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- [01:17]
Jonathan Karl
He'S almost acting like a guy that feels like he's running out of time. I mean, look, he's 79 years old. He doesn't really exercise. You know, his diet isn't exactly the model diet.
- [01:29]
Joanna Coles
I'm Joanna Coles. This is the Daily Beast podcast. And today in the studio, we have none other than the author of Retribution, Jonathan Carl, the Washington correspondent for ABC News. This is a fascinating read and well, the man's here. Let's get into it. We are joined By Jonathan Carle, ABC's Washington bureau chief and the author of God Help Us Only Rifle by Michael Wolf. Four books on Donald Trump, including his latest, Retribution, which is a gripping read. I will say I curled up with this book, big cup of tea, big under my blanket as the first cold of the winter crept upon us and I couldn't put it down. And you start with a conversation that you have on the phone with Donald Trump. When you call him to congratulate him on being the President Elect. And then you refer to many conversations you have throughout the book with him. It feels like the two of you are in an abusive relationship.
- [02:37]
Jonathan Karl
It feels like that with a lot of people with Donald Trump. I mean, look, it's by the way, I should say one thing. I am not the Washington bureau chief. I am the chief Washington correspondent. And I want to. Sorry to Rick Klein, who was our bureau chief.
- [02:49]
Joanna Coles
Rick Klein. I'm sorry I insulted you. I'm sorry.
- [02:52]
Jonathan Karl
Look, and I would never want that responsibility. That would mean I'd actually have to run the place. So I. Yeah, I mean, look, I'm.
- [02:59]
Joanna Coles
Just going to point out that the Daily Beast is so efficient that we have a Washington bureau chief and chief Washington correspondent in Gardner.
- [03:07]
Jonathan Karl
Wow.
- [03:07]
Joanna Coles
We have a smaller team than abc.
- [03:09]
Jonathan Karl
Don't tell my friends at ABC that I like, you know.
- [03:11]
Joanna Coles
All right, so we've started off. This is very frightening. We've already started off, and I've got your title wrong. But. But it does feel like you're in an abusive relationship with Trump, and sometimes he calls you and he loves you, and other times he calls you out in public and tells you you're part of the problem.
- [03:26]
Jonathan Karl
Yeah, I mean, look, first of all, I've known the guy for 30 plus years. I mean, I first interviewed him when I was a young New York Post reporter, you know, running around Trump Tower. And he was showing me all his glories and, you know, telling. I mean, it was like he's almost the same guy that he was back then. But I've known him when he came to the White House, I was the chief, you know, White House correspondent for abc. I also was the president of the White House Correspondents Association. But I was somebody who knew him and somebody who he had known for a long time. So there is that relationship. And he getsi think I've gotten the sense over time that he always thinks that he can pull me in and I'm going to be like, you know, in his camp in some way. And he doesn't understand I'm a journalist. We're not in anybody's camp.
- [04:12]
Joanna Coles
Right.
- [04:13]
Jonathan Karl
And he doesn't really understand that.
- [04:16]
Joanna Coles
How can he not understand that after all these years? You've known him 30 years. How can he not understand that?
- [04:23]
Jonathan Karl
You know, I mean, he said to me recently, first of all, he attacked me recently over my hair, which was very unusual.
- [04:31]
Joanna Coles
That's for Donald Trump.
- [04:33]
Jonathan Karl
You know, he said to me it was a truth social post. And he said, what the hell happened to his hair? It was just an aside in this rant he was on. And I texted him after I saw that, and I said, well, maybe I should get some advice from you on hair. I mean, you know, the hair. And, you know, he's. And he gave me an angry response. He was clearly genuinely upset. And in his response, he said, you backed the wrong side. And I said back, as you know, I don't back any side. I report the facts. He's like, bullshit. And so it's. He doesn't quite, you know.
- [05:13]
Joanna Coles
But in the book, you do say that you didn't expect him to win, that you didn't call it.
- [05:18]
Jonathan Karl
No, I didn't. I didn't. You know, look, I was. I guess I was wrong twice on this because I certainly didn't think he was going to win in 2016. But back then, I'm not even sure Donald Trump thought he was going to win.
- [05:31]
Joanna Coles
No, he seemed incredulous on the night when he was actually clearly winning. He seemed. And Melania was crying.
- [05:37]
Jonathan Karl
Yeah, I mean, I mean, this was a great adventure. I mean, I took a lot of heat. As Trump will remind me of time. I did the first network interview with Donald Trump of the 2016 cycle. It was back in 2013. He was out in Iowa at this, you know, religious right kind of event called the Daily Leader. And, you know, I figured it was a slow August Sunday. We went out there, I interviewed him for like a half an hour. It was a very lively interview. We only used a few minutes of it on the show. But people are like, why are you spending any time talking to Donald Trump? You know, he's never going to run for president. You know, this is never going to happen. He's just trying to get attention. He just wants to boost ratings for the Apprentice. And, you know, we aired part of the interview and Trump always remembers that. And he's brought it up to me. I can't tell you how many times.
