The FRONTLINE Interviews

Michael Kranish

The Washington Post

Michael Kranish is a national political investigative reporter for The Washington Post and the co-author, with Marc Fisher, of Trump Revealed: The Definitive Biography of the 45th President.

The following interview was conducted by the Kirk Documentary Group’s Mike Wiser for FRONTLINE on April 27, 2022. It has been edited for clarity and length.

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Lies, Politics and Democracy

The Choice 2024

Trump’s Comeback

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Michael Kranish

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Cruz’s Response to Trump’s Allegations of Fraud

There is a crucial moment with Ted Cruz, which really happens in the first week after the election, which is Trump has come out.He's said, "Frankly, this election was stolen," and there's a period of silence.… Ted Cruz is one of the first people who comes out and starts pushing the conspiracy theories about the election being stolen.Can you give us a sense of Ted Cruz's importance, of that decision that he makes, that he's going to get out there early, that he's going to push this fraud theory?

Well, two days after the election, Ted Cruz appears on The Sean Hannity Show on Fox News, and he says that Democrats were trying to potentially steal the election.So this was one of the first sitting members of Congress with such a strong following to come out and make that kind of a statement.He didn't directly say it was stolen, essentially, as Trump was doing.But he started to feed that idea.And that was pretty significant for him to come out, just two days after the election, laying that out for the millions of people who were watching Sean Hannity's show with great interest, many of them believing what Trump was saying, who were Trump supporters, that the election had been stolen.And Cruz really was, right from the start, instrumental to that.

How important was that, at that moment for Trump?He's come out and said it; Don Jr. has said it; and Steve Bannon's been saying it on a podcast; and Alex Jones.How important was it for everything that would happen, that somebody like a Ted Cruz would come out so early and say it?

Well, Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, you know, a lot of people are critical of him, but within the Republican Party and the conservative community particularly, he does have a strong following.So for him to come out and basically say this election potentially might have been stolen, Democrats are breaking the law in Pennsylvania, he said; that has an impact.He's not just some freshman member of Congress.He's not a backbencher.He had run for president; he had come in second.So he does have a following.And he was a Harvard-trained lawyer.

So there are a lot of people who took what he said perhaps even more seriously than what Trump said.Certainly they took what he said, a lot of them, for example, more seriously, for example, than what Rudy Giuliani, a Trump lawyer, might have said.So it was significant that it was Ted Cruz saying this.

What would be motivating him at that point?Don Jr. had come out and said, "Where are the 2024 contenders?"But he didn't have to go out; he didn't have to step up and do this.What would be, from your understanding—what motivated him to step forward at that moment?

Well, Ted Cruz really had battled tremendously with Trump in the 2016 primary.They had attacked each other mercilessly.Trump had attacked Cruz's wife, Cruz's father.Cruz had called Trump a buffoon, said he wasn't qualified to be president.So they eventually made amends when Trump became the nominee.Even at the Republican convention in Cleveland, Cruz did not endorse him.He got booed off the stage.

… In September 2016, there was a quid pro quo.And Cruz said to Trump, "If you will pick a Supreme Court nominee from a list that I approve, then I'll back you."And after some back-and-forth, Trump did agree to that.And so Trump went from calling Cruz "Lyin' Ted" to calling him "Beautiful Ted."And that was important, particularly when The Washington Post revealed its Hollywood Access tape reporting that showed Trump speaking derogatively about women.Cruz stood by him at that moment.

So Cruz was an important ally for Trump, and helped him win the election, and then was very supportive of Trump during the presidency.So when you get to 2020 and the reelection effort, you certainly have Cruz, you know, wanting the base.He does see himself certainly as another presidential candidate in the future.So for Cruz—you can certainly make this argument, and there'd be a lot of people who agree with him—so for him, perhaps he didn't see it as a, you know, "How could he lose?" Even though his closest allies, some of them who I interviewed, said this went against his principles as a federal constitutionalist to say that, you know, what he wanted to do later on could occur.

The 2016 Election

… We may go back to Iowa in 2016, where Cruz has won the caucus, and Trump accuses Cruz of having rigged the election and says that … the caucus was fraudulent.Can you help us understand Ted Cruz in that moment, who he is in 2016 when he's in that contest with Donald Trump, and Trump's making allegations like that?

