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Speaker 1: I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the Thing.

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Speaker 1: Jeffrey Tuban is such an institution. One imagines him emerging

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Speaker 1: fully dressed from the womb and walking straight into a

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Speaker 1: TV studio. But before CNN and The New Yorker, before

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Speaker 1: the books, he was a government lawyer, and before that

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Speaker 1: a superstar at Harvard, and before that the young son

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Speaker 1: of Marlene Sanders, the first major female star in TV news.

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Speaker 1: Tuban executive produced the brilliant CNN mini series based on

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Speaker 1: his Patty Hurst book. But first I want to ask

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Speaker 1: him about a theme that runs through his work, namely

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Speaker 1: that he seems to like pissing people off. Fox Studios

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Speaker 1: was going to make a Patty Hurst movie with Tuban

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Speaker 1: until Hurst called the book a hit job. Supreme Court

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Speaker 1: justices felt betrayed by the clerks he coaxed into interviews

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Speaker 1: for his ex is a The Nine, and when he

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Speaker 1: wrote a book about his first job, prosecuting Oliver North,

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Speaker 1: his mentor Iran Contry Independent Council Lawrence Walsh threatened to

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Speaker 1: prefer to to be prosecuted himself if he released the book,

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Speaker 1: in which Walsh claimed he disclosed strategies and secrets of

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Speaker 1: the ongoing investigation. You know, there are people who are

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Speaker 1: friends of mine who have said, you were a punk

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Speaker 1: kid twenty nine years old, What the hell do you

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Speaker 1: have to write a book right away? And and you know, I,

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Speaker 1: I can certainly understand that criticism. That's a that's a

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Speaker 1: sort of matter of taste rather of legality. But I

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Speaker 1: think in terms of like legally certainly had every right

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Speaker 1: to do. In fact, I had to go to court

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Speaker 1: to get a judgment that it was legal for me

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Speaker 1: to do it, which I did. But you know, people

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Speaker 1: who thought it was distasteful. I can certainly understand that.

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Speaker 1: The nine another book he wrote about the court. What

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Speaker 1: prompted you to write that book? I decided to write

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Speaker 1: a novel and it was like a legal thriller, and

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Speaker 1: it's about a TV anchor who gets killed on the air,

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Speaker 1: and it was sort like combining my two worlds, the

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Speaker 1: legal world in the TV world. And I wrote three chapters.

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Speaker 1: And my agents said, you know, there's a famous editor,

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Speaker 1: Phillis Grant, who wants to who thinks it's a great idea,

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Speaker 1: wants to read your novels. You send her the chapters.

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Speaker 1: So I center the chapters and Phillis invited me to

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Speaker 1: her house, gave me a diet coke and said, Jeff,

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Speaker 1: your novel is terrible. Your novel, it's like it's never

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Speaker 1: gonna be good. You should drop it, and instead you

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Speaker 1: should write a book about the Supreme Court. Because you've

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Speaker 1: written profiles of justices. There hadn't been a real behind

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Speaker 1: the scenes book about the Supreme Court since Bob Woodward

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Speaker 1: and Scott Armstrong's The Brethren and the Seventies. I mean,

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Speaker 1: the subject was just waiting to be exploited. And it's

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Speaker 1: still my most successful book, still taught in all sorts

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Speaker 1: of school and the nine and it was a great

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Speaker 1: idea which was not my think. Ginsburg should be able

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Speaker 1: to hanging there. Um, you know, I just saw her

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Speaker 1: the other day. I mean, she is so stooped over. Uh.

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Speaker 1: You know, Ruth Ginsburg is about five foot tall, eighty

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Speaker 1: pounds and tough as any NFL linebacker. And she's gonna

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Speaker 1: fighting claw. She's certainly got all her marbles. She's doing

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Speaker 1: her job as well as she can. She's going to

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Speaker 1: try to hang in there, but we'll see. You know,

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Speaker 1: she's eighty four. Eighty four is not the new anything.

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Speaker 1: Eighty four eighty four. I worked with people for the

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Speaker 1: American Way Norman Leaders organization, a lot of judicial watching

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Speaker 1: going on there and just stressing the people over and

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Speaker 1: over and over again that the court matters most in

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Speaker 1: a way, And and Republicans have recognized that more than Democrats.

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Speaker 1: And and you know, the fact that the majority leader

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Speaker 1: was able to stop uh Barack Obama from filling that

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Speaker 1: seat with Merrick Garland, and the fact that that was

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Speaker 1: certainly taken for granted and the Democrats sort of put

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Speaker 1: up with it, was indicative of the fact that they

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Speaker 1: were a Publicans care as scared so much. You grew

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Speaker 1: up in a household of two very accomplished, smart people.

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Speaker 1: You're an only child. I am, well, you know, in

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Speaker 1: the typical American way, I have a complicated family. I

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Speaker 1: have a much older half sister. What I was raised

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Speaker 1: as an only child. Yeah, and she grew up where Philadelphia,

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Speaker 1: how much older than he was shaved your child in

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Speaker 1: New York, very much so so she was she wasn't

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Speaker 1: around so growing up in your house. So obviously your

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Speaker 1: father is very accomplished, your mother is very accomplished. Your

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Speaker 1: mother Marley and Sanders, who was a big pioneer and

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Speaker 1: broadcast news. Were you kind of like a latchkey kid?

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Speaker 1: I felt like I had a great degree of independence.

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Speaker 1: I remember visiting my friends in the suburbs, thinking, oh

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Speaker 1: my god, this is horrible waiting around for your mom

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Speaker 1: to drive you around somewhere. I mean, you know, I

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Speaker 1: think I started walking to school when I was like

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Speaker 1: seven or eight, earlier than kids do it. Now, we're

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Speaker 1: gonna have guys on like a security detail to tape

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Speaker 1: my kids to school, who are like X Boomberg security

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Speaker 1: people and cops with guns driving my kids to school.

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Speaker 1: It's because you have so many enemies. It's a different

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Speaker 1: but the the uh, who would you say? Would you say?

