Brendan Buck

I want to go back to 2016 and some of the things that we would have seen, that you would have seen as you were watching what was happening. We've talked to some experts on democracy, and one of the things they say is that there were warning signs back then about Donald Trump. And even in the very first moment in the Iowa caucuses, he says the election is rigged. There's violence in some of the rallies. There's talk about the election against Hillary Clinton being rigged. When you were watching the 2016 primaries, were you concerned about who Donald Trump was?

I was concerned about who he was, but I'll be honest: I didn't actually think he could ever win, and I think there were a lot of people in that same place, that probably saw supporting Donald Trump as a cost-free exercise: You can go along with it; he's obviously going to lose; there's no way someone like this could get elected. And that way you don't upset anybody in the party by crossing him or the party.

But certainly, you know, from the very beginning, you saw this was somebody who held no core principles, had no real understanding of our system of government, checks and balances, the role of the executive, and dismissed some basic foundational principles of this country. But at the same time, it felt like a clown show, a circus, not to be taken too seriously.

From the very beginning when he first launched his campaign, It was very easy to laugh at. It was easy to dismiss. But of course, as we got closer and further and further along, it became clear that it wasn't just Donald Trump; there were people out there who were eating this up, who loved this. And obviously, it caught fire.

But I will say, until the night in November in 2016 on election night, I did not think he was winning. I did not think it was possible. And so it made it somehow feel more comfortable that this was not really going to happen; it wasn't a real threat. Looking back, obviously, that's very misguided. But in the moment, I don't know anybody who actually thought that he was going to win.

… Can you help me understand who Paul Ryan is in that moment and how he's looking at the situation? He's the leader of the Republicans in the House, and his former running mate, of course, Romney, is very critical of Trump. What's his position in that moment in the spring as Trump is securing the nomination?

Well, he's very uncomfortable with him getting the nomination to the point that he actually came out, when it was clear that he was going to be the nominee, and said he was not ready to endorse him. And it was something that we wrestled with a lot. Obviously, some core fundamental disagreements with the type of campaign he ran, some very fundamental problems with the type of person he was presenting himself to be, and I guess is, and from there, from the very beginning was, I think, like a lot of people, went from skeptical to being in a moment of denial that this was actually going to be the nominee, and eventually coming to a place where he tried to guide that nominee to a better place.

And what we ended up doing in 2016 was running on our own policy platform. In 2016, we launched what was called the Better Way agenda, and this was Paul Ryan's attempt to redefine what the Republican Party stood for. He watched what Donald Trump was doing, he watched what was going on in the primary and said this can't be how our party is defined.

He didn't think Donald Trump was actually going to win, but he saw the damage that Donald Trump was doing to the party, to the brand, to the ideas that he stood for. So he ran sort of a parallel agenda, which is pretty unheard of, the congressional party saying, "We're going to run on our own agenda instead of the nominee of the party."

So if you're talking about in spring, he basically said, "I'm not going to endorse him," and then spent the next few months trying to turn that campaign into something recognizable in the Republican Party, put forward ideas, asked for him to support these kinds of things, and then I guess reluctantly came along—came around to an endorsement, but always in that context of I don't think ever really believing that he was going to win.

… What was the objection that Ryan had to Trump in that moment as he's watching him?

The moment that jumps to mind was the Judge [Gonzalo] Curiel comments that he made really rubbed him wrong. Clearly racist. And that's one of the fundamental things that bothered him, is that he clearly was just a person of poor moral character. And you can get beyond policy disagreements, but the moral character, I think, was by far his biggest problem. And that extended all the way to the way he talked about and treated women, his comments about all kinds of different people of races. And those moral objections, I think, were really what gave him trouble, much more than any type of disagreement on whether trade policy or a populist type of agenda is the right way to go for our country. It was much more deep-seated than that.

So what's the moment where he goes from not wanting to endorse Trump to—I don't know how you would describe his position after that, but what's the change that happens? Why is there a change? What's the calculation?

Yeah, I don't think there was a moment. It was a process. It was two things: one, getting him on board with our policy agenda, which was really important to him. He's a very policy-minded leader. Secondly is the dynamics within the House Republican Conference. And it was pretty untenable to have a Republican leader openly against the party's nominee. And we heard that a lot from members of Congress, that it made life very difficult for them back home, and one of the jobs as leader is to make life easier for your members.

