rivalry with Donald Trump, should be allowed to speak at all.
He's given a speaking slot on the last night of the convention, or the second to last night of the convention, and he basically says—he doesn't endorse Donald Trump.There was a lot of anticipation: Would Ted Cruz endorse Donald Trump?Never did.And the signature line from that speech was "Vote your conscience." … That was the takeaway line.
And to me, I was listening to this, and there are worse lines to be associated with than "Vote your conscience," right, at least in the Pollyannaish world of politics that people like me traffic in.
I remember he was booed out of the arena.It was a really, really harsh crowd, made up largely of very pro-Trump delegates, loyalists.The speech did not go over well.Ted Cruz's wife sort of left early; she was kind of booed and heckled out of the arena by Trump supporters.
Trump kind of wandered in at the end like a professional wrestler making a big entrance.And I remember he was—Cruz was kind of panned.It's like, "Oh, wow, he was booed; what a terribly tone-deaf speech."
And I remember talking to a lot of people who were secretly very impressed, very privately, very impressed by the kind of courage it took to give a speech like this.And people were thinking—and I know I was thinking—that maybe this guy is for real.Maybe he is going to put up a genuine fight.
And that lasted at least a couple of weeks.And then eventually Ted Cruz realized that there was no way he was ever going to gain any acceptance in a Republican Party that was dominated by Donald Trump.He came around fairly quickly after that.And he sidled up to him and never really left his side for four years.
Do you know if that was a hard decision for Cruz?
I think if you talked to Ted Cruz, he would say that it was a hard decision at the time.I know that he and his people struggled with how hard he was going to go after Donald Trump, whether he was going to name him at all in the speech.I think eventually when he saw where the wind was blowing inside the Republican Party, it was not a difficult decision.And that's basically what Ted Cruz is about: Ted Cruz is someone who watches which way the wind blows.And that's not a flattering thing to say about a politician, but it's also not an unusual thing to say about a politician.
Mike Pence Joins the Ticket
… Can you help us understand who Mike Pence is and how he finds himself standing by Donald Trump's side?… They're a very unlikely couple.How does that happen?Who is he?
Well, Mike Pence is an evangelical Republican.He's very conservative, very religious, very Christian.… He was a big Cruz supporter, but was one of these Cruz endorsees who didn't really get too far on the wrong side of Donald Trump.He was always very deferential, very respectful.He kind of loved being like a doormat.He was always someone who would bow his head and would always say, "It's an honor to meet you."And Trump loved that.Donald Trump loves deference, especially when it's directed at himself.
So Mike Pence sort of hung around.He did not make too big of a fuss about wanting the job.Donald Trump likes the chase; he likes someone who doesn't seem to want to be Donald Trump's partner.… Eventually it came down to Donald Trump picking Chris Christie, Newt Gingrich and Mike Pence.And Christie and Gingrich are very big, kind of loudmouth-y personalities.Pence is more demure, and I think Trump liked a more submissive character, frankly, and eventually was enamored of the fact that Pence didn't seem to want the job.And he said, "All right, well, you don't want the job?I'm going to give it to you.And you'd better behave yourself."And Pence, I guess, sort of calculated that this was the way that he could become a vice president of the United States, or at least a very high-profile running mate, and he would attach his fortunes to someone who was a much bigger personality than him, and certainly someone who had a much better shot at getting to the White House than him.
… And I suppose it gave Trump something, too.There was something in exchange for him getting to be vice president.He was giving something that was of value to Donald Trump.
Yes, well, he was giving him deference, but he was also giving him sort of credibility with the evangelical Republicans.And it's a very, very big sector of the Republican Party, evangelical Christians, who loved Donald Trump, and, you know, even though they knew in their heart of hearts that Donald Trump was not the most virtuous Christian of the bunch.And Mike Pence sort of gave him that imprimatur in some ways with the evangelical community….And they were extremely loyal to him.
The Early Trump Presidency
… So going into his presidency, we might start with the first joint address when Trump comes in.It's remembered for being when everybody [was] asking, "Is he going to be presidential?Is he finally going to be presidential?" …How is he seen by the Republicans in the room?How is he seen by somebody like Mitch McConnell?When Trump walks into this joint session, who did they think that they're dealing with?What is the calculation that they're making?
The calculation that they're making is that—you know, they all would privately look down upon Donald Trump.I mean, there was so much private scorn.There continues to be so much private scorn for Donald Trump among Republicans.And then he walks into the chamber, he walks into the room, he walks into Washington, and he has something that they never thought him capable of.He has the cachet of a winner.He's the president of the United States.That is something that—I mean, it's hard to describe, but once you are elected president of the United States, you have the best home-court advantage in politics.People give you a measure of respect, no matter who the party is, actually, that they didn't have before.And again, Republicans are not used to winning presidential elections.
And Donald Trump had something.He appealed to a lot of Democrats.He had kind of a blue-collar credibility that no Republican really since Reagan had.He was able to sort of dip into Pennsylvania and Ohio and Michigan and take a part of the Democratic coalition.And look, he had something.
So Republicans didn't know what to make of it either, and I think that that translated, I mean, more into respect or certainly cautious optimism than it did revulsion to some degree.And look, the presidency can get you a long, long way, and Donald Trump proved that.
… Looking back at the first four years of Trump's presidency, there's not a lot of moments where there's a lot of tension between Republican leaders and Trump.One of the ones that we're interested in, especially after Jan. 6, is the Charlottesville moment.Looking back at Charlottesville with the perspective of knowing what would happen with Jan. 6, how important a moment was that in Donald Trump's presidency?
It was very important early on.It showed that Donald Trump was, again, not going to play by the rules, where traditionally, when white supremacists make themselves known and are marching on the streets of Charlottesville, Virginia, or any American city, the easy move for a Republican or Democratic politician is to denounce it.We do not live in a world, presumably, where politicians are seen to side with extremists of this ilk at all.
And Donald Trump just stunningly in the summer of 2017 said, "There are good people on both sides.We can't give fault to the white supremacists.We can't give fault to the protesters.I mean, look, things got a little out of hand, but I'm not going to alienate these people, because they like me."
Again, it's the Lindsey Graham principle of, "Hey, if you like Donald Trump, if you're nice to him, that's probably going to be enough."The colder calculation is, this is a big part of Donald Trump's political coalition, I mean, maybe not the vocal part that are going to wear hats on the convention floor, but Donald Trump calculated that a good portion of his voters were what used to be considered the fringe voters, and here they were drawn out on the streets, and Donald Trump was not going to move away from that.
It was a stunning moment.It was an absolutely stunning moment, the likes of which we have not seen since certainly the '60s in the Republican Party.
In the wake of that, there's lot of statements, some of them specific from Republicans, especially Republican senators, some of them specifically naming Trump, some of them being a little bit more generic but making it very clear that they don't stand with Trump.Was this a moment of decision for the rest of the Republican Party?
