good ooef evening from los angeles. i'm tavis smiley and last year americans chose a political outsider when they elected donald j. are trump the 45th president of the united states. he ran a highly unconventional campaign for sure, and since he has taken office he has broken all kinds of political norms. tonight, a conversation with john dean, the former white house counsel to richard nixon and he argues that president tr trump's rule breaking is beyond unorthodox, but down right going to test our democracy. we en thank you for joining us, and insight fful conversation coming up with john dean in just a moment.

♪ ♪ and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. ♪ john dean knows a thing or two about the political scandals, servinging as white house counsel to president richard nixon and key figure in exposing the infamous watergate saga, and he has been vocal

about the similarities of a nars sis tick and similarities of his former boss and president trump. he has a new book out called "the defense, when he knew it and what he did." welcome ba to the show, sir. >> thank you. >> always good to have you back. >> my pleasure. >> and let me jump right in, and what are the similarities that you can see between richard nixon and donald trump? >> well, the sim lilarities are most striking that happen behind closed doors between nixon versus trump. they have very similar auth authoritarian personalities, but trump is out on the street with it, on the street with it. campaigned on it. nixon's authoritarianism, and if we didn't have the secret tapes that he made, we wouldn't know the extent of it. but they are very similar, and

nixon was a shy man in many regards and trump iss anything but shy, but i see a huge difference in them, because nixon came into the office very experience and knowledgeable about the experience of the office, and he had been in the senate and a vice president, and practicing lawyer and argue ad couple of cases before the supreme court. he knew washington and he knew the way that government works. i don't think that donald trump has a good newspaper knowledge. he is learning on the job, and learning the hard way, and he has not brought in a really seasoned staff. i find it a little frighten iin >> let me start with the auth authoritarian i authoritarianism, and to your point, nixon's was more behind the scene, and trump is more in our face, and what does it say about the two men or the times that we live that he can be so authoritarian in our faces with glee almost. >> i did a book called "conservatives without conscious" and maybe i did it on one of the programs. >> yes. >> and so it was a study of

authoritarianism and that personality-type we got interested in after world war ii and the late stages of the war. people particularly the reserer chers could not understand how intelligent people in germany and italy had been attracted to people like mussolini and hitler and what was in the nature, and we began to look at it. when i wrote thatk boo, now we have 70 years or 60 years writing that book, and study in these types of people. and it is a -- there are about best guesstimates between 25% to 30% of the population is authoritarian authoritarians, and there are two types of authoritarians to get down into the weeds a little bit. there are social dominators, and that is trump. he jumps out in front of everybody else, and follow me, because only i can solve this problem and lead you to the promised land and whatever. and then most people however that have authoritarian perso l

personalities are followers, and they want a daddy figure, and they want somebody who will take the fear of life away from them and lead them and tell them what to do, and how the think, what have you. best guesstimates from the social sicientists that i talke to before the trump election thought about 25% or maybe as many as 30% of the population, and most of them are republicans, and few democrats, but they are rare fall in that category of authoritarian follower followers. well, no one -- i never thought that they could win the presidency, because i didn't think that there were enough of them, and it happens that a lot of them are in the swing state, and you are working the electoral college and you can win, clearly, win the presidency with that kind of personality. that is the core of his followers. >> but when there is evidence that suggests that he is leading them astray, that we are not headed in fact to the promised land, that some of the campaign

promises that he made, he has broken within the first 100 days, including the bombing of syria, and i could go on and on and on and they don't see the light then? >> l le well, you know, it is a blind faith, if you will. they are convinced that he knows best, and that daddy knows best, and that, you know, that he may or may not be doing things immediately that they want. at some point they may well say he's not what we thought that he was. he is a con, and this is what i happy to think that he is, even for them. but, they will follow a long way these people, and they will go to the bitter end. we have seen it. >> yeah. how do you think dish-- i'm sti fascinated about this difference of the nixon's behind the scenes authoritarianism and trump's more out front, and how do you think that authoritarianism is working behind the scenes? question can see it in the face,