And by having so many conflicts with Donald Trump during that nomination process, during that campaign, it created a fissure within the conference, and we needed to make sure that we were helping not only define the Republican Party but protect our own members. We were trying to make sure that we maintained a majority in the House and wanted to, to the degree possible, limit the fracturing taking place.

How hard was his role at the convention, which was so central? He's there on the stage throughout. Was that a hard decision for him to participate in the convention?

Well, it's his job as speaker. The speaker of the House is always chairman of the convention. So he knew he had a role to play, but certainly knew that the key moment that he's going to be on stage is when the nominee—when the votes come down to make him the nominee.

And yeah, we wanted to spend as little time on stage as possible. And I believe Reince Priebus got roped into being on stage to help with that process as much as possible. And we actually recruited one of our members, Stephen Womack, to take the gavel in a lot of those places. He was very good at keeping order; we knew him from the House as being a good parliamentarian and keeping order in House debates, so recruited him to be a part of that, because we knew it was going to be chaos.

And, you know, he had a role to play, ceremonial role to play, and he had a speech to give. But he also didn't necessarily want to make himself front and center in this Trump show.

… So against your expectations, he does win. What is the reaction for you, for soon-to-be Speaker Ryan as it becomes clear this is the next president of the United States?

We immediately realized we needed to comfort people. We needed to demonstrate to them that the country was still going to be there the next day, that the government was still going to be functioning, because as wild as this was, we knew that there were a lot of people who were going to be concerned about what it means for them: Is this actually someone who can run a functioning government?

And from that moment on, that was sort of our ethos, was keep the government on the rails. And that started the very next day, going out with a press conference, a message that basically said, "You don't need to be worried. This is going to be OK." And that was to speak to a lot of people in Congress, outside of Congress, everywhere, who were really freaked out by the outcome and still trying to process it. We were still trying to process it, but we knew there were a lot of people scared, and we knew we needed to tell them that it's going to be OK; there are adults in the room still; the government is going to stay on the rails.

So as he comes into office—and one scene we're thinking about using is that first joint address where everybody's wondering, can he be presidential? What kind of a president is he going to be? As President Trump walks into that room, what are the expectations of him? What are the questions about him, especially from Paul Ryan's perspective, from Speaker Ryan's perspective at that point? Who is that man walking into the room, and what did they expect of him?

His first joint session of Congress, you mean?

Yeah, I think it's February of 2017.

Yeah, I think we were all wondering whether he can be presidential, whether he can do some of the basic things that you expect from a leader, where you can demonstrate that America is still America for all the people around the world watching.

And my recollection is he gave a pretty standard, State of the Union-type speech. Went through his laundry list of things he wanted to do. I'm sure there were some nativist tones from some of his speechwriters. But I don't remember it being all that bizarre. I remember it actually being somewhat traditional in structure and tone.

And was there a hope that he was somebody that could be worked with, that he was somebody who Republicans could pass legislation and he would sign it, that his being there was a chance to move things forward?

Particularly early on, he deferred so much to Congress that we thought maybe this could work out; that he stays in the White House, tends to whatever he's doing and leaves us alone. And that would have been, I think, the best outcome. And early on, I think there was a good degree of that, particularly during actually our failed attempt to repeal and replace Obamacare, deferred to Congress a lot. … He knew he didn't know a lot, and they knew that there were a lot of people over there who were doing this kind of stuff for the first time. And they knew that we had put in a lot of work putting out an agenda and laid the groundwork for doing things.

And so that was always the hope, was we pass legislation; we set the policy of the government, and he does whatever personality stuff that he's going to do.

Then obviously, he got more and more engaged over time, sort of felt his own a little bit and felt that he could drive what was taking place. But there were so many moments where he would wander into a problem, and we would have to rescue the situation.

I remember in particular he I believe was watching Fox News one morning and saw something about a surveillance program that we were about to reauthorize, an important national security program, and he tweeted out that he was not going to sign it. And it was the day of the vote. It was going to be a difficult vote. And we had to scramble everything, get on the phone, send people down to the White House to explain to him to sort of walk back where we were because the program would have expired if we hadn't reauthorized it right then.

So countless times where on a whim he would blow up what we were doing, threaten not to sign a government spending bill, you name it. There were all kinds of issues where he would wander in without really understanding what he was talking about, and we'd have to pull him back to continue doing our business.

