Of course, about her new book, enough. But let me first note that this evening event is a joint effort by George Washington university and politics and prose. The university and our bookstore have been working together for some time now and putting on events. And id like to think that the gw staff for helping make this event possible, so id be surprised if theres anyone here not familiar with cassidys captivating and and pivotal appearance before the House Select Committee investigate the january six assault on the capitol. Her stunning testimony early last year as a former special assistant in the white house who had had personally witnessed the goings on at the highest levels around donald trump provided vivid and details about just how far the president and senior aides were willing to go to deny the results of the 2020 election and and maintain power watching cassidy testify, the rest of us could only imagine at that time what incredible press pressure she had been under. Not to tell all she knew about what had gone on and what incredible courage she and sense of patriotism it had taken to go public with her story. Well, her book now reveals just what she went through. It starts at the beginning, recounting her childhood in a working class family in new jersey, and later her remarkably swift rise in washington to the upper reaches of trumps white house, only to become increasingly disillusioned by the chaos, duplicity and wrongful behavior that she saw having once been deeply under trumps sway, cassidy eventually faced a choice between continued loyalty to the president and loyalty to the country, wrenching as that crisis of conscience was for her. Her book makes clear that going through it ultimately led her to a stronger sense of herself in conversation and with with cassidy. This evening will be a distinguished House Democrat who has led efforts to hold trump to account. Jamie raskin. A consequence institutional law expert, congressman raskin has represented. So i just wanted to say a couple more lines about jamie, but obviously you all know who he is. Hes the constitution, the law expert, and he has represented marylands eighth district since 2017, of course, served on the on the january six select committee. And hes also author of several books and his most recent if you havent read it, you should his most recent there was unthinkable, which chronicled his own trauma in early 2021 as it grieved the suicide of his son while leading the second impeachment proceedings against trump. So i was going to say, ladies and gentlemen, please welcome what you already have on with the show. All right. Sorry about that. We didnt mean to crash the introduction. We know we were motion to go in. And so youre just too excited to be here. I, on the other hand. Well, hello, gw and thank you, politics and prose, for doing this. And. Thank you, cassidy, for suggesting me as your interlocutor. Youre into your interrogator today. When you read the first i know. So thank you to our best congressman raskin for agreeing to be here and also all of you for coming out tonight. This means a tremendous amount to me. I wont speak on behalf of the congressman, but i appreciate your. All right. Now, youve written an extraordinary and riveting captivate book. Ive got a thousand questions for you. Is the number one New York Times best seller and already they have theyve run out of books. One thing i think is very cool about the book is that theres no index in it and i have read that well, my dad used to say that people in washington read books back words. They start at the index and they look for their name. Then they go to the introduction or the foreword to see if theyre there, and then they sort of ruin about a little bit, but hopefully anybody here, they actually have to read it exactly. If you want to know if youre in cassidys book, youve got to read the book in order to figure it out. Look, i want to salute you on the achievement of doing it. I know how hard it is to write a book, and i know this has been tough and grueling time for you in a lot of ways. This is a book which when you finish, you wish a lot more had been said, not a lot less, which is true of most political books, but something so so ive got to i got a lot of questions for you and the the the personal stuff in this book is as fascinating or even more fascinating than the political stuff. And so i want to start with some of the personal stuff you you write that you never your family did not really talk about politics growing up. And yet you grew fascinated by politics. And in 2012, it was the romney obama race and that was when you checked out the debate. You investigated a little bit and you thought that you would become a republican at that point, and you identified will you just give us a glimpse into what youre thinking . Was it like what were the i can read this work on your face now. What were the ideas and the images that the motivated you at that point . I mean, you know, the political Scientists Say a lot of people are most influenced by their own family in terms of how they end up registering to vote or thinking about politics. But what was it that grabbed you about romney or the gop at that point . You know, i wish there was a very straightforward answer to it. So going back to the way i when i was growing up, my uncle joe, who was one of the most formative people in my life, he was in the army and he was really the only person that i knew in my family was fairly skeptical about the government and didnt have the most strong feelings about the government. So i sort of had that sentiment in my mind. But then i had this man, my uncle joe, who did serve in the military. So i had this idea of Public Service and i was fascinated by it and sort of wanted to go into Public Service from a young age myself, although not really knowing what that might look like. So during the 2012 election, i was we were assigned to watch one of the debates. And i remember watching the first debate and listening to former president barack obama and mitt romney go back and forth and i it wasnt one particular issue. And i wish it was, but it wasnt one particular issues that stood out