but how do you see it? >> i think that he is a lot more angry. if he seems to be check one of the personality traits, it is anger. occasionally, we have seen the flair flairs of it, but not like i am sure it is behind the scenes when he lets it rip. he has an angry personality. people who have worked with him and for him speak to the nature of his anger, and how ugly it can get. and so i think that is what we are not seeing in the personality. how that, you know -- one of the telling things to me about people who play the game of golf is how they report their golf. golf, as you know, it is a game where you take the life the way it comes to you and you take the ball wherever it goes, and the pros go out the who just played the masters or what have you, and if they have happened to touch the ball, they will penalize themselves, and game of self-honor or what have you, and trump claims he has a 2.8

handicap. it was a competitor golfer in school, and i don't play any more, but i know the game well, and look agent that swing, it is not a 2.8 swing. >> he lied about that, too? >> there is nothing that he won't leave alone. >> and how do the people inside of the white house work with the figure like that, and you are working with richard nixon in the white house, and how is that, like, walking on egg shells and only what he wants to hear, and his way or the high way and u how do you work with a figure in the white house? >> i didn't know about nixon's authoritarianism until long after i was in there. i went to work for the image of a man that i thought that he was, and i didn't really meet him until a couple of years after i was there, and very few one-on-ones, and post arrests after watergate, and it is eight months before he starts to call on me, because the top aides

handling it, the chief of staff bob halderman and the top domestic adviser john ehrlich n ehrlichman, he wants them to work on the second term, and he is re-elected and he wants new plans and reorganization going, and so he knows that they have been working through me to get information about what is going on, and how we can deal with this, and so he takes them out, and starts to dealing with me. and that is when i really get to know him. it is not really until i go in to tell him that there is a cancer on the presidency after about eight meetings, i realized that i don't know how much he knows or doesn't know, but today, because of the book where i transcribe every single watergate conversation to fol olow the thread, i know that he was lying to me, and pretending to not know things that he clearly knew. i didn't know it at the time, and so i am somewhat ginger, but in my dealings with him in this conversation, it is the first time that i get to know who he is, and the personality starts

to come through, and the moral compass is bear and showing and the cover-up is needing to and, and the people will ommit perjury, a he said for example, john, pernlg i hajury is a toug prove, and he said, john, how much could they ask for? i pulled out of thin air a figure that i thought would offend him, and i said, mr. president for all i nknow it could cost a million dollars, and he said, that is no problem, john, i know where we can get $1 million. so in the hour and a half conversation, and this is the first time i met richard nixon and he is not what i expected. >> so we know from your record and others that richard nixon lied to the staff, and at least one occasion that bill clinton lied to the staff about the

monica li monica lieewinsky staff, and li ed to the cabinet. >> yes, and you can take and transpose that where you are going -- >> here toos trick for me. do you think that donald trump is lying to the staff or leaving things out in conversations with them or the other way around? because i can, there are a number of examples involving mr. bannon for example where the president was signing stuff, and we were told from the press that he didn't know what he was signing in some of the stacks of p papers, and so is he leaving them in the dark or they are leaving him in dark or both? >> well, he is not the kind of president that we know that is going to the go through the briefing book to understand what he is doing, so he has to rely on the staff. they know that. so there may be many things slipping into documents that are getting signed, and some where there is public fanfare or some k quietly signed and routine business. >> and pushing their agenda though? >> exactly, exactly. so we don't know what is going on there. but we do know that there are some that have surfaced with

bannon and the national security council with he put himself on and didn't have a real discussion with the president before he did it. but trump is also, he apparently likes the competition within his staff, and he thinks that generates ideas. i think it generates chaos, but apparently he ran a small family business of a what turned out to be a large corporate in a sense, because of the value of the assets involved organization, but it is -- it's not impossible to the run the white house that w way. it is not the way traditionally it has been run, but other presidents have relied on family, family, and they have certainly had kitchen cabinets and private adviserss advisers, and that is not unusual, but what is unusual is that this man doesn't know anything about what he is doing, and that is unusual. most people who come to that

office have really understood the office, and they know why they want the office. when barack obama became president, my only concern was his lack of experience. it clearly took him a couple of years to learn the job. but he was dedicated to doing that. i mean, he took big books at home every night, and read them and prepared himself and got into the issues, and that is not going to happen with this man. he is 70 years of age, and the pattern is set, and he has pr probably never read a biography or autobiography of any of the predecessors and so he doesn't know -- and the good part is that he doesn't know what all he can do. and somebody has to tell him, and they are not sophisticated enough yet to know. and that is the only saving grace right now. >> and here is the question that i keep raising this particular argument to people, john and just playing the devil's advocate here so you can take my point. so trump is a winner.