What was it like, not even on some of the policy stuff, but he would make an outrageous tweet or an outrageous comment, and suddenly reporters descend onto the Capitol and try to get any lawmaker they can and say, "What do you think of this tweet? What do you think of the latest controversy about whatever it was?" What was it like being on the other side of that?

It was obviously a daily distraction. And we were trying to do serious stuff, and we were trying to do hard stuff. And doing hard stuff requires focus. It requires everybody keeping their eye on the ball, knowing their message, knowing what needs to get done. And when every day you get sidetracked by something different, that makes already hard stuff much harder.

And it was, you know, there's the issue of legislating. There's also the issue of what does it mean about the Republican Party and what we stand for, and what are issues where you need to clearly say, "That's not true," or, "That's outrageous"? And when can you just let it go? Because it can consume you, and we're trying to run a legislative body that could easily be consumed by the daily tweet. And a lot of times it felt like we were getting consumed by it. And it was a near daily exercise of trying to figure out what rose to the level of needing a speaker of the House condemnation or what could just be pushed aside to keep our focus on what we're actually trying to get done.

And so, yeah, it overtook us in a lot of ways, and incredibly unhelpful at its core.

One of the events that you could not avoid in that first year is Charlottesville. … When you watch what happens in Charlottesville and then you hear Trump's statement about both sides, what is your reaction? What is Speaker Ryan's reaction inside that moment? And [explain] how important a moment that is.

Yeah. Well, he wasn't in Washington at the time, and as it was unfolding, he was on a family vacation, so we were needing to kind of track him down and discuss it, but it was very clear obviously right away that this needed to be condemned. And I believe we were one of the first people to say anything, put out a statement on Twitter about it, and I think did a couple times thereafter.

And that was clearly one of the fundamental moments where you have to make clear what's right and wrong, and there was no question about that. And so we tried to provide a little moral clarity, and that was going back to the very beginning with Donald Trump. And one of Paul Ryan's fundamental problems with him is his racism, the way that he flirts with racists. Seemingly anybody who supports him is OK in his book, no matter what they believe.

And here we are again, the core issue of race. And it made him really upset and felt that this was not anything that you could look aside for even a few moments. We jumped in there as quickly as we could to try to show people that this is wrong; this is not who we are; this is not who we can ever tolerate being. And that was how we carried ourselves out for quite a while there.

In the Woodward and Costa book, there's a report about a phone call between Speaker Ryan and the president where he's trying to get him to back off on the Charlottesville comments, and the president says, "These are my people, and I can't backstab the people who support me." Did you know about that call or about those efforts through back channels to try to get the president to back off?

It wasn't uncommon for the president to call up and have strong words for Paul for something he had done or said, pushing back on him. We had sort of gotten used to that at that point. So I was certainly aware of it. But it was not necessarily unusual for him to do that. There were plenty of times where either small or large issues where we had disagreed, and anytime you do that, he's going to call and tell you that he didn't appreciate it.

He certainly did here. And I think this one probably rose to the level of some loud voices. But they said their piece, and I don't think it really convinced either that they need to change their view.

Yeah, it's a remarkable comment, that "These are my people," because when you look at those images later of Jan. 6 and the violence that was in Charlottesville, that Trump somehow sees in those people his supporters. What does that tell you about how Trump understands politics, understands who his supporters are?

Well, I think it speaks to his worldview. There are two types of people: people who are for Donald Trump and people who are against Donald Trump, and that's really all that matters in his world. And that's why you saw what happened in Charlottesville, in countless other places, where people of racist—whatever it is—backgrounds were embraced, or at least he refuses to condemn them in any way because, above all, if you're with him, that's all that matters. And that's why you've seen countless times politicians, people trying to run for office, all they need to hear is that you're with him, and that's good enough for him. He doesn't really care what you believe. He doesn't care what your policy aspirations are. As long as you support him, it's as simple as that, and it's that fundamental. And I think we—it took a long time for people to appreciate it's that cut-and-dried.

In that period after Charlottesville, there's some Republicans who decide not to back off on their confrontation with the president, Jeff Flake probably being the most notable; to a lesser extent Bob Corker. Were you in the position, was Speaker Ryan in the position, was there a decision made about how much do you push back, how often do you push back, how much? Do you go down the road that a Flake goes down, or a Corker? What decisions do you have to make and calculate in that moment?

