Inside Trump World as the Next Chapter Begins
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Today, as the trump prepares to retake the White house, my colleagues jonathon swan and Maggie harman take us inside the final days of his campaign and inside his early planning for a second administration.

It's friday, november. if.

So Maggie, JoNathan, thank you for making time for us from Sunny pompei Flora where I know you are not basking in the sun, but covering the early hours of president elect doll trump. I appreciate .

making time for us.

Thanks for having us.

Thank you for having us and you are there because you were piece together the final weeks and days of the trump campaign and now are piece together trump s plan for a second administration. And those are the two sides of the episode that we really want to cover with you today. So let's start, JoNathan, with what you have learned about that last stretch of the trump campaign inside that Operation leading up to his Victory on tuesday and how IT may have defeated from the way he looked from the outside.

Well, IT was sort of an interesting situation because as reporters who cover trump have been cover for nine years, Maggie's been covering him even long than that. But we've basically spend all day, every day talking to people in his Albert.

And so was this very interesting experience of watching a lot of coverage in the last week, which showed a sort of a vibe shift, if you want, trump was out there doing these rallies where IT was almost like this absurdist experiment to see how much self harm he could inflict and get away with. But there was also the other side to IT, which was his campaign. Internal data was very consistent.

Tony for brazil, his chief poster, his private polling throughout this campaign consistently showed the Donald trump t win this election. And there was a real gap between the world, the public polling and what tony for brazil's private polling was shown. And so IT was this weird by the case situation where, rationally, they thought they were going in to win because their internal data showed that. But there was this anxiety worrying inside them, because you never know if your data right. Everyone's just making assumptions about modeling in turnout, and the candidate was out there doing and saying things that would sink any Normal candidate.

All magi, how great was the anxiety with in the trump campaign about the first half of what JoNathan just described, the kind of self harming candidate on stage, in contrast with the second bark, that kind of confidence that they fell around their internal polling.

He has been the purist version of himself publicly in the last few months of this race. And really the biggest moment of the anxiety for the campaign came this past sunday.

And a very, very special hello to pencil place when he .

held a morning rally in pencilling.

Yeah and and I tell you what I love being of these stupid teller process because the truth comes out.

IT was a rambling, meandering, goche and delivery that was filled with his complaints and his grievances.

We had the safest border in the history of our country. The day that I left, I shouldn't have left. I been, honestly, he stated that .

he shouldn't have left the White house .

in twenty twenty. And to get me, somebody would have to shoot through the fake news. And I don't mind that so much .

and also was musing about reporters being shot.

So I have a piece of glass here. And the problem with that lass is it's I don't look great on television when you have a .

foreign at the end of that rally before he stopped talking, suzi wives, his top campaign advisor, was seen walking. And he never does this or never used to do this. When he was, campaign was seen walking out to the stage. And SHE stood with sunlike.

clearly just looking at him, very trying to get .

him to look toward her, basically for the point of let's wrap IT up. And at that one, he didn't rap IT up entirely, but he did get back on his telephone.

And we will make amErica great again. Thank you very much. God like you.

The worry was that even though, as IT would ultimately turn out, tony for brazil data was incredibly on target, IT was really, really close to on the number in every single backgrounds date. It's hard to predict what can influence voters behavior in the final two days in the lead .

up to election day. And we know, of course, that none of IT hurt him. His instinct was right, that the internal polling was not going to be taken off track by a wild version of truth. So now I wanted to bring us to the end of this journey, two election night itself, and what IT was like inside his palm beach headquarters up until the moment, I guess, when he realized that he had one.

So trump ent election, not at mario go. And election days tend to have lots of unverified, anecdo stuff coming out of different and what have you? And in the afternoon, there were reports coming from lots of different sources that democratic turnout was through the roof in philadelphy and detroit.

So the trump people were trying to figure out how real was that they were getting concerned. And clearly, that filled back to Donald trump because he started posting on truth social about hearing about massive fraud in philadelphy and destroyed. But a lot of the things he had melted away by about nine o'clock when the returns were coming in.

And IT was clear that kala Harris was just not getting the kind of numbers that he needed in suburban areas in states like texas and Virginia. And the trumpet team were assuming correctly that the underperformance in those other states was probably going to transfer to the blue hall states of michigan, pennsylvania and wisconsin. I would say, by about nine, nine and thirty, the trump campaign was feeling very, very confident of Victory.

And Maggie, what's stands out to you about your communications with people in the trump campaign around this time and you're understanding of how trump is processing what I suppose becomes a growing consensus of those around him that he is going to prevail.

