hi there, welcome to the latest iop speakers series event trump b >> hi there welcome to the latest event studying part of public policy and the undergraduate and for "the new york times" we have our correspondence here whose new book this will not pass trump and biden in the battle for america's future has been wracked by two years of perpetual crisis. and then co-authored a best-selling book and then

appears as a political analyst on television and radio. covering the 2016 election reporter and editor at politico and previously was editor of the harvard political review the conversation today is moderated by axelrod in our, director of the institute of politics. i will turn it over to our speakers. >> harvardon is east? >> good to see you guys. as i read this book i read a lot about the book before we saw the book because you were very skillful at disseminatinge. some nuggets that would be enticing to people.

and that this is so much bigger than the things that we read and then the narrative of what is going on in the country from 2020 and then this year to be deep and wonderfully written but how much pressure are you wonder when you write a book like this with the scoop that nobody has. you are rolling your eyes. >> no i am not. >> alex is. [laughter] >> let me just say thank you and then thank you for hosting us we are thrilled to be back

there is pressure from the publisher of your book for whose work they want to see utpeople purchase. >> i would love for you to grab a copy and then over 15 years the pressure that we felt is that we are competitors we want to produce the best possible book and that means two things a lot of reporting. a and then driving news and after the conversations.

and then we felt that extremely important period want to offer the building blocks to look back on the tumult she was years to capture what was going on that's why we are so committed and with a first-hand account the primary source material hopefully you have hers with the memos or documents and bringing people to the period. >> and not just washington but and then to who have interacted with the politics of the moon on —- moment

including who is represented in the book i don't want to be parochial parochial about the book writing business but there are a ton of books out already in some are coming about the 2020 election you have a book contract. you knew that you knew they were out there and all the other books that are being written how do you know what the contours of this book would be and what did you hope the story would be? >> thank you to all of you and for any major reporting project. and then how you put together

something from long range intensive reporting and also still feel new and competitive. and then to attract readers who woulde spend money and then to have demanding day jobs. and then it was a boring undertaking but then we found ourselves generating thatth nobody would find valuable. and then we know they campaigns and a couple of other and then a couple others inth the trump white house.

and for those competitive reasons and say something new to readers. and then to take a risk on a narrative with the run-up to the 2020 election and the consequences of the election. we started to do that we did know january 6 was coming. but what we did know is that the country is going to an extraordinary crisis in 2020 and that is a real test of the system can we have a free and fair election and the transfer of power so this is the broad shape even before you get the most alarming details. >> getting to the two parties and the two presidents but i

mentioned the narrative and the story of january 6 says told and retold in a million different ways but somehow it seemed fresher in this book because of the first-handth accounts and mentioning before we came out here i found what was so clear in this book is just how much people in both parties really felt their lives were in danger that day you talk about anthony gonzalez and then it probably cost him his his political career to do it but on that day talk about on the other side the conversation he had with his wife republican and democrat former military so

speak to that. >> on the things we pride ourselves is talking to so many members of congress who are not a household name and trying to animate the forces that were driving them to make excruciating divisions to impeach donald trump as a republicanen but what's going through your head and those crucial moments we know we had a narrative that told you all donald trump gave you a speech decorating pence fromou the senate floor took the congress to secure a location that's all pretty for period material. then to have the enormous advantage an opportunity after being in theua capital complex. >> seeing you wandering around. >> that anthony gonzalez told

us they told us in the colleagues and her friends and family about these wrenching things that they did in real time. so jason crow is a democrat elected in 2018 from colorado formerhe army ranger when the capital is lockdown and calls his wife she knows he is a soldier. and the training that a he has and says don't be a hero she is scared her husband will do what is the right thing and we should say he sent her home early it's one of the most chilling things we discovered in the run-up. >> and the democrat from new jersey did the same thing and

they just felt like something feels really wrong. i don't want my daughter or son to be in the city anymore. >> and then gonzalez left a note in his desk and then to play for the pay in manning". and then that was widely seen as a star in gop politics in congress and talking to them a great length of his experience that day.

and then he decided to write a note for his wife to put it in the desk just in case. just in case he lost his life. just hearing that into the interview gives me chills to realize what is going to the minds of lawmakers and those hours and how close we were toar greater catastrophe on january 6. and just to finish the story on gonzales, he decided a few months after january 6 he would not run for reelection. he's 37 years old. and then to impeach president trump one week after. or talk about death threats.

and then to escort them off the gate. he said i don't want this life anymore. it's not worth it. i have a wife and young kids. who needs that? and frankly for the party in the throes of trump is in any way so for his experience for everything that flows out of that and his disillusionment with his party politics generally. >> you have a lot of scenes from inside the republican caucus but i want to talk about those that have meaning beyond the storyline of this

have a republican in the state named abraham lincoln. in the first inaugural address we are not enemies but we must not be enemies and must not break women to have a slightly different message in the aftermath of january 6. but at liz cheney to be aimed for taking on trump and then to say it's not just an opponent and then to change it forever it strikes me that

quote and what is driving so much of republican politics and talk about trump is him talking before coming out here about the senate race in pennsylvania right now but donald trump has endorsed doctor' eyes. and then like the certainly could but is ultra mega to the right of trump and all of them. what does this say for the state of republican politics?

