Carolina, this is one hour and 15 minutes. You came to hear my friend, john podesta, who for decades now has been one of the leading political figures in the country. He served at the highest level in the clinton administration, Clinton White house, and again in the Obama Administration as counselor in the white house and then he was the head of hillary for president campaign, he makes ad that mean risotto. Dont ask me how i found that out. Mr. Podesta you dont bake risotto. [laughter] mr. Feaver but john, welcome. So john, what we want to talk about tonight is, how did we get here . What kind of answer would you get . Where are we and how did we get here . Mr. Podesta you probably expect me to say the russians stole the election and were a heck of a match. Right . [indiscernible] mr. Podesta i think the country was in a place of transition. Iy was in a place of transition. Of a was a lot of rise sort of popular sentiment. Thats born from the fact since i served in the obama white house, but since i left the Clinton White house, that wages for working people hadnt got up, the wages got stuck. Certain places are doing great. A lot of places where left out and left behind. Trump,te trump, donald tapped into that, ran a Vigorous Campaign and tried to tap into the anger that was out there and was able to turn in of votes and in in three states we expected to win, wisconsin, michigan, at pennsylvania, that gave him the presidency. Hillary clinton got 3 million more votes nationally than he but he wasas able to, i think, run a campaign of anger. Not really a campaign of hope. Complete it was a rejection of what president obama had done for eight years. And it worked, i guess, is the bottom line. Think that he she would have made the president and she ran a phenomenal race, but he won. So where we are is with a person who i think really breaks come practically particularly particularly on domestic affairs, he is broken from a long tradition of 13 president s that accepted the mantle of local leadership. Globallt a leadership. And he built a standing in the world that was built around a structure and valleys system that said that we are going to try to build a safer, more secure world around alliances and we will restrain some of our powers of doing. He is pursuing a different strategy, one of populism, but also nationalism. And i think the world is trying to figure out where the message is right now. How did they elect him and what is he doing Going Forward . What is his strategy . Lets dig into the past part and will get into the present part. When you were surveying the field of republican challengers, im thinking now 2015 or even 2014, who did you think was the most formidable foe and where did trump rank in that list of people . Mr. Podesta i said this to him once and he wanted me to say it publicly but i wouldnt do it. I probably thought the person who matched up best against her was john kasich. Was coming into the race as the successful governor of ohio, has a personality that is appealing to people, and both had some depth. And he proved to be a more to the lastn a way man standing, in a sense. I guess ted cruz was officially, but i thought trump was a serious candidate early on and i think we took him more seriously than the republican field took him in the early days. Sports of him in metaphors as a lefthanded boxer. Youre not sure what you are going to get any new he was going to pick things up in a way that was unpredictable and that has proved to be true, in the primaries and general election. And he was willing to say and do anything. And i guess the moment i thought that this guy has staying power even asle to despicable as i thought the comment was, hes able to rise or live in a gravity free world down,nothing pulls him was when he did the crack about john mccain and said december 2 dozen 15, right . Right, where he says i dont like losers, i like winners, i dont like people who get caught. For any normal politician, thats a career and her. Right . I thought for the first six hours, that was going to be a career and her for him. He stuck with it. His people rallied to him. I dont know what they found to be likable about that, but they liked it mccain was popular with mainstream republicans. He lost in two dozen eight when he shouldnt have lost. You are right. From that point on, you were taking him seriously . Bydesta we thought the late fall, going into the start of our real primary of the i think that most top people in the campaign thought this was likely to come down to a fight between crews and trump cruz and trump and we probably thought cruz would win that and that mainstream zublicans would rally for cru even though nobody liked him, in order to stop trump. But that didnt happen. During this time, you had your own donnybrook within the Democratic Party. Did you anticipate that would be as hard for Hillary Clinton to win . Mr. Podesta i think we thought that senator sanders was a very serious candidate. I worked for insurgent candidates and got my start in politics. Ive done this for a really long time, started in 68 working for mccarthy. 1968 working for mccarthy. He started in knox college. Your reference are from the beginning. Mr. Podesta absolutely. Animal activist, lets put it that way. Know, it was clear that bernie, in the democratic insurgentstem, and who had a loyal, strong following, can be a credible candidate. But i think we always felt like we had the right path to victory and we saw it. I was talking to students earlier. Our coalition was bigger than his coalition and that proved to be true. There is a lot of revisionism going on right now, but hillary got 3. 