No Campaign Best this year covid19 prevented that. The Panel Includes the journalist to cover the 2020 election season including an awardwinning journalist and New York Times bestselling author covering National Politics for nbc news. And the two of them are teaming up this year with an inside look at the 2020 election. A political reporter covering National State and local elections including the campaign of george w. Bush and barack obama for president. Native of san antonio her biography of nancy reagan which comes out next spring will be a read about the first lady. This panel will be moderated by an award literary awardwinning correspondent. She is profiled george h to be bush, bill clinton, george w. Bush, gerald ford, jimmy carter, and barack obama. Congratulations on your scoop last night of former president obama and bush and clinton will take the covid back to the covid19 vaccine. Now the show assures is yours. Thankou for having us. Ere you are. I am so thrilled to be here with all of you today and i just want to start because john mentioned the lack of a bus this year. This campaign was different in so many ways from what we are used to. How is it different for you . At the Washington Post we were all sent home the second week in march unless you could make an argument that your travel is absolutely crucial. The papers put a lock down and we are not in our office probably until june at the earliest. Those who were out there for the primary season, this is the very moment it fits into the general election. We know for the democratic nominee will be. I just really felt it was very difficult to get a sense of what was going on. We were not the only ones to have that problem omalley joined the Biting Campaign is the Campaign Manager she was to gear up for general election season. She goes into the philadelphia headquarters for the very first meeting with the staff and tells everybody they are going home for the duration. So end up winning the campaign from the attic of her house in suburban maryland was seven yearold twins but also the campaign trying to figure out how to adjust all that. You are onef the few people in the desk for going to debates a rallies . I went to the second debate and then trump traved a little bit i could catch him on a couple Panel Discussions and then the social distance rally that Kamala Harris is the incoming Vice President had. But it was tou and as karen says with that extraordinary ment with the me klobuar and th all met joe biden in dallas to rally around him and it became clear after winning texas and other states he would become the nominee. Normally come as karen pointed out we are ready to get into it. The conventions are on hand and yes we are not at the Dallas Morning News either , but if you weeks or months to be conventions . When will we get back out there . And that was sad in a way because every four years and we didnt ve it of crse and he understood that but that our season was severely altered. Thinking back to the convention what was it like watching them . I was in the best place possible to watch the convention which was my living room. Every prayers when they are back to back and to maintain sobriety is difficult so at some level its refreshing to Pay Attention to the speeches and not have all of the outside aggravations. On the other hand, its a huge loss in terms of sourcing. Its a great place to talk to people that are inaccessible and to build your rolodex. There is a real loss on that level. As far as the public goes, these were scripted. We dont normally see that. Everybody remembers 2016 when ted cruz walks onto the Convention Floor and says vote your conscience. Everyone remembers democratic conventions torn apart by which delegation would be seated like the mississippi freedom delegation or the non mississippi freedom delegates or what would happen with the ford reagan race in 76. Carter and kennedy. Conventions can be unpredictable times. In this case we lose out on tha that. You just dont run into people. Do you . I want to ask the three of you. I like numbers. To say is december 3rd, one month ago was election day, nov the tally last night 80,942,426 votes for biden 74 million a. D. s 306 272 and electoral college. Heres what i want to ask you one month later, is it over yet . Yes. It is over. I look at when donald trump and over on Election Night and started to talk about god. At that moment you could tell he thought he had lost one you dont talk about god god it took the networks and no aspersions cast and to be responsible but it takes almost one week to call the election but i dont think there is a point during that period what look like donald trump was somehow going to come back based on the votes that were still outstanding and since then its not a question of who won the election was it a close election . From a historical perspecte, absolutely, but not a question about who won. Karen, talk a little bit about being through bush v gore what it felt like from historic perspective tgo through this. Donald trump continues to domite the stage. But his antics from the 47 minute video yesteay see more desperate and his legal team that i use at phrase loosely comment is getting thrown out of every court they are taking these challens to. They have produced no evidence for the challenges. So you do get a sense it is almost like street theater. The Election Results are not in doubt and it wasnt that close. That the great mystery of the 2020 election why the polls and expectations were so correct about the president ial race and so wrong about everything else. All the goals and expectations would have suggest that democrats would pick up seats inhe house, the republicans have a better than 50 50 chance of losing the senate. I have covered a lot of president ial elections1988 was the first, and this is ere you see a new president