"q&a," former chair of the democratic national committee donna brazile discusses her book "hacks." brian: donna brazile, author of the book "hacks." who was lionel? donna: lionel was my dad, born -- he was the 12th child. the baby in a large, catholic family. he was born in new orleans, served his country proud in korea. raised myself and my other eight siblings. i am the third of nine children. he was an amazing man. when i was a little girl growing up in louisiana, my father frightened me because he was so tough, so courageous. everyone in the neighborhood respected him. his nickname was goose. they called him goose because they said he could fly like a goose. he was a basketball player. he played baseball. he was an amazing man, a great father. tough, but always fair.

brian: how did you know he was tough? at what point did he show that to you? donna: my dad would tell us to go outside and do things that i would think, why did he want us to do that? he wanted to toughen us. he would tell us to go face whatever danger we had, whether it was snakes or swamp creatures. we lived outside the city of new orleans. we had a large piece of land, but it was adjacent to what we used to call the forest, but it was just a bunch of weeds and sugarcane and a lot of other stuff. my dad would make us do things that i thought at the time, why is he making us do this? he wanted us to be very disciplined. we had to wake up every morning and make up our beds. he also told us that we had to listen to our mother and love the lord. brian: you have talked a lot

about your book and the fbi and the russians and all of that. i am going to try to concentrate some on you as a person and some of the other little things in the book. i will read back to you something you wrote. "i sprinkled a little holy water on the chairs and desk and said a prayer for healing and for strength." what was that moment, and why did you put that in the book? donna: i am a basic catholic. my father and mother taught us to pray. my grandmother made us pray when we were kids. i love the notion of sprinkling holy water to cleanse things. i like to smudge, often with sage or cedar. it is a way to express one's openness to guidance from a higher power. you have to cleanse yourself, you have to cleanse the environment. i often would go over to the dnc and sprinkle holy water because

i thought we were under attack and we needed special protection. of course, i read the psalms every day. the best one my aunt ethel taught us, my dad's oldest sister, when my enemies come before me, they shall stumble and fall. i used a combination of holy water and incense. i never asked god for victory. i asked god for strength and wisdom and encourage, humility, but never asked god for that because everything is in divine order. if it is not in divine order, it is not my job to ask god to make it such. my job is to ask god for protection, for courage, for wisdom, for humility. but i don't believe i've ever asked god for a victory.

brian: what is your reaction, having been in politics for how many years now? donna: my last count i am coming up on my 49th year, getting close to my 50th anniversary in politics. i started at the age of nine working for a candidate who promised to build a playground in my community. he won the election for city council and the playground was installed, and i've had a lifelong commitment to politics. brian: how often over the years have you watched a politician use god in his or her campaign and you didn't believe it? donna: with the exception of rev. jessee jackson, i have never been drawn to those who said they knew god better than anyone else. i tried to distill from interacting with people their faith, their commitment to acting upon that faith, which is about compassion and love and justice and mercy.

i have rarely looked for a candidate that espoused the same faith. in fact, i have worked for a few atheists in my life. that was some of the hardest campaigns and individuals to work for, but in the end they respected me and my views and i respected them, though from time to time i would tell them i was praying for them. brian: writing this book that ended up on "the new york times" best seller list, who dislikes this book the most that has told you that to your face? donna: i have not had one person tell me to my face, although on twitter when the so-called excerpts came out, there was intense reaction from my former colleagues at the democratic party, as well as the clinton campaign. the initial reaction i thought was unfair. they didn't read the book. they read the excerpts and

thought i was speaking out by writing a book that criticized the campaign. as well as -- the excerpts also had a lot of red meat that president trump picked up and used to try to sow division between myself and the clinton campaign. it was painful at first, the first 48 hours. i have been attacked by everybody, the right wing, the russians, the trump campaign, the sanders campaign, and now i can add to that list the clinton campaign. there is something in the bible that always keeps me grounded, and that is that if god be for you, who can be against you? because i have enormous faith. because i can go to the