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Speaker 1: It was equivalent? Which one of them is responsible for

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Speaker 1: your great academic success? She did very well in school

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Speaker 1: in law school, I did. But one of the lessons

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Speaker 1: I learned, and again one of the things I don't

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Speaker 1: think you learn until you have kids of your own

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Speaker 1: is sort of what your parents were like, and the

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Speaker 1: way my parents acted equally as supervisors, as educators, as

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Speaker 1: people who love me. I mean, I really felt like

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Speaker 1: my parents were equals in ways that I didn't realize

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Speaker 1: that the time were so extraordinary. You know, my mother

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Speaker 1: used to tell a funny story that when I was

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Speaker 1: in first grade, for whatever reason, someday I went home

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Speaker 1: with another kid at lunch and I came home and

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Speaker 1: I was talking about my day. I said, mommy' not

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Speaker 1: gonna believe this. His mother was home in the middle

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Speaker 1: of the day. Why wasn't she at work? And that

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Speaker 1: to me was like was was a revelation, because you know,

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Speaker 1: I had I had a mother who worked. Now also,

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Speaker 1: you know, they were hardly wealthy, but they had enough

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Speaker 1: money to have full time help. So we were cushioned

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Speaker 1: in that respect. But you know, my dad was an

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Speaker 1: extraordinary intellect. I mean, he was largely self taught from

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Speaker 1: he was from Philadelphia, and he really grew up in

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Speaker 1: the classical music business. Wound up running the Symphony of

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Speaker 1: the Year, which was Stokowsky's last orchestra, which failed under

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Speaker 1: my father's leadership. It was the days before government subsidies

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Speaker 1: of the arts, and and it was it was a

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Speaker 1: heart wrenching experience, fortunately before I was conscious. And and

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Speaker 1: he then went on to a career in public television

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Speaker 1: where he's really one of the founding fathers. But his

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Speaker 1: love of music was really the great passion of his life.

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Speaker 1: In the one disappointment I think that I was to

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Speaker 1: my parents is that I have utterly no talent in

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Speaker 1: music and not even that much interest in it, which

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Speaker 1: is really no know if you don't know, I did,

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Speaker 1: I took I did take piano lessons, and I was

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Speaker 1: perhaps the worst piano student in American history. I used

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Speaker 1: to have a kitchen timer that like, I had to

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Speaker 1: practice fifteen minutes a night. My most vivid memory of

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Speaker 1: playing the piano was pushing the timer forward so it

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Speaker 1: would end faster. I just was. I just hated it.

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Speaker 1: And musical tastes, you know, I mean I I like

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Speaker 1: the music of my youth, and you know I still

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Speaker 1: love Elvis Costello and but but classical music I don't

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Speaker 1: really know much about. And my dad could identify any

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Speaker 1: piece immediately, opera, anything, and that. Um, for some reason,

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Speaker 1: that was the one sort of intellectual piece of DNA

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Speaker 1: that completely skipped me. Now to jump to the Patty

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Speaker 1: Hurst project, which is based on your book, eRASS was

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Speaker 1: this a pitch from you? Did you say to CNN,

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Speaker 1: let's make my book into a documentary series. Um, it

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Speaker 1: was sort of their idea. How involved were you mean,

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Speaker 1: do they show you cuts? And they show you They

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Speaker 1: showed me cuts. But the most important involvement was early

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Speaker 1: on when I shared with them all my notes, the

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Speaker 1: still photographs that I had, the links to video that

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Speaker 1: I had, UM most importantly really the phone numbers of

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Speaker 1: the people whom I interviewed so they could contact them directly.

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Speaker 1: You interviewed Bill Harris, Emily Bill. That's that's a that's

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Speaker 1: a whole, that's a story on We're going to talk

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Speaker 1: about that. The first thing I say to myself is

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Speaker 1: that Bill Harris is as joyful and unrepentant as can

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Speaker 1: possibly be about what he did. Is that a mistake?

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Speaker 1: That is um that that is not not a mistake

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Speaker 1: at all? And and was he repented in other ways

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Speaker 1: that were left out? Or what you see is what

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Speaker 1: you saw? What you saw is what you get. I mean,

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Speaker 1: I spent a tremendous time amount of time with Bill Harris.

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Speaker 1: Um I um the and I admit tremendous ambivalence about

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Speaker 1: Bill because he did really horrible things. He kidnapped Patty Hurst,

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Speaker 1: which is an unspeakably wrong act. He was a UM

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Speaker 1: you know, he tried to set off bombs. Fortunately he

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Speaker 1: was incompetent, and he never managed to hurt anybody with

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Speaker 1: his bombs. He helped rob Banks. I mean this, I

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Speaker 1: have absolutely no tolerance for, no respect for it, no

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Speaker 1: indulgence for but there is he did it for perversely

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Speaker 1: decent reasons. He was never in it to make money.

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Speaker 1: He was never in it for um, you know, any

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Speaker 1: sort of personal gain. This was a twisted kind of

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Speaker 1: altruism that was behind the whole s l a that

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Speaker 1: they were not to freeze as well. They were twisted

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Speaker 1: and wrong. But you know, in my line of work,

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Speaker 1: I dealt with a lot of criminals. I've been thinking

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Speaker 1: about O. J. Simpson lately with this horrible interview. That's

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Speaker 1: I mean, that is a true sociopath. Bill Harris is

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Speaker 1: not a sociopath. He is a deeply, deeply mis guided person,

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Speaker 1: but there is something about him that is not entirely evil.

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Speaker 1: And the reason why I guess I had perhaps more

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Speaker 1: tolerance for Bill than I should is that I got

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Speaker 1: into the seventies as a subject, and and you know,

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Speaker 1: I was alive in the seventies, but I was a kid,

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Speaker 1: and the degree to which the country was really falling

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Speaker 1: apart in the seventies was something I did not remember

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Speaker 1: or recognize. I mean, the statistic that that haunts me

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Speaker 1: because it's just so amazing. In the early and mid

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Speaker 1: nineties seventies, there were two thousand political bombings a year

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Speaker 1: in the United States. Consider what it's like now when

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Speaker 1: we have one political bombing, and and the fact that

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Speaker 1: the country was convulsed in this way. It wasn't just

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Speaker 1: Bill and Emily Harris and the s l A setting

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Speaker 1: off bombs. It was the weather underground, and you had Watergate,

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Speaker 1: and you had the energy crisis, and and then and

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Speaker 1: then you had the Zodiac Killer in San Francisco, which

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Speaker 1: I had never even heard of, where these African Americans

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Speaker 1: were just killing random white people on the street. And

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Speaker 1: then you have Jim Jones, you know, the People's Temple

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Speaker 1: where nine people committed suicide. I mean, it's just those

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Speaker 1: convulsions Bill and Emily Harris look less aberrational when you

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Speaker 1: see what was going on in the country at the time.

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Speaker 1: You know, you can't help but come out of this

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Speaker 1: thing with a real concern about what a fraud Patty

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Speaker 1: Hurst was. I mean, one of the most harrowing moments

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Speaker 1: is and I think you're narrating at the point when

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Speaker 1: they say she's in the room and the FBI guys

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Speaker 1: come in to take her out of that room, and

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Speaker 1: rather than rushing into their arms and saying thank God

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Speaker 1: you're here, they cover and she could do in the salute.

