WEBVTT - Jonathan Karl & David Sirota 0:00:00.640 --> 0:00:04.160 Hi, I'm Molly John Fast and this is Fast Politics, 0:00:04.400 --> 0:00:07.160 where we discussed the top political headlines with some of 0:00:07.160 --> 0:00:08.720 today's best minds. 0:00:08.800 --> 0:00:10.959 We're on vacation today, but that doesn't mean we don't 0:00:10.960 --> 0:00:13.160 have a great show for you. The Lever's David Sirota 0:00:13.200 --> 0:00:15.440 stuffs by to talk about his new book master Plan, 0:00:15.680 --> 0:00:18.880 The Hidden Plot to legalize Corruption in America. But first 0:00:19.040 --> 0:00:21.959 we'll talk to ABC News Jonathan Carl and he's going 0:00:22.040 --> 0:00:24.680 to tell us all about his new book, Retribution, Donald 0:00:24.720 --> 0:00:26.840 Trump and the campaign that changed America. 0:00:26.920 --> 0:00:29.639 Well, Hole's politics. How are you, young Carl? 0:00:30.040 --> 0:00:31.800 Doing great? Thanks for having me on. 0:00:32.360 --> 0:00:35.960 I'm so excited, so talk to me about this book. 0:00:36.120 --> 0:00:38.840 Look, as you know, and I never would have thought 0:00:38.880 --> 0:00:40.959 this would have been my destiny. But this is now 0:00:40.960 --> 0:00:43.760 the fourth book I've written on the Trump era, starting 0:00:43.800 --> 0:00:45.960 with when I was covering him the first time around, 0:00:46.320 --> 0:00:49.080 and I wrote Front, wrote The Trump Show, and it 0:00:49.280 --> 0:00:52.400 just keeps going. This, Molly, is the I think the 0:00:52.440 --> 0:00:56.000 most important of the books I've written, and certainly it 0:00:56.120 --> 0:00:59.319 was the most challenging. This is the longest book, it's 0:00:59.360 --> 0:01:03.760 the most heavily reported book, and I think it's you know, 0:01:04.520 --> 0:01:07.120 it's called Retribution. I chose that name the day after 0:01:07.319 --> 0:01:12.560 Donald Trump won in November last year. And I chose 0:01:12.600 --> 0:01:14.399 it for a reason. And you see it playing out 0:01:14.440 --> 0:01:14.839 right now. 0:01:15.040 --> 0:01:20.280 Yeah, I mean it's kind of shocking. My favorite thing 0:01:20.319 --> 0:01:22.560 on the campaign trail was where they'd be like, well, 0:01:22.560 --> 0:01:25.679 you don't really want to exact retribution on your enemies, 0:01:25.680 --> 0:01:26.479 and he'd be like, no. 0:01:26.319 --> 0:01:29.440 No, I do, I do. 0:01:29.840 --> 0:01:30.120 Yes. 0:01:30.920 --> 0:01:33.520 I mean we probably figured that out when he did 0:01:33.560 --> 0:01:36.919 his first official rally of the campaign in Waco, Texas. 0:01:37.160 --> 0:01:40.679 And at that rally, as you recall, he played on 0:01:40.720 --> 0:01:45.679 the big screens behind the stage those huge jumbotron's images 0:01:45.880 --> 0:01:49.080 of the January sixth attack on the Capitol, and of 0:01:49.080 --> 0:01:53.640 course played the J six choir singing the national anthem. 0:01:53.880 --> 0:01:56.240 Yeah, I would love you to just talk to us 0:01:56.280 --> 0:02:00.440 about like, why, what we can learn from this? We 0:02:00.520 --> 0:02:03.200 are watching retribution in real time, but what are the 0:02:03.280 --> 0:02:05.000 sort of lessons from this book? 0:02:05.200 --> 0:02:08.800 Well, there were two moments that really drove my desire 0:02:08.880 --> 0:02:11.440 to do another one of these books. The first was 0:02:12.000 --> 0:02:14.680 going to see Donald Trump on trial in New York 0:02:14.760 --> 0:02:18.640 in that dingy one hundred Center Street courtroom where he 0:02:18.760 --> 0:02:21.880 was forced to appear four days a week. Compelled to 0:02:21.960 --> 0:02:25.640 be there, had to sit silently while people on the 0:02:25.760 --> 0:02:28.760 stands said, you know, terrible things about him, embarrassing things 0:02:28.800 --> 0:02:32.880 about him, Stormy Daniels testifying about Trump wanting to spanker 0:02:33.360 --> 