Have alllied through in this past year. And, kevin, thats one of the things that, you know, as i was reading this book, which is just, its gripping, but i had to keep reminding myself that it has happened just in the last year. I think for a lot of us, 2020 feels like its been a decade long. And so this fall, two months from now, we are going to be, we are going to be facing an election which will be the First Time Ever that an um peached president impeached president appears on the ballot. So could you talk a little bit about the dynamics that were set into motion by this investigation, by the these subsequent impeachments and the acquittal that are still playing out today as we, as we head into this final stretch before the election . Well, thanks, karen. I think ill just start there. Two big, big things. One is emboldened donald trump. He hates this. Hes angry. He doesnt like the stain, and he wants to win. The very night the house voted to impeach, he flew to michigan, he got a big crowd, and he promised four more years. At the same time, this jeopardized the republican majority in the senate. In key swing states, people were upset. They like to think the senate, theyre independent thinkers that check on the presidency and using what Susan Collins said and kid in that voting not to acquit. So youll see, you know, kind of a boon for trump and some of his supporters saying were going to one it back, but in the senate theres some problems especially in these divided states. So could you remind people what it was that Susan Collins said in deciding to agut the president acquit the president . Oh, hell be chastened by hell socially clean up his act. Essentially clean up his act. New evidence that hes done that . [laughter] absolutely not. Im from maine, so ive been watching this race close arely. Sarah gideon and a lot of people are making the cause that Susan Collins is always concerned, shes always worried about something, and she seems like shes giving very thoughtful consideration to whatever the issue is, kavanaugh or the trump impeachment. And she always ends up coming down on the side of trump. Thats a big part of sarah gideons campaign is, you know, Susan Collins is she may say shes a moderate, but shes actually very much in the trump camp, and we document it in the book and show how she went through this whole process and ultimately came down right on Donald Trumps side. Well, another thing that i new has implications that go beyond the Trump Presidency is that over and over again in this book what you have seen is that career Public Servants are being vilified over and over again as some sort of hostile state. In the case of Lieutenant Colonel ben money, somebody who has literally bled for his country. What do you think the longterm implications of that are for the morale of Public Servants and also the willingness of people to take on these careers in the future . Its mass u, its absolutely massive. You know, during we have had a long tradition in this country of having experts in Foreign Policy and health and taxation and whatever else it is. They dont make policy, the president makes policy. The administration makes policy, but he has to be able to rely on wellinformed, experienced Civil Servants to carry out whatever the president ial directives are. And we saw that over and over in impeach. Ambassador ya von vuch in ukraine, Alexander Vindman in the white house and so many of these people who had such experience. There was one day when there was a hearing, and the two people testifying were bull taylor and george bill taylor and george kent. Between the two of them, they have almost 80 years of service to this country in the military and in diplomacy and in the state department. And when they sat down, the democrats thought look at these two incredible witnesses we have. These are unimpeachable witnesses, and the republicans looked at them and saw something to be suspicious of. These were people who were the deep state the, people who were out to get the president without any evidence that there was ever true. As we document in the book, these people were doing nothing but trying to serve their country. And we use both the republican and democratic testimony documents to hoe how the experts, right, i mean, these are experts in the state department, in the intelligence service, people who have served for decades both parties just felt undermined. So i think thats huge. Donald trump jr. Tweeted about it, we need less of these jokers in these positions. Anding you know, its hard. So many of them have been run out of jobs, theyve retired, theyve been forced out. Its going to have a longterm effect on morale. Right of. Before we delve into little more into some of the things you uncovered in your reporting, id like to talk a little bit about your collaboration. I dont know if everyone who is watching reads that you two have been married for 27 years, that you for over half of your marriage, you have shared overseas bureaus for the Washington Post, and i believe you two are sitting in the very room where you wrote that book. Can you talk a little bit about what its like to take on a big project like this with your spouse . People ask us this all the time, and i tell them, and its