and the sentiment is so pervasive in republicanct politics to be ideologically mainstream. and then to have the right wing policy ideas but the democrats are out to take the country apart as the building blocks. with the operations of american government. and one of the things is we have written so many times about trump's control overg the republican party. and then has not been able to make the front runner in pennsylvania but trumps brand of politics is definitely in control of the republican party in pennsylvania.

and then that they don't control the movement.s. it is one hell of a signal. and then for donald trump personally and with that next generation of revolutionaries. and not in control of the revolution that makes it unpredictable.ma >> and then the governor's race. so then running in tandem more loosely in tandem and with the other candidates there. >> and we use these terms far to the right and i get why but

ten years ago using that language of the so called tea party era that was shorthand for down the line ideological conservatives. they are for limited standing. >> so much more now. . . . .

a finger in the eye, we are against those guys and we want to take it to those guys and what better way taking it to those guys been putting forth conservative black womanan sayig a lot of the things you believe like pretty emphatically a fascinating rebuke to what you believe are the pieties of the left that's powerful stuff wrapped up as a profile image and appearance asf it is any st of issues and that's different than ten years ago. >> it speaks to why governor desantis has become trump first, then desantis and now this. >> but desantis, he comes across like a poor back of a high school football team slamming

kiki kid against lockers to get laughs from the cheerleaders except this case geeky kids are the democrats. like you don't like my now oh, but like it's the slamming against the locker. that's the appeal, right? yes. yeah, no the muscularity of it. yeah. yeah. how much do you think you know, we're sitting here obviously, you know this in the district that obama's political career. how much of this nativism you know when you hear andy biggs quote about they want to change america? you hear this discussion about you know, they want they want to replace us push us out. how much of that was. a reaction to the election of the first black president i think there's no question that

it accelerated that and it brought it into. the mainstream of conservative politics here in a way that hadn't been before i think part of it is the actual reaction to the election of the first black president. i think part of it also is frankly the political success of democrats in the 2006 and 2008 elections just wiped out a generation of mainstream compare comparatively mainstream conservative politicians and just opened the door to you know, whoever would put their name on the ballot when the 2010 election came around. i just broke the old guard establishment to the republican part of the old fashioned way by defeating them at the ballot box and consecutive elections. i think that it is a bigger story than a reaction to barack obama. i think the proof of that is when you look at other western countries where this style of politics has also been on the rise in some cases before us and in some cases accelerating substantially after us that

right wing populism broadly defined has been on the march across you know central and western and eastern europe and the uk for some time and in some respects. we're like a lagging indicator of the direction of the of western democratic politics a culturally but look i think that there's it's obviously, you know, jonathan alluded to the tea party before i think it's one of the things that the media has been a pretty upfront about and looking back on coverage of the tea party is that you know, yes, there were a lot of candidates who put their names on the ballot in 2010 and afterwards who sincerely believed in limited spending and small government and hated the aca and other obama era policies, but were there voters really motivated by like a profound ideological opposition to expanded government spending some of them some of them were clearly motivated by some other and much darker stuff. and i guess what's different now is kind of okay to remove the right. yes, and that's something that

trump did. yeah, he removed both sides of it, right? he removed the pretense that it's not about race and identity and he removed the pretense that they care about spending right like the trumpier republican party doesn't give a -- about that. yeah. let's i want to spend very little time on this because it's been so picked over in the coverage of your book, but it does speak to the power of this movement that we've been discussing both the republican leaders in the in the senate in the house. their initial reaction to trump's to january 6th. was repugnance, it's fair to say or at least they expressed that in mcconnell mitch mcconnell's case. it seemed to be very visceral. yeah in mccarthy's case, who knows but but they both expressed themselves to their to their caucuses and to their

leadership on this that very quickly and mccarthy's case later in and more subtly mcconnell's case dissipated and i thought one of the most telling quotes in the book was when mcconnell was sort of explaining why he didn't go along with the impeachment. i think it was impeachment movement that he he said i didn't get to be leader by voting with five members of the of the caucus. yeah. so what does that say? about about their future and their command of their caucuses as we move forward. it says that they're willing to be led by their caucuses rather than leader caucus. that's the short answer. i mean. politically it's a lot easier for kevin mccarthy to sort of bow to what he perceives as the center of gravity and his conference than it is for him to try to push his conference to

what may be a more advantageous long-term. position but obviously in the short term it's going to create political challenges for him. so he just sort of goes with the path of least resistance and in his case. it was pretty a pretty speedy back down tomorrow lago before the end of january of 2016 was just in the neighborhood. he was just in the neighborhood, right? he just he just happened to he just happened to stop in at the the compound of the former president. so yeah, but what it does have is implications alex for the future because it's very likely that when you think about gonzales and others who are leaving. and you look at the results for example in west virginia in this primary last week when two incumbents went up against each other and one of them lost who had the temerity of voting for the january 6th commission in infrastructure. that the caucus is going to be more polarized and more

ferocious than it is right now. so where you guys are saying is so will mccarthy. look, i think that the parties are being purified and that as the the election cycles roll by the house and senate are are more and more dug in their ideological or at least they're partisan trenches and you can just look at the senate turnover who's replacing republicans senators or for that matter who's replacing democratics and all oftentimes. it's republicans senators, and i think it speaks to this and by the way in both parties to them, i think it's possible that in the next few weeks. you could have two of the most conservative house democrats lose their primaries and be replaced by much more progressive house lawmakers. yeah, we're going to have a major polar. so one of the interesting things in your book is what nancy pelosi's private.