I mean, obviously not.It lasted about a week or so, and then they were all back sort of marching in line and trying to figure out how to get their tax cut.They knew that Donald Trump, you know, he might stand with white supremacists, he might give comfort to white supremacists and say there are good people on both sides, but as long as he has a working signature that can put his name on a tax cut bill, that was going to be enough for a lot of Republicans.He was going to nominate very conservative judges; he was going to deregulate the economy.I mean, these were promises made, promises kept, and this is, you know, central to the Republican agenda for the last decade or so.
So that's what he did.And they kind of held their nose.And I think the more cynical calculation is, they knew that they needed Donald Trump's voters to be reelected.As Lindsey Graham said to me, "If you don't want to be reelected, you're in the wrong business."They did what it took.
Mitch McConnell’s Relationship with Trump
… Who is Mitch McConnell in this part of the Trump years, and what decisions was he facing?
Well, Mitch McConnell is the classic hold-your-nose guy.I mean, yes, Mitch McConnell loves to say he's a product of the civil rights movement, but Mitch McConnell much more so will be remembered as someone who is a bottom-line guy.And bottom line means power, and it means staying in office.It means winning majority.
And, you know, the Senate majority was very, very tenuous.Republicans had only a few seats to play with going into 2018.It looked to be a very good year for Democrats in the Senate, just like as it turned out to be in the House.And he knew, as well as Lindsey Graham did, as well as anyone did, that Republican senators who were up for reelection or who were challenging Democrats needed Trump voters.And they knew—I mean, there was no way that Mitch McConnell was going to get on the phone and talk to a Republican challenger, like, say, Rick Scott in Florida, or someone like Kevin Cramer in North Dakota and say, "Look, distance yourself from Donald Trump."I mean, they were—he knew that they needed their voters and was all for them doing what it took to get elected in their very red states.So that's what they did.
I guess with McConnell the other thing that Trump represents is judges, which seems to be something particular to McConnell.Is it an explicit deal that he's making with Donald Trump?What is the nature of that relationship on judges?
Yeah.I mean, Mitch McConnell cares deeply about getting conservative judges voted onto the bench and nominated by a Republican president.To be honest with you, Donald Trump could not care a lick about what judges he nominates.I would be shocked if he could even name a single Republican judge before he nominated them.I doubt he knew who Brett Kavanaugh was; I doubt he knew who Amy Coney Barrett was; I doubt he knew who Neil Gorsuch was.He's just basically probably nominating people from a list.Then he does the central casting thing where he said, "OK, this person looks like a judge," or, "This person would be acceptable to so-and-so."And then he let Mitch McConnell do the heavy lifting.And so, just like Mitch McConnell needed Donald Trump's signature on a tax cut, he also needed conservative nominees that Mitch McConnell could easily shepherd through the Senate, and then he would have his conservative judges.I mean, it's not that difficult a calculation to understand.
But again, I mean, you just sort of need the president's signature, and you need his nomination of the right names, and Mitch McConnell played along.
In that fall, there are some people who are not going to go along.There's Jeff Flake.There's [Bob] Corker to a different extent.There's [Mark] Sanford.What's the importance of that episode of their continued objection to Trump?
Yeah, look, there were some people of conscience in the Republican Party.You know, they're all kind of different in their own sort of stories.Jeff Flake, deeply religious, comes from the Mormon church, a very conservative member from Arizona, had zero use for Donald Trump and really didn't care that much about keeping the job, and was willing to say so.
Corker had a lot of wealth.He was rich; he didn't need the job.He'd been in the Senate for, I think—you know, I think he served two or three terms already.Was happy to hang them up.He probably would have liked to hang around another term or so, but I don't think he needed the job; he didn't want to do what it took to stay.
So eventually the two of them decided not to run for reelection, and Donald Trump loved nothing more than to say, "Oh, look what happens to these people who cross me; they're just losers; they're out of office; I just buried them."
And, you know, and Jeff Flake and Bob Corker would say immediately that they sleep very well at night.There is life after the Senate, and I don't think they miss their job at all. …
Trump goes after them.He attacks Flake in Arizona.There's a Twitter war with Corker.What message does it send to the rest of the Republican Party at that point from the fall of 2017 onward?
That there's no way you can stay in office by crossing Donald Trump.I mean, there's just no way, especially in a state like even Arizona, where it's an extremely conservative Republican Party; certainly Tennessee where Corker is from.And again, I think that there is a more nuanced and principled and, frankly, sympathetic reaction to the way they conducted themselves.To me they stood on principle.They didn't need the job.They weren't afraid to lose the job.They had to live with themselves.
But Donald Trump's message out of all of this was, "They're losers.Do you want to be a loser?Just go follow them.But you don't want to be a loser."And people like Lindsey Graham took that message and said, "You're right.I'll do what it takes.I will stay on the right side of you, and I'm going to be a winner," because Lindsey Graham just wanted to be reelected to the Senate.And he was.
Republicans had consolidated control of the party by the end of 2017 to the extent there was outliers.… We're also seeing during this period Trump had this affection for authoritarian leaders and for exchanging love letters with Kim, and his approach to Putin.Can you describe what it was like watching that, and if you know how Republicans were viewing this?Some of them had been quite hawkish on these things.
Yeah.I mean, with trepidation, obviously, but only privately.I think most of them privately—and I've had many conversations with many of them privately—saying, it's appalling.Like, Vladimir Putin is not our friend.The fact that Donald Trump is sidling up to him to this degree is ridiculous.It's more than the market will bear.It's anti-American.I mean, his relationship with Kim Jong-un in North Korea was insane, many of them would say.It was scary because it didn't seem to at least reduce tensions with the nuclear capabilities of North Korea for a long time.
And I don't think anyone knew where he was going with all this, except that there was in fact, as you said, a bizarre fixation on raw power, on raw authoritarian power, and Donald Trump didn't seem to care at all that this was fundamentally antithetical to the American view of the presidency, the American view of power.
And at the same time, it tapped into an extremely raw and sort of carnal definition of how politicians would like to hold unlimited power, and he appealed to that on some kind of weird level.
The Democratic Response to Trump
… During this period there's something else going on, which is going on on the left and starts during the election, the day before the inauguration or the day after the inauguration.There's the Women's March, and there seems to be a growing anger towards Trump and strong feelings.Can you describe what Trump ignited, lit on the left?
Look, the word "resistance," right—I mean, that became like The Word, right?I mean, the Democratic Party was more unified, more energized by what Donald Trump represented than anything that came along on their side, really since Barack Obama.Donald Trump was an incredibly galvanizing figure for the Democratic Party.They proved it in special elections; they proved it in 2018; they proved it in 2020.And look, for as much as Donald Trump is a galvanizing figure on the right, for as much as he had a very loyal base that was willing to crawl over broken glass to go vote for him, the Democrats had that advantage also.And in the resulting picture, you had one of the most energized political environments we've seen in this country in decades.
