a course, that's just an opinion. they are not employees of anyone. so i don't really know who has authority there. it's embarrassing though. host: thanks for calling in. appreciate that. there is more ahead here on washington journal. we will be joined by michael bender. he is quite street journal, white house reporter. author of "frankly, we did win this election: the inside story of how trump lost". we will talk with him, hear from you on the washington journal. >> tonight on q and a. michelle singletary on her book what to do with your money when

the crisis hits. >> is not a question of if there's going to be another economic crisis but when. it's not all about covid, but what recession is going to come down the road. it may be long. it may be short. life is going to happen. and i need you to prepare now. i do a lot of financial seminars in my community, and it's so hard to get people to save when they are doing well because they are doing well. they don't think that tomorrow is going to have an issue. i say you need to save, you need to do that. and they say i'm going to get to it. when the crisis hits, everybody is in ruble mode. f --rugal mod --frugal mode. it's easy to cut when you cannot pay for anything or things are shut down. let's prepare.

let's be like that fireman or fire woman who is ready for the next fire. they hope it won't happen, but they are going to be prepare for that. >> finance colonist michelle singletary tonight. you can also listen to q and a on your podcast wherever you get your podcasts. >> tonight, see knight -- c-span premieres gin wearing sixth, views from the house. 14 members of congress share stories of what they saw, heard and experienced that day. jason crow talks about how he felt as people tried to breach the house chamber. >> if you are not scared, debtors -- there is something wrong with you or you do not understand the magnitude of the situation. there was a moment i was going to ask one of the officers for his firearm because i've used

firearms before against people. i know that i am capable of doing what's necessary to protect myself or others. my experience in combat is you never know who is willing to actually pull that trigger and do what is necessary. but i know that i could. i was think about asking the officer for his firearm. i decided not to because i did not want to put the officer and deposition. but i never thought that, i'm a very different person than i was when i was a ranger. i'm a father, i'm a husband. mama rev congress. i thought when i took that uniform off, that i took that -- i'm a member of congress. i never that i thought when i took that uniform off, i thought i would never have to potentially act like that as a member of congress in 2021. >> this week, you will also hear from markwayne mullin and tom

malinowski. january 6 news from the house starts tonight on speed -- on c-span, c-span.org or listen to the radio app. >> washington journal continues. host: our just is michael bender . he is wall street -- our guest is michael bender. he is the author of "frankly, we did win this election: the inside story of how trump lost". welcome to welcome journal. let's start with the title of the book. i wanted to pay -- i wanted to play a short segment. president is at the white house. let's take a listen at that moment. >> this is a fraud on the american public. this is an embarrassment to our country. we were getting ready to win this election.

frankly, we didn't win this election. host: michael bender, an iconic moment. why did you choose that moment? >> it underscored how president trump catapulted his own reality. this is the night of november 3. we did not know he had lost. we did not know biden had one --won rita trump ad-libbing very clearly that he --won. trump ad-libbing very clearly. his messaging is trying to impose his own reality on the current situation no matter what the facts are. host: the other thing about that moment is i was wondering if i was up for that.

if it like for me people in the room were encouraging him, but i had no idea and the people had no idea what he would say next. guest: this is about 2:30 a.m., the night of election. wednesday morning. so if you were asleep it was probably for a good reason. i said this in the book. it was a pretty chaotic scene in the white house. trump did not want to come out and address the nation. several aides had to get him to come out. there were some folks who told other aides just say you one. -- just say you won. host: before we get too deep into the conversation with collars come i want to point out how you set up the book in terms of the background -- number

session with callers come i want to point you -- i want you to point out how you set up the book in terms of the background. a front row seat to history. you had been covering both the campaign and the full extent of the president trump and -- from the full president trump election. how did you gain resources and get people's trust enough to be able to help you out and comment for you even if it's off the record for this book? guest: i've been a journalist for 2000 years. a big experience -- four 2000 years --for two dozen years. i've covered donald trump for the campaign, all four years of

the presidency. people respected my process, my reporting, and my writing. through that, that's where i built the trust for re-create these scenes for people to talk to me. there was a fair amount of people who talk to me in a reputed way. there's not a lot of room in the bubble around president trump to criticize him, not criticize them. but to tell him he's doing something wrong or he needs to do something different. a lot of folks i talked to spoke to me very bluntly. it appears they had not had the opportunity to do that with their own colleagues or with the president themselves -- or with the president himself. host: you recount in the book one incident where he calls you, you are in isolation with your family home. you get called in for an