the honest toed god truth, weve worked together so long that when i try to write something without mary, it feels like im missing half my brain or something. And we were overseas for almost 15 years, and i cannot count the number of times mary saved me from humiliating myself oh, come on. Saying something really ridiculous. I think it just cupid of works. Kind of works. [inaudible conversations] humble, yeah, and joking. But there is something about the mix. In this case, too, we had to do it very quickly, and we had a powerhouse of collaboration with the national staff, the National Security staff, the white house staff of the Washington Post helped with some reporting, our overseas staff and with yeah. We should also say that steve luxembourg, a post veteran, was involved in this process every stop of the way. He made every page of this book better. We were really lucky to have such a terrific collaborator and ed editor. It can be funny when weed edit each others lines, hes a little subtle people say how can you ever work work with your husband . No one has ever said that to me. [laughter] well, everything gets set into motion between the president and the new president of ukraine on july 27, 2019. You, i mean, i think we all thought we knew everything there was to know about that call. The white house put out what it described as a transcript. It was just sort of loose notes. One thing you guys managed to get ahold of was what what was happening on the other end of that call. Can you talk about that and what were the motivations in washington, and what were the motivations in ukraine in even having this conversation . Well, one of the key things we were i trying to do was create vivid scenes, and we realized that while we knew that who was in the situation room listening to donald trump when he was on the phone in his private residence of the white house, we needed the other side. So with recordings, we actually were able to piece together a half an hour before that call in a small room in the, on the fourth floor of the president ial mansion that overlooks this gorgeous ca cathedral thousands of miles away, the aides of the president in ukraine were passing him notes. And funny enough, they were saying things like the guy has a big ego, this trump guy, make sure you kind of boost him up. Somebody actually said do you think we should say that we might have a trump tower here, and then they said, no, no, maybe better not that. But for sure talk about the swamp. He loves that word. And, of course, you know, brand new president who is dependent on aid, Critical Military aid, you know, wants to get along with the new u. S. President. It was really an illuminating scene and an important one, i think, to have the whole picture of what was going on. And the ukrainians desperately wanted to meet with zelensky at the white house mainly so they could show it to Vladimir Putin and say, look, this shows the relationship between the United States and ukraine is solid. They are allies, and they are allied against our military aggression in ukraine. Thats what the ukrainians wanted. Now, donald trump had been given talking points from his people saying, you know, we should talk about russian aggression, we should talk about standing tall with ukraine, we should talk about fighting corruption in that country. And vindman and some of the others were literally holding their breath because trump ad libs, and we all know that. Thats his right. But he very quickly went off the rails and started talking about joe biden and crowdstrike and some of these other things that were so jarring to the ukrainians, it was really funny because the ukrainians, they were googling crowd strike, what is crowd strike. They had no idea whattalking about. Crowd strike was a company that supposedly had is the to the dnc server and according to conspiracy theories had hidden it somewhere in ukraine, right . Its a long, pretty nutty rudy giuliani, again, were talking about undermining the experts, he was going around flying to europe and elsewhere saying things like, you know, its really not russia that interfered, it was ukraine and they used crowd strike. Sometimes when donald trump would hear ukraine, hed think, oh, miss america pageant. They still regarded it as a friendly call. They regarded it as a step forward. And afterward they brought in a bowl of chocolate ice cream, it was a hot afternoon, and they were eating it and sort of celebrating it, and then it occurred to them, wait, we got nothing that we wanted out of that call. So their enthusiasm cools very quickly with the ice cream. [laughter] well, and zelensky and trump have something in common, because zelensky, before he was elected, was known primarily as a Television Celebrity just like donald trump was. So you get almost a sense that these two guys kind of get each other on some level, dont you . They do. And during the call zelensky was very kick to say, mr. President , we learned so many lessons from what you did in your election. Were trying to drain the swamp too, were trying and i think he meant it. I think he also understood that this was the way to get in Donald Trumps good graces, was to butter him up. But i think he did mean it. And a lot has been made