0:02:36.920 with a magazine with his face on the cover, and 0:02:37.080 --> 0:02:40.960 also being there as Joe Biden dropped out of the race, 0:02:41.280 --> 0:02:45.320 it just occurred to me that we were watching a campaign, 0:02:45.440 --> 0:02:49.919 a presidential campaign unlike any other that we have ever 0:02:49.960 --> 0:02:52.320 seen in American history. I mean, maybe you have to 0:02:52.360 --> 0:02:55.079 go back to like nineteen twelve to find something remotely 0:02:55.400 --> 0:02:59.160 as chaotic and unpredictable and also, in this case, something 0:02:59.320 --> 0:03:01.799 so high stated. So I started, you know, obviously I'm 0:03:01.840 --> 0:03:05.200 reporting day to day for ABC News, I'm doing my 0:03:05.720 --> 0:03:08.880 day job. But as I'm doing it, I was coming 0:03:08.919 --> 0:03:12.359 back to what I would want to try to tell 0:03:12.400 --> 0:03:15.160 the larger story of what was really happening in this campaign, 0:03:15.360 --> 0:03:17.440 with the benefit of a little bit of hindsight and 0:03:17.520 --> 0:03:20.600 the time to do some more in depth reporting about 0:03:20.639 --> 0:03:23.600 what was happening. And that's the product of this book. 0:03:23.680 --> 0:03:26.760 I mean, it's been frankly, it's been an working on. 0:03:26.800 --> 0:03:29.360 This has been an obsession of mine for over a year. 0:03:29.560 --> 0:03:32.680 There's a lot that It tells you about how Donald 0:03:32.720 --> 0:03:36.160 Trump came back to power and what his intention was 0:03:36.200 --> 0:03:38.480 from the start to do with that power, which is 0:03:39.120 --> 0:03:42.320 in large part to get even at all of those 0:03:42.360 --> 0:03:44.760 who he believes have wronged him. 0:03:44.800 --> 0:03:45.680 What does it end? 0:03:46.000 --> 0:03:48.280 Well, I don't know where it ends. 0:03:48.600 --> 0:03:50.600 I mean, that's what all of us are thinking all 0:03:50.640 --> 0:03:51.000 the time. 0:03:51.280 --> 0:03:53.920 Right Yeah, And I you know, I feel like I've 0:03:54.000 --> 0:03:56.840 known Trump for more than thirty years. I've I've spent 0:03:56.960 --> 0:04:00.000 so much of my professional life now, you know, cross 0:04:00.000 --> 0:04:02.480 I'm ling him. I can tell you a lot about 0:04:02.480 --> 0:04:05.680 Trump how it ends. I can't really tell you obviously, 0:04:05.760 --> 0:04:07.640 you have all this talk now that he doesn't want 0:04:07.680 --> 0:04:10.560 to leave the White House, the abandon talking about, you know, 0:04:10.680 --> 0:04:13.520 him running again in twenty twenty eight. Donald Trump's not 0:04:13.680 --> 0:04:17.719 ruling out trying to I mean, constitution, what constitution? You know, 0:04:17.800 --> 0:04:22.120 staying in power. I don't really think that's where he's going. 0:04:22.440 --> 0:04:26.200 But here's the thing, Molly, how does he pass the baton? 0:04:26.680 --> 0:04:29.320 At what point does he stand up and make it official? 0:04:30.000 --> 0:04:34.400 I'm out, I'm not running JD. It's yours, Marco, it's yours, 0:04:34.520 --> 0:04:37.359 or you two get to fight it out and whoever else. 0:04:38.040 --> 0:04:40.280 But you know, RFK Junior r f K. 0:04:40.680 --> 0:04:43.200 Believe me, I don't know how that happens, because the 0:04:43.240 --> 0:04:46.080 minute that happens, he becomes a lame duck and the 0:04:46.120 --> 0:04:50.200 attention goes to somewhere else. I covered the Obama White House, 0:04:50.240 --> 0:04:54.640 and let me tell you, twenty fifteen twenty sixteen at 0:04:54.640 --> 0:04:58.120 the Obama White House was often like a ghost town. 0:04:58.200 --> 0:05:00.159 I mean, they were still doing things, but nobody was 0:05:00.160 --> 0:05:02.400 paying any attention. You know, poor Josh Ernest, who was 0:05:02.400 --> 0:05:04.640 the press secretary at the time, would have these hour 0:05:04.680 --> 0:05:08.000 and a half briefings. Hardly any of the regular correspondents 0:05:08.000 --> 0:05:10.880 were in there covering them, and they weren't really making 0:05:10.920 --> 0:05:13.080 any news because the attention was all on at first 0:05:13.160 --> 0:05:16.279 Jeb Bush and Hillary Clinton and the next you know 0:05:16.279 --> 0:05:18.080 who would be the next president, and then of course 0:05:18.440 --> 0:05:19.520 eventually Trump. 