Well, Cruz, like a lot of the people who ran against Trump, didn't really take him seriously.There was this concern among Trump's opponents that they believed he would lose in the end, the primary, so they didn't want to alienate Trump early on, or Trump supporters.So they didn't go after him as strongly as they might have.In retrospect, some of those candidates and their advisers have said they wished they had gone all-out against Trump at the beginning, but they just didn't believe in those early days that Trump would be the nominee, and they felt they needed Trump and Trump's backers later on.So they held back to some degree.

It was only later you saw some of the most strong attacks by Cruz and others against Trump, particularly when they went, for example, to New Hampshire and the New Hampshire primary, which Trump won.

And who was Cruz politically?How was he selling himself in 2016?How was he different than Trump?What was that he was presenting himself to the voters as?

Well, Cruz, like a lot of candidates in the race, were saying, "I'm the true conservative in the race."He certainly had a lot of conservative credentials.He had the background as this constitutional scholar, so he was respected by some people who really believed that was important.There's no question that he was a very conservative candidate.

Trump, you know, by contrast, had been a Democrat; he'd switched his party affiliation seven times over the years.He'd been a liberal; he'd been a conservative, whatever it seemed to be, you know, would get him to the moment.Trump had been a chameleon in his politics; there's just no question.You look at his record going back.He'd considered a run for president before.

So the conservatives in the race didn't see Trump as a true conservative, but Trump saw something else.He saw a way to reach out to all sorts of working-class people in a different way.And so he had a different path to a candidacy than someone like Cruz, who thought he could win in, certainly, the early states, where the true conservatives are most likely to come out in the greatest numbers.

Cruz’s Credentials

… The question is, because he's going to play this crucial role after the election in 2020, what was he presenting himself in 2016 as, when he would say, "I'm a constitutional conservative"?What was the background that he was selling?What was it that he was selling about himself?

Well, Ted Cruz, who's a Harvard-trained lawyer, he really had presented himself as a deeply conservative constitutionalist, that the Constitution was very important to him, that he was going to base his presidency in part on who he could pick as a conservative for the Supreme Court.So all those things were very attractive, especially to Republican Party primary- and caucus-goers.That is a big issue for a lot of them, because they see that as having an even longer-term effect on the nation's cultural and social and political policy than a lot of other things.Presidents may come and go; Supreme Court justices stay a lot longer.

So he really did base a lot of his selling point on that, and it was a strong selling point.Of course, all the candidates on the Republican side basically said that, but for Cruz, he could point out, he had this background; he'd been solicitor general of Texas; he'd argued before the Supreme Court a number of times.He did genuinely have that background, whatever you think of his politics.

One of the things you note in your article is that he had a role, or he was present at least, in the Gore v. Bush moment.And what does that say about him?What should we know about that?

… If you go back to 2000, Ted Cruz wasn't particularly well known.He had worked with the George W. Bush campaign, and he was asked to come to Florida to help work on the Gore v. Bush contest, the legal contest that would go to the U.S. Supreme Court.And Cruz has written that he thought that Democrats were trying to steal the election in 2000, basically using the same phraseology that he and others and Trump would use all those years later, in 2020.

So he had sort of set the stage for this.And by his account, he played a major role in helping Bush win that election.There were a lot of other lawyers who were involved, but there's no question that Cruz was involved in that case.And he's said that he worked for days to try to help the George W. Bush campaign win that case in the Supreme Court.

That's really amazing.Two decades separate these two roles.Can you help us understand that conflict that plays out between Ted Cruz and between Donald Trump, just the lengths that they're both willing to go?And it does seem, to some extent, that one of them is willing to go even farther than the other.But can you describe that conflict between Trump and Cruz in the primaries?

Well, in the primaries, Cruz did not go after Trump as much as he might have.His campaign adviser later said he sort of wished that he'd gone after Trump more on issues like abortion, for example.But Cruz, apparently the campaign had this concern that if they went after Trump all-out at the beginning of the primaries and Trump lost, they'd have a hard time getting Trump's endorsement, have a hard time getting Trump's backers, so they held back a little bit.

Certainly he went after Trump, but in the Iowa caucus lead-up, not as much as he might have.By the time they got to New Hampshire, you know, it was all-out, and then as things went on, even further.So they were very much at odds.Trump went after Cruz's wife, went after Cruz's father.Cruz went after Trump, saying he was a buffoon; he wasn't qualified to be president.

So they were really as much enemies within one party as it seemed you could be.It would be hard to imagine they would become so allied later on in the campaign and then four years later.

… Were there warning signs about who Trump would be after the 2020 election that you could see back in 2016?