observations of her own caucus i think she said you couldn't give me a billion dollars to be speaker again, which does raise the question about how long she'll remain in congress. i thought it doesn't matter. yeah, the question we don't know is whether she meant that you couldn't give her a billion dollars because she would do it for free right but no this is this is something that she says in i forget was november or december of is november of 2020 after it's clear that democrats have held the house by like this margin and she's begging and scraping for votes from across the democratic caucus to get to 218 and become a speaker of the house again, and she finds it this sort of like humiliating experience right that she's the most formidable figure in the house in my lifetime by a lot and here she has to go hat in hand to all these freshmen or you know long-serving but in her view irrelevant people and ask them, please, please let me and arguably after being sort of in

blue line during the trump view, right and nobody. i mean there are plenty of people in the democratic party who will say fine. let her do it again, and then there's like a pretty significant block of people who yeah, like they want to make her a beg for it and she you know, she says this she what she's saying is basically this is the last time there's nothing that could have me do what i am doing right now again what she also says david this is almost a year later. when the left wing of the house caucus is giving her i just headache after headache about trying, you know, she's trying to get the infrastructure built through the house. they're just a killing her on it because there's so mad at biden and so mad at joe manchin for not getting a buildback better done and she says of two of the most prominent progressives in the house in a pramila jaya paul the head of the house progressive caucus and aoc, you know, what they're doing is they're competing to be a queen bee of the house minority where she just feels like her own members on the left are sabotaging the party as a whole in trying to keep power which speaks to the larger question and you guys there's so many different anecdotes here on the

democratic side that speak to the sort of atomization of the democratic party. yes and how difficult that is not just for nancy pelosi, but for joe biden, yeah and some of the decisions that he had to make political decisions that he had to make to try and signify to this unwieldy i and identity oriented. yeah a party base that he as a 77 year old white guy was okay. mean this is a lot of material in the book gets at just that that you have somebody in joe biden who? is trying to forge consensus? with a party that has grown on wheels. i mean the blessing and the curse of the trumpier for democrats is that it's enlarged the party. it's also enlarged the party and

that that creates challenges what you're trying to sort of put together a majority of votes for a party that spans actual socialists like aoc with like, you know conservative democrats like joe mansion. who collectively have one thing in common which is they opposed donald trump? and obviously that one thing was very significant and it's the reason why joe biden's president, but once you achieve that one thing then like what's next and i think that gets the heart of biden trying to sort of forge consensus in the party and you see that immediately david after his election. i think the chapter that you're alluding to as he's putting together his government and biden is trying to sort of satisfy this this divergent party that you extremely or ever more interested and sort of organized by identity. and so he's collin together a cabin with potentially a gop held santa we'll have to confirm

all these nominees and with that in mind trying to also please various democratic. groups and this is difficult. it's a real puzzle and you know, you see it when he's trying to figure out. who should be secretary of for example health and human services? well. somebody i have in mind could do it but you know, the hispanic caucus is giving my staff real grief over the sort of lack of hispanic individuals in the cabinet. so, how do we fix this? and i think that's where this really begins. you can sort of see it in the challenges to put it in together a cabinet, but it's not it doesn't end there. i mean this question in this year this i don't know if that's the right expression. but let me yeah bore down on that because secretary of health and human services is a really significant position, but probably more so in the middle a

hundred year pandemic, yeah. um and it and yet they chose someone who had no discernible background in health, right? in order to in order to check that box because the forces that they were contending with were so strong that they felt they needed to and that is policy implications it does and i think the way you just put it is absolutely the right a way to put it that, you know the forces that they they felt the forces that they were dealing with were really that strong right? it's a choice on the part of joe biden and his advisors to say, you know, we don't even really know. however, sarah biden botches his name when he announces he comes javier bakeria when he announces him as the nominee. he you know the rationale for him having a health background is really really thin there are other finalists for that job, you know, january monday the governor of rhode island michelle lujan grisham the governor of new mexico who

wanted the job badly and by the way was a former chair of the congressional hispanic caucus who have a much more extensive executive experience and health management experience, but the chc is down our next and so we're going to do becerra and to me. i'm not saying that specific choice is like the original sin of the biden administration because i think that's an important choice, but it's not, you know, singularly important, but it's pretty -- important in the context of the pandemic and if you were going to signal to your own party in those early weeks after the election that you can push me around like that and i the incoming president to the united states who as a 76 year old white guy won the nomination of this party and then when the election and i'm so scared of what folks are saying about me in the sort of identity-based caucuses of congress and even by the way on twitter that i am going to be rushed into choosing this guy who i barely know i think from the start it just sends a signal across the democrat across the