7 million more votes than ominated in the primaries. In new york. St win largerwant she won in territories. But hisome primaries, strength was in the caucus states and where the most committed activists tend to dominate the process in those caucus states. Know, morel had, you than 400 pledged delegate lead on him. We didnt win this campaign by going to the superdelegates. I think we won it fair and square and thats because she had a very broad appeal and she committed, strong following the we are willing to come out and help her, as well. From the other side of the aisle, it was odd to think that after eight years where democrats controlled the white house, that they might hand the nomination to someone who is a socialist whose critique of obama was that he wasnt on the left enough after eight years of power. From the other side of the aisle, that looked off. These suggest there was great weakness or something inside the democratic side . Mr. Podesta i think it was running in the same stream,hich is senator sanders there are definitely different than donald trumps, but he had accommodation a combination of traditional, more liberal white voters. And then he had, he did better in the same demographic, i would as, that i was describing the key conversion for trump, which were workingclass white voters in the industrial midwest. We got our fair share of those, but i think that he was driving at the same issues that trump played out on. Which was the system is rigged, it is rigged to get you, your lives are not getting better, your wages are going up. Socialism, much more activist intervention than what president obama was promising is the answer to that solution. Hillary was making a different argument, which is that obama inherited a complete and total mess, the biggest recession since the Great Depression and worked his way out of that and build an economy that was finally producing jobs and by 2016, was probably starting to reduce some real which growth for individuals and while she had ideas that went well beyond what obama proposed on the economy, thats sticking with a progressive path that was more had been,here obama where clinton was, perhaps in the 1990s, building at an economy and trying to concentrate on job creation, which is growing was the right answer to the countrys problems. So do you think there was anything sanders could have done differently that would have changed the outcome . If he had said i didnt care about those dam emails, with he have changed the trajectory of the democratic process . Mr. Podesta i doubt it. You cant do counterfactuals, i think. I dont think so. We do do them in but will science. In political science. Mr. Podesta if he tried, he did that, i think at the end of the day, that was, in some ways, he was trying to run a campaign that was both authentic to him and was a little bit different. I think he got credit for saying that, actually. I dont think it hurt him. He came back to him at the end, he might regret it. Time the New York Primary happened, which was the third weekend of april, i think, the elector was over. He gets fighting through the california primary, but the popular vote and the delegate vote was done. I think had he gone after her on that, it would not have fit his personality. I think he wouldve had a hard time executing the attack. And i dont think he would have won many democratic votes. I dont think people, by that time, it was an old new story and people have resulted in their own minds that this was important or it wasnt. And it was a mistake and i think most democratic voters were willing to move on and didnt think it was that big of a deal. So you know the critiques from the book that suggests maybe the race was over before the fix was in. That maybe mr. Perez in her maybent mischaracterized her argument what would be your response to her argument and if not her argument, the largest sentiment among his followers that feel the fix was in . I think that the truth is senator sanders was able to compete rigorously in a challenge that have been preset before either one of them got into the race and he lost. Incident thatular donna points to is the memorandum of understanding, which notes, which was about the joint fundraising agreement, to raise money for the general election, not the primaries. Gn endedsanders campai up executing a agreement with the dnc. They just didnt raise any money for it. I think that was probably the right decision for them because we were trying to get ready for the general election. He was still behind, he was trying to use all his resources to see if he could somehow overcome secretary clintons lead and i think that the truth is, we wrote money for the dnc purposely, lawfully, consistently with what previous democratic nominees had done to be used in the general election. That,w looking back on donna says that indicated the fix was in and i have to say, having worked with her from the time she took over for Debbie Wasserman schultz in november, i never heard that complaint. And i saw her a lot. I actually havent read the book, so im going by whatsee her say on tv and what ive read is set in the book. Sanders had a very fair shot at this. How manylain about debates there were, but we added debates at his request and we complained about the fact they hacked our data file at the dnc. I dont really want to refight the 2016 primary. I think he had a fair shot to compete inside the party and hes not even running for reelection as a democrat, so the fact that the party was open enough, maybe the Republican Party was open enough to let trump and, the Democratic Party was open enough to let him compete fairly. Is theetary clinton nominee and you are heading into the general election. , at that point, having looked at the Dumpster Fire that had been the republican primary, did you start measuring for drapes and say, these guys are spending hundreds of millions of dollars killing each other and just alienating everybody. Time for us to move into the oval office. Mr. Podesta no. Trump theo keep consolidated republican vote. You are well aware of the fact that we did substantial outreach and critically found Fertile Ground in the National Security committee and were able to get leading republicans to endorse business leaders, others, who came out and campaign for her, put their name on the line for her in an attempt to try to keep from consolidating the vote. If we did consolidate the republican vote, the country is split and it is a combative election. Able that moved backandforth and forth, but he was able to do that. We thought we had a leak. We