Yeah, it was a constant decision we were having to make every day. I mean, some things were pretty fundamental, like Charlottesville, where you had to speak with a moral voice about what was right and wrong. But it was also untenable to always be at war with him. And I think that's what Flake and Corker found out: You can be fully against Donald Trump; you just can't be a Republican in Congress doing that.

And so the constant balance we were trying to maintain was, how do you keep the party together? We believed that we were in the best position to guide this to a better place, as opposed to someone who would just give him everything he wants. But we also knew that being against him all the time, openly warring with him was not tenable. You couldn't be a legislative leader leading a party. You can be a member of Congress and do that, and maybe you can survive a little while, but the Republican leader needs to be a unifying force.

So we were trying to balance what's good for keeping the party together, what's good for the image of the party, what's good for the country, and you had to pick your spots. What rises to the level of, we need to speak clearly about what's right for the country, what's right for the image of the party? And it was a daily struggle with things that happened. …

One of the things that Speaker Ryan achieves during that first year is the tax bill. And there's a ceremony which we've used before, and a large part of it was praising Trump, and Speaker Ryan talks about "exquisite presidential leadership" from Trump on that bill. Can you describe that moment, how important that bill was, what he would be doing in a speech like that, and why he would be giving Trump credit for a bill that presumably he had a lot to do with, if not more to do with?

Well, obviously he was ecstatic. This was something he'd worked on since he was a staffer in his 20s on the Hill. It was the pinnacle of his career policywise. And when big, good things happen, everybody's in a good mood. And you know, the president actually was not terribly unhelpful during this process. We absolutely fell on our face on our health care reform effort, but we got our ducks in a row pretty good on this. The president didn't step in any trouble along the way. We got through it pretty quickly. His team was pretty engaged.

So this is one of those scenarios where we actually, we think, were able to make the best out of a bad situation, policy that we really think is good for the country, helped the president get to a good place on it, drove the outcome and got a good result. And so we were pretty happy with how it ended, and he deserves some credit for what he did and for what he didn't do.

Is that part of the cost in the Trump presidency, that to get things done that he's going to help you on the tax bill maybe by not hurting it, but then he's going to get praise? Was it understood that that was what the president wanted?

I mean, you always knew the president wants to be praised. … There was an effort all throughout our time there to try to keep him in as good a head space as possible. Knowing how things could blow up at any moment, you always had to tell him when he did something good. I mean, it was that childish almost, that you had to praise him whenever he did something well, because not only publicly we couldn't be openly at war; we needed Donald Trump to trust that you could give your legislative agenda to us and know that we're going to move it along in a responsible way. And so we tried to keep him in a good temperament both publicly and privately as much as we could.

… Who is the next leader, Kevin McCarthy, and what's his approach to President Trump, to leading the Republican Caucus?

Yeah, I think Kevin is motivated a lot by what happened in 2015. He came very close to getting there and didn't, and I think he has a bit of a chip on his shoulder, in part because I think he thinks people have always seen him as a sidekick, always seen him as somebody's No. 2. He was the politics guy. He was the wingman. And I think he wants to prove to everybody that he can be the No. 1 guy, and he wants to prove to everybody that for all the crap he's taken for how he's handled Donald Trump, that it was the right political strategy.

And I think he wants to prove a lot of people wrong, a lot of people who get frustrated with the way he has handled himself, the way he has—his relationship with Donald Trump. I think he wants to say, "Look, I figured it out; I figured out the way to get there. I got us back in the majority, and I'm the guy that got it done." I think that's really what drives him right now.

When you say 2015, you mean being speaker.

Yeah.

That's the goal that you think has been driving him.

Sure, yeah. So, you know, he came so close to being speaker in 2015 and dropped out right on the day of the vote, and I think that haunts him a bit. So I think he wants to be speaker. He wants to be able to show that he is a top leader, he's not anybody's wingman, and that he can get this done and be a historical figure.

And what was his strategy? What was his approach to President Trump?

He was always the guy we went to when we needed to smooth things over or get a message across. He went all in on the charm offensive, not just with Donald Trump but throughout his staff, with numerous people throughout the administration. He knew—he's a people person. He understands that politics is about relationships, and so he always prioritized those relationships. He sought out people over there. He spent his free time with people over there. He was always calling them, always talking to them, making sure that they were, not in a way that different than what we did, but he just did it a lot more to keep the president in a good space—make sure that he's in a good mood, make sure that he is focused on the right things, that people aren't getting in his ear telling him unhealthy things.

