TOP
Mona Charen
Chapters
The FRONTLINE Interviews
Mona Charen
Syndicated Columnist
Mona Charen is a conservative columnist and the policy editor for The Bulwark.
The following interview was conducted by the Kirk Documentary Group’s Mike Wiser for FRONTLINE on May 4, 2022. It has been edited for clarity and length.
This interview appears in:
Text Interview:
Highlight text to share it
The 2020 Election and Trump’s Claims of Fraud
After the election of 2020, when Donald Trump comes out and says, "Frankly, I won this election"—can you tell me what you were thinking when you watched that?Was it unexpected?How important a moment was that, and everything that would follow?
The moment when he said, "Frankly, I won this election" was telegraphed many, many times.Going back to 2016, he had said that he would not necessarily abide by the outcome of the election.It would depend on who won.And throughout the campaign of 2020, he repeatedly said that it cast doubt on the legitimacy of the outcome, cast doubt on absentee ballots, etc., mail-in ballots.
And that night, when he said that he won the election and didn't accept the outcome, it should have been a moment where people said, "OK, he is now transgressing a norm that is essential to the efficient and successful democratic process.It's essential that losers of elections recognize and accept that they have lost and congratulate the winner."And his unwillingness to do that was a more significant and much more dangerous traducing of norms than we had seen before—well, than some of his others; let's put it that way.
And the reaction of Republicans at that point should have been unanimous.The leadership should have rallied around and said, "It's over.We accept the verdict of the people," all of those kinds of traditional norms that have been with us forever.And instead, important voices like [then-Senate Majority Leader] Mitch McConnell, for example, said that the president should be allowed to exhaust all of his legal remedies, and many others joined the same sort of thing.Some actually joined in, you know, questioning the outcome of the election.
But most basically went along with Trump.And I think the iconic quotation of the era was, somebody told <i>The New York Times</i> or <i>The Washington Post</i> that, "What harm is there in indulging him?"You know, this was an anonymous quote from a leading Republican."What harm is there in indulging him?"And then we found out.
… Don Jr. is tweeting, "Where are the 2024 contenders?"And by the end of the week, [Sens.] Ted Cruz, Lindsey Graham go out.How important is that period of time?How important was it that there were Republican senators who were willing to go out and to amplify questions about the election?
You cannot overstate the importance of those voices.It's reminiscent of the period in 2016, when Trump was clearly the most popular primary candidate for a while.But it was a very large field, and it took the imprimatur of people like Chris Christie, who had been a two-term governor of a major state, and people like Sen. Jeff Sessions, who gave their authority, lent their prestige and authority to Trump.And that was a signal to people, to voters, that it was OK.And it was a permission structure.
And so that's what happened after—in those days after the 2020 election, too?
Sure.When you had Ted Cruz and Tom Cotton and others also questioning the outcome, it looked less like a cranky or petulant reaction from Trump and more like there were legitimate questions to be asked if all these people are asking questions.One of Trump's favorite sayings is, "People are saying."In this case, his people were saying it.
The 2016 Election
So let's now go back to 2016, because a lot of those same characters are involved in that.There's Ted Cruz and Lindsey Graham, and we'll talk about both of them.But one place we've been thinking about starting is the Iowa caucuses, where Ted Cruz wins and Donald Trump is, even back then, talking about the election having been rigged.Can you help us understand that moment in the Iowa caucus and what a Ted Cruz would have seen, what he was up against and what the state of play was at that moment?
… This could have been an epochal moment, right, because Trump, a big part of his brand was that he was not going to lose, that he was a winner, and he did lose Iowa.And he immediately said it was rigged.And of course if you look at Donald Trump's history, whenever he doesn't get something that he wants, he denounces it as being fixed.So he did that when he didn't win Emmy Awards.I mean, he did it throughout his life.It's always the same story, that the game is rigged if he does anything but win.
And so, you know, he trotted that out in Iowa.But that's been memory-holed.People don't remember that he accused the Republican caucus in Iowa of being rigged against him because he lost.And then, miraculously, the Republican primary in New Hampshire was somehow unrigged.
And if we were paying attention at the time, if we were watching the history from the Emmy Awards to what he had been saying in the run-up, what should we have noticed in that moment?
We should have noticed that this man has a disordered personality and that he has certain fixed ideas about the way the world works and that he is perhaps the most solipsistic individual that we've ever seen on the national stage in American history.But for some reason, he was popular with the voters, or with a subset of voters.And at key junctures, Republican officials who knew better decided to humor him, or humor them, humor the voters who liked him, rather than confront him.And to be fair, some who did confront him did not live to tell the tale, politically.
And how would you describe Ted Cruz at that moment, and who he was?Because we're going to follow his trajectory.But he was appealing to evangelicals.He had been a solicitor general and a lawyer and a constitutional conservative.Who was the Ted Cruz of 2016?
So the Ted Cruz of 2016 was a candidate who believed he had his fingers on the pulse of the Republican base voter.He thought that the idea was to out-conservative every other potential candidate and to show that he was the truest, bluest conservative.The way he attempted to sideline Marco Rubio, for example, was by suggesting that Rubio was weak on illegal immigration, which later morphed into just weak on immigration, period.But at the time, they were still saying that they were only opposed to illegal immigration.
And so that was Cruz's insight, was that you had to be the most conservative candidate.And he also sort of styled himself a constitutional conservative.He advertised the fact that he had memorized the entire Constitution and could recite it from memory, and so he thought that was the way to the hearts of voters.
When he saw the appeal of Donald Trump, he made the calculation that he just had to, you know, swim along in Trump's wake until Trump self-destructed, and then, having never criticized Trump, he would inherit all of Trump's voters.And that was the bargain.
… One of the other ones in that period that's quite striking, when you go back and look at what he was saying, is Lindsey Graham.What was Lindsey Graham's role, and was he articulating some of the same concerns that you were articulating at that time?
Lindsey Graham was concerned about Trump's unfitness for office and did mention it, as pretty much everybody did at some stage of the game.It's just a question of when they stopped saying it, as almost all did.But in 2016, Graham was running as the neocon or the tough-on-national-defense candidate—that he either genuinely believed was a lane that could lead to success, or he just felt that that part of the party needed a voice, and he was going to elevate his profile.
So that was his gambit.And at the time, Graham was—he was amusing.He had some exchanges with Trump that were—that were kind of funny, regarding his cell phone, and I don't remember all the details now.I think Trump revealed his—what was that?
That's right.He revealed his cell phone number… .
Graham made it into a meme or something and hit it with a golf club or something. I don't know.But, you know, all in good fun, I guess.But that was Graham.And Graham was known for being forthright and telling the truth.… I do remember him saying that Trump was—was completely ill-suited and unfit to be president.And then he, of course, became an obedient poodle later.