he is used to winning, and he loves to win at golf whether he lies about it or not, and he loves to win the bids and the deals -- >> i bet when he plays golf, and the guy who played golf with him said that the nickname is pele, and i said, why do you call him that and he said that he kicks the ball all of the time. laugh laugh >> that is my favorite soccer player and i used to love pele. and so here is the thing. if trump is a winner and loves to win, and at some point realizes that if he keeps going down the path that he is on, he is going to go down not just as a failed president, but as one of the worst presidents in history, and i can't believe a guy with that ego could tolerate that. he does not want to go down as one of the worst presidents, and so if no other fact than he just wants to win and get some points on the scoreboard, maybe he is going to change the ways. >> that is a hope, also, that he is going to the realize that he needs competent people around him, and he has some people who

have that potential. and who are learning quick, and will come up the learning curve quickly. those are the people who he took from goldman sachs, and they are not duds. they are bright people. they will learn. they will figure it out, the system quickly, but they are doing pit hard way. they did not come in with other people to turn to say how do you do this? how do you do that? they have to reinvent the wheel along the way. but that is a good point, because his desire to win could be a self-restraint on some of the craziness that might otherwise happen. >> that is just, and i'm reaching or grasping for possibilities, but that is the only one there for me, and i can't imagine, because if it were me and i got myself in the situation of not wantinging the go down the worst president ever -- >> well, he has started as the worst president ever. >> at some point he would want to make a u-turn you would

think. >> well, the frightening things is bombing bombing syria, and 180 degrees to appears to believe, and did he do it to get the feedback -- the ratings up, because he got the feedback. and if he changes the conversation, and he's got a ship on the way to the waters outside of north korea, and that is pretty dangerous place to go. if this is a diversion or he is also a risk-taker. he is somebody who will take a risk. we know that. he has risked and lost. and we don't know how many ventures he has been in that have really gone bad, because we don't really know, and the tax records are not available, and the business records are not really available, but i -- when he first, tavis, it looked like he was going the first get the nomination, i happened to be having lunch with a lawyer who

had been in litigation maybe 15 or so cases with him, a new jersey lawyer, and i was giving a talk, and this guy said, i have had him in depositions, and he is the one who really first, before a lot of the litigation had become public and made public by "usa today" as the first one who broke the story that he had 3,900 case, and plaintiff in 1,300, and the rest are the defendant, and this is one of the guys who had been sued by trump. and what his clients were sued by was that they were trying to cut them off and not pay them, and litigate rather than settle up at the end of the contract. and he said, he lies. he cheets a he cheats. he steals. it is the business practice. and none of the people have gone veral of them, i ended up with more of the clients, and he said that this is not a good man. >> and back to the point of what he has done in syria, and how squared are you about where we

might be headed in that particular region of the world? >> well, it is a region of the world that there are no simple answers. i don't think that putting a 36-year-old real estate heir in charge of this is going to solve the middle east problems. all good luck and good wishes for mr. kushner, but it is not going to be my top choice if i had that kind of power to put somebody in on that issue. you know, it is a -- it is a problem that has to be solved. we have to be a more part of it and we are have to opened borders for these kind of refug refugees and bring them in and show them the good side of america, and that side of the policy does not match with the sud en care for babies from syria that now have got his attention. >> this is the issue that hillary clinton kept raising all of the times in the speeches and