- [06:27]
Joanna Coles
In a good way, because you did.
- [06:29]
Jonathan Karl
The interview seriously, and everybody gave you a hard time. But, boy, did you get great ratings. I mean, I don't know what the ratings were. We only aired a few minutes of it.
- [06:38]
Joanna Coles
Right.
- [06:38]
Jonathan Karl
But you know, he was like, and he's constantly brought this up. He's changed the venue of the interview a couple times because I did a couple interviews in those early times, and I actually didn't think he was going to run either, but I thought he was an interesting figure. Here was this, you know, liberal big city developer who had backed Democrats for his whole life going around and courting these Republicans. I thought it was an interesting story. And I actually spent a lot of the time asking him what he thought of the other Republicans. And also there was a moment I was like, in this birther thing, I mean, are you prepared now to just, you know, apologize for what you said about Obama, I mean, and admit that you were totally wrong. And he was like, no, I don't think I was wrong. And I was like, oh, come on.
- [07:24]
Joanna Coles
But isn't he. And wasn't he, as early as back then, an absolute gift of a politician's interview? Because he's not a politician.
- [07:34]
Jonathan Karl
Well, especially at this time. Especially at this time. Because who are the main figures in the party going into that, into that election?
- [07:41]
Joanna Coles
I can't even remember them. He's eclipsed everybody.
- [07:44]
Jonathan Karl
I'll give you two, one on each side. There was Jeb Bush.
- [07:47]
Joanna Coles
Right.
- [07:47]
Jonathan Karl
And there was Hillary Clinton.
- [07:49]
Joanna Coles
Right. So low energy Jeb and Hillary Clinton.
- [07:52]
Jonathan Karl
And what did they have in common is they were so careful about everything they said and calculated. You know, they did very few interviews. And when they did, they were very. And every speech was very disciplined. They had a disciplined message. And here's Trump coming out, and it's like, you never know what he's going to say. And by the way, he's talking to everybody and at all times. And this is, you know, this was the fascination and this is how he really, you know, caught on.
- [08:24]
Joanna Coles
So you've written four books about him. You've really, really studied the man. How would you describe his personality? What is his character? I mean, you've referred to him as a Shakespearean character. What is his character?
- [08:41]
Jonathan Karl
I mean, this is not a unique insight at all. But he, I mean, it's everything about him. He wants to be the center of attention at all. And you asked a question about. You sounded like I had been in an abusive relationship. I'm not sure about that, but I will say that his relationships with people around him often feel like they are abusive relationships.
- [09:05]
Joanna Coles
Well, and to clarify, what I mean is, you don't ever know where you are with him. You've no idea if he's going to be nice Trump or nasty Trump. He berates people publicly. He humiliates people publicly. He's done that to you when you've been in the press line, but then he'll call you and give you something. And so that feels like a complicated relationship to navigate from your position.
- [09:29]
Jonathan Karl
But it's especially interesting with people that are in his. Come in and out of his inner.
- [09:34]
Joanna Coles
Circle, like his lawyers.
- [09:37]
Jonathan Karl
He brings people in. Donald Trump can make you feel like you are also the center of the universe because he wants, you know, if you're around him, it's like he must be a really big fricking deal, you know. And so a lot of these people who Come in who would, by the way, never be within miles of a White House with another president, derive so much of their worth from the praise they receive from Donald Trump. And then he can turn that off in a second and make you feel like. And then take away what is now core to your sense of self worth. I mean, Michael Cohen is like the most glaring example of this. I mean, Michael Cohen, you know, guy that was, you know, dealing with taxicab medallions and, you know, graduated from a, you know, fifth tier law school, and suddenly he is there in office next to Trump's Trump Tower, and he's the enforcer for the man. And Michael Cohen was, as you know, he wasi recounted in one of my earlier books, one of these early interviews I had with Trump, which was done through Michael Cohen set it up. And Michael Cohen, like, told my producer, my young producer that was doing it, if Carl asks anything I don't like, I'm going to knock your camera over. You better make sure this thing goes all right. I mean, he was. And of course, Michael Cohen's the guy that says, I would take a bullet for Donald Trump. I would do anything for Donald Trump. And then Michael Cohen finds himself out on the ledge and he's kind of not defended by Trump, and he takes that turn and now, like, it's, well.
- [11:16]
Joanna Coles
And then he goes to jail for Trump, right? He goes to jail for that misplaced loyalty.