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Speaker 1: And and when when when they come in the door,

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Speaker 1: she's heading to the bedroom where the guns are. And

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Speaker 1: and you know the reason why I think the Patty

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Speaker 1: Hurst case still compels people so much is so interesting

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Speaker 1: to people. It is because it's a mystery about what

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Speaker 1: goes on in a person's head. And the arguments about

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Speaker 1: whether Patty Hurst was simply coerced to do all that

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Speaker 1: she did or that she actually joined the s l

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Speaker 1: A is a rich, complicated subject, and I don't pretend

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Speaker 1: that it's an easy question to answer. She claims that

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Speaker 1: she was she was coerced by them. When she makes

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Speaker 1: that claim as a defense, I'm sure she opens herself

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Speaker 1: up in California law to have detailed forensic psychiatric examinations

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Speaker 1: correct well. In fact, her trial was very much the

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Speaker 1: battle of experts. There were six psychiatrists to examine her,

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Speaker 1: three from the prosecution, three from the defense, sure, and

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Speaker 1: and and they all testified and and frankly it was

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Speaker 1: not a great moment for the psychiatric profession. It was

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Speaker 1: a lot of gobbledygook that sort of canceled each other out.

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Speaker 1: But what really moved the jury was her behavior during

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Speaker 1: the year and a half she was on the road,

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Speaker 1: on the run with the s l A. And and

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Speaker 1: you know, I never missed, I never minimized, you know,

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Speaker 1: the terror of her kidnapping and the fact that she

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Speaker 1: had sex in a closet, which you know the s

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Speaker 1: l A said was consensual. But I don't believe people

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Speaker 1: who are you know, who who are you know, kidnapped

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Speaker 1: in a closet, are capable of consent in the way

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Speaker 1: that we understand it today. But when you look at

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Speaker 1: her behavior over that year and a half, three bank robberies,

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Speaker 1: including one where a woman was killed, as you mentioned,

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Speaker 1: Rna hoppsle Uh where she shot up a street in

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Speaker 1: Los Angeles, and male sporting goods, which to me is

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Speaker 1: the defining event of her period as a kidnapper, where

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Speaker 1: she tried to set off bombs under police cars in

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Speaker 1: San Francisco, When when she was by herself for long

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Speaker 1: periods of time where she could have made made no

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Speaker 1: attempt to escape. When you add all that up, I think,

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Speaker 1: you know, the the the only verdict I could come

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Speaker 1: to is that she did, actually she did go over

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Speaker 1: what was in her past, what was in her youth?

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Speaker 1: Did she hate? You know not? You know, the interesting

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Speaker 1: thing about Patty's youth, first of all, was how young

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Speaker 1: she was. She was only when she was kidnapped. Uh.

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Speaker 1: But you know, even though she came from a very

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Speaker 1: wealthy family, it was very typical of the era. You know,

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Speaker 1: she piste off from mother. Her mother was a Catholic

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Speaker 1: southern Southerner, you know, very concerned about appearances and propriety

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Speaker 1: and and you know, Patty like boys, and she moved

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Speaker 1: in with her boyfriend, which horrified her mother. But I mean,

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Speaker 1: these were the kind of conflicts that were utterly routine.

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Speaker 1: You know, she was not a particularly political person. She

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Speaker 1: you know, she had worked as a clerk under you know,

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Speaker 1: without people knowing where she was for a few months.

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Speaker 1: She got a sense of a little bit of how

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Speaker 1: the other half lived. But this was not a budding

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Speaker 1: political activist. This was not a huge rebel. You know,

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Speaker 1: there were signs that she was somewhat more rebellious than

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Speaker 1: most kids. You know, she she uh, she she was

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Speaker 1: very tough on the nuns, and she kept getting thrown

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Speaker 1: out of Catholic schools. But I mean this is very

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Speaker 1: minor stuff by the standards of the of the era.

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Speaker 1: So the idea that she was some sort of radical

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Speaker 1: in embryo, they really just wasn't much proof for that.

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Speaker 1: Is it assumed that the Freeze and his organization, everything

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Speaker 1: they did, they were super effective in this brainwashing. You know,

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Speaker 1: to know the s l A is to know they

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Speaker 1: weren't super effective at anything. I mean, they were not competent.

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Speaker 1: They didn't have a plan to brainwash her. You know,

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Speaker 1: quite no one thought she was actually going to join

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Speaker 1: up with them. They basically wanted to get rid of

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Speaker 1: her after a certain period of time. But but I

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Speaker 1: think the best way to describe her her behavior is that,

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Speaker 1: you know, she sort of adapted to her surroundings and

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Speaker 1: and you know she she had a thing for authority figures.

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Speaker 1: When you think about you know, her boyfriends and lovers

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Speaker 1: over this period, Uh, Steve Weed, her fiance had been

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Speaker 1: a math to chure in her high school, an authority figure.

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Speaker 1: Steve Um. Uh, Well, that's that's that's that becomes her

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Speaker 1: husband Um, and he's not just a copies her bodyguard

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Speaker 1: UM and the two boyfriends she had while she was

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Speaker 1: with the s l A. The first one was Willie Wolfe,

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Speaker 1: was sort of her bodyguard within the s l A.

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Speaker 1: And then later in in her period where she acknowledges

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Speaker 1: she has a consensual relationship with Steve Salia, another who

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Speaker 1: was sort of a protector within what became the later

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Speaker 1: s l A. And then of course, her lawyers hire

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Speaker 1: a bodyguard for her when she's out on bail and

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Speaker 1: off duty cop UM named Bernie Shaw, and they they

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Speaker 1: fall in love and they have a long and successful marriage.

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Speaker 1: So she had a thing for sort of authority figures,

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Speaker 1: and she adapted to her surroundings with them. And that's

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Speaker 1: sort of the best way I can characterize, at least

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Speaker 1: her relationship with Matt legal expert Jeffrey Tuban. Another smart

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Speaker 1: kid who turned into a journalistic superstar is George Stephanopoulos.

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Speaker 1: But when he left the White House where he was

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Speaker 1: domestic policy adviser to President Clinton, he wasn't sure where

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Speaker 1: he'd land. I knew I didn't want to be someone

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Speaker 1: who just hung around Washington trading off of what he

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Speaker 1: had done forever, and I knew that in order to

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Speaker 1: feel my age again, I had to start a different career.

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Speaker 1: The rest of that interview is that here's the Thing,

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Speaker 1: Dot Org coming up, Tuban and I go deep on

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Speaker 1: o J. I'm Alec Baldwin, and you were listening to

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Speaker 1: Here's the Thing. New Yorker writer and CNN legal analyst

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Speaker 1: Jeffrey Tuban wrote the definitive book on o J. The

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Speaker 1: thing about o J that was so rich and it

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Speaker 1: was so complicated was that Johnny Cock and who again

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Speaker 1: a complicated person, but someone basically I just loved, understood

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Speaker 1: the context of the story and understood what it meant

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Speaker 1: to blame white cops in Los Angeles and how there

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Speaker 1: were so many justifiable reasons to be for black people

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Speaker 1: to be pissed at the at the l a p D.

