Speaker 1: Joining us now is Alex Eisenstadt. He is a reporter
Speaker 1: at Axios, but more importantly for today, he is the
Speaker 1: author of a new book, Revenge, the inside story of
Speaker 1: Trump's return to Power. Alex one of the best campaign
Speaker 1: reporters out there. I'm excited to talk to him. Glad
Speaker 1: to see you, sir.
Speaker 2: Thanks guys, thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: Absolutely all right, So the book is out. There's been
Speaker 1: some pretty jaw dropping stuff that has come out. One
Speaker 1: of them an allegation that a Fox News fed some
Speaker 1: questions to Trump before a town hall. But broadly, Alex,
Speaker 1: I've followed you for many years. You've always had a
Speaker 1: lot of inside scoops. So, without giving away too much
Speaker 1: so people will still buy the book, just tell us
Speaker 1: the broad narrative that you wanted to capture in this book.
Speaker 2: So I started covering. I started writing this book in
Speaker 2: early twenty twenty three, and I wanted to just create
Speaker 2: a TikTok, behind the scenes account of what happened during
Speaker 2: Trump's comeback campaign. So I talked to as many people
Speaker 2: on Trump's inner circle as I could, and the idea
Speaker 2: was to create a fly on the wall narrative. And
Speaker 2: I didn't know none of us knew what would happen
Speaker 2: in this campaign when it first began, but we all
Speaker 2: knew it was gonna be dramatic. We all knew it
Speaker 2: was going to be interesting, and so my goal was
Speaker 2: to really capture that narrative. And it turned out to
Speaker 2: be just as dramatic and just as interesting as we
Speaker 2: all thought, if not more so.
Speaker 3: So. Two of the sort of most pivotal moments, it
Speaker 3: seemed from the outside, were the Biden switch through and
Speaker 3: then obviously the assassination attempt did from within Trump world.
Speaker 3: Were those the two moments that seemed the most pivotable
Speaker 3: pivotal or were there others that you would add into
Speaker 3: that mixed mix? What was the vibe like in each
Speaker 3: of those moments.
Speaker 2: I think that's right. I think those were definitely two
Speaker 2: of the most pivotal moments. And you look at Butler,
Speaker 2: and one of the things that I talked about in
Speaker 2: this book was that there were actually a lot of
Speaker 2: There were a lot of scares, There were a lot
Speaker 2: of threats on Trump's life. One of the things I
Speaker 2: talked a lot about after the Butler shooting was a
Speaker 2: ran and a rand role in how it was threatening him.
Speaker 2: The extraordinary steps that the Trump campaign had to take
Speaker 2: in order to evade threats from Ran, including using a
Speaker 2: secret putting Trump on a secret flight, putting him on
Speaker 2: a flight other than Trump forced one, and then obviously
Speaker 2: the switcheroo. And one of the interesting things about the
Speaker 2: switcheroo was that Trump, going into his first debate with Biden,
Speaker 2: was actually afraid that if he hit Biden too hard
Speaker 2: that Biden would drop out of the race. Foresaw the problem.
Speaker 2: He sort of foresaw the possibility that Biden could end
Speaker 2: up getting out of the race after the debate, which
Speaker 2: of course is what happened.
Speaker 1: So, yeah, Alex take us in those days. What was
Speaker 1: the thinking inside the campaign? Were they ever afraid of
Speaker 1: Kamala Harris? Were they very confident that they were going
Speaker 1: to win the whole time? What was their internal strategy
Speaker 1: during the switch?
Speaker 2: So right after the switch that month, after Biden got
Speaker 2: out and Harris got in, that was probably the bumpiest
Speaker 2: for the Trump campaign. Trump had just survived this assassination attempt.
Speaker 2: He was very understandably, very jarred, very rattled from it.