- [11:22]
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- [11:24]
Joanna Coles
What is that about, though, this ability to turn on even his closest people? Is it some kind of chemical imbalance? Is it like a bipolar thing? What doescan you give us more of a sense of what it feels like to be in the orbit of it? And also what people used to say about Bill Clinton, which is that when you're with him, you can feel like the most important person in the world.
- [11:48]
Jonathan Karl
Yeah, yeah. I mean, it is. Look, Rick Riley, in that terrific book Commander and Cheat about Trump's golf game.
- [11:57]
Joanna Coles
Recounts also a great idea.
- [11:59]
Jonathan Karl
I mean, you know, and Reilly recounts covering a golf tournament that was at a Trump property. And he's there, and he's there as a reporter for Sports Illustrated. And Trump keeps introducing him to people as the publisher of Sports Illustrated. And Reilly is quietly saying, no, I'm a reporter. I'm not the publisher. And he keeps doing it. And finally, Rick Reilly writes that he pulls Trump aside and says, why do you keep saying that? You know, I'm not the publisher. I've told you, I'm not the publisher. Why do you keep saying it? And Trump's answer is, it sounds Better. It sounds better. And so Rick Riley didn't like that. He's a guy that, you know, he has a respect for the basic truth, but, you know, for people around Trump, you know, he's elevating them and making them sound like they're the best, they're the smartest, but in a minute, he can turn, and he does turn. He'll turn back, but he does turn. And I think what it does is it keeps people on edge, and it makes it so that that loyalty that they must express to Trump is always there, and they're on edge about it. I got to keep him happy. I got to keep him happy. I got to serve him right.
- [13:03]
Joanna Coles
And doesn't it also mean that he's always in control?
- [13:06]
Jonathan Karl
Yeah, he's always in control of them. He's always the one in control, 100%.
- [13:10]
Joanna Coles
So if you're a lawyer for him, I mean, I heard this from people who covered the Stormy Daniels trial, that he would regularly just yell at his lawyers and tell them that they were stupid and they would say things, and then he would give his own press conference and completely undercut them.
- [13:26]
Jonathan Karl
Yeah.
- [13:26]
Joanna Coles
Why do people stay working for him?
- [13:30]
Jonathan Karl
Well, you know, look, I think that they're drawn to the magnetism, and for some of them, again, they're in positions that they would never have with anybody else. And what are they going to do? Like leave Trump and then go work for Ron DeSantis or something? I mean. I mean, where are they going to be? They probably aren't going to get hired by Ron DeSantis. Even if they are, they're not going to be, you know, given this, elevated.
- [13:52]
Joanna Coles
So these are Republican operatives, you mean?
- [13:54]
Jonathan Karl
Yeah, yeah. And the people. And look, and some people. Look, there are people around Trump who have been around Trump for a long time, who have been through all those ups and downs, who are genuinely, like, infatuated with him and loyal to him and think that he is. Think he is a great man. I mean, look, he is the most consequential president of our time. Some people might look at that. Yeah, he's the most consequential. He's, you know, doing things that will be dealing with the negative consequences forever. And those that think he's, you know, doing great things, I mean, like, Dan Scavino is a guy that has been with Trump since he was working as a caddy for him. Now he is the deputy chief of staff. He is the head of presidential personnel. But he's been so much more than both of those things. He's Always been by Trump's side. And, you know, I mean, Scavino is a total, total loyalist. And I think he genuinely has admiration and appreciation for the man. And, you know, his whole identity is bound up in Trump and Trump at this point. A guy like Scavino's been around so long, he's not, you know, I mean, he loves having Dan Scabino around.
- [15:02]
Joanna Coles
And how does Susie Wiles figure in all this? I mean, the chief of staff, first female chief of staff, and I think the first time they met, she was still working for Rhonda Santos.
- [15:15]
Jonathan Karl
Yeah, yeah. I mean, she's got nerves of steel, and she is, you know, she's a loyalist. She's also a pragmatist within that world. And, you know, I think that the secret to her success, and there's a debate, I think that she could well be there for all four years. I mean, I think that she's, you know, she's got no designs on leaving, as far as I can tell. And I think that Trump would. Trump very much relies on her. I think the secret to her success is that she never actually tries to change Trump. She just, you know, she's not there, like, debating him on this policy or that policy or you got to do this and that. She's like, Trump's going to do what he's going to, and I'm going to make sure that I keep kind of the trains running on time, you know, in the White House, and keep out the, you know, try to keep the infighting to a minimum. And I will kind of not tolerate any of theany of that stuff that was so dominant in the first Trump administration. So she's not like a huge influence on what the guy actually does, but very effective. And now that's the hard that. I mean, press secretary may be the hardest, but chief of staff to Donald Trump is a very hard job, and she's somehow managed to pull it off.
- [16:32]
Joanna Coles
He's 79.
- [16:33]
Jonathan Karl
Yeah.