The Response from Republicans
Inside the Republican Party, as they're watching that from the beginning, especially because we're going to lead up to the first impeachment, there's "Russiagate"; there's the dossier; there's the Mueller report; there's talk of impeachment from the very beginning.Maybe from fringe members of the party, but there's talk of impeachment from the beginning.How was that viewed by Republicans?
Well, I think if you look at a lot of Republicans privately, they sort of secretly were hoping that the Democrats would take care of Donald Trump for them.They were cowardly in that they were not inclined to sort of go out and say publicly that they wanted to be the antagonists inside their party.
A lot of Republicans in 2018 just decided to fold their tents and go away.They sort of voted with their feet, and they didn't—they could just quit; they could just walk away.They could go into private life, and, you know, there was a very peaceful transfer of power from your seat in Congress to your seat in a very, very cushy desk on K Street, probably making about seven figures somewhere.So no big loss there, but you don't have to play along on this game anymore, and there was a definitely a psychic cost that they didn't have to bear anymore.
But yeah, I think a lot of Republicans privately, when the reports started coming out about the first impeachment around Ukraine were saying, "Wow, this sounds really bad.We'll see if it's true or not."Eventually they circled the wagons.
Liz Cheney and the First Impeachment
One of the interesting figures in this is Liz Cheney.Let me start with who is Liz Cheney and where did she come from and how ambitious was she as a politician?
Yeah, Liz Cheney is the political daughter of Dick Cheney, the kind of Darth Vader figure in the Republican Party, despised by Democrats through the aughts, certainly a real hawk on Russia, a real hawk on Iraq, probably as despised a figure as there was among Democrats certainly during the Bush years.
Liz was a chip off the old block.Is a chip off the old block.She is very much the hawk that her father was, very much the conservative that her father was.Won the House seat that her father won in Wyoming, the at-large House seat and was also the No. 3 ranking Republican in the House, chairman of the House—or the chairperson of the House Republican Conference, which is a position her father held.
Very ambitious.People thought that she could be in line to be the first woman Republican speaker of the House.Sort of fashioned herself after Margaret Thatcher.And like a lot of conservatives, especially women who were extremely tough-minded like Liz Cheney, held her nose, voted with Donald Trump much of the time, held her tongue, didn't criticize him because, you know, she didn't need the hassle, and also she represents an extremely conservative state, Wyoming, where Donald Trump won almost 70% of the vote.
So she, like everyone else, was trying to get on his good side, stay on his good side, and hope eventually he would go away.
Eventually, she just couldn't live with herself anymore and decided that she would go the other way.
We're trying to understand, because with her it's so interesting.A couple things are interesting about her.One is that she is a politician.She's willing to do what she needs to do to get elected.She even has a break with her sister over policy.
Yeah, on same-sex marriage, which is a deeply personal family issue in the Cheney family.I mean, Mary Cheney has been in a same-sex marriage for many years.This is the younger daughter of Dick and Lynne Cheney.And when she was running—when Liz Cheney was running for Congress for the first time, actually broke with her family, or certainly with her sister, on whether it should be legal or not.
What does that say about Liz Cheney as a political operator or as somebody in this story?
Well, Liz Cheney is not as savvy a political operator as even her father was.I mean, she could be clumsy; she could say the wrong thing.She sometimes made votes, you know, I think maybe in this case a vote that she regretted pretty quickly that could be awkward for her.But ultimately, Liz Cheney is a person of great conservative principle.Again, liberals despise the Cheney family.I think that's been true for years, and they have worn it as a badge of honor, and it has served them very well inside the Republican Party.I mean, you go to Wyoming, every other building is named after Cheney, right?
And Liz Cheney was the logical heir to her father and was a great story in Wyoming, and again, didn't do anything to offend the base in any kind of defiance of Donald Trump until she did, and then her life changed very, very quickly.
That's why, when we'll get there, that's why it's so fascinating, her change.But in this first period there's impeachment, and she actually, though maybe it's not defending Trump's conduct, she is one of the people attacking Adam Schiff, attacking the Democrats.Do you know what her approach is on that first impeachment, and why?Because now we know what happened later, but why then?
I think privately she was somewhat appalled by the conduct of the president.I mean, she told people that.But she also realized that the votes weren't there.In fact, not a single vote was there if you go by the House Republican Conference, which she was leading at the time.So it was politically untenable for her to do anything but toe the party line with the first impeachment, even though she knew that this conduct was extremely in violation of norms, certainly American foreign policy and the interests of helping an extremely important ally that was in the direct line, as we saw, of Russia.
We're trying to understand when we go back, and now you read about broken democracies and systems, and one of the things is about polarization and institutions that don't work, and this was one of the possible checks.And one of our questions is, was there something that the Democrats did in the impeachment that contributed to the fact that it was so polarized and it was this check inside the system didn't function?
Yeah, I think Republicans would say yes, they did; they were so partisan about it, they didn't prove their case.I think privately a lot of Republicans said to me that Democrats did prove their case.I mean, Adam Schiff was the lead impeachment manager for the Democrats in 2019 during the first Trump impeachment.He gave a very compelling case.He actually got a Republican vote, Mitt Romney in the Senate, which is more than anyone else has gotten as far as in the same party goes voting against a president or voting for a president's impeachment.
But no, I think it's just reflexive partisanship.I mean, as soon as Kevin McCarthy and Steve Scalise, the two leading Republicans, and Liz Cheney to some degree, in the House said, "Look, we're not going along with this," the die was cast, and it just became the same partisan rock fight that we've been accustomed to.
But I think, again, privately they would concede that there was a very legitimate case there, and I think if you were to sort of make a secret ballot on what this impeachment vote was, you probably would have gotten maybe between 50 and 100 Republican votes.Not sure what you'd get today.And I think you'd probably get more for the second impeachment.But again, it's that yawning gap between what people will say and believe privately and what they'll do in public.
… When you look back at it, the consequences, the timeline of what happens after that, that acquittal seems to be a turning point in how Trump views the constraints that are on him and views what he's able to do.Can you take us into that moment when he holds up the paper and thanks the Republicans?Can you take us into that?
Yeah.Looking back, it's still kind of remarkable.There was a moment in 2016, I think in Iowa, before the Iowa caucuses, where Donald Trump was sort of marveling at a rally, I think it was in Sioux [Center], Iowa, where he was talking about the impunity with which he could just sort of operate inside the Republican Party.And he said at one point, seemingly as an aside, "I could shoot someone in the middle of Fifth Avenue and not lose any voters at all."
And it was sort of viewed as absurdist, and it got some laughs in the audience.It got a few I-love-yous in the audience.He said, "I love you, too."And people kind of brushed it off the way people do.I mean, it was like, OK, this is Trump being Trump; he's saying something outrageous, and we're going to move on.
It turned out to be quite true.He could get away with the political equivalent of murder inside the Republican Party.
… And that's sort of how he proceeded.There was certainly no humility.There was certainly no learning of a lesson, as Sen. Susan Collins of Maine presumed would happen.And, you know, it was clear very early on that this was not going to be a chastening event for Donald Trump.