Well, when it comes to Trump, I think you can see a lot of the signs of the way he ran for presidency in 2016, the way he was president, you could see throughout his life; you can see throughout his career.When there was a beating, severe beating of a woman in Central Park, for example, he took out ads in the New York City newspapers and essentially said there should be a death penalty.You know, these people were later exonerated; he never apologized for that.

The use of identity politics, of understanding that there's this technique that some politicians use of going after what's called "the other," this concern among some people who have been in the majority that they'll become the minority, Trump was adept at playing in to that.He used that to his advantage.A number of other Republicans in that field, that was not where they were going.Jeb Bush, for example, who was considered initially to be a leading contender, he wanted to work very hard to get the Hispanic vote.By contrast, Trump came down the escalator and attacked immigrants from Mexico.

So Trump had a very different approach to the way he campaigned.So that was also different from the way Cruz campaigned.So Trump, starting out at 1%, you know, he saw a different way, a different model to get to the primary that was dismissed by most of the Republican strategists and so forth.But, you know, it worked for him, and then the other candidates had to find a way to combat against that.And they basically watched the party become Trump's party.

What Trump Offered Voters

When you watch that speech with Trump at the convention where he comes out and says, "I alone can fix this," it was surprising to a lot of people at the time, and you look back at it now and wonder, was he selling a strongman?Was that what he was selling?Was that surprising for you, when you saw that?And what message did that send?

No, that didn't surprise me at all.Trump, you know, as a businessperson, he had written that narcissism can be good; he actually wrote in one of his books about the power of narcissism.There can be narcissists that are just self-interested; there can be narcissists who do things for the public good.You know, he saw himself as someone who would be all about me.He thought that was the way to be successful.

Now, as a businessperson, oftentimes he was not successful.Six corporate bankruptcies have been well documented, about a lot of business failures he had.But he was very adept at presenting himself as successful on the television show The Apprentice.

So, no, when he said, "I alone can fix it," that was very much in line with what Trump had said throughout his career, because that's the way that he pitched himself to the public.And even though his business career did not always show that was true, with all the bankruptcies by corporations, it was the way people saw him to a great degree on television, as a television star in a reality show called The Apprentice.

… [Can you help us understand] the decision that Ted Cruz faces going into the convention about whether he's going to endorse Donald Trump, and what he decides and what's the consequence of that?

Well, when you come to the convention in Cleveland in 2016, where Trump is the nominee, there were still some people thinking, you know, maybe this won't happen; maybe there's a way to get around it.There's still people in the party who didn't want to back Trump; they just thought he was going to lose, and maybe there will be some alternative.It was wishful thinking on the part of some Republicans in the party.

But Ted Cruz, when he got up on stage, he did not formally issue an endorsement.Instead, basically, he told the convention that you should "vote your conscience."And at that, he was booed off the stage, and it was only weeks later that Cruz did come out and endorse Trump, when they made a deal.But it was pretty significant.Some people thought this was wise of Cruz, because they thought Trump would go away, and he was going to lose overwhelmingly to Hillary Clinton.Of course that didn't happen.Trump won.And so the fact that Cruz later endorsed, that gave him a way to say, you know, I backed him when it was important.But at the convention, you know, it just underscored that they had this extraordinary split throughout the year.

Do we know what Cruz took or what the … Republican Party took from that moment, from Ted Cruz being booed?

You know, it's interesting.I talked to some advisers to Cruz—quite a lot of them, actually—and one of them said that moment at which the crowd booed Cruz off the stage, people had to protect his wife, who was on the floor.There was some concern about their safety, that he hadn't come out and endorsed Trump.One person said it was like having the political version of post-traumatic stress disorder: that he was just so overwhelmed by this idea, that the party that he had spent so much time courting, would boo him off the stage.It was a pretty traumatic moment, and he had to do a lot of soul-searching as to how he wanted to go forward, whether he could bring himself to endorse this person.And he eventually did, when he basically brokered that deal in September, in which Trump agreed to pick a Supreme Court nominee, if he was elected, from a Cruz-approved list.

… Usually people talk about a deal between the Republican Party, between Trump, and here it seems to be very explicit.So can you help us understand, as Cruz describes it, what it was that got his endorsement?

