[0:01]And it was only when the sirens were going off and it looked like there was going to be a total meltdown that Trump pulled back from the brink. He was playing roulette with the global
[0:10]economy. If you [music] want to understand how the most powerful country in the world is being run, five or six people are [music] running
[0:20]this country. The administration, they want to make clear that if you step out of line, you get your head kicked in. >> That's right.
[0:31]There are people who took a lot of risks to help us get [music] this history as accurate as we could. BB Netanyahu laid out [music] how he thought this could go
[0:40]with a video of regime change scenario. >> Why did he choose to believe Netanyahu over his own advisers? >> When he has an instinct, he will shop
[0:51]around until he finds someone to support that instinct. >> The rage of the president. People are talking about how angry he is, how full
[1:02]of vehements and blame. Is that something that you've uncovered in your work? >> The president is very very frustrated with specific things that are happening right now. Right now he is very
[1:14]frustrated that the Iran war is continuing. He had believed and again this we we show in our reporting in the book that uh he thought this would be very quick. He thought this would be a a
[1:25]few days long. he was fresh off of the uh efforts in Venezuela to grab Maduro and put Deli Rodriguez in power. He believed something similar would happen
[1:36]here. We're now however many months we are since this war started. I think it's roughly four. And uh there is no clear end in sight. They obviously are trying
[1:45]to have a a ceasefire, but he just wants that part to be done and it's not. He wants the economy to be seen as doing better and it's not. So on those fronts, yes, he is frustrated.
[1:56]>> Who does he blame for that? >> Not himself. Um, you know, usually usually the president and to be to be fair, most presidents don't typically blame themselves first,
[2:07]but uh President Trump often looks around uh for aids who he will say gave him bad advice on this particular one. And this is something that we took pains
[2:18]to lay out in the book. uh he was warned by his own adviserss what things could look like if he went ahead with this Iran war after he had this extraordinary meeting in the White House situation
[2:30]room with BB Netanyahu who laid out how he thought this could go with a video of regime change scenarios and President Trump liked what he heard the only
[2:41]person who forcefully made the case against it in front of others was Vice President JD Vance who really did rattle cages to try to get the president's attention in and it cost him with the president. The president was irritated
[2:52]by it. But others, there's no one in in Trump's world who thought this was in his close world who really thought this was a good idea. The closest you might get was Pete Heget, the secretary of
[3:02]war. But people warned him what could happen. Uh, munition shortages, the straight of Hormuz closing. He went ahead with it. It was his choice and the
[3:12]after effects are his. In your book, you talk about the fact that he chose to believe Netanyahu over his own
[3:20]intelligence advice that to expect an uprising, to expect a regime change was detached from reality. Why did he choose
[3:30]to believe Netanyahu over his own advisers? So we have this kind of stunning sequence of events in the book which you know begins with the Netanyahu
[3:42]presentation that Maggie just talked about. Overnight the CIA did an analysis of it. Um and they it concluded with what Maggie described the CIA director
[3:51]and Marco Rubio telling Trump that these regime change scenarios are probably not going to happen. But Trump absorbed that and said well maybe they will maybe they won't. he still thought it was worth
[4:02]going ahead with the operation uh because he thought that they could dismantle the Iranian military, take out some of their top leaders, um really reduce their ability to project power in
[4:12]the region, destroy their ballistic missile capacity. And people like Marco Rubio told Trump, "Yeah, we think we can accomplish some of that stuff." But
[4:22]Maggie's right. Trump at a very deep gut level thought this would be a fast war. He I think partly this was shaped by his experience the year before. Remember he
[4:33]he he participated in Netanyahu's 12-day war against Iran in June of 2025, which culminated in the US dropping massive
[4:42]bunker buster bombs on Iranian nuclear sites. And Iran did this sort of fairly limp, quite pathetic response where they
[4:53]fired off some missiles that were almost symbolic, heavily telegraphed, no US casualties. And based on our reporting, Trump concluded that this regime was a
[5:03]paper tiger. So it wasn't just Netanyahu. It's true Netanyahu made a very forceful case, but Trump also has long been quite hawkish on Iran, much more so than some of his aids would like
[5:14]him to be. But uh it's a more nuanced picture than puppet master BB, you know, steers Trump into war. >> Yeah. I I I guess I was interested in
[5:25]just the fact that he he rates people outside his circle more importantly than his own advisers. Uh did that strike you as you were putting this together?
[5:37]>> It can happen. What Trump does is when he has a a a an instinct, he will shop around until he finds someone to support that instinct.
[5:49]So, if his core team is supporting that instinct, then he's perfectly happy with them. But, for example, you know, something Maggie and I covered very closely at the time. Um, the 2020
[5:59]election, he loses the election. His core team in the White House all believed he lost that election. his lawyers, you know, virtually all of them. There may have been one or two who
[6:10]didn't, but the core team thought he lost. Trump is insisting he won it. And so he goes shopping for some new lawyers. And that's where you find
[6:20]characters like Rudy Giuliani and Sydney Powell and some of these people who offered up um quite outlandish legal
[6:29]theories um persuading Trump that he could overturn the election. That's what led to January 6. That's what led to this demand that the vice president, Mike Pence, could unilaterally overturn
[6:39]the election. It came from that sort of opinion shopping when he's not hearing that from his inner circle. >> I know you've been asked uh this question many times, but did he really
[6:50]believe that he won that election or was that just Trump on show? I mean, we
[6:58]can't get inside his his head. Uh but often times he will say something in our experience and in our reporting he will say something and he will be very candid
[7:08]that if he say it often enough people will believe it. Uh he certainly says it pretty convincingly at this point. Uh again, hard to know whether he he certainly said things at the time and we
[7:19]both reported on this in real time. As Jonathan said, he said things that appeared to acknowledge uh that he had lost, but you could also hear that as you know, he was just saying what other
[7:30]people were saying. The current iteration of the White House, and this really is a one of the many ways in which this term is just unrecognizable from the last one, uh which is part of
[7:40]what we were trying to capture in this book and I think we do. uh the current group around him in the West Wing uh many of them do believe that he won the
[7:52]election or at least it should have been called for him or there was evidence of voter fraud and that they will make that you know some some form of that public at some point this year. You would not
[8:02]have found that at the end of 2020. >> And that's just because Trump has repeated that notion over and over and over again. Is that what you're saying? >> Uh it's partly that. It's partly because
[8:14]uh many things in life uh aren't completely black and white and if you end up going and looking down a rabbit hole you can find I suspect you know
[8:25]pockets of fraud that they may then say look this suggests there was indications of others uh other greater fraud. To be clear we we know of nothing that would have impacted uh the 2020 election
[8:36]outcome. uh his own government said that at the time William Barr, his attorney general at the time uh was hardly a liberal Democrat. Um but and hardly somebody who wanted to see Joe Biden
[8:47]back in power or in power, excuse me. But his [clears throat] folks are very good at believing that he is hearing some frequency that the rest of the world isn't. And they are fairly
[8:59]convinced of something he does say a lot, which is that there are pockets of his government that have worked to hide aspects of truth uh that might contribute to proving his theories of
[9:09]the case in one way or another, whether it is about the election or whether it is about investigations he's faced and so forth and so on. Do they in their heart of hearts think it would have necessarily impacted the outcome? Again,
[9:21]I can't read their minds, but they are certainly much more interested in what he says on this topic uh than other advisers before them. Just pulling out
[9:29]one of the quotes, you write that uh Trump declares, "Everyone's sick of you, BB. Everybody hates you. We will get a
[9:39]divorce. We will break up." Interesting language. Interesting approach. But you're saying that Trump was the only one who could have pulled off this wrestling match between such complex
[9:50]players. Is that the case? >> Yeah. I mean, there's a fact that Netanyahu fears Trump far more than he ever feared Joe Biden. And that's
[10:02]because Trump is or at least was this Iran war has changed. Trump's efforts at the end of this war have changed this. But Trump is extremely popular inside
[10:11]Israel. Um, and and Netanyahu knows that and his relationship with Trump is pretty essential to his domestic standing inside Israel or at least was at that time. What was interesting was
[10:22]Trump had never really used that leverage against BB until that moment. And it was a pretty remarkable moment. They were trying to do this deal between Israel and Hamas driven by the US.