democratic coalition that it's open season and we should point out that joe biden actually got elected and you guys have some of this in your book as well under scoring some of this in your book as well. as a as a kind of moderate, you know, he was he was the guy who stood on the platform and said do i look like a socialist to you? and perhaps his most effective speech of the entire game. yeah the way was that speech after the kenosha riots? when what he went to pittsburgh, but about labor day of 2020 and said just that line and they immediately put that that line on tv and how you circulation around the midwest to kind of a defang the the attacks that the joe biden was some kind of extremist. no david. this is the great irony of the buy demonstration is that he was the least most popular candidate frankly on college campuses like like this certainly on twitter. he was somebody who was seen in

this just not just yesterday's news because of his age, but also to his his whole affect his politics his eagerness for consensus his affection for figures like mitch mcconnell. i remember he said it's not something about mike pence that pence is actually a nice guy. oh my gosh the backlash that then came biden got for saying the mike pence is a nice guy. i was enormous. yeah for him to sort of defeat those forces of the kind of modern left. and then once he becomes president to sort of like consider that constituency so much as he governs it is striking because he didn't have to do that. those were never his voters in the first place and in fact biden's age which were to laughs i twitter is not reality. this is not real. it's not even who the democratic party is, but the but they haven't practiced what they preached.

let's talk about a couple of you know, there's one big. decision that the probably the biggest personnel decision that he made which he made during the campaign is one you guys write extensively about and they're actually a an aspect of local interest here because one of the people who was a prime contender for vice president was our own senator tammy duckworth who according your reporting got pretty far in the process. and really intrigued the biden campaign. so what happened to her and how did this end up falling to kamala harris? and what was biden's mindset in all of that? you've got great reporting on that. but sure so in i think the main picture that emerges from our reporting on the vice presidential process is that it's driven by biden and by the people closest to him overwhelmingly by really

short-term political considerations. what do we need to do to get from early august to early november without blowing? thing that it seems like we're going to win and so they have this rubric of a traits. they want their running mate to have traits. they want their running mate not to have and like nowhere in our reporting did we discern that inside that rubric and important place was like a genuinely close relationship with joe biden and his complete and total confidence that they could take over the presidency and carry the torch forward for the democratic party in 2024 or at any time. well, maybe they just couldn't fit all of that in a rubber. it was it's it's look it's a pretty big rubric though that we saw some of the polling that they were cut considering the search committee was considering they bombarded people with questions about all these potential candidates and one of the things that i inspired the search committee about senator duckworth was obviously her heroic life story the diversity that she would bring to the ticket not just in terms of her

background as an asian american politician, but as a figure from the middle of the country as a row and as somebody who grew up times in her life in poverty, and you know our reporting is that biden connected really well with her, but the lawyers had a little bit of a problem with her and that was that she was born in thailand to and one parent who's american citizen and one who wasn't and they felt like on the merits they ought to be able to win a lawsuit against her about challenging her eligibility on sort of birtherism style grounds, but that they didn't want to have to fight that lawsuit in the middle of the campaign and trouble with what and of course trump would make it an issue if they were running against you know jeb bush, maybe they would have gone ahead with it. anyway, because jeff but they're rationale was it's only going to take one judge in one state to knock us off the ballot. maybe not just knock her off the ballot but knock the whole democratic ticket off the ballot in the state that we can't afford to lose and to me. so what made them think that

trump would make citizenship an issue. i know it just it's kind of can't come but to me that's that is one of the most revealing aspects of this right? is that a joe biden knows as well as almost anyone a how pernicious a birtherism is what a force it was in trump's rise and in this moment he decides, you know, i don't it's not that we're saying he would have chosen tammy duckworth. if not for this. i think that he and his advisors. i felt strongly by the time he was coming up on his decision that he really needed to choose a black woman for the ticket and that and that there were reasons why it made sense to choose somebody who had been road tested in national politics the way kamala harris had been and very few other people on the short list i had but the choice to say we're gonna take tammy duck worth out of consideration because of this attack that we think is bogus and and profoundly offensive, but we're just gonna practice those kinds of defensive short-term politics. i think again, it's another case study in sort of letting the other letting your adversary win

preemptively because you don't want to lose later on what i would just add. a lot of people in biden's orbit believe kamal harris was always going to be the pact that it was a fadedcom believe that she would just made the most sense for on a lot of levels and you know, yes abide did not have a close relationship with her. yes. she attacked by hayden fiercely during and and apparently jill biden was deeply july was not a fan of her attacks as we report in the book during the democratic primary one wondered allowed. is there nobody else that we can pick? that makes the fact that they never really deeply grappled with. what the world would look like and what her role would look like. if biden did win all the more striking he's if you sort of know from the get-go that common layers is probably gonna be the vp and then you you make her the vp pick. wouldn't at some point you consider like okay. so like what are the

implications for governing after biden becomes president if he does win and what are the implications for a soon to be 80 year old incumbent president and who may not be able to run for re-election and like what does that mean for succession? i we just never got the sense that the biden folks considered that it was just so much more narrowly focused on who is the short-term picked who can help us beat donald trump and i get the importance of getting donald trump out of the white house if you're joe biden's campaign, but my goodness they just never wrestle. i don't think at all with with the day after the election and now here we are in a situation where it's may of 2022. there's there's grave questions that every democrat is asking when the cameras are not on about, you know, joe biden's capacity to run for president again in 2024, and if you can't what do we do and like it's not clear to me that there's any kind of a plan for scenario b. biden doesn't run well and i mean and you guys did some