Trump and COVID
… In that year, weeks later, COVID happens, and that seems like a turning point, or at least the beginning of a turning point with Liz Cheney.What is she watching, and why is she seeing what Trump's doing with concern?
I think everyone had concern.I think, again, Liz Cheney is an extremely kind of classical kind of conservative, suburban, Reagan Republican, right?She's a Dick Cheney Republican.She believes in Dr. Fauci.I mean, Dr. Fauci was a close family friend of the Cheneys.Her father, Dick Cheney, had a heart transplant.Very vulnerable.She speaks to her father every day.She goes to her parents' house all the time.She was very mindful, like a lot of people were, of the health of the people she loves most.
And so, yeah, she understood that competence was paramount at a moment like this, and she didn't believe the White House was providing it in any stretch.I mean, it was a very scary time.And I think in many ways, Liz Cheney was emblematic of the kind of suburban Republican voter that Donald Trump was alienating at a pretty fast clip at this stage in particular, because COVID literally hit home to a degree that no other issue did during the four years of the Trump presidency.It was a fairly peaceful, healthy time, despite all the turmoil, if that's not too much of a contradiction.
And so yeah, no, Liz Cheney was appalled by what was happening, and so was Dick Cheney.
The way you describe it, it sounds like such a personal thing for her, maybe more than other things Trump had done over those years?
Yeah.I mean, again, her family is very much—they're a science family.I mean, Dick Cheney himself is a miracle of modern medicine.He likely would not be alive today if it weren't for transplant technology, if it weren't for all these sort of state-of-the-art heart medications and surgeries and procedures that he's benefited from.And look, he's 80 years old; he is someone who by all means probably shouldn't be alive right now given the medical history he has.
…And given the closeness of their relationship, I mean, you can see how it would be an extremely personal issue for her.And also, look, her father, say what you will about him, was an extremely—you know, he was an American.He was a very, very kind of idealistic conservative.He believed in norms.He believed in history.He studied presidential history.And despite where he wound up on a lot of issues, which were, again, very antithetical to what a lot of people on the left would vote for, is truly a patriot in the way that he saw people abiding by norms and the inheritance of his daughter and what she should do to sort of preserve the family legacy.
… What about the rest of the party as they're watching Trump's handling of this and injecting light or bleach and the conspiracy theories and "Liberate Michigan"?As he's pushing down responding to COVID in the way he is, what's the rest of the party doing?
They were appalled privately, and—but, you know, they at this point were more appalled by the polls they were seeing and the sort of spiraling approval ratings that the president was suffering because of his handling of COVID, not to mention the corresponding economic spiral that was going on along with the COVID news.
So yeah, they saw the same polls that everyone else did, and it looked like Donald Trump was in trouble, and it looked like especially the House members should probably get some daylight between themselves and the White House, because obviously the White House was not doing well and certainly wasn't faring well in the public opinion wars.
Also that year, he is ramping up what some people describe as an us-versus-them rhetoric—antifa; there's an existential threat; they are going to take your freedom; there's a conspiracy here.… It seems like it plays a role in what happens on Jan. 6, is why it seems so important to us.Is that rhetoric rejected?Is it accepted by the party as it's getting closer to the election?What do they do with that rhetoric that's getting increasingly heated?
Well, look, I mean, that was embraced by a large sector of the Republican Party.It's like, look, you're taking away our freedom; you're taking away our way of life.There was no civic-mindedness to the idea that one should wear a mask to protect your neighbor.No, this was an affront to personal freedom, whether it's cigarette smoking or seat belts or whatever.These are things that Republicans have rejected initially at first until it became kind of a social norm.
So this was, yeah, this was very much in line with that.Donald Trump's calculation was, he just wanted this to go away.He wanted people to perceive there to be a magic bullet, and he wanted to produce a "them," whether it's the liberals or the Dr. Faucis or China.I mean, it's like, "This shouldn't happen; this is a hoax; you're being had."
And no responsibility from the White House at all.It was all "Join me on my fight against the people who are victimizing us," and that again was right out of the Trump playbook.
Trump and the Black Lives Matter Movement
When he's addressing Black Lives Matter and George Floyd goes from the very beginning nationwide outrage on both sides of the aisle, but by the summer feeling like the anarchists are taking over Seattle, and antifa is coming, and the threat is here.… Had the rhetoric changed inside the party?Had the types of people who were members of the Republican Party and elected to Congress, had it changed by this point in the Republican presidency as you look back at that summer of 2020?
I think it changed in that it was so completely given over to Donald Trump and there was so much respect paid to the White House.They were basically publicly going along with the posture that Donald Trump was taking.
Now, the idea of law and order, the idea of sort of going into the streets and busting heads, that's not a new position for a law-and-order administration.I mean, this was very much kind of a Nixon position in the late '60s and the early '70s.…It really played along to the sort of desires of a peaceful-seeking suburbs, right?We don't want violence in our streets; we don't want people yelling; and we don't want disorder like this.
And Donald Trump played to that, but he did it in a very ham-handed way.He talked about beating up protesters; he talked about shooting protesters.He actually—he had great desire to see shows of force like this.
… So yeah, I mean, I think this was in some ways a political opportunity for him, but at the same time, it sort of showed the limitations of what kind of the chaotic leadership that he brought to the White House was capable of.
This was such a striking moment.In Washington, what did it mean when he went out into Lafayette Square and he's got the military behind him and his advisers and he holds up the Bible?What happened in Washington when he did that?
Oh, it was a bizarre moment.It was a horrific moment.I was there that day, and all of a sudden you heard—it was sort of like the running of the bulls in Pamplona, Spain.Just heard this chaos sort of rumbling down the street, and I'm like, what is this?And you saw bodies flying and shields being thrown in the faces of people.And then in the distance you saw, like, this guy holding up a Bible.Later we found out it was the president of the United States.He had these people in uniform around him, these people in suits, these sort of thick-necked Secret Service people.
You know, a lot of Republicans at that point were saying, "This is not America."And they actually said it; a few of them said it publicly.Donald Trump was appalled that they would defy Dear Leader like that.
But no, it was not a scene we've seen in America in a long, long time.
One last thing before we go to the after-election period.Something that happens throughout, a phenomenon that happens throughout this period, which maybe you can help us describe, which is asking politicians to say, Republicans on the record to say something about a Trump tweet or a Trump statement.What was going on over those years when you would try or others would try to get on-the-record responses to things?
Yeah, it was one of the most dispiriting things you could ever go through as a reporter.Basically you would see something happen, like the clearing of Lafayette Square in this very violent, very tumultuous way, and then literally the next day a bunch of us went up to Capitol Hill, and it was the day that—the Tuesday lunch.It was a Tuesday lunch in which Republicans would all convene for their weekly caucus lunch.They'd be walking through the hallways to get to the luncheon, and you'd have a whole bunch of reporters going one after another, saying, "What did you think of this?What did you think of that?"And frankly, a lot of them would just walk by.They would say, "Didn't hear the question," "Didn't see the tweet."It was like this ridiculous Kabuki that you'd see over and over again.It was like a parade of cowardice.It was like no one wanted to sort of confront it.Occasionally you'd have an outlier like Susan Collins or Lisa Murkowski, both sort of moderate Republicans, who would sort of look askance at this.