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Speaker 1: And he took that history and put it to use

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Speaker 1: in favor of the least deserving person in America. And

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Speaker 1: and so you had this crazy juxtaposition of Cochrane pointing

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Speaker 1: out all these injustices and and then you know, like

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Speaker 1: Manna from Heaven, Mark Ferman appears, who is the personification

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Speaker 1: of all that's wrong with the l a p D.

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Speaker 1: And he puts it to work for the benefit of

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Speaker 1: of O. J. Simpson, who is basically just a wealthy

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Speaker 1: wife beater, that's all he is. This was a domestic

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Speaker 1: violence homicide. Happens all the time in the United States.

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Speaker 1: He's just spoiled, Brad. It was a was spoiled, you know.

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Speaker 1: I mean when he was at Galile High School in

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Speaker 1: San Francisco, he was a football prodigy. He goes to USC,

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Speaker 1: superstar at at USC, the first you know, Heisman Trophy winner,

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Speaker 1: first pick in the draft, and and you know, he

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Speaker 1: led this gilded life, insulated not just from the the

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Speaker 1: broader African American struggle. Yes, the perfect setup for someone

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Speaker 1: who who had this sense of entitlement um that led

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Speaker 1: him to have expectations about his wife that when they

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Speaker 1: were not met, he beat the hell out. What do

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Speaker 1: you think happened? I mean, I mean I hate to

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Speaker 1: ask you specifics like this, Like you watched the program,

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Speaker 1: you know, the one based on your book. You know,

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Speaker 1: you watch this program in five episodes, go by seven

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Speaker 1: and a half hours, and you're still stopping you and

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Speaker 1: I want to get you in a room and I

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Speaker 1: want to go do you still think O J. Did

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Speaker 1: it so all the all the DNA evidence, the DNA

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Speaker 1: of is it? That's it. It's not just the DNA evidence.

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Speaker 1: I mean, you know, there are some glove planted. The

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Speaker 1: glove wasn't planeted, the the the there are one set

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Speaker 1: of bloody footprints walking away from the crime scene. They

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Speaker 1: are size of Levin Bruno Molly shoes that O J owned.

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Speaker 1: I mean, what more do you need to know? And again,

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Speaker 1: you know, people talk about this case as if you know,

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Speaker 1: he it's inexplicable, why would he do this? He was

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Speaker 1: a domestic violence perpetrator. These is this is how these

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Speaker 1: stories escalate. This was not a random crime. This was

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Speaker 1: a domestic violence homicide. And and that I think, I mean,

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Speaker 1: you know, the whole me Too movement I think, you know,

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Speaker 1: has illuminated just how per I mean, obviously that's a

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Speaker 1: somewhat separate subject, but it just shows, you know, how

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Speaker 1: people could discount the domestic violence aspect of the story

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Speaker 1: when it's the core of the story. I mean, it's

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Speaker 1: why this murder took place, and poor Ronald Goldman sort

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Speaker 1: of stumbled on the scene. You know. One of the

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Speaker 1: dirty little secrets of of particularly homicide investigations, is that

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Speaker 1: in the vast, vast majority of the time, it's completely

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Speaker 1: obvious who the perpetrator is. I mean, you know, there

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Speaker 1: a lot a lot of homicides are what people called disputes.

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Speaker 1: And I did a story in Milwaukee about the prosecutor's

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Speaker 1: office there and it said, of the crime victims, of

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Speaker 1: the murder victims in um Milwaukee have criminal records their

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Speaker 1: disputes between criminals. And it's like it's pretty easy to tell,

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Speaker 1: you know, who killed whom and why. When you have

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Speaker 1: cases where you have an aggressive defense, where you have

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Speaker 1: cases where people are going to challenge the evidence. The

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Speaker 1: cops aren't used to that, and um, you know that

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Speaker 1: when you had a genius like Barry Shack challenging the

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Speaker 1: DNA evidence and and talking about the possibility of planning,

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Speaker 1: was the blanket over the bodies? Yeah, I mean it

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Speaker 1: was just this stuff. Was the Asian guy. It was

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Speaker 1: just a criminalist. I mean, you know who was just

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Speaker 1: you know, supposed to be collecting the evidence. And you know,

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Speaker 1: because most most cases ending guilty. Please, that's sort of

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Speaker 1: and the vast majority of cases don't have lawyers the

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Speaker 1: caliber of Barry Check. None of that behavior has ever challenged,

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Speaker 1: but it was and there you see, did she do

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Speaker 1: everything she could have done to protect herself? Did she

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Speaker 1: really really do what a lot of women do and

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Speaker 1: they just knuckle under and hope things get better? Well, no,

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Speaker 1: I mean she left, she divorced him, She called the

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Speaker 1: police eight times at least, I mean, you know this,

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Speaker 1: she did more than a lot of women do under

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Speaker 1: under these circumstances. And also remember you know when she

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Speaker 1: called the police, she knew that the police socialized with OJ,

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Speaker 1: that they went, and that they were as star struck

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Speaker 1: as anybody else by o J. So where was she

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Speaker 1: supposed to turn if the police were essentially on o

402
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Speaker 1: J side? So I have a lot of sympathy for

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Speaker 1: Nicole on that front. Do you think of that a

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Speaker 1: team of Coquine and Check and Shapiro, uh and Bailey,

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Speaker 1: did any of them voice any serious regrets about the

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Speaker 1: outcome of the trial? I mean Shapiro kind of boycotting

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Speaker 1: the festivities afterward and kind of backtracking on certain things

408
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Speaker 1: in the race card. And I actually have a lot

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Speaker 1: of contempt for how Robert Shapiro handled the whole thing,

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Speaker 1: because Shapiro wanted everything both ways. He wanted to be

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Speaker 1: a good lawyer for his client, but he wanted his

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Speaker 1: palace in West l A To still like him. And

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Speaker 1: they all, they all saw how bad, you know, how

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Speaker 1: poisonous the trial had become. So he wanted to help

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Speaker 1: o J. But he wanted to dissociate himself with the defense.

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Speaker 1: I think that's crap. I think he shouldn't have done that,

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Speaker 1: Efflee Bailey, because he's a nut. I think so Ja's innocent,

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Speaker 1: like has a whole crazy theory about how I don't know,

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Speaker 1: I know, I think he actually believes it. I mean,

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Speaker 1: he um Johnny, and Johnny was like, I did my job,

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Speaker 1: I blame the cops. I always blame the cops in

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Speaker 1: my case, and you come and take me happy with

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Speaker 1: the result. Barry Scheck believes with all his heart that

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Speaker 1: the evidence was planted. What he ultimately thinks about o

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Speaker 1: J's guilt or innocence, I'm not sure. Well we you know,

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Speaker 1: I said, I mean, I know one loved Barry Scheck.