to me as much as i liked what mitt romney was saying about the party agenda as a whole. And it made sense to me. Yeah, at the time, too, i was i was, i think 15 years old. I know it is. I mean, it is hard to, you know, keep reminding myself how young you are, but youre exactly the age of our youngest daughter. Youre 26 now, right . Yeah. And i mean, and whats remarkable is when a lot of these events were taking place, and when youre 24 or 25, you were by far the youngest person in the white house, and you were also the adult in the room most often. But lets just one ive got another question about your childhood, because you describe, i think in a very delicate way, a childhood that had some chaos and instability in it. And i think it was when your mom decided to move to indiana and you went with your brother jack, and your mom. I think your dad had not come out to join you yet for a while. Right. And but you describe how at recess the other kids would go out and play. And you stayed in and talked with the teacher. And it seems like your entire life youve had this extra ordinary identification with older people whove taken such an interest in you from, you know, mark meadows to President Trump to professors, teachers to me, liz cheney, matt gaetz, all those i think thats kind of different. Listing of the credible politicians, but so now you can get as psychoanalytical as you want to or not at all. But i mean, have you noticed that quality in yourself . Have you always felt more comfortable with older people than with your peers . And youve also been intellectually precocious, too. I mean, part of what you describe is being a little bit bored by what was going on with the standard curriculum, wanting to learn from the teachers as much as you could, and looking for always for opportunities to study more deeply, specifically government, public policy, politics. I would say its two pronged with that. One, i was raised in an environment where privacy was power and i think that also sort of carried through my adult life. And thats something im sort of theres so great element to privacy that people should always have the right to remain private. But its a it was different in the way that i was raised in terms of like, you are we very much kept to ourselves. I had your dad mostly right . Yes, predominantly. But then even when my parents got divorced, it was just sort of ingrained in us. Yeah, i had two really Close Friends growing up, but then when they moved, i sort of was like, well, i wanted to be. And i did have other friends my age, but i did feel probably to late middle school. I felt really for the first time that i could identify, i at least communicate better with adults, which i resented at the time. I also was very tall. I have not grown since sixth grade, so i was that sort of packed that i looks like an adult. But no, i everyone on the other side of it too, i felt more intrigued by adult conversation, not just in the sense of what they were discussing, but i felt that i was more challenging and i could have more thought provoking conversations with adults, more so than, you know, my own age. You know, thats not completely universal. There have been incredible people in my age group. Yeah, that well that its almost immediately to a question that several people asked. One person wrote how did someone with your incredible intelligence soul and heart end up with the trump crew and but but before we get to that, i dont want to jump the gun on that, giving you time to think about that. Yes. You had a fight with your dad. That struck me in the book where hes watching the apprentice, which was his favorite show. And you said, i wish that you would spend as much time on your family as you spend with donald trump in the apprentice. And that was a remarkable moment. And what was your take away from the conversation that you had about that and what did it make you think about donald trump in fourth grade . So i was about ten years old. She was ten years old when the apprentice was on nightline. And i wrote the fact check that. No, i so that was towards the error were my parents were on the verge of getting divorced or at least progressing towards that. And i want to preface this to my father. We have a very strained relationship now and even growing up, but he he was very formative in my life and i wouldnt, for better or for worse, i wouldnt be here today without a lot of the lessons, for better or worse, that i learned from him. He taught you to be a warrior. Yes. And i again, up to the readers, whenever you want to make of that. Yeah. You know, he hes a very complicated man, but i do i love him and he loved me the way that he knew how to love me. And with the apprentice, you know, i had this very faint idea of who donald trump was. I grew up in new jersey, so i feel like a lot of people sort of have an idea of who donald trump was. My father owned his own business. He owned a landscaping company. And its not four seasons. So. Its another unbelievable year. And my father was always looking for the next best business adventure business venture. And he put donald trump on this pedestal as this man who built this empire, which now i look back and more recently in the last year and totally lost the correct presumption, but, you know, i didnt really grow up personally idolizing trump, but i grew up around people who either idolized trump as the business matter, idolized the mentality behind that and behind what he had said. So when he was running for president. What i didnt really take it seriously at first, but to it wasnt this i didnt have this four dimensional view of what an actual Trump Presidency could look like based off of my fourth grade apprentice experience. And that was your First Encounter with donald trump. When your dad was watching him on . There was and i remember also when i was like middle school, high school, we would go down to Atlantic City sometimes and what was the trump hotel or one of the trump casinos . Like my stepfather, hes my chosen father. I call him paul. Wed talk about donald trump, too. So he was he was sort of a household name, but not where i was like pushed to adore him myself. So i