interview. you had no idea. was that a common occurrence? what was that interview all about? >> he had called me in april to complain about a story in the wall street journal that was three days old. he invited me in to the oval office for an interview. setting up with his press team that the only thing i said was lee's don't call me and tell me i have five minutes to do this. it's the pandemic. -- it's in the middle of the pandemic. up got kids all over the house. we enclosed off the floor. in the middle of june, i get a call and says can you be here in five minutes. this is moments before the juneteenth rally. i was left in the oval office alone for almost half an hour. there was no real message. they wanted to know what i wanted to talk about. and what was on my mind. president a few moments away from the election. it was stunning to me that there

was no particular plan about getting a message out or appoint through me. host: was that before or after had been demoted? guest: this was a few days before the juneteenth rally in tulsa. this is his first and only rally that has empty seats in it. brad the initial campaign manager was demoted. host: how big it was the effect of the loss? how much of that hurt him? guest: i think it hurt them at the end of the day. brad had never been a part of any political campaign before trump. this was his first political campaign that he's ever -- ever that he's running. it was perfect campaign manager for donald trump. what i write is that brad and trump were aligned on how they

viewed pr, promotion and branding and saw that as a way to create its own energy in the political movement. rad is an ever sizing executive -- advertise -- brad is an advertising executive. when trump demotes him, he puts in bill stepien who is an effective political strategist but a different kind. it more of an accountant than professional type person. he builds an advertising agency and puts an accountant and charge of it. he spends less months almost rebuilding the input -- the entire campaign from the inside out. host: that's also rally did not hurt things. it was a that certainly did not help things. it was a bust, wasn't it? guest: no one wanted to tell trump. usually, on away that's on his way to rallies, it's a race to tell him how any people are inside. how many people are waiting outside. that number tends to grow every

time someone tells it to him. in the tolls instance, no one would tell him -- in the tulsa instance, no one would tell him it was a bust. until he was inside the arena, and the green rain -- in the green room. he turns on fox and to seize them talking about the numbers. host: he says -- "frankly, we did win this election: the inside story of how trump lost". we welcome your calls and comments. 202-748-8000 is a line for democrats. 202-748-8001 for republicans. 202-748-8002 for independents and all others. we had a couple of weeks ago, michael wolf, on. one of the things i noticed in your book that differs is that you spent a lot of time talking about the front row shows, the folks who were loyal at the trump rallies. guest: i appreciate you bringing that up.

there is a library, a pantheon of trump books. what i think makes this book unique not only among books that have come out already, but what's coming forward, is that i come at it three ways. the inside the room moments in the oval office, under the hood of the campaign with exclusive campaign memos. also i think is exclusively here is i effectively embed with some of trump's most loyal supporters, the folks that go to 30, 40 trump rallies. what about them as people brings them back over and over again? what it is about trump that attracts them in the first place in order to understand this movement. moving forward because even after january 6, trump is

drawing thousands of people to the rallies and know-how -- in ohio last month, the thousands in florida this month. why people keep coming after january 6. host: you are a reporter from washington, you are the president's nemesis, you are in the cage out there in those rallies. how do they gain, how do the front row, to trust you? guest: i showed up. what i would've done mostly in reporting on trump's loyalists or fans or a lot of my colleagues would do, you want to the front of the line, you do it interview and wait for the most, wildest quote you can get. walk away. we talked a lot about the politics with the front row joe's.

but i wanted to stay. i wanted to know what their families were like. wanted to know what their families thought about them leaving for days for rallies. i wanted to know if they had been active before. some of these folks came out were arenas for days at a time. early in the morning. to talk to them as people. at one point, they effectively became a member -- they effectively, i became a member of the front row joe's. some of these folks were warmhearted kind people at their core. i was honored to be able to tell their stories. host: tell us briefly about one of the front row joe's. >> basically what i found is a lot of the folks who go to these rallies are attracted to trump,

but they have tanning on their hands. they are -- but they have time on their hands. they are retired and they form a community. trump made their lives richer and their worlds bigger. these are folks who are effectively misled by the president, including on covid and the protests. randall gets so sick in the summer of 2020. guest: host: from covid? guest: i will give away the punchline. he is a smoker. he is convinced he has covid. [no audio] guest: drop off other supplies. taking a test. host: and he you that? guest: probably.