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Speaker 1: I haven't gone there with him, but he believed with

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Speaker 1: all his heart that the evidence was planted, and he

429
00:24:26,359 --> 00:24:28,760
Speaker 1: thought that alone justified an acquittal. I don't think the

430
00:24:28,760 --> 00:24:31,520
Speaker 1: evidence was planted. I didn't think there was a justified acquittal.

431
00:24:31,600 --> 00:24:33,760
Speaker 1: So there were different attitudes on the part of the defense.

432
00:24:34,040 --> 00:24:37,800
Speaker 1: When you look back on Clark and Darten, Uh in retrospect,

433
00:24:38,000 --> 00:24:42,560
Speaker 1: I'm wondering, there's a real distance from all this, uh,

434
00:24:42,680 --> 00:24:45,560
Speaker 1: you know, develop your perspective at all, or people's perspectives

435
00:24:45,560 --> 00:24:47,800
Speaker 1: about it. Do you look back and think beyond is

436
00:24:47,840 --> 00:24:50,919
Speaker 1: firm in the pivotal moment. I think the case when

437
00:24:50,920 --> 00:24:52,600
Speaker 1: they put him on the stand, well, I mean it's

438
00:24:52,600 --> 00:24:54,000
Speaker 1: not so much they blow the case when they put

439
00:24:54,080 --> 00:24:55,600
Speaker 1: him on the stand, because the defense would have put

440
00:24:55,680 --> 00:24:58,440
Speaker 1: him on the stand. I mean, Ferman was the cancer

441
00:24:58,520 --> 00:25:00,800
Speaker 1: at the heart of the case. And they couldn't not

442
00:25:01,480 --> 00:25:03,720
Speaker 1: they couldn't read them out, read them out of the

443
00:25:03,760 --> 00:25:06,800
Speaker 1: case because you know, he did discover the glove at

444
00:25:06,840 --> 00:25:09,919
Speaker 1: OJ's residence. I mean it was not he. They couldn't

445
00:25:09,920 --> 00:25:12,679
Speaker 1: pretend that he had no role in the case. You know,

446
00:25:12,760 --> 00:25:15,439
Speaker 1: when you look at you know, a four month trial

447
00:25:16,080 --> 00:25:20,520
Speaker 1: where the jury deliberates for half a day, there was

448
00:25:20,560 --> 00:25:22,959
Speaker 1: no one turning point. I mean, obviously Chris Dartin shouldn't

449
00:25:22,960 --> 00:25:25,600
Speaker 1: have told him to put on the glove. But the

450
00:25:25,640 --> 00:25:27,720
Speaker 1: case was lost in a million ways, and it was

451
00:25:27,760 --> 00:25:31,000
Speaker 1: probably lost in jury selection. So, I mean one of

452
00:25:31,000 --> 00:25:36,760
Speaker 1: the things I like about going back to stories that, um,

453
00:25:36,920 --> 00:25:39,000
Speaker 1: you know, we're twenty years old or even forty years old,

454
00:25:39,000 --> 00:25:41,239
Speaker 1: like Patty Hurst, is that people have sort of a

455
00:25:41,240 --> 00:25:43,360
Speaker 1: tragic sense about them and I don't I mean tragic

456
00:25:43,400 --> 00:25:47,239
Speaker 1: in the Greek sense of it was all preordained. We

457
00:25:47,359 --> 00:25:51,280
Speaker 1: think we can control events, but events control us. You know,

458
00:25:51,359 --> 00:25:54,200
Speaker 1: we're so engaged in being angry at the time, and

459
00:25:54,240 --> 00:25:55,920
Speaker 1: why didn't you do this? Why didn't you do that?

460
00:25:56,359 --> 00:25:59,639
Speaker 1: When you go back twenty years or forty years, people

461
00:25:59,640 --> 00:26:03,159
Speaker 1: are I think more philosophical about about these subjects, at

462
00:26:03,240 --> 00:26:06,840
Speaker 1: least I am, and I enjoy that kind of that

463
00:26:06,960 --> 00:26:10,359
Speaker 1: kind of work. Do you have more editorial freedom, would

464
00:26:10,359 --> 00:26:14,600
Speaker 1: you say writing books around the New Yorker books? Um,

465
00:26:14,800 --> 00:26:18,280
Speaker 1: the the difference, Well, the New Yorker is and it's

466
00:26:18,280 --> 00:26:19,840
Speaker 1: one of the reasons I love it. But it is

467
00:26:19,880 --> 00:26:23,560
Speaker 1: a very intensively edited magazine. I mean, you know, starting

468
00:26:23,600 --> 00:26:26,640
Speaker 1: with David Remnick, but also the senior editors who who

469
00:26:26,720 --> 00:26:28,560
Speaker 1: you know deal with you day to day. I mean

470
00:26:28,680 --> 00:26:33,120
Speaker 1: they are they are tough and fastidious, and they tell

471
00:26:33,160 --> 00:26:34,719
Speaker 1: you to go rewrite, and they tell you to do

472
00:26:34,760 --> 00:26:41,320
Speaker 1: more reporting and um, there is a um and I

473
00:26:41,320 --> 00:26:43,480
Speaker 1: mean this in a good way, but there is a

474
00:26:43,600 --> 00:26:46,959
Speaker 1: formula of sorts. I mean there is a rigor that

475
00:26:47,080 --> 00:26:51,120
Speaker 1: is imposed on New Yorker stories that at least I

476
00:26:51,160 --> 00:26:56,320
Speaker 1: feel kind of constrains my voice. I and and and

477
00:26:56,440 --> 00:26:59,560
Speaker 1: New Yorker story. You know, the New Yorker stories, you know,

478
00:26:59,720 --> 00:27:01,800
Speaker 1: off and have a point of view, but mostly they

479
00:27:01,880 --> 00:27:06,280
Speaker 1: are laying out facts. I feel like when I write

480
00:27:06,320 --> 00:27:08,879
Speaker 1: a book, when I go to the trouble of writing

481
00:27:08,920 --> 00:27:12,080
Speaker 1: a book, I owe it to the reader sort of

482
00:27:12,160 --> 00:27:15,080
Speaker 1: laying out where I stand. And like, for example, I

483
00:27:15,119 --> 00:27:18,080
Speaker 1: wrote a number of pieces about O. J. Simpson in

484
00:27:18,119 --> 00:27:20,679
Speaker 1: The New Yorker at the time, but I never said,

485
00:27:21,160 --> 00:27:23,479
Speaker 1: you know, do I think he's guilty, because that just

486
00:27:23,600 --> 00:27:25,719
Speaker 1: wouldn't have fit within the truth. I am a bit

487
00:27:25,720 --> 00:27:27,600
Speaker 1: of a New Yorker story in my book. I think