[10:34]Netanyahu from all accounts was pretty skeptical about doing that deal and wanted to keep prosecuting the war. And Trump in this phone call that we report
[10:42]on in the book was extremely abusive to Netanyahu. He also said, "All the Jews are sick of you, even the two Jews on this call." And he was referring to
[10:53]Jared Kushner and Steve Wickoff. And just through that brute force and be and Netanyahu's um frankly fear of Trump, I don't want
[11:03]to get inside his head, but that's the dynamic anyway. Trump had huge leverage there. He went along with it. They got the hostages out. Um it was a significant um foreign policy accomplishment. I wouldn't say it's the
[11:15]only time we give him credit in the book. Um we we describe in the book again it's your own perception as to whether you you you think these outcomes are good or bad, but
[11:25]>> he he wielded more command over Congress, over his own party and Congress than we've ever seen in American history in 2025. and he passed
[11:35]a huge piece of domestic legislation, massive piece of domestic legislation that many Republicans thought was pretty terrible, um, and didn't want to, uh, pass because it would have, you know,
[11:46]consequences for their constituents Medicaid cuts because of Trump's immense power over them. He barreled that through. Um, and, you know, you go down the list of there are many other things
[11:58]he managed to do that, um, that other presidents probably wouldn't have been able to pull off. One I would just add to that was, you know, whether people support his immigration agenda or don't,
[12:09]he campaigned on closing what he described as an outofcrol border. And the fact that there were a high number of uh illegal border crossings was part
[12:19]of what damaged Joe Biden's uh standing. And in fact, Trump uh effectively closed the border uh within a few months of taking office. And if you were somebody
[12:29]who voted for him because of that aspect of his immigration policy, uh, you consider that an accomplishment. >> What's unusual about your book in a way
[12:40]is that often people wait for history to settle that you, you know, you wait for an outcome and then with time and with hindsight then an analysis uh, occurs.
[12:52]That's that's quite a common way of approaching this type of work. Why was it important to write this book now? >> Well, historians can make those kind of
[13:03]judgments and and we fully expect it will take a long time. I think there was someone said, you know, it was like 200 years after the French Revolution. It was too soon to say what impact it had.
[13:13]So, we don't pretend to be giving a definitive analytical judgment. But what we both believe as reporters is people's
[13:22]memories fade. Memories are incredibly difficult to capture a and to get actual detail from inside the room, which by the way is really hard with this
[13:33]administration. This is not like the first administration. This administration is not actually very leaky. There's a reason I think immodestly part of the reason there's been such a stir about this book is
[13:44]because there hasn't actually been very much reporting from inside the Oval Office or the White House situation room. And Maggie and I have covered Donald Trump for a long time now. And it's only with that length of sourcing
[13:55]and depth of sourcing that you can actually penetrate those rooms. So I think what we both feel that we're doing is helping people see what's actually happening. If you want to understand how the most powerful country in the world
[14:07]is being run, how Donald Trump is operating with a tiny group of people. Five or six people are running this country. And there are senior people in the US government who are at the State
[14:18]Department and the the Pentagon and the intelligence community who have no earthly idea what's actually being said and done in the Oval Office. And I'll give you an example. This recent
[14:28]memorandum of understanding to end the Iran war. If I told you the number of people who actually had seen that document before it was published, microscopic. And so what we see our job is is putting
[14:40]out a first draft. People can read it, people can understand, they can absorb. It's the it's the freshest memories. It's it's while people's memories are still fresh and we're capturing something that's as close as we can get
[14:51]to the truth. And then people can make their judgments over time. I both of us, I think, had a certain humility about the judgments we rendered in this book
[15:02]because we recognize that we're covering real time history. Maggie, why do you think this administration is so good at at being secret?
[15:13]>> This is a group of people who for the most part anyway in this small room that you look at that we describe in this book of the people who really are there
[15:25]for decisions in this White House. And it it really is tiny. the vice president, the chief of staff in the White House, the attorney general, and then the deputy attorney general, now
[15:36]the now the attorney general, Todd Blanch, uh, White House counsel, um, uh, energy secretary, Treasury Secretary H, and frankly both of them are not always
[15:47]in the room. This is a very small group of people, the CIA director, secretary of war, who decide what takes place in this government. And Steven Miller, I
[15:58]should say, who is not in every room, but he is in many of them. He is the most powerful domestic policy adviser in [snorts] in decades. And really, I I it's hard for me to think of a modern
[16:08]parallel in the US. they have been with Trump for a long time or they really fought hard to be where they are now and they really believe in him or they really believe in
[16:19]what he can accomplish. When Trump came to Washington in 2017, he had not run for city council, let alone president before and he won on his first race. Uh
[16:29]it was to describe it as a seismic shock. I think it's actually hard for people to remember how stunning it was because Trump has been part of our public lives for so often, even when he
[16:39]was out of power. He didn't know most of his government. He didn't even know most of his White House. And he took the
[16:48]advice of people who had experience, who either were politically aligned with him partially or often not at all. Many of
[16:58]them saw him as a danger to the country who uh needed restraining and who the country had to be protected from. And because of that, there was this
[17:08]atmosphere of either advisers treating it as sort of talking to reporters as therapy or because they were frustrated or because there were these fights among
[17:17]advisers in different camps, you know, and and Jonathan often refers to it as like walking around with a slot bucket where, you know, you you couldn't really miss. You you get a story wherever you
[17:27]went. It's just not like that now. The room is so small where the decisions are made. uh even when they don't like each other and we document in the book when people you know some instances when
[17:38]people don't like each other there's obviously more than that but this is what we focused on in specific scenes they don't want to hurt him and they
[17:48]want to see him be successful and so uh they have just been a much more closed off group and so this took us a really long time to feel like we had this book right
[17:59]>> there's a couple things that I think important for people to understand One is the depth of the paranoia. So in term one, Trump literally carried around a
[18:11]note card in his jacket pocket with a list of snakes written down people that he was told were snakes inside the White
[18:19]House. Um by the end of um his term, he'd brought in an enforcer, Johnny Mcinty, young guy, to basically rid the
[18:29]government of snakes. They couldn't accomplish that in the first term. He lost the election. But they had four years to prepare for a second term and they were going to do things very
[18:39]differently. Um the loyalty litmus test that we documented this book, it was totally operationalized during transition. If you were going, Tara, if you were trying to get a job in Trump's
[18:50]Pentagon and you showed up to the West Palm Beach headquarters of the Trump um transition, which we report on in the book, you would have gone through a couple of rooms and they would have asked you about, you know, defense
[19:01]acquisition and things that were normal. And then you would have gone into another room and in that room you would have been asked questions like who won the 2020 election and I'll give you a
[19:12]clue. the answer is not Joe Biden and and other things like what do you think about January 6th? You know, thumbs up, thumbs down. So,
[19:21]that was formalized. Trump had a very clear idea of the types of people he wanted um in his government and they executed on that and that's how you get the team that's around him and that's
[19:32]how you get the dynamics that's around him and that's why you don't see the real time spilling of guts that you saw in term one that Maggie just described >> making the information you've gathered
[19:43]even more extraordinary. So what actually drives or motivates the people who did speak to you? We don't want to get into that like like we have a we have a source note in our
[19:54]book which describes you know the extent of reporting we did in the book and whatever but [snorts] >> all I'll say on that point is certain people took significant risks to
[20:04]talk to us and uh we take that very seriously and we're just not going to and there's a lot of speculation about certain things you know in terms of the reporting uh from situation room and we're just not going to get into that.