Speaker 2: He called a friend the day after the shooting and
Speaker 2: he said that if the bullet had come within a
Speaker 2: hair closer, his brain would have exploded like a watermelon
Speaker 2: on live television. He was very afraid after that the
Speaker 2: shooting understandably snow for his life. He wondered a lot
Speaker 2: about staging for events, and then he was rattled about
Speaker 2: Biden getting out of the race and having this new opponent.
Speaker 2: And sometimes this manifested itself in Trump going off script,
Speaker 2: like he did at the National Association of Black Journalists meetings,
Speaker 2: such as when he went after Brian Camp in Georgia.
Speaker 2: There was a month there where Trump was really was
Speaker 2: really off script. For the first time he had run
Speaker 2: this very discipline campaign, and for the first time, things
Speaker 2: didn't look good for him in that month. But then afterwards,
Speaker 2: when you got out of July, when you got out
Speaker 2: of August, Trump found his footing again and he was
Speaker 2: able to defeat Kamala Harris. The final few weeks the race,
Speaker 2: Trump was concerned. He definitely had some jitters, but things
Speaker 2: definitely turned around from him from there.
Speaker 3: Interesting talk a little bit about the Elon Musk relationship,
Speaker 3: which has come to be like the most central dynamic
Speaker 3: of Trump two point zero, which is I think not
Speaker 3: something that many people truly expected, although if you just
Speaker 3: look at the sheer amount of dollars that he put
Speaker 3: into the race, perhaps it should have been better anticipated.
Speaker 3: How did that romance begin? Because he had not only
Speaker 3: previously supported Ron de Santis, I mean, and Obama were buddies.
Speaker 3: Obama's administration gave him some critical loans to Tesla at
Speaker 3: an important time in his career. He'd previously been war
Speaker 3: inclined towards the Democratic Party. So what built that relationship?
Speaker 3: And then, as a corollary, were you surprised to see
Speaker 3: Elon be so central, hog so much attention and for
Speaker 3: Trump to be like pretty subservient to him.
Speaker 2: It was one of those gradual things that Elon Trump relationship.
Speaker 2: One of the interesting things I talked about this book
Speaker 2: is that Elon actually played a role in getting jd.
Speaker 2: Vance picked for vice president, And that was one of
Speaker 2: the first big roles that Elon played on the race.
Speaker 2: And one of the things that Elon told Trump right
Speaker 2: after the assassination attempting Butler, which was right before jd
Speaker 2: Vance's pick, was that if you pick He told Trump
Speaker 2: that if you pick someone who hails from the establishment
Speaker 2: quote unquote deep state part of the Republican Party, that
Speaker 2: will give the deep state or the establishing more incentive
Speaker 2: to try to kill you again. And that so Elon
Speaker 2: Musk was one of the last people to give Trump
Speaker 2: advice before he picked JD. Vance, and he waited for
Speaker 2: JD Vance.
Speaker 3: Let me just real quick on that before you finish
Speaker 3: your answer, because that's very interesting nugget that I didn't realize.
Speaker 3: What do you think it was that made Elon want
Speaker 3: jd to be on the ticket. I understand how he
Speaker 3: pitched it to Trump because on the surface level, they
Speaker 3: actually seem to have some you know, ideological distinctions. JD
Speaker 3: Vance has, you know, pitched himself more in the Trumpian
Speaker 3: sort of like populist national slane. Elon is more of
Speaker 3: this like you know, I would say tech feudalists like
Speaker 3: Javier Malay and Arco capitalist type. So what was it
Speaker 3: that Why was he's so interested in having Jadvance on
Speaker 3: the ticket?
Speaker 2: The bottom line is that they both hail from the
Speaker 2: same kind of tech wing of the party. And Elon
Speaker 2: Musk is really close to a guy named David Sachs,
Speaker 2: who I'm sure a lot of your viewers and listeners
Speaker 2: will know. He's the guy he has He actually has
Speaker 2: his own podcast it's called all In, and he's a
Speaker 2: big player in Silicon Valley. Jd Vance is also close
Speaker 2: to David Sacks, as is Elon Musk, and so that
Speaker 2: was a really big connector in this, and then there
Speaker 2: were just other tech players and that sort of served
Speaker 2: as a connection point between the two of them.
