Welcome, What the Hell... The pod, the transcript, the highlights -- 2022 starts on January 6
Our first substack note...
Friends, listeners, countrymen,
Happy New Year from the What the Hell gang. We’ve started this Substack as a way to curate our What the Hell is Going On podcast content, transcripts, and some short out-takes for those who don’t have the time to commit to the whole shebang every single week.
As with the pod, we’re more than grateful for your suggestions, your moderately pleasant criticisms, and your ardent expressions of affection. For this first post, we’re genuinely honored to share our interview with Jon Karl, the chief Washington correspondent for ABC News and co-anchor of This Week with George Stephanopoulos. Karl has covered every major beat in Washington, D.C., including the White House, Capitol Hill, the Pentagon, and the State Department. He has reported from the White House under four presidents and fourteen press secretaries. His new book, Betrayal: The Final Act of the Trump Show, debuted at #3 on the New York Times bestseller list. Notwithstanding 😉, it’s an outstanding read (or listen, if you’re Marc). We talk January 6 with Jon, hear his scoops (like why Donald Trump isn’t leaving the GOP anytime soon), talk the health of American democracy and grumble about the press. It’s a bang-up start to the year, and we’re grateful, as always, for your support.
HIGHLIGHT REEL
Karl: In other words, [Donald Trump thinks] I can shoot somebody on Fifth Avenue and they'll still support me, but if I lose, maybe they won't. So. I think that that's why he needed to create this impression that he didn't really lose, and I think he knew that he had to do that as he felt he had to do that for his own survival as a viable political figure and more.
Marc: Then he violated the drug dealer’s oath, which is he got high in his own supply?
Karl: I think so. I think so, but Dany raises a very, very, very important point, which is, there are millions of people that believe this who are good people. They are patriots, and they truly believe the election was stolen. And I don't think it behooves us to start yelling at these people that they're either dumb or they're liars or whatever. I think we have to understand why so many people came to believe that.
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TRANSCRIPT
WTH is going on one year after the Jan. 6 Capitol breach? ABC’s Jonathan Karl on last year’s deadly riots at the US Capitol, just how close America was to a constitutional crisis, and his new book Betrayal: The Final Act of the Trump Show
Episode #132 | January 5, 2021 | Danielle Pletka, Marc Thiessen, and Jonathan Karl
Danielle Pletka: Hi, I'm Danielle Pletka.
Marc Thiessen: I'm Marc Thiessen.
Danielle Pletka: Welcome to our podcast, "What the Hell Is Going On?" Marc, what the hell's going on this week?
Marc Thiessen: So this is the one year anniversary of January 6th, and we have got a great guest who's written a fantastic book, Jonathan Karl of ABC News, an old friend of mine, friend from Vassar College. And he's written a fantastic, fantastic book that is not just about January 6th. It's about the last year of the Trump presidency.
Danielle Pletka: The book is called just "Betrayal: The Final Act of the Trump Show."
Marc Thiessen: Yes, because his first book was called "Front Row at the Trump Show," so this is now the sequel to that. It's a great book. I listened to it on Audible on a car ride where I had ten hours in the car to focus, and it was just terrific. And what I liked about it was one, it was meticulously reported. He spent a lot of time tracking down sources and getting a lot of details to stories that we've all heard peripherally, some of them, some we hadn't heard at all. But also very even-handed. He gives credit to the people who did the right thing. And it's not a polemic. It is a truly objectively reported book about the last year of the Trump presidency and what happened on January 6th, and why it was so dangerous.
Danielle Pletka: So one of the things that really troubles me one year on is that there has been this attempt at revisionist history. There have been people who have sought to downplay what happened. There have been people who have suggested that it wasn't Donald Trump supporters that were out there that day. It was people who were seeking to besmirch the honorable Donald Trump's reputation. I think those people are not fully in touch with the reality that we know. But again, there have also been people who have suggested that we were moments away from a coup d'état, that our democracy is almost at an end, that American democracy is in fact so broken that we cannot lecture other countries about their lack of democracy. So all of this, I think, represents a real dive away from reality, and Jon gets right into it.