he did recover from that sickness, but it was one of the stories of just how far, how loyal some folks feel to donald trump. host: michael bender is our guest. he is the author of the new book "frankly, we did win this election: the inside story of how trump lost". we welcome your calls and comments. let's go first to leesburg, virginia had hear from karen. democrats line. caller: hi. good morning. i'm a democrat. i'm african-american. i know quite a few people whether or not they were going to vote in the election. they didn't want to have anything to do with the. one thing that resonates with them is most people hate a cheater and a liar. don't care where you're from, whether you are in nebraska and a bingo hall or on the job and

you know somebody who is a habitual liar. the dagger with trump is the postal service's desk because a lot of people were following this rhetoric and following this madman and they were like we stand on this, but when he leveraged the postal office and we saw pictures of post office boxes on the bed of trucks, that's when people said that's it. we knew that he was doing everything he could. he could not get any visible. you could not hide behind the election. it was as a vet -- a direct, tangible, physical thing that said i'm going to make it very difficult for you to vote and people were like i'm done. besides that and the coronavirus. if he had changed his position on the coronavirus, but when he started taking post office boxes and cut that budget, it was done. that's when so many people said i'm headed to the polls no matter what. i'm going to stand in line

because they took the post office box off the corner. you can't be for someone who is an integrity person and do something so brazen and think that now you got my attention. that was what did it. that's what brought out a lot of people who had never voted. they did not even like biden, but they did not like the way trump handled it. to me, that was the icing on the cake. guest: i think karen raises some good points. one is on the post office, trump was very open about what he was doing and he did not want to encourage people to vote by mail. he was very concerned about that. to karen's point, and i get into this a little bit in the book, the boomerang effect that this has. a lot of people in the middle of 2020 when some of these rules started changing and when the

election mechanics started changing toward mail-in voting or absent people voting. what people were worried about were errors in the process. if you, this is basic marketing. if you aren't always someone that buys your shirt and pants and a store, you do not want to try to get that person to try to start buying something online because there's a chance their patterns rake. there was a fear that people were going to -- patterns break. there was a fear that people were not going to follow the rules,

told him. >> -- host: was that typical behavior of the vice president? guest: i can only report find one instance when he pushed back

on donald trump and that's when the president accused him of trying to hire one of his own age when it turned out that aid -- that they had discussed that and that jared kushner asked mike pence to make that higher. that's important as we get to january 6. trump repeatedly asks spence -- mike pence to overturn the election. mike pence and his team thought that they had been very clear that he did not have that authority. my reporting as that maybe it wasn't so clear, that when he told them no it was nested in a bunch of maybes. one line i have is that he tells drop 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 the second part. when i interviewed trump after the presidency, he told me that

mike pence had never told him no. that may or may not be right, but that is certainly what trump cammarata -- came away with. host: you interviewed the president. izzy commonly -- did he commonly assume that people are ok with people talking to reporters since he is ok with talking to reporters? guest: no. he wants to be the leaker in chief. he wants to be able to sway some of these scenes and shape them. what i found was that almost every question i asked him, no matter what the question was, was brought back to election fraud in 2020, missing ballots in georgia, detroit, conspiracies in arizona. host: you may not want to end

this, but over the course of your reporting on the president, during his presidency, was he the source of some leaks? guest: there were a lot of leaks coming out of that white house at all levels i think. host: let's hear from nancy, independent line. go ahead. caller: good morning. this is a very serious statement and question. we all know and 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 passes state laws to be able to do this in the future, change votes. very upfront mr. bender. how close is america to being a banana republic? guest: i think there's, you are right to be concerned about that phone call with the georgia

secretary of state. i think there are, there is measures underway. discussions for protections. those are going to be difficult to approve. congress -- there goes a large number of the base that thinks trump did win the election. to think that trump is onto something by using election security as a motivator for the base. this will be something to watch in the next couple of years heading into the midterms. host: we go to be republican line. plymouth, north carolina. go ahead. caller: good morning. how are you? host: fine thanks. you are on the air. caller: c-span, it's been a long

morning. i watched several segments. i think my comment, and i want to cap try to keep it short, i think we are getting too wrapped around an american today into american politics. we go all the way from bipartisanship all the way up to the conversation about who won the election. at this point, i won't even argue that point because i think it's a dead horse and i think that's exactly part of the issue. my issue is democrat, republican, libertarian. it doesn't matter. bipartisanship. it 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 out in the