[20:16]Well, I I'm not asking you to reveal your sources, but more what motivates them. Um, you know, >> yeah, but even getting into that even getting into that can be a thorny issue. But, um, I I'll just say that, as you
[20:28]know, as a reporter, there are many different motivations and it's very hard to to paint with a broad bush brush. Sometimes someone is um talking to you because they're genuinely alarmed by
[20:39]what they saw. Again, this is not black and white. There are nuances involved. Sometimes it's just because you have a long relationship and you know someone and you you know they're doing it for a
[20:49]book or for history. But there isn't one motivation uh that we would characterize uh for the sourcing in this book. >> But there are people who and part of what makes this so sensitive is there
[21:00]are people who took a lot of risks uh to help us get this history uh as accurate as we could. And um it's we just don't want to get into sourcing directions
[21:11]motives beyond what Jonathan just said. I is this an administration run through fear? >> Well, there's aspects of it for sure. I mean, you know, Trump, they're very open
[21:22]in our reporting. I mean, one of Trump's campaign advisers, Chris Lassa, is on the record saying, is it we we want to basically rule with an iron fist or what does it say?
[21:32]>> Are we allowed to curse openly? Whatever. Just do it. >> He says, I think I have the quote correctly. They want to make clear that if you step out of line, you get your head kicked in.
[21:43]>> That's right. So ju just like just so you understand, there are like quite a large number of Republican senators who thought that Pete Hath was grossly unfit
[21:54]to be um defense secretary. They voted for him nonetheless. And in some cases, the reason they voted for him is because Trump and the people around him made very clear that your political career is
[22:04]over if you cross us on this. And you know, you talk about fear. Well, >> corporate America, why why do you think there's been the level of genulecting that we've seen? I mean, we don't again,
[22:15]we don't ascribe motivation to people. We don't say we don't try to get inside Mark Zuckerberg's head or Jeff Bezos's head. What we do do is we document them
[22:25]going to Mara Lago for dinner. Um we we have reporting in our book of private text messages that Bezos and Zuckerberg sent to Trump which were you know Trump
[22:37]was the reason we know about them is cuz Trump was showing people showing off like look how much they're quote unquote kissing my ass. So that was not the case in term one. These guys were seen as
[22:46]enemies by Trump and there was a huge sea change in corporate America. And again, we don't ascribe motivation, you know, for individuals, but I don't think you need to be a genius to figure out
[22:58]that Trump has made very clear uh through his actions that he's willing to use the full force of the federal government to punish his enemies and to reward his friends. And if you're in corporate America, you're responding to
[23:09]that incentive system. The other tool that he uses too that I would just add and we we document this in the book as well and he did this somewhat in term
[23:20]one but not to this extent is he has this inside outside approach. So on the inside you have him being willing to use the levers of government to go after people who he perceives as enemies
[23:31]including you know this campaign of retribution against people who prosecuted him or investigated him which we have lots of material on in the book. But he also uses lawsuits uh that he
[23:42]files as a private citizen and that for that he uses his top legal adviser Boris Epstein who is a a major figure in Trump's world who we write about
[23:54]extensively whether it is as being part of the uh campaigns against the news media such as uh US uh ABC News such as
[24:04]CBS uh and on and on. uh he this inside outside approach has given Trump a pretty astonishing
[24:13]amount of squeeze over an awful lot of industries. >> I mean the other thing he uses which again is like hopefully [clears throat] get the idea from my book. This is not a black and white picture. >> Exactly.
[24:24]>> The other tool he uses is charm. >> A lot of these and we document this in the book. A lot of these members of Congress, Republicans relate to Trump as fans. Correct. Essentially. what he did
[24:36]uh relentlessly in that off-year period where he was out of power 21 through 24. He would host them at Mara Lago with their families. He would sign hats.
[24:46]Remember to them he's a celebrity. He would sign hats. He would have them for meals. Come and stay. Come play golf. Come ride on my private plane. and those
[24:57]actions like when you talk to Republican members of Congress, particularly in the House, they're almost giddy that they have the president's cell phone number. And that's quite unusual. You know,
[25:07]previous presidents tend to uh particularly with like junior members of Congress. They don't really deal with them directly like that. Like they would use their staff, you know, but all of
[25:18]these members have Trump's cell phone number and they can just call him. So he, you know, it is charm. It's also fear. Um, but he's very effective at
[25:29]wielding power over his own party. >> And more broadly, you know, if you look at Jimmy Kimmel being, you know, um, off air, suspended, that shows the impact, doesn't it?
