there is this tremendous noise from all these hoods that were in the background at the moment and the pounding and the noise from the mob had become much louder. at some point someone up in the chamber in the gallery, a member was yelling at the republicans too called trump and have trump call off his mob and there was a little yelling back and forth among members in the gallery. c called trump and tell them to do something.

our guest is michael bender white house reporter and author of a brand-new book the inside story of how trump lost. welcome to "washington journal." >> guest: thanks for having me. >> host: in the wee hours at november 4 early in the morning the night of the election the president is at thein white houe and let's take a listen to that moment. >> this is a fraud on the american public. this is an embarrassment for our country. we were getting ready to win this election. frankly we did win this election. [cheers and applause]

>> host:t: michael bender an iconic moment and the inspiration of your title and why did you choose that moment? >> i think it just shows how trump show has its own reality in so many different moments and this is the night of november 3. we did not the trump a boss and biden had one and declaring off script ad-libbing very clearly that he had won the race and one of the things that struck me going back and doing a porting in 2020 was how often he did this whether it was the election or whether was covid or the george floyd protests. his messaging is mostly trying to impose his own reality on the current situation no matter what the facts are on the ground. >> host: the other thing about that moment and i was trying to remember was it felt like to me people in the room were

encouraging him but i had no idea what he would say next. >> that's right. it's about to 30:00 in the morning the night of wednesday morning so you were sleeping probably. and i say this in the book there's a pretty chaotic scene in the white house that night. trump did not want to commoditize the nation. couple of 80s encourageda them to come out and give a speech. that line was not in the speech. there were some folks including rudy giuliani who told other aides to say you one. despite otherti people in the rm knowing that wasn't the case and there was no actual, any data to suggest that. >> before we get too deep in the conversation want to point out how you set up the book in terms of the background. you write an intro in the book many of my trump resources share

first-hand accounts text messages e-mails and calendars to help describe moments during the campaign and some shared with me a witness from there for a seat of history. obviously you have been covering the campaign and the whole extent of the trump presidency from 2016 on. how were you able to gain sources and to get people's trust enough to deal to help you out and comment for you even if it's off the record on this book? >> it's a good question. i've been a journalist for two dozen years so i bring experiences from newspapers in ohio florida colorado and washington and since 2016 i've covered donald trump for "the wall street journal" both campaigns all four years of the white house so wasn't just sourcing for this book would sourcing over the course of five

years that people respected my process and my reporting and my writing and through that is where we re-created the scenes for people talk to me. there were a fair amount of people who spoke to mean me in a therapeutic way. there's not a lot of room in the bubble around president trump to criticize him, not criticize him but to tell him he needs to do something different. a lot of folks i talked to spoke to mee very bluntly and had an opportunity to do that with their own colleagues. >> host: you follow the end of the book with their conversation of mar-a-lago with donald trump any recount in the book one incident where he calls you and you are in isolation at home and you get called into for an interview and you have no idea, for the president. was that a common occurrence and secondly what was that interview

all about? >> guest: he had called me in april to complain about the story in "the wall street journal" that at that point was three days old and invited me into the oval office for an interview and setting it up with his press and the only thing is that as please don't call me and tell me i have five minutes to be there. this is the middle of a pandemic and i have kids all over the house and sure enough in the middle of june i get a call that says be here in five minutes. this is a few days before the juneteenth rally and i was surprised when i showed up at first of all i was left in the oval office alone for almost a half an hour and there was no real message. they wanted to know what i wanted to talk about what was on my mind and the president is a few months away from re-election and it was stunning to me that there was no particular plan on trying to get a message out or

appoint to "the wall street journal." >> host: was that before or after the promotion? >> guest: this was a few days before the juneteenth rally in tulsa. it was the first and only rally that had it in it and brad per scale the campaign manager was demoted later. how big of an effect -- he was demoted there but eventually left. how did that hurt or hinder the campaign? s >> i think it hurt at the end of the day. brad parscale had never been a part of any political campaign for trump and 2016. this was his first political campaign ever that he was running but in a way it was the perfect campaign manager for donald trump. that brad the book and trump were aligned and how they viewed pr and how they viewed promotion and branding and saw that as a way to create his own energy in the political

