Raised myself and my other eight siblings. I am the third of nine children. He was an amazing man. When i was a little girl growing up in louisiana, my father frightened me because he was so tough, so courageous. Everyone in the neighborhood respected him. His nickname was goose. They called him goose because they said he could fly like a goose. He was a basketball player. He played baseball. He was an amazing man, a great father. Tough, but always fair. Brian how did you know he was tough . At what point did he show that to you . Donna he would tell us to go outside and do things that i would think, why did he want us to do that . He wanted to toughen us. He would tell us to go face whatever danger we had, whether it was snakes or swamp creatures. We lived outside the city of new orleans. We had a large piece of land, but it was adjacent to what we used to call the forest, but it was just a bunch of weeds and sugarcane and a lot of other stuff. My dad would make us do things that i thought at the time, why is he making us do this . He wanted us to be very disciplined. We had to wake up every morning and make up our beds. He also told us that we had to listen to our mother and love the lord. Brian you have talked a lot about your book and the fbi and the russians and all of that. I am going to try to concentrate some on you as a person and some of the other Little Things in the book. I will read back to you something you wrote. I sprinkled a little holy water on the chairs and desk and said a prayer for healing and for strength. What was that moment, and why did you put that in the book . Donna i am a basic catholic. My father and mother taught us to pray. My grandmother made us pray when we were kids. I love the notion of sprinkling holy water to cleanse things. I like to smudge, often with sage or cedar. It is a way to express ones openness to guidance from a higher power. You have to cleanse yourself, you have to cleanse the environment. I often would go over to the dnc and sprinkle holy water because i thought we were under attack and we needed special protection. Of course, i read the psalms every day. The best one my aunt ethel taught us, my dads oldest sister, when my enemies come before me, they shall stumble and fall. Commendation a combination of holy water and incense. I asked god for strength and wisdom and encourage, humility, but never asked god for that because everything is in divine order. If it is not in divine order, it is not my job to ask god to make it such. My job is to ask god for protection, for courage, for wisdom, for humility. But i dont believe ive ever asked god for a victory. Brian what is your reaction, having been in politics for how many years now . Donna my last count i am coming up on my 49th year, getting close to my 50th anniversary in politics. I started at the age of nine working for a candidate who promised to build a playground in my community. He won the election for city council and the playground was installed, and ive had a lifelong commitment to politics. Brian how often over the years have you watched a politician use god in his or her campaign and you didnt believe it . Donna with the exception of rev. Jessee jackson, i have never been drawn to those who said they knew god better than anyone else. I tried to distill from interacting with people their faith, their commitment to acting upon that faith, which is about compassion and love and justice and mercy. I have rarely looked for a candidate that espoused the same faith. In fact, i have worked for a few atheists in my life. That was some of the hardest campaigns and individuals to work for, but in the end they respected me and my views and i respected them, though from time to time i would tell them i was praying for them. Brian writing this book that ended up on the New York Times best seller list, who dislikes this book the most that has told you that to your face . Donna i have not had one person tell me to my face, although on twitter when the socalled excerpts came out, there was intense reaction from my former colleagues at the Democratic Party, as well as the Clinton Campaign. The initial reaction i thought was unfair. They didnt read the book. They read the excerpts and thought i was speaking out by writing a book that criticized the campaign. As well as the excerpts also had a lot of red meat that President Trump picked up and used to try to sow division between myself and the Clinton Campaign. It was painful at first, the first 48 hours. I have been attacked by everybody, the right wing, the russians, the trump campaign, the sanders campaign, and now i can add to that list the Clinton Campaign. There is something in the bible that always keeps me grounded, and that is that if god be for you, who can be against you . Because i can say those words, i am ok. I have a lot of family. I have brothers and sisters who i love, aunt, uncles. They do not know me. I have good friends that know me. There are people today who are still upset. Perhaps one mistake i made that i havent had a chance to discuss with anyone is that i gave them heads up. I wasnt writing behind peoples back. I said i was going to write this book, i am going to tell this story because this is a very important conversation we need to have about what happened in 2016 from the perspective of a chair of the Democratic National committee. Not the candidate, not the campaign, but the chair of the party. I gave everybody heads up. The first thing i did once my proposal was done and the publisher said it is a go, i requested help from a journalist. I said, given the controversial nature of this campaign, this disruptive political season, and the controversy that i myself had to endure, i wanted a journalist to fact check and make sure that i got it as close to the truth as i could possibly do. Brian you have talked about the fact that you recorded with a journalist friend. In the back of the book you talk about her and told that story. When all was said and done, what did you take out