0:05:19.720 --> 0:05:22.960 That is attention, right if he admits he's not running again, 0:05:23.440 --> 0:05:26.560 all of a sudden, the man behind the curtain, I 0:05:26.600 --> 0:05:28.200 mean that gone. 0:05:28.680 --> 0:05:32.040 I mean, look, what really drove the reporting in this 0:05:32.080 --> 0:05:35.960 book is seeing how Donald Trump left office disgraced a 0:05:36.080 --> 0:05:39.240 pria he was banished on social media. I mean, think 0:05:39.240 --> 0:05:41.480 about that. He was banished on social media and most 0:05:41.480 --> 0:05:44.160 of the major companies in this country announced that they 0:05:44.200 --> 0:05:47.159 would not be donating money, not just not to Trump, 0:05:47.480 --> 0:05:50.640 but to anybody who was aligned with Trump in challenging 0:05:50.640 --> 0:05:51.880 the twenty twenty election. 0:05:52.400 --> 0:05:54.720 He was gone. He was a pariah. 0:05:55.040 --> 0:05:57.200 This is why when Kevin McCarthy went to visit him 0:05:57.240 --> 0:05:59.640 shortly after he left office, it was such a huge story. 0:05:59.680 --> 0:06:03.080 Oh my god, God, what's Kevin McCarthy doing. And you know, 0:06:03.279 --> 0:06:08.320 he managed to recapture the Republican Party in a way 0:06:08.360 --> 0:06:10.279 that he had never captured it in the first place. 0:06:10.560 --> 0:06:16.039 This entirely, you know, he has this power, and you 0:06:16.080 --> 0:06:18.000 know how he managed to do that, and how he 0:06:18.040 --> 0:06:20.560 wants to use that power. I think points to a 0:06:20.800 --> 0:06:24.040 very different second term than what we saw on Trump's 0:06:24.040 --> 0:06:24.680 first term. 0:06:25.040 --> 0:06:26.040 Did he ever call you? 0:06:26.360 --> 0:06:26.799 He does? 0:06:26.960 --> 0:06:29.560 He calls me. I call him, I tell you. 0:06:30.160 --> 0:06:32.359 One of the strange things that I started to do 0:06:32.440 --> 0:06:35.640 during the campaign was during the fall campaign, I would 0:06:35.720 --> 0:06:39.320 sometimes call him every two or three days, and there 0:06:39.360 --> 0:06:41.800 was a much higher percentage chance of him answering the 0:06:41.800 --> 0:06:45.200 phone than say the deputy press secretary of the Kamala 0:06:45.240 --> 0:06:48.600 Harris campaign. Mostly it's me calling him, but there were occasions, 0:06:48.600 --> 0:06:51.680 and there are occasions where where he calls me, and 0:06:52.120 --> 0:06:53.680 it's a highly unusual thing. 0:06:54.000 --> 0:06:54.560 I want to go. 0:06:54.600 --> 0:06:59.120 Back to the sentence you just said that it's more 0:06:59.279 --> 0:07:01.200 likely to get down Trump on the phone that it 0:07:01.279 --> 0:07:03.960 was to get the deputy press secretary of the Kamala 0:07:04.000 --> 0:07:08.080 Harris campaign on the phone, because I think that is 0:07:08.680 --> 0:07:09.840 part of why come won. 0:07:10.440 --> 0:07:11.640 Yeah, I don't. 0:07:11.680 --> 0:07:13.880 I don't think there's any question. You know, we were 0:07:13.920 --> 0:07:16.040 talking about Jeb Bush a moment ago. It actually kind 0:07:16.040 --> 0:07:18.560 of brings back memories of Jeb Bush back when those 0:07:18.600 --> 0:07:21.120 in those salad days, when he was the Republican front runner. 