movement. he built a 2 billion-dollar campaign and effectively build an advertising agency but when trump demotes him he puts another man bill stepien who is an ineffective political strategist but a veryti differet kind more of an accountant than a per motion multi-person. you build an advertising agency and put an accountant in charge of it in the last couple of months almost rebuilding the entire campaign from the inside out. >> host: that tulsa rally certainly didn't hurt things. >> guest: definitely. i write in a book that no one wanted to tell trump are usually it's a race to the present to tell them how many people are inside and how many people are waiting outside in that number tents to grow by 2000 or 5000 every time someone tells it tont him but in tulsa no one would

tell him that it was a bust and there wereny short of projectios until he was inside the arena in the green room in the hold room and turns on "fox news" and season talking about the numbers on television. >> host: michael benders or next guest and his book is "frankly, we did win this election" the inside story of how trump lost. we welcome your calls and comments. (202)748-8001be for republicans and -- for independents and all others. we had a couple of weeks ago michael will find with his book of the end of the trump presidency but when the things i noticed in your book the difference is that you spend a lot of time talking about the roadshows and the folks that were loyal at the trump rallies. >> guest: i appreciate you bringing that t up. there is a veritable library of pantheon of trump books

available going back to the 80s and there will be more this year. what makes this book unique only not a books that came out already that came out already but coming forward as i come it three ways. the inside of the room moments in the oval office under the 2 billion-dollar campaign with campaign memos and other reported scenes but also i think it's exclusively here with some of trump's most loyal supporters who go to 30, 40, 50 trump rallies and i do that to understand them as people and bringing them back over and over again and what it is about trump that attracted them in the first place in order to understand this movement which is important not just in the context of 2020 but moving forward. even after the january 6 trump is drawing thousands of people to the rally in ohio last month and thousands more rallying for

him this month and it's so important understand why people keep coming back after what happened on january 6. >> host: you are a reporter from washington and the president's nemesis. you are in the cage out there that those rallies. how do they gain trust and how does the front row trust you? >> guest: you know i showed up. what i would have done in reporting on trump loyalists or fans were a lot of my colleagues would do is you go out to the front of the line and do a quick interview and wait for the wildest quote you can get write it down and walk away. we talked a lot about politics with the front row but i wanted to know who they weren't where they came from and what their families were like and what their families that about them going to these rallies and had

they ever been active before? the i spent time with them and many folks would camp out outside of the arenas for days at a time. i was up there with them at 10, 11 or 12:00 at night or early in the morning and you know to talk to them as people and at one point i effectively became a member of the front row could they were calling me wanted to know if i i wanted to be the net rally. some of these folks were warmheartedec and kind people at their core and i was honored to be able to tell the story. >> host: the longer story in the book to tell us briefly about randall tom from minnesota. >> guest: what i found is a lot of folks are attracted to trump but they have time on their hands. they are recently retired or maybe they have never had kids

or they are estranged from their family and they form a little community here. trump in that way had made their lives richer and their worlds bigger but as a document throughout 2020 they are effectively misled by the present including on covid and the protests and ultimately the election but randall gets so sick in the summer of 2020. i do wantt to give away the punchline here but he knows the risks of covid. he's convinced that he has covid and taken barely get out of bed and he adds neighbors are go for groceries and drop off other supplies. he refuses to go to the hospital and refuses to get tested. he doesn't want to add to trump's numbers positive or negative. >> host: he told you this. >> guest: yes, proudly. he did recover from that sick