[25:39]>> There's no question. And and Trump has has reveled in going after the comedians in particular. Uh, he has reveled in the fact that, and we write about this in the book, the Steven Cobear and his show
[25:50]are now off the air. uh he reveled in the you know um Brendan Carr who is the FCC uh commissioner uh very aggressively
[26:01]has gone after uh particularly ABC News. He has gone after the view um which is a talk show. Uh he went after Jimmy Kimmel
[26:11]for you know a a portion of what Jimmy Kimmel said. Uh, and and regardless of whether people liked what Kimmel said or not, it is
[26:22]still completely within normal bounds of comedy. Um, and it was it was at a very charged time in the country, which was after Charlie Kirk was killed. But that was a key moment when you saw the Trump
[26:34]administration, many of whose members were quite close with Charlie Kirk, I should note, and for whom it was a personal loss. Um but you did see an escalation against the
[26:46]press, against uh perceived enemies uh on the left, which you know had been something that a number of Trump's advisers had wanted to do for some time,
[26:57]whether it was Democratic leaning groups, whether it was what they perceive as uh mainstream media opposition and on and on. And was that done, do you think, in the name of
[27:09]politics or is it the the president is so thin skinned? >> I think it's more when you say politics, it's not to
[27:19]achieve a political outcome. It's not like, oh, we're going to pick up some seats in the midterm elections if if we, you know, whatever. Trump doesn't like disscent. >> He just simply doesn't like descent. He
[27:31]would love nothing more than to shut down the New York Times. He's made that very clear. He's, you know, we work for the New York Times. He's called treasonous and traitorous and whatever. He obviously cares deeply about what the
[27:42]New York Times writes. It's his hometown paper. Um, and we're lucky to work for a a news organization that uh over which he has no leverage. We don't depend on the government for anything. But for the
[27:53]TV networks that do rely on government licensing, he's willing to use the full force of the federal government to try to bend them to his will. It's not it's not isolated to media companies. That's
[28:04]what he's doing to universities. That's what he's doing to law firms who represent people he doesn't like. It's across society. One of the core premises
[28:15]of the book is that and the reason we called it regime change is that Trump is using presidential power in ways that we've never seen before. There are some
[28:26]ways where there are precedents. You know, Franklin Roosevelt was using maximalist executive power in many different ways, but in some aspects like Trump's vengeance campaigns and others,
[28:37]we haven't actually seen the scale of what Trump's doing before. And so it occurred to Maggie and I, you know, a few months into this administration,
[28:47]a we're covering an administration that looks nothing like Trump's first term. And B, it's a form of regime change in this country. You know, we're so used to
[28:59]using that phrase regime change to talk about regime change in other countries. It's a much more difficult and in some ways uncomfortable challenge to document a form of regime
[29:10]change in your own country in the country that you're reporting on. [snorts] >> Is there an easy way of describing what that regime change looks like? What the
[29:19]office has turned into? >> Yeah. Well, there's this quaint notion of checks and balances in America and
[29:27]separate branches, right? Um, in 2025, one of those branches, Congress, essentially just said, "Peace out." At least the Republican control Congress
[29:38]did. And the clearest examples I could give you um are the most consequential actually. So when George W. Bush took America to war in Iraq and Afghanistan,
[29:50]the branch of government under the Constitution that declares war that is charged with authorizing war is Congress. So, of course, that debate, as I'm sure you covered at the time, went
[30:01]through a very rigorous debate in Congress and a vote and, you know, was controversial and people were held to account for their vote later on, etc. Trump didn't even talk to Congress
[30:11]before he went to war in Iran. He didn't even talk to them. He sent Delta Force into Caracus in Venezuela to snatch a foreign head of state out of his bedroom
[30:22]in his pajamas in the middle of the night and changed the leadership of that country. He didn't even talk to Congress. He decided that fishing boats carrying
[30:31]cocaine were enemy combatants. He redefined them as enemy combatants. Um, and he just killed them. He just bombed them. There was no authorization for the
[30:42]use of military force. This was he he just he said these are terrorists and we're killing them. He started a trade war with the whole world without even talking to Congress. And it takes the thing about the way Trump is wielding
[30:54]power is there are some instances where the Supreme Court has pulled him back and tariffs is a great example but he changes the facts on the ground and the court system is not built for someone
[31:04]like Trump. So it actually takes months for them to catch up and say oh hang on a second you can't do that and you know in tariffs they had to pull back. a lot of real world impact was uh
[31:15]created before the court system could you know get its shoes on. Um so those are some of the ways and then that's before I even get to um the amount of money his family is making from the
[31:26]presidency which is unheard of at a scale we've never seen before. That's before you get to all the things we've just been talking about with the universities and media. It it's across
[31:36]the board. We're seeing an expression of raw power like we haven't seen in our lifetime. And in some respects we've never seen before in the American presidency. >> And one of the things that Congress is
[31:47]supposed to do is oversight. It's not just approval of military action. It's not just approval of budgets. Uh the
[31:57]president and his family and some of his adviserss have made huge sums of money during this presidency. Elon Musk was
[32:07]running this agency as a special government employee, which is used to be a relatively lightly used status for people to have a temporary role because
[32:18]of their expertise inside government. Uh there have been so many special government employees in this administration.
[32:27]Uh Elon Musk runs Tesla uh or whatever his ownership is of Tesla. The president did essentially an ad for Tesla bringing
[32:37]a a buying a Tesla. It was [snorts] unheard of to do this kind of an event at the White House. Uh Congress didn't bat an eye. Congress has said nothing really about congressional Republicans
[32:49]about the amount of money that the president and his family are making. Uh that is also uh part of the the fear factor that he has over Congress. I mean
[32:58]I don't again it's hard to sort of sometimes see what's in front of your eyes but Musk when he was running Doge as the richest man in the world still
[33:09]owning his companies he shut down a whole government agency USA ID the America's foreign aid agency that would be the equivalent would be like in
[33:18]Australian terms if um pick your tycoon Kerry Stokes came into government for a temporary period and shut down a
[33:28]government agency like just said, "Oh, we're killing it. This thing doesn't this is they're evil. They're terrible. It's gone." And everyone's like, "Oh, you can do that." Turns out you can if
[33:40]Congress won't say anything, if no one will say anything and if you don't file lawsuits uh that go very far until either it's done or then judges take
[33:50]forever under normal process to issue rulings. So >> you talk about a breakdown of process really a system of government. Were you
[33:59]surprised by the lack of fightback? Why weren't the processes better protected? So just to hearken back to what Jonathan
[34:09]was talking about with Pete Hegsth being seen as manifestly uh wrong for that job by most of the people who then confirmed him. His confirmation fight was a a a
[34:20]definitional moment in this government for this particular reason. A few days earlier, Trump had pulled Matt Gates uh who had been investigated by the House Ethics Committee when he
[34:32]was a congressman. Trump had nominated him to be the attorney general. Uh it la it it was an example many people suggested to us in Trump's world of
[34:42]Trump seeing how far he could go. And it turned out with that one not very far. He was pulled after a few days. I think it was eight days. Hexath when he started to face some troubles uh
[34:53]accusations of of uh sexual misconduct and uh things from his past uh basically Trump and his extended orbit
[35:04]drew a line and decided to go allin in support of him. And it wasn't just Trump. It was this ecosystem of conservative allied groups around him. And they decided that they were not
[35:16]going to tolerate dissent. So one senator, Joanie Ernst of Iowa, who was vocal that she had concerns about Pete Hexth, she herself was a rape victim. Uh
[35:27]she found herself swarmed. She found herself facing the threat of a primary challenge. She found aspects of her divorce records being talked about on social media. She found herself under
[35:38]siege from various corners and she became the object lesson for members of Trump's own party of what they would be subjected to. It wasn't just a potential
[35:48]loss of their seat which is very valuable to these lawmakers. It was >> we're going to ruin your life. >> We're going to ruin your life. It was humiliation. And uh most of them decided
[35:59]no thanks. And there you have it. Jonathan, you earlier described it as a a use of power that has not been seen before. Is it better to describe it as
[36:10]an abuse of power? >> Well, there are many people who believe that it's an abuse of power. Um particularly Republicans who are on the receiving end of it. They're just not there's not sort of many profiles and
[36:21]courage who are willing to come out and say it because like Maggie said, um you're making a choice as a Republican. Am I going to end my political career by opposing Trump? and Trump has a pretty
[36:32]good track record of ending political careers. Or am I just going to keep my concerns to myself and try to muscle through and and hope that the next two and a half years I can just kind of keep
[36:44]myself as small a target as possible and just get through it. Um that's the that's the dynamic here in Washington. >> Did you have any fear of retribution
[36:54]when you took on this task? >> No. and we're just we are going to do our jobs one way or the other and all we
[37:02]can do is be accurate um and be as rigorous and also fair-minded as possible. I >> mean Maggie, you know, the the president
[37:13]already calls you maggot. Such a clever play on your name. Um >> it's actually Margo. It's [laughter] a French um you're just you know
[37:24]>> you're so old school. >> I'm just so literal. Sorry. [laughter] It's maggot. It's maggot. We get it. [laughter] >> Well, how do you respond to that? Just
[37:34]your reaction to such a juvenile approach. >> The first time that the president uh
[37:43]attacked me um on social media was in 2012 and it's 2026. Um so, and
[37:53]it it has he's been he's attacked both of us many many times. Um, and Jonathan and I are are both seasoned reporters uh who have been attacked by other politicians. This one just has a very
[38:05]loud megaphone, but um when I was covering City Hall under Rudy Giuliani, um it wasn't exactly like we were being thrown bouquets for our coverage. Um
[38:15]it's just it's part of the job and it doesn't impact what we do. I mean, he is known for calling people stupid people, for calling them losers.