0:07:21.400 --> 0:07:25.240 He was very hard to get through too, and it 0:07:26.040 --> 0:07:31.280 did precious few interviews. His campaign events were tightly choreographed, 0:07:31.280 --> 0:07:34.320 just like Hillary Clinton's were, And certainly I think Kamala 0:07:34.400 --> 0:07:38.000 Harris did that even more so than those. I mean, 0:07:38.400 --> 0:07:40.880 when you think about her, she and I tracked. Keep 0:07:40.880 --> 0:07:42.960 in mind that this book is about what happened to 0:07:43.040 --> 0:07:46.200 Biden and about and about Harris's quick rise and fall. 0:07:46.840 --> 0:07:50.239 And you know, Harris gives the sense that one hundred 0:07:50.240 --> 0:07:52.200 and seven days she ran out of time, she didn't 0:07:52.200 --> 0:07:55.880 have enough time. In fact, it was the reverse. In 0:07:55.880 --> 0:07:59.680 fact what happened is she was strongest during those first say, 0:08:00.120 --> 0:08:03.920 thirty to forty days, and then tapered off. And part 0:08:03.960 --> 0:08:08.160 of it was this intensely careful, precious few interviews, precious 0:08:08.160 --> 0:08:10.920 few interactions with the press when Trump was out there 0:08:10.960 --> 0:08:11.640 for everybody. 0:08:11.680 --> 0:08:15.160 And if you do that, if you do very few interviews, 0:08:15.480 --> 0:08:19.760 then every minute you talk to anyone is scrutinized within 0:08:19.800 --> 0:08:21.080 an inch of its life. 0:08:21.480 --> 0:08:21.760 Yeah. 0:08:21.800 --> 0:08:23.720 So, I mean you remember the first interview, which was 0:08:23.760 --> 0:08:27.160 with Dana Bash, right, and it was she comes in, 0:08:27.240 --> 0:08:31.280 she effectively wins the nomination. You know, there's no convention yet, 0:08:31.280 --> 0:08:35.560 but she's effectively won the nomination and does absolutely nothing. 0:08:35.600 --> 0:08:38.200 And for a period of a couple of weeks. The 0:08:38.240 --> 0:08:40.720 best answer that I could get is that, you know, 0:08:40.800 --> 0:08:43.520 she was spending much of her time preparing for this 0:08:43.600 --> 0:08:45.400 big first scene in an interview. 0:08:45.440 --> 0:08:49.640 When she disappeared its August. I remember in August thinking 0:08:50.160 --> 0:08:50.640 where is she? 0:08:51.600 --> 0:08:51.800 Why? 0:08:52.160 --> 0:08:55.280 Why is she not out there? And you know what's 0:08:55.320 --> 0:08:58.079 so interesting is that Hillary Clinton had a couple of 0:08:58.160 --> 0:09:02.480 weeks too in August where she's effectively disappeared. You'll remember 0:09:02.559 --> 0:09:06.000 Hillary's house, yeah, right, And maybe she was sick, maybe 0:09:06.040 --> 0:09:08.280 she was not sick, but it didn't matter because if 0:09:08.320 --> 0:09:11.679 you create a vacuum, anyone who's around will fill it. 0:09:12.120 --> 0:09:15.959 Yeah, I mean, to be entirely fair here, Harris had 0:09:15.960 --> 0:09:18.160 a tremendous first couple of weeks. 0:09:18.320 --> 0:09:18.920 Tremendous. 0:09:19.240 --> 0:09:21.320 I mean it was people who had thought that she 0:09:21.360 --> 0:09:22.960 didn't have what it takes or was going to be 0:09:22.960 --> 0:09:24.720 a terrible candidate were like, wait a minute, where was 0:09:24.720 --> 0:09:25.600 this Kamala Harris. 0:09:25.760 --> 0:09:28.839 She's good, She's got it down, so. 0:09:29.679 --> 0:09:32.679 Uh and then it was disappearing at least and then it. 0:09:32.679 --> 0:09:35.200 Was disappearing, and that she does the CNN interview and 0:09:35.240 --> 0:09:37.800 because to your point, she hasn't been doing interviews, not 0:09:37.880 --> 0:09:40.640 just as a candidate, but really not even as vice president. 0:09:40.840 --> 0:09:43.360 I mean it was not a strong interview. 