Well, in politics, usually it's not a good thing to admit that you engaged in a quid pro quo; basically, in exchange for something, you gave someone your support or vote.Oftentimes people will deny that.In this case, several weeks after the Republican convention, Cruz, Cruz's aides, Trump, Trump's aides, they all were talking back and forth about getting Cruz's endorsement.It was felt important to the Trump campaign that they win the support of conservatives, so even though Trump was very upset, called Ted Cruz "Lyin' Ted" and so forth and attacked him, they still felt it would be important to get Cruz's support.

So Cruz had basically laid out a marker to get his support, and that was for Trump, if he was elected, to pick a Supreme Court nominee from a list that Cruz had already approved.Initially there was some pushback to that, but in the end, that is what happened.There was some reporting about this at the time and over the years, but in one of his memoirs, Cruz said that "The price of my support was explicit."Trump had to do this.Trump had to make this quid pro quo.So Cruz very bluntly has acknowledged making that deal with Trump.

It's interesting, because Trump had made promises about judges before that, and he had made that a big thing.But it's so interesting that Cruz would make it public, that he would write about it as a deal in those terms.

Well, Cruz wanted to show that he had influence.I mean, this was a way for Cruz to tell people, "Look, I got this for you"; that "I had influence"; you know, that after all the feuding between Trump and Cruz, that they were able to come to an understanding.And for a lot of Republicans and certainly for Cruz, the power to have a Supreme Court nominee was overwhelming.

They would often say, [many Republicans] would say, "I don't really like Trump personally; I don't like his politics; I don't like things he's done, but I think he'll get a Supreme Court nominee that I like, so therefore I'll put everything else aside and support him," because they thought he would get the Supreme Court nominees that they liked.

And on Cruz's side of the deal, he's offering his endorsement, but what else is he offering?What is the transformation that happens to Ted Cruz at that moment, that we'll see play out over the Trump presidency?

Well, like a lot of Republicans who initially dismissed Trump, attacked Trump, said he was unqualified, basically they wanted to be on the side of a winner.They saw that Trump was winning over the party base, and they didn't want to be separated from that.So you saw many, many Republicans, including a number of those who ran against him—not all, but many—eventually come to his side.He was the nominee.You'd hear Republicans say, "Well, I'll support the nominee of the party."Even a number of people who called themselves Never Trumpers did that.Some, you know, did not.Some to this day have refused to support him.

But it's really, to a great degree, torn the party that used to exist apart.Other people would look at it and say, "Well, Trump's brought a lot of the party together, because they're so strongly behind this one individual."But the party today is not what it was before Trump ran for the presidency.

McConnell’s Compromise With Trump

… The next character who comes on the stage is Mitch McConnell, and in our film we may introduce him at the moment when Trump walks into the first joint address to Congress and the Republicans are there.And if you could help us understand who Mitch McConnell is in that moment and how he has seen Trump and what his expectations are of the new president at that moment.

… I had first covered Mitch McConnell when I was a congressional reporter for The Boston Globe in 1990, and that was a time when the Republican Party was trying to be a much more moderate party.George H. W. Bush had won election two years earlier by running as a, quote, "kinder, gentler," unquote, candidate than Ronald Reagan, whom he'd served as vice president.So the Congress at that time was approving measures that would probably never get passed today.

This was the Clean Air Act.Mitch McConnell from the coal state of Kentucky supported the Clean Air Act.He said, I had a choice between cleaner air and the status quo, and I chose cleaner air, for example.Later on, Democrats said he was one of the biggest opponents to climate change legislation, for example.So a big change there.

Mitch McConnell as a young man had voted for Lyndon Baines Johnson, the Democrat, for president in 1964 because he was upset with Barry Goldwater's opposition to the Civil Rights Act.He witnessed Johnson in the Capitol signing the Voting Rights Act in 1965.Later on, Mitch McConnell opposes various voting rights legislation that Democrats were putting forward.

And there's just a number of things that McConnell had done also on campaign finance.McConnell had said all contributions should be disclosed; there should be limits on contributions.And later on, Mitch McConnell's name becomes synonymous with efforts to lift caps on campaign finance spending to allow essentially individuals to secretly donate to certain kinds of committees known as dark money.

So Mitch McConnell had really transformed himself from a relatively progressive senator from Kentucky into someone who … saw the Tea Party change the party.So by the time Trump's running for president, he's not on board with Trump originally, but he sees where the party's going, so eventually he supports Trump as the nominee in large part because he sees Trump as someone who will put forward conservative Supreme Court justices.And McConnell certainly had played a role, you know, in getting a Supreme Court justice himself by his actions.