if god beand say -- for you, who can be against you? i have a lot of family. i have brothers and sisters who i love, aunt, uncle's. they know me. i have good friends that know me. there are people today who are still upset. perhaps one mistake i made that i haven't had a chance to discuss with anyone is that i gave them heads up. i wasn't writing behind people's back. i said i was going to write this book, i am going to tell this story because this is a very important conversation we need to have about what happened in 2016 from the perspective of a chair of the democratic national committee. not the candidate, not the campaign, but the chair of the party. i gave everybody heads up. the first thing i did once my proposal was done and the publisher said it is a go, i requested help from a journalist. i said, given the controversial

nature of this campaign, this disruptive political season, and the controversy that i myself had to endure, i wanted a journalist to fact check and make sure that i got it as close to the truth as i could possibly do. brian: you have talked about the fact that you recorded with a journalist friend. in the back of the book you talk about her and told that story. when all was said and done, what did you take out that did not get in the book because you look -- looked back at it and said, that is going to far? donna: well, there were times when i wanted to write a little bit more about some of the controversy that we all experienced. one good example is the so-called mi6. when the chair of the party is unable to make decisions around contracts, spending money,

hiring consultants, it made my job difficult because i could not keep people accountable, and yet when i kept looking at the book i said, first of all, i didn't know if secretary clinton was well aware of the arrangements that were made between her campaign staff and the staff at the dnc. i know i was not aware. so i wanted to write the book in such a way as to give her the opportunity to learn as well some of the things that were happening in the campaign. i had no idea if she was aware or not aware, but i have no idea if they had communicated with her. i left a lot of those financial arrangements out because i did not think the american people would understand them. i did not think the reader would. i thought the trump people would take advantage of it to exploit and attack secretary clinton

more, so i kept a lot of that stuff out. brian: you say, "i am slow to anger." how slow? donna: it normally builds up. then i feel as though -- i am not one who walks around with a grudge. as i mentioned, i pray all the time, so i ask for forgiveness if i make a mistake. when i believe people are unfairly attacking or perhaps trying to harm me, it angers me. i also hate injustice in all of its forms. i hate bigotry. i don't like racism, sexism, any of the -isms, and yet when i was confronted with a situation

where i could not give my input -- i mean, traveling is not easy. going to colorado one day, florida the next day, backup to washington dc, pennsylvania, back to the west coast, nevada, ohio, michigan. after four or five days of that, i am trying to relay what is happening in these communities, talking to people. people know me. they stop me, they call me, they email me, they text me. every time i tried to relay what is happening to the team, imagine this -- if you are the chair of the party down in florida, and you got the phone and call the congressional folks and they are like, no problem madam chair. we are on it. and i did that in the orlando area. but when i would call the clinton campaign and relay the same information, they were dismissive, as if, you don't have to worry.

we are going to win. we have this all under control. the democratic campaign committee would pick up the phone and call me back. kelly ward at the democratic congressional campaign committee would pick up the phone and call me back. but when it came to the clinton campaign, it was just totally dismissed, and that angered me. brian: how many presidential campaigns have you worked on? donna: seven as a staff person and 11 cycles as either an unpledged delegate or strategic advisor. i advised the obama campaign in the general election in 2008 and 2012. had a great relationship with them. had a great relationship with the john kerry campaign, a great relationship going as far back as the carter-mondale years all the way up to the clinton-gore years. this was the first presidential campaign that, trying to get

basic information to those in charge, remember, they were in charge of the dnc -- basic information to those in charge of that. i had to constantly challenge them to support the party and to unleash the party so that the party could go out there and support ballot races such as people running for sheriff or city council all the way up to the oval office. brian: let me ask you about this paragraph in your book. before i get there, though, you announce in the book that you used to swear and drink a lot, and you gave that up. donna: and smoke. brian: you say because of what