nest but it was one of the stories of just how far and how loyal their fealty is to donald trump.p. >> host:t: michael is there -- michael benders our guest and he's the rfid new book "frankly, we did win this election" theol inside story of how trump lost welcome your calls and comments. from leesburg virginia we hear from karen. karen on the democrat line. >> caller: hi good morning. i'm a democrat and i've known quite a few people. they were so disgusted they do want have anything to do with him and one thing that led to it as most people hate a cheater and a liar. i don't care where you are from whether you are in rural nebraska and a bingo hall or you were on the job but i think the dagger with trump was -- because

a lot of people were following his rhetoric and following this madman and they were like he's going to do this but windy leverage the postal post office and wewe saw pictures of post office boxes on the bed of trucks that some people said that's it. we knew that he was doing everything he could. he couldn't get any more visible. you couldn't have not seen this election. as a direct tangible thing that's it i'm going to make it difficult for you to vote and people would just set i'm done. besides adding coronavirus one seed started taking post office boxes and he cut that budget, it was done and that's when so many people set i'm headed to the polls no matter what. i'm going to stand in line because they took the boxes off the corner. you can't be someone who has

integrity as a person and do something that is so bold and so disgraceful and think now you've got my attention and that's what did it. that's what brought out a lot of people who had neverce voted. they didn't like the way trump handled it in to me that was the icing on the cake. >> host: michael bender. >> guest: carender raises a good point here. one on the post office trump was very open about it and he didn't want to encourage people to vote by mail. he was very concerned about that and to karen's point here and i get into it a little bit in the book is the effect that this has. there are a lot of people in the middle of 2020 when the rule started changing and the election mechanic started shifting towards mail-in voting for absentee voting where people were worried about the process.

it's kind of like basic martyr -- marketing. if you're a spy at the same shirts and pants the store you don't want to buy something on line because there's a chance the pattern is broken and there was a lot of fear that people were going to not follow the rules and get the directions wrong and they would be tossed out but what trump effectively does here is what so much attention on mail-in ballots that it has the opposite effect and the numbers in the book the first-time mail-in voters in 2020 the error rate was way down than when they started implement this type of electioneering. >> host: is this post campaign that they could have emphasized mail-in ballots and done way

better? >> 100%. in the trump campaign and the trump white house the republican national committee potentially one person is worried about fraud and widespread fraud and vote by mail and that's donald trump. multiple people senior people around him and asked him time and again to hit the brakes on this rhetoric. and the proof of that is places like florida where republicans have been competitive and successful for a long time s and arizona. republicans were responsible for putting in absentee voting and vote by mail. this is not something that inherently hurts republicans. >> host: i want to ask you charlottesville particularly post comments very fine people and i would just shorten that. you write about the business fallout and stephan schwartzman from the president strategic

policy forum and then about as cheap -- chief economic adviser gary colin you read a book later later in a private meeting inside the oval office he told trump is lack of clarity is harmful to the country to put an incredible amount of pressure working in the white house and told trump he might have to quit. no one backs open up including vice president pence. cohen returned to his office following a few minutes behind pence climbed a flight of stairs and it. at his door. i'm proud of you who said safely out of earshot of the president. was that typical case? >> guest: oh yes it was. the vice president was very loyal to president trump and in my reporting i can find one instance where he really pushed back when the president accused him of trying to hire one of his own aides and it turned out that

they had discussed that in the president's son-in-law had asked mike sense -- mike pence to make that higher ed it's important we get to january 6 trump repeatedly asked pence to overturn the election to help in his re-election and pence ando his team thought they had been very clearha with trump that he didn't have that authority. maybe it wasn't so clear that when he told them no that was meaning a bunch of maybes. one line of book i have is trump says i don't think i have the authority to do this but whatever your legal team comes up with i will take a look at. the president hears that second party when i interviewed trump a couple of times at mar-a-lago after the presidency he told me pence said never told them no and that may or may not be right