So he was sort of our guy for that. And he developed a very strong relationship with Donald Trump over that. I don't know that it necessarily means that, like, he was enamored with everything Donald Trump did, but I think he saw that he had a role to play within the leadership team to keep him in as good a place as he could.

… Were you watching as Trump was courting authoritarian leaders, dictators, was critical of allies in Europe? What were you thinking as you were watching that? What is the response from the speaker when something like that happens, when he's praising Putin, for example? Was it disturbing?

Disturbing, confusing. I don't think we ever quite really knew what to make of it, other than that he liked strongmen and he wished that he could be a strongman and wished that he had unlimited powers. And that gets back to one of the fundamental misunderstandings I think he had of our government, is that the executive is not all-powerful. And I think he throughout showed that he wished he was all-powerful.

And so we were always a bit confounded by it; I imagine from time to time had to make some comments about the American place in the world and our support for NATO and how important our allies are. So it was troubling, it was confusing, but I think it always came back to his personality disorder.

… One of the things we're trying to understand is the response to the first impeachment, where even people like a Liz Cheney are going to vote against it. And I wonder if part of the answer is in the polarization of those years. And what is it like as you're watching the response to Trump, to "Russiagate," the dossier, talk of impeachment from the beginning? What's happening on the other side of the aisle that you're watching during those first couple of years?

I think the most important part was just a complete redefining of who is a victim in all of these things. And what Donald Trump very successfully was able to do was siphon off the—there were two different worlds having these debates. The mainstream press was talking about the phone call that he had and how outside bounds that is, but in the conservative world, this was just another example of people coming after Donald Trump. And the great conceit he sold was that the only reason anybody is coming after him is because he's fighting for you, and the fact that they're coming after him is just evidence that he's fighting for you.

And so it reinforced itself over and over again. And it was really just a get-out-of-free[sic] jail card. It didn't matter what he did because the conservative base voter either didn't see it or only heard it as an unfair attack on Donald Trump and more evidence that he's on their side.

… Were the Democrats driving that at all? Were they driving the polarization in their response to Trump?

It's hard to have an impeachment that's not polarized, sure. I think what happened with Ukraine is pretty much the reason why you have impeachment. But they were working in a, you know—the Mueller investigation I think had also really let them down. We had sort of heard this kind of stuff over and over again and just to have people deflated.

So yeah, they had an uphill battle trying to convince any Republican that they were going to vote to impeach him. I don't think there were a lot of fair ways to look at what he did, but when your voters either don't care or think that it was OK, you're probably not going to convince a lot of Republicans to vote to impeach.

… When you look at that story, at the end of it, Sen. Collins says, "I hope the president learned something," and when we've talked to people inside the White House and also people who have written books about it, that that acquittal seems like a turning point for Trump, where he realizes that there isn't a constraint on him; that the fear of impeachment itself is not going to be a constraint. In that moment when you're watching it, does it seem like there's an inability of our constitutional checks and balances to work in this situation?

I think it's probably a bigger indictment of our politics than it is our system. Our system is there to work, but the politics just simply wouldn't allow anybody on the Republican side to vote for that. And I don't think it was that moment that he learned that there were no consequences. I think he already was well aware there were no consequences, and I don't think he ever demonstrated, ever, that he felt that he could be reined in, particularly from Republicans.

And so I'm sure that was a reinforcement for him, but I don't think that it was a new lesson for him. I think he thought that all the way along.

The year that follows, running up to the election, from the acquittal to the election, aside from the election fraud, there's obviously coronavirus; there's the Black Lives Matter movement; there's the image of the president walking across Lafayette Square and of troops in the streets. Can you describe as you're watching what's happening during 2020, what you're seeing and whether you're growing concerned?

Yeah, the first two years of his presidency, he managed to avoid real crises, and that was remarkable. Every president generally encounters a lot of crises every year, and we'd managed to avoid that, and for probably nothing more than luck. And what I'd always feared was, what happens when something really bad happens when this is the person who is in charge?

And I also feared when Democrats were in control of Congress, could they actually come together to solve things? I guess I was heartened, the fact that we were able to pass a bunch of really important coronavirus relief packages in a moment of real crisis. The legislative body and the president were still able to get something done.

But in some of those other instances, the walking across Lafayette Square was one of the most upsetting images I'd ever seen. It was just immoral, so evil it felt, that I just—I couldn't believe what I was watching, and at the same time, it's not surprising. We knew at this point what type of person he was, and it was what happened when an actual crisis came on his front door. He showed his true colors as a fundamentally flawed human being.