about the fact that zelensky never stood up and said i was pressured by the president of the United States. He would be insane to say that, and he knows it because hes a perform or. He needs this relationship with trump, with the United States. But we document all kinds of people right around and in ukraine who said, absolutely, that he felt pressure. Absolutely. So another one of the really interesting characters in the book was nancy pelosi who, at the outset of this, says shes absolutely against impeachment. She actually uses the phrase with our colleague that trump is not worth it. Essentially, this is something that should be the decided by the election. But the forces kind of build and in some ways almost take this decision out of her hands. Could you talk a little bit about that . All of the book is that because she is, after all, you know, shes the leader of this whole unruly group. Some are more left, some are more centrist, and she was kind of taking the temperature all along. There is one stirring moment that i think because like this book, theres so much going on that its worth revisiting, pelosi always looked to john lewis who was then alive and at one point stood in the house in one of the last times we heard from him before he died, and a lot of people listened to john lewis who was such an icon of the civil rights movement. And he said, and nancy place city was linning pelosi was listening. He said people are coming up to me and they say that urn this president i feel under this president i feel were descending into darkness. And he said when i go to sleep at night, i worry when i wake up our democracy wont be here. And i think at the time it didnt really get as much attention because so much was going on. But she was listening to lewis, and she was listening to other people and eventually fundamental she had to go felt she had to go. And we document very vividly in the book the republican view of this whole thing too. From the beginning the republicans were saying this is nothing but a democratic effort to undo the 2016 election. Theyve been trying to do this since the day donald trump was elected. This is a witch hunt and, you know, a scam and a scheme and all the other words that weve heard. And nancy pelosi heard that too, and she kept saying to her caucus, we have to make sure that this isnt a onesided impeachment. This has to be bipartisan. We need something, we need a crime, basically, that is, that everyone can understand. Its easy for the public to understand and at least some of our republican colleagues will also join us with. And early on some of the things that were happening she didnt think that they rose to that level. 9 11 the phone call happened then the phone call happened, and we had a whistleblower complaint that laid out what was said on that call, and you can we document in the book her evolution. She heard that more and more people in her caucus were starting to call for impeachment, and she finally on september 24th just decided that she had a responsibility, she had a duty to go forward. And, yeah, a lot of the republicans we spoke with said i dont like donald trump, but, you know, let the voters decide. And thats again why people are saying that its important to look at this. But the whole point was, okay, be informed. Know everything thats happened as we head to the polls, because there were republicans who at least privately were upset by what he was doing but just didnt feel that they should throw him out of office, especially when we were this close to an election. Thats why we feel this book is so relevant to the election. Its not a history book about impeachment, its about the factors that are going into this election now and the case for and against trump are laid out, and voters can read it and decide for themselves. I mean, people were saying all along let the voters decide, and heres our chance in november. Well, thats but, you know, at the beginning i think they might be able to pull a couple of republicans off here and there. But it becomes clear to them that that just isnt going to happen. I think it probably becomes clear at that wonderful moment that you write about where will herd, the congressman from texas on the Intelligence Committee who everyone thought was most likely to defect, gets up and announces, nope, this does not ruse to impeachment. I mean, was that the moment where sort of the die was cast and the Republican Party decides, with the exception of mitt romney in the senate, they are all onboard with the president . That was a key moment, and i think at some point he was getting annoyed with the fact that everyone understood that he was a centrist, and everyone knew he wasnt just a kneejerk supporter of donald trump. He had written an oped in the New York Times criticizing trumps policy toward shah. But the or toward russia. Every day he would show up on these media lists of republicans who might flip, and i think he just, he was getting more and more frustrated with the fact that he was being called that. So i forget the date, but at one of the hearings he, rather than use his time to ask questions of the witness, he used his time to make a really stirring speech where he said this doesnt rise, this bumbled Foreign