but that certainly what trump came away with. >> host: i was going to ask you this earlier you interviewep the president and he probably assumed that the folks who work and he's okay with talking to reporters since he's okay talking to reporters. >> guest: he's not okay with people who talk to reporters. he wants to be the leader and chief and he wants his message as part of this book and he wants to be able to sort of sway some of these and shape them. what i found in two interviews over several hours was no matter what the question was it was brought back to election fraud in 2020 and the ballots in georgia and arizona that sort of thing. >> host: as you may not want to answer this but over the course of your reporting on the president during his presidency

was there a source of some leaks either your organization or another news organization? >> guest: there were a lot of people that came out of that white house at all levels i think trey at. >> host: nancy on independent line, go ahead. >> caller: good morning. this is a very serious statement and question. we all know would have heard that then president of the united states trump on tape asking the georgia secretary of state, find me 11,000 votes. now the gop successfully passed state laws to be able to do this in the future to change votes. be very upfront mr. bender how close is america to being a banana republic? >> guest: well i think you are right to be concerned about that phonecall with the georgia secretary of state. you know i think there are

measures underway for election protection in washington but it's going to be difficult to approve not just congress is divided that there's a large segment of the republican base that believes trump actually did win the election in 2020 and republican leaders who know that isve not correct. they think think the trump is onto on to something here by using election security as a motivator for the base. this will be definitely something to watch in the next couple of years here. >> host: we will go through the republican line. this is jane in plymouth, north carolina. go ahead. >> caller: good morning, how are you? >> host: i'm fine thanks, you n are on the air. >> caller: mr. bender how are you today? >> guest: fine, thank you. >> caller:rt it's been a long

morning and i've watched several segments and my comment i'm going to try to keep it short is i think it was getting too wrapped around in american politics all the way from bipartisanship all the way to the conversation about who won the election and at this point i won't even argue that point because i think it's a dead horse and i think it's part of the issue. my issue is democrats andct republicans and libertarians, it doesn't matter, bipartisanship, doesn't matter. we in america nowadays get too wrapped up in personality versus policy. van jones interviewed some people during the presidential lead up to the 2016 election with the family in the midwest who did not particularly like

trump that they liked the policies of the day, the economics, their racial things and a farmer who's about to go under. and world trade and van jones, i don't understand how you can do this but it was the policy, the policy and it is a generally conservative thinker, i believe in more government but on the flip side i note that people and especially peopleic of color dot trust their local people or the federal government to do what they should do. .. should.

it boils down to discussion in a breton of world war ii we are people. it is interesting that our issue and the trump issues have go so far right or left that it is hard to know what is right or wrong. >> alight we will let you go there, speed to the point there is personality versus policy question. there were a lot of policies of a president trump that had wide support across the country. and it a lot of concerns about his personality. i think that is what ended up hurting him in the end there was less focus on the policy. president trumka meant to the office as a change agent unlike president obama.

a lot of the people i spoke to and got to know were obama supporters up in the celebrity ending the endless wars and overlap between the last -- the previous two presidents. but in the endre it becomes personality for president trump. the 22nd things and is reporting this book was how many people are on the president the white house and campaign had thought he had become dangerous in those last six months of the white house in his own desperation hold onto office. he was willing toi go to any -- take almost any measure necessary in order to again keep his own -- to stay in the west wing. he wanted to shoot americans he told his military officials that people protesting the torchlight death you write

about watching the video the george floyd didio with the president and his reaction after that. and his expression of condolences or sympathy to the family, that is quite a change to what happened a couple of weeks later in front of lafayette square. >> guest: that's a good example personality versus policy question. it does take day or two before watches the video part he never action watches the entire thing. he watches at halfway and is deeply affected by the video. all of the world can we watch that real-time what happened, president trump is a t very visceral person. he is sourcing through watching them more than reading. when we attacked sierra on his first year in office is after seen video of children

affected by chemical weapons. it quickly turns you are right. this is a never reported thing written in the book. he views the protest as a personal. the people are protesting a murder. people are protesting years of inherent racism and civil rights abuses. trump internalizes as personal. seeing he had pushed through some criminal justice reforms.st push through permanent funding for permanently black universities. what he vocalizes toha his staff as i did all of these things and black people still hate me and they're never going to vote for me. he immediately turns on a dime here and doubles down on the law and order image you want to disperse theth crowd. once to use uniformed