So during this period of time, trump at mara logo is joined by people like elan, a number of his advisers, his family is there. The mood starts to get very jubilant. IT is clear to his team that he is almost certain to win, although that would not become clear to the public for a little bit. But the network still had .

not called the race, but always a source of serious tension within trump. And for trump himself.

at least the last two elections. yes. And so eventually some of his aides started pressuring the networks to call IT.

sorry guys, back to trace.

Thank you.

And they did eventually call IT.

The fox news decision desk can now officially project the dowd truck will become the forty seventh president of the united states.

One thing that was interesting being in the convention center was the big screens were playing fox. And I just want to say this is we wait for him to come out. I remember having a conversation with a von could trump in two thousand and sixteen about his reMarks. And and as so often happens with fox, you see some of the hosts almost coaching trump through the TV and said he wanted .

to heal the nation in the first words he said were IT appreciation for Hillary clinton, for her service to our country.

And he said, now, so you had Kelly mccann, I, his former press secretary, basically saying how this was a wonderful opportunity for don't trump to be a unified.

Thank you very much.

So to be question on people's mind, what's trumping na say you going to .

be a unified. And I will govern by a simple model. Promises made, promises kept. We're going to keep our promises.

There are a little notes of that, but you know.

i've said, go into the enemy camp. And you know, the enemy camp is certain networks.

He called the media the enemy and sort of went off on digress ons, talking about elon rockets.

And I saw that rocket I saw coming down. I saw that was when I left. IT was beautiful, shiny White. When I came.

he basically just went into rally road.

God bless you and god bless america. Thank you very much.

And he has won that. Basically, the vibe in the trump orbit is we have to feat you. We have defeated the media.

We have defeated the legal system, and there is a confidence and a swagger. And we can basically do what we want to right now. That's what you feel when you talk to them. And there's always been an element of that in trump world, but I would say it's even more acute now than i've ever seen IT.

To that point, the world's reaction to trumps Victory, at least the elite world of corporate leaders and heads of state, really seem to bolster that feeling of not just Victory, but in the words of these people who reacted to IT like extraordinary Victory. And I think it's we're spending a little bit of time with some of the congratulatory ory messages .

that truck got yeah one of the most notable was from bb at yahoo. Israel's prime minister put out this post on ex, formally known as twitter, gushing about how this is one of history's greatest come backs. And IT was a picture of himself with trump that was one of many along those lines .

in that language. Maggie doesn't seem like a Normal head of state vocabulary election. I mean, when a foreign ad of state tells you that you have pulled off and i'm looking at IT now, quote history's greatest come back and the next sentence involves the phrase historic return IT and as if that we're not enough huge Victory later on in the same tweet that seems literally tailor made to light certain parts of doing trm spring up.

yeah, look, it's certainly true that IT was a historic come back. IT is IT is true that we haven't seen anything like this in U. S. History given what trump comes into the office with, which is a criminal conviction, and also it's of other controversies and how he left off as last time. But you are correct that every world leader got the memo in from first term, and they clearly now no heading into this one what he likes to hear. And they understand that in order to get favour with him, the conversation has to begin with that.

right? The result, though, JoNathan, and this, just what is genuinely fascinating was a universe of these congratulatory notes that literally seemed like they had been written by the same consultant who had figured out what words should be used across the board. Whether IT was about a landsknecht ff basis.

i'm not sure you need a consultation. This is not we're not talking about we're not talking about a great deal of psychological complexity here. These are sort of like, mr.

trump. Y you are amazing. Your Victory is so big, the biggest, the greatest, the most historic. I mean, it's almost like the letters he used to receive .

from kim john on, yeah. Since the election, we've heard from several people that trump is essentially his .

happiest version of himself.

He is relaxed. These criminal cases against him are about to evaporate in one way or another.

Woman.

he knows that he had a decisive of Victory. He is wandering around moroccan in a great mood, fielding calls from people basically like a conquer Victor. But very soon will come the part that he likes far less than winning, which is .

actually governing. I'll be right back.

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okay. So making everything, let's turn now to how trump is thinking about a second term administration and this much harder business of governing. Of course, before you can govern, you have to transition, which is a prety formal process. You have to staff an entire administration. How was you .

thinking about that from a very thirty thousand foot view, Michael? I mean, there are a very few cabinet roles that he cares about. Uh, turn general is the main one, the secretary defense is another and the CIA director is another.