0:09:43.120 --> 0:09:45.320 Right, and picked apart within an inch of It's like 0:09:45.400 --> 0:09:48.439 because if you're Donald Trump and you're doing I mean, 0:09:48.960 --> 0:09:52.079 like I think about how much media Donald Trump does 0:09:52.080 --> 0:09:55.920 in a day when he's not calling journalists and you know, 0:09:56.440 --> 0:10:00.360 I mean three four hours a day, I mean full 0:10:00.400 --> 0:10:04.240 spray of this that a press conference, and then those 0:10:04.360 --> 0:10:08.920 like insane cabinet meetings that are televised, which are like 0:10:09.400 --> 0:10:12.480 you know a little North Korea, but you still have 0:10:12.559 --> 0:10:15.000 a visual of the guy out there. And so you 0:10:15.080 --> 0:10:19.080 say something crazy, if you've said seven thousand other things 0:10:19.120 --> 0:10:23.480 since then, it becomes sort of hard to keep trap. 0:10:23.960 --> 0:10:26.760 Yeah, and it's that, you know, it's that Bannon esque 0:10:26.840 --> 0:10:30.040 flood the zone. You know, he may do five things 0:10:30.040 --> 0:10:34.520 that are completely crazy and or you know, get would 0:10:34.559 --> 0:10:37.800 get picked apart and get hit, but he does twenty 0:10:37.840 --> 0:10:40.080 five other things, so you forget about those things he 0:10:40.240 --> 0:10:42.719 just did. I mean, and it's as a journalist, you're 0:10:42.800 --> 0:10:44.920 just you've got not just a fire hose coming at you, 0:10:44.960 --> 0:10:47.000 but you have ten fire hoses coming at you. 0:10:47.360 --> 0:10:47.800 By the way. 0:10:47.920 --> 0:10:51.079 Also, why to me it was so important to write 0:10:51.080 --> 0:10:53.440 this book is to try to get a little bit 0:10:53.600 --> 0:10:56.880 of a step back and what did we just go through? 0:10:57.240 --> 0:10:59.840 What did we just live through? And to go through 0:10:59.840 --> 0:11:02.480 and take the time and to pick apart the key 0:11:02.559 --> 0:11:06.319 moments that brought us to this point in American history, 0:11:06.840 --> 0:11:09.080 and to try to go back and see what was 0:11:09.120 --> 0:11:11.520 really happening behind the scenes. That's what I tried to 0:11:11.520 --> 0:11:12.319 do with this book. 0:11:12.559 --> 0:11:15.440 This is a very different white House than Trump one 0:11:15.480 --> 0:11:19.960 point zero, like, very different, different, priority is different, everything 0:11:20.160 --> 0:11:24.680 different on fetteredness. So explain to me what you see 0:11:24.720 --> 0:11:27.760 as the sort of main players in this White House. 0:11:28.240 --> 0:11:31.840 Well, the first thing that makes it entirely different is 0:11:32.440 --> 0:11:35.640 he is actually trying to fundamentally change things. He's going 0:11:35.679 --> 0:11:38.360 to have an impact on this country and by the way, 0:11:38.360 --> 0:11:41.640 also on the physical layout of the White House that 0:11:41.720 --> 0:11:43.839 he never had in the first term. You don't say, 0:11:44.120 --> 0:11:47.680 I mean, I mean the first term, all the chaos, 0:11:47.840 --> 0:11:52.720 all the attention, all that took place when he left office, 0:11:52.880 --> 0:11:56.560 he left office, it was ephemeral. There was not that 0:11:56.720 --> 0:12:00.560 much of a lasting impact. That is not the case already, 0:12:00.840 --> 0:12:03.559 just you know, less than a year into this White House. 0:12:03.960 --> 0:12:07.360 And the two other biggest factors are he comes in 0:12:08.000 --> 0:12:11.120 with an agenda that was part of what he was 0:12:11.160 --> 0:12:14.440 into last time, but it wasn't central really, which is 0:12:14.480 --> 0:12:16.760 to get back at the people that screwed him over 0:12:16.840 --> 0:12:19.959 in his minds. I mean, he faced an election where 0:12:20.000 --> 0:12:23.120 he was either going to maybe go to prison or 0:12:23.360 --> 0:12:26.360 become the most powerful president that we have seen in 0:12:26.400 --> 0:12:29.960 our lifetimes, thanks to a Supreme Court immunity decision, thanks 0:12:30.000 --> 0:12:34.319 to a Congress that is entirely obsequious, and going to 0:12:34.360 --> 0:12:37.920 do whatever he wants, the most powerful president of our lifetime. 