… And when you were talking, presumably, to Republicans and to Republican leaders and to Republicans in the establishment, did they have concerns about what we would see after Jan. 6?Were they worried he was going to lose, or were they worried that he was a real threat to the institutions?What was the feeling inside the party at that point?
I would draw a huge distinction between 2016 and 2020.In 2016, I mean, there were countless Republicans who were very, very nervous about what a Trump presidency would mean for the country and for the party.It turned out they cared a lot more about the party than they did about the country.But there was a lot of concern.By 2020, they had—many of them were perfectly OK with a second Trump term.And if you raised these matters of his unfitness, they would say, "Oh, you know, that's true.We don't like his manners either," as if it were only a matter of manners."But the left has gone crazy," they would say."And so he's the only horse we can ride."
There was a description of Trump at the time … in 2016, that he was unconventional, that he was a rule breaker, that he was an entertainer.But there was also other things.There was violence at the rallies, which he seemed to encourage.There was talk about governments and institutions.Can you describe what he was offering?And did people misunderstand Trump when they were describing him, when they were looking at what he was doing, at the showman he was often described as?
So one of the things that amazed me as somebody who had been a conservative for decades was the willingness of so-called conservatives to embrace someone whose themes were the opposite of conservatism.It was "Burn it all down," which is about the least conservative sentiment you can possibly have.Conservatives are usually about organic, gradual change, if they're even for change at all.And so that was one.
Another theme that they were apparently comfortable with was, "I alone can fix it."Again, utterly, utterly antithetical to the conservative view that you don't put all the power into the hands of one person; that you have to have checks and balances; that you have to be wary of power, especially concentrated power.And so for those reasons, among many others, it was just head-spinning to watch conservatives say—to watch them accept all of this and then dismiss objections as merely a matter of style or that he was uncouth or so on, whereas no, there were substantive problems going to the heart of what conservatism was about.
Why do you think they rejected them, or they saw it as a question of style?
It's a very hard question to answer.Either they never really believed in the things they said they believed, or they persuaded themselves that it was really true that if Democrats took power, it would be, as one person famously put it in 2016, the Flight 93 election; that it would be the end of democracy as we have known it, and I suppose we would all be wearing little Mao uniforms and have to go to camps if Hillary Clinton were elected.
What Trump Offered Voters
A lot of people say about Donald Trump that he's not ideological, or he's ideologically flexible, and he's not a conservative or a liberal, and he doesn't have those strong views.When you go back and look at the speech you just mentioned, the "I alone can fix this," was he offering something?Was he offering himself as a strongman?Was he offering something that was unusual in American politics?
Oh, throughout the 2016 campaign, he gave many, many signals of authoritarian tendencies.There was the "I alone can fix it" comment.There was the remark made in a debate that he would order the military to commit war crimes, and when it was objected that this is illegal, he said, "Don't worry; they'll obey me."1And again, this got very little pushback from Republicans.He suggested that he would limit the freedom of the press.A lot of this was, he was talking through his hat.But nevertheless, it was the sort of thing that should have received a very, very stern rebuke.Nothing.You know, there were—there were just many examples of him being willing to—oh, just the very suggestion that he would use the Justice Department to prosecute his political opponents—just bedrock principle of our democratic republic that we don't do that, and that once you head down that path, you're getting into banana republic territory.
So there were many, many signals throughout 2016 that this was not just a showman, not just somebody who was an entertainer, but no, somebody who had definite authoritarian sympathies.And by the way, even going back further, previous to his candidacy, he had made statements regarding, for example, what happened in Tiananmen Square, where he basically praised the communist authoritarian government in China for its crackdown.He said at first it seemed that they might not be able to handle it, but then they handled it with strength.2
His constant invocations of strength as opposed to democratic values, as opposed to persuasion, as opposed to winning legitimate victories, that has a vaguely fascistic smell to it.
… Let me ask you, when you are seeing these things that you're describing, now you're seeing them in real-time.You're writing about them in real-time, in 2016.Is it frustrating, as a conservative, trying to sound an alarm?What is that like?
It was vertigo-inducing, because it showed me that either I had gone crazy or everybody else had gone crazy.I didn't know what world I was living in.It felt really Alice in Wonderland-esque.The things I thought were solid were not, and it was very disorienting.
… Of course there's the comments about Ted Cruz's wife.There's the conspiracy theory about his dad.There's calling him "Lyin' Ted."Can you describe what Ted Cruz would have seen, experienced firsthand about who Donald Trump was?
… At some point in the primary season, when Cruz recognized that he was not going to be able to defeat Trump, he went out to the cameras, and he said, "If you want to know what I really think of him, I'm going to tell you."And he was about as blunt as he could be, that he was a pathological liar, and he said a number of other choice words about him.So we know at that moment the mask slipped, and he was honest about Trump.
But Ted Cruz is incredibly flexible.And he has, it seems to me, one lodestar, and that's his own ambition, to which he's willing to sacrifice pretty much every other principle.The greatest betrayal of all is not even so much about Republican principles, about, "I thought we were for small government," or, "I thought we were for pluralism."The greatest betrayal on the part of Republican leaders was the betrayal of truth itself, because without a common set of facts and a common understanding of what we're dealing with, self-government becomes very difficult, if not impossible.
And Cruz and Cotton and even prestigious publications like <i>The Wall Street Journal</i> editorial board, which prided itself on its occasional criticisms of Trump, nevertheless failed to draw a bright line and say, "This level of deception is corrupting our country.It is corroding people's confidence in the electoral process and in democracy itself, and as such, it represents a profound threat."And they never did that.Well, they did it only, in the case of the <i>Journal</i>, they did it episodically.In the case of many, many conservative and Republican elected officials, they hardly did it at all, which meant they lent their prestige and their authority to it.And in so doing, they really betrayed the country.
And do you think—was that happening in 2016?Or is that something that plays out over the—
Oh, no, it was happening in 2016.It was happening with the early endorsers, like Sessions and Christie.And then it was happening when, one after another, leading Republicans got in line.And right through the convention, Reince Priebus, the leader at the time of the Republican Party, the RNC, he also failed to make a point of it.So the collapse was pretty well total.
And how important was Mike Pence in that—
Critical.
—in Trump eventually becoming president?
Yep.Because again, Mike Pence—all right.So unlike Lindsey Graham or Ted Cruz, who had different parts of the base that they were appealing to—so Ted Cruz was kind of the legal-eagle Federalist Society lawyer, conservative, and Lindsey Graham was the foreign policy hawk.Mike Pence's claim to fame was entirely the evangelical Christian vote, and it was to nail down the support of that constituency that Trump chose him as vice president.
And Mike Pence was known to be a Boy Scout.That was what he brought.And he was thought of as being a sincere Christian man who had an ethical compass.For him in particular to take that compass and lay it at the feet of Donald Trump and bend the knee was just—you cannot overstate the importance of that.And it was about the most invertebrate action he could have taken, but he did that.