488
00:27:27,600 --> 00:27:29,480
Speaker 1: I said it on the third page that you know,

489
00:27:29,600 --> 00:27:33,880
Speaker 1: it's absolutely positively guilty. And I think, you know, when

490
00:27:33,880 --> 00:27:36,119
Speaker 1: I wrote a book about impeachment, I I said I

491
00:27:36,200 --> 00:27:39,000
Speaker 1: thought the impeachment of Bill Clinton was a disgrace. Uh,

492
00:27:39,080 --> 00:27:41,200
Speaker 1: you know, written two books in the Supreme Court which

493
00:27:41,240 --> 00:27:45,680
Speaker 1: have less clear there's not sort of guilty innocent dialectic

494
00:27:45,680 --> 00:27:48,600
Speaker 1: in them. They are, you know, more broadly narrative. But

495
00:27:48,760 --> 00:27:52,240
Speaker 1: I feel a greater freedom to give my opinion in

496
00:27:52,280 --> 00:27:54,080
Speaker 1: a book than I do in a New Yorker story.

497
00:27:54,240 --> 00:27:56,760
Speaker 1: What would you say from people who aren't that familiar

498
00:27:56,800 --> 00:27:59,560
Speaker 1: with to go to Clinton now? To jump to Clinton now?

499
00:27:59,680 --> 00:28:01,919
Speaker 1: A big is all these stories of something in common

500
00:28:01,920 --> 00:28:07,920
Speaker 1: where someone does something and some big, big ticket litigation ensues,

501
00:28:08,600 --> 00:28:11,000
Speaker 1: and that litigation is complicated by the fact that the

502
00:28:11,000 --> 00:28:13,600
Speaker 1: person is no altar board. They've done O J killed

503
00:28:13,600 --> 00:28:16,960
Speaker 1: his wife. But as Juror number ten says, we're gonna

504
00:28:17,080 --> 00:28:20,160
Speaker 1: We're gonna settle the score for Rod Mcking. I want

505
00:28:20,200 --> 00:28:22,680
Speaker 1: to say this carefully. I mean, I know Clinton. I'm

506
00:28:22,680 --> 00:28:25,000
Speaker 1: friends with Clinton. However friendly you can be with the

507
00:28:25,000 --> 00:28:28,359
Speaker 1: former president the United States. Uh, And yet you know,

508
00:28:28,440 --> 00:28:32,879
Speaker 1: you wonder beyond his libido and his appetites and things

509
00:28:32,920 --> 00:28:34,639
Speaker 1: that got him in trouble, the people that wanted to

510
00:28:34,680 --> 00:28:38,040
Speaker 1: bring him down politically, they hated him for what. Well,

511
00:28:38,080 --> 00:28:40,880
Speaker 1: you know, it's funny. I think it returns to what

512
00:28:40,920 --> 00:28:44,080
Speaker 1: we were talking about earlier, the sixties and seventies. I

513
00:28:44,120 --> 00:28:50,280
Speaker 1: think they thought Bill Clinton was the embodiment of the

514
00:28:50,400 --> 00:28:54,040
Speaker 1: changes in society from the sixties and seventies, that these

515
00:28:54,040 --> 00:29:00,280
Speaker 1: people didn't like sexual liberation, less uh scrupulous morality, the

516
00:29:00,400 --> 00:29:02,680
Speaker 1: rise of women. I think, you know, the hatred of

517
00:29:02,760 --> 00:29:05,120
Speaker 1: Hillary Clinton, which of course we saw come to fruition

518
00:29:05,160 --> 00:29:07,440
Speaker 1: in two thousand and sixteen. You know, that was a

519
00:29:07,440 --> 00:29:10,720
Speaker 1: big part of why they hated Clinton, to the famous

520
00:29:10,800 --> 00:29:12,920
Speaker 1: moment where she says, well, I could just stay at

521
00:29:12,960 --> 00:29:16,560
Speaker 1: home and bake cookies. Um, they hated Cloton for that.

522
00:29:16,760 --> 00:29:20,800
Speaker 1: They hated Hillary, they hated Bill and I think the

523
00:29:20,800 --> 00:29:24,480
Speaker 1: the the hostility to Clinton that that that led to

524
00:29:24,560 --> 00:29:28,800
Speaker 1: impeachment was much less based in any sort of policy matter.

525
00:29:28,920 --> 00:29:32,719
Speaker 1: I mean, Clinton's policies were hardly very radical. It was

526
00:29:33,000 --> 00:29:36,840
Speaker 1: that Clinton was the embodiment of sort of the worst

527
00:29:36,840 --> 00:29:39,360
Speaker 1: side of the baby boom in their view, that that

528
00:29:39,440 --> 00:29:46,040
Speaker 1: the self indulgent, uh morally right. You know, dodged the draft,

529
00:29:46,680 --> 00:29:50,040
Speaker 1: most of his critics stoffs the draft two but that's okay. Um,

530
00:29:50,080 --> 00:29:52,400
Speaker 1: all of that I think was why they hated Clinton

531
00:29:52,560 --> 00:29:56,400
Speaker 1: much more than any sort of you know, police I

532
00:29:56,480 --> 00:29:58,520
Speaker 1: knew everything that was wrong with Hillary Clinton, or I

533
00:29:58,560 --> 00:30:00,480
Speaker 1: was familiar with the complaints about hill to be Clinton

534
00:30:00,480 --> 00:30:03,240
Speaker 1: in where there was some strand of validity of that.

535
00:30:03,800 --> 00:30:07,440
Speaker 1: But uh, you know, I and when I look back

536
00:30:07,480 --> 00:30:09,840
Speaker 1: on it now, it's like the slow motions, like the

537
00:30:09,880 --> 00:30:13,520
Speaker 1: Titanic kidding the Iceberg. It never occurred to me that

538
00:30:13,600 --> 00:30:15,960
Speaker 1: Donald Trump could become president of the United States, and

539
00:30:16,080 --> 00:30:21,040
Speaker 1: he has been exactly what his critics claimed he would

540
00:30:21,080 --> 00:30:24,240
Speaker 1: be as president. I mean, you know, I the thing

541
00:30:24,320 --> 00:30:27,560
Speaker 1: that that really just I can't get over about the

542
00:30:27,560 --> 00:30:31,000
Speaker 1: Trump presidency is not so much that he's conservative politically,

543
00:30:31,040 --> 00:30:33,560
Speaker 1: and he puts someone very conservative on the Supreme Court,

544
00:30:34,040 --> 00:30:36,600
Speaker 1: even though who knows what his actual politics really are.