I remember Mitch McConnell himself said that, "Many abuses were perpetrated and much of it documented."And I'm like, "What does that mean?"And he said, "Well, we'll let history take care of itself," or, "We will let the future take care of itself."I mean, he'd sort of go back to the Sphinxlike style that he's sort of been known for.
But no, it was nothing but sheer cowardice and ducking and "Let me get into the lunch, and hopefully I'll never—I won't have anything documented on the record for this moment at all."
The 2020 Election and the Republican Response
Let's go now to that period after the election.We've talked a little bit about that first moment after the election.Let me break down a little bit of it.First, for somebody like a Ted Cruz at a moment like that, or a Lindsey Graham, what did they see out of speaking publicly for a president who had just been defeated and the Republicans had lost election?What did they see in it for them, to go out and speak?
Yeah, they saw political opportunity.I mean, Lindsey Graham, in the background at least, was sort of telling people he was trying to play the grownup here; he was trying to calm the thing down; he was trying to help Donald Trump get his head around defeat and hopefully bow out gracefully and hopefully— "land the plane" was the big expression you were hearing around the White House, meaning, let's sort of bring this thing in for a landing, and hopefully there won't be any greater calamity than we've seen already, and he will eventually get on a plane and recede into private life in Mar-a-Lago and we will be done with him.
But it took a while to get there.And Donald Trump could not abide the idea of himself losing, and so Lindsey Graham was publicly saying, "Don't give up, Mr. President.There are many, many votes left to count, and this is not over by any stretch."Kevin McCarthy said the same thing.
Then privately they were telling people, "Look, this will calm down.Give it time."Lindsey Graham used to walk around the Senate repeatedly and say—people would say, "Sen. Graham, what can you do?," and he would say, "Give it time.Give it time."He would say that privately; then publicly he would sort of be egging on the president.And then, you know, in his private discussions again with the White House he would say, "OK, how do we keep him occupied?How do we make sure that he doesn't sort of escalate the situation to a point that's even more precarious than it is?And how do we get this thing to the other side of Jan. 20?"
But Lindsey Graham is publicly—he's on television raising questions about the election.We know that he was privately calling election officials in Georgia at least, so he's also working behind the scenes.… Does he have a sense that he's contributing to everything that's going on?Should he have?
Lindsey Graham was asked variations on that question countless times over the last four or five years, and he would always say, "Don't care.I don't care."You would sometimes just get the sense of just complete indifference on how history would judge the performance of someone like Lindsey Graham or Kevin McCarthy.
I remember Kevin McCarthy once said to me, "Yeah, how will history remember me?Like, where's the statue for Jeff Flake here in the Capitol?," meaning, "Hey, if I get to be speaker of the House, there'll be a statue of me one day, and Jeff Flake isn't getting a statue because he got voted out of the Senate or he retired from the Senate rather than play along with Donald Trump."So that's sort of how they viewed history in this context.
Is that something McCarthy returns to again and again, that people are defeated if they go against him?Is that the central—
Absolutely.No, it's the definition of opportunism.I mean, Kevin McCarthy wants to win, like Donald Trump.I mean, Kevin McCarthy wants a job.Kevin McCarthy thinks that every compromise he made, every sort of calculation he made over the last several years will be instantly redeemed if he gets to be speaker of the House for at least one term.And he believes he is positioned in January of 2023 to be the next Republican speaker of the House.He is willing to do what it takes to get there, and that to him is the end of the story.
… Mitch McConnell, where is he in this period?He's watched Trump lose.He decides to be silent for over a month.
Yeah.Mitch McConnell, his calculation was pretty simple.On Jan. 5, there was a runoff election in Georgia between the two Republicans, Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue, who were incumbents, who, because they didn't get 50% of the vote in November, had to win a runoff election in order to keep their seats.It just so happened that these two seats were the decisive two seats that would decide control of the Senate, and Mitch McConnell wanted to keep the seats.
So he thought, his calculation at this point was, we need to keep the interest of the base.The base likes Donald Trump.If we alienate Donald Trump during this period, we're probably going to lose a lot of these voters, and I'm going to lose the Senate.That's exactly what happened.
But, you know, at least through Jan. 5, Mitch McConnell was kind of keeping his powder dry, hoping that the base would sort of do its part and perpetuate his own tenure as majority leader.
He does finally, I guess in the middle of December, acknowledge that Biden is the winner.Was that an important moment?Was that moment too late in the story of what would happen?
Yeah, I mean, it took a while.Mitch McConnell would say, though, that, "Look, I was waiting for every legal channel to be exhausted."He then congratulated President-Elect Joe Biden.He was one of the first high-ranking Republicans to do that.It was a bare minimum, but it was something at least.
And look, Mitch McConnell, like Lindsey Graham to some degree, like former Attorney General William Barr to some degree, they were all "land the plane" people.They had seen what kind of damage had been done.They just wanted to get to Jan. 20, and they were willing to do what it took.And they thought that if you needed to humor Donald Trump this way for a while, that was sort of the price of doing business, and that was the price of getting to Jan. 20.
If you know the story, how important was Barr in that period when the president is pressuring him to get the Department of Justice involved and he's pushing back?He issues a statement about the election.How crucial was he?
Well, again, Bill Barr was probably as important an ally as Donald Trump had in the Cabinet during the … two years he spent at the Justice Department.Bill Barr did the bare minimum at the end.Mike Pence did the bare minimum at the end.He certified the election.He presided over the counting of the electoral votes.Bill Barr basically said, "I didn't find any proof of any kind of significant voter fraud that would have turned the result."Again, truthful and bare minimum and in line with the law.
You can credit them for that, or you can say it's too little too late, or it's the bare minimum.Ultimately Donald Trump sees them as betrayers, and there's probably nothing that's going to change his mind on that.And they did what they did, and maybe it helped get us to this point also.
We talked about Ted Cruz, Lindsey Graham, Kevin McCarthy.I'll ask you about them and about Republicans generally during this period, which is, do they believe what they are saying when they go onto Fox News and make allegations about the election?
No, they don't.They do not believe what they are saying.They are saying something completely different in public than they will say in private.They think that—they know in their heart of hearts that this is a completely legitimate election.I've heard them say it privately over and over again, and they are say something differently in public.
Now, you could say, "Hey, news flash: Politicians are hypocrites.They say different things in public than they do in private.Wow, what a great revelation."Look, to me, it's a very cynical thing to say, and this is actually an extremely high-stakes issue that is the essence of democracy, is the essence of legitimacy, and this is basically the thing that we're going to remember about these days more than any other thing.