I mean, it's interesting, because what you're saying is yes, the voters and the primaries are electing Trump, and they're pushing him towards the nomination, but that the leadership of the party still had a choice as late as the summer of 2016.
They always had choices.And by the way, let's not forget that in 2016, Trump was getting a plurality, maximum, of the vote.But the Republican primaries were structured so that they had a winner-take-all system.And when you have 15, 16 candidates, somebody who only gets 27% of the vote can win the max, you know, can take it all, which was what was happening in the early contests.And the party had innumerable opportunities.First of all, there could have been some cooperation among the other candidates, the kind of thing, frankly, that the Democrats did in 2020, when several candidates dropped out and threw their support to Biden, because they decided that he had the best chance to win and that they were going to cooperate and do what was best for the party, not just for themselves.That could have happened in the Republican race in 2016, and it never did.So there were many, many opportunities to recognize the danger.
I remember when Scott Walker left the race and made a statement saying that the party had to block Trump somehow—otherwise, he was going to walk away with it—and he was ignored.And in a move that was very early, but that came to be so emblematic of the way many, many Republicans handled this, the governor of Maine gathered together a group of Republicans to hold an emergency meeting about how best to thwart Trump.And within about a week, he had flipped; he personally had become pro-Trump, and that turned out to be the model for most Republican leaders.
It's amazing.Just one quick thing I wanted to ask you about, was that moment with Ted Cruz, where he goes to the convention, and he says, "Vote your conscience."Was that a turning point for him and for the party when you watched that happen?
As I recall, the turning point was not when he was booed on the floor of the convention, but when he then went and addressed the Texas delegation the next morning and received an earful from them.And I think at that moment he realized his own political career was going to be sunk if he didn't get on the train.And so it was, for him a simple, simple decision.You know, the fact that these people who talk such a good game about, you know, their principles, and the fact that they are unwilling to sacrifice the smallest thing for the sake of their principles, like holding office—I mean, it isn't as if someone like Ted Cruz would be on the street if he weren't collecting his senatorial salary.He could get a job as a lawyer.He could have a very nice life.But for so many of these people, they're not willing to make the smallest sacrifice for the sake of their country, honestly.
The Democratic Response to Trump
One of the groups that is voicing concern are the Democrats and the Hillary Clinton campaign, and that they see danger in Trump.And she does give a speech, and there's of course the famous "deplorables" comment.Did the Democrats, did Hillary Clinton, did they know how to respond effectively to Donald Trump, to what they thought he represented?
So the Democrats, first of all, were a little bit complicit in seeing Trump get the Republican nomination.They were hoping for it, cheering for it, because they thought he'd be so easily defeated.And so that's one lesson, is that, you know, you should never let your partisanship take you to a place where you openly cheer for an anti-democratic authoritarian to be the nominee of one of the two major parties, because you think it'll give you a partisan advantage, OK?Maybe they've learned that lesson; I don't know.So that was one thing.
The other thing was that members of the press, you know, CNN and others, who saw Trump as a great moneymaker, because he meant eyeballs, and so they featured him, endlessly, during the primaries.There were, you know, there would be a camera on an empty podium, waiting for Trump when he was doing his rallies and so forth.He got disproportionate coverage from the press, again, for their own reasons, for their own selfish reasons.So that was not ideal.
And then, for some good reasons and some bad reasons, Hillary Clinton was demonized.I mean, it's never good to demonize anyone, but she had severe weaknesses as a candidate, and then you have to layer on top of that that she was also the victim of a lot of demonization.And so I don't think that she handled it very well.… My personal opinion is that she would have been better off taking more advice from her husband, Bill Clinton, who was the last Democrat—I mean, Barack Obama did very well because he brought out such overwhelming numbers of African American and people of color voters.But Bill Clinton was really the last Democrat who understood how to appeal to the white, non-college educated voters.And unfortunately, Mrs. Clinton didn't take his advice on where to campaign, and I think wound up losing, narrowly, in places like Wisconsin and Michigan, that she could have won.
And with the comment like "deplorables," I mean, were both sides feeding an us-versus-them polarization?
Absolutely. Absolutely.You know, we currently live in an era when the whole idea of coalition-building is pretty much discredited, and it shouldn't be.But the fact is, both parties, rather than trying to expand their coalition and reach out to voters who are in the middle, have been doubling down on their own extremes, and thinking, well, it's all about turnout, and we just have to get our people out, and if we do that, we get it all.And they are both—first of all, they're missing opportunities that are out there.I mean, I think Biden's victory, for example, shows that there were a lot of middle-of-the-road voters, even significant numbers of Republicans, who were willing to vote for a Democrat and give him a chance.But when the parties, as they so frequently both do, play to their own extremes, it further polarizes the country and hurts the parties themselves.
Trump’s Early Presidency
… Trump comes in, yes, in 2017, and the first joint address, and they say, "Is he going to be presidential?"And the Republicans are sitting there.One of them is Mitch McConnell, who we're interested in.And what did they think that they have in Trump?What do they think they can do with him?How dangerous do they think he is?How much of a benefit to them?How did they understand the deal with this president that was coming in at that early stage of the presidency?
Well, it depends on who you're talking about.I think, in the case of some, it was every minute of every day amounted to looking nervously at their phones to see what was the latest outrage and what they were going to have to avoid the press in the halls of Congress about, saying, "I didn't see it.I don't know anything about it."That was the case with many elected Republicans.There were others who thought—a colleague of mine calls this the "Franz von Papen strategy," who was the German official who thought that Hitler could be handled, right, that, "Yeah, you know, he's popular.We'll handle him."Well, similarly, some Republicans thought, "All right, you know, Trump is in the presidency; he can tweet and get on TV; we'll do the work, and we'll send him things, and he'll sign them."And that was the initial, very optimistic outlook from people.I'm not going to put words in anybody's mouth, but I do think the leadership thought/hoped that that would be the way things rolled out.
And for Mitch McConnell, what do you think he was hoping for out of a Trump presidency?
Judges.Above all, judges.He was willing to do pretty much whatever he needed to do to get more judges confirmed, especially Supreme Court justices, as we saw with his declining to fill the seat that was vacated, well, it became open because of the death of Scalia.
I mean, and he's pretty well known—and certainly after Jan. 6—that he had his concerns about Trump, and that he was not a huge fan of him.But what does Trump get out of him during those years?What does he do to enable the Trump presidency?
Well, to the degree that there was anything accomplished in the Trump years, it was due to Republican spade work that had been done before Trump ever got there, for example, on the tax cut bill that was—after Trump finished screwing around with it and blowing it—they managed to get passed.So that was one thing.To the degree that Trump involved himself in legislation, he tended to sabotage it.So, for example, the Republicans had been promising and running on repealing and replacing Obamacare for 11 years or whatever it was, and they might have been able to do it, except that Trump kept bigfooting the process and screwing things up when there was an actual opportunity to really get some kind of reform.