Marc Thiessen: I think you can hold two things at the same time; one, what happened was incredibly serious, that it wasn't just a riot, that it was an attempt to stop the peaceful transfer of power, that Donald Trump was responsible for it and then encouraged it and has continued to spread lies about what happened in the election that are destructive to the country and to the party; and at the same time, not believe that our democracy is in peril. And that's one area where I sort of disagree, and I get into it a little bit with Jon in the interview.
Marc Thiessen: I just don't think that our democracy was in peril. I think one of the things that this shows is how resilient our democracy is and how strong our institutions are, that you had a commander in chief who was really truly trying to stop the transfer of power, trying to convince his vice president to do something that violated the constitution. And so many people did the right thing against their own political interest, so many; including vice president Pence, who I'm sure he's going to try and navigate the political waters, but may have done irreparable damage to himself in defense of the constitution.
Danielle Pletka: Just say that sentence again, "may have done irreparable damage to himself in defense of the constitution."
Marc Thiessen: Yeah.
Danielle Pletka: What does that say about our political system and about our voters?
Marc Thiessen: Well, first of all, it says a great thing about our political system. It doesn't say a good thing about Donald Trump who put him into that choice.
Danielle Pletka: But that others perceived, other than Donald Trump, that there are people who perceived that Pence betrayed somebody and that was more important than the constitution, seems to me to be a little troubling.
Marc Thiessen: Well, I don't think those people think that he was being asked to violate the constitution, because I don't know that they realize that they were told that he could do it. Look, as we talked about, and you get into this in the interview, the Russia hoax, right? All the lies that have been told about Trump, all the money that has been spent to try and destroy him, a lot of these people basically don't trust the media.
Marc Thiessen: And this is one of the big problems... Actually, we should have gotten into this with Jon, I wish we had; is that one of the big problems we had after January 6th was that there was no neutral arbiter of truth left in this country, because the media had so discredited itself in terms of how it went after Trump and how it spread the Russia collusion conspiracy theories and all the rest of that. And he in turn turned around and called it fake news and convinced a lot of people that the media couldn't be trusted. And so when we needed someone to be able to say balls and strikes, truth and fiction, no one believed them, right?
Danielle Pletka: No, no, you're right. And I think that is a big problem. But it's a long trip from not trusting the media to taking weapons into the United States Capitol.
Marc Thiessen: But most Trump supporters didn't do that.
Danielle Pletka: Right of course not, but there were enough people-
Marc Thiessen: This was a small minority of people, I don't know how many there were in Washington at the time, but most of them didn't go to the Capitol. Most of them didn't violate the law. And Trump supporters around the country aren't responsible for what that small minority did, what that small minority did was horrible, and it was an attempted insurrection. I agree with that. And it was, as you and I both worked in the US Senate for years, it was one of the darkest days of our democracy that I've ever seen. And I don't want to-
Danielle Pletka: You don't want to downplay it, yeah.
Marc Thiessen: I don't downplay it, but I also don't want to tar the 74 million good Americans who voted for Donald Trump and who wanted him to win with a broad brush of what a handful of people did.
Danielle Pletka: Okay. That's fair enough. I think where we really get into an interesting place, and this is where I think Jon really adds to the debate and the understanding of what happens, is much less the sort of the tick-tock of what happened, step by step and move by move in the Capitol, where we really know, and we're seeing a court process and people are being punished—deservedly so. But where we see how the president himself acted, what the president himself did, what the people around him did, the choices that they made. And one of the things that troubles me, I guess, is the fact that, okay, you're right, you cannot tar the Republican Party and the Republican voter with what happened on January 6th. It is unjust. It is unfair. They did not do that. On the other hand, he did nothing to stop it, and yet he has not discredited himself with those people. That is, I think, the big question for me is how is it that people can talk about Donald Trump running again in 2024 with a straight face?