… How serious was the effort to overturn the election that was coming from the Trump White House?
We are learning every day that it was extremely serious.They were going for it.They were going for it from the White House.A number of members of Congress seemed to be taking measures that would have undermined the county.There were obviously many layers of planning around the insurrection, the really kind of repellant day of violence that will—that's never been seen before in hundreds of years of our history.
So yeah, they were serious.I mean, were they incompetent about it?Yes.Were they chaotic about it?Yes.Did they cover their tracks?Not, obviously, very well.Will there be a price for it?They would probably say they hope not.I mean, I think politicians in general will do what they can get away with.And they got away with a great deal.
Liz Cheney and the 2020 Election
Let's talk about Liz Cheney in this period, because she does really come to the forefront as somebody who's pushing back against this in those conferences with Kevin McCarthy.Can you describe her?Let's just start with her approach, and why does she go in a different direction than others if she's also an ambitious politician?
I would say that Liz Cheney—I mean, she would say that Jan. 6 changed everything for her.I would say that it probably changed a little earlier for her.I mean, she was legitimately appalled by all the talk about the stolen election, the rigged election, which was a complete lie.I mean, she knew it was a lie at the time.She basically said as much.She became that much more vocal after her life was threatened, and she was in grave danger on Jan. 6.
So yeah, something snapped for Liz Cheney.And to her credit, I think, she hasn't come back.A lot of Republicans kind of were scared straight on Jan. 6, and they were like, "OK, we're going to move on.This is the point where we move on from Donald Trump.This is the off-ramp that we're all going to take."Lasted a few days—a few weeks in Kevin McCarthy's case.
Liz Cheney stuck with it, and she very well could pay for it with her job.And she seems to think that the price is worth it in her mind.
She does something that reminds me of how Dick Cheney might have operated in a different Washington, writes a big memo about election claims.… She helps to coordinate Dick Cheney and other former defense secretaries writing an op-ed.… Why doesn't that work inside the Republican Party, in the caucus?
Well, you know, a Democrat, Adam Schiff, said to me that the story of the Republican Party during these years could basically be told from a perspective of Adam Kinzinger and Liz Cheney.Adam Kinzinger, like Liz Cheney, was a very defiant sort of pro-impeachment Republican.Unfortunately, Adam Schiff said, there were only two of them and 200-plus other Republicans who were willing to, whether for reasons of cowardice, calculation, lack of conscience, were willing to just sort of go along because they didn't need the hassle of defying Donald Trump.And that just shows how unique a figure Liz Cheney has become in a time like this.
Do you think it would have worked in a different era, marshaling arguments and writing memos and organizing op-eds?Does it say something about our times?
Possibly.I think it might have.Probably not, because I think rank opportunism is not new.It was in place 30 years ago, 40 years ago, 100 years ago.But look, Liz Cheney I think has reached the point of no return, where she thinks that I'm living for history; I'm a student of history; my family has studied history.
And yeah, Liz Cheney has legitimately—she's worked in parts of the world where democracy is not a guaranteed sure thing.She's worked in the Middle East.She's worked in regimes that were not democratic by any stretch of the imagination.She's studied history.
She, unlike pretty much anyone else in their party, is willing to throw herself before the court of history and sort of see where it takes her.
… How would you describe Kevin McCarthy's role during that period when they're asking him on conference calls, "What should we do?"This is in the run-up to Jan. 6.
Yeah, I mean, Kevin McCarthy is a coward.He's an opportunist.He is someone who will take the temperature of his caucus, he will take the temperature of Donald Trump, and he does not want to get crosswise with anyone.He needs the votes that it takes to become speaker of the House.He needs Donald Trump's blessing to become speaker of the House.He will do anything it takes to stay on the right side of that calculation.
Pressure on Pence
You said that Mike Pence did the bare minimum of what was required of him for his job.But can you describe the pressure that he's under given who he was during the Trump presidency and then these interactions that he's having with Trump?What would that moment be like for Mike Pence?
Look, Mike Pence—I mean, we know all too well now that Mike Pence was under tremendous pressure.President Donald Trump was telling him several times a day, "You're going to do the right thing, Mike.We need you to do this."He was hitting all the pressure points.He was saying, "Look, after—you know, you wouldn't be here if it wasn't for me.This is what we need you to do.Be a team player.Be strong.Don't be weak."You know, hit all the greatest hits, right?
And ultimately I think Mike Pence probably, if there was a way he could have made the boss happy, probably would have figured out a way to sort of throw the Electoral College certification into even greater chaos than there was.And, you know, that would be a real jump ball.I think ultimately Mike Pence could not find any kind of legal way to do this, and I think ultimately he's paid a price for it inside his own party.He's paid the price for it with his relationship with Donald Trump.And it's unclear to me whether he would do anything differently if he could have.So that's the bare minimum.
Was it just that Trump had finally asked something that was too much? …
Yeah, I think that is it in a nutshell.Mike Pence—you know, finally Donald Trump asked Mike Pence to do something he could not figure out a way to do.
Jan. 6 and the Aftermath
Let's go to Jan. 6 and to that moment, which is quite dramatic.Pence issues his statement that he's not going to follow what the president wants to do, and he's going to just do his job under the Constitution, and it almost feels like Trump is resorting to the crowd in that speech, to the mob.Can you describe that moment and Trump, especially in terms of Liz Cheney and Pence, and what he says in that moment and what that moment says about American democracy?
Well, this was mob rule.I mean, this was mob rule in a nutshell.Donald Trump's last best hope, he thought, was to stir up this mob of his own supporters outside the White House, send them down to the Capitol, inspire them to do whatever.He kept it vague enough so that he wasn't giving direct orders to say, you know, go kill a bunch of police officers.
But look, he clearly was stirring up nothing but trouble.He calls out Liz Cheney.He calls out Mike Pence.It was an extremely nerve-wracking and bizarre and chaotic and scary moment.
And Donald Trump said, "I'll be right there with you.I'm going to go to the Capitol right there with you."As it turned out, he went in the exact opposite direction.Went to the most secure place in Washington, which is the White House, far more secure than the Capitol, obviously.Sat there and watched it all unfold on TV.
So he was really the opposite of the guy who was right there with you; he was the guy who went in the other direction and just watched and did nothing while all of their lives were in danger.
And yeah, it was an incredibly surreal, disturbing and really just singular moment in American history.
There's a moment when Kevin McCarthy calls Trump and is trying to get him to call off the protesters, to issue a tweet.Can you help us understand that?One of the things that interests me is that for everything McCarthy has done for Trump and all that he has helped him, what does he get back from Trump?Can you describe that moment and that crucial time when he wants something from the president, what he gets?
Yeah.To use a clinical term, Kevin McCarthy was freaking out at this moment.Kevin McCarthy, he's being threatened from all directions.Everyone is calling him and saying, "Kevin, do something!Call the president!Do something!"And so Kevin McCarthy is being confronted with all of this, knowing that his own life is being threatened, knowing that his own members' lives are being threatened.And at the same time, there's this sort of immovable object on the other end of the phone, Donald Trump, who he has really no history of speaking truth to.