active-duty military. >> who are the age aids and purging that change? >> there are a few of them. one of the scenes of the book is steven u miller. these are big meetings in the oval office. ten, 12, 15 people in these meetings. and into the summer steven miller is describing cities burning. american cities burning. the joint chief of staff chairman the top general he has the data. he sees this percentagees of cities have protest. and in the city a tiny fraction of the people are protesting. so not cities burning down was there images on television the presidents of his aides are reacting too. at one point has to swivel in his seat, turned back to steven miller and tell him to

shut up. in the oval office. another point i point to a portrait of abraham lincoln over the president shoulder and say that man mr. president had an insurrection, we have a protest for. >> let's hear from colleen, independent line. go ahead. >> real quick, first this is coming from a person who voted for ross perot. that is where my stances. and i still go back to my vote for ross perot. everything he said has come true. the two-part question is for michael bender. who gave the order. i want to know who the person is who gave the order to the entire media complex to ignore the will of the people bike can legally halting and stopping the election results of our president by refusing to report who won the election. now it did not come down to one state like it did with

bush and gore with florida. because fox news reported arizona way ahead of the biden winning arizona. they obviously knew he won arizona when it was showing w trump was way ahead at the time for it cannot be about the ballots. fox already had arizona ahead. so who gave that order? that is what i would like to know. >> guest: well there was no order for the immediate to report this one way or the other. news organizations, fox news to the associated press had put years of research and millions of dollars into the technology to project winners and get it right. his reputation of news organizations on these organizations. not only to be first but to be correct. getting too far deep in the woods here.

the projections, trends, how many ballots are left? where they're moving a lot has been written on this. and these news organizations go out of their way to explain their methods and their procedures for making these calls for. >> mlb has a question for you on twitter going back to the description of called into the white house for an interview with the president. they say it michael bender you are a journalist i cannot think of a better complement. were you more worried about being left alone in the oval office because you talk about that waiting for the president for being in the middle of a frenzied rally? [laughter] >> guest: there were moments and rallies particular 2016 when this movement was fresh and brand-new for all of us were i made sure when i got into rallies to notes the exits and the way out in case something happened. it is not the first time i

felt like that covering a political event. >> host: did you ever see a reporter, collie get roughed up have their equipment damaged in a rally? >> no, i definitely saw shouting matches, nose to nose, finger-pointing but friends it did getve a roughed p but never eyewitness with my own two eyes in the moment. but some friends roughed up in chicago in the 2016. sue and how many rallies you think you covered in the course of 2016 the present have you ever run a tally on that? >> guest: iid haven't. this is i attained a front roadshow status. as he went through some of the rallies i asked with her favorite moments were like oh yeah i did that one, i did that one too and quickly realized i had also been to at least 50 or 60 rallies. >> host: the red on twitter i heard the trump rally supporters that trump pays them to attend to do ever see

any evidence of that? >> no. i will say the very first rallies to seek when he announced in new york, the famous golden escalator thmoment, we had a reporter on the scene who said some tours had been brought in from outside to help fill the atrium there that day. to this day i've yet to meet anyone out in the rallies coming out in the countries whose then to new york events. but no, these are real things, real events, real people. they are showing up to support donald trump. we went michael bender's up to us to talk about his booklets and from thomas in strongsville ohio. good morning. be there as what if you could enlighten us on how much the media played throughout the

presidency. obvious that they were very biased. and a lot of unknown authors coming forward. i just wondered what your thoughts were on that? >> guest: hello to everyone in strongsville that is where i am from, my hometown. the media always has a role one way or the other in these elections. this is the platform how we hear the stories and think rabout these races. i think it's more of a mere than influencer especially as people get their information from so many different sources these days. when people ask me about the people and how much it played

a role in defeating trump, president trump went out of his way to speak to the media at the white house, at events. i've brought multiple authors down to mar-a-lago. he sees a very important role for the media. whether this fox news, the wall street journal, the "new york times", or c-span, he has acknowledged as much publicly as well. >> host: let's go to richmond, virginia. this is tina on the democratshe line. >> good morning. i voted absentee. it was kind of tricky it was a post office and covet. what i did is i requested an absentee ballot and then hand-delivered to a dropbox which was on the other side of town so things are rather complicated. i did want to comment thank goodness we do not have another four years of 45.