So when Trump comes in and he's elected president, McConnell's determined to try to work with him because he wants Republican things passed.Basically, that's McConnell's agenda: get his agenda passed.

But he's not on board with Trump personally, doesn't entirely align politically.He wants to make things work because they're both Republicans, and McConnell's aim is to keep Republicans in the majority and get Republican items passed on the agenda.

One of the interesting things in the story is that not only—maybe he didn't love Trump, but the way he maneuvered in the Merrick Garland moment may have actually helped Trump to become president.And that's a moment when you read about democratic norms that a lot of people point to.… What was that moment, and how would he have helped Trump?

… Mitch McConnell did something towards the end of 2016 that really tore apart Congress.After Barack Obama nominated Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court with plenty of time to get that nomination passed under usual norms, McConnell said, no, we're going to wait to see who's elected president.We're going to hold this up.He used his power to do that, to basically hold up that nomination of Merrick Garland.

What that did was it told a lot of Republicans, especially evangelicals who were concerned about this, that whoever became next president was going to basically decide who was going to be on the Supreme Court with that next pick, because you had an opening.It wasn't a question of would there be an opening; you knew there was an opening.

So McConnell, by doing that, that, a lot of analysts would say, helped Trump, because to those people who were concerned about this issue, that was a reason to vote for Trump; that if Trump was elected, it would be Trump filling that position that Obama had wanted to fill with Merrick Garland, whereas Hillary Clinton would either see through the nomination of Merrick Garland or nominate her own person that might even be actually more liberal than Merrick Garland.

So it was very helpful to Trump. McConnell actually helped Trump in that moment.

Trump and Charlottesville

You already talked a little bit about McConnell's background in civil rights. The next moment, if you can help us understand, is when Charlottesville happens. McConnell is publicly critical of Trump and both sides are to blame. … How does that Charlottesville moment conflict with his own identity of himself?

… There were a number of moments throughout Trump's presidency when people who'd had misgivings about him before he became president saw those misgivings come true.So, for example, when Trump came out during the moment in Charlottesville, when he said there were good people on both sides of this, he got a lot of pushback, not just within the White House, people who worked with him in the White House, but Republicans in Congress, McConnell, others.They couldn't abide by what Trump was saying.

And time and again you'd hear Republicans saying, "I wish he'd stop tweeting.I wish he'd think about what he said."And they didn't really have a lot of impact.They would try to do that, but then they would come back.You know, Trump's the president; they wanted their agenda passed.

So occasionally you'd see people drop away, but more often than not, you'd see people express their outrage.They'd put out a statement, and then they'd go back to basically supporting Trump.

It's interesting in that moment because McConnell, he is critical, and then he doesn't stick with it.He doesn't become an antagonist to the president, and one of the reasons that you write about and that a lot of people have mentioned is that, like Cruz, he cares a lot about judges, and he sees Trump as a way to push forward that agenda.… We always hear about McConnell, but Trump is not a naive person.It suggests that he understands that there's a deal and the terms of that deal.So can you help us understand what was going on between Trump and McConnell on judges?

Well, Trump's power to pick a Supreme Court nominee was something that Trump knew had a very powerful hold over the party, party leaders, people who had been critical of him.He knew that they all really wanted to have their say in picking a Supreme Court justice.

I interviewed Trump about this, and he told me, "If I'm not president, Mitch McConnell has no judges, no nothing."So basically Trump is saying, "I knew that I had this power.I knew I had something that was very important to Mitch McConnell, among others."And he used that time and time again.

And so, for McConnell, he's not going to completely alienate himself from Trump.He wants those judges. That was incredibly important to him and other Republicans.So they basically had to make this deal.This was a deal that Ted Cruz had made with Trump, others had made with Trump.It was a very powerful tool, a cudgel, for Trump to use, and he used it.

Liz Cheney and the Republican Party

… Before Jan. 6, who was Liz Cheney? Who is she as a political operator?What was her place in the party and in the Congress? Who was she?

Liz Cheney, she's the daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney.She was one of the most conservative members of the Republican Party, Wyoming, member of the House, so few would have questioned her credentials as a conservative.But unlike many other people in the party, she just could not abide by what Trump was doing, and there were so many people in the party that felt their allegiance to Trump was the way that they would remain powerful.

So eventually they kicked her out as the No. 3 leader.They replaced her with someone else, who also had been somewhat moderate in her beliefs, more moderate perhaps than Liz Cheney, but she pledged her allegiance to Trump.