[38:26]It almost feels like you're in some sort of parallel cartoon universe. But he's not benign, is he? Like he does go after people.
[38:36]>> We Yes. But he's also um he's gone after so many members of every industry at this point, but especially the mainstream media that
[38:46]covers him in Washington. um that uh it's a little hard to differentiate sometimes. >> There is an effect you know when he does it threats come through. >> That's true.
[38:56]>> Um which you know we don't talk we tend to just not talk about it cuz all you do is just encourage people and and again like we don't want to be part of a story
[39:07]uh or or you know we don't see ourselves as protagonists in some you know great epic battle. We're actually just reporters >> and our job is just reporting and
[39:18]putting it out there. And like as Maggie said, like Maggie gets it far worse than I ever did. Um >> but you've gotten it. I mean, >> sure it is. But but um you know Maggie's
[39:29]been dealing with it so long that I think it almost is just just like you know I mean he threatened to sue us and then 3 days before we had our interview with him and then we meet him in the
[39:41]Oval Office and it's you know salesman smiling you know whatever that's the way he is. >> What was that meeting like? >> It's pretty weird.
[39:52]>> You should tell the story. >> Pretty odd. You should tell the story. >> We asked him about his presidential power and he handed us a um >> a two-page document. >> Oh, he had his his aid. >> He got his aid, Natalie Hart,
[40:03]>> uh to go and fetch this document and [snorts] he said it was written by a historian >> and he wanted us to read it. So, we're sitting opposite Trump um across the Resolute desk in the Oval Office and
[40:15]he's sitting there reading this document. Maggie and I are reading it and we're just kind of strange. And so it opens by saying Donald Trump is the most powerful man who's ever existed,
[40:26]ever lived on the planet by far. And then it goes on to compare him to what Donald Trump said was to us the top 10.
[40:34]And it was Stalin, Mao, Hitler, Napoleon, Attilla the Hun, Genghask Khn, uh, the
[40:44]Caesars, Alexander the Great, Tamlain, you know, there's probably one I'm missing. And it had nothing to do with morality. The do the the document didn't mention
[40:54]morality. It was about power and raw power. And the premise at the top was that Donald Trump, which he wanted us to absorb and understand, was that Donald Trump is the most powerful man who's ever existed because he's in charge of
[41:06]the American military, the most powerful military force that has ever existed, and the US economy and technology, which is the most powerful economy that's ever existed. um but he's also that he's willing to use that power like other
[41:18]American presidents. So it turned out, we went and did some research, this wasn't historian. It was written by um a former golf caddy for Gary Player who's
[41:28]a South African golf player and a friend of Trump's. But as strange as the source of that document was, the premise was actually basically the premise of our book uh expressed in a different way,
[41:40]which is that Trump is willing to use his power like no American president of our lifetime. And it was just an interesting moment because you might think that a president would recoil from
[41:51]those comparisons. Trump was relishing it. He was reading. He's like Napoleon. It's very interesting. Mao, Stalin, Hitler. And he said, "Oh, they use fear
[42:02]to some of these people." The document said they use fear to to wield power. He goes, "Who would do a thing like that?" You know, wink wink. And so it it was just this weird moment because at the
[42:13]very end of our reporting process, sitting across from the president of the United States, the subject of our book, he was essentially confirming the entire thesis of our book. >> Do you think he was trying to impress
[42:24]you? The fact that he was shameless about being compared to these despots? I think he was trying to show us
[42:34]when we asked about power and about his use of power and how he viewed himself in the scale of US presidents because he had been telling people and we uh had written this in the book and to be clear
[42:45]by the time we had this interview our reporting was basically done for this book. you know, we've had been asking him to meet with us for a while for a fact-checking interview, but he was confirming the premise of the question,
[42:56]which was about being the most powerful, cuz that's how he had been describing himself privately, uh, president in the US. And here was this thing on paper that was that was in support of this.
[43:08]And uh one of the the takeaways from it was not just that he was very powerful in the words of this person who he was whose credentials he was
[43:20]obviously upping uh and not just that he was willing to use it. But part of it for him is always being how he's seen. It's not just that
[43:31]he's willing to use it. It's that you understand that he will do this. I think it's also that he wants to be a sort of Napoleonic, you know, >> yes,
[43:42]>> the person who only needs to be known by one name, who is the defining figure of our age. And so when Trump thinks about himself in history, I don't think he's
[43:51]comparing himself to Bill Clinton or to, you know, name your US president Eisenhower. It I think it is to figures like Napoleon and that he wants to be
[44:01]the defining global figure of our age. And that I think helps explain, you know, one of the puzzles of this reporting process that Maggie and I have just gone through for the book is why is
[44:13]Trump willing to take such bigger risks this term than he did in the first term. He wouldn't I don't think either of us believe that under the same circumstances he would have taken America to war in Iran or or or
[44:25]authorized that operation to seize Maduro or start a trade war with the whole world. He obviously didn't do those things in term one, but even under identical circumstances, neither of us believe based on the reporting we've
[44:36]done that he would have. So why? You ask yourself why. Well, why is he so much less reactive to domestic politics? Part of it is that he's not running for reelection, but part of it, which I
[44:47]think he was indirectly acknowledging to us with this sheet of paper, is he wants to be a capital G great man of history. He wants to reshape the world and put his imprint on the world and America in
[44:58]this term. And that's of far more interest to him than gas prices or his polling or how Republicans perform in the midterm elections.