545
00:30:36,640 --> 00:30:38,440
Speaker 1: I mean, the idea that Donald Trump is like somehow

546
00:30:38,440 --> 00:30:41,720
Speaker 1: opposed to abortion is kind of comical, right, But but

547
00:30:41,760 --> 00:30:44,880
Speaker 1: I mean, he has he has made his political alliance

548
00:30:44,960 --> 00:30:49,000
Speaker 1: with the most conservative part of the Republican Party. And

549
00:30:49,240 --> 00:30:51,800
Speaker 1: the thing that just kills me every time he does

550
00:30:51,840 --> 00:30:55,080
Speaker 1: it is when he tweets or says, you know, why

551
00:30:55,120 --> 00:30:59,080
Speaker 1: isn't Hillary Clinton being prosecuted? Why why aren't the FBI

552
00:30:59,160 --> 00:31:02,120
Speaker 1: agents being pro secuited. The idea that you can call

553
00:31:02,280 --> 00:31:05,959
Speaker 1: for the imprisonment of your political rivals is precisely what

554
00:31:06,000 --> 00:31:10,720
Speaker 1: happens in authoritarian countries, and his obvious affection for authoritarians

555
00:31:10,760 --> 00:31:13,880
Speaker 1: like Putin, like Urdawan in Turkey. I mean, this is

556
00:31:13,960 --> 00:31:16,680
Speaker 1: something I never thought would happen in the United States.

557
00:31:16,720 --> 00:31:19,880
Speaker 1: I knew we'd have conservative president George W. Bush was

558
00:31:19,880 --> 00:31:22,000
Speaker 1: was conservative, and I you know, I thought the Iraq

559
00:31:22,040 --> 00:31:25,080
Speaker 1: War was a disaster. I thought the economy collapsed under him.

560
00:31:25,280 --> 00:31:27,400
Speaker 1: But I mean these were sort of within the normal

561
00:31:27,600 --> 00:31:32,480
Speaker 1: range of American politics. The casual racism, the bigotry. You know,

562
00:31:32,520 --> 00:31:36,640
Speaker 1: it's like Maxine Waters, the African American congressman from congressman

563
00:31:36,680 --> 00:31:38,840
Speaker 1: from from Los Angeles, and he he says, you know,

564
00:31:38,880 --> 00:31:41,200
Speaker 1: you know, she's very she's very low i Q. She's

565
00:31:41,320 --> 00:31:43,480
Speaker 1: very low IQ. I mean, the idea that the president

566
00:31:43,520 --> 00:31:46,360
Speaker 1: of the United States talks that way. How do we

567
00:31:46,440 --> 00:31:49,480
Speaker 1: deal with that going forward? You know, do we you know,

568
00:31:49,520 --> 00:31:52,280
Speaker 1: the one line we you know, normalize it? I mean,

569
00:31:52,440 --> 00:31:56,280
Speaker 1: when do we stop pointing out the racism, the ignorance,

570
00:31:56,760 --> 00:32:00,760
Speaker 1: the the intolerance of the authoritarian tendant season I don't know.

571
00:32:00,880 --> 00:32:02,680
Speaker 1: I mean I really don't know. And some people think, well,

572
00:32:02,720 --> 00:32:04,640
Speaker 1: you should just ignore the tweets. How you can ignore

573
00:32:04,680 --> 00:32:10,040
Speaker 1: the tweets. I mean, he's completely guilt guiltless either way. Uh,

574
00:32:10,200 --> 00:32:12,600
Speaker 1: do you think we're going to see something from Mueller soon.

575
00:32:12,840 --> 00:32:17,440
Speaker 1: You know, the crucial question that of the Muller investigation,

576
00:32:17,520 --> 00:32:20,680
Speaker 1: which has not been which which I don't know the

577
00:32:20,680 --> 00:32:26,320
Speaker 1: answer to, is we now know there was this enormously

578
00:32:26,440 --> 00:32:30,840
Speaker 1: elaborate Russian effort to get Donald Trump elected president. There

579
00:32:31,040 --> 00:32:35,520
Speaker 1: was this extreme solicitude for Russia reflected throughout the Trump

580
00:32:35,560 --> 00:32:40,560
Speaker 1: campaign and his campaign chairman um for a while Paul

581
00:32:40,560 --> 00:32:45,320
Speaker 1: Mantiford was like literally in hock to Vladimir Putin's allies.

582
00:32:45,800 --> 00:32:50,160
Speaker 1: What we have not seen clearly is the the joining

583
00:32:50,200 --> 00:32:52,640
Speaker 1: of those two, the the collusion as it were. I mean,

584
00:32:52,680 --> 00:32:56,000
Speaker 1: there there are examples. There's the meeting in June of

585
00:32:57,120 --> 00:33:01,320
Speaker 1: in sixteen and Trump Tower. There is Roger Stone talking

586
00:33:01,320 --> 00:33:05,760
Speaker 1: about Wiki leaks uh in advance of those releases. But

587
00:33:05,760 --> 00:33:09,840
Speaker 1: but the the clear proof of Trump's involvement with Russia's

588
00:33:10,320 --> 00:33:13,600
Speaker 1: or Russia's effort to help him has not yet been made.

589
00:33:14,200 --> 00:33:16,480
Speaker 1: And and that's what I'm waiting to see whether Mueller

590
00:33:16,520 --> 00:33:20,880
Speaker 1: can do. Is this your next book? Yes? Yes, it

591
00:33:21,000 --> 00:33:23,160
Speaker 1: is like your pieces in the New Yorker. Now, yes,

592
00:33:23,240 --> 00:33:25,960
Speaker 1: I I'm going to do a book about this investigation,

593
00:33:26,280 --> 00:33:29,640
Speaker 1: and and and and you know I'm not in a hurry.

594
00:33:29,680 --> 00:33:33,400
Speaker 1: This is not going to be over very soon, and

595
00:33:33,920 --> 00:33:36,480
Speaker 1: you know, not least because no one from Mueller's office

596
00:33:36,480 --> 00:33:38,600
Speaker 1: will talk to me while this is going on. I'm

597
00:33:38,640 --> 00:33:41,680
Speaker 1: going to just wait and it's going to go through.

598
00:33:41,880 --> 00:33:44,160
Speaker 1: Most of two is going to be a movie too.

599
00:33:45,120 --> 00:33:47,240
Speaker 1: It looks like we're gonna sell the rights. Well, as

600
00:33:47,240 --> 00:33:48,920
Speaker 1: you well know, just selling the rights doesn't mean that

601
00:33:49,000 --> 00:33:50,800
Speaker 1: it's gonna be a movie. But it looks like we're

602
00:33:50,800 --> 00:33:53,360
Speaker 1: gonna sell. But what you're gonna need is a really

603
00:33:53,440 --> 00:33:56,720
Speaker 1: good Trump control with God who knows where I can.