come and with absolute no coattails. What is a reverse cttails . Socks . Vessel be studied in the years to come and what is ndamentally flawed and analysis that can explain it to us. But there is the myste in the outcome of this election d the outcome of the president ial election is not a mystery but there is a lot going on in thelectorate that i think we didnt understand. Talking about what care and just raised there are two words you hear a l in washington dc that is conventionalisdom. Some of that is based on experience and history and a lot of it is also based on the polls. Considering the karen said about the down ballot, what surprised you looking back . I think a lot of ticket splitting went on. There were people that said im going to the polls to vote either for or against donald trump those safely putting against donald trump then said the want to vote against donald trump but i dont want to send my party at your company and message so i will the senator in texas and go down the ballot and vote for a republican texas house members and karen is right because in Texas Democrats thought they had a chance to take control of the texas house for the First Time Since 2001 and on the state wide race on the strength of biden that he can in texas and it didnt happen because they try get trump out of office but the state on the same time it like a congressman and republican senators. Perhaps some of that went on. Looking at the numbers for both we surprised at these record turnouts . And he said 81 Million People would vote i thought it would be both sides not just for one candidate. 155Million People voting i think in the last election increase was surprising to me away i expected more people were over trump and more for biden but not with the increase. People wanted to vote. And briefly to address the other question you just asked , one of the things you saw with a split at the president ial and congressional level, there is so much anger and chaos and attention to extremism going on. What you saw is collectively rejected both of those things. On the republican side you had the lightning rod of extremism and on the democratic side you have trump by lily battling socialism but that the congressional level that message penetrated. When i look at it is an electorate clectively to lower the volume. Just to follow up considering the economic fallout the country, were you surprised at how many votes donald trump did get . I was surprised at the number but the entire campaign philosophy was to find people to get people to the polls in figure that would work to some degree i didnt expect it to work quite to that level that it did you think of all sides of that we got to a point where the modeling right now the numbers we are told or 4 percent of the people were truly undecided down the stretch. That 4 percent made a differenc difference. The parties have figured out e game of getting more people to the polls im not surprised to see the numbers increase. We surprised by the numbers . I was surprised by some of the numbers within the numbers. For instance, trump did much better among latinos overall than people expected him to do. He did very well in places like miamidade and the Rio Grande Valley and that probably made the difference with the democratic numbers in florida that i think were on nobodys radar screen to be a danger to lose. The best analysis i have heard is that immigration was not as high profile and issue in this election as it was in 2016. But it was a reminder that latinos as a whole are younger than the population at large. They are less likely to be struck down by covid and also a lot of the industries hardest to and hotels and restaurants the Economic Issues for a lot of latino voters were survival issues. So that grew them in a way that they were not picking up to trumps message and that is one of the things that will be studied about the selection going forward. By the time we got to election day, 250,000 americans had died. Bob woodwards reporting coming out the audio of President Trump privately telling him back on february 7th that he knew it was airborne and how dangerous it is. We surprised that he does such big numbers just his handling of covid . Not really. We have been here before with that with 2016 and access hollywood and reopening the clinton investigation. And figured he would get his base back out but i figured maybe he would get a little extra get the base back out again. Where he made a mistake is that from the beginning, as a sitting president coming in and 2016 you have a clean slate and the ability to expand that base and didnt do a whole lot to expand the base. If you look at the 2016 election, the close margins in michigan, pennsylvania, wisconsn suggested if he didnt do an expansion of his base even with the marginal increase the democrats were coming for him and would be ready this time it wouldnt sit on biden like they did on hillary clinton. I think thats what happened. They were coming for him, he knew that but did not expand his base. He got it back out but did not do enough for michigan, wisconsin or pennsylvania or other places he could have won if he would have been a president that wasnt a base only president. We saw that for three years. Going back to covid and the difference what mightve happened, there is a lot of secondguessing but on februar february 8th instead of not telling everyone what he told bob woodward, lets all be superheroes, lets wear masks. I will sell a lot of maga masks. If he handled that differently would he have one month ago . Yes. A much closer race. He was credited for building an economy. And in times of crisis americans want to rally around their leader typically. If they thank you are trying, and making moves based on logic and science they will give you the benefit of the doubt. If you just mock people for wearing a mask