thought we had a lead all along and by election day we were going to win. But we argued that this was a heht and that he was had one significant talent. You see it playing out today. He controls the tempo of the game. Manages to set and i think the, with all due respect to my woulds in the press, he turn the water and they would all jump on the trunk. Said, i havent looked at my twitter account, so he has probably done it this morning to the afternoon, from matt lauer to somebody else, but he did that threat the public and desk throughout the republican primaries. Even through all the hits he took through access hollywood, losing three debates, hes able to change the conversation by basically being outrageous. Talent that is a think he honed, not just in his days doing real estate in new york, but particularly in his transition into the television world. Was for the Cable Television a challenge. Democrats and capitol hill are finally get a challenge literally as we speak, a challenge to decide, are you going to react to it . Or are you not . Can you get airtime by going outrage hestever just come up with . Or do you have to kind of get into challenging particularly in the race itself . We knew that was a dilemma. Im not sure we ever quite solved it. Debatesgood about the and the public polling would indicate that she dominated the debates and won the debates, but that was consolidated airtime with a were both on stage together. , that waswas done done a few weeks before the toction, then he was able reestablish tempo of the election. Made due much has been to forensics on the election. About the i joked hacking, the russians, all that. We are going to get to that. Mr. Podesta we are . I do think that have an effect. It kind of each the way that you underneath. You dont fully sense it because its not bubbling up to the mainstream or it mainstream. Thing that was the reversal of fortune for us, which was the fbi directors decision to reopen that email case. That definitely cut the race in the last week. Builtok, you have to be to be able to do that. Like i said, we got more votes, but we didnt win. Do you think that its possible that candidate trumps tactics had not worked well if he was running against anyone other than secretary clinton, who had such high negative already and mr. Podesta she came out of the state department with 60 job approval. As secretary. Butpodesta as secretary, there is another whole chapter on how tough it is for a woman to be a successful candidate for chief executive. Appliedd thats by the media and by the public to someone i talked to Sheryl Sandberg about this early in the campaign. Heres its interesting when you want the Top Executive job, people question your motives of why you want it. For a woman. It must be a that good, pure motive if youre a man. But for a woman, the question about it. Embraced thiss time, in 2016, a little bit less that she wasnotion running to be the first woman president of the United States. But the hurdles are pretty high to do that. The reason i press you on that point is that the exit polls suggest a lot of the votes against loads for trump were really against clinton. That he consolidated the republican vote not because a lot of people like him or his character, but they really were afraid if she won, in particular the votes in the midwest he was able to click in those three states, where those kinds of people. That,desta i think again, youre asking me to speculate whether to if you were to substitute senator sanders for secretary clinton, its a different coalition and different set of problems. If you substitute joe biden, who scranton, for us in campaigned for us many times in scranton. Could they have done a little bit better in some of those places . Yes, but they could have done worse in other places. I think she is a strong candidate and has tremendous talent. I think she ran a race with commitment and with dignity. The answer ifrom expect you to give, which was, i wouldnt click on that link where is there a moment you say, i wish we could have done this or not done that . Say, maybe if we had done more of this, it might have turned out differently. Regret is what im asking. That if ia i think , and thered the tape are people that would argue with me on this, i think we should have published the emails the day the New York Times published that she used a private server. At that time, we had a copy of them. The Clinton Emails . Mr. Podesta the clinton in else, yes. And take the issue off the table. 13 months of trying to straighten through was this all about. And what you would have seen is a hardworking, intelligent, and somebodyed who got a lot done as secretary of state. Did you propose that at the time . Mr. Podesta the counterargument was that the state department requested the emails there were now the state departments emails. Im not sure what the state department would have done if we just published them. It would have been bold and aggressive. Lets talk about the other emails. Can you tell us what happened dripow significant that from the wikileaks turned out to be . Some people might not know the story. Just give the Readers Digest version. Mr. Podesta its long and painful. Bit of a comedy of errors. But there is a phishing email that came from a Russian Intelligence Service that came to my Gmail Account through a succession of people who had access to my Gmail Account, check to see whether it was real. I think there are a variety of stories on this, but the Cyber Security guy said it was real and they clicked on the link. My females were stolen. Stolen mys were stolen. Ere did you think there was something wrong right away . Mr. Podesta the dnc was hacked first and there were some documents that seem to come from private emails. Myself, and vesper marshall, whose in else were also hacked, and a couple of other individuals in the campaign that looked like something might have happened. But the full extent of that we didnt know until october 6 when they started publishing all of the contents of my females. Of my emails. I think im a pretty boring person. Good chef. Good chef. Mr.