So Liz Cheney has become this extraordinary figure who has put her political career at risk but basically feels that her higher calling is to expose what she sees as the truth about Trump, that he incited insurrection.She voted for his impeachment.So she's been this key leader in the party and to this day is someone who is willing to take on Trump.And Trump has said, "We've got to get rid of her."And the party did get rid of her as the No. 3 leader in the House, and now it's going to be up to the voters of Wyoming as to whether the get rid of her from Congress.

… You say that by that point, that McConnell knew what his role was inside the Trump presidency.And what was McConnell—how would he approach something like that first impeachment trial, and how did he see his role inside the Republican Party in the Senate?

… McConnell, like most of the Republicans, did not see the validity of the Democratic argument in the first impeachment trial.So that was never going to be successful.The second impeachment, however, was very different, and there were those at the start that believed that McConnell actually would support this and might get others to support the conviction of Trump in his second impeachment trial over inciting the riot at the Capitol and the insurrection.

Republican Response to the 2020 Election

… So let's go back into Ted Cruz after the election and the role that he plays and some of the details.The first question for you is, how important was Cruz as a lawyer, as somebody who was identified inside the Republican Party as a constitutional lawyer?What role was he going to play in that post-election period?

Well, if you go back to right after the election, there were a number of people who were Trump lawyers, Trump advisers, people coming to Trump and saying, "This election was stolen, and here's the evidence."Some of these felt they had legitimate arguments.Others came across pretty poorly even among those in the Republican Party.

So Ted Cruz was watching this and actually put himself forward to Trump and others saying, "You know, I have a background here.I have argued as Texas solicitor general before the Supreme Court a number of times.I worked on George W. Bush's arguments before the Supreme Court in 2000 that were successful against Al Gore."

And he did have that background.

And so there were those who believed in Trump and believed in what he was saying and felt like some of the lawyers who had worked for him were not good representatives.And they did look to Cruz as someone who had some bona fide credentials here.And Cruz, when there was a proposal to put forward a case regarding the outcome in Pennsylvania, he actually tweeted saying, "I'll argue that before the Supreme Court."And that did not succeed.And so on the evening of Dec. 8, Cruz was dining at a restaurant near the U.S. Capitol, and his cell phone rings, and it's Donald Trump.And the president says to Cruz, "Can you believe what happened in that Pennsylvania case?"And Cruz basically says he wasn't particularly shocked.And then they discuss another effort, which is a Texas case that would enable basically Texas to argue that other states aren't doing the election properly.There were a lot of people who thought this case had zero chance of getting before the Supreme Court, and Trump says, "Will you argue this case?"And Cruz said, "Sure, I'd be happy to, if the court takes this case."

So that just underscores, it was one of a number of moments when over this crucial two-month period that Cruz and Trump were working together behind the scenes, sometimes publicly, to advance Trump's claim that this election was stolen.

The Supreme Court did not take that Texas case.And there was one alternative basically left, and that was that Ted Cruz came up with this idea of having a 10-day audit of the election results.So on Jan. 2, he puts forward this announcement that "I and 10 other senators are calling for a 10-day audit of the results, and so, on Jan. 6, Vice President Pence should not certify all the results.These results should go back to state legislatures.They should do this audit."

And this was very much in line with a plan being put forward by a Trump campaign lawyer, John Eastman, and he wrote a memo.And one of the two memos he wrote about, the first one actually specifically mentioned that Ted Cruz could play a leading role in the Senate to stop the certification of the election results.Wrote a second memo that, while not naming Cruz himself, basically promoted the plan that Cruz came up with for this 10-day audit.So this was a very important complementary effort to Eastman. …Cruz and Eastman had known each other for decades.They had both clerked together at the same time for the same federal judge, Michael Luttig, and so they'd known each other.It's not clear whether they worked together on their plans.Eastman was asked about this by the Jan. 6 Committee.He took the Fifth Amendment against self-incrimination.Cruz would not tell me directly; he didn't give me an interview.But his press secretary said that they've known each other for years, although Cruz doesn't recall reading the Eastman memo, so it wasn't a direct response.But the bottom line is, there's no question these two efforts complemented each other.Eastman was advising the White House what to do, and Cruz came up with this 10-day audit plan that would have been the congressional side of things that would have fed in to the Eastman plan.

So understanding Cruz's role is very important, I think essential, to understanding what led up to Jan. 6.