And he kept switching the guidelines.He kept changing his mind about what he would accept or not accept.And it made doing business in the usual way impossible.There was even a point when the Republicans were in charge of the presidency, the Senate and the House, when there was actual—there were warnings of a government shutdown fight, which is preposterous.But that was the state of things.
But for McConnell, who believes, I guess, that power justifies everything, the important thing was that it was a Republican, somebody with an "R" after his name, and however distasteful McConnell may have found it, it meant that Republicans were in charge of nominating and confirming judges, which was his highest priority.
So Lindsey Graham maintains his opposition to Trump all the way through the election, does not vote for him, but by the first year of Donald Trump's presidency says, "I am all in on the Donald Trump presidency," and becomes the self-styled, self-described Trump whisperer.When you see that transformation, what does that tell you about him?How important is that?
So I don't want to engage in armchair psychoanalysis, but the interpretation that Lindsey Graham is the kind of person who is made to be second banana does present itself, that that's the role in which he is most comfortable.He did that for many years with John McCain and then I guess decided that he could sort of slip into that remora fish role with the next big whale who came along, namely Donald Trump.But other than that, I don't have an explanation, except that, as with so many Republicans and conservatives in the wider intellectual world who made their peace with Trump, it was simply fear of missing out.
It was the sense that look, this is what it is.I'm either going to be part of it and have at least some influence—and I know what they would tell themselves, because they would explain it to you.They would say, "Look, I know this is not ideal.But wouldn't you rather have him hearing from me than hearing from [Rep.] Marjorie Taylor Greene or, you know, Jason Miller," or whatever?So there was always someone worse who was the false alternative that they would present and say, "So therefore, I have to do this," always forgetting that—or not addressing the problem that—every time a major figure did that, they lent him their credibility, and they squandered it.
Trump and Charlottesville
… What warnings were there, especially looking back from knowing what would happen on Jan. 6, what warnings were there in how Trump responded to Charlottesville?
So some of the parallels are pretty exact in the sense that you had staff members putting words in front of Trump and telling him, "This is what you have to say to be a credible president in these circumstances," and Trump says them without meaning them, and in the case of Charlottesville, pretty much walked it back within about 12 hours.In the case of Jan. 6—and I think we're going to learn more—he was placed in front of a video camera and told to make a message, telling the rioters to desist, and they had to do three or four takes, because he really didn't want to do it.
And the one they finally settled on, even that one was just outrageous."I love you"; you know, "you're very special," he's saying to the people who are destroying the seat of democracy in America.Anyway, so those—those parallels are there.And the other thing is, that though there's been a lot of revisionism about the Charlottesville thing, and if you talk to certain people on the right, they will claim that it's an unfair slam on Trump to say that he didn't condemn the neo-Nazis.It's not an unfair slam.He said there were good people on both sides, which is just false.
And in any event … back in 2016, when he was first running, he had a conversation with Jake Tapper on CNN during the primaries, in which Tapper pointedly, again and again, asked him to renounce the support of the KKK and David Duke, and Trump claimed not to know who Duke was.And he was clearly unwilling to disavow their support.In fact, at one point, I think he even said, "I disavow, OK," being careful not to say who he was disavowing, you know.
And so yeah, the sympathy that he had for the fascists and the radical right was front and center. …
The other thing that's striking about it, in the new [Bob] Woodward and [Robert] Costa book, there's a description of Trump's conversation with [then-House Speaker] Paul Ryan, and he says, you know, "Those are my people," talking about—at the time they were calling the alt-right.And there's militia groups and others.I mean, how unusual—because there's the racial aspect of it, and then there's this political violence that's breaking out on the streets.I mean, how unusual in American history is it for a president to see something like that and see that as part of his base?
It's certainly unprecedented in our lifetimes.You know, I guess you can go back to certain presidents, like Andrew Johnson, who was comfortable with it; James Buchanan; many before that.But in our time, no.And, you know, one of the things, again, we were talking earlier about how disorienting it was as a former Republican to see this.Look, many times in recent history, we have seen Republican leaders have no difficulty in drawing very important distinctions between legitimate groups and illegitimate ones.George H. W. Bush had no trouble saying that David Duke was, you know, unworthy of any decent person's support; that he was a racist and a xenophobe and, you know, beyond the bounds.Because he had gotten the Republican nomination for governor in Louisiana, and so, you know, the president of the United States at the time, George H. W. Bush, disavowed him and denounced him.
Even much more recently than that, we saw George W. Bush, after 9/11, he was very careful not to stoke anti-Muslim hatred in this country, which obviously would have been a serious problem had he not shown that kind of leadership.He went to a mosque.He talked about Islam being a religion of peace.He posed with imams because he understood that you, as a leader, it's your solemn duty not to stoke the worst instincts of the public.
You know, the public has to keep politicians honest, but politicians and leaders have to keep the people honest, too.It's a two-way street.And other Republican presidents have had no difficulty seeing and understanding those responsibilities and living up to them.And, you know—and I also remember John McCain, in 2008, when a constituent said, you know, that she couldn't vote for Obama because he was a Muslim and an enemy and what—and McCain said, "No, no, that's not true."
So that's the sort of thing—that's just the basic, lowest level of adherence to democracy that one should expect from a leader.And Trump was such a radical departure from all of that.
So it creates a dilemma for the leaders of the Republican Party about what to do.And can you describe—because there is statements, and there are tweets, and some of them mention Trump and some of them don't, after Charlottesville.Can you describe the response of the party and how you saw it, whether it was adequate to that moment, and how important the choices were they made after Charlottesville?
It was utterly inadequate.As with so many other hinge moments, when a unified and full-throated denunciation by people in authority could have made a difference, they flinched, and they did not do the right thing, and therefore, once more, it became acceptable what Trump had done.And it's an overused term in our time, but it expanded the Overton window of what behavior would be acceptable in American politics.And therefore, it degraded American politics.
There were a couple people, like Sen. [Jeff] Flake, [Mark] Sanford, there's some in that period, in that fall, who do stand out.
None of whom remained in office.
And what choice did the Republicans who are watching that, who are seeing Trump go to Flake's district and rally against him, who were seeing him tweet against Sanford, what choice are they confronted with when they see that?And what did they do?
So they would see that somebody like Flake, who criticized Trump, would see their career ended.And they would say, "Well obviously, we can't be in that position."… So any particular individual who popped his head above the foxhole was going to have it shot off.What they never did was all join hands, and that would have been, on many occasions, a much better and a winning strategy.And, by the way, there were moments during the Trump presidency when Trump backed down.He wasn't always unwilling to do so.When he was met with force, he backed down, because, like all bullies, he's actually a coward, and does—well, it's not just that.But when he was met with resistance, he would back down.And unfortunately, there was all too little of it.And they never did see that if they acted in concert, they would have a lot more power.