0:12:38.280 --> 0:12:42.160 So he becomes that, and he's going to use that 0:12:42.480 --> 0:12:46.320 power to get back at everybody that investigated him, that 0:12:46.440 --> 0:12:49.400 attacked him, the Republicans who tried to rein him in. 0:12:49.480 --> 0:12:54.319 So not just this isn't just prosecutors and Democratic opponents 0:12:54.320 --> 0:12:57.040 who impeached him or any of that. This is also 0:12:57.360 --> 0:13:00.880 the Republicans that tried to rain him in enemies list. 0:13:01.760 --> 0:13:05.920 High on that enemy's list are people like well, Jim Comey. 0:13:07.160 --> 0:13:10.560 I wouldn't be surprised to see people like General Kelly 0:13:10.640 --> 0:13:14.480 on that list, Mark Milly on that list, people who 0:13:14.600 --> 0:13:18.559 served in his administration, Bill Barr. You had Bannon the 0:13:18.600 --> 0:13:21.240 other day saying that Barr should go to prison, that 0:13:21.360 --> 0:13:24.400 Bill Barr should be prosecuted. Is talk about that? 0:13:24.600 --> 0:13:26.480 No, I don't want to think about that. How much 0:13:26.640 --> 0:13:28.920 is Bannon world talking to Trump World? 0:13:29.280 --> 0:13:31.600 Well, I don't know about Bannon World or Trump World, 0:13:31.600 --> 0:13:33.719 but Bannon is talking to Trump absolutely? 0:13:34.160 --> 0:13:34.840 Wow, all right? 0:13:35.040 --> 0:13:38.760 And there is absolutely a you know, a line there. 0:13:38.800 --> 0:13:41.679 And also Bannon two things. One, he does have an 0:13:41.679 --> 0:13:44.760 influence on Trump. He makes sure that his show he's 0:13:44.760 --> 0:13:46.520 on for four hours. 0:13:46.160 --> 0:13:48.840 A day on the war and better him than May. 0:13:49.120 --> 0:13:51.360 And when he has the key messages that he wants, 0:13:51.600 --> 0:13:53.920 they go to Natalie Harp Trump's assistant and they go 0:13:54.000 --> 0:13:56.559 to Trump and Trump watches them and also. 0:13:57.520 --> 0:13:59.880 Natalie prints it out right. 0:13:59.559 --> 0:14:02.040 Well, these are video clips, so she she sets up 0:14:02.080 --> 0:14:04.240 the video clips the human prins. 0:14:04.760 --> 0:14:04.960 Yeah. 0:14:05.480 --> 0:14:08.920 But but I describe a scene in the book that 0:14:09.080 --> 0:14:13.359 is really kind of mind blowing that helps you understand 0:14:13.520 --> 0:14:16.520 what happened when Zelensky came to the White House in 0:14:16.600 --> 0:14:21.000 February and you had that big confrontation. Well, in advance 0:14:21.040 --> 0:14:24.240 of that, there was a National Security meeting with Vance 0:14:24.640 --> 0:14:28.640 heg Seth, Rubio, Waite, Coough, Besant, then the National Security 0:14:28.640 --> 0:14:31.720 Advisor Mike Waltz, and their meeting at the White House 0:14:31.720 --> 0:14:34.480 with Trump and they're going over that minerals deal that 0:14:34.520 --> 0:14:37.120 we're going to sign with the Ukraine, and Trump says, 0:14:37.160 --> 0:14:40.280 get Steve Bannon on the phone. Waltz calls Bannon. Anyway, 0:14:40.320 --> 0:14:43.160 they go back and forth. Bannon like puts Waltz to 0:14:43.440 --> 0:14:46.320 h to voicemail. Then Trump calls Bannon himself on his 0:14:46.400 --> 0:14:48.960 phone and Bannon takes the call and for the next 0:14:49.000 --> 0:14:52.680 half hour, Bannon is basically lecturing the National Security team 0:14:52.920 --> 0:14:56.280 on how they can't trust that punk Zelensky, which is 0:14:56.320 --> 0:14:58.840 what Bannon calls him, and how if you give him 0:14:58.840 --> 0:15:01.120 a you know, if you do a security he's gonna 0:15:01.120 --> 0:15:04.640 want he's gonna want a natural resources deal. He's going 0:15:04.680 --> 0:15:08.560 to want security guarantees. You cannot trust him, you cannot 0:15:08.560 --> 0:15:10.880 do him. And that really Again, this has never been 0:15:10.920 --> 0:15:14.640 reported before, but I think that that incident, and I've 0:15:14.680 --> 0:15:18.040 talked to many people that were involved in that set 0:15:18.080 --> 0:15:22.080 the stage for the confrontation with Zelenski. And that was Bannon. 