happened during the campaign, you were back doing it again. donna: in my 20's, i would smoke maybe a pack a month. everyone would keep a couple cigarettes handy in case things became stressful. i enjoyed drinking scotch. now i like a nice glass of red wine, cabernet. this campaign, i went back to my old friend johnny walker, especially with the attacks. the hacking itself was so difficult to handle because it was invasive. they came after you. you don't know what part of your life they were coming after. they were coming after your

personal emails, your text messages, your cell phone, and you couldn't control what was happening once they unleashed the information because then the twitter bots and facebook trolls would then take the next step to begin to personally attack you and harass you. at night, we had a group of folks internally in the dnc that would go to the club and order a couple dozen wings and a couple bottles of wine. i always started off with a nice clear, clean glass of scotch. it was my way of mellowing out. the good news is since the election, i haven't returned to any of my old vices again, but i needed some way to control the stress i was under and to deal with what was happening in real time. i was trying to protect the

staff and the party from further harm and damage. i was trying to protect individuals who, like myself, came under really difficult threats and attacks, and i was trying to keep my head above the water. i had to remain chair. brian: here's is what i was getting at that i want to read back to you. this is on page 26. "when the campaign's communications director salt the remarks, she got angry quick. jennifer wanted to know who approved the change in the campaign schedule because she certainly had not. jennifer glowered at me, then the staff, then jumped up and walked out, slamming the door behind her.

i was thinking, if that bitch ever does anything like that to me again, i'm gonna walk." how long did you think about that before you put it in the book? donna: that was my immediate reaction. i am giving up everything i needed to give up because i wanted no conflicts in my schedule, no conflicts in my personal or professional life. i gave up everything. i took my leave from cnn. i stopped my weekly column. wanted no conflicts in my schedule, no conflicts in my the only thing i kept on my schedule was my students, my class. i would go back to teaching because i love to teach. here i was volunteering to help hillary clinton and her staff as chair of the party, as well as

the president of the united states, barack obama, who i supported. all i wanted was tim kaine, the former chair of the dnc, to come to the dnc meeting at the conclusion of the convention to begin to plan ahead for the future, as well as to talk about the general election. and tim kaine, the former chair of the party, who i took over after he departed to run for the united states senate, he had agreed to do it. i knew he agreed to do it. i had one of the staff people write out his remarks. it was only going to be 20 minutes of his time. and yet, when jennifer found

out, she proceeded to give us a blistering attack on who approved this, why is it happening, and once again it was the kind of condescension and disrespect of the dnc that i saw in the clinton team that just really made me angry, and i said stop. if you ever do that again, that is it. i am going to walk. i am going to stop doing this. it was so disrespectful, and i was tired of it. i was already tired of it in july. you can imagine in november and beyond how tired i was of it. just people disrespecting the democratic national committee and the chair, who happened to be an unpaid volunteer taking on all the income and going out there every day defending

hillary clinton when not one of her spokespeople or staff members went out there, and i hillary clinton when not one of went out there every day to defend her. brian: there is a little bit of insight here about the media. when you were working for cnn, what was your responsibility? donna: i was a paid political commentator since 2001. brian: how about abc? donna: same thing, paid political commentator, partisan, for over a decade. brian: here is what i want to ask you about. "in the morning when i was getting ready to go to the studio, i would know if i was going to play the part of the bitch who stands up to the gop talking points. or they might ask me to be cool, calm, donna." the insight is that the producers of these shows tell you in advance how they want you to be. is that true? and if so, why? donna: especially in presidential years, it is not like a state of the union when

you are out there listening to the remarks of george w. bush or barack obama, which i did, but it is during the height of the campaign season, and often i was on the same platform as three different republicans. you had a trump republican, a non-trump republican, and a republican who supported the leading candidate at the time who was still in the race, like a ted cruz person or marco rubio or jeb bush person. they would invite me, and my job was always to defend secretary clinton and her use of emails. i used to call that the office bitch. i had to go in there and anticipate that i had to again discuss her emails -- which, i did not work for her at the