Beyond that, he'd had almost no use for his cabin in his last term. That's not going to change dramatically this time. And there have been a bunch of discussions about names, but he has not wanted to personally engage in them and proposed to action.

Why not?

He is superstitious, and he was like this, and twenty sixteen as well. He did not want to talk about transition at the same meron. All three campaigns ended in grand rapids, michigan. He is all about a rabbit foot, essentially. And in his mind, talking about planning a government before one is bad luck.

He also gets angry when people bring you up, because in his mind, money being spent on this time, being spent on this, is money in time that's not spent on him winning. So there is a sort of unwritten, unspoken idc t in his orbit, which is we're going to do transition preparations but don't bring IT up with the big guy too much. You know we keeping him a little bit a prize of IT, but you know, basically don't talk about IT in his presence.

So there has been a transition Operation going on how IT latinic, who runs candified Gerald, is friend of trump s. Has been running the personal outside of the transition lindeman cmn, who served in trust administration, wealthy donor friend of trump s she's been a good chair sort of nomine at least overseeing the policy side of the transition that has been work going on their list, being developed. But no one has spent less time thinking about policy detail and really deep thought about personnel. Don't trump .

will in to Maggie point, if just a few of these cabinet roles really matter to trump. And we can assume that those around him, like you just said, are thinking about who might staff those job. I wonder if you and Maggie, you as well might be prepared to talk about some of the names of the people being considered for these really crucial jobs. If they get them, they will become households names over the next four years.

What one person who's really important, I think, will be really important is john rc. liff. He served at the end of trump's first term, is the director of national intelligence.

Everyone in trumps all, but pretty much at the senior level, agrees that he will play a significant role in the second term. What that role is, I don't know. There are people who want him to be attorney y general. He may head up an intelligence agency.

And what should we know about rack of, other than what I know, which is very little, he was a republican congress. M from texas if he's been considered for these huge jobs.

There are different variations of people in trump world, and there are people who are willing to go further than others. So when people talk about the final days of the first trump term, you had him wanting to a point jeff Clark as attorney general, jeff Clark was eager to overturn in the city helping trump. John recent wasn't really involved in that and is at least seen.

And I want to be clear on talking in relative terms. He's definitely someone who is loyal to trump, who trump likes, you know, who will do things that trump wants and absolutely on board with his agenda. But he's not viewed in the same category as someone who would potentially do more, let's say, more legally adventurous things.

Remember, jeff Clarke got indeed for his efforts. John recklect h was not, indeed. So there are different degrees, and there are people like cash patel who served in his first term.

And trump wanted to make him the deputy CIA director at the end, when he's someone who is regarded in trump world as someone where, if trump tells him to do something, this really not viewed as being much pushed back ever. And then there are others who are more conventional. If you look at some of the economic positions trump likes having, wall street billionaire, rich people in these jobs.

He lacks credential. So I think there's going to be a lot of tensions between hard core ideologues, people who want who you know enable some of trumps most radical impulses and then the sort of business crowd who he's attracted to. And I think you're going to see these really interesting collisions in the next two months between these different camps.

How do we expect some of the tensions that you are beginning to describe between a populist, nativist, right wing amErica ideology and some of the people who mind up being in administration business world who might say, wait a minute, how do you expect those tensions to play out on the policy from, I mean, I think of an issue like immigration and trumps promise. We talk to both of you about this to begin mass deportations as a pretty classic example of something that might bring those tensions to life.

We've talked a lot about this one athan. And I have we're talking about this actually earlier today that you know, there is going to be a push pull between the maximum st agenda that someone like Stephen Miller is top policy adviser and speech rider. I has pushed for a very long time, and the trauma has echoed on the campaign trail for years now, with trumps what he would call bad headlines, and with business leaders being unhappy and with the potential ramifications in the stock market, which he considers his poll.

Does he fear maggy, that if you start supporting enough immigrants, that suddenly the corporate world takes note, says things in the stock market starts to plunge because a lot of corporations on that labor.

i'm not describing strict causation here, but i'm saying that there are policies that corporate amErica favours on immigration, such as a specific type of work VISA for people to come work .

with their companies, right? You don't even need to get too speculative about this. Like we saw this play out in his first term to make to Maggies point, you had people like tim cook, the sea of apple in his ear, talking about leal immigration.

So he he kind of feared from the most hard line positions to less hard line. It's very hard to predict what trump has set on the campaign trail is he's going to do the biggest quotation Operation in american history. This is a military sized scale of Operation, building large camps to tainting people.