0:15:22.280 --> 0:15:24.080 He's not in the White House, he's not on the 0:15:24.160 --> 0:15:27.160 National security team, but in that moment he had more 0:15:27.200 --> 0:15:30.160 influence than the national security advisor of the Secretary of. 0:15:30.080 --> 0:15:34.240 State John Carl Thank you, Malli, I. 0:15:34.160 --> 0:15:35.920 Love talking to you. Thank you for having me on. 0:15:41.280 --> 0:15:44.200 David Sirota is the founder of The Lever, the screenplay 0:15:44.200 --> 0:15:47.000 author of Don't Look Up, and the author of Master Planned, 0:15:47.160 --> 0:15:49.640 The Hidden Plot to Legalize Corruption in America. 0:15:49.720 --> 0:15:52.400 Welcome to Fast Politics, Dave, Thank you, thanks for having me. 0:15:52.480 --> 0:15:54.840 I have so many places I want to start because 0:15:54.960 --> 0:15:58.760 it's so bad, but let's start with John Roberts, the 0:15:58.880 --> 0:16:02.960 man who just wants to cut away our freedoms versus 0:16:03.120 --> 0:16:05.760 he wants to use a scalpel rather than a chainsaw, 0:16:05.840 --> 0:16:07.960 but he'll use a chainsaw if he needs to. 0:16:08.240 --> 0:16:08.440 Yeah. 0:16:08.480 --> 0:16:10.920 I mean, we're on the twenty year anniversary now of 0:16:11.040 --> 0:16:14.160 John Roberts' takeover of the Supreme Court, which is that's 0:16:14.200 --> 0:16:16.400 really how you make yourself feel old is to realize 0:16:16.440 --> 0:16:20.080 it's been twenty years, and I think people have forgotten 0:16:20.360 --> 0:16:24.360 what that few month period was like in two thousand 0:16:24.360 --> 0:16:28.240 and five, where there was Sandra Day O'Connor and William 0:16:28.280 --> 0:16:32.880 Rehnquist were suddenly out of the picture and John Roberts 0:16:32.880 --> 0:16:37.680 and Sam Alito were installed very very quickly on that court. 0:16:37.760 --> 0:16:41.960 And soon after that, of course, came the Citizens United decision, 0:16:42.080 --> 0:16:46.280 which transformed American politics almost overnight. I mean, our book 0:16:46.320 --> 0:16:50.600 is about the master plan that conservatives hatched over fifty 0:16:50.680 --> 0:16:54.760 years to deregulate the campaign finance system, kill off anti 0:16:54.760 --> 0:16:58.560 corruption laws, anti bribery laws, and Citizens United was one 0:16:58.600 --> 0:17:04.000 of the big obviously earning points, again engineered by John Roberts. 0:17:04.280 --> 0:17:06.480 And the thing that drives me crazy. 0:17:06.080 --> 0:17:09.680 And probably drives anyone crazy who remembers back in two 0:17:09.680 --> 0:17:14.400 thousand and five was how he was presented as this reasonable, 0:17:14.840 --> 0:17:20.720 almost moderate candidate, and I remember distinctly sort of trying 0:17:20.800 --> 0:17:24.000 to sound the alarm in the position that I was 0:17:24.000 --> 0:17:29.160 in like, this guy is not some easy going moderate. 0:17:29.240 --> 0:17:32.960 This guy is a movement conservative. Arguably, I guess you'd 0:17:32.960 --> 0:17:35.840 call him that. Maybe the second movement conservative put on 0:17:35.880 --> 0:17:38.560 the court. I mean, you had Scalia, But this guy 0:17:38.920 --> 0:17:42.560 was sort of groomed by the conservative movement to be 0:17:43.040 --> 0:17:46.000 everything that he has come to be. And to my mind, 0:17:46.320 --> 0:17:49.680 there are three priorities when you look at John Roberts' career, right, 0:17:49.720 --> 0:17:53.240 I mean to really understand John Roberts passions. There is 0:17:53.520 --> 0:17:57.119 his passion to destroy and dismantle voting rights laws. 0:17:57.200 --> 0:17:59.600 We really dosate the voting rights law. 0:17:59.600 --> 0:18:01.639 Really that he's been working on it forever. 0:18:01.840 --> 0:18:05.840 There is his passion to close the courthouse doors to 0:18:06.040 --> 0:18:10.800 anyone who is inconvenient to political and corporate power. But 0:18:10.800 --> 0:18:13.680 by that I mean his war on what's known as standing. 