And as it turns out, Michael Luttig, the judge for whom both Eastman and Cruz simultaneously clerked, he said that Cruz, in his view, actually had a paramount role in the events leading to Jan. 6 because there really was no one else in the Senate who had the credentials as a lawyer and understood the intricacies of the constitutional writings that would have potentially allowed Cruz to go through with what he wanted to do.

He actually saw it, you know, as the most dangerous part of what led up to Jan. 6, because you could cite some certain things in the Constitution to say, "Oh, we can do it this way."So Luttig doesn't agree with what Cruz did, but he did see Cruz's role as essential to understanding what eventually led up to Jan. 6.

… The fact that Ted Cruz's name is in that memo, what does that say about how important he was seen, his role was seen by the White House and by Eastman and others who were trying to overturn an election?

Well, between the Election Day and Dec. 30, no senator had said, "I'll be the one senator that's needed to stand and oppose the certification of the election."Josh Hawley, the Republican of Missouri, he did that.Cruz saw that; Cruz's aides told me that Cruz was very concerned about being outflanked on his right by Hawley if they both faced each other in the 2024 presidential election.That's the way people sometimes think about things.So he stood up and said, "I'm going to also object," and he came up with this plan, which he brought along 10 other senators.

So if Cruz hadn't stood up and basically been the No. 2 after Hawley did it, you know, we don't know that anything really would have transpired further in the Senate.If Hawley had stood up and said, "I'm going to do this," and no other senator joined him, but then you had Cruz stand up and say, "I'm doing it; I've got 10 more senators joining me in this effort," that was a very substantial move toward—that gave people, frankly, a lot of hope that maybe something could happen Jan. 6 that might stop the certification of Biden becoming president.

… Before we get to Jan. 6, one question about Mitch McConnell in this period, because you describe how it ends with the speech that McConnell gives and a phone call from Trump.Can you help us understand where McConnell is from the election through the speech that he gives on Dec. 15 and what the result of that is?

… Shortly after the election, one state after another had made their determination that Biden had won in those states that he did win.McConnell basically said, "I'm going to let this process play out through the Electoral College."

The Electoral College announced its decision on Dec. 14 that Biden had won the election.At that point, he basically said on the Senate floor congratulations to Biden: "You've won the presidency.Look forward to working with you." …After Mitch McConnell went to the Senate floor and after the Electoral College had announced its decision, voting for Biden as president, Trump was very upset.McConnell and Trump had a very angry phone call.McConnell told Trump, "You lost."That's the last time they talked.

I interviewed Trump about this later, and Trump told me that he blames McConnell.He said McConnell gave up on him, that even though many other Republicans still withheld their support for the Electoral College decision till Jan. 6 or even later, Trump blames McConnell to a great degree.And they have been at odds with each other ever since, even to this day.

Trump really does blame McConnell, among others, for what happened to him.He thinks McConnell should not have come out and said that in mid-December.

… It's just before Jan. 6, and Cruz has said he's going to be part of this objection to states.Does that create tension with some of his close advisers, people who have known him for a while?

Well, there are some on Cruz's staff who say, "This is great; you know, you'll get a lot of Trump supporters if you object to the results of this election, even though it's not going to probably go anywhere."But there are others who felt this was entirely at odds with Cruz's political brand, with his philosophy as a federal constitutionalist.He got a lot of pushback.

So just before Cruz's decision on Jan. 6 that he would object to the results, his former 2016 presidential campaign chairman, Chad Sweet, told him, "If you do this, I can no longer support you."Urged Cruz not to do this.He later explained this on his LinkedIn page.

But Cruz went ahead.He rejected that advice.So there was quite a split between Cruz and this person who he'd been close to for years; they'd worked together for years, even before the 2016 campaign.

So Cruz went ahead, objected to the Arizona results.And then there was, of course, the riots, the insurrection.They come back late at night, and they're proceeding, and the communications director to Cruz has a conference call with Cruz saying, "OK, you've made your point.There are problems we should look into with the way the election was done.But now's the time for you to be the adult in the room, and you should not go any further."But Cruz rejects that advice as well, and he objects to the Pennsylvania results.

Neither effort was close to being successful.So, you know, there was this breakup.The communication adviser later resigned.The person who was the campaign chairman of 2016, they seem to have irrevocably split.Carly Fiorina, who Cruz had said would be his vice presidential running mate, she tweeted a couple days after Jan. 6 that people who, like Cruz, had done this should be held accountable.So there were people who'd been very close to Cruz who were very upset with what he did.