604
00:33:58,120 --> 00:34:01,680
Speaker 1: It's not me. I'm the worst Trump impersonator. Apparently that's

605
00:34:01,680 --> 00:34:05,240
Speaker 1: out there. It's incredible, incredible. Well, so you'd say that

606
00:34:05,320 --> 00:34:07,520
Speaker 1: the through line, if there is a through line, I

607
00:34:07,560 --> 00:34:10,000
Speaker 1: know your books, what is it? It's it's the law,

608
00:34:10,360 --> 00:34:17,520
Speaker 1: the drama, the stakes, the importance of legal disputes and

609
00:34:17,600 --> 00:34:21,239
Speaker 1: their resolution. We were saying, my producers are not before

610
00:34:21,280 --> 00:34:23,880
Speaker 1: we started with you. You're like the Steven Spielberg of

611
00:34:24,000 --> 00:34:28,520
Speaker 1: legal books. I am exactly like Steven Spielberg, exactly the

612
00:34:29,160 --> 00:34:35,040
Speaker 1: several zeros off everybody else Spielberg. But but but there

613
00:34:35,040 --> 00:34:40,640
Speaker 1: a big, sprawling themes Clinton O. J. Patty story David Remny,

614
00:34:40,680 --> 00:34:42,719
Speaker 1: the editor of The New Yorker. When he when he's

615
00:34:42,920 --> 00:34:46,560
Speaker 1: when he's talking about story ideas, he always says, bring

616
00:34:46,640 --> 00:34:50,840
Speaker 1: me big dumb ideas, like bring me like what people

617
00:34:50,920 --> 00:34:53,320
Speaker 1: really want to know about? Like And I remember I

618
00:34:53,680 --> 00:34:56,160
Speaker 1: was kicking around story ideas with him once he says, well,

619
00:34:56,160 --> 00:34:58,000
Speaker 1: what about the Chief Justice of the United States? So,

620
00:34:58,040 --> 00:35:02,200
Speaker 1: I mean, I think, given how much this story has

621
00:35:02,880 --> 00:35:06,959
Speaker 1: let our politics has you know, transfixed the country has

622
00:35:06,960 --> 00:35:10,880
Speaker 1: really called into question the legitimacy of this entire presidential election,

623
00:35:11,000 --> 00:35:12,640
Speaker 1: why shouldn't I write a book about it? I mean,

624
00:35:12,680 --> 00:35:17,440
Speaker 1: I really do think of myself fundamentally as a legal journalist.

625
00:35:17,520 --> 00:35:19,279
Speaker 1: I mean, you asked me earlier than I did. I

626
00:35:19,320 --> 00:35:21,239
Speaker 1: think Donald Trump was gonna win. You know, I know

627
00:35:21,320 --> 00:35:24,960
Speaker 1: people like Ron Brownstein who are brilliant at analyzing polls

628
00:35:25,040 --> 00:35:28,000
Speaker 1: and analyzing you know, trends and politics. That's not me.

629
00:35:28,840 --> 00:35:30,880
Speaker 1: But what is the Supreme Court going to do on

630
00:35:30,920 --> 00:35:33,880
Speaker 1: an issue that I'm that I'm good at and that

631
00:35:34,080 --> 00:35:37,600
Speaker 1: I understand and that I care about? Um, How will

632
00:35:37,640 --> 00:35:40,799
Speaker 1: a jury react to certain evidence that interests me that

633
00:35:40,920 --> 00:35:43,759
Speaker 1: I feel like I'm is in my Bailey Wick. So

634
00:35:43,800 --> 00:35:47,440
Speaker 1: I just you know, I'm it's sort of like anchoring

635
00:35:47,480 --> 00:35:50,239
Speaker 1: on television and news. You know, people have always asked me,

636
00:35:50,280 --> 00:35:52,600
Speaker 1: you know, not always no one gives. No one really

637
00:35:52,640 --> 00:35:54,319
Speaker 1: cares that much whether I'm an anchor or not. But

638
00:35:54,360 --> 00:35:55,799
Speaker 1: you know, do I want to anchor? I really don't

639
00:35:55,840 --> 00:35:59,000
Speaker 1: want to anchor? And it's like not, It's it's just

640
00:35:59,120 --> 00:36:01,359
Speaker 1: not something I counting on you not to know I'm not.

641
00:36:01,719 --> 00:36:05,360
Speaker 1: And also they all get fired for the most part.

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00:36:05,520 --> 00:36:09,080
Speaker 1: It's and so, you know, I feel like I have

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Speaker 1: found my niches in in uh, providing content, and I'm

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00:36:14,960 --> 00:36:17,319
Speaker 1: happy with them. I don't need more. One of the

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Speaker 1: things that's emerged from the issues about the election was

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00:36:22,880 --> 00:36:26,399
Speaker 1: reflecting back on Obama and what Obama didn't do. When

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Speaker 1: you look back on Obama through this prism of almost

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00:36:29,840 --> 00:36:31,880
Speaker 1: you know, a year and a half at least of Trump,

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00:36:32,160 --> 00:36:36,280
Speaker 1: has your opinion of him changed at all? Not really? Um,

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00:36:36,360 --> 00:36:39,640
Speaker 1: you know, speaking of books, you could write a whole

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00:36:39,719 --> 00:36:44,640
Speaker 1: book exploring the decisions made under the two thousands in

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00:36:44,680 --> 00:36:48,400
Speaker 1: the two thousand sixteen election that we're based on the

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00:36:48,400 --> 00:36:51,880
Speaker 1: assumption Hillary was going to win anyway. So much of

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Speaker 1: people's behavior was based on the idea that she was

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00:36:54,640 --> 00:36:58,880
Speaker 1: going to win anyway. Obama didn't raise as big a

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00:36:58,960 --> 00:37:01,040
Speaker 1: stink as he might have about the Russians, which he

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00:37:01,120 --> 00:37:05,000
Speaker 1: knew about, because he thought she was going to win anyway,

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00:37:05,120 --> 00:37:08,040
Speaker 1: and the Republicans were not going to help him raise

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00:37:08,160 --> 00:37:11,000
Speaker 1: this alarm. You know, Jim call me. Thought she was

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00:37:11,000 --> 00:37:13,920
Speaker 1: gonna win anyway, so he blew up the you know,

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00:37:14,080 --> 00:37:17,560
Speaker 1: he put that stuff out there the week before the election.

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00:37:17,600 --> 00:37:20,160
Speaker 1: They didn't think it mattered, didn't think it mattered. And

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Speaker 1: how wrong they all were. A sobering thought from legal

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Speaker 1: writer and analyst Jeffrey Tuban, who is as eager to

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Speaker 1: write as I am to read the last chapter of

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00:37:34,480 --> 00:37:39,040
Speaker 1: his upcoming book on the Trump presidency. I'm Alec Baldwin,

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Speaker 1: and you were listening to Here's the Thing