- [16:34]
Joanna Coles
You've covered four presidents. How does his health and his energy seem to you? I mean, we've seen him covering up bruises on his hands with makeup.
- [16:45]
Jonathan Karl
Yeah. I mean, look, there's all kinds of speculation about that, and much was made of the fact that his. He was closing his eyes in a recent, you know, Oval Office.
- [16:52]
Joanna Coles
Well, he appeared to be asleep.
- [16:53]
Jonathan Karl
Yeah. I mean, all that. So. But I don't know. I think it's a very dangerous thing to get involved in speculating about health. People have speculated about his health since he was a candidate in 2016, 2015, about his mental state and all of that. I don't know. I mean, the guy actually seems to have a hell of a lot of energy even. I mean, you know, like I said, he did appear to be dozing off at an event. I mean, but to be fair, he.
- [17:25]
Joanna Coles
Just come back from an Asian.
- [17:27]
Jonathan Karl
Yeah. And he doesn't sleep. I don't know how he does it. I don't really understand it. Bill Clinton was like this. Bill Clinton like slept like four hours a night.
- [17:37]
Joanna Coles
Margaret Thatcher didn't need more than five hours sleep.
- [17:40]
Jonathan Karl
Yeah, I mean, I don't know how, you know, it must be like a gene or something that you get to go, I can do that for a couple of days. But I mean, come on, after a while and he's up, he's taking calls late at night, I would find that the best time to reach him if I wanted to call him during the campaign was either like late at night, you know, far later than you would ever call most other people. And very early in the morning. I mean, I would talk to him sometime before 7 and he's already up, he's already watching television, he's already got his DVR going. He's, you know, he's constantly constant energy, constant activity and he's almost acting like a guy that feels like he's running out of time. So I, you know, who knows? I mean, look, he's 79 years old. He doesn't really exercise. You know, his diet isn't exactly the model diet. You know, at some point all the speculation about his health will be true. I just won't be the one speculating on it.
- [18:38]
Joanna Coles
Okay, you've covered four presidents, as we've said. What do you think of the cabinet that he has assembled around himself compared to previous presidents that you have known? Because certainly he's appointed people who have, like Dan Scavino, who you just mentioned, unusual backgrounds to run enormous departments with huge budgets and massive responsibilities.
- [19:05]
Jonathan Karl
You know, it's not, not a team of rivals, although certainly some of them do fight amongst themselves for, you know, for Trump's good graces. This is a very different cabinet than his first cabinet. I mean, it's obviously different from other presidents, but his first cabinet, he felt a need. He comes to the White House. He's really never really spent any time in Washington. I remember when I interviewed him In Washington in 2014, you know, he had bought that, you know, the old, he had gotten that lease, the 99 year lease on the old post office building. He was building the Trump International Hotel there. Was a big sign out front saying Trump coming 2016, meaning that the Trump Hotel was coming in 2016.
- [19:47]
Joanna Coles
Right.
- [19:48]
Jonathan Karl
And he remarked to me just about how few times he had actually literally even been in the city of Washington. And heit was almost like he was like bringing trophies to his cabinet. He wanted to get people of great stature. You know, Rex Tillerson is hardly what you would expect the profile of a Secretary of state. He was the CEO of ExxonMobil. This guy's a titan. John Kelly and Mattis, Jim Mattis. These are four star Marine generals. These are big, you know, people of consequence. Put them in the cabinet, Homeland Security, the Pentagon. Jeff Sessions was a former federal judge, leading conservative in the Senate. Make him your attorney General. These were people of consequence and credentials. And all those people I just met, I just mentioned Trump feels betrayed him. It's like, what good did it have to have these people if they weren't actually loyal to me? So this time around, he's not caring so much about those credentials. It's truly about the personal loyalty to.
- [20:56]
Joanna Coles
Him and they weren't loyal to him. Rex Tillerson famously got quoted as saying Trump was an absolute moron.
- [21:03]
Jonathan Karl
Dumb as a rock, I think.
- [21:05]
Joanna Coles
Right. And we know that they were trying to stop Trump from doing what he wants.
- [21:09]
Jonathan Karl
Yeah, Mattis and Kelly, I mean, Kelly ended up calling him a fascist. And Jeff Sessions refused to act like his personal attorney. I mean, Jeff Sessions agreed with everything Trump was doing, but he wouldn't take the step of like, firing the independent special counsel.
- [21:26]
Joanna Coles
Right. And Gary Cohn removed papers from his.
- [21:28]
Jonathan Karl
Yeah, yeah, Gary Cohn, another one. I mean, there's a great, you know, Goldman Sachs. I mean, these are like serious, serious people, but they were serious people. They weren't willing to do whatever the boss wanted him to do.