reporting on this and everyone's seen it it's not as if they've made the vice president and integral part of correct of the administration, you know, biden was actually in the obama administration. he ran the recovery act. he was sent to iraq. yeah negotiate the new government there. he was sent to the hills and negotiate. we don't see that. with this vice president well and the task that that she has taken either. she's not really embraced a fully or struggled with. yeah. well in fairness they gave her this they say you want to drive. we've got a couple of cars without. carburetors in the back and you can have those ah, but she didn't even try to drive the car is the problem. i mean you think about for example the voting issue we report in the book something. that was i think astonishing to both of us to report, but that she never once talked to joe mansion or lisa murkowski the two most pivotal senators on the

voting issue about the voting issue. how are you? how are you sort of honchoing that issue if you don't have a conversation with the two most important senators on the issue it sort of speaks to what you said david a minute ago about not exactly making her integral part of the administration. let me why is that not happening? you know, let me ask you about a couple of other things one of you you guys talked about. a decision that i think loom's larger now than people realize that the time which was the decision to to jump on the movement to increase the stipend in the rescue act from 600 from the $600 that the that the congress passed in december of 2022. the additional fort $1400 or 2,000 um and it turns out that

was not exactly the work of economists surrounded table trying to get to the right number so much as trump who is mad about being left out of the negotiation saying 600 to smile? i would have done 2,000 democrats jump on that say these two georgia republicans who are in a special election short-change people. we're for 2000. they should have been for 2,000. and 2000 it became and after the georgia runoffs and after january 6 when there's a meeting of a senate democrats a chuck schumer. who by the way was not campaigning for two thousand dollar checks prior to donald trump endorsing it himself. he brings in the new senators from georgia our raphael warnock and john ossip and kind of prompts them to tell the other senate democrats, you know, we we made some promises and we need to keep those promises so is goes from being this idea that president trump throws out there in a video on twitter one afternoon to be a campaign issue in this very very unusual a special election to like the

carved in stone economic agenda of the bind administration and underlying it david. it's not just that this is a sort of like a weird sequence of events that leads to this policy. it's also you know, it represents this larger wager that the biden administration makes early on, which is that if you give people in distress direct cash benefits or direct government benefits of another kind they recognize that you have done something concrete for them and they will reward you for it. so even before but even before you get to the issue of inflation and whether sending all that money out there helped overheat the economy. that basic betters doesn't pan out that we talked to members of the house who actually raised this with the bid administration. he said they would talk to people in their districts. they got that money. they thought that it was part of like the trump stimulus right that they don't see that showing up in their bank accounts and say, you know, thank you president biden and the democratic party. so it was just you know, it was a sort of a policy that came about through a weird sequence

of events. that didn't do anything for joe biden politically and i think that is much as anything as the real disappointment for them, but it does now the real political problem that he's facing is not that he didn't get enough credit for that, but that he is getting a lot of credit for runaway inflation. yeah, not all of which by any measure can be blamed on that one decision, but certainly when you look at other countries and our country every country's experience inflation ours may be a bit more and why in part because they're fighting the last war we heard this so many times. spring of 2021 we're not going to make the mistake that you know, who the guy who's from this neighborhood made barack obama. he just you know, it should have been a bigger stimulus package. you know, we're not gonna do that again. we're gonna get the biggest possible stimulus package here and we're gonna get this economy moving again. and so they they in effect

overcorrect in part part i think because of economic and political impulse but david also for being honest here, i think also because of reasons of sibling rivalry. don't tell anybody but barack obama and joe biden have a rivalry and they're not the closest of friends and i think joe biden felt like there are his time as vice president. he was not always well respected and the in the obama white house, and i think he still has a grudge that he was not sort of tapped to run for the presidency in 2016 that people in the obama's orbit rallied to hillary clinton and we have this scene in in 2021 david which a biden's riding high and he says in a very sort of unguarded moment to an advisor, you know, i don't think brock would like one bit the coverage of me as a more transformational president than him so you can't take the personal out of the political equation here when we're talking

about biden's economic policies in that first year as president and why he was so intent on getting the biggest possible stimulus package. there's a microphone there and those who have questions, please queue up behind that microphone. i want to ask one more, but if you don't queue up, i threaten right now. i'll ask more so i want to ask you guys. and and i think this conversation reflects it this book is called this will not pass it operates on a lot of different levels, but implication of it is that we are in the throes of something of large forces that are not going to be easily undone. um, so talk a bit that and then see if either of you can squeeze out a positive message so our audience doesn't go home deeply depressed. yes spoil or spoiler alert. there's not a happy ending at the end of at the end of this will not pass as the title may

betray. there were there already working on this past. just kidding it fast now. yeah, look i think the sort of the political fever that this country is in i think shows no signs of abating. in fact just the opposite. i think all signs point to more division more disdain for this sort of political opposition and sadly, i think the risk of more political violence that we saw on january 6. i don't see a scenario where that that is. that becomes less likely at least in the short term. i think the incentives now are all geared towards. more partisanship and the partisanship based on a contempt for the opposition. on a positive note. i think the history of the country offers the best sort of upbeat note.