And so he's kind of pressured to say, "Mr. President, can you please call off the wolves here?"Not a direct quote, but basically saying, "Can you do something here?"The phone conversation apparently got heated, although Donald Trump denies that it got heated.Kevin McCarthy wants people to think that he tried to talk down Donald Trump.There are varying accounts of this.
But so, yeah, no, Kevin McCarthy was scared.He was—you know, Kevin McCarthy, for as small as he's sort of proven himself to be over these years, is ultimately a very human figure.He's just a very limited figure, and all he could really do at that moment was to say into the phone, "Mr. President, please do something."He was helpless like everyone was.And it seemed like the only person who could do anything wasn't doing anything.
And when Trump finally does record that video, what is it, and is it what Kevin McCarthy would have been hoping for?
No, not at all.Kevin McCarthy subsequently says, "Oh, well, he went on TV like he said he did."So Kevin McCarthy's declaring victory.I remember Mitt Romney telling me there was a roomful of senators who were in the safe room basically to protect them from the people ransacking the Capitol, and they have a TV on, and that actually showed Trump's speech.And Romney said it was a terrible speech; it was awful.Everyone in the Senate, Republicans, Democrats who were sort of confined in the safe room together, just shaking their heads.Then Biden came on about an hour later, and Romney said, "Finally this is what a president should say."And they actually had an ovation among Republicans and Democrats in the Senate for Joe Biden on TV.
It was a bizarre moment, but I don't think anyone was satisfied that Donald Trump had anything to do with calling off the wolves at this moment.
… What happens with Lindsey Graham in that moment?
Yeah, Lindsey Graham seemed to speak for everyone in the Republican Party, at least when I was watching that.Lindsey Graham gets up and says, "Mr. President, we've had a hell of a journey, but I'm out.Enough is enough."
And it sounded like Lindsey Graham, at long last, was severing his ties with Donald Trump and saying, "OK, it is time to move on, and we're done."And he had this exhausted kind of like, kind of washed-out look on his face.He looked just like completely at the end of his rope.
I remember Susan Collins, the senator from Maine, said, "When I saw Lindsey, he was speaking for me.I think he spoke for all of us.We are moving on from this; enough is enough."
Turns out that "enough is enough" was referring, in Lindsey Graham's words, to, "Well, we're not going to litigate this election debate anymore; enough is enough for this election."He came back around maybe a couple days later and was back on the Trump train. …It seemed like a moment where finally the fever had broken and we had moved on to the next chapter.
In those days immediately after Jan. 6 when there's talk of impeachment, you had things like the Lindsey Graham speech.Was there a feeling like maybe finally the Republican Party is going to break with Trump?Was that real?
It was an absolutely real feeling.I think a lot of people were saying, "OK, enough."Kevin McCarthy, you know, it's been reported since then, was apparently going to ask Trump for his resignation.McConnell, if he were speaking to Trump—and he wasn't at that point—probably would have asked him the same thing.He was sort of quietly having conversations, McConnell was, about Democrats possibly convicting Donald Trump to ensure that he would be out of their hair again.I think Mitch McConnell was hoping that Democrats would take care of this problem for him by impeaching him and convicting him.
When it was clear to Mitch McConnell that the votes weren't there, he kind of went back in the other direction.He said, "We're not holding a Senate trial till after the inauguration," and that then gave a permission structure for Republicans to say, "Oh, well, he's out of office anyway; what are we impeaching him for?"So they then had deniability.
And then there was a sense of shellshock around the Capitol, around Washington like I've never seen before.Biden's inaugurated.You've got 25,000 National Guard troops in the street, which is more than we had in Afghanistan and Iraq combined at that moment—an utterly unprecedented event where the president was being inaugurated at the site of probably the biggest crime scene in American history at that moment, where there had been an insurrection two weeks earlier; a two-week period that was bisected by an impeachment one week earlier.And then all of a sudden, you know, it's Jan. 21, and we have this shell-shocked new administration in there who had no benefit of any transition.
And then, lo and behold, a week later, Kevin McCarthy turns up in Mar-a-Lago in Florida having this photo op with Donald Trump.And then lo and behold, Donald Trump is on the road to rehabilitation.
… So let's look at the House, where you've got Liz Cheney, who is apparently outraged.Describe her attitude and whether she thinks other Republicans are going to go along with her.
Yeah, it looked like there were probably going to be votes for—you know, a lot of Republican votes for impeachment.I don't know if there was going to be more than 50, more than 100, but at least a lot of Republicans I talked to privately during that period were saying, "Yeah, we are open to impeachment."I think a lot of them didn't do it because, quite frankly, they were afraid of their own physical well-being.I mean, they were getting death threats; their family was being threatened.
To me, this is the essence of authoritarianism.It's actually being intimidated into voting a certain way not by any debate, not by any political calculation, but by the threat of physical intimidation.This is authoritarian regime stuff.And there were a number of Republicans who were voting in that way.And they were telling each other that.And they were talking about where to get body armor.And they were freaked out.There's really no other way of saying it.
And there were very few Republicans who were willing to actually go the next step and actually vote to impeach Donald Trump.And Liz Cheney was one of 10, and most of them haven’t been terribly vocal since then.Liz Cheney is an exception.
That's amazing, that that threat of physical violence, that what happened on Jan. 6, that those threats were coming.You're saying that they actually did work, that in America threats of violence—
Yes, that is 100% true.Threats of violence were very effective.Starting with Donald Trump and sort of the mob on down to his supporters, they scared a lot of Republican sort of backbench voters—or Republican members of Congress to a point where they couldn't vote in a way that they perhaps wanted to.
Wow.
Again, the essence of authoritarianism.
And Liz Cheney, as she's watching this, watching it melt, the support that she thinks she had, what is that like for her, or what is she seeing?
I think it's demoralizing.It certainly—it derailed her career.It certainly broke her with the party that her family has been royalty in for her entire life.You know, I interviewed Liz Cheney a few months after that happened, and she was out in Wyoming.Again, she is royalty in Wyoming.The Cheney name is everywhere.And, you know, we had to do our interview in a secure, undisclosed location in the Dick Cheney Federal Building in downtown Casper.You sort of get in there, it was like getting into a prison.It was like you'd have guards everywhere.You'd have checkpoints.You'd have metal detectors.You'd have armed guards everywhere.Again, it really reminded me of these scenes you see of Kyiv now where President Zelenskyy is sort of marching through the streets, and the only way you can get to him is to go through a phalanx of security forces.
You know, that's what it means to sort of wage a lonely fight against your own party in the age of Donald Trump.And Liz Cheney is living that.
One of the explanations that some Republicans gave was that this was political; the president had already lost; … that this was all a partisan endeavor, and they didn't include Cheney, for example, as a manager.Was there some truth in that in the view that it had become politicized almost immediately after Jan. 6 and that Democrats had some role in that?