thank goodness for free press in journalism, thank you. sue went on to ask about the writing of melania trump especially the few weeks for this is about election night. just before the election nightan rally you write the cox use of the white house or blakely political purposes also made her uncomfortable. she tried to stop the campaign from using a -- the white house lawn. for the convention to bird her office at slow walk several campaign ahead of the rnc, the convention. she delivered her speech from the rose garden the president would accept his nomination on the south lawn. did it surprise you the first lady took such a controversial view compared with the president wanted in that case? >> guest: melania trump is very much a german phobic or her husband. it didn't surprise me she's almost home a pathic and how

she approaches health and medicine. so it did not surprise me she was very concerned about covid and taking precautions. it did surprise me how much of a back-and-forth there had been ahead of the election night party. she had mated repeated requests, the chief of staff atsh the white house and mark meadows made repeated requests to use the white house. the first lady's offices credential he in charge of the events of the white house break that's what comes to her office and she was involved. it takes president trump a few days before election night to phone his wife fromm air force one. and plead with her tuesday white house. they could not go anywhere else. >> because of the hotel in the d.c. laws they could not use the hotel, correct? >> she effectively throws her hands appearances do what you want, you're going to anyway. this is important in the sense

of how many people around trump tried to act as guardrails for him. tried to dissuade his decisions one way or the other and end up being more speed bumps to him than guardrails. stay what is that true also for jerrod kushner and ivanka? >> i think so. jerrod anna baca controversial figures. they would you want about them or their policies that both are pretty effective relatively at keeping the president focused. in keeping drifters away for a better term. trying to keep trump surroundedre by experts and people with this best interest at heart. but again, when it really matters here the end of the term on january 6 jerrod had

effectively washed his hands of it. he was onnd his own policy initiatives working his portfolio with movies and peace plan but he saw the direction this was going for the people in georgia they have the runoff. they are pleading with jared he is someone who has shown his effectiveness at directing the president. pleading with him for help. he tells them no i can't, rudy giuliani's involved at this point there's nothing i can do. some of these georgiabe republicans wereho stunned they'd never heard anything at a that from jerrod before. >> let's hear from tony and tampa on the independent line, good morning. >> good morning how you doing. >> i just want to say i thought the media tactics character. but as far as especially the conservative media they never recorded or held him accountable. you would 25 billion the first budget to build a wall that he promised and passed on.

he actually built 15 miles and rebuilt bush's 396 miles that he had put up originally. on obamacare took the tax off he protected safeguarded it instead of getting rid of it. rand paul told him take it out will work on it later on to get a replacement. we'll go back to the old system. he takes the tax off of it becomes three times more popular three times as many people signed up for them when obama had it. as far as jerrod and melania, they are two lifelong democrats. they had the crime built the disempowerment zone, all of these other policies he did not campaign on it all. as far as looking at who'd we have to run the economy? my new hedge fund guy who criticized hedge funds everyday in the campaign? not only that he promised four

or five gdp every month, we have 3% gdp one month when he did tax cuts after that look, nothing was in that stock market on corporate bonds but he printed 6 trillion bucks. for somebody who had the greatest economy he has $880 billion in welfare programs his last year as a president. >> host: tony a couple of issues there. >> guest: i think tony raise interesting pointsat here. i think where the through lines of this book to tony's point is how else are the president was by all of the infighting underneath him. the president's top priority from day one of inauguration was reelection. they filed paperwork that day in order to start the wheels on the reelection campaign. i really cannot sit here and tell you one other person