He's also ramping up the talk of "us versus them," that there's this idea that antifa is this enemy within the United States and this growing sort of existential threat as we're coming towards the election. As you're watching, what is the response to that of elected Republicans, the Republican Party, of party leaders?

In some points it's hard to keep up with all of the crazy stuff that he comes up with and says. But it's also, by that point, they had learned a lot from him. You know, Republicans in Congress understood that if you were able to point the finger at somebody else, you never really had to apologize for anything, and you could always be on offense. And I think that mantra, that ethos, that mindset—always on offense, never apologize for anything, always blame somebody else, always tell people why they have been aggrieved by someone else—works. You don't have to worry about appealing to the middle. You don't have to be a soft Republican ever.

And so this was just another example where something bad happens, he could tell you who's to blame for it; he can tell you why he is the victim, why people are actually trying to make him look bad. And when you have such a bifurcated media environment, where that's all that Republicans, Republican voters hear, it's just a very different conversation that's taking place among Republican voters than in the mainstream media. And you have to understand how that flows up to Republican members of Congress, and they don't hear the same types of complaints that you see debated on cable news every day.

When someone says, "Why aren't you sticking behind Donald Trump more after a crisis, after he does something crazy?," that's the kind of feedback you're getting as a member of Congress. You're not more likely to go out and attack him; you're more likely to either stick by him or at least keep your mouth shut. And you just have to understand the way that members of Congress respond to what they hear from their voters.

Has the nature of the party changed by that point? We talk about in 2016, and people were, "OK, we'll go along with it; he's probably not going to win; we can get our agenda done." And by the time you get to 2020, there is no Republican platform at the convention. Had the party fundamentally changed going into the 2020 election?

I think the party had—that any resistance to Donald Trump had given up on that long ago. There were no more quiet conversations about, "Oh, you know, we really don't like this guy, but we're going along." I think people had adopted the politics of Donald Trump. They had seen that it's working for them and decided that resistance was futile; we're going to go along with this and ride it where it takes us—obviously to terrible consequences at the end.

So it became a party much more about personality and more than anything about culture. And I think that's where the party has changed fundamentally from five years ago. It is much more a party fighting a culture war than it is about any particular policy outcome.

So let's go back to those moments after the election and after he says that he did win and there's starting to be amplification going on. As you're watching Kevin McCarthy, who is one of the people who comes out early and says, "The president did win this election, and we've got to keep fighting," what do you make of his role, of what the calculation is that he's making?

Well, I think it's a bit of what I just said. I think he saw clearly what had happened, but then base Republican voters had a very different perspective of what it was, either because they were so enamored still with Donald Trump, whether they were getting different types of information through whatever media sources they're getting. The conversation that was happening on the ground with grassroots Republicans was very different, and that flowed up to members of the House, and members of the House flowed up to leadership, saying, "I'm not going to vote to impeach him, just so you know."

And it was with the same with McCarthy and McConnell. Both of them very early on came out and put a lot of blame at his feet. And particularly McConnell seemed to suggest he'd be willing to impeach. But then when you look around and you realize that you don't have anybody behind you, you start thinking a little differently. And I think that's what happened here, that they realized that members didn't see it that way, and it's probably because their constituents didn't see it that way.

Let me go back, though, before Jan. 6, to those moments right after the election. … Did Republican leaders face a choice about how they were going to respond to the claims of fraud?

Yeah. You know, I think, unfortunately, they thought that he would come around. And again, they thought that it didn't cost anything to let him blow off some steam, get it out of his system, he'll come around. And you heard from the White House; you would hear people say, "Don't worry; he'll be fine; it'll be OK." And that gave them permission to go out and play this role and to amplify this.

And I do think that they were playing a political role. But people hear that differently. Your people out in the country hear it differently. And when it's not just Donald Trump and it's members of Congress also questioning the outcome, then it becomes, maybe it's a real thing.

There were plenty of people who said that this was—clearly Donald Trump lost. There were people who did the right thing in that way. But I don't think that most of the Republicans who went along with this for a few days actually thought that there was any risk of certainly what happened on Jan. 6 or overturning the election. I think they just didn't want to be the one to break it to him. And he's that sensitive; they didn't want to be the one to break his heart or make him mad or become the target: "That's somebody else's job. I'm just going to go along with it. I'm going to tell voters what they want to hear," which is a lot of how we got here.