and dont take it seriously and then in the late summer months, abandoning or at least fighting and then that is when the people will say, maybe we need a change. If you saw how he suffered with senior voters and they are usually with the president republican candidates i think he took a dip and senior voting in that could have heard him in the election. Thats because of his handling of covid. With the chaotic years people could have forgiven that but you are right. Had it not been for that maybe he would have one. I see you nodding your head. Again, and how many errors make it is impossible to play out, but i do think the president morehan anything talked himself out of his presidency. There was a rally around the flag when the is a crisi crisis, think about 9 11 or pearl harbor, the disease is not quite the same but they gave the president a lot o latitude to make those errors there was a rocky path. Everybody was scared. And what you saw from the presidenstarted as overly rosy and then he decided he would issue atayathome guideline which made a l of sense and then fought himself in public onhe podium how much you want to reopen the economy. But it was like when he started to get io the territory i would prescribe hydroxychloroquine. And inject bleach into yourself and the loss of trust. We find it comical because we think thats an idiotic thing to do but the ls of trust that he even had a handle seously dealing with this disease was a problem for him. He coulde looked at it as an opportunity from a political perspective to show leadership and to walk t of it stronger. Kind of like he diwith the economy we saw this huge econom that and he was vy confident so thereould be a rebound at some level he could show and just didnt do that with the pandemic. He dealt with it as a problem instead of an opportunity politically. And as we all know he go through a crisis, the best polics is to deal as straightforward and effectively and they did not appear to be doi that. So it is almost rhetorical. The one incurred argue for the pieces othe Covid Response and signaling of the leaderip style and the lack of seriousness that were difficult for many voters. I think he was hurt by his willingness to politicize like wearing a mask. And whatever is the opposite of virtues signaling. Turning things that should have been basic Public Health measures, turning into a signifier if you are a democrat or a republican , people also understood the only have more cases because we have more testing made absolutely no sense and they could also see that responses and other countries were more effective. This was a time when reality did catch up with him. Also wondering what might have happened if the pfiz vaccine announcement happened two week earlier. Follong up on that secretary baker ran a Famous Campaign in the white house at his time and thinking back they were known for disciplined and process. This was a president who had wild and dramatic moments. But there was one this fall i would have liked to be sitting next to secretary baker watching his face. That is when President Trump went to walter reed and then got into his car and drove around and was waving and then finally when he returned to the white house with the big helicopter scene and going up to the balcony and taking a false mas mask, what were you all thinking watching that moment . Because each of you have talked about the big picture in his handling of covid. Thats october. Not that long ago. What did you think was going on . It was one of the most bizarre things i have ever seen in the time of coved politics. At least they could talk him out of the idea to take official revealing a superman tshirt der that. But americans at that point i think it was over 200,000 people had died and peop understood that donald trump had access to treatment that their loved onesid not. He didnt want to signal it was not that big of a deal and he had some super constitution that makes him superhumaor something, that was so at odds with t reality people were seeing and feeling in their communities and the home that it didnt send a message he thought it would. A lot of times the president s first instinct is to go to his showmanship background. This president the last 15 minutes of celebrity apprentice. Its a real serious situation where you try to set the tone or individual the rest of the country. You just had covid19, treatment that other americans cant get. Here you are, in a moment where and use the moment to show leadership, he could have emerged and say i have dealt with this, noble insured want this. Please wear your mask. Do what you have to do. Because you dont want to get it like i did. And show some compassion and leadership. He took the reality tv without going up to the top and looking out, have people and they start to call these things happen. What is going on . And they mentioned it seem like it was the last 15 minutes of a reality show when someone is doing something that is more spectacle. This is one of those moments and remember 40 years ago same w would be even covid to not make a profit. What do you think . To the point about showmanship i kept thinking this stagecraft is excellent and reaganesque and using the power of the psidency and the traings and seems to be completely out of touch for the moment so a bill clinton on bush or instrent bush would have done is in danger peles lives for the benefit of the state. So iseems so dissident to me watching the president behe in this manner that seems so presidenal from that trapping standpoint and from a level of how do i protect the american people. One of the things i just realized is that we have been talking for the minutes about donald trump. Not it on not about president elect biden. So now lets go back to the Campaign Strategy are both sides. So talk to be about joe biden and what messages worked, what