around him for four years who shared that as their top priority. >> host: it was an ongoing campaign to get reelected. >> and what would get him reelected. tony raises some points there if you start out a little differently with some different policy, there are some decisions -- the wall. no one took that, one of trumps campaign promises no one did that to mixtures done in a way that he wanted. we see that all the way through until the final day of the race where's the top aides have a come to jesus moment i make sure they're all in the room for some of these decisions that they are all invited to the same meeting. these are the sort of things happening. i am convinced he is not well

served by his staff around him. but he is the president and the buck stops with him. the responsibility lays with him. >> there are several things in your book meetings with the oval office particular and how contentious they get. they describe the chairs in front of the president's desk, quite a scene there. >> and one of my interviews of the wall street journal during the course of four years i asked about some of the infighting and what he's doing about it? he kind of threw up his hands and said they're all fighting over who loves me the most. >> host: question for you on former president trumps future, lonnie and texas that trump suggested declaring himself president for life. you think he was testing the waters to see if he could get enough support to do that? >> guest: is deathly thinking about running for president again. 2022 is going to be

informative on that decision. he has made some two dozen endorsement so far put everything from the u.s. senate staten island borough president. some races he has endorsed our republican primaries. that's not easy thing to pull off even for a former presidents popular's he is in the party. the results o of that will determine which way he goes in 2024. i do think with this book shows it outlines in some new ways inside the oval office andde a candidate that heading into 2022 republicans have a choice whether or not or how to redefine their party post trump. whatever decision that is, this book shows they cannot go into that decision for there's no excuse to go into that

decision with anything other than isaac white (. >> mike and dallas, north carolina good morning republican line. >> caller: yes, good morning. i would like to ask just a couple ofio questions. hughes said you went to a trump rally in human trump supporters. did they know you were from the "washington post"? >> host: he is from the wall street journal caller. >> caller: i mean the wall street journal part. >> yes i wear my press badge at all events were i am working. i was always identified myself as a wall street journal reporter and talk to people specifically for the book after the election. >> then they knew you were a conservative reporter. you say you were never attacked and yet in this booko you consider trump supporters

brownshirts you calling us not cease? sir i'm really tired of being demonized for exercising my right to vote. >> you should be. that is not in this book i do not call anyone not caesar brownshirts for there was a concern around the president that he had been long given a name and a wink and a nod to some elements in america and in the party all the way from charlottesville we talked about all the way till january 6 in the joint chief of staff chairman as wondering two people, questioning whether the some of the hires the presidents bring into the administration may have ties to neo-nazi was in. but certainly i do not identify any of these people in the book is that part. >> one of the front row from michigan you get to know her very well she set a number of rallies she comes to the capitol for january 6. you right from her she says in

this if mica pencil would've come out of that building, i guarantee he would have died, saunders said. and if it was not by gunfire he would've been pummeled. they were going to kill him in the streets. does that surprise you? >> it shocked me. i was here in january 6. saunders at the rally generally six and was neat march up to the capitol that afternoon. >> did she get inside thehe capitoll? >> she did not. she was with several people, friends, so crowded she only got to the west front of the capitol. they do not to lose each other idso they stopped and took in the scene and took in the moment. she was describing to me was w the march effectively down pennsylvania avenue from the mall tohe the capitol. during that point people

realized pens had put out a statement on the first time on record said he is not going to overturn the results. this was news to sondra and they trump supporters.ti trump had been telling everyone, have been telling them for weeks that penson might do this. >> host: even touched on that at the speech at the rally before january 6 correct? >> the reporting and the "washington journal" and the days of had a time was a pence was not going to do it. now his office did not go on the record with that. they did not push back. that left enough doubts in the trump media where the trump fans are getting their information from him to where they felt surprised pence would do this. sondra described the moment as a surge of energy in the crowd where went from eight walk to a run.