feel like it was sort of this almost a sense of premonition, like theres this man that i sort of know who he is and thats being touted as this incredible businessman and this american and giant. And then, oh, yeah, i went to the hes doing the first when they make the movie of your book, he will appear as a cameo in those first scenes and in the background, hell be thrilled. Why . Why was your mom the essential person in your family, as you put it . After my parents got divorced, know, a lot of times i felt like it was my mom and i against the world. And they had a complicated divorce. And i did choose writing this book was difficult because i you mentioned psychoanalysis earlier. Im not very big on psychoanalysis. So for me, like when i my life was my life and it was sort of like a survival mode which i didnt fully appreciate or realize at the time, but, you know, we got by day, by day and they had a very strange relationship. But i sort of took the role as the intermediary. And she she worked for she had a very low paying job. She relied on him financially. So i like we we were trying to keep that relationship there. So her and i, in those years, so down in fifth grade, some 11. But in those years after their High School Graduation relied on each other a lot as emotional support, but also as support for our family, just to make sure that we could get by. Yeah. You made a trip to washington, d. C. , and felt this immediate, intense affinity with the city in a kind of ethical sense and a spiritual sense. And you knew that it would be an important part of your destiny. What was it you saw in washington when you came here . How old were you during that trip . Second grade. So after my second grade, going to third grade . Yeah. So she has an amazing memory and she doesnt forget anything which is which makes her a badass witness on capitol hill. So. Youre welcome. And so i when i first saw my uncle joe and my aunts, ive had just moved from indiana to washington, dc. He had come back from afghanistan and moved. He was working at the pentagon. We arrived late in the night and they had an apartment in crystal city and their balcony overlooks the skyline. And i remember the next morning waking up and looking out and just feeling mesmerized with the city skyline. I hadnt even gone into the city yet. Later that day we went and did a walk on the mall, like the washington mall, starting up the Lincoln Memorial and ending at the capitol and the first time i felt this like what i call not like a gravitational pull was when i saw the washington monument. And i, i dont know why, but it was forever been this great psychoanalysis for. The first year. I know that. So we passed the washington monument. We got to the capitol. And i actually have a picture of this. Its quite embarrassing, but i sort of crying. And i looked at my mom and i said i wanted to stay with we moved around a lot when i was a child and i was like, we moved to washington, d. C. I really wanted to move to washington, d. C. , but i remember we were at the capitol. I was looking at the capitol and i, i feel like it was that moment, that kind of clicked for me where i, you know, i had this idea of Public Service. I had been to a city. I have no idea. Again, very young, but no idea what it would look like. But i felt that i belonged here. And every time i would visit d. C. And then leave, it would be a very Emotional Experience for me. So and i sort of lived at the school of like, how can i get back . Youre the first person in your family to go to college. I was. And and you went to the Christopher Newport in virginia, not far from d. C. Tell us about how you actually got involved in republican politics and government service, because one of the remarkable things about the book is how many of the people who are key actors in the drama of january 6th, the insurrection and the attempted coup, were people youd actually met before or you knew before, you know, including like formative years of my very young career in d. C. Yeah. I mean, so i mean, jim jordan was somebody Kevin Mccarthy youd met nancy pelosi, you had a story about her. And so and so how did you get involved and how did you make that rapid ascent into politics such that you actually knew a lot of these players, including liz cheney . Yeah. So after my sophomore year or during my sophomore year of college, i had worked my freshman summer going into sophomore year, worked through sophomore year, but i worked some the summer after freshman year because i had the goal, okay, i need to spend the next few summers interning so i could eventually get a job in washington, the college kids are taking notes. By the way, what youre saying is, are you, for better or for worse, with a grain of salt . I remember it was right after winter break, sophomore year. I went to the library and locked myself in one of the study rooms and i filled out an application for every single House Republican office and sent them out. No idea what i was doing. I just was like, our next year. Me perfect. Im going to apply for your office. I got several interview issues, including one in leadership with the then majority whip. Steve scalise, and was offered to i ended up taking the internship with majority whip steve squeeze then. So this was to the summer of 2017. And when i started working there, i started working with the Member Services team, which is to delve too deep into it, but the Member Services team is in charge of managing the relationships with all of House Republicans. So as the intern i got to know the majority of the republican conference that summer. And, you know, i think that that sort of set me up, too, for the future opportunities, including the next summer when i interned in the office of legislative affairs at the white house. Right. And that was under who hired you that first time when you went to the white house . I marc short was the director of legislative affairs at the time. Yeah. And he also comes to play a role in january six. G so marc short was the director of legislative affairs when i interned in legislative affairs, and then when i was hired full time and the summer of 2000, 19, marc short was became the