state department and i did not know anything about her arrangements. all i know is what they told me. the office bitch was someone who could go out there and say, to hell with the talking points. she apologized, and i was happy when she apologized for the use of a private server. if they wanted me that day -- there were other times when i would go out with other democrats, and they would say would you become the person who could speak on behalf of martin o'malley, bernie sanders, lincoln chafee, or jim webb because they had a clinton person on, someone who had threats and attacks, and i was trying to keep my head above the water. i had to remain chair. brian: here's is what i was getting at that i want to read back to you. this is on page 26. "when the campaign's communications director salt the remarks, she got angry quick. jennifer wanted to know who approved the change in the

campaign schedule because she certainly had not. jennifer glowered at me, then the staff, then jumped up and walked out, slamming the door behind her. i was thinking, if that bitch ever does anything like that to me again, i'm gonna walk." how long did you think about that before you put it in the book? donna: that was my immediate reaction. i am giving up everything i needed to give up because i wanted no conflicts in my schedule, no conflicts in my personal or professional life. i gave up everything. i took my leave from cnn. i stopped my weekly column.

the only thing i kept on my schedule was my students, my class. i would go back to teaching because i love to teach. here i was volunteering to help hillary clinton and her staff as chair of the party, as well as the president of the united states, barack obama, who i supported. all i wanted was tim kaine, the former chair of the dnc, to come to the dnc meeting at the conclusion of the convention to begin to plan ahead for the future, as well as to talk about the general election. and tim kaine, the former chair of the party, who i took over after he departed to run for the united states senate, he had agreed to do it. i knew he agreed to do it. i had one of the staff people write out his remarks. it was only going to be 20 minutes of his time. and yet, when jennifer found out, she proceeded to give us a blistering attack on who approved this, why is it happening, and once again it was the kind of condescension and disrespect of the dnc that i saw in the clinton team that just really made me angry, and i said stop. if you ever do that again, that

is it. i am going to walk. i am going to stop doing this. it was so disrespectful, and i was tired of it. i was already tired of it in july. you can imagine in november and beyond how tired i was of it. just people disrespecting the democratic national committee and the chair, who happened to be an unpaid volunteer taking on all the income and going out there every day defending hillary clinton when not one of her spokespeople or staff members went out there, and i went out there every day to defend her. brian: there is a little bit of insight here about the media. when you were working for cnn, what was your responsibility? donna: i was a paid political commentator since 2001. brian: how about abc? donna: same thing, paid political commentator, partisan, for over a decade. brian: here is what i want to ask you about. "in the morning when i was getting ready to go to the studio, i would know if i was going to play the part of the bitch who stands up to the gop talking points. or they might ask me to be cool, calm, donna." the insight is that the producers of these shows tell you in advance how they want you to be. is that true?

and if so, why? donna: especially in presidential years, it is not like a state of the union when you are out there listening to the remarks of george w. bush or barack obama, which i did, but it is during the height of the campaign season, and often i was on the same platform as three different republicans. donna: i was down in alabama a few weeks ago, and the same thing. why is doug jones turning to black women today and black voters today, saying i need your help? why didn't he turn to them three months ago when he said i am running for office? why is it that every time at the end of the road, black women have to overperform? and yet when the campaigns are starting and when you are out there and announcing your candidacy, why not bring women in the room? why not bring women in the room? why do we always have to wait?

every time i have gotten in the room, i have always brought in others. i have never excluded. my job as a campaign strategist is to see the country and all of its diversity and complexity, and this attitude is much more than an attack on white men. some of my greatest supporters and mentors, the people have been white men. it is not about the color and gender, it is the attitude that has to stop. it is an attitude now we see in american politics with the me too movement. women are tired of being disrespected. they are tired of dealing with sexual misconduct or any form of discrimination or bigotry. it leaves us in a position where we are angry, we are upset over the treatment, and i personally found myself speaking up and not taking that anymore. brian: harassment, there has been a lot in the news this last year, 2017. you worked on capitol hill how long ago? donna: i came to washington, dc

at the age of 21 to be an intern for louisiana's eighth congressional district at the time, the chair of the house democratic caucus chair. i was very excited to work for him. i spent years working for louisiana politics. i came of age in louisiana politics, so i was excited to get this opportunity. i left the hill after we worked on the bill to make dr. king's birthday a holiday, as well as the anniversary of the 1963 march on washington. i went back to capitol hill after the 1990 election cycle to serve as chief of staff for eleanor holmes norton, where i left to work for al gore and manage his presidential campaign in 1999-2000. brian: how much sexual harassment did you see 20, 30 years ago?