By the end of the year, there's this scene we've used in films before, which is the tax ceremony signing in December of 2017, where the leaders of the party, many, many people come to the White House and stand behind Donald Trump and praise him for his role in the tax bill.And what I'm curious about what that display shows.And also, were those people who were coming up, and Paul Ryan saying, "Exquisite presidential leadership," and they're praising him … I mean, do those people who are praising him, do they believe it?Why are they saying those things?
They don't believe it for a second.They believe the exact opposite, but they're saying it because they've been well trained, by Trump, that in order to get anything that they want, they have to praise him.They have to—not just praise him, but be obsequious in their praise.There was a video that circulated early in the term that showed this absolutely humiliating display on the part of each and every Cabinet officer.They went around the table, and they tried to outdo one another in this oleaginous praise for what his, you know, the glorious leadership of the dear leader.It was almost North Korean-style.And so Trump taught them that that was what he expected, and so that's what they did.
And the funny thing about that video, because I remember seeing it, was at the time, it seemed sort of humorous.It seemed like a reality-TV star.You don't think forward to Jan. 6, when so much of what happened in the Trump years was seen in that light.Did we miss things because of that?
Did we miss things because of his reality-show history?
Because we didn't take it seriously?Because it seemed like a joke, or it didn't seem—
Possibly. Although it—look.There were enough people warning that this was serious.And there was violence at his rallies that he openly encouraged.I mean, it wasn't a joke.It was, it was—obviously there were some aspects of it that were humorous.But no.It reminded you of other sort of so-called amusing demagogues.Hugo Chavez could put on quite a show, and he did.He was on television once a week down in Venezuela, entertaining.He would sing, he would tell jokes, and he would humiliate the people who worked for him.And that didn't make him any less of a menace.He destroyed a country.So yeah, I suppose some people failed to take it seriously, but they should have.
Trump’s Relationship with Authoritarian Leaders
I mean, one of the other things we were seeing that might have been a warning sign was his relationship with dictators, with exchanging love letters with [North Korean leader] Kim [Jong Un] and [Russian President Vladimir] Putin and his attitudes towards democracies.What alarm bells did that set off for you?What should it have set off, especially for Republicans in the party, many of them who identified as hawks previously?
This was one of the most upsetting aspects of the Trump persona and of his term, was that he is an open and flagrant admirer of the worst people in the world.… He showed nothing but contempt for our democratic allies, most of them, not all of them.But [German Chancellor] Angela Merkel and others, he—I guess he permanently alienated the Danish prime minister when she rebuffed his offer to buy Greenland.Yeah. Normal presidential behavior.
In any event, but his tropism toward authoritarians was so obvious and so shameless and so embarrassing for the country, to see him saying that he had exchanged love letters with Kim Jong [Un], saying that he noticed that Kim's employees stand to attention when Kim speaks, and he said, "I'd like that from my people."And people say, "Oh, he's joking."Really? I'm not so sure.Let's cycle back again to those oleaginous praising moments that he insisted on at Cabinet meetings and ask whether that was really a joke or not.
But yeah, his attraction to dictators.In fact, yeah, I think he called [Abdel-Fattah el-] Sisi of Egypt "my favorite dictator."He was very attracted to the Saudis.It didn't really matter what kind of dictatorship, as long as it was one that gave the big guy authoritarian control.He admired people like that.You know, he used to quote, directly—you could tell, after he had spoken to an authoritarian leader, like China's Xi [Jinping], after he had spoken to one of these people, he would repeat, with complete credulousness, whatever they had said.
So in the case of Xi, you know, remember how many times he said, "The Chinese are handling COVID.They have got this under control"?Or he would say, "When the weather warms up, it's going to go away," which was exactly what Xi was saying.And similarly, after speaking with Putin, which he did any number of times, probably more than we will ever know about, because he made efforts to eliminate the records of those conversations, but he would repeat—so, for example, after one of those conversations, he said that he thought that the people of Crimea really preferred to be under Russia, never really considered themselves Ukrainians.Now, maybe Trump was saying that because of his vast knowledge of Crimean history, but it's a lot more likely that he was simply repeating exactly what Putin had told him.
So going back to this issue of truth versus falsehood, he was the greatest destroyer of truth that we've ever seen in America, and he himself fell victim to disinformation all the time.He was the greatest consumer of disinformation doled out by dictators around the world that we have ever seen.
Do you think it had a domestic effect that's important to understand?I mean, when you're watching the Republican Party, do they change their view of authoritarians, of democracy?Does that start to change during this period as they're watching this president?
Absolutely.Well, for one thing, we could see, in polling, that Republicans became much less hostile to Putin during Trump's tenure.And by the way, Democrats became a lot more hostile.So it's interesting, to me, as an old Cold Warrior, to see that many Democrats who in the past were a little soft on Russia have now become the opposite.So there is that flip side to this as well.And similarly, you see that Democratic support, for example, for free trade jumped during the Trump years, and support declined on the part of Republicans for free trade, because of the leadership.
Now, the invasion of Ukraine has put a sudden halt on the improving popularity of Putin, even among Republicans.But yes, leadership matters.You know, the people who said, "Oh, he was just an entertainer, and it didn't really matter that much," you know, it's interesting that they can acknowledge the key role that, for example, Volodymyr Zelenskyy is playing in Ukraine, the incredible importance of good leadership in a moment of crisis.Everybody can see that.But can they then not see the flip side, that poor leadership also is incredibly important, and also has severe or important consequences?
Let me ask you about a moment that involves you, which was when you go to CPAC and you make some comments about the president that are not received well.3Can you describe that, and what it said about the changing conservative movement, and about the party and about their loyalty to this man?
So I was trying to make two points.One was that in order to maintain your credibility on a subject, you have to be willing to criticize your own side.Otherwise, you're a hypocrite.So the panel was supposed to talk about the #MeToo movement, and the implicit goal of the panel was to simply criticize Democrats on this matter, which I was happy to do.But I said, "You also have to look to our side and see that we have, sitting in the White House, a credibly accused sexual harasser at the very least," and that the Republican Party had just bestowed its endorsement on a credibly accused child molester in the case of Roy Moore in Alabama, endorsed him for Senate.
And so I wanted to point that out.But I also wanted to make the point that CPAC itself was violating its own principles by opening its doors to and inviting Marion Le Pen, who was the niece of Marine Le Pen and the faithful believer in her grandfather's philosophy, to their conference, which meant that they were moving—this was 2018—that they were moving firmly into the nationalist camp and away from the kind of conservatism that CPAC used to believe in.
And the response that you got, did that tell you something about the movement and about the party?
I was not surprised that I was booed.But—so it's an illustration of a problem that we are still dealing with, and we still have no clear answer on how to address as a society, which is, some of the people who booed me—and I particularly remember one woman's face, because she was contorted in righteous indignation.She genuinely believed what she had been told by her media outlets, that this was all a lie about Roy Moore and about Trump and that I was presenting her with what she knew to be untrue, OK.That was the source of her passionate indignation.And the fact is, we still are trying to figure out, how do you break through when people are so convinced and they get a very skewed version of reality, or they get disinformation, and, you know, when you try to do your best to tell the truth, they don't believe you?