Marc Thiessen: Well, if you believe, as he's convinced millions of people, that the election was stolen, then maybe you don't think what happened was unjustified. I'm just saying it's the big lie. People have bought into the big lie. People have been told the big lie. They don't trust the media. They believe Trump. Trump irresponsibly is telling them that he won in a landslide and that it was stolen from them. And so if you believe that, then you might say they shouldn't have done that, but you're not looking at it like this was the betrayal of our democracy that you and I see it as because we know that it wasn't stolen.
Marc Thiessen: And by the way, that's one of the things that Jon does really well in this book, which is another reason why people should read it, is that what he does is he goes through, he doesn't just say it like so many people in the media as just a throwaway line, "It's the big lie, all of Trump's claims are wrong." He actually goes through and looks at the claims made by Trump and by his lawyers and meticulously goes through and explains why each of these claims wasn't accurate with really good reporting. And I think for most Americans if you're not sure whether or not Trump is right—because I think a lot of people wonder if he's telling the truth or not—read the book because literally he goes through and you can say, "Here's what Trump says, and here's why it doesn't add up." I think it was an incredibly useful exercise in reporting on the actual facts of what happened on the ground in the election.
Danielle Pletka: Right. And of course, the first person who did that and who did sort of the case by case rebuttal was Liz Cheney, if you remember. And then we remember all of those Republicans who refused to certify the election based on a lot of these lies. And of course, they know they're lies, right? They know the election wasn't stolen. The long term consequence of this, is the question about the Republican Party and about Trump's hold over the Republican Party. And again, we get into this with Jon, but I think it's absolutely fascinating. He's got a great story about the chairman of the Republican National Committee, Ronna McDaniel, and Trump calling her. And again, meticulous reporting, but for me, questions that really remain unanswered; how do Americans continue to support someone who thought that what happened on January 6th was really a good thing? I understand their disenchantment with the Democratic Party, because I feel exactly the same way. Exactly the same way.
Marc Thiessen: Not just disenchantment, Dany. I mean...
Danielle Pletka: Fear. Fear of the Democratic Party. Yeah. Look...
Marc Thiessen: I mean, this is the problem that we're in, right? Is that it's not like we have a benign alternative, right?
Danielle Pletka: So maybe our democracy does have a problem. Maybe we need some real changes. I mean, we've talked about talking about this, and I think it would be really worth trying to explore what changes to our political system might lead to more palatable outcomes. Because a Democratic Party dominated by the Squad and a Republican Party dominated by somebody who thinks it's perfectly fine to invade the Capitol and steal the electoral ballots is really not a fantastic situation to be in. Look at 2024. I mean, can you imagine to yourself, if we are faced up with Joe Biden who's not entirely sure where Ukraine is, and actually believes that Golda Meir wanted him to negotiate peace for our time, and Donald Trump who thinks that he was betrayed by Mike Pence, who should have... Another scoop in this Karl book, who thought it was okay that people said that Pence should have been hung. Right?
Marc Thiessen: Yep.
Danielle Pletka: What are we left with in 2024 if those are our choices?
Marc Thiessen: Well, hopefully those won't be our choices. And again, anybody who's listening to this podcast, read my columns, knows how I feel about January 6th, how I feel about the big lie and all the rest of it. Jon makes a case here that there was a real danger to our democracy, to our institutions from this, that was greater than most people think. I look at what's happening in Washington right now, and I think that that's a greater threat to our institutions than anything that happened in January of 2020. I think that the Democrats pose right now, the radicalization of the party, poses an enormous threat to the institutions.
Marc Thiessen: Because if you look at the entire story of the Trump presidency, it is a story of this bull in a china shop who tried to do a bunch of things, and everywhere he went too far, the system checked him, right? I mean, there was a peaceful transfer of power, when he went too far the Supreme Court overruled him, none of the courts upheld any of his electoral challenges. The system held with Donald Trump. The Democrats are trying to change the institutions. They're trying to change the system. They want to get rid of the filibuster. And I'm telling you something, Dany, if it wasn't for Joe Manchin and Krysten Sinema, who are my personal heroes right now, they would be doing it. They would get rid of the filibuster. They would start adding states. They would be doing court packing and all sorts of things like that. They're the ones who want to change the system.