donna: a lot. unfortunately what we are hearing today from female staffers -- i have been an intern, a press secretary, communications director, staff director on the staff committee. i saw a lot. i saw male staffers. i experienced a lot. i hope congress now will revise its rules as it relates to women being able to file complaints. often, especially when i was a hill staffer, many of my colleagues were afraid to come forward because it often meant the end of their career. the process is very burdensome. the burden is on the person filing the complaint. it often takes 30 days or more, plus counseling, over 200 days of back and forth with the committee. the process, again, put the -- puts the burden on the

individual. especially if you, like many of us who were hill staffers, had risen from intern to being chief of staff, which i was. you see a lot and experience a lot. you don't know if it is the end of your career if you speak out or challenge the status quo. brian: big names? donna: yes, big names. many of them are gone. a few of them are dead. but there are still a few of them on capitol hill. brian: who are some of the ones who are not around anymore who were sexual harassers? donna: let's just say that john conyers, who i have had an opportunity to work with doing the king holiday effort, i never had any problems with mr. conyers. i did know of some of the women

who have come forward. i think it is important that women are able to be heard and that we believe them and in due time, i do think there will be a new culture on capitol hill. women are not going to be silent anymore. brian: you lost your job with the dukakis campaign because of what you said about george herbert walker bush and accused him of adultery. he's been a little bit in the media recently. would you do that today, looking back at it? were you right back then? donna: that day when i sort of unleashed didn't go by the talking points. i said to the press who were michael dukakis for lack of energy in the black community, i

said look at the campaign of george w. bush. it was wrong to say it then. it was not my job. it was unprofessional. i resigned that afternoon and did penance. i apologized to mr. bush and had an opportunity years later to go to the bush library in texas. i was totally off my mark, and that was wrong. brian: if you were offered head of the democratic national committee again under the circumstances, would you take it? donna: hopefully, having served as chair twice, again, i started as an intern. i have been involved in every political cycle, including the most recent one in 2017.

that is 31 midterm or off year cycles, 11 presidential cycles. i think it is important for people like myself who have been around the country several times -- i like what i am doing now. i am focused on cyber literacy, cyber security, the hacking that took place in the election, how we prevent that from happening again, how we tool campaigns and campaign officials and staff. i care about my country more than my party. i love the democratic party a lot, but i care about my

country, and i want us to prepare for future attempts to hack our democracy, our infrastructure. i think that is the best use of my time going forward. brian: let me ask you about the party for a second. bernie sanders has said he is an independent, a socialist, and

all this. why would the party allow him to jump in during the presidential during the presidential election and then go right back to being an independent socialist? is that what the party represents? donna: the party gave him an opportunity to have a seat at the table, just like democrats on capitol hill allowed mr. sanders to caucus with them. i've known bernie sanders as long as i have known hillary clinton. bernie came to support jesse jackson as a democratic socialist mayor of burlington. he became a member of congress. he played a hell of a role in the jackson campaign getting progressives to come on board.

he campaigned as an antiestablishment candidate in the 2016 cycle. there was a lot of excitement for him with democrats and independents. i believe he deserves to have a seat at the table. going forward, the party has to be inclusive. it has to be open to new voices and new faces, and i would hope that the democratic party will allow independents to come in and be a part of the system, but they have to become part of the democratic party. we have to strengthen the party.