- [21:42]
Joanna Coles
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Jonathan Karl
No, it's not.
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Ryan Reynolds
It's just weather. It is an introvert's dream. Give it a try@mintmobile.com switch upfront payment.
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- [24:50]
Joanna Coles
And I'm back with John Carl, the chief Washington correspondent for ABC News and author of the best selling Retribution. So by implication, are you saying that the people he has around him now are not serious?
- [25:03]
Jonathan Karl
I'm not going to say they're not serious, but what I'm going to say is the people around him are not going to be trying to steer him and control him in that way. And you know, and they'll make the argument, well, he's the one that the American People elected. I actually had a very interesting conversation with H.R. mcMaster several years ago.
- [25:22]
Joanna Coles
Was his head of national security, he.
- [25:24]
Jonathan Karl
Was the national security adviser. And he often clashed with Kelly, who was the chief of staff at the time. Both of them generals, McMaster a three star army general, Kelly a four star marine general. And Kelly was constantly trying to, like, stop the President from doing things kind of quietly, not like confronting him head on, but like, but there was a, there was an incident where it's actually really timely when you think about where we are now. This was in the first term where there was a meeting in the Oval Office, McMaster, Kelly and some of the other national security folks, and Trump is demanding a war plan for Venezuela.
- [26:08]
Joanna Coles
Totally timely, Totally timely.
- [26:10]
Jonathan Karl
And, you know, he had various ideas. You know, one was a naval embargo, but he wanted a whole list of military options for Venezuela. And McMaster is like saying, sir, I really don't think that's necessary. We have other tools in our, you know, we've got diplomatic pressure, we've got economic pressure. I really. And Trump is getting like, angry with, with him, and he's like, damn it, I want a war plan for Venezuela. The meeting breaks up. McMaster heads down the hall, you know, outside the Oval Office, and Kelly catches up with him and says, so what are you doing? And he's like, well, you know, I'm going to call, I'm calling the Pentagon and I'm going to get, you know, get him to do what he wants. Don't you do that. Are you kidding me? If you do that, there's going to be stories about how the military is preparing for war with Venezuela. We're not going to go to war with Venezuela. Don't. So this is like a, you know, a fundamental disagreement about how you deal with a president that you disagree with. Kelly didn't confront him in the actual meeting. Just listens to him, lets him vent, lets him say what he wants to do. McMaster actually does. But then the decision is made. Nobody elected H.R. mcMaster or John Kelly. They elected Donald Trump. So it's a fundamental disagreement about how you deal with it. Well, I think now you actually don't even have much of either of those approaches. You don't have people that are quietly trying to undermine him. You do have some, like, you know, a recent example was the decision to indict Tish James, the first one, Comey Comey. And then Tis James out of the Eastern District of Virginia. And Trump did hear advice from the leadership at the Justice Department that that was Not a strong enough case and not a good idea to go forward with. But he charges through and the person.
- [28:06]
Joanna Coles
Who was asked to do it, in fact, stepped aside.
- [28:08]
Jonathan Karl
Yeah, yeah. The U.S. attorney for the assault.
- [28:10]
Joanna Coles
Yeah.
- [28:11]
Jonathan Karl
Yeah.
- [28:12]
Joanna Coles
Well, I was going to come onto the Justice Department because you call the book retribution. Is it retribution against the people that stopped him in his first administration as much as it is retribution against his political enemies who are Democrats. So James Comey, Tish James. Well, in fact, his own person, John Bolton.
- [28:33]
Jonathan Karl
Yeah, Look, I think that it's multileveled and I think that his retribution. And by the way, you have to. And I'd really take time in the book to sketch out what brought him back into power and the depths of those criminal investigations and how he used that both to motivate himself and his people. We're going to get back at the people that did this. But so clearly he wants to go after the prosecutors. I mean, that's the Tish James of it. That's the talk of going after Jack Smith and all of that.
- [29:07]
Joanna Coles
Yeah. And at the end of your chapter on Jack Smith, you have Jack Smith hiring his own.
- [29:11]
Jonathan Karl
Yeah.
- [29:11]
Joanna Coles
Because he knows what's coming.
- [29:14]
Jonathan Karl
His last. I mean, it's so dramatic, these scenes in January. This is the most fascinating transition in American history. And I devote a significant amount of time to what was going on.
- [29:25]
Joanna Coles
And also, just as an aside, and I want to come back to the retribution. But the personal details of him with Biden in the car, all of that is. It feels like you're in the car with them. But go back to Jack Smith and the drama of all that and the cases that the Democrats are very slowly, according to some people, Merrick Garland, very slowly putting these together, obviously all fall apart.