Now, I did hope that, because I had some credibility as a many-decadeslong conservative columnist, that perhaps coming from me, it would have a little more credibility, but—And maybe it did with some, right?We can't know how everybody in the audience reacted.I did get some thumbs up.
Liz Cheney and the First Impeachment
… One of the people we're trying to understand is [Rep.] Liz Cheney, who will have one reaction after Jan. 6, but who, though she doesn't condone Trump's conduct, is somebody who's very critical of the Democrats' handling of the first impeachment.What is the dynamic that's at play in that first impeachment, and how do you end up with a situation where you have every Republican except [Sen.] Mitt Romney on one side? …
Yeah.Looking back, it is possible that if the Democrats had been a bit more strategic about the way they compiled the committee, if they had invited some Republicans on, perhaps things would have been different—as impeachment managers, I mean.
This is the first impeachment about Ukraine, yeah.
Yeah.But no, at the time and since, I really see it as, yes, perhaps Democrats made a few false moves, but mostly, I think it was that the party—the Republican Party had become so cultish at that point that there was very little—and plus, the issue was one that was very hard for the average voter to get their arms around.There was something about a phone call and weapons and, you know, it wasn't very clear … it wasn't something that could fit on a bumper sticker.And so perhaps that also contributed.But I think mostly it was that the Republican Party had become a cult of personality, and they were pretty much determined to stick with their leader—
Because the conduct was, in my judgment, clearly impeachable.He was attempting to strong-arm an ally for personal gain and attempting to corrupt American politics and Ukrainian politics simultaneously, so the Ukrainians would launch a fake investigation of Trump's main opponent in 2020, and so both countries would be complicit in a corrupt bargain.
… The impeachment was supposed to be the check that the founders built into the Constitution on a president.And when you're watching that first impeachment, does it feel like the constitutional system, the constitutional checks are working?Is this a moment revealing weaknesses in it?
Well, both impeachments demonstrated the weakness of that tool, that in an age of hyper-polarization, it's a dead letter.It does not work.And especially when you consider the supermajorities that are required for conviction, it is ineffective.And the threat of it is, frankly, not effective anymore because of what we saw, not just in the two Trump impeachments but in the Clinton impeachment as well, where, again, not a single Democrat voted to impeach the president of his party, because the polarization had set in even then, though it wasn't nearly as extreme as it has since become.
So there is that.But there are many other ways in which the polarization—that the founders, to their credit, did fear, though they didn't quite know how to prevent it.There are other aspects of the whole constitutional order that are also not bearing up well under the load of polarization.So the very independence of the branches of government, the Senate was meant to be a check, the House of Representatives.Those bodies have become absolutely supine in doing the bidding of the president of their own party.They have no institutional pride, and they don't assert their prerogatives at all anymore.So that's another respect in which the design of the Constitution has not been able to withstand the pressures of hyperpolarization—
So there's a moment at the end—
—which is why we have now moves to consider reforms like nonpartisan primaries, which I think would help to cut that Gordian knot.
Just to finish that first impeachment, there's this scene where Trump goes and thanks everybody who made his acquittal possible, and he holds up a newspaper that says that he was acquitted.And according to the journalists we've talked to, the president saw that as a moment of being unleashed, of realizing that the checks weren't going to contain him.Can you describe that moment and the responsibility of the people in that room for what would happen over the next year?
Well, first of all, every single person in that room was responsible for the—I mean, "undignified" is too weak a word—you know, the really sort of uncouth and gross nature of the preening over this vote, and including the attorney general, who was sitting in the front row, as I recall.So it was a disgusting display.I think there was profanity used, if memory serves.It was a despicable display, and the people who lent their moral authority to it have—they have a level of responsibility that they're going to have to live with for the rest of their lives. …
Everything that happened, the events after the failure to convict in that first impeachment, including Trump's attempt to steal the election, his fomenting of an insurrection, a violent insurrection at the Capitol, it flowed from that permission slip that he had been given after the first impeachment.
Trump, COVID and Black Lives Matter
The run-up to Jan. 6 is a remarkable year in a lot of ways.One of them is COVID, which apparently is where Liz Cheney starts to break from Trump.During that period, you've talked a lot about truth and Trump's relationship with it, and in that period, the misrepresentations about COVID, about the conspiracy theories that are being pushed … even that some governments, some state governments are trying to control their citizens.How important is that period in understanding what would happen after Jan. 6 and what he was doing in his response to COVID?
Well, I guess you could say—and maybe some historian will—that as the administration progressed, you had the falling away of more and more people who were mature and had some judgment and were able to rein him in a little bit.They either resigned or were fired.And the administration became ever more unmoored from reality and from decency.And the COVID period really demonstrated that, where the president just became willing to bring in—now, there had been some of this before.I mean, I remember writing a column about his welcoming of QAnon conspiracists to the Oval Office.So, you know, it was an ongoing pattern.
But in the case of COVID, Americans began to see it for themselves, because he made the choice to do these nightly press conferences.Indulging the craziest conspiracy theories, as well as, you know, denying the reality of what was happening, and making simple public health measures, like wearing masks, into a political fight, a culture war, you know, that that, I guess, demonstrated the sort of unhinged nature of the administration at that point to some viewers.I think that that—that had it not been, honestly, for the pandemic, it is entirely possible that Trump would have been reelected.
I mean, in that year, also, there's the rhetoric about antifa, about the radical left, about a real existential threat to, you know—there's a lot of the "us versus them" mentality and talk.And how do you—when you're watching that, is that concerning, as you're seeing him ramp up his description of fellow Americans as the enemy?
His descriptions of members of the Congress as enemies, his descriptions of the press—I worked for a president, and I worked for several politicians.I have never known a politician who liked the press.It just does not happen, no matter what side they're on.But Trump uses language that he borrows directly from Josef Stalin.He calls them "enemies of the people" and talks about traitors.And he says, "You know what we do to traitors."You know, the threat of violence is always just beneath the surface when it isn't actually open.
… It would gratify me when I would meet somebody who was not that involved in politics but who thought of themselves as basically right of center, people I would meet at the dog park, for example, who would say, "I can't vote for him again.He's tearing us apart."And I would think, all right, that's a healthy reaction.So there was certainly some of that, which was good.But, you know, that was an ordinary person that I met at the dog park.I didn't hear that from members of Congress.
I mean, and from some members of Congress, you're hearing things, you know.Tom Cotton writes an editorial, "Send in the Troops."4I mean, is the party starting to change? …
4
New York Times: Tom Cotton: Send In the Troops
The party has changed utterly.It's unrecognizable.The party now openly encourages kind of white nationalism.It is an utter—you know, combativeness for its own sake is what is cherished.The whole idea of solving problems is out the window.It's now all about making your enemies cry.And so it's—it's unrecognizable as a political party.I do a podcast where we discuss issues, and we're all eager to debate among ourselves about what the best policies are, but there's very little policy at the national level in Washington these days, because people are much more interested in scoring points and just posturing for their narrow base.