we cannot weaken it. we have to strengthen it from the inside out. brian: i want to show you some video, it is only 23 seconds long. i think you call donald duck "the damn duck." then you can tell us a story. >> donald duck, i am asking today as his representative, we are here to ask why he is ducking releasing his tax returns? what are the reasons he might be

doing that? brian: why you get so mad about the duck? donna: i couldn't get rid of the damn duck. it is the intellectual property of disney, the parent company of abc news. my colleagues called us and said, that's our duck, donald duck, the character from walt disney. i thought, if this is our duck, let me just end this story and get another kind of duck. when i began to make phone calls to end the duck controversy, i was told that i couldn't. the party. i kept going back and forth. finally i got all the way up to the top, and he said, one of

hillary's friends thought this was a great idea. i said, yeah, but she is a -- about to go to a fundraiser in california. bob iger is going to be there. he is the head of disney. she might want to give up the duck and say he is gone. i was just trying to take a break from the campaign, a idea. i said, yeah, but she is a -- about to go to a fundraiser in california. bob iger is going to be there. he is the head of disney. she might want to give up the duck and say he is gone. i was just trying to take a break from the campaign, a couple of days off.

i couldn't get rid of the damn duck, so i went all the way up to the top. brian: in your book, here is a scenario you describe about donors. this is some event in the backyard of somebody's house. a fundraiser. donna: yes. brian: "as you stand in this beautiful groom to backyard next to huge platters of steaks, lobsters, and clans, you get interrogated by the high dollar donors who pepper you with questions about what the party intends to do about the issue they consider to be the most important. how you respond to these questions determines the amount these donors will give.

about the subject they are questioning you on, so you confident and casual and show that you are not manipulating or hiding anything." you also have said you are for taxpayers paying for these campaigns. what is wrong with that scenario you just pointed out in your book? donna: look, these are high dollar donors. they support the democratic party. party. they were either supporters of barack obama or secretary clinton.

he checked on me when i was al gore's campaign manager. he wanted to make sure i was ok, if i needed anything, if i needed him. now i get a chance to check on him, to call him. i am part of his family, part of the jackson family for life. i love him. he is a brother, and i will always love him. brian: what happened to his kid? donna: i know five of his kids. brian: i am talking about jesse jackson junior. donna: oh, i don't know what happened to jesse jr. i went to the house to visit them. he is doing really well. he had a rough time. i don't know what happened between him and his wife emma but i want to continue to be supportive of reverend jackson and his entire family.

brian: 20 years ago, this is a quote clip from the article in "the washington post" about you. 20 years ago you said this. "if we don't change the culture of american politics, people are going to give up on democracy, and pretty soon the only people elected will be people with money in their pocket." donna: that was spot on. it is happening. brian: 20 years later, is democracy in trouble? donna: yes. our democracy is at risk. we have had what i call the perfect storm. we have high dollar candidates, the koch brothers on the right. on the left, we now have tom steier. we have people who have their resources that are crowding out normal everyday americans who might be able to make a difference. money in politics is polluting our democracy. low voter turnout, voter suppression. we need a 21st century voting rights act. i think our democracy is in trouble not just from the electoral hacking we saw, but social platforms changing our civil discourse. we need to spend time revitalizing our democracy.

brian: you say this in your book, "i never forgot that it was hillary in 2003 told some of of the party leaders to pay attention to a talented young illinois state senator named barack obama." where did you hear that? that is a long time ago. did she regret doing that? donna: i hope not. i can tell you i was here in washington, dc at 10th and g street, not far from here. hillary was very excited. she had met this young state senator who was running. she has roots in illinois. she met this young state senator and told my good friend -- i didn't know barack obama. i know a lot of other people, danny davis and carter collins and harold washington, rahm emanuel, but i hadn't heard of a barack obama.