i mean we've had enormous challenges in the past and we've had crises and we've eventually overcome them and sort of grown stronger as a country, you know a couple of steps back and then be obviously take steps forward. so i think i'm sort of hardened by the the long term that you know, the american story does tend to borrow a line that obama borrowed eventually been towards towards justice. i'll just add really quickly, you know, we mentioned before that in a lot of ways the us has been sort of the lagging strand and the rise of the far right across the west and i think it's possible that we're going to be the lagging strand in the the fall of the far right across the west that you know, if you look at there was this moment after trump's election when it looked like you know, you have these sort of like borderline fascist paul a party's on the rise in germany and italy and france and they elected a right-wing strong man in brazil and you know, god knows where it's just right and

well the philippine. yeah that's ever conversation about that. but you know, whatever germany is that just had another election. they elected a center left a chance, right italy's prime minister is basically like, you know, italy's a larry summers right? like these are not sort of like accept perhaps on some college campus is not not sort of like a figures of the extreme. right? right, you know bolsonaro looks like he's likely to lose in brazil. i think have a particularly rigid and low moving political system. that doesn't it doesn't sort of process electoral results turn them into policy and then let the voters repudiate them or embrace them quite as quickly as it happens elsewhere. so, you know, i don't know that's like a real upbeat message, but i do think that like give this to somebody more time. thank you. if we did joe biden would face a pretty tough vote of confidence right now, right? yeah. and the in the parliament of the united states right now, i'm not sure he would survive that vote. yeah, right. there's your upbeat. he like he puts a he gives us an

upbeat button and then you have to jump in and stamp all over it. let's take the question. yeah. hello. thank you very much for the nice overview. my name is john wayne postdoc at the prices school of molecular engineering. i have a question about more the left the center left side. so you mentioned that the the biden administration and the choice for example of kamala harris looked at the very short term results. my question is do you see? a political figure in the center left that or even more in the very progressive side that could sort of embrace more long-term you of development for for progressive policies and push them forward because i believe that's actually at the end of the day one of the most vivid

distinctions between what progressiveness is compared to trumpism and very sort of short-term right-wing. well, this is also a very active conversation in democratic circles these days all so most often help when the cameras are not are not on and that is who can pick up the torch joe biden said himself that he was a transitional figure, of course now his staff wants to say that that was only one time. he said that but look, joe biden was an emergency. canada effectively right first to stop bernie sanders and then to eject donald trump from office and that was the entirety there were a lot of voters in this country the rationale for joe biden's candidacy. so again, i come back to this sort of now what what's next and it's not totally clear what the

network who the air is look. i think if kamal harris or joe biden rather does not run for reelection. obviously commonly hearers will be a formidable candidate remember the administration the sitting vice president first black woman in history to be a national elected official you think she would be an opposed in the prime. no, i was about no. no, i was gonna say i think she'll have a robust prime. i mean, i think democrats are not gonna see the nomination to her not exactly progressive if biden doesn't run look, i think there will be yeah, there will be i think an intense primary both within the more progressive wing of the democratic party, and certainly i'm on the more moderate sort of faction of democrat. i think you'll see a number of governors. give it a look. senators cabinet members mayors i can see the governor of this stage debut pritzker being interested. you know that jared polis in colorado gavin newsom in california roy cooper in north

carolina if stacy abrams went to the governorship this year. absolutely. i think that murphy would consider it phil murphy in new jersey and the cabinet gina raimondo the more moderate weighing of the democratic party, perhaps mitchell andrew, and then i think you have to you know, consider bernie sanders and elizabeth warren, you know, they run for president before that's a pretty good indicator that they would consider doing it again, and certainly the same can be said for other senators like amy club, which are i think you would have a pretty robust primary. yeah. the only thing i'll just add is i think that this is the first administration first democratic administration and my life time and i think arguably first administration period in my lifetime. we're neither the president on nor the vice president as seen as like a person of real sort of like deeply anchored. ideological perspective right the trump administration, i think yeah also in a different way a not deeply ideologize

yourself, but but i mean pence wasn't like a big vision guy, but he was a guy with a pretty fixed principles, right, but you know when you think about like what bill clinton did to set the direction of the democratic party and what barack obama did to set the direction of the democratic party, i don't think you can look at joe biden or kamala harris. either of them has even attempted to do that and i think when you look back at the last primary campaign, whether it's elizabeth warren on one wing of the party or pete buttigieg on a very different wing of the party, i think you can you can tell there's this hunger in the democratic party for somebody who's gonna say what on earth they're about for the future right? i think that's a huge opportunity for somebody if biden doesn't let me ask you a question about this kind of thank you your question parochial political question, but it's one that i think about a lot. doesn't it matter when by an announces his decision because all of the people you're talking about? are not household political names in this kano and

celebrities a huge driving force obviously in today's politics. so if if biden says in summer of 2023 and his habit is not to make these decisions early. i've noticed that if he says in the summer of 2023, you know what? i'm going to just devote myself to the work of the country for the rest of my term or it could be late summer. i think what does that what does that do to all those people late summer could be fast. yeah, i mean, i think the second the midterms are over like midnight of of like election night this year the clock the clock starts ticking and i think every day that goes by after the midterms this year. the democratic anxiety levels are kind of like spike as trump is sort of in the wings attempting his combat democrats have an uncertainty about who's gonna be our standard bearer. i think there's going to be enormous pressure on biden to offer a decision, but david, i