midwest somewhere who did not particularly like trump but they liked the policies. the economic, the racial things. a big farmer who was about to vote under. -- about two go under. -- about to go under. van jones said i don't understand how you could do this. it was the policies. as a conservative thinker, yes, i believe more in smaller government. but on the flipside, i know that people, especially people of color, don't trust their local people that they look toward the federal government to make states do it they should. it boils down to discussion in

congress, the house, the senate about what's right and wrong. for the national welfare. earlier, a veteran of world war ii. it's interesting, bipartisanship issue and trump issue has gone so far right or left that it's hard to know what's right or wrong. host: we will let you go there. guest: at the his point is no t versus policy question. -- his point is personality versus policy question. that overshadowed a lot of policies that a lot of questions about his personality. -- that overshadowed a lot of questions about his personality. president trump came into the

office as a change agent. just like president obama. a lot of the front row joseph were obama -- right front rowjoes were obama supporters. in the end, it becomes personality for president trump. that was one of the striking things as i've was really -- as i was reporting in this book. people around the president in the campaign thought he had been desk thought he had become a dangerous and the last six months -- thought he had become dangerous in the last six months he was in office. almost any measure necessary to keep, to stay in the west wing. he wanted to shoot americans.

he told his officials that people protesting the george floyd death, should be shot in the leg, shot in the foot. host: you were watching the george floyd video on air force one with the president. guest: this is a good example of personality versus policy question. it does take trump a day or two before he watches the floyd video. he never actually thought that she never actually watches the hoping. he is deeply affected -- he never asked to watches the whole thing. he is deeply affected. president trump is a very visceral person. he learns and absorbs things through watching them. more than reading. remember when he attacked syria

is first year in office -- his first year in office after he saw children affected by chemical weapons. this is a never reported seen in the book. he views the protest in a personal way. these people are protesting a murder. people protesting years of inherent racism and civil rights abuses. trump internalizes that as personal. he had pushed through some justice reform and funding for funding for -- and funding for hbcus. the way he vocalizes this to his staff's i did all these things and black people still hate me and they are never going to vote for me. he turns on a dime and doubles down on the law and order image

and wants to disperse the crowds. wants to use uniformed, active-duty military to quiet the protests. host: who are the aides encouraging that? guest: there's a few of them. one of them in my book is stephen miller. these are big meetings in the oval office. 10, 12, 15 people in these meetings. stephen miller is describing cities burning, american cities are burning. mark, the top general in the military, has the data. he sees this percentage of cities have protests. a tiny fraction of the people are protesting. these aren't cities burning down. these are some singular images on television that the president and some of his aides are

reacting to. he has to swivel in his seat and turned back to stephen miller and shut the f up. in the oval office. he has a point to a portrait of abraham lincoln. he said that man had an insurrection. what we have is a protest. host: caller in new jersey. independent line. caller: real quick. this is coming from a person who voted for ross perot. i still resort back to my vote for ross perot because everything he said has come true. two part question. who gave the order, and i want to know the person is, who gave the order to the entire media complex to ignore the will of the people by completely halting and stopping the election results of our president by refusing to report who one the

election? it -- who wone --who won the election? fox news reported way ahead of biden winning arizona. they obviously knew they one --wonm --won arizona. who gave that order? that's what i would like to know. guest: there was no order for the media to report this one way or the other. [no audio] guest: news organizations, fox news technology to protect winners and get it right. the entire rotations of news organizations on these decisions

not only to be first but to be correct. without getting too far deep in the weeds here, the projections, trends, how many ballots our last that are left, a lot has been written on this. these news organizations go out of their way to explain their methods and procedures for making these calls. host: a question for you on twitter. going back to your description of being called into the white house for an interview with the president. they say "you are a general desk journalist. i couldn't think of a bigger component to give a person makes a living covering today's political scene. were you more worried about being or being in the middle of a frenzied rally? guest: there were moments and rallies --in rallies where i made sure when i got into

rallies to note the exits, the way out in case something happened. it's not the first time i felt like that covering a political event. host: did you ever see a colleague get roughed up or have there'd desk have their equipment damaged? guest: shouting nose to nose, finger-pointing. a friend did get roughed up, but nothing eyewitness with my own two eyes. it was in 2000 that it was in chicago and the 2016 campaign -- it was in chicago during the 2016 campaign. this is why i attained front row ordinary joe status. as we were going through some of the rallies, i would ask them what were some of their favorite moments. they would say oh yeah i look at that one. i quickly realized i had been to at least 50, 60 rallies. host: i've heard the trump