commercial commercials, do you want this guy to have the nuclear codes, and in the first 100 days, here we go. >> and pretty much, the bombing of the airfield is pretty much what hillary recommended in october of last year, and his response to that is that it is going to start world war iii, and indeed, is that the plan? does he see this leading to world war and hopefully not. >> and yeah -- >> and this is going to certainly divert attention from the russia story. >> one way to get attention off of it. we know that the obviously what led to the ultimate downfall of richard nixon your former boss, a ped the undoing was -- >> lying. more the lying than anything else. >> i take that. so, you know the question. of all of the things that could trip up donald trump, what is going to trip him up? >> i think it is the lies that are going to catch him. he has taken lying in the

campaign and during his presidency to a level that we are all baffled by that anybody think s th thinks that they can get away with this indefinitely and think that it is not going to be coming back to haunt him. he is also -- and lying is what got bill clinton in trouble, and that is what he was impeached for. >> it is rarely the act but the lie or the cover-up. >> exactly, exactly. and so, you know, some of these civil losses, and say that he escapes the, and say that the republicans keep control of the congress for four years, and don't want to touch him. but what could? we, some of the civil suits are not all going to the go away and that is one of the big arguments that has to be decided by the supreme court case. and the case against paula jones started before the presidency followed president clinton into

the presidency, and that is what he was impeached on is the stateme statements in the deposition in the lawsuit with paula jones. and it looks like supreme court 5-4 for him, but justice kennedy could go either way on many of the issues, but if i see him tripped up on anything, it is going to be on the dissembling that is going to be just -- he is desecrating the office that he is a part of with his lies. >> and what about the business dealings? i take your point. he could get caught lying about any several of thing, but separate and apart from that, many people believe he is going to be tripped up on the business dealings. >> well, we don't know, but i think that he is making a lot of money as president, and he is pumping the businesses and using his hotel, and he goes over the have dinner there. and he is usinging mare la-- m e

mar-a-lago, and he is actively using that, and most presidents used the burning tree, and i don't know if the course is as good as burning tree or not, and i have not talked to anybody who has played them both, but the business dealings eventually, it is going to seep out. you know, the truth has its own way of bubbling oup the surface. and what is encouraging is that he has done more for journalism than the past ten presidents, because he is theater. there is a true element of theater about this. it is a little frightening, and i don't think that we need the presidency to be a theatrical reality show, but we are getting it. >> what is the end game? what is the final result going to be of his unrelenting attacks on the media?

>> he will lose that game. there are more of them than him, and it is the old argument of not getting into a fight by somebody who buys ink by the barrel. now, there are more digital outlets than presidential words the deal with them. he can try to poison the press with calling them the enemies of the american people, but the american people are too savvy to buy into it. and yes, it plays well with the base, but the base is not very big. the crowd that he wants to impress are the fellow manhat n manhattanit manhattanites, and he is not impressing them. that is going the cause its own problems. >> since he is the standard bearer for your party now -- >> well, here in california, we cannot declare either one, so i am in that and i do not declare a party and i have voted for

both. >> and so forget the question about the party, and the point that i want to get to -- >> well, frankly, i would be embarrassed to carry that label right now. >> has he changed your politics? >> i have not changed my politics. >> because of him? >> no, or because of nixon. i have sort of stayed where i was which today puts me well left of center. i am called a social liberal on many definition, and conservative, and i was recently the goldwater chair of institutions at arizona state, and i held that chair for a full term over there and taught a course. they did not give me the chair because of the liberal beliefs, but goldwater to dday is way le of center, too [ laughter ] >> point well taken. john dean's latest book in paperback now called "the nixon's defense, what he knew, and when he knew it. the paralli parallels between r

n nixon and donald j. trump are astounding, and we will see if what ultimately gets president trump are the lies. thank you for watching, and as always, keep the faith. for more information on today's show, visit tavis smiley at pbs.org. >> hi, i'm tavis smiley and join me next time as we take a deep dive of what is happening around te country. that is next time. we will see you then.

and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you.

good evening from los angeles, i'm tavis smiley. we'll speak with russian national security expert, tom nichols about russia's u.s. election meddling, possible support for the syrian chemical weapons attack and more. we are glad you joined us. a conversation with national security expert, tom nichols coming up right now.