think you're getting something when joe biden does not want to say no. he doesn't say no very quickly. and i think this is the ultimate and final know that joe biden would ever have to offer you sort of extinguishing his own political career. i don't think it's gonna be in a huge hurry to do that if that's the decision. i think it's more likely that biden would offer a quick decision about running for reelection than it is. he would offer a quick one about not running for your election. and this is also why governor pritzker governor polis are such important figures to watch, you know, if biden decides not to run like labor day of 2023, you're gonna have to get known really well really fast and that requires either celebrity going in we're having a lot of money. can you imagine if we're at labor day 23 and biden hasn't said what he's gonna do. oh my gosh. the democratic party would be on fire across this country. yes, i can imagine that. yeah, so we've got more questions here ben barker. two-part question. i know this fellow hey full of

disclosure this my cousin cousin alert. when you put together a book like how could you write a book so great. when you put together a book like this, how do you decide what to release into the news as you get it and what you hold on to to publish a cohesive larger narrative and do you have any additional reporting not yet reported from the lead up to the insurrection at the capitol that could impact the january 6 committee's work. oh my god question. well, first of all, happy birthday ben, he just turned already great great guy and i went to school up the road here a different school, which we've not name in chicago land area look. think your second question first i think the best reporting we got we put in the book for alias reasons, but we have a lot of primary source material and we have a note to readers in the beginning of the book that sort

of gets at like why we think it's important to no, only use quote march. it may sound like a small thing but like goose quilt marks, but when we know those were the precise words of the protagonist and in the in the book at the moment and so we we have obviously quite a bit of material some of which you've heard the audio tapes of and it's it's not the last of it, but i think the best material in terms of what's in those documents and those tapes you see in the book i think on the larger question. you know, have you have you been asked for the we have not had any kind of formal. yeah request. so i think i'm a larger question. pretty easy. i mean we don't want to speak to the sourcing and the bulk for

obvious reasons and it's not something that we do, but i think generally speaking if you have like a scoop of the century in your lap and you work for a newspaper, like you're obviously gonna put it in the paper, right, but that's not really how reporting typically work. is it that that's the hollywood version where you walk out your house one day and like in front of the front door. there's a big bow on a gift with like the scope of a lifetime. it's like much grittier than that, it takes months and months of work of trying to like track down material verify material. we're you know, get get access to material and put it together. so it's it's not the kind of thing that you know you you're like sitting on necessarily generally speaking. so thank you ben. they'll be cake for ben in the back of the room after we're hi, my name is morgan. i'm staff here at the computer science department, and i'm also

in the evening master's program for public policy here. so my question is will you guys are both journalists at a pretty highly credible news source or newsroom? and i was wondering your lead-up to january 6th than the follow-up how large of an impact did you think social media had in terms of fake news getting out there? and if your sources talk to that at all and then also on a slightly related note, do you find that major news conglomerates such as like fox news, are they leading those stories or they reacting to social media? we serve you mean are they driving the yeah the narrative. yeah, so that's those are both a really good and tough questions, i think on the second just take the second one first. i think it's very very clear that fox news doesn't enormous amount of proactive driving of

warped or otherwise inaccurate information and i think that it's one of the things that i actually dislike about the discourse on disinformation on social media is i think that in some respects it lets off the hook some really big really well known a very powerful institutional players. they're very very much implicated and all of this, you know, the impact of like somebody, you know, we've all seen going back to you know, birtherism email forwards in 2008 and and well before that that like a junk information and pernicious junk spreads of its own momentum, but like it spreads a lot faster when you have the number one cable network pushing at least some of it the stuff that's on social media though goes like beyond what fox will put on the air and in some cases like way beyond what fox will put on the air i think that you know, neither of us is an expert on sort of social media and mapping the way that information spreads, but you know, we both know people who are and we both know that it's a major focus of you know,

elements of the january 6th investigation. you know, how did all of this stuff get out there get organized. how did people get driven i mean motivated to go to washington with these ideas about the election in their heads, you know, the one force that you didn't mention that i want to mention is president trump right that he was using every platform available to him to trumpet this garbage about a stolen election and very specific conspiracy theories about specific counties in specific states. and you know, i don't think there's any level of control on the part of social media companies or restraint on the part of television networks that can offset the impact of the sitting president of the united states a behaving that way so i think a big test will be what if this happens again next time and it's not a sitting president saying this stuff but like it's one of a whole bunch of different candidates and a primary saying that iowa was rigged by the way like has given people plenty of reason so it's

a question the integrity of the process, but you know, that's sort of a meandering answer to your question. i think the answer is like all the above and and then some can i just ask a quick question about this. i noticed in one of the stories about in the follow-up stores kevin mccarthy denied saying the things that you guys reported. yeah, i noticed that you guys having bated the trap he that you then released the the audio of him saying what he said he didn't say and in your reporting of that in one of your pieces you referred to mccarthy's dishonesty. yeah, and i'm wondering if you had a discussion about using the word. dishonesty or any component? it's a good question given how much the times a historically does belabor though those questions in this case. there wasn't really much of a discussion. it'll all because the facts were so black and white that he was dishonest with his denial and he you know, he was lying. and so i think we were very