Yeah.I mean, look, Democrats were, I think, legitimately extremely furious at this.I think that echoed the fury of a lot of Republicans.But look, this is sort of the same old Washington game that we play that reflects into the game that you know and that's partisanship.And that's been the rules of the road in Washington, even to the extreme degree that we're seeing, for many, many years now.
So it's sort of a safe place for everyone to be in, but I think what's unsafe about it is, where can it all lead?
… McCarthy seems to want to have a big caucus.This is in February.He seems to want to keep Liz Cheney at that point and all of the other elements inside the caucus.And it seems like they're asking Liz Cheney to just be quiet on Jan. 6.Why won't she be?Everybody else in this story is happy to be quiet, and she's not happy to be quiet about Jan. 6.Tell me the story of how she handles that post-Jan. 6 period and her clash with McCarthy.
I obviously can't see inside Liz Cheney's heart or head or calculation at all, but I think it's pretty simple: She crossed the Rubicon.I mean, she experienced Jan. 6 to a point where it was so traumatic she can't come back from it.She made the decision that this is not worth keeping my job over; this is not worth sacrificing my principles over.I'm going to fight this battle.If it costs me my job, so be it.It's worth it.The verdict of history is worth it to me.This is what I'm willing to do.
And can somebody like a Kevin McCarthy understand what Liz Cheney is doing?How does he see her in that period?
Yeah, he sees her as a nuisance.You know, when you want to be the leader of the Republican Party, especially in a caucus that is beholden to someone who is not you—Donald Trump—you do what it takes to get along.So I don't think that Kevin McCarthy doesn't understand the calculation that Liz Cheney is operating from, but I don't expect him to have the same character that she does.
And how hard does he swing against her once he makes that decision?
No, I mean, Donald—I mean, Kevin McCarthy, as soon as he turned against Liz Cheney and Liz Cheney turned against him, he's all in.He wants to see her defeated in her Republican primary, which is highly unusual.He is supporting Liz Cheney's Republican primary opponent in Wyoming.And yeah, he would love nothing more than to be rid of her because she's a nuisance.
An amazing transformation in just such a short period of time, and given everything he said.
Yeah, Donald Trump—I mean, it's so interesting.Donald Trump said he was going to drain the swamp.In some ways he perfected the swamp, right?He kind of—the picture—I mean, Donald Trump ran saying that he was going to prove that politicians are weak and feckless and they can be molded to his wishes.And he was proven right again and again.Republicans were ripe to be taken over, and Donald Trump took them over.
… The last character, just to return to him, is Lindsey Graham.We left him, and he was done with Donald Trump.Where does he end up?And what's that journey?
Lindsey Graham wound up where he always wants to be, which is in the Senate.Lindsey Graham and Mitch McConnell were both reelected in 2020, OK?That gives them six more years in the U.S. Senate.And these are two creatures who could not conceive of their lives outside of the U.S. Senate.As Lindsey Graham said before, if you don't want to be reelected, you're in the wrong business.
Lindsey Graham is chair—is in position to be chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee again if Republicans win in 2022.He's good friends with Donald Trump, gets to golf with him down in Mar-a-Lago.He thinks that's cool.Never underestimate the value of something being cool in politics.Lindsey Graham thinks it's cool to be invited down to Mar-a-Lago and to golf with the president of the United States—or the former president of the United States, possibly the future president of the United States.
Lindsey Graham is in the mix.He loves nothing more than being in the mix.
I think you said Lindsey Graham was saying … that it's time to move on from Jan. 6, and it's time to move on from the 2020 election, and there's reporting that's one of the things he says that he's telling Donald Trump.Once again, is he having any influence over Trump, and does it matter to him?If his goal is to stop talking about 2020 and he's not succeeding, does it bother him that he's not?
It seems not to.He might have wanted to move on from Jan. 6, but then everyone woke up the next day, and guess what?It was Jan. 7, and Jan. 7 is just another day forward for Lindsey Graham and the U.S. Senate.And he just sort of wanted to do what it would take.And look, it's more fun for him when the president of the United States is someone he can golf with rather than the former president.
The Future of the Republican Party
… One of those moments that sort of clarifies things a little bit is that Jan. 6 anniversary with Liz Cheney and her father are the only Republicans there.… There's about to be the RNC statement on Cheney and "legitimate political discourse."Can you describe where the Republican Party is in the context of that moment? …
Oh, it was so stark.I mean, Liz Cheney—I mean, really the only Republicans who were present that day was Liz Cheney and her father.Again, her father, probably the most reviled figure in the Republican Party during the Bush years—you know, George W. Bush's vice president, Darth Vader, Dick Cheney.Here he was, back in the House where he used to roam, with his daughter, and it's just the two of them.That is the Republican Party.That is what's left of the Republican Party.And there was this receiving line of Democrats sort of walking across the room wishing them well, like it was old home week.Even Nancy Pelosi was doing this.
It was kind of a just smack-your-head kind of moment.It was just like, whoa, what happened here?What is left of this party?Where are they going from here?
And Dick Cheney, you know, he's 80 years old; he's not going to be around much longer.Insomuch as he thinks about legacy, it's right there with his daughter, but it's unclear how much longer his daughter will have to fight this fight also, and whether there's an appetite for it at all inside the Republican Party.
How much has the Republican Party been reshaped by what happened after Jan. 6 and the election fraud claims and talk of voter fraud?How much of a turning point was Jan. 6 in how Republicans see themselves?
As it turned out, it wasn't the turning point that a lot of people thought it was.I mean, Donald Trump is as in control of the party that day as he is today, which is almost a year and a half later, or almost two years later.So everyone thought that it felt like this seminal moment, this seminal turning point.Turns out it wasn't.It's very much of a piece on the continuum of Donald Trump taking over the Republican Party, which was the story in 2016, and it remains the story in 2022.
You said that one of the things that this Jan. 6 moment and the fear that people have of violence, it's almost authoritarian politics is at play.Is that part of the party now?
Yeah.It's not something people talk about a lot, but I think it is part of the party now.I mean, look, death threats are no fun, you know?Physical intimidation is no fun.And again, people don't like to talk about it, and members of Congress are encouraged not to talk about it.We don't talk about security issues.But yeah, it's if not in the back of their mind, it's certainly pretty close to the front of their mind at this point.
And they all talk about it privately.They all think about it.It's definitely a factor in the way they live their lives.
… What are the consequences for American democracy of where we've left this party, where we've left America at this moment and what we've been talking about?
Look, I think the toll is really scary.I think we will sort of see—I mean, the midterms are coming up in November of 2022, and then the next presidential election is coming up in November of 2024, and I don't think anyone can sit here confidently and say that the results will be accepted, there will be peaceful transfers of power, that it will go off without a hitch, that the winners will be seen as legitimate winners and legitimate leaders.That is not a very good place to be if you're in a healthy democracy.
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