0:18:13.840 --> 0:18:16.760 You are not allowed in this court. We won't even 0:18:16.800 --> 0:18:20.920 adjudicate your issue because you do not have standing. Again, 0:18:20.920 --> 0:18:23.680 that is a John Roberts passion. And then the other 0:18:23.760 --> 0:18:30.160 John Roberts passion is equating and enshrining the connection between 0:18:30.280 --> 0:18:33.879 money and free speech, the idea that money is a 0:18:34.400 --> 0:18:40.280 constitutionally protected form of speech, which was started before John Robertson. 0:18:40.040 --> 0:18:41.920 Right, it feels like a Mitch McConnell. 0:18:42.119 --> 0:18:45.199 Yes, Mitch McConnell, the Buckley case in the seventies. But 0:18:45.320 --> 0:18:48.680 John Roberts really has taken that the Roberts Court has 0:18:48.880 --> 0:18:50.400 to its logical extreme. 0:18:50.680 --> 0:18:54.200 In John Roberts defense, he has very rich donors. 0:18:55.840 --> 0:18:57.920 I guess that is it. In his defense, I. 0:18:57.880 --> 0:19:01.640 Mean, these guys need of ation every once in a while. 0:19:01.640 --> 0:19:06.320 And as Thomas has shown us, you know, those are 0:19:06.440 --> 0:19:08.000 re's are expensive. I know. 0:19:08.040 --> 0:19:10.240 And the thing, the thing that kind of blows me away. 0:19:10.280 --> 0:19:13.240 Although the Court, as we traced in our book, is 0:19:13.240 --> 0:19:16.840 is doing these rulings, deregulating. 0:19:16.080 --> 0:19:17.840 The campaign finance system. 0:19:17.640 --> 0:19:23.199 And narrowing the interpretation of anti bribery laws down the 0:19:23.400 --> 0:19:24.480 to the point where. 0:19:24.280 --> 0:19:26.639 Last se ribes are they bribed? 0:19:26.760 --> 0:19:27.960 No, they're protuities. Right. 0:19:28.040 --> 0:19:30.680 I have to say this out loud repeatedly because it's 0:19:30.680 --> 0:19:33.720 almost like people won't believe it. In the last court term, 0:19:33.960 --> 0:19:37.320 there was a case about a local official who had 0:19:37.400 --> 0:19:41.200 gotten a payment from a government contractor. After the local 0:19:41.240 --> 0:19:45.320 official delivered the government contract to this contractor gotten a payment, 0:19:45.480 --> 0:19:48.400 and the court ruled that that was not a bribe, 0:19:48.800 --> 0:19:51.840 that was a so called legal critulaluit. 0:19:52.440 --> 0:19:54.000 It's a tip, right. 0:19:54.119 --> 0:19:55.960 I just want to follow that up for one second 0:19:56.040 --> 0:19:58.840 because it comes back in season two, which is Tom 0:19:58.920 --> 0:20:02.760 Holman is wept up in an FBI investigation where he 0:20:02.880 --> 0:20:06.240 is not the target, right, he just wanders in and 0:20:06.359 --> 0:20:09.680 accepts a bag of fifty thousand dollars in cash, and 0:20:09.800 --> 0:20:13.680 they say this is the Biden Justice Department says, well, 0:20:13.720 --> 0:20:15.720 we may not even be able to prosecute this because 0:20:15.720 --> 0:20:18.880 the Supreme Court just ruled that bribes aren't bribes. 0:20:19.240 --> 0:20:22.480 I mean, that's the world we are living in now. 0:20:22.720 --> 0:20:26.240 And again, to underscore the point you alluded to, these 0:20:26.359 --> 0:20:30.040 rulings are coming down at the very time that some 0:20:30.080 --> 0:20:35.720 of these justices engineering them are accepting lavish gifts from 0:20:35.880 --> 0:20:40.120 billionaires who have business in some cases before the. 0:20:40.080 --> 0:20:43.520 Court in all cases right, or they're connected to someone 0:20:43.520 --> 0:20:44.320 who does right. 0:20:44.480 --> 0:20:46.880 While they are legalizing corruption. 0:20:47.200 --> 0:20:52.040 They are effectively engaging in the kinds of practices without, 0:20:52.080 --> 0:20:54.680 by the way, disclosure. We only know about that because 0:20:54.680 --> 0:20:57.680