Danielle Pletka: We've had this discussion before. I just think we need to be very wary when somebody does something that's entirely disqualifying to suggest that while mistakes were made during Mussolini's reign, but in fact, he finally did make the trains run on time.
Marc Thiessen: First of all, just like you don't like Nazi analogies, Mussolini analogies aren't-
Danielle Pletka: They seem less bad.
Marc Thiessen: They're not.
Danielle Pletka: They seem less bad because he was such an incompetent, but he did make the trains run on time.
Marc Thiessen: But that's not what I'm saying at all. What I'm saying is that in the case of Trump, the institutions held and checked him, and what the left is trying to do today is change our institutions. And that's a fundamental-
Danielle Pletka: You know I agree.
Marc Thiessen: Feed our polarization, make all of these problems that you're concerned about worse.
Danielle Pletka: You know I agree with you, but I don't agree that it is worse than January 6th. I think that they are both assaults on our system.
Marc Thiessen: I agree.
Danielle Pletka: But of course, not everybody came here just to listen to you and me rehearse our arguments. Maybe they came to hear Jon Karl say a word or two. He doesn't really need an introduction. I think any of you who pay attention to politics must know him well. He's the chief Washington correspondent for ABC News. He's the co-anchor of This Week with George Stephanopoulos. His bio says he's covered every major beat in Washington, DC, but he actually has literally covered every beat; the Pentagon, Capitol Hill, the White House. And not withstanding that fact, through Republican administrations, Democratic administrations, writing for The Atlantic, writing several books, everybody still likes him. I don't quite know what his magic is, but he's here with us to talk about the book that we mentioned at the outset. He wrote the New York Times bestseller “Front Row at the Trump Show,” and it is only appropriate that there be a sequel to anything about Donald Trump, which is his book “Betrayal: The Final Act of the Trump Show.”
Marc Thiessen: Here's our interview.
Marc Thiessen: Jonathan Karl, welcome to the podcast.
Jonathan Karl: Hey, it's great to be here. I mean, what the hell is going on?
Danielle Pletka: An excellent question.
Marc Thiessen: We ask that ourselves sometimes.
Danielle Pletka: Every week.
Marc Thiessen: Well, what the hell is going on is you have written a masterpiece. I listened to it... First of all, I hadn't talked to you in a little while and I felt like I just had a long conversation with you because you did all the talking, but I just read it taking my son up to Vermont to college, and it's really great. It’s just so meticulously reported and really well done.
Jonathan Karl: Well, thank you. Thank you. I mean, I truly put everything into it over the past year and I think it's the most important thing that I've ever done. So I appreciate that.
Marc Thiessen: You tell so many great stories in the book. Tell us, what do you think was the most shocking story that you uncovered in your reporting?
Jonathan Karl: It was really an overall theme, as I pieced it all together, I realized that we got a lot closer to a much greater constitutional crisis than the one we had. And there were many places where things truly could have gone off the rails. And there were people, kind of unlikely heroes, people that you would never have expected it would've been those that stood up at the right moment and did the right thing by basically refusing the wishes of the commander in chief that kept this from getting a lot worse. And Pence is the most high profile case of refusing to do what he was demanded on January 6th, but there were many people, people whose names aren't known, and unless people read my book, maybe will never be known. But they basically did what they had to do under the law, but by refusing somebody so powerful...
Jonathan Karl: Political figures, local political figures…come back to the state legislative leaders in Michigan who were summoned into the White House on November 30th by Donald Trump. I mean, these are Trumpers. These are local leaders who were elected to office by people who loved Donald Trump and believed everything he was saying about the election. And he called them in and wanted them to reconvene the legislature and send in a new batch of electoral votes. And they left that meeting, and they put out a statement that they had clearly written before they went into the meeting and said, "We're going to follow the law. God bless you. We're not going to do that. We can't do it."
Danielle Pletka: First of all, let me echo Marc. Really, I mean, we live in Washington, DC, there are a lot of good reporters in Washington, DC. There are a lot of good writers in Washington, DC. This is a tour de force.
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