But there are others in his political circle who say, "In the end this will help us; the Trump allies will see that Cruz was very supportive."

Jan. 6 and the Aftermath

… Help us understand McConnell after Jan. 6 and how he views that moment and what was his perspective on what was going on.

Well, McConnell went to the floor at a certain point and said essentially that Trump did incite this insurrection.Very tough criticism of Trump.And a number of people who were close to McConnell and other senators thought, OK, I think this means McConnell might actually vote to convict Trump of impeachment, and the House was going to impeach Trump, no question about that.

But when it came to the Senate, it wasn't clear.There were a number of Republicans who were willing to do so.You know, history will tell us what the reaction of this is, but McConnell faced this crucial decision: Having said that Trump essentially incited the insurrection, do you then go and vote for his conviction?There were people who thought he was on the verge of doing so.McConnell apparently looked at the votes and thought they weren't there.In any case, this vote for conviction would have come after the inauguration of Joe Biden.So in the end McConnell said, "While I believe Trump bears this responsibility, he's no longer president, and I don't think the law allows us to convict someone after they left the presidency."Other people said, that doesn't make any sense; he was just looking for an out.But clearly, you know, this was a case you're having it both ways.You're saying Trump's responsible, which not all Republicans would agree with, but not wanting to go so far as to vote for a conviction.

Had they voted for a conviction, it would have prohibited Trump from seeking reelection in 2024.So if Trump does that and he's successful—McConnell's actually said, I asked him this question in an interview.He said, you know, essentially, if Trump's the nominee in 2024, I'll vote for the nominee, so even despite all of this, all of what he said about Trump, that he would still vote for Trump.That's a long stretch to go.But that's where he's willing to go.He's about, in the end, what's good for the party, whereas you have Liz Cheney.You know, she was fighting, obviously, for impeachment, which she supported, and had hoped there'd be a conviction in the Senate.So you see the two of them faced essentially the same choice, and McConnell went over here in a way that, in the end, actually was supportive for Trump, while Cheney went over here, and she's fighting her own party in her efforts to investigate Trump.

… Can you help us understand why it would be surprising and why he would make a decision to say something like that?

Well, McConnell is a survivor.I mean, he's been in the Senate for decades.And one way you survive is you change as the party's changing.Are you leading the party in that change, or are you someone who's led by how the party is changing?

When I talk to people who've known him for years, they see it, you know, as someone who is being, in essence, you know, led by that party base, that he wants to remain a leader of the party.He sees how the party's changed.It's changed with the Tea Party; it's changed with Trump.He still wants to be the leader of the party in the Senate.He has no aspirations to be president.But the only way to do that is to walk this very fine line where he's been critical of Trump, but he's also saying, "Look, I'm the person who can keep this party together," so he remains very much at odds with Trump.Trump has called on other senators to try to oust him, and that has not been successful.

So to this day, as we're talking, McConnell has stayed in his position as the leader of his party, and he hopes after the next midterms to be the majority leader of the Senate once again.

… To finish up Cruz and where he ends up after Jan. 6, there's a couple points, one of which is, he has a moment where he goes on Tucker Carlson's show and he has to … apologize.What led to that moment, and what was that?

Well, Cruz had referred to the insurrection, that there had been these terrorists, basically, on the Capitol, and Tucker Carlson complained about that, as did some others, saying, "You're making all these pro-Trump people out to be terrorists.There were certainly people who were attacking police officers. That's wrong, but you shouldn't use the sweeping statement."And Cruz recognized how this might be perceived, and he immediately agreed to go on Tucker Carlson's show and to say, "I apologize; that was a dumb thing to say.You know, I was only trying to criticize those people who were attacking police officers."But it looked like he was being someone who was just being sycophantic to some people, that he would go on and apologize for the statement.

It was clear what he was talking about when he originally talked about terrorism.It would be hard to misunderstand when you see the footage of people who were attacking police officers, who were breaking into the Capitol.But there is this technical definition of terrorism that the Justice Department would use in applying charges.So some people glommed on to that and said, "You shouldn't be using that word."

So in that case, Cruz basically said, you know, "I apologize," and said, "I shouldn't have used that terminology."He wasn't making a sweeping statement.Cruz said, "I wasn't trying to condemn these people who were on the Hill, especially those who were trying to be making their voices heard as opposed to those who were attacking the police, breaking in."

So he was trying to not alienate those Trump supporters who he'd spent so much time trying to court.

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