[45:09]>> But he's not frightened of of being known. Rather than a great man, a bad man, >> it's an really interesting question. >> It's a really good question that I don't know that we can we can answer. Um, but
[45:20]in Trump's mind, the world is a corrupt place. Uh, and he's just more honest about it. Just getting back to uh the point about risk-taking, how much of a
[45:31]risk, how chaotic was his decision making around tariffs? >> Uh it really couldn't have been more chaotic. Um we document this in the
[45:42]book. Uh so the the scale of decision you would think you know starting a trade war with
[45:53]the whole world which is what they did on liberation day last year you would think there would have been a really deep and detailed policy process. There really wasn't. there was sort of a rolling series of bull sessions in the
[46:04]oval office with his core team and the actual formula that was used to determine the tariffs that formula was only according to our reporting no one's
[46:14]disputed that uh was only decided the night before that presentation and it was it was largely pushed by Peter Navaro but Trump was you know the one
[46:24]who ultimately signed off on it and he was winging it this was a theory he'd had for many is that America was being ripped off and and we need to, you know,
[46:34]get back our country, bring back industry, but it wasn't rooted in any kind of deep economic analysis. It was again just a gut feeling that Trump had had for many years. And what made his second term different from his first
[46:46]term is that in his first term, he was surrounded by advisers like his top economic adviser Gary Conn, former president of Goldman Sachs, who said,
[46:55]"Mr. President, this is a terrible idea. Do not do this. this will crash the economy, this will do all sorts of things. He didn't actually have that this time. He definitely had skeptics on
[47:06]his team, but they weren't forcefully making the case against tariffs to Trump. There were conversations about should we have this carve out for this industry or what have you. And so what
[47:16]you had was a president impulsively from gut instinct starting a trade war with the whole world and then he brought the financial system to the brink of
[47:27]disaster. And it was only when the sirens were going off in the bond markets and it looked like there was going to be a total meltdown of the bond markets that Trump pulled back from the
[47:38]brink and put a put a 90-day pause on these tariffs. So you talked about process. I actually think our reporting on the tariffs
[47:48]is one of the most stunning episodes in this book because he was playing roulette with the global economy. And
[47:58]when you peel back the curtain and actually look at how it was done, it's even more haphazard than people might have imagined. And >> was he aware of how dangerous it was, do
[48:10]you think? I mean, was he playing this game of brinkmanship consciously or did he not know the ramifications of his
[48:19]very last minute and ad hoc decision-m? >> I think with Trump, he he convinces himself often through the power of positive thinking that everything's going to turn out great. And it often
[48:30]takes a while before it dawns on him just how calamitous or dangerous the situation is. And in this case, it actually took, we have a reporting in our book of a a flight on Air Force One
[48:41]where his Treasury Secretary Scott Besson and his commerce secretary Howard Lutnik are not pleading with him, but coming pretty close to that that sir, you'd really need to pull back because
[48:52]the bond markets were seeing very dangerous signs. And I think it was only when the evidence was just irrefutable that they were on the brink of a serious
[49:02]calamity um that Trump pulled back. >> Still took a few days after that flight. >> Yeah. >> For him to pull back. I mean, it was really >> at the absolute uh last minute uh
[49:13]essentially. And we describe in the book how terrified so many of his own advisers were about how close the car came to going over the cliff. And I think that it's it's hard for them to
[49:24]look at sometimes. I mean, the other thing, too, is it is true that in term one, Trump had a credentialed person like Gary Cohen saying, "You can't do this." And Trump was surrounded, you
[49:35]know, by a city he didn't know and a government he didn't really understand and a special counsel investigation that he couldn't really see, uh, which there's no risk of now because he has
[49:46]presidential immunity, among other things, uh, and a and a fully aligned justice department. um in a way we just haven't seen since the pre-Watergate uh
[49:54]days. Uh but he is um he is the president and so the way his advisers view it is he's the one who
[50:04]ran. He was the one on the ballot. This is what he wants to do. And frankly, you know, if the criticism of term one was you shouldn't have aids treating somebody as if they were not the one who
[50:15]ran for president, these are his decisions and then you see what the aftermath is. But if he can't even guess what the aftermath might be, I mean, this is a person blinded by his own
[50:25]power, isn't it? >> Well, um, that is for readers, I guess, to decide how they want to interpret that. And it is for members of Congress
[50:34]and judges at different levels. Um, you know, you've had the Supreme Court, as Jonathan said, deal him some setbacks, but you've also had them deal him some affirmations such as on immigration
[50:45]policy just in recent days. Um uh there are um recourses if you know under a typical checks and balance
[50:55]system um if people think that a president is exceeding his power but we haven't seen them used and all we can do as journalists is just show people how their government works which is what we
[51:06]set out to do here. >> Just moving on to the Epstein saga. How how did the Epstein problem develop for Trump? >> [snorts]
[51:18]>> Well, you had um you had a a very passionate group of people in the MAGA movement who believed that Epstein had
[51:29]not committed suicide, that there was some nefarious plot. um that there was a client list, meaning that there was a
[51:38]group of powerful people in the government and in the business society who were uh also pedophiles uh confederates of Epstein but were being protected by powerful people in the
[51:50]government. and it became one of the most um powerful conspiracy theories that animated uh the right and some of
[51:59]Trump's people uh allies um played into that. You know, talked about on podcasts and other things in the leadup to 2024 campaign that, you know, we've got to
[52:11]uncover the truth about Epstein and once we get in government, we'll do that. Trump himself was always a little uncomfortable about it. Uh, interestingly, like I interviewed him in
[52:21]2020, Trump and um for our HBO show and I I asked him about Galileain Max Maxwell um he said, you know, Epstein's former girlfriend who's been prosecuted
[52:32]for sex trafficking. Trump said he wished her well. I said, "Why would you wish her well? She's a convicted sex trafficker." And he said, "Oh, let them prove it." You know, and he was clearly
[52:42]uncomfortable with criticizing her. So, it's no secret Trump had a friendship with Epstein. Uh it's very well documented. There are lots of photographs of them very chummy together, partying together in Palm
[52:53]Beach. Uh he fell out with Epstein. He's given different reasons for that. Um so there was always this awkward tension between the passion of the MAGA movement
[53:04]and Trump who really didn't want to, you know, lift up that curtain. And it comes to a head when he gets back into power because suddenly it's very easy when you're outside of office to say these
[53:16]guys are hiding something. Well, when you are in charge, you're the ones hiding something in the in the minds of of MAGA. And so they were in this very
[53:26]awkward position. And you had people who a couple people on his team who genuinely wanted transparency. you know, Vice President Vance Dan Bonino to be fair, his deputy FBI director who had
[53:37]been calling for it as a podcaster, but when the president himself wants this whole thing to disappear and doesn't want any of it, his staff is sort of stuck in a bind. Some of them thought it
[53:49]was no big deal and they were making too much of it. Some of them wanted it out, but it was sort of irrelevant. And so what we do in the book, which again I think you almost wouldn't believe it's
[53:59]true if we hadn't like reported it and and we know it's true. No one's disputed it, but it's almost unbelievable. Trump's core team, the most senior
[54:10]people in the American government, gathered for multiple meetings in the White House situation room, the National Security Command Center of the United States government, one of the most
[54:21]secure, highstakes venues in the entire world, not to discuss the war in Iran or a military operation, but to discuss
[54:30]Epstein and how we can get out of this mess and how we can solve what many of them saw as a public relations crisis. So that's what we get into in the book. We don't have time to talk about all of
[54:41]it, but the the conversations in that room, you just almost wouldn't believe that the top people in the US government, including the vice president, including the chief of staff,
[54:51]could be having those conversations. >> And then how would you describe the way Pam Bondi dealt with it? The blunders, the binders?
[55:03]>> Wasn't ideal. >> No, I I I think it wasn't. Um, I think she'd take it back as as uh as would the entirety of the the Trump government.