Speaker 1: Interesting, Alex, you know we're continuing like in this vein
Speaker 1: because you have also covered campaign finance really well, what
Speaker 1: do you make of the influence of Elon's money in
Speaker 1: the campaign? How determinive, how determinative was it actually, as
Speaker 1: somebody who's covered this for many.
Speaker 2: Years, Yeah, I mean he gave him a two hundred
Speaker 2: He gave Trump essentially a two hundred and fifty million
Speaker 2: dollars infusion, and that's that's really important. And the role
Speaker 2: he played was important because Trump Elon Musk's operation was
Speaker 2: focused on ground game and getting out the vote, not
Speaker 2: so much on TV ads, but mostly on ground game
Speaker 2: and getting out the vote. And so when Elon first
Speaker 2: started doing this, when his super pack really first kicked
Speaker 2: up its operations, there were a lot of questions about
Speaker 2: the strength of Trump's ground game door knocking effort, and
Speaker 2: so Elon Musk put in a lot of money to
Speaker 2: help solve that problem. And that was really important because
Speaker 2: there were a lot of concerns in Trump's campaign and
Speaker 2: in the broader Republican world that Democrats Joe Bien and
Speaker 2: Kambla Harris were just simply more organized in terms of
Speaker 2: getting out the vote.
Speaker 3: Yes, do you think that Trump thinks Elon is the
Speaker 3: reason he won?
Speaker 2: I don't think so. I think Trump thinks he's the
Speaker 2: reason he won. Trump always sees himself as being the
Speaker 2: primary player, the main driver of things, and so he
Speaker 2: definitely is appreciative of Elon Musk and what he did,
Speaker 2: but he doesn't he sees himself as the guy who
Speaker 2: won this race for one hundred percent sure.
Speaker 3: And so why do you think he has been had
Speaker 3: such a different relationship with Elon than he has with
Speaker 3: anyone else where? You know, I mean, Elon's there holding
Speaker 3: court in the Oval office and T shirt and a hat.
Speaker 3: Elon is taking control. Elon is, you know, putting out
Speaker 3: the messaging. Elon's creating political problems for Trump, and he's
Speaker 3: never really checked. I mean, we did have the secret
Speaker 3: cabinet meeting where apparently so that Okay, these guys are
Speaker 3: in charge, but it has been much more deferential than
Speaker 3: we've ever seen Trump be towards anyone else, like to
Speaker 3: what do you ascribe that?
Speaker 2: Well, look, Elon plays by a different set of rules.
Speaker 2: You're one hundred percent right. He is more deferential to
Speaker 2: Elon than he would be to really any other cabinet
Speaker 2: member or any other staffer that Trump has ever had
Speaker 2: his two terms in the White House. But look, Elon's
Speaker 2: a different kind of player. He's worth what several hundred
Speaker 2: billion dollars at this point, And when you have that
Speaker 2: kind of money, it can let it gives you enormous
Speaker 2: amount of power. It gives you the ability to go
Speaker 2: do whatever you want. He can go set up a
Speaker 2: super pack, he could go back to his businesses. And
Speaker 2: so Trump has a lot less leverage over Elon Musk
Speaker 2: than he does a typical cabinet member. Elon's wealth gives
Speaker 2: him an enormous amount of power, a nom enormous amount
Speaker 2: of sway over politics, and so Trump's gotta be a
Speaker 2: little careful in terms of how he handles the Elon
Speaker 2: Musk interesting.
Speaker 1: All right, Well, I trust you, Alex, and everyone should
Speaker 1: go on buy the book. We appreciate joining.
Speaker 3: Us man, yeah, thank you so much.
Speaker 2: Thanks for having me. It's our pleasure.