So again, I think they didn't think anything bad was really going to happen; they were just letting him blow off some steam. And unfortunately, that's not what it was.

Should they have known at that point? Was it reckless to indulge him?

In hindsight, of course. I think one thing we should have learned long ago is that you have to take him literally and seriously; that he will do things that you didn't think were ever possible. But that doesn't make it easy for a politician who relies on voters who are going to side with him over you every single time. And that's just politics. And I think that colored a lot of what people were doing.

… In the moment as the president is saying, "Don't certify the elections; I want the House Republicans to not vote to certify these states," and McCarthy, according to the books, was trying to back Trump down. … What's the calculation he would have to be facing?

Yeah, the calculation all along has been, you confront him privately; you don't confront him publicly. And I think that's what you saw here. I'm sure until the very end he was trying to get him to step down off of this ledge that he's on. But when it came to the moment and he was still going forward with it, I think Kevin felt the need to stand by him, if only for maintaining his position within the conference, again, just perhaps hoping this would be finally the last thing we have to do until he gets the picture. There's a lot of rationalizing, grappling with "This is the last time we have to do it."

I do think there was a sense of relief that he was going to be gone, and maybe this stuff would be over and that this was a short-term problem. And I think that also colored a little bit of how people were looking at it.

Liz Cheney, on the other hand, makes a different calculation in that period, even before Jan. 6, but in that period after the election. What are you seeing from her as she's becoming more outspoken on this? And what's the decision that she's making?

Yeah, it was striking. The contrast was obviously striking because she was a member of leadership, and that's a pretty small room, three or four people who every day are meeting to make big decisions, and usually you try to speak as one voice. And that's another dynamic that exists within the leadership, speaking as one voice. And she said, "To hell with that; I'm going to say what is obviously true, what is obviously right." She had put up with Donald Trump for a few years herself and I think had just frankly had enough of it.

And that's—that was really up close and personal, what happened Jan. 6. They were trying to kill people, colleagues. The place that you work, they were coming in. It's a personal thing. And this I think is just someone who doesn't need her job to understand what's important. And there's a lot of members of Congress who will rationalize a lot of things to keep their job because they think that they can do good things and that they're better than the next guy.

But I think Liz Cheney doesn't need this job; she knows that she can—you know, that the country is much bigger than her. Some of these principles are much bigger than her, and so she's going to stand up and defend them. But it is no small thing to not only be so strident against the leader of the party, but also to break with leadership in that small circle and just say, "I'm going to do what is obviously right in front of my eyes."

Are you surprised that the majority of the House Caucus decides to vote in that way, that they're not going to certify the election, that they're going to side with the president? Was that surprising to you at this point?

I wouldn't say I was surprised going into it. You know, this is again, people were so far down the road on making Donald Trump either feel happy or, probably more to the point here, not being willing to get yelled at by their constituents who are not telling them to certify the election; they're telling them to stick by Donald Trump. When you're a member of the House and you're saying, "Donald Trump says there's enough votes somewhere to overturn the election; why aren't you working to find those?," that colors how they think about it.

So I wasn't necessarily surprised that so many were going to go along with this going into it. The fact that they still did it after the riot in their workplace was really troubling. Perhaps they felt like they were too far down the road, but that was the moment where we realized there were consequences for telling people what they want to hear. For so long it felt like a cost-free exercise: just kind of say this; it'll be fine; nothing really that bad is going to happen.

And here's the moment where we realize, yes, something really bad can happen. People hear what you say in a way that is literal. They don't understand that it's just politics. They hear what you say, and they think that it's real. And finally, it came home. The consequences were deadly, and they still didn't change their perspective on this.

So that was what was really disappointing and surprising. But it didn't necessarily surprise me going into it.

What should Republican leaders have recognized in that moment on Jan. 6 about their own role in what led to that moment?

I mean, I don't think any of us, still to this day, I don't know that I would have imagined what happened on Jan. 6 happening. I couldn't imagine the Capitol falling. I mean, that's why those images, as someone who worked in that building for so long, were so painful. I couldn't get my head around it.

What we should have known at that time is that Donald Trump is not just playing a role; he's not just saying something and he's going to let it go. He's going to fight something to the bitter end, and that going along with his fantasies could have consequences.