comfortable saying that in our editors were comfortable. would that have been the case? five years ago, i think probably not. i think that the expectations have changed. i will say i think that one of the things that was so revealing about mccarthy's initial denial through his spokesman was, you know, we presented them with the comments that we were going to attribute to him and he denied specifically having ever said he was going to call trump to resign and then on this other piece in the story about saying that social media companies, i should take down the accounts of some of his members he gave a much more legalistic denial. i never called for the band of specific lawmakers, right? so to me, that's a really important tell as to his intent and awareness of exactly this wasn't just some broad brush off the cup. no, i didn't say any of that right? he was picking and choosing what he was going to deny and how strongly all the more reason why i was so shocking the following day when our story was actually up that mccarthy himself and his own words would put out a blistering statement.

that was much more of a wholesale denial of the sword. alex was talking about he didn't do the previous night. in which obviously sort of dug his whole deeper. you got here colleagues. all right, paul's color jonathan from greektown long time listener first time. oh my god. you know, these are colleague of the paper now you're not supposed in in past white houses. there's always been these figures personalities that have emerged to give the white house texture and more personality. you know, it's steven. it's steven miller and trump david axel rod karl rove. there's always been a figure that kind of amplified the president's personality crazy about and i'm wondering why you think that hasn't happened with the biden white house and you know it has that harmed the white house in some sense and popular bars. and what what who do you think is this is who do you think is the david axelrod of joe bid? oh your parents.

this is honestly uncanny we were having a conversation in the car like three hours ago about like what happened to the celebrity strategist right? like the date who came out of the 2020 election the cheap 10 cent cigars. they're just gone but like who came out of 2020 as like the architect right? like the sort of bush's brain character of the biden campaign. i think some of that's about covid right? i think that like it was just not as visible the dramas and the ups and downs of the campaign. we're just not as visible. i think part of it it speaks to the like really close-knit and to be euphemistic about it a very long tenured inner circle around joe biden, right? these are mostly people who have been but i would say one thing about this there really was someone who could have claimed a lot of that. that was mike donelan who is basically a recluse. i think there are a couple people in the biden or i mean mike donelan for sure a jan o'malley dillon, right like the

people who i was more of this strategist and she was the technician right, but i mean like in you know the yeah, the these are characters who in a different kind of campaign if they were more hungry for the camera themselves. what do you know? wait, it's not. what are you say? i said a different kind of campaign. or i didn't say anne, right? yeah, like we're this is a huge cultural shift. i do think also part of it is just like joe biden is so well known and and the immediacy that people feel with candidates now because of social media like i think the sort of the personalities around the court are somewhat less compelling particularly when they're like relatively reclusive. we just had a more factor too. it's the elephant in the room. donald trump doesn't leave much space for anything or anybody else in the political conversation. he's not president anymore, but the coverage of him continue. it's it's so intense still and i get why he might run again. he has a, you know, obviously a

grasp of the party that he let his president still but i think like there's just not much space for sort of much in the way of reporting generally about the vitaministration because the curiosity is still so deep about trump and trumpism and it's so animating in newsrooms and frankly in the political culture more broadly. i also don't think biden personally the culture of the biden thing welcomes people stepping out and you know taking credit even if they're not claiming credit for things. that's not it's not sort of endemic to that. organization. anyway, we're a minute and 57 seconds over. oh, so we better stop because this thing explodes when we're five minutes. thank you guys over. thank you so much. thanks a lot.

last thing there there's ball. yeah, you guys leave my gosh. we'd love for you. yeah, i honestly this will not pass. i i will i i really i started reading the book out of obligation. and i finished it with enthusiasm. okay, it is because it is it it's the narrative is so well written and strong and so yes, there are all these things. i said at the beginning they're a great tidbits really interesting to read but the larger implications of things are clear and the and they really do put you in the scene. so these guys are really among the best there is in political journalism, and you can see why in this book so if you guys don't buy it now, i'm really gonna be disappointed.

♪♪ american history tv saturdays on c-span2. exploring the people and events that tell the american story. 8:50 p.m. eastern mark clay, professor of musicology, american culture at the university of michigan recounts the history of the star-spangled banner and how it's evolved. 10:00 p.m. evening, author and professor patrice reports on black soldiers between the civil war and world war i use their military service to further civil rights. exploring the american story. watch american history tv saturdays on c-span2 and a full schedule under program guide or watch on time online c-span.org/history. ♪♪ >> live sunday september 4 on in-depth. uc berkeley study scholars stephen will be our guest to

talk about leadership, ronald reagan's political career and american conservative movement author of several books including to an age of dragon series. witness and patriotism is not enough about the scholars who changed course of conservative politics in america. joining with your phone calls from a facebook comment, text and tweet. in-depth with steven hayward live sundays noon eastern on c-span2. ♪♪ >> weekends on c-span2 are an intellectual piece every saturday american history tv documents american stores and sunday's book tv brings the latest in nonfiction books and authors. funding for c-span2 comes from these television companies and more including media,. >> the world changed in an instant the media comports ready to that tracking sold and