supporters pay to attend those rallies and that trump pays them to attend. have you seen evidence of that? guest: no. the first rally when he announced in new york, the famous golden escalator moment. we had a reporter on the scene who said that some tourists have been brought in from outside to help fill up the atrium on that day. to this day, i have yet to meet anyone out in the rallies who has ever been to the new york event. these are real things. these are real events. these are real people showing up to support donald trump. host: michael bender talking about his new book. let's hear from thomas in ohio, republican line. guest: good morning. caller:caller: -- good morning.

i was just wondering if you could enlighten us as to how much the media paid -- the media played in this election. they are very biased. a lot of unknown authors coming forward. i was wondering what your thoughts were. guest: hey, thomas. hello everybody in strongsville. the media always has a role one way or another in these elections. this is the platform, how we hear the stories and how we think about these races. but i think it's more of a political mirror -- but i think it's more of a mirror than an influencer. people get their information from so many sources. when people ask me about enemy

of the people and how much it played a role in defeating trump , president trump went out of the way -- went out of his way to speak to the media at the white house at events. i brought multiple authors down to mar-a-lago. he sees a very important role for the media whether it fox news, wall street journal, wall street times -- new york times. host: let's go to richmond, virginia. the democrats line. caller: good morning. i voted absentee and it was tricky because of the post office and covid. what i did was i requested an absentee bout -- ballots and hand delivered it to a dropbox. i did want to complement -- i

didn't want to comment. thank goodness we do not have another four years of 45. thank goodness for the free press and journalism. thank you. host: i want to ask you. you're asking about the final weeks. this is about election night just before the election night rally. you write that the constant use of the white house for blatantly clinical purposes also made her uncomfortable. she had tried to stop the campaign from using it for the convention. her office had slow walk several requests from the campaign ahead of the rnc. she delivered -- she would deliver her speech from the rose garden and the president would accept his party's nomination on the south lawn. it surprise you that the first lady took such a contrary view to what the president wanted to do in that case? guest: no, in the sense that melania trump is a german phobic

--germophobe like her husband. it did not surprise me that she is very concerned about covid and taking precautions. it did surprise me how much of a pack in fourth there had been ahead of that election night party. she had made repeated requests, excuse me, the chief of the white house staff made requests to you her to use the white house. the first lady's office is to decently desk traditionally in charge of -- traditionally in charge of things at the white house. it takes president trump a few days before election night the phone his wife from air force one and pleaded with her to use the white house because they could not go anywhere else. host: because of d.c. laws, they could not use the hotel right? guest: right. she throws her hands up and says

do what you want. you are going to anyway. this is important in the sense of how many people around trump tried to act as guardrails for him. tried to sway his direct desk his decisions one way or another and end up being -- his decisions one way or another and end up being speed bumps. host: is that true for jared kushner and ivanka russian mark guest: -- ivanka? guest: so would you want about them and their policies, both of them are pretty effective allegedly -- effective relatively at keeping the president focused and keeping grifters away. trying to keep trump surrounded by experts and people with his best interests at heart. again, by the end, when it

really matters, at the end of the term and up to january 6 jared had effectively washed his hands of it. he was working on his portfolio with middle east peace plans. he sees the direction this is going. the people in georgia, the runoff. they are pleading with jared because he is someone who has shown effectiveness at directing the president. pleading with him for help. he tells them no i can't. rudy giuliani is involved at this point and there is nothing i could do. some of the georgia republicans were stunned. they had never heard anything like that from him before. host: let's hear from tony in tampa on the independent line. caller: i just wanted to say i thought the media attacked his character, but as far as, especially the conservative media. they never really reported or held him accountable.