strategies worked, how did he get to be president elect apart fr what President Trump was doing . For those of us that were following the very large directly fields in New Hampshire and iowa and nevada, joe biden look like a dead man walking. He got his clock cleaned and iowa, he went to New Hampshire and it did even worse. He barely rely barely pulled out a second place finish in nevada. So that in South Carolina really it was a testament to his own tenacity. He ran on the same message beginning to end. It was an election about character. He was not allowing himself to be drawn to the left. But a single endorsement of james cburn that essentially pulled the bid campaign out of the ditch and put them on the road to the nomination. And at that point that campaign was out of money, it s not at all equipped that was a completely priry endeavor. And the reason they could rebuild itself, not only for normal general election but one conducted in this environment is such an extraordinarytory. And i hope it will be good books written about this. Because the discipline tha campaign showed. Theris a lot of talk about texas they sent kamala hars down to texas. But they knew there was a lot of states th needed to win mostly in the upper midwest and they really kept the focus where theynew they needed to win. And they want those states and they got a couplof bonus states like georgia and arizonand florida but they did what they neede to do but as they begin to build the team for t presidency, presidency, those th are picked for the key jobs are breaking a lot o glasseilings coming to gender and race but at the same time these are all coming with the deep ckgrounds and the issue will be dealing with this is so difrent the trump transition from celebrity apprentice. It really has look different remember trump tower and the elevators . Gromer, looking back at the Biting Campaign from the clyburn moment what made it work big picture quick. He caught a couple of weeks he had a longestablished connection to communities of color particularly black voters under barack obama the other front runners did not have. s after but the judge came out of iowa and New Hampshire he had nowhere to go. 0 percent with africanamerican voters. You cannot win that way. Most of the other contenders struggled as well and pretty sanders became the first runner that helped biden because they could rally around him because they do the sanders nomination would be a disaster from the party on for the party. So they rallied around that and have the wherewithal to survive and hold on because you know you will get rotten Media Coverage coming out of iowa and New Hampshire and nevada. And the campaign struggled. They were not raising money. This tragedy on the strategy was off. But he wasnt put in a trap with the socialist message that they were throwing at other Democratic Candidates and people could say in general omalley said its a great choice to pull the campaign out the ditch and knew that he had trump on the other side and then let it play out to have success and thats what happened. Omalleys name is en brought up a couple of times pointing to a column returned in august that i thought was instructive. I tend toook at this athe oldschool route of campaigning havi written a book at the election and ok at the mistakes clinton made and that was a mistake f hillary as overarching. Her campaign w a failure to connt her biography to a message that told voters what would one what she would do for them and at is what biden succeeded more than anything. And sent the message very eay talking about the character piece the character, competencend compassion he did a good job of that early. Th is also the campaign he would have won had he want 1980, 94, 1988, he thought about 1992. This is like the seventh president ial campaign to devep his toes in the water. I dont ink it will look any different and it was good for the democratic primary without getting into so far to the left he would have trole in the general. And too back to the and talk about the competence and compassion and chacter thats a big difference from what y saw fm clinton the Democratic Candidates in the lesson of Teddy Kennedy failing in 80 to explain why he wanteto run for president. And then to connect the personal narrative. Hes not wearing his facemask especially when trump started campaigning i was impressed how they stuck with the plan. Having joe biden in his basement isot necessarily a problem. [lauter] thother problem is the first debate where donald trum comes out on the stage anything more wildod been a rabid squirrel o the stage. That was also a real turning point in the selection. If you have mentioned Kamala Harris because after all this time, now that a woman and a lot of people just take it for granted all of a sudden. On Inauguration Day peoe not take it for granted. Ampersanwill be interviewing them to gather because they seem a little bit surprised as they build the administration have done more tolesh out what her role will be in her portfolio. If people are to the point that are starting to wonder what she fit but on Inauguration Day that would be a very powerful pictur picture. How big of a role was in the victory . It played a significant role because i thank you made the best choice. Sometimes you get in trouble when you dont make the best choice and take a chance. And that we were strongly considering someone else but senator harris was the right choice and went with that. Thats what worked out. It was the right choice and did not create problems with his base or africanamerican voters and black women. And now asserts that the situation to be a historic partner in this process. Look at george w. Bush and cheney it was a novel concept. Biden can create a role from senator harris to move forward like Vice President and then to create some things to work