so we met him that spring of 2003, and let me just say this -- the rest is history. i was so excited after meeting him. we later told alexis herrman, the former labor secretary in the clinton-gore administration. we told bill lynch, the deputy mayor of new york city. we told everybody we could in the kerry campaign up to john

kerry. we found some video footage. we sent it to the campaign, and he was chosen as the keynote speaker in 2004. i didn't get involved in the primary in 2008. i didn't get involved in the primary in 2016. as a party leader, i wanted to give both candidates -- people would say to me, you got to be for barack obama. i said yes, i am black. i am a woman also. but i am getting old and grumpy, and maybe i will like john mccain. at the end of the day, when may 31st, 2008 came around, there was a big meeting in the rules and bylaws committee that the dnc held, and i supported obama's proposal to give the disputed delegates in florida and michigan, that we would parcel them out to both candidates, not one. that was enough, along with the superdelegates who came on board, the fact that president obama -- well, then senator obama -- won enough delegates in the last contest on june 3 that allowed him to become the nominee of the democratic party.

brian: you talk about your catholicism, your deep religious faith. we also talked about drinking at one time and huffing. i want to ask you this. there is this sentence in the book -- and you have basically used the words all the time -- this is after the whole thing about cnn and the apology and all of that stuff. i am going to quote you. "you know, "f" 'em. i have a playful side, but i also have a dolores, the part of me that is spitting mad and not afraid to fight. if people look at all i have done in my life and finally by onend define me by that questionable incident, they are no friends of mine. at this point in my journey on this earth." why the language? donna: i knew that my life would never be the same.

i said, give me time to get home to washington, dc. 14 years, a lot of traveling. i knew cnn had not given me any questions. i could prove that if they would allow me to get home to get my computer or to get to my office and get to my server. i said, i can find anything, but i cannot deal with it because wikileaks is corrosive. they have spamware, spyware, malware. i had already lost emails. i said, i need to get home because i have protection on those devices. before i got to the airport in atlanta, i had already begun to get death threats. by the time i walked up the stairs at my house, there was a

suspicious package that the driver who brought me home came up and took a picture of, and we got it dealt with. it angered me that i could never get to the bottom of it because i couldn't get to my emails. some of them were ripped apart. but cnn, the way in which -- not just cnn -- but the media, it was as if they had to rip me apart. it is one thing to chastise me. i've been chastised before. i chastise others. but to rip me apart and put my life in danger, that was uncalled for. now today, those same reporters, that network plus others, they get ripped apart, they get threatened by the same forces, the same manner that they unleashed on me. every time that happens, i reach out to them and say, it is going to be ok. it is going to be all right.

it is going to be ok. brian: you often in the book talk about donald trump. tell us everything you think about donald trump. donna: when i first met him, he was the most charming individual on the planet. he wanted to get to know you. he is a charmer. he really is a good charmer. i said to myself, he is a great salesperson. i met him back in 2015. look, i was on television. i said, you know what? that guy could go places. i saw him as a disruptive, but interesting person. never before had we had a reality tv star. we had tv stars. ronald reagan was a movie star. but never before a reality tv star. i said, he knows this medium very well. i showed his campaign every

ounce of respect, like i show every campaign. you talk about their strategy, their weaknesses, the campaign, the campaign trail. there came a moment late in the cycle when donald trump decided that he had to go after me personally. every night that donald trump went after me -- again, the death threats would come, the bots, the trolls, these individuals impersonating americans who were not americans -- it became extremely toxic. this year i had to go to church and pray for donald trump. i actually had to ask the lord for help because i had a lot of anger around donald trump, and i didn't want that. i wanted help in releasing the anger, as well as to pray for him and his family because he is the president of our country. i want the country to be successful. i tried to release some of that

anger towards donald trump. brian: you have it in the book, though. donna: i was angry with him. you would be too if someone went out every night, and every time he spoke my name, you don't know who she is. what is he attacking me for? i am not the candidate. he just went after me personally. brian: and it worked. donna: it worked very well. brian: "i have worked with men all my life in politics and i can sense when they get to this part about not being able to deal with a woman. this was not a racial thing. this was a gender thing. every time you mention that they are trying to shut you down because you are a woman and all of these guys are like, 'no, no no, i would not say that, and i would not act like someone who is asking for permission.' i had given them all logical reasons why i needed him on board.