Are you seeing it—
By the way, there's some of that on the left as well.
Are you starting to see it play out in the streets of Kenosha, in the members of the party?Is there increasing resort to violence or to talk of violence amongst ordinary supporters?
So there has certainly been valorization of people who should not have been held up.So the two—the couple in St. Louis who waved guns at protesters who were passing by their house were featured at the Republican convention.Kyle Rittenhouse, a kid, a confused kid who went out with a gun to a riot and wound up killing someone, is treated as some sort of hero.So there is that strain, definitely.
Whether we are in a moment of huge segments of the Republican Party joining militias, I don't see that, thank God, but the tolerance for violence, the tolerance for vigilantism, is definitely noticeably up.
And the last thing in this territory I want to ask you about is that moment when the president walks across Lafayette Square, and it's accompanied by lots of other things, talk of sending in active-duty military and now reports that he was suggesting privately to shoot some of the protesters.How remarkable a moment is that in this story, and what kind of a marker is it on our journey towards Jan. 6?
That was a remarkable display.Some good things did come out of that.One of them was that the military, having felt blindsided by being marched out there, didn't really realize what was happening until it was too late, recoiled.And so there has been a strong reaction on the part of the military not to be taken advantage of that way and not to be presented as partisans in any fashion.That is a really healthy reaction, the kind of thing you hope to see from our institutions, frankly.And so that's a good—that's a healthy sign.
The clearing of the square of peaceful demonstrators was honestly the sort of thing that you never expect to see in the United States of America.That was atrocious, and there was absolutely no reason for it.I live in nearby Virginia suburbs just outside D.C.I happened to have been driving home that evening.And I know, for a fact, that there was a curfew in effect in the District of Columbia, and those people were moved out of the square before curfew.So there was absolutely no reason for them to be moved.They weren't committing violence of any kind.
If you are trying to think of an iconic American freedom, it's the freedom to protest against your government.And for them to use force the way they did, and tear gas—and then there were all the denials from the usual Trump explainers."Oh, no, no tear gas was used."But of course it was.And you know, there were the explanations that, frankly, were reminiscent of the kind of thing you get in authoritarian countries, where it's denial, denial, denial.And it was a shameful thing.And—yeah.
And by that point, are you surprised by the response of congressional leaders, of Republican congressional leaders?
No. No.They had—you know, their souls had been crushed long since, and so I had stopped expecting anything of them.
After the 2020 Election
So let's go to after the election.
Can you help us understand Mitch McConnell's choice that he makes after the election and his decision to remain silent, why he would do it and how important that was?
Again, it's one of those moments, and there were innumerable such moments, when leadership had an opportunity to make an enormous difference and made the wrong choice.If McConnell had chosen to vote to convict Trump and had brought along just a handful of more—handful more of Republican senators, Trump would have been removed from office immediately.He only had a few more days in his term to serve, but he would have been forbidden—presumably they could have prevented him from holding any office of honor or trust in America forever after.They could have ridden themselves, and us, of this menace, and they chose not to.
It is, you know—we now know, from books that have come out recently, that McConnell said, "The Democrats are going to get rid of this son of a bitch for us."And of course, they were always looking for someone else to do it.They were never willing to take responsibility themselves.And they, you know, they constantly were presented with opportunities to be responsible stewards of this country and of the honor of their party and of their country, and they whiffed.So it was a terrible, terrible moment.
And the first decision that he makes after the election, that he's going to say, for six weeks, "Let's let the process play out.Let's see what happens," how important was that?Was he contributing to it?
Yes.
Or was he —
Yes.He was contributing to it, because he had seen enough over the last five years of what kind of a person Trump is to know that this was a dangerous indulgence, and the idea that "Oh, let's see how this plays out"—I mean, Trump had a strategy that first he was going to discredit the election, and then he was going to contest it, and then he was going to attempt to manipulate state legislatures and election officials—even local election officials, including secretaries of state—to throw the election to him or have alternate slates of delegates, you know, and then finally he resorts to violence and intimidation of the lawmakers.
All of that was ongoing.There were stories about it.It was not a secret what Trump was up to.And McConnell has excellent sources.He likes to keep his finger on the pulse of what's happening in the party.So he had every reason to know what was happening, and for him to say, "Let's just let the process play out." I guess if you want to be charitable, you would say he knew that the courts—that these court cases had no merit, and maybe he told himself that once the court cases were all rejected, as they all were, that Trump would give up.
So perhaps there was a little failure of imagination on his part, but having lived with Trump's erratic behavior for five years, he should have been more on guard.
He should have been looking for an opportunity to defang Trump while he had the chance.
I mean, one of the stories of the election is these local leaders, many of them Republicans who are administering the elections and who are saying, you know, "It wasn't stolen," who are receiving death threats, who are being pressured by the White House, and they're looking towards Washington, I mean, how important were those individuals at the state level?And what support were they getting when they looked to the party leaders in Washington?
As far as I know, they got no support.They got the opposite of support.They were on their own.And some of them, I mean, we owe the competent choice of Joe Biden and the smooth functioning of the 2020 election to people like Aaron Van Langevelde, I think it was, in Michigan, who was on a state board of canvassers, who refused to buckle to pressure; to people like Brad Raffensperger, who refused to buckle.There were lots of them, and they did the right thing, just—people in Congress may not understand this.These guys did the right thing because it was just the right thing to do, and they had integrity.
They ought to be heroes.They ought to be getting a lot more praise and thanks than they're getting.Many of them have been removed from their positions.And you know, and some of them have had to physically move out of their homes because of death threats and because of harassment.It's a disgraceful thing.
Two people who differ greatly during this period, if they start maybe a little off, but will become very far apart, [House Republican leader] Kevin McCarthy and Liz Cheney.Can you help us understand why they would go in different trajectories during that period leading up to Jan. 6 and why they were on different sides?
From my perspective, as someone who felt from the get-go that Trump was completely unacceptable, somebody who wrote a column, I think, in 2012, criticizing Mitt Romney for accepting Trump's endorsement, I did think that Liz Cheney was a little late to the party.But she has shown herself to be such an inspiring leader now that all is forgiven.She's shown that there are some things that are beyond the pale.She recognizes now that there is a severe danger, and she's willing to do whatever it takes to stand up to it and to alert the country.And she is being just heroic and terrific.
Kevin McCarthy is a hollow man, like what C. S. Lewis called "men without chests."I mean, he just moves with the wind.He has no fixed principles.And so he, on the day of Jan. 6, or a day or two later, issued a denunciation of Trump's role in the riot and his failure to come to their aid when he could have, and then within two weeks, he was down at Mar-a-Lago kissing the ring and posing with the former president.He at first stood up for Liz Cheney, when members of the caucus wanted to remove her for her courage, and then, pretty soon, he turned on her.And that's a study in character right there.