and these get pence chance start of the way to the capitol part. >> what is the relationship between the former president and mike pence these days? >> i do not even know if there is a word to describe that relationship. they are speaking to each other there are multiple phone calls as phone calls back and forth. i have not spoke to mike pence about these calls. i have spoken with president trump about it. what strikes me is that it you are donald trump and you believe mike pence has effectively committed treason and was so disloyal to overturn an election or to turn an election against you, wouldn't you want some sort of apology? or some sort of resolution before you start these conversations again? but he told me was they just don't talk about it. >> host: will go to joe in somerset, new jersey.

joe republican line hi there. >> good morning hi there gentleman. i have a few questions for you. first i am j not a trump fan. i know him personally. my grandmother and him and what he did to my family and people in atlantic city for he is a liar and a cheat. i have no liking for trump. but in the election itself there are questions that have to be answered. when you hear it's a big lie, it's a big lie.y that's not a big lie. they are all questions that have never been answered we also with their own two eyes. let's go to philadelphia number one right off thehe bat. number one my mother in the 70s was a republican inspector she went toar neighborhoods that were worse than vietnam. she had to, to inspect the election counting. in philadelphia there is an

incident where republican guy with an orange sign trying to get into the building where the counting was. a guy came out a big african-american guy and pushed him away and said you're not getting in here. then ate woman comes out and said you're not getting out i will call the police. they went in and locked the door he could not go into the building. what i let you go there, joe, any response on these claims? >> anecdotes are not data. courts have looked at trump owned justicece department has instances.hese all of them have concluded there is no widespread fraud. i agree there are individuals with election security can always be improved. a vote by mail prophecies are legitimate debate but there is no election fraud. to claim trump one the

election in 2020 is in fact a big lie. state what the president continues to talk about it though. he's speaking last night in phoenix, trump returns to arizona at the ballot review will vindicate him as the headline. did you ask about these continued rallies? >> my interviews with him or couple of months before the rally started uptr again. he was more of any transition moment and post- presidency and not quite ready to get on the campaign trail yet. i was in cleveland in june the first one since january 6. half of thate rally was election fraud and going over -- trump talked for four years about his election night win in 2016 and lost in 2020. it's it interesting strategy if it is going to try to talk but as loss for the next phrase and try to windbreak. >> here's john and liverpool new york the democrats line. >> yayab guys.

let's remember although trump lost republicans did well. trump is an abrasive guy and that hurt him. now i work with a bunch of people that think trump one the election. i talked to them about what makes you think that? a lot of times it gets back to computer issues which i am getting near 70 years old. computers kind of scare me. they talked about how easily it would be for a computer to steal 20000 votes from one guy and get them to a nether guy. or to wipers out this and that. how can you make a person like me confidence that these computer atrocities don't exist? >> i guess at the question for 2022 with the president

backing so many republican nominees and still talking about malfunctions in the election system, fraud and the election system. does that serve him well to continue talking about that? >> there are some republicans who think that whatever they can can use at this point to motivate the base is a positive. including things like election security or the fact that trump one pair. >> yours is one of several books honestly coming out aboutat the election. michael wolff with his book, the jew expected so much competition when you're writing this? >> not what i first started. after the election and some of those were announced it was a little harrowing. this is my first book. see what really planning on writing on the election before the results? >> yes. i went into 2020 primed to write an election book.

not a book about the pandemic or george floyd. i knew i had let the reporting to the work for me. i do not have the tv show great huge social media presence and some of those things that sell books for first-time authors. i had to let the reporting do the work to compete with these other journalists and authors who earn their reputation but. >> are you back on the biden feed at the white house yet? >> no i think a beat transitioning and keep writing about trump. stu and michael bender the brand-new book we did win this election the inside story of how trump lost, thanks much for being with us. >> thanks for having me. >> c-span's washington journal every day we are taking your calls live on the air, on the news of the day and discussing policy issues that impact you. coming up friday morning new york republican congresswoman

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