And so hopefully at this point, we've learned that people hear what you say. I don't know if that has really been taken home, you know, because Democrats are down again; Republicans are up again. It feels like we're right back to where we were, where no apologies, always on offense, what Donald Trump does works, just stick with the plan.

Before we get to the after-Jan. 6 moment, let me ask you about somebody I haven't talked to you, which is Mitch McConnell. He has a period of I think six weeks where he says he's going to let things play out. And we know from the reporting that internally he was certain Biden was going to win but he remained silent. What did you make of that calculation that Mitch McConnell made in those six weeks after the election?

Yeah, I think Mitch McConnell was done with him. I think he was relieved that, in his mind, Donald Trump was never going to be a part of Republican politics again. I think he would have been happy to have him impeached. But then he realized there weren't 60 votes for that. And he counted the votes and sort of backed off.

And I think it's as simple as knowing your conference. And I still to this day think he would be happy to have Donald Trump never on the national stage again, but that's just not the reality that he operates under. And if you know anything about Mitch McConnell, he understands politics, his conference, how power operates, and he knew that Donald Trump still had the cards when it came to the power of the voters.

But did it feel different, though, in those moments after Jan. 6? We've now heard the McCarthy phone call where he says he's going to recommend the president resign. There's the Lindsey Graham speech. There seems like there's a moment of momentum that the party's going to change. Was that real? …

There may have been a moment, but it was fleeting. I think what this shows is that leadership, the party at large, is weaker than it's ever been. It's a party that's run by voters. Voters are what is—the voters are the ones who are telling Republican leaders, "You need to stick by Donald Trump." They're not doing it out of any affection for him. And it showed that even if the leadership, even if the Republican Party at large wants to turn the page, the people who send them to Washington don't. And they learned that really quick.

And that's the dynamic that we have found over and over again, is every time somebody wants to turn the page on Donald Trump, voters say no. And it happened with Jeff Flake and Bob Corker, and you name it. It's just, it's not where the voters are, and until that changes, you're going to have the same dynamics.

And so what is the party that remains after Liz Cheney is out? And what are the implications for American democracy; for our political system; for that party that has now rejected her, that has in some ways embraced the election fraud allegations and what happened on Jan. 6? How has the party changed?

Well, it's still very much a party of populism, nativism, and of course Donald Trump still will be the leader, is going to be the leader for a long time to come. I think he's going to be the leader of the party until he's no longer on this earth because he has just captured the imagination of voters, and there are so many people who are eating up what he is saying, and that ultimately is where our elected leaders get their power, from people. And right now people like what they're hearing from people who are saying these nativist, populist, sometimes outrageous things. They're buying it. They're buying what people are selling, and until that changes, it's going to be a problem.

So it is not a party that is particularly interested in traditional policy planks. They want to know that you're fighting. They want to know that you're on the right side of the culture war; that you see that there are people out to end your way of life, and you're fighting for them. And that's really what it comes down to. It's an us-versus-them party. And that requires telling a lot of people that there are powerful people out to get you, and that is a major part of the ethos of the party today.

How dangerous is it that a lot of Republicans now don't accept the results of the election and are skeptical about future elections and are focused on whether elections are being stolen?

It's dangerous for democracy. It's also self-defeating. We saw this in Georgia in the Senate race, a special election right after November 2020. Donald Trump says that voting is rigged, your vote doesn't count, and as a result, Republicans didn't turn out. So not only does it hurt our democracy when people don't believe in the value of participatory government; it tells Republican voters they shouldn't waste their time and ultimately hurts Republicans two ways.

So I think it's dangerous, but also self-defeating.

… At the end of the story that we've been talking about, where do you see the state of American democracy, and what concerns you about where we are, if anything?

I try to remain hopeful about it. I'm not one of those people who says that our best days are over; we can never be a strong country again. But what really concerns me is that we do not see the same truth. We have people who don't see—it's not just a disagreement over issues, and I see something as better than the other. We just don't agree on facts, and we live in two completely separate information ecosystems, and things that are an outrage to somebody, somebody else never even heard about.

And when you can't even understand the situation that we're facing, how then can we move forward as one country? That's what concerns me, and I don't know how to solve it. But that's the division that really concerns me.

I think at some point we'll move past this moment, Donald Trump. Nothing is forever in politics. And I think that's been proven over and over again. The party will evolve; the country will evolve. But what we've got to figure out is how we can all at least see the facts the same, what is before us the same, and right now we can't do that.