… Liz Cheney writes a memo to her colleagues, and she documents with Republican judges why the election wasn't stolen.There's an orchestration of defense secretaries writing an op-ed.And it seems like the kind of thing that, at a time in Washington, maybe in Dick Cheney's Washington, would have had quite an impact.Why doesn't—her efforts to convince her colleagues, why don't they work now?
Yeah.Well, that's a great question.This goes to the heart of the crisis of information that we are in, of truth, because people have found that they can choose to live with lies, and not only can they, but it's to their advantage politically to deny the truth.And so those members would get that memo, and they will read it, and they will say, "You know, this is absolutely true.Everything she says is absolutely true.But my constituents, if I say this, will have my head."And some of them went even further.Some of them said, "I fear for the safety of my family.I cannot go with Liz Cheney.I've got to stick with Trump."
And so whereas in 2016 it required political courage to stand up to Trump and to the drift of the Republican Party into this kind of nationalist authoritarian cult, by 2020, it required physical courage, because things had gone to such a point where people did fear for their own safety and for that of their families.
Wow.I mean, that says a lot about where we are in American democracy.
It does.
Jan. 6 and the Aftermath
So on the evening of Jan. 6, Lindsey Graham gives his famous speech, "We're done with—I'm done."There's rumors that McConnell might vote to impeach.As you say, Kevin McCarthy issues a strong statement.Was there a feeling that this was another moment of choice, that there was an opportunity after Jan. 6 to go on a different path?
Yeah.And for about 48 hours, it really seemed that this was the final straw and that the dam had broken; people were finally going to do the right thing.I was receiving phone calls and texts and emails from people saying, "You were right."As I say, it lasted about 48 hours, and then people began to drift back.Fox News did its thing.Even Fox, by the way, was good.Even <i>The Wall Street Journal</i> and other right-wing—not right-wing, but conservative outlets were saying, "Impeach him.Remove him from office."So it was, for me, a moment where I had some hope that things were going to—the ship was going to right itself.Very late, but still better late than never.And then it all dissipated, and people returned to their comfortable fictions.And by the time the impeachment—the second impeachment rolled around, which the Democrats did an excellent job of; it was riveting.But by then, you know, the position had hardened.The concrete had hardened, and there was no reaching these people.
But why? Why?Because now, we've seen Jan. 6.And maybe it was different in 2016.But why, at that point?
Because they were terrified of their voters.Their voters were too far gone."It was antifa."Actually, it didn't matter.You know, the alternative explanations were contradictory, right, so it was antifa, or it was an inside job, or it was a peaceful protest, or it was the deep state.These things all contradicted one another.It didn't matter, because the mindset was, "Whatever my side does is OK."And so—and I'm speaking now about the Trump base.I'm not talking about the political leaders, but they were afraid of their base.
It seems like Kevin McCarthy thinks he can keep a Liz Cheney in, at least in February, and he can keep Marjorie Taylor Greene.But by the end of the spring, they vote to remove Liz Cheney from the leadership.How important a decision, how important a moment was that in saying who the party was and how it identified itself?
So the Republican Party can tolerate the Jewish-space-laser QAnon lady, but it cannot tolerate the truth-telling rock-ribbed conservative lady.5So that pretty much sums up where the Republican Party is now.
5
And how much of its identity now is surrounding 2020 and Jan. 6 and the stolen election?And how much of that was what was going on with Liz Cheney?
So I think that the 2020 stolen-election fiction is important now, but it will be of less and less importance as time goes by.It will be replaced by other things.The reason it's important now is just that Trump is insisting on it from people who want his blessing and his endorsement, and therefore, people are mouthing it.But I don't think it will continue to be the lead issue.I think the kinds of things that [Gov.] Ron DeSantis is doing in Florida and those kinds of moves, about textbooks, or about CRT [critical race theory] or whatever, those things will take the place of the 2020 election.As long as it's a culture war issue, and it involves sticking it to your enemies, that will become the talisman.
But how dangerous is it for our democracy?Because I was just looking, and both Democrats and Republicans are at a moment of not having faith in the system and the faith in election results and the faith that it works.I mean, is that a consequence of that period as well?
So there was nothing—Trump did many grotesque and awful things in office, including sidling up to dictators of various kinds and, you know, terrible things.But the worst and most damaging thing that he did was to undermine faith in elections themselves.Without that, people are going to resort to violence.If they think the system is rigged, and their votes will not make a difference, that they have been truly disenfranchised, violence becomes not just possible; it becomes necessary.And that is the most corrupting and damaging thing he did to this country.It's his legacy.
Those images from Jan. 6, that's Trumpism right there.And it is not clear at this moment whether we will be able to transcend this, whether we'll be able to restore trust.It's been so badly broken.And so we are, you know, we're feeling our way forward.We're groping toward trying to restore some sense of normality.But this is a great challenge.
And in bringing us here, how important were the choices that were made along the way by the people we've been talking about, in bringing to this moment of threat to democracy?
With power comes responsibility.These people had a responsibility.Republican leaders had responsibility, and they had many opportunities to steer people away from extremism.And instead, they found that it served their short-term narrow ends to indulge it or ignore it or avert their eyes.And so they have bequeathed to us a democracy that is wobbly at this moment.
One thing I didn't talk to you about was the role of the vice president, of Pence, when he's under tremendous pressure from the president, and it seems like he had the ability to throw everything into chaos.And he was the guy who signed up with him, right?What happened with Pence, and how do you understand that moment and that interaction in his role in this?
Yeah.I think Pence should be honored for doing the right thing that day.That was critical.If he had thrown out slates of delegates, who knows where we would be now?So he deserves honor for that moment.Unfortunately, in the months since, he's walked it back.He's given very mixed signals.He has sometimes said that he is distant from Trump, but at other times he has sort of gone scurrying back under Trump's skirts.So post-2020, Pence has been less laudable, but at that moment, he did do the right thing, and thank God for it.
Latest Interviews
Latest Interviews
Policies
Teacher Center
Jon and Jo Ann Hagler on behalf of the Jon L. Hagler Foundation
Koo and Patricia Yuen
FRONTLINE is a registered trademark of WGBH Educational Foundation. Web Site Copyright ©1995-2025 WGBH Educational Foundation. PBS is a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization.
Funding for FRONTLINE is provided through the support of PBS viewers and by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Additional funding is provided by the Abrams Foundation; Park Foundation; the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation; and the FRONTLINE Journalism Fund with major support from Jon and Jo Ann Hagler on behalf of the Jon L. Hagler Foundation, and additional support from Koo and Patricia Yuen. FRONTLINE is a registered trademark of WGBH Educational Foundation. Web Site Copyright ©1995-2025 WGBH Educational Foundation. PBS is a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization.