[55:12]Uh, shortly out of the gate, Bondi gave an interview. Uh, it was about, I think, a month into the administration, if that, and she was asked a question about
[55:21]the supposed client list, and she appeared to confirm that one existed by saying, "It's sitting on my desk right now." And her folks would say later that
[55:32]she was actually talking about the files generally. Anyway, um this helped just build this anticipation and this anger within the MAGA base about, okay, well,
[55:42]where is it? And she then not long after that interview did a meeting with some right-wing influencers at the White
[55:52]House. and she brought along binders of what her staff would tell people had been material put together by the FBI
[56:02]and what they would tell people they had been told by the FBI did contain new information. In fact, almost none of it was new. But the bigger issue for her was that they got to the White House,
[56:13]she and her team, and a Trump official sees this and they have no idea what's in these binders and they open the binders themselves, the Trump folks. And
[56:24]right there is Trump's name. And it's it's not because this is some new piece of information on Trump. It's because it's travel logs and things like that that have been out already uh in various court filings before. Um cuz remember
[56:35]there's reams of material related to Jeffrey Epste and Gain Maxwell that has been in the public domain for a while because of you know indictments and and
[56:43]civil filings and so forth. Um but the Trump comm's team I think understandably didn't think it was a great idea to be
[56:54]handing out binders with Trump sort of featured in it if you're a Trump person which they all
[57:02]were. And so the the bind the fact that the binders had basically nothing new then made the influencers angry. So then it became do you take us for fools? You
[57:13]you know you're setting us up as a prop. And so all of this just made the the base much angrier. And for people like Cash Patel, the FBI director, and Dan
[57:23]Bonino, the deputy FBI director, who had talked about Epstein um in in MAGA media circles for a long time. It was very frustrating to them and they were very
[57:35]angry because they were getting tagged with where are these files and to them Bondi had created this pressure valve. So all of this led to a memo that was
[57:46]released um first week of July that had no one's name on it, just the FBI insignia and the DOJ insignia saying they had
[57:56]reviewed reams of documents and uh there's no client list and we're not charging anyone else and and uh by all evidence Epstein killed himself. And here's some video of his jail cell that
[58:08]shows it. But the video was missing some crucial minute which only added to the sense of conspiracies and the memo which Bino vocally opposed internally. Patel
[58:20]was more part of the process of of editing it um and the drafting of it. but the memo that just further fan the flames. And so that is how you end up
[58:30]with this extraordinary series of crisis uh meetings in the nerve center of um what is usually used for national security meetings in the White House
[58:40]situation rooms or where President Obama watched the Osama bin Laden raid or where Lyndon Johnson watched uh monitored developments in the Vietnam War. Um, instead it was how do we how do
[58:51]we deal with this specifically this piece? The the meetings we documented were this piece. There were officials who were concerned about the victims, but the meetings that we characterize were about dealing with the after
[59:03]effects for a president who wanted none of this to ever be mentioned anyway. >> And the great question for everyone is why he doesn't want it to be mentioned.
[59:12]And he he claims that as you say, of course, it's well known he was friends with Epstein. Uh but he claims he beyond that he did
[59:23]nothing wrong. Did your reporting uncover anything that he might have done that was wrong? >> Now if we I mean if we had reporting about Donald Trump um and and malfeasants, you would have read it in
[59:35]the newspaper, excuse me. Well, yes, newspaper and the book. Um, we didn't learn anything in the course of our reporting about Donald Trump and victims or Donald Trump and Epstein. Um, we
[59:46]focused on the White House reaction to what was happening. Um, but it is true that nothing that we have seen so far in the public domain uh that the Justice
[59:58]Department has put out uh sheds any kind of new light on uh Trump being involved in Epstein's crimes. It it shows, you
[1:00:08]know, that he was on Epstein's plane more than had been previously known, according to one internal memo, uh, within the Southern District of New York US attorney's office. Uh, you know,
[1:00:19]there a New York Times analysis found, I think it was 38,000 mentions of Trump or the Trump family or Trump's properties such as Mara Lago, but also others. But again, those are mentions. That doesn't
[1:00:30]necessarily mean anything else. The DOJ has not released the full set of documents, though. Uh, and so there's a lot of pressure on them to do that. But you know what? We know.
[1:00:41]>> You paint a a fascinating picture of a pottering president uh grabbing ornaments uh to to superglue to the
[1:00:51]mantlepiece in the Oval Office? Uh what what drives the president to do that? Well, he's always um been uh obsessive
[1:01:02]about building and redecorating. Um in the first term, he really didn't do a whole lot to the Oval Office or residence. Um this time around, he has
[1:01:13]spent an inordinate amount of his time on his redecoration and building projects. Um when we went in and saw the president, you know, it was the 17th day
[1:01:23]of the war with Iran, March 16th. Uh we sort of thought maybe he would have maps of the Middle East on the on the Resolute Desk. He actually had
[1:01:32]photographs of maple trees because he was buying some new maple trees for the White House. Um and he said, you know, he said, "I'm I'm good at buying trees." And then underneath it were photographs
[1:01:43]of the ballroom that he's building. And he was talking about the size of the columns and you know, one side is modeling the Roman style, the other side
[1:01:52]is, you know, Athens. Um he's obviously uh building this giant arch that they call internally the ark to Trump. Um he's uh refurbishing the reflecting
[1:02:03]pool. You we often talk if you had sort of like a pie chart sort of a circle chart of Donald Trump's brain. A pretty big
[1:02:13]slice of it is occupied with these kind of projects. It's just the way he's always been. But I think this term feels comfortable enough. Like Maggie said,
[1:02:23]he's not under investigation. You know, someone asked him, he was it was one of these he he bu he he installed these giant flag poles on the north lawn [snorts] and a reporter said,
[1:02:35]"Why didn't you do this in the first term?" If if I recall correctly and he said something to the effect of, "Well, I was under investigation and you know, then he said, you know, I was the
[1:02:45]hunter, now I'm the hunter." I think he feels this time round that he can do what he actually wants to do whereas in term one he felt under siege um and and
[1:02:56]reactive >> those big projects I understand I I understand less the superglue I think [laughter] um why did he feel the need to stick
[1:03:06]these these things to the mantle piece >> unclear his press secretary Caroline Lever told people she walked in um to the Oval Office one day early in the administration and found Donald Trump,
[1:03:18]the president, uh super gluing a golden applique onto the fireplace. Um I can't tell you uh that we developed any knowledge of his motivations for using
[1:03:30]superglue, but uh the scene is reported in the book. >> And tell me about the bedroom wars. So Melania Trump uh was not at the White
[1:03:41]House for the first several months of the administration. In the time that she was gone and as Trump was beginning this sort of emboldened decoration spree, there [snorts] were objects in what's
[1:03:52]known as the center hall of the residence. Uh and Trump kept taking them either for his own bedroom, they don't share a bedroom, or for the Oval Office.
[1:04:03]And this was very distressing to the staff because she had wanted these items where they were. So they found themselves resorting to sending pictures to her staff for possible replacements.
[1:04:14]Is this okay? Is this okay? And it seemed to them as if he was competing for who could have the better bedroom. Um and uh and there you have it. The the
[1:04:24]bigger issue for her was the rose garden, which he paved over with stone. didn't rip out the rose bushes as a compromise, but she was distressed about
[1:04:36]this conversion of the historic rose garden into a version of the Mara Lago patio and his ballroom project, which she was
[1:04:47]among the several people who did not want uh in the location where it is being built now, which is where the East Wing was. is it's that's another area by the way where Trump has just sort of
[1:04:57]claimed powers that uh a judge has said he didn't have. Um the the White House has the ability to do sort of simple
[1:05:06]upgrades to federal buildings. Doesn't have the ability to do full scale downs and rebuildings without congressional approval. So initially it was that the
[1:05:16]ballroom was going to to not even touch the east wing but be right near it and then suddenly the east wing was gone uh last fall. And just for your viewers, the East Wing is the first lady's quarters. >> Yes.