that did not get in the book because you look looked back at it and said, that is going to far . Donna well, there were times when i wanted to write a little bit more about some of the controversy that we all experienced. One good example is the socalled mi6. When the chair of the party is unable to make decisions around contracts, spending money, hiring consultants, it made my job difficult because i could not keep people accountable, and yet when i kept looking at the book i said, first of all, i didnt know if secretary clinton was well aware of the arrangements that were made between her Campaign Staff and the staff at the dnc. I know i was not aware. So i wanted to write the book in such a way as to give her the opportunity to learn as well some of the things that were happening in the campaign. I had no idea if she was aware or not aware, but i have no idea if they had communicated with her. I left a lot of those Financial Arrangements out because i did not think the American People would understand them. I did not think the reader would. I thought the trump people would take advantage of it to exploit and attack secretary clinton more, so i kept a lot of that stuff out. Brian you say, i am slow to anger. How slow . Donna it normally builds up. Then i feel as though i am not one who walks around with a grudge. As i mentioned, i pray all the time, so i ask for forgiveness if i make a mistake. When i believe people are unfairly attacking or perhaps trying to harm me, it angers me. I also hate injustice in all of its forms. I hate bigotry. I dont like racism, sexism, any of the isms, and yet when i was confronted with a situation where i could not give my input i mean, traveling is not easy. Going to colorado one day, florida the next day, backup to washington dc, pennsylvania, back to the west coast, nevada, ohio, michigan. After four or five days of that, i am trying to relay what is happening in these communities, talking to people. People know me. They stop me, they call me, they email me, they text me. Every time i tried to relay what is happening to the team, imagine this if you are the chair of the party down in florida, and you got the phone and call the congressional folks like, no problem madam chair. We are on it. And i did that in the orlando area. But when i would call the Clinton Campaign and relay the same information, they were dismissive, as if, you dont have to worry. We are going to win. We have this all under control. The Democratic Campaign committee would pick up the phone and call me back. Kelly ward at the Democratic CongressionalCampaign Committee would pick up the phone and call me back. But when it came to the Clinton Campaign, it was just totally dismissed, and that angered me. Brian how many president ial campaigns have you worked on . Donna seven as a staff person and 11 cycles as either an unpledged delegate or strategic advisor. I advised the Obama Campaign in the general election in 2008 and 2012. Had a great relationship with them. Had a great relationship with the john Kerry Campaign, a great relationship going as far back as the cartermondale years all the way up to the clintongore years. This was the first president ial campaign that, trying to get basic information to those in charge, remember, they were in charge of the dnc basic information to those in charge of that. I had to constantly challenge them to support the party and to unleash the party so that the party could go out there and support ballot races such as people running for sheriff or city council all the way up to the oval office. Brian let me ask you about this paragraph in your book. Before i get there, though, you announce in the book that you used to swear and drink a lot, and you gave that up. Donna and smoke. Brian you say because of what happened during the campaign, you were back doing it again. Donna in my 20s, i would smoke maybe a pack a month. Everyone would keep a couple cigarettes handy in case things became stressful. I enjoyed drinking scotch. Now i like a nice glass of red wine, cabernet. This campaign, i went back to my old friend johnny walker, especially with the attacks. The hacking itself was so difficult to handle because it was invasive. They came after you. You dont know what part of your life they were coming after. They were coming after your personal emails, your text messages, your cell phone, and you couldnt control what was happening once they unleashed the information because then the twitter bots and facebook trolls would then take the next step to begin to personally attack you and harass you. At night, we had a group of folks internally in the dnc that would go to the club and order a couple dozen wings and a couple bottles of wine. I always started off with a nice clear, clean glass of scotch. It was my way of mellowing out. The good news is since the election, i havent returned to any of my old vices again, but i needed some way to control the stress i was under and to deal with what was happening in real time. I was trying to protect the staff and the party from further harm and damage. I was trying to protect individuals who, like myself, came under really difficult threats and attacks, and i was trying to keep my head above the water. I had to remain chair. Brian heres is what i was getting at that i want to read back to you. This is on page 26. When the Campaigns Communications director salt the remarks, she got angry quick. Jennifer wanted to know who approved the change in the Campaign Schedule because she certainly had not. Jennifer glowered at me, then the staff, then jumped up and walked out, slamming the door behind her. I was thinking, if that bitch ever does anything like that to me again, im gonna walk. How long did you think about that before you put it in the book . Donna that was my immediate reaction. I am giving up everything i needed to give up because i wanted no conflicts in my schedule, no conflicts in my personal or professional life. I gave up everything. Cnn. K my leave from i stopped my