Policy, this is ridiculous, this is an inept handling of our Foreign Policy, but i dont see a crime here that the president should be impeached for. Yeah, that was a pretty key moment because i new a lot of democrats were deflated. Well, we have a question here from Sandra Stephenson from maryland who wants to know what was your Biggest Surprise when you were writing and reporting this book . I think we lay out exactly how trump uses protrump media, for instance, 5yearold network that most people havent heard of, one americans network. You know, he puts giuliani, encourages giuliani to go on, he gets a clip that talks about some Conspiracy Theory about ukraine, and then there it goes. Don jr. Tweets it and then he tweets it, and all of a sudden it is all over the news. And with 85 million twitter followers, donald trump is famous for boasting that hes bigger than any Media Company. Hes his own Media Company and a powerful one. But i think we were surprised at how uniform, in lockstep it often is and how quickly, i mean, trump has said, okay, im going to do this, lets see how long it takes to get on all the network news. It was pretty eyeopening to us. We lay out in great detail one example of this. Last march 20th, hill tv which has a few thousand followers put up a report that was a basically sourced from a prosecutor in ukraine who was really discredited, not someone who the United States regarded as may be involved in corruption, certainly not reliable. And he said that the u. S. Ambassador, Marie Yovanovitch are, was corrupt which there wasnt then and there still is zero evidence that she is in any way corrupt. But that goes up at 11 00. At 3 00 in the afternoon sean hannity has it on his radio show which has 14 million eleven listeners a week. By that even listeners a week. By that evening, hannity has it on his its show, and right after that Donald Trump Tweets the headline from this relatively obscure hill story, and the next morning trump himself tells john bolton to fire yovanovitch who had done nothing wrong. So from a park spark of basically nothing to the president s order desk was less than 24 hours. It was remarkable to watch. And in many ways, its an xray of the president s playbook and how he operates. And, you know, by using documenting testimony and documents, again, both republican and democrats that were used in impeachment, heres a way to show because the methods of things that were going on here, you know, dismissing the experts, you know, having some kind of rogue characters like giuliani, using protrump media, this, you know, this is not a onetimeoff thing for donald trump. So, you know, i think that we think theres great value in kind of using it to really, really up close analyze the trump playbook. Well, thats the other thing about this, this hill tv report. Ultimately, hill tv doesnt quite write a retraction of this, but they acknowledge that their reporting methods were improper, that they should have identified the journalist who did it as an opinion journalist, not somebody who was just a straightforward news guy. But by then its not that the horse is out of the barn, its a herd of horses out of the barn. Theyve already achieved with this journalistically suspect report what they wanted to achieve. Isnt that correct . Yes. And also the messaging. One of the things that donald trump, and we document how the democrats really kind of gotta match the amazing messaging machine out of the white house, they are simple. Its a hoax, its a witch hunt, you know . Get out early, call it collusion. Set the story. Even if its not correct, just set the tone to, make it simple. And the democrats time and time again have proven to make it a little more complicated, a little harder to understand and a lot less unified because you have the left of the party, the centrists, and it is more of a noisy group. And they were trying, like, they were meeting every document saying, okay, the white house can be unifewed simple, how unified simple, how are we going to counter that. Well, you know, in the few minutes that we have left, i think i would like to go to a point that you raise in the final few pages of the book and that i found in some ways the most haunting of all. You know, impeachment is, as you write, Alexander Hamilton envisioned it as something that would happen very, very rarely. But we have seen it happen now twice in just a little over 20 years. And in both cases, it played out exactly the same. A house that is controlled by the president s opposition impeaches him, and then essentially his neck gets saved by his own partisans in the senate. And so you raised the question of are we almost cheapening what should be a very, very rare occurrence in our system . Has impeachment become too easy, and is this essentially going to be what the future looks like . Well, thats a great question, and, you know, impeachment is one of the major systems, major mechanisms for congress to hold the president accountable. And it now a appears that its really more of a protest howl than any way to actually remove a president because anytime you have a president who has a friendly majority in the house i mean, an opposition majority in the house, they rusk impeachment. But if they know they