The amount of like coercive force required from the state to pull this off is enormous. That is going to guarantee really tough media coverage, really hot ranching images of families who've lived here a long time being pulled apart. So there's going to be this competing impulse of, I promise this.

I said I was going to do IT. We wanted do shock and or on immigration go we do IT versus people who will tell him about the economic effects of some of this, what I might do to the markets eeta. And trump this, something he obsesses over privately.

He said this a million times to people, which is, he doesn't want to be herbert hover. He always talks. He got herbert hover in his head.

Should we just a service for everybody who wants to think they know who herba hover is that may be forgot, president united states, during the period where the great depression begins.

right? One thing, my goal to this, an unknown to the points the JoNathan was making, about why we can tell which competing impulse wins out at the end of the day with him on certain policies or personnel. He's not running for reelection.

He is constitutional board from seeking another term. Does that free ham to revert the person who claim to want to make peace? Or does that free him to finish this, you know, pro revenge agenda that he's been talking about for several years now? And we will find out short.

right? Like you guys are put your team up what i'd hope would be our next subject when I comes to policy, which is retribution, we have talked to both of you and our colleague, charlie savage, a lot about this in episodes we did, preparing our listeners for what a second return would look like.

And we returned again and again to trumps plans to use the department of justice to investigate, perhaps even prosecute, his enemies, including democratic members of of congress. A Hillary clinton James, call me the lyse goes on and on. How quickly, depending on who who is in various positions of his administration, do you suspect that a campaign retribution might begin after this administration begins?

Michael, he's already beginning to try to go after legally news organizations really yeah they're suing cbs for I think it's ten billion dollars. They already have a suit against A, B, C, news that started many months ago. So that will be one tactic. I think you're going to see various aspects of attempts at retribution is certain against the media in the coming weeks.

And part of what they talked about this campaign is removing pockets of independence from the executive branch, and that includes agencies that regulate the news media. So what does that mean? Will find out it's not exactly a mystery.

He has been threatening the licenses of networks for months, month, month, month, months. There's also other tactics which are not necessarily using the government. But now you could expect investigations, lee, investigations, D O J suppered ing reporters phones as they did last time.

That's why the attorney general appointment is so important, because the way he uses doj well, at least in part, be shaped by who occupies that position. Does he appoint, as he promised, a special prosecutor to go after joe biden's family? I don't know. He said, to do IT promises made, promises kept. All of those things are possibilities that not only like a foreseeable, but are foreseen where we have reported all staff extensively for the last two years.

Maggie IT feels worth noting, since we're talking about the appointment of someone like the iteration general, that the united states senate has a role in confirming such positions and that republicans, just one control of the us. Senate from democrats, and I suspect by the end, may have a healthy enough margin of around fifty four republicans in the senate that most of these appointments would sail through. You suspect that there's anyone the trump administration would put up for senate confirmation that this senate wouldn't confirm there .

are Michael is going to depend on how why their margin is right. If they end up with fifty three seats, that's still gonna IT hard to get through some of the most controversial potential choices like cash patel.

The reason for that is that there are a couple of senators, still republican senators or senators who vote with the republicans, who would object to somebody who's incredibly controversial, who wouldn't just rubber stamps necessarily anyway. So somebody to. correct. Or lisa, how ski or the incoming senator from utah, people like that could end up deciding, actually this is a bridge too far going to object that they turned out to be fully aligned with trump. However, the likelihood is that he will still just put those people in the White house in non confirmed jobs and adviser rules.

嗯， the magic point IT was talking to someone who's close to trump, neil, a sort of speculating to me that the White house becomes the home for the unconfirmed able. So if you have been edited one too many times and whatever, the White house might be the place for you. And one story that didn't actually get a lot of attention, I think it's one the most important stories.

A Maggie and Charles savage route this whole site. I read IT. I'm glad you read IT. Basically, people caused to trump, chiefly his top legal advice of bars, abstain, effectively want to do away with the security clearances process, at least the FBI involvement in this.

So when you need to get a top level security clearance, there is FBI background checks and the national security intelligence apparatus is involved. Well, in trump s well, that is the evil deep state. So there was a memo reason that we reported on the bar step time, advocated for that, suggested moving that process outside of government and effectively having private investigators doing this at the behavior of the trump people.

The trump could, on his first day, issue an executed with a list of names, two hundred people. These people hereby have security clearances. And this could have real national security implications if they follow through on this.

If you are somebody who is an agent of a foreign power and you want to have access to the most sensitive secrets in the U. S. Government, being voted by some turbid outside firm instead of the FBI is a good way to slip through the net. So again, we didn't report that decision has been made, but it's been discussed. And if they do follow through on IT, IT could allow people who are not just controversial but actually may have real malicious intent into the top levels of government.