- [29:48]
Jonathan Karl
Yeah. But Jack Smith, after the election, has to wrap up his investigation. He knows that obviously they're not going to go to trial. You have these indictments on the classified documents, and on January 6th, it's not going to go to trial. First of all, you can't try a sitting president. It's pretty well established Justice Department policy. And besides, he knows he's going to get fired the minute that Trump comes in. So he knows he has to wrap it up. So he does these final reports. It's one final report, but it's got two parts. It's the classified documents and it's the election case. And hey, you know, his office is not at Main justice. It's in another part of Washington. It's like an unmarked, nondescript building behind Union Station. He Gets in the car with an aide, he comes to Main justice, he physically hands over the report to Merrick Garland and bids farewell. And then he literally goes from Main justice to one of the big firms in D.C. and lawyers up because he knows that his work is done. He then quietly resigns. By the way, he announced his resignation in a footnote in a court filing.
- [30:55]
Joanna Coles
Right, right.
- [30:58]
Jonathan Karl
But look, the retribution, what I was saying Isso, he wants to go back after those people. He wants to get back at the Democrats who opposed him. But I think that the retribution that he is most emphatic about are the Republicans who did not back him sufficiently or betrayed him. And by the way, Jim Comey, a Republican, John Bolton, a Republican, obviously Republican.
- [31:21]
Joanna Coles
National security advisor at one point, and.
- [31:24]
Jonathan Karl
You know, Steve Bannon recently floated the idea that that Bill Barr should be prosecuted and should be in prison. He said, bill Barr, I mean, this is like.
- [31:33]
Joanna Coles
Well, didn't Steve Bannon also say that if they didn't win the midterms, they would all be going to prison, himself included?
- [31:43]
Jonathan Karl
I mean, look, you are going to. By the way, this is one of the really disturbing things about this era we are in. You have a feeling like there's almost like no coming back from this cycle of recriminations. Look, Trump has weaponized the Justice Department. There is no question.
- [32:04]
Joanna Coles
Well, and he put his own, just to remind people, he put his own personal lawyers as the number one and number two.
- [32:09]
Jonathan Karl
Yeah.
- [32:11]
Joanna Coles
Anne Bondy and Toe Blanche.
- [32:14]
Jonathan Karl
Yeah. And basically the number three, too. Remember, Emil Bovey was over there.
- [32:18]
Joanna Coles
Right. So Amal Beauvai. I'd forgotten about him. Yes. Looking man.
- [32:22]
Jonathan Karl
And he was running the Justice Department because for in the beginning, because he didn't need Senate confirmation for his job. So he went over there before Bondi and before Blanche got in, and he's the one that spearheaded the firing of those top career prosecutors, the firing of the senior leadership at the FBI, career FBI agents. It was, you know, as far as a lot of the people who worked in Main justice, spent their careers in Main justice, taughtit was like a reign of terror. It was a purge of anybody remotely tied to any case that impinged upon Donald Trump or on January 6th. And these werethis was his legal team. I mean, literally, you watched the trial in New York. Todd Blanche is there, Trump is there, and Emil Bovey are there.
- [33:10]
Joanna Coles
You've written four books about the guy. So when you write your fifth book, what do you think is going to be the narrative?
- [33:19]
Jonathan Karl
I think that we are in for a hell of A lot more. I mean, it's mind boggling to think that we are not even at a year. We are. What are we at 10 months yet?
- [33:30]
Joanna Coles
Well, coming up for 10 months, it'll be the 20th, right?
- [33:34]
Jonathan Karl
You know, I don't know what, where we go from here. I don't know how Donald Trump acts if he's faced with a Democratic Congress, because what we have seen is, you know, that he is going to charge ahead, he is going to shatter norms. I think there are people around him who would like to see him defy court orders. He did that to a degree with the Bozberg order on the flights to Del Salvador. But for the most part, Trump has not gone as far as some people around him. There's that theory of the unitary executive where basically, as Nixon put it in his interview with David Frost, it's not illegal if the President does that. Now, Trump hasn't quite pushed it to that degree, but there are certainly those who believe he can. So does he totally defy a Democratic Congress? Is there a way for him to work in any way with the Democratic Congress?
- [34:35]
Joanna Coles
Well, he seems to be part of his own Congress, isn't he? I mean, he's got a 5%. He's got a Republican Congress, and he managed to ask them.
- [34:43]
Jonathan Karl
And he's operated largely through executive order. I mean, not entirely. You need to do certain things. That's why we had. The government was shut down. I mean, but so I really, I cannot tell you where we are going. I don't think that he's serious about, you know, running for a third term or anything like that. I, I think that he'll be ready to go, but we're in for, I think, I mean, I don't want to use a. There's any one of many cliches you could use, but this is obviously unchartered territory. So my crystal ball is not good on this one.