on. So the message of democrats it is the party and if you deployed senator harris in the right way then that would bode well for the future on a number of reasons. Most notably how the party looks and the energy it projts to democrats. One more thing to remember to think that jobiden will be a one term president. If tts the case Kamala Harris goes into the lead position to come the countrys first woman president. And that is also in that will be a strong dynamic for the next four years. S did no ht hurting them. I think she is likable and provides cov in the psalm area where he has problems at least questions tru could use against him in terms o his record on the crime bill and some othe things he said in th past in that area she provides cover from there and cover for him fro the groups that havent always been happy with where they had been on things and it made it harder to attack him there. I think what you saw is something that might have happened had joe ben not been in the race but didnt happen in the primary bck women became very unified behind her that wasnt the case but that was helpful in terms of organization and turnout and energy for the ticket s she was in every sense the pick and at the same time is historic and speakso why there might not have been so much attentn in the media to thi groundbreaking moment and even being picked i spoke to the political director and the Clinton White hou when the pick was made and she told me she cried when it was made. The images added into the history books and that is something for which joe biden should never be and will never be forgotten and whatever is going on in our media conversati i think in the real world on the ground it was and has been a groundbreaking moment. Again i forget on Inauguration Day we will see that. Let me quickly add senator harris isnt a darling of progressives and there we some progressive democrats and progressive women on the other side criticized for what she did as a prosecutor in california. But they are still overwhelmed by the moment and shed tears as well and appreciated the moment and supported her in the ticket so you are right aut those and the motion some people had when she was selected. A. We just have a couple of minutes before we are going to take questions from people whove beenatching this. I want to ask a littlebout press coverage because we have had existential dysfunction i would say theast four years. Reporters generally dont like to say the l word. The fact check we dont like to say he lied but its changed a lot. Even now as we are dealing with the two realities in this country people who see and believe the election was stolen and people who dont as a reporter and a columnist, what are the challenges with dealing with that . The challenges are people have gone into their media silos and worked for legacy news organizations. On the Fact Checking ability to call things out and build context into things even if they are just questionable i think we are doing a lot better than when donald trump first appeared on the scene and everything he did was covered as though it was the second coming. But i think where we have really fallen down and the trump years is that we havent distinguished well enough for the readers and the viewers to create 15 distractions a day and we swing at every ball hes throwing at the plate. People in the country get exhausted with the whole thing. One of the criticisms i get from the discerning readers and viewers is when can i have my normal news back. When can it not be all about trump every day, every hour and swinging at everything. This came from a viewer and reader and that is pretty much what you get when you turn on the news and in the era of trump people want to get back to the sort of regular news where there are other players they watch what they want to watch and usually that is what reaffirms they watch what justifies the positions they hold. How we get out of that i dont know. Its decades in the making how we get out of this saying i am a republican but thats wrong or im a democrat but thats wrong. That is the big problem i think and i just do not have an answer to that. I know you have a solution to this. [inaudible] you froze for a minute. You are back. The good old days are not as good as billy joel. I remember when i first started covering capitol hill there was a new congressman named steve king you may be familiar with him he said a lot of things that were offensive and i remember i would interview him and he often had insight into where the party was. I would always look at my notebook and be like i dont need to give airtime because it isnt adding anything to the conversation. However, he would sometimes say things in a way that were reflective of what the thought process was so theres a judgment at the individual level of what are you going to highlight and its difficult and we have all become sort of local news in terms of if it leaves it leaves and donald trump is spraying blood everywhere. But i generally think that the responsibility for the individual reporter is to try to limit the scope of what they are promoting and be more reflective of the mainstream of thinking influencing decisions instead of who said what crazy thing. With trump is a challenge because hes the president of the United States and so typically anything that comes out of the mouth of the president is news and has been treated as such and to limit or define that and to only chase things that actually matter because there isnt that substantive peace you would look for and say this is the thing that matters and this is what doesnt because he treats them all the same. A. Let me try to take some questions now. Forgive me, im going to try to read these with my glasses. The first question is from, i hope i pronounce the name correctly, david. Did the democrat with the congressional race