he had $25 billion in the first budget to build a wall. he passed on it. he actually built 15 miles of new wall. on obamacare, he protected it. he saved catered -- he safeguarded it instead of getting rid of it. rand paul told him get rid of it and we will work later on to get it replaced. he takes the tax off of it. it became three times more popular and three times as many people signed up for it than obama's desk than obama had. his far as jared -- then obama had. they ruined the crime bill, this empowerment zone. all of these other policies that he did not campaign on it all. as far as about to ruin the economy. mnuchin and he promised gdp

every month. he got 3% gdp one month after he gave tax cuts. nothing was based on that text -- on that market. he printed 6 trillion bucks. some guys who had the greatest economy, how much there was that how come there was so much welfare? his last year as a president. host: a couple of issues there. guest: i think tony raises some good and interesting points. i think one of the three lines of this book is how those served the president was by all the infighting underneath him. the presidents type priority from day one was reelection. they filed paperwork that day in order to start the wheels on the reelection campaign.

i could not sit here and tell you one of the person around him for four years who shared that as their top priority. host: in other words, an ongoing campaign. get reelected. guest: if you start out a little differently with different policies or there are some decisions. the wall. no one took that in terms of major top campaign promises. no one owned that to make sure it was done in the way he wanted. you see that all the way through into the final days of the race where his top aides have a come to jesus moment at a meeting and make sure they are all in the room for some of these decisions. that they are all invited to the same meetings. these are sort of things that are happening.

i'm convinced that he is not well served by his staff around him, but he is the president and the buck stops with him. the response ability lays with him to make sure. host: particularly how contentious they get. they are described, the chairs in front of the president desk. quite a scene. guest: i asked him about some of this infighting and what he is doing about it. he kind of threw up his hands and said. the quote to me was they are all fighting over who loves me the most. host: question for you from, for president trump's future. trump suggested declaring himself president for life. do you think he was testing the waters to see if you could get enough support to do that? guest: yes. i think he is definitely

thinking about running for president again. 2022 is going to be informative on that decision. he has made some two dozen endorsements from the u.s. senate to staten island borough president. some of these races he has endorsed our republican primaries. that's not an easy thing to pull off even for a former president as popular as he is within the party. the results of that will determine which way he goes. i think the thing this book shows, outlines in some new ways, the president as -- this president inside the oval and as a candidates who heading into 2022 republicans have a choice whether or not.

whatever decision that is, this book shows they cannot go into the decision with anything other than their eyes wide open. host:. mike in dallas. republican line. caller: good morning. i would like to ask just a couple of questions. you said that you went to a bunch of trump rallies and met a bunch of trump supporters and did they know you were from the washington post? host: he is from the wall street journal. guest: yes sir. i wear my press badge at all events where i am working. i always identify myself as a wall street journal reporter and talk to people specifically for the book after the election. caller: then they knew you weren't a conservative reporter. you say you were never attacked, but get in this book you

consider trump supporters brownshirts. you call them the snot --sn ot-zis. guest: i don't call anyone not seize or brownshirts. he had been --nazis or brownshirts. he had been given the nod and wink. mark milley is questioning whether some of the hires that the president is bringing into the administration may have ties to neo-nazi is him. -- neo-nazism. host: one of the front row joe's is this woman from michigan.

you get to know her well at rallies. she comes to the capital for january 6. you write a quote from her. she says if mike pence would have come out of that building, i guarantee you he would have died. if it wasn't by gunfire he would have been pummeled. they were going to kill him industry. the dust -- does that surprise you? guest: yes it shocked me. she was at the rally january 6 and was in the march up to the capital. host: did she get inside the capital? guest: she did not. her telling of it, she was with several people, friends. it was so crowded that she only got to what was the west front of the capital and they did not want to lose each other so they sort of stopped and took in the scene and took in the moment. what she was describing to me was the march effectively down pennsylvania avenue from the mall to the capital.

during that point, people realized that mike pence had put out a statement and for the first time on the record said he was not going to overturn the results. this was news to her and the trump supporters because trump had been telling everybody and have been telling them for weeks that mike pence might do this. host: on that speech at the rally before, on january 6 correct? guest: correct. in the days ahead of time that mike pence was not going to do that. mike pence's office did not going west did not go on the record with that. -- not go on the record with that. trump fans are getting their information from him to where they felt surprised that mike pence would do this. sondra describes the moment as a surge of injury -- a surge of

energy. these get pence chance start. host: what is the relationship between the former president and the president -- and mike pence. guest: they are speaking to each other. there are multiple phone calls back and forth. i haven't spoken to mike pence about these calls. i have spoken to president trump about it and what strikes me is if you are donald trump and you believe mike pence has committed treason and was so disloyal to overturn an election, wouldn't you want some sort of apology or sort desk or some sort of resolution before you start these russians again -- before

you start these conversations again question mark host: joel --? host: joel -- caller: i have a few questions for you. first of all, i'm not a trump fan. i know him personally. what he did to my family and people in atlantic city. he is a liar and cheat. i have no liking for trump. in the election itself, there are questions that have to be answered. when you hear is a big live. it's not a big live -- when you hear it is a big lie. it's not a big lie. my mother in the 70's was a republican inspector where she had passed. she went to neighborhoods that were worse than vietnam.