- [35:16]
Joanna Coles
All right, so final question. You say that, you know, if you want to get hold of him, you call him very late at night or you call him early in the morning. He clearly doesn't sleep very much. He seems to travel a lot to. You have to cover all of it. I know you have a team, but you're the lead of the team. How do you, looking forward to the next three years, think about your own energy and how do you stay on top of it and make sure that you're bringing sort of a clear eye to it all?
- [35:47]
Jonathan Karl
You know, Steve Bannon was the one that kind of invented that kind of flood the zone. And then they can't cover it all. And they do that. I mean. I mean, any single day you feel like we're living through a month, I think that the key is to try to focus on what looks important and realizing there's no way you can be on top of all of it. And ultimately, I will write one more book, but it will be after it is all over, and I will want to dig through what has happened. Part of the challenge with writing this book and why I wrote it is this campaign was like that. So to have the chance to take a step back and say what actually mattered, because there are things that, like, dominate the media cycle for, you know, days, which is like an eternity in our world now, that end up being like they didn't fricking matter at all.
- [36:39]
Joanna Coles
Well, part of that is the extraordinary drama. You will remember that Saturday evening when you got the call about Butler, Pennsylvania, and someone trying to assassinate the president. Do you think it was a genuine thing? Do you think that Matthew Crooks was just a rando guy trying to. Trying to kill someone that would bring him attention?
- [37:02]
Jonathan Karl
Look, there is something strange in our world right now, which is the erosion of the idea that there is the truth, that you can depend on facts and official sources of information, and people don't believe anything. And this is actually the biggest challenge facing our democracy. And with, you know, we focus so much on people on the right who are obsessed with conspiracies and, you know, the craziness surrounding the 2020 election. And there was, I recounted in Betrayal, you know, this theory that went all the way into the. Into the West Wing of the White House, that Italian spy satellites were used to flip votes in, you know, in Georgia, voting machines. I mean, give me a break. This stuff was cuckoo, but it got the attention of the chief of staff at the White House, who ordered the Justice Department and the Pentagon to investigate it. Kooky stuff. Now there's. I mean, there's kooky stuff everywhere. And I can't tell you how many people believe that Butler was entirely.
- [38:07]
Joanna Coles
It was a setup, right?
- [38:08]
Jonathan Karl
Was entirely a setup. I mean, tell that to the family of Cory Comperatore who got killed, or the other two who got seriously wounded. Tell it to my friends. The photographers that were there, including Evan Vucci, took that picture.
- [38:24]
Joanna Coles
This is an amazing picture, an incredible picture.
- [38:28]
Jonathan Karl
Doug Mills, who took the picture of the bullet.
- [38:30]
Joanna Coles
Oh, yes.
- [38:30]
Jonathan Karl
Went back and looked and saw the bullet going right by. I mean, Butler happened. It wasn't a firstly. If you tried to set that up. You would never be able to set it up that well. I mean, we can debate what exactly happened with his ear? I mean, did the bullet hit his ear? Was it. I mean, I don't know. I don't know. I mean, they haven't been very transparent with the medical records. But Thomas, but Thomas Crooks climbed on that roof. He took those shots. A Secret Service sniper took him out by. One of the extraordinary things that I learned in the case of, in the process of reconstructing Butler is that that was the first time in all of the history of the Secret Service that there were counter snipers at a, an event that didn't involve the President of the United States. So countersnipers are part of the security.
- [39:27]
Joanna Coles
It wasn't difficult. He'd been a president.
- [39:29]
Jonathan Karl
No, it was the first time a Donald Trump event had countersnipers. Was that event.
- [39:35]
Joanna Coles
That's crazy.
- [39:36]
Jonathan Karl
And why, here's why this is wild. It's because the Secret Service had been tracking threats from Iran and increasing intelligence, nonspecific but consistent, that Iran was going to try to assassinate Donald Trump. So they decided we need an extra layer of protection. We're putting counter snipers. Now. There was no specific threat from Iran at Butler and there's no evidence that Crooks or anybody else had any ties to Iran, that Iran had anything to do with what happened in Butler. But they were there because of the Iranian threat. So in other words, Trump's life might have been saved because of Iran.
- [40:20]
Joanna Coles
You really can't make it up, can you? You can't make it up. It's extraordinary. John, hold on one second. We're just going to take a word from our sponsors.
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- [42:33]
Joanna Coles
And I'm back with Jonathan Karl, the chief Washington correspondent of ABC News. All right, so final question because it's always in the news and it's always bubbling under. Jeffrey Epstein.
- [42:45]
Jonathan Karl
Yeah.
- [42:45]
Joanna Coles
What do you think is in the Epstein files? What even are the Epstein files?