have a friendly majority in the senate and, remember, Neither Party has had a twothirds majority in the senate which is what its required to impeach, to remove someone from office no ones had that for 80 years, and, and its not going to change anytime soon. He was um peached in the house and acquitted in the senate. It appears that this has emboldened him. This has allowed him to say i can do pretty much anything i want. Senate republicans, obviously, would argue with that. If he committed some crime, they presumably would impeach him. But it does seem like we have set this up to weaken the power between the branches of government. Impeachment isnt exactly the tool that the founders envisioned that it would be. And its one of the key reasons democrats say that if Donald Trumps reelected, hell do anything. Were not going to have, even if they retake the senate twothirds, what you need in the senate in these partisan times. What is the control on him . And youll be hearing that argument. When other people say, you know, during these partisan times that incredible down the line partisan vote, you know, with republicans in the house just sticking with trump, that because our times are so divided and so partisan, what long ago the founders may have envisioned that people would vote their consigns if they thought that the president conscience if they thought look at what happened to mitt romney, he wasnt even invited to the convention. I mean, hes been basically shut out of the Republican Party. Its, i mean, its sad to see that happening in our system. People should be able to vote their conscience. And back to john lewis worry about democracy, you know, a check on an a allpowerful presidency is what americas about, you know . We dont want a dictator. And this impeachment was a check. And people are really worried we dont have that check in these days. So, you know, that is why you have so many people saying what has happened to our democracy as we know it. So what do you think trumps legacy is going to be, that he was impeached or that he was acquitted . Well, you know, as the democrats kept saying, impeach for life. Impeached for life. Bill clinton all these years later was impeached. Trump will always be, he cannot escape the level impeached. Now, is that his legacy, or is his legacy that he then came back and won an incredible reelection she despite all of this . Its too soon to know. I do think that november will help decide what the legacy is. Well, thank you so much. Unfortunately, thats all the time we have today, but thank you, kevin, thank you, mary, and congratulations on this absolutely terrific book. Please be sure to check out their new book, trump on trial the investigation, impeachment, acquittal and aftermath. Im karen tumulty, and thank you for joining us today. Thanks, karen. Thanks also for listening. Youre watching booktv on cspan2, television for serious readers. Here are some programs to watch out for tonight. On our Author Interview program after words, democratic senator crust murphy of connecticut chris murphy of connecticut looks at the origins of violence and firearms in americas history and the role they play in society today. Were live with pulitzer prizewinning Journalist Bob Woodward on president Trumps National and Foreign Policy decisions. And history professor martha jones explores the efforts by black women who win their right to one their right to vote. Consult your cable guide or visit booktv. Org for more information. A look now at some of the current best selling nonfiction books according to publishers weekly. Topping the lust, in melania and me, Stephanie Winston recalls her time as the first ladys Senior Adviser and why she left the administration. Thats followed by the memoir untamed and pulitzer prizewinning author isabel wilkersons exploration of what she calls a hidden caste system in the United States. Sean hannity argues that a democratic president ial victim rely in 2020 would lead to socialism and economic strife, and wrapping up our look at some of the best selling nonfiction books is how to lead, businessman and philanthropist david reuben steins a vice from leaders in the fields of finance, entertainment and government. Some of these authors have appeared on booktv, and you can watch them online at booktv. Org. And now on booktvs after words, Sarah Huckabee sanders refrequents on her life and her time serving as the White House Press secretary for the trump administration. Shes interviewed by Bloomberg News senior White House Reporter jennifer jacobs. After words has relevant guest hosts interviewing top nonfiction authors about their latest book. All programs are also available as podcasts. Host hi, sarah. Guest hi, jennifer, how are you . Host very good, thank you. This is fun, to ask you a few questions again. [laughter] guest its like old times. Were right back into the normal routine here. [laughter] host so your book is less about him, less about president trump, and its more about you. Its sort of the greatest hits of your memories from your time at the white house, but i wanted to ask you, you do very unvarnished, some great behind the scenes tales, but truly there are some secrets and dirty laundry that you dont reveal. So i just wd