i had run out of rational arguments." what do you think about men? donna: i had to fight my way to the table. nobody gave me a chance. i brought in a folding chair that i thought would allow me to make a difference, to have a voice at the table. and yet there were times when guys only wanted to have other guys. they didn't want to have women in the room. we knew how to organize, to be field directors, communication directors, strategists, fundraisers, etc. when you are in charge, whether the campaign manger or party chair, all you want to do is set the table so everyone can have a say, not make it a special place for only special people. here i was the chair of the party, and i wanted to bring in people who i thought could help party. tom was the executive director of the dnc when howard dean was chair.

he implemented the 50 state strategy. tom mcmahon had been involved in politics as long as i had come and i wanted somebody with his experience. he is from nebraska. i am from louisiana. i wanted somebody at the table who knew a little bit about politics, and i had to fight to get him at the table. that is when i knew this is not a black/white thing or a male/female thing. it was generational. they thought people like me and tom had long passed their prime. but you know what never goes out of style? talking to people. listening to people. do matter how much life and technology changes -- we all have these great devices now that communicate -- there is nothing like walking into a community and saying, good morning, can we talk about a candidate? brian: you say in your book that -- and you acknowledge that in martha's vineyard there's a

large black community that goes up there, very well-to-do -- here is the question come a wide -- you write, "i never felt i fit in there among the black elite?" donna: i grew up in the segregated south. my mother was a maid. my father was a janitor. they raised us with a lot of love, but i never felt that the folks who lived in uptown new orleans liked us, respected us, cared for us. they made fun of us because we were not city kids. we didn't wear the right clothes. here i am now, having finished my second tour at harvard. i have spent now three summers

going to martha's vineyard. i am more comfortable now than i have ever been in my life in all circles, in all circumstances, but there's no question that the scars of my childhood have been the kind that i have had to heal over the years. they are not always scars of racism. they are scars of sexism, classism, elitism. but i am a better, stronger person today because i have been able to live in such a way that i have tried to learn and i have tried to respect everybody. brian: the name of the book is "hacks," and you can hear a lot more about what donna think -- thanks about the hacking story, the inside story of the break-ins and breakdowns that put donald trump in the white house. thank you. donna: thank you. ♪ [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2017] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for itscaption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org]

announcer: for free transcripts or to give us your comments about this program, visit us at qanda.org. our programs are also available as podcasts. announcer: if you enjoyed this week's interview with donna brazile, here are some other programs you might like. "new york times" columnist and author maureen dowd talks about the 2016 presidential campaign. "washington post" political reporter robert costa about the 2016 campaign and donald trump, and "new york times" reporter

amy chozick about covering the hillary clinton campaign. watch these any time or search our video library at c-span.org. >> next, live come at your calls and comments on "washington at a featuren come on self driving cars and then a look at the legacy of president bill clinton. tonight, on the communicators, a look at the internet, broadband expansion, and 5g with u.s. telecom president jonathan's altar. he is interviewed by kyle bailey. groupsmentioned that the you represent, the companies, have a lot of work to do. can you talk a little bit about that? we hear a lot about five g networks, ultrafast, ultradense networks --can you talk about

how we get to that stage? >> the essential ingredient to moving forward, not only with extending more broadband to more americans, that also ensuring our global competitiveness is the technology called broadband. our companies are committed to continuing to make investments to provide the fiber and resources and infrastructure and network to get more broadband connectivity to more americans. it takes a lot of work. write about -- the right amount of investment and also forward-looking policy frameworks that can accelerate and extend the innovation and investment required for us to move forward. >> watch the communicators tonight on c-span two. morning on new year's day, we are asking viewers what

their messages to washington for the coming year. political analysts from around the country way in on the issues on hand for 2018 as always, you can join the conversation on facebook and twitter. "washington journal" is next. happy new year. it is the first "washington journal program. calls,ours of your phone plus discussions with talk host and bloggers. here is what we want to hear from you. instead of asking you to make political predictions, we want to hear your message to washington. the white you say to house, congress, republicans, democrats, what message would you deliver for 2018? here is how you can let us know. democrats, (202) 748-8000..