[1:05:27]>> So he bulldozed them. >> And Melania Trump did not want this to happen. She she didn't want to be living in a construction zone. So that was another area of um of tension.
[1:05:38]>> Yeah. >> Is this about a tension between Melania and Donald Trump? I It sounds like he's going out of his way to
[1:05:48]uh at least not make her happy. We don't have any reporting to support that motivation. It's just the effect of what he was doing that, you know, irritated her.
[1:05:59]>> Just in in terms of Donald Trump's physical health, I mean, he made so much of his opponent Biden and, you know, not
[1:06:09]being up to the task. Um, how is his age affecting him in the White House? Well, this is an area of reporting where
[1:06:19]we can humbly say that we uh were not hugely successful, but we can tell you what we do describe in the book. Um, Donald Trump's health, long predating the presidency, long predating the first
[1:06:30]campaign, has always been a blackbox area for people in his life. He illness freaks him out. Um, he's a situational
[1:06:39]germaphobe, but uh he does, you know, the handshaking always bothered him. he doesn't like when people cough around him and so forth or sick around him. Uh so knowing what's actually going on with
[1:06:49]his health has always been a challenge and there and obviously look many US presidents have been less than forthcoming about their health. I want to be very clear about that. Um but with Trump uh he did make fun of Biden. He
[1:07:01]did make fun of Biden's age. What we have seen is you know he he drifts off or does very convincing transcendental meditation at around 4:00 in the
[1:07:11]afternoon uh when he is doing events in the Oval Office. Um, he has that chronic Venus insufficiency condition in his ankles. Uh, which seems like it's less of a thing these days, although I I'm
[1:07:22]not, maybe I missed something, but you know, photographers noticed that his ankles were very swollen um when he was sitting and they were visible and his pants legs were hitching up and he got
[1:07:33]very upset about the coverage of his um his ankles and so he made Caroline Lev, the press secretary, go out and address this. Uh, and a lot of people in the White House thought it was a bit strange
[1:07:43]to be actively talking about this, but he he is vain and he gets, you know, concerned about people talking about his appearance. His sleeping habits are stranger. They were always strange in
[1:07:54]term one. He didn't require much sleep. Um, you know, on overseas trips, he would he would pull one aid up, you know, by another up to the cabin, the president's cabin, and just talk to
[1:08:04]them. Um, we write about how one morning when he hadn't been heard from by around 10:00 a.m., a trusted aid went up to go check on him and he was still asleep. So, and they assumed he had just been up most of the night and then sort of dozed
[1:08:15]off again. So, this is definitely somebody who is not looking like a young 80. Um, but in the
[1:08:25]context a until we know that there is something else going on with his health, you know, we don't know what we don't know. Uh, number one. Number two, he is leaving the White House less than he did in term one certainly, but there are
[1:08:36]real security reasons why um uh among them anyway. And number three, he is still more visible daytoday than Joe
[1:08:48]Biden was even, you know, closing his eyes and sleeping whatever he's doing uh and all. And that is part of why it is getting less attention. It's also because there is so much else going on
[1:09:00]in his government uh that is worthy of attention. But you know his health is one of those things in terms of just how he appears. You can see it in front of your eyes. Just in terms of his mental health in response to those real fears
[1:09:11]about his safety, I mean he's obviously been the target of two assassination attempts. Uh he rightfully fears Iran, but um how is he responding to that
[1:09:22]fear? Is he closeting himself more? Is he discussing a growing paranoia about that? >> Well, he's traveling much less
[1:09:32]domestically and aids think that security plays some role in that, but we don't have any reporting that goes further than that. >> Okay. Just in terms of his popularity at
[1:09:42]the beginning of this term and where we're at now, where did you where do you think the tarnish started? >> There's a feeling among voters that and you see it in one poll after another,
[1:09:53]including his own internal polling. and we got our hands on some internal polling that's in the book. Um that he is not focused on what he was elected to do, which was deal with affordability.
[1:10:05]And in fact, when he talks about it publicly, he still refers to it as a hoax created by Democrats. And that is the problem Biden had too. This is something that his advisers have, you
[1:10:16]know, been very candid about in our reporting that they are concerned that he is making the same mistake, which is you can't tell people how they feel. But so all of those reasons combined are are
[1:10:28]why he's here. And the fact that he is spending so much of his energy on these building projects uh that voters really don't care much about. >> And why do you think he's so possessed
[1:10:39]by the building projects? >> You can't undo them. I mean, as Jonathan was saying about how he wants to be seen as a, you know, sort of Napoleonic
[1:10:51]figure in terms of leaving a mark on the world and how he'll be remembered. And he was so angry about his name being taken off of buildings uh during his
[1:11:02]presidency. He was so angry about losing the golf course in the Bronx that he had a lease to, which he ultimately got back after a court fight. Um he was so angry
[1:11:12]about losing tournaments uh that I think he isn't leaving it to anybody else to decide what happens to him if he can help it. >> What do you expect to happen for the
[1:11:23]rest of the term? I mean a lot it's been a pretty tumultuous first half. What can we expect? Do you think >> this is an administration that I think
[1:11:34]is going to be quite aggressive uh in combating subpoenas and refusing to respond to them potentially. So what does that look like? Um we have reporting in our book that Trump has
[1:11:45]told his closest aids um that he's going to pardon anyone who came within 250 ft of the Oval Office. Um, so
[1:11:55]there's a sense that um [snorts] there's still a sense even if Democrats take the House from Trump that they really can't touch him. Um, and like you said, his
[1:12:06]family's made a lot of money. Um, he's wealthier than he's ever been. He has immunity conferred by the Supreme Court. Um, and there's no prospect, even if he
[1:12:16]does get impeached, there's no prospect of a conviction. So, he still has a very free hand. And I think Donald Trump's obituary has been written so many times,
[1:12:26]his political obituary uh by so many people. And by this point, if you don't have some humility uh around that, I think, you know, you're sort of
[1:12:37]operating in a fairly delusional way. This is someone who has incredible survival capacities, who's able to regenerate himself, and he's still got 2 and 1/2 years left as the most powerful
[1:12:48]man on the planet, uh with no intention of receding at all. So, there are many things he could do. Uh the most obvious in foreign policy is Cuba. They've been
[1:12:58]looking at potential regime change in Cuba, but you know, who knows? >> It's a big world out there and we don't want to start being pundits and prognosticating.
[1:13:09]>> No, but from what you're saying, it would be fair to say more of the same. >> Maybe. >> Who knows? [laughter] >> Could there be another book in it? >> I don't think so.
[1:13:20]>> Yeah, this is not >> This one almost broke us reporting wise. I can't emphasize how difficult and we're just like grateful and relieved to be finished with it. There have been no
[1:13:31]conversations about another book. Let's just say that. [laughter and gasps] >> Thank you so much for your time. I very much appreciate it and for your insight. Thanks for having us. >> Yeah, this was great. Thank you so much. >> Appreciate it.