That's right.

Like what we are on the subjective, those with problematic past, I think a lot of our listeners are going to be extremely curious about what exactly happens to all of the federal and local cases against down trump. In the first half of our conversation here today, you began to hint IT the idea that trump sees his real election as a Victory over those cases.

But just technically, mechanically, how does the president start to dispatch with these cases? And when do we start to see them go away? Do they start to go away even before his president as a kind of anticipatory issue? Or does this a tony general, if and when confirmed, start to just systematically destroy them?

A year and a half ago, Donald trump, after his myriad indepth, was telling people that if he won, these cases are all going to go away. And what we know now is the jack smith, the special council who invited him twice, has started having conversations about how to online these cases because there is an office of legal council memo from the justice department that a sitting president cannot be prosecuted.

And so while he was indeed before this, this still raises all of these complications. So whether IT is jack Smith withdrawing the indications or whether it's the ultimate torney general doing IT, we don't know, but those cases are not going to continue. Almost certainly, there is the new york case, which he's been convicted in, and there's going to be a ruling next week about whether the supreme court's s decision granting broad community to presidential acts actually counted in that case.

He's currently scheduled to be sentenced criminal in that case. And november twenty six, I think the chances that a newly elected president is going to be sentenced to prison or close to zero. So we will see what that looks like.

In other words, a local judge not under any strict federal legal guidance about prosecuting a setting president that would just apply IT seems to federal cases might add a difference to that kind of a legal guidance. Just say I can do this. Yes.

it's really hard to see that case resulting in much at this point. And that will hold true for the prosecution, georgia as well.

where trump has been died. I mean, anyway, the fate of those cases that Maggie is outlined is a reminder as if we needed another from a convery clearly conversation of just how sweeping of Victory this second term election of trump. really.

I mean, we've talked about how with name, this is a political alignment. We have talked with Peter Baker for easterday day's epo de about how this may end up becoming a policy realignment on all kinds of issues, trade, immigration. But in the way that you two are describing what's happening, especially with these legal cases, among other things, it's also a profound personal vindication of the man himself. I M just just absorbing what you are saying baggie. He will have wiped out any legal repercussions for behavior that, in the eyes of very well respected prosecutors, both locally and federally, were criminal.

He has all but defeated any form of accountants. Yes, correct. What is the form of accountability? Now the supreme court has ruled that the president is immune for official acts, which may have a very broad meaning.

There's no universe in which this composition of congress in peaches Donald trump for anything congressional oversight, particularly republicans, take the house. There will be no over really very little oversize the news media in the eyes of many americans is is credited. More than half the country have tuned out the mainstream media. We are now in little information silos. So it's almost impossible to overstate how much don trump has defeated the system and how favorable the current composition of the system is the Donald trump.

Well, to both of you, but we are extremely grateful for your time when you're this exhausted after elections. So thank you very much.

Thank you, Michael.

Thank famous.

On thursday afternoon, after we spoke with Maggie and JoNathan on trump named the first member of his administration, appointing susie wiles as his White house chief of staff. Wiles, a long time republican Operative, oversaw terms twenty twenty four campaign and would become the first woman to ever hold the title of White house chief of staff.

We'll be right back.

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A day yesterday I spoke a president like trump gratulating on this Victory, and I assured him that direct my tire ministration work with his team to ensure a peaceful and orderly transition that to the american people deserve.

On thursday, president biden addressed the outcome of an election in which his former opponent prevailed and his vice president was defeated.

I know for some people, it's the time for Victory to state the obvious. For others, it's the time of loss .

by them eager to move beyond the divisions of the campaign issued a national call for both unity and civility.

You can love your country only when you win. You can love your neighbor only when you agree something to hope we can do no matter who you vote for, to see each other not as adversary, but a fellow americans bring down the temperature.

Remember, you can catch a new episode of the interview right here tomorrow. This week, luu speaks with former house speaker Nancy policy about the outcome of the election and what's next for democrats.

The only show, we say piece of mind that we have today is that we know have the assault on the system that IT would have been there had come on. A Harris .

one day's episode was produced by mary Wilson, Alexis n. And rob zp. Code IT was edited by a Michael ben wall and Rachel custer contains original music by dan power marine sono and so fiel lanman, and was engineered violence moxy artha music is beijing ron berg and bennington k of onderstand.

That's IT for the daily. I'm Michael a borrow. See you on monday.