she had to to inspect the election county. in philadelphia, there was an incident when a guy with an orange sign trying to get in the building where the county was and a guy came out, i big african-american guy and pushed him away and said you are not getting in here. then a woman comes out and says you are not getting out here. he says i will call the police. they went in and he could that's and they locked the door. he cannot go into the building. guest: in response to that? host: --host: any response to that? guest: all of them have concluded there is no widespread fraud. i agree there are individuals, specific questions, alleging security can always be improved, vote by mail and processes

debates but there is no election fraud. to claim that trump won the election 2020 is a big lie. host: the president is speaking about it. trump returns to arizona and predicts ballot review will validate him. guest: my interviews of him were a couple of months before the rallies started up again and he was more in a transition moment between post-presidency and not really quite ready to get back on the campaign trail yet. i was in cleveland, the first one since generate six. half of that rally was claims of election fraud. trump talked for four years about his election night when into thousand 16 and lost in 2000 -- election night win --

win in 2016 and lost in 2020. caller: although trump lost, republicans did well. trump is an abrasive guy and that hurt him. i worked with a bunch of people who think that trump won the election and i talked to them about what makes you think that. a lot of times it gets back to computer issues, which i'm getting near 70 years old. computers kind of scare me. they talk about how easily it would be for a computer to steal 20,000 votes from one guy and give them to another guy and wipe out this and that. how can you make a person like me confidence these computer atrocities don't exist?

host: i guess it's a question for 2020 with the president backing so many nominees and yet talking about the election system. it does that serve him well? guest: there are some republicans who think that whatever they can use at this point to motivate the base is a positive. including things like election security or the fact that trump won. host: yours is one of several books coming out about the election. did you expect so much competition when you are writing this? guest: not when i first started, but after the election it was a little harrowing. this is my first book. i knew that. host: were you planning to write

on the election before the end results? guest: yes, i went into 2020. i knew i had to let the reporting to the work for me and i don't have a tv show or a huge social media presence. i had to let the reporting to the work in order to compete with these other journalists and others. host: are host: that will do it e program. we want to say a farewell to our colleagues and friends across the atlantic. this is the last morning that bbc parliament will be carrying our program. cutbacks happened at the bbc and they will no longer carry c-span programming. our programming streams live all of the world at c-span.org.

we thank the parliament channel for their years of partnership with this network and we hope our viewers in the u.k. and elsewhere will continue to extremists at c-span.org. we are back at 7:00 tomorrow morning. have a great weekend.

>> night, c-span premieres january 6, views from the house. 14 numbers of congress share stories of what they saw, heard and experienced that day. one oklahoma republican told us about his conversation with a police officer who fate fully shot a woman in the capital. >> i can guarantee you he never had to pull a manner -- a weapon like that in that manner before. he would not have wanted to do that. i know for a fact. because, after happen, he came over and was distraught. i give him a hug. i said you did would you had to do.

and i mean that. unfortunately, her families life is change. it is an unfortunate situation that she lost her life. and some people lost loved ones. but his life is change to, because it's the first time he had to use lethal force. he did not show off to work today -- to work that day to have to do that. he got in the situation where he had to do his job. if you're are going to present your weapon in a manner, and give commands, and a slow growth, you don't have a choice. either that what you have to discharge your weapon or that weapon will be taken away from you and it will be used on you. >> this week, you will also hear from tom malinowski of new jersey. january 5, views from the house starts tonight at 10:00 eastern.

>> robert novak's nickname was the prince of darkness. names that by many of his friends and fellow washington-based journalists. in 2007, two years before he died at 78, his autobiography was published about his 50 years as a reporter, television personality, author and conservative political commentator. he appeared on book notes at that time. >> robert novak on this episode of book notes plus. listed at c-span.org/podcast or wherever you get your podcast. >> housing and urban development secretary marcia fox was on capitol hill to testify before the house financial services committee. she