weekly column. The only thing i kept on my schedule was my students, my class. I would go back to teaching because i love to teach. Here i was volunteering to help Hillary Clinton and her staff as chair of the party, as well as the president of the United States, barack obama, who i supported. All i wanted was tim kaine, the former chair of the dnc, to come to the dnc meeting at the conclusion of the convention to begin to plan ahead for the future, as well as to talk about the general election. And tim kaine, the former chair of the party, who i took over after he departed to run for the United States senate, he had agreed to do it. I knew he agreed to do it. I had one of the staff people write out his remarks. It was only going to be 20 minutes of his time. And yet, when jennifer found out, she proceeded to give us a blistering attack on who approved this, why is it happening, and once again it was the kind of condescension and disrespect of the dnc that i saw in the clinton team that just really made me angry, and i said stop. If you ever do that again, that is it. I am going to walk. I am going to stop doing this. It was so disrespectful, and i was tired of it. I was already tired of it in july. You can imagine in november and beyond how tired i was of it. Just people disrespecting the Democratic National committee and the chair, who happened to be an unpaid volunteer taking on all the income and going out there every day defending Hillary Clinton when not one of her spokespeople or Staff Members went out there, and i went out there every day to defend her. Brian there is a little bit of insight here about the media. When you were working for cnn, what was your responsibility . Donna i was a paid political commentator since 2001. Brian how about abc . Donna same thing, paid political commentator, partisan, for over a decade. Brian here is what i want to ask you about. In the morning when i was getting ready to go to the studio, i would know if i was going to play the part of the bitch who stands up to the gop talking points. Or they might ask me to be cool, calm, donna. The insight is that the producers of these shows tell you in advance how they want you to be. Is that true . And if so, why . Donna especially in president ial years, it is not like a state of the union when you are out there listening to the remarks of george w. Bush or barack obama, which i did, but it is during the height of the campaign season, and often i was on the same platform as three different republicans. You had a trump republican, a nontrump republican, and a republican who supported the leading candidate at the time who was still in the race, like a ted cruz person or marco rubio or jeb bush person. They would invite me, and my job was always to defend secretary clinton and her use of emails. I used to call that the office bitch. I had to go in there and anticipate that i had to again discuss her emails which, i did not work for her at the state department and i did not know anything about her arrangements. All i know is what they told me. The office bitch was someone who could go out there and say, to hell with the talking points. She apologized, and i was happy when she apologized for the use of a private server. If they wanted me that day there were other times when i would go out with other saycrats, and they would would you become the person who could speak on behalf of martin omalley, Bernie Sanders, lincoln chafee, or jim webb because they had a clinton person on, someone who had endorsed Hillary Clinton or was a cnn commentator like my good friend paul. They were clinton paid commentators on cnn, so my job was to be the easy peasy, nice and easy person who would describe what bernie or martin or jim webb would say, so i tried look, no one put words in my mouth, but you are on tv and in many ways i thought of myself as an actress. I had to play the part. I could play this part, i could play that part. But i used my own words, but i was an actress playing the various roles that i was often assigned to do when i was called to be on television. Brian page 72, explain this one. Over lunch, charlie said i should pick this up with robbie, but i knew that would not be a good conversation. You know, you cannot leave me in a room with a bunch of smartass white boys for 10 minutes before it all starts to go wrong. Explain please. Donna oh god. Well, here i am. I have worked in politics all my life. I probably have more political experience than most because i started so early, and i had to essentially climb every ladder, and i did it twice. When i would go to robby and his band of brothers, there was never a woman in the room. There was a woman outside the room, but in the room i was the only woman. I would say, here are the needs of the Democratic National committee. Here are the things we want to do. I thought it was important to get his approval since he had this agreement to spend the money we had, and robby would be so dismissive and disrespectful. I dont even know if he even understood how disrespectful he was. He would not even consider an idea i would bring to him. For example, after august 19 when donald trump said, what the hell do you have to lose, i thought of all the things we could lose if he became president. I wanted to advertise to black voters what is at stake in the election. Of course, because the chair of the party can call upon the president and Vice President and first lady to also go out there and explain this, i wanted resources and robby said, we can do this later. I wanted to do it now. I needed help. They know me. You cant leave me in a room 10 minutes because i am not going to suffer the indignity and disrespect that young folks sometimes have towards those of us who have been around the block a few times. In my case i have been around the country for well over 40 years of my life. 40 years of traveling, working on campaigns from the very bottom of the political ladder to the very top, and yet i couldnt get something as simple as an ad. Bri