arise from their failure to continue to emphasize healthcare in 2020 as they did in 2018 . He feels instead they focused on other issues such as black lives matter. Who wants to take that on . I do think that the inability to come up with a position on the social justice issue, the inability to fend off attacks if you are for defunding the police i do think democrats wanted to talk about healthcare in a way they did in 2018 and they tried to tie the healthcare issue to the pandemic because now more than ever people need to be insured with the socialist type messages out there they didnt have the provisions or they allowed themselves to be exploited in a way that they would have to spend money against the charges that they were for defunding the police. We have a lot of questions here do you think that it will change how president ial candidates will campaign who wants to take that on . I think that it will change the way the president s campaign. Number one, the ability to get votes early in some places and be able to see the behavior even if there is early voting everywhere where do they show up on election day and it will affect the messages that they use in different parts of the country going down the stretch it will affect how they raise money and spend it. How it will affect all those things, i cant say but absolutely it will affect at the end the Biden Campaign had more money with essentially spending and they were trying to bank those votes by mail as early as possible to have a picture so we already saw the spread of script difference in the way that the two campaigns were and of course voting by mail and voting early became partisan and weaponize as an issue, which i dont know i would have anticipated ahead of the election. But the short answer to the question is yes absolutely it will change. Do you think a significant factor is that he didnt need to say much, that for many it was enough that he just wasnt donald trump. I think there was a lot in this campaign and the fact is when you have an incumbent president on the ballot the race is going to be about him and in Donald Trumps case it was more than probably normal. Im going to ask the three of you to do a little predicting because we are not that january 20th yet. Will donald trumwill donald truf and his children, what do you think . I dont think that he will pardon himself, but he will pardon one or more of his children. I think that there will be pardons and the trump family but not themselves because some of the things hes facing are uncovered by the federal law and therefore its just not in issue. I dont think that hes worried that. Here is a scenario that i have no basis to believe. What if he were to resign and have have Vice President tense pardon him and that would get you out of the can a president pardon himself that leads to my next question which is we have had some reporting in cnn that he is unlikely to go to the inauguration but as we know five minutes from now that could be completely different. So, do you think you will attend the inauguration . I cant even imagine that. We have three president s in our history signing onto the inauguration so he may be the next one to do that. The report said he might hold a rally somewhere to the president ial bid its more likely and let me and quickly one of those moments that was a tough race but he stood up and was acknowledged and did the right thing and it was a powerful moment. I remember that moment. Do you think that the trumps will invite the bidens to the white house for any of the usual transition welcomes that we have seen in the past . I dont know. It would be unlike him. Jonathan, both questions. Do you think that he will attend the inauguration and do you think there will be any invitation over the white house ahead of time . Because we are in prediction mode, im going to go against the panel. I think that he will go to the inauguration. After four years of acting unusually it might be a good moment for him to be remembered. Hes going to move into the legacy area right where hes thinking about his legacy. The other thing is i dont remember when he had the opportunity to be on television where he turned it down. And even after as the former president you have cameras on you, you have the tension on you and generally speaking if you behave like a normal president , people say nice things about you. Dividing them to do things it really doesnt look like that. The one set of people that they seem to have respect for our people his age and i do think that he was a little less nasty about joe biden the than he hasn about other people and he tends to be again, more respectful if he will think that its the right thing to do to act. For each of you, do you think donald trump will run in the 2024 . I actually dont. I dont either. Its hard for someone to come back after losing, and an incumbent losing a president ial election. I dont see it happening but i think that he will run. Politicians seem to have a combination of shamelessness and an ego and donald trump has both of those in the extreme. I would rule nothing out in terms of him running again. So, with that i wish all three of you a wonderful 2021. My wish is that its a little more normal and may the vaccines be safe and effective. But thank you all for doing this today. I will hand it back over to you. Responded by with the voter r suppression law, voter id law, the tea parties and then we elected a donald trum donald tre at a crossroads. At the heart of it all its always been who do we take ourselves to be. The next few months could be the most difficult period in u. S. Public Health History due to the coronavirus pandemic he spoke with the chamber of commerce president Suzanne Clark about the recent surge in cases and what americans should be doing to mitigate the threat and how the u. S. Might prepare for the future