- [42:50]
Jonathan Karl
I mean it's like it's not like a file in the cabinet. I mean it's like, it's just, it just means everything that the Justice Department has that was part of of the case against Epstein, everything that mentions Epstein's name, there is nothere is no like client so called client list. I mean you can go through and pick out the names. I don't know. But I do know this, that when they were, when Pam Botany made that promise, we're going to release the Epstein files, they put an extraordinary amount of manpower to compile everything that had Epstein's name or been involved in any of the cases. And as they're going through it, you know, Trump's name appears. It appears. And this is actually not new. You know, he, we've seen the pictures, we've seen the video. Trump has actually said it. You know, he knew him, he went to some of his parties. He was in Epstein's address book. I mean, a lot of people were in Epstein's were in Epstein's address book. A lot of Democrats were in Epstein's address. I mean, this is not a unique thing to Trump. He' swe was on the flight logs. A lot of people were on Epstein's flight logs. So, I mean, I think it's highly likely that's why they didn't want to, you know, the brakes were put on releasing them, although that information wouldn't be new. So it's kind of. It's a strange thing. So, I don't know.
- [44:15]
Joanna Coles
The emails coming out of the Oversight Committee seem new.
- [44:18]
Jonathan Karl
Yeah. And by the way, and those came from the estate, so those are not from the criminal case. Now, maybe they're part of the criminal case as well. I don't know. But the estate is also where the birthday book came from, the Jeffrey Epstein estate. It's interesting, by the way, that the Republicans in the House on that committee had to support releasing that stuff. It was the Democrats that put it out and highlighted, you know, those particular emails. But the Republicans did. Didn't block the release of that information.
- [44:51]
Joanna Coles
Do you think there is a circle of Republicans who sense that Trump is vulnerable? I mean, he's obviously in a lame duck type of phase, although he's still got to get to the midterms and are trying to get the party back from him? I mean. No. You don't think that. Right. Ok. Because it feels like the Republican Party's become the Trump Party.
- [45:15]
Jonathan Karl
It is.
- [45:16]
Joanna Coles
And I hear that there are lots of Republicans out there who hate him and hate that and want to take it back. But you don't think that's going on?
- [45:23]
Jonathan Karl
No, I mean, look, I think there are Republicans that are concerned about the direction. Marjorie Taylor Greene is playing an interesting role right now, but I don't see a significant move away from Trump among the Republicans at all. I don't. I mean, it'll happen eventually, I would assume. I mean, it always. You know, I mean, he will be a lame duck. He will leave the White House. They will have to figure out where they go from there. But it is absolutely still Donald Trump's Republican Party.
- [45:51]
Joanna Coles
It's so interesting to hear your insights. Thank you so much for coming.
- [45:54]
Jonathan Karl
Yeah, thanks for having me.
- [45:55]
Joanna Coles
You know, I used to think of political biographies as being so dense and you couldn't get through them. And this is like an amazing character study of the most interesting man in the world.
- [46:06]
Jonathan Karl
I mean, the most consequential figure of. Of our time.
- [46:09]
Joanna Coles
Yeah. And that is Shakespearean.
- [46:12]
Jonathan Karl
There you go.
- [46:13]
Joanna Coles
Jonathan. Carl, thank you very much.
- [46:14]
Jonathan Karl
Great. Thank you.
- [46:19]
Joanna Coles
The most interesting thing about it is that you would imagine that retribution was about his Democratic enemies, but as Jonathan says, it's also about his Republican enemies. The people on the Republicans Republican side that actually tried to take Donald Trump down, that tried to stop him doing what he wanted to in his first administration. Anyway, strongly recommended it's holding forth on the bestseller list. If you have been, thank you for joining us. Don't forget to subscribe to this podcast. We're independent media, so we appreciate your support. Feel free to leave a comment on our YouTube page. Join our community of Daily Beast members and you get tons of extra content. And as our first lady would have us, don't forget Beast. And a special thanks to our Beast tier of members. Herbie Andrew, Mellor, Fulvia Orlando, Laz Conde, Sandra Clark, Bonzo Val Love, Francisco Bocock, D.C. karen White, Heidi Riley, Connie Rutherford, Sharon Shipley, and Andrea Hodel. And we know it's Hodel because she wrote to tell us we've been mispronouncing it. So I think because it's a Swiss name, it's Hodel, like Yodel. I think that's right. Andrea, you can always write back and tell us if we've got it wrong. Thank you to our BB tier of members. We love you. And thank you to our production team. Devon Rogerino, Anna Von Erssen. Andrew Jessie Millwood.
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Jonathan Karl
Want more great listens? Check out our comedy podcast the Last Laugh and our Star Studded the Daily Beast podcast@thedailybeast.com podcasts if you enjoyed this.
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Paige Desorbo
Episode, consider becoming a Daily Beast subscriber. Subscribing is the best way to feed the Beast and support all of your podcasts as we cover what might become the darkest timeline. Head to thedailybeast.com membership podcast and sign up today.