Following the qme, signing right here this table if youve not already purchased a book are plenty available the registers. So tonight, im very excited to. Close enough. sink in the swamp how trumps minions poisoned washington. The white house reported for the daily page, tirelessly covered in assorted goingson of the Trump Administration. Arnie angry annunciations from the small words. As they uncovered stories including omar, secret tapes. Giuliani, the russian investigation. And the connections among lauren sanchez, michael sanchez, and stone. The book continues this uncompromising work of exposing the financial and moral degradation of the capital. Taking the stories back to before trumps candidacy and tracing the unprecedented event that a follow through the lens of both the key figures and players and roles have not previously been seen. The conversation tonight, at Times NationalPolitical Correspondent previously she covered u. S. Politics for the atlantic and political. She is also an analyst for cnn. Please join me in welcoming them to politics and prose. [applause]. Thank you so much for that introduction. There are at least five mdcs down here. I see several of you in the back. Dont be shy. Please fill us out. If youre planning to stay, please come on and. This is a super fun book print superfund to talk about it and i want to start at the beginning where you start with how you were inspired to not just right this book but to take this approach of the book. It is a product of how the daily beast has approach white house coverage and actually sign on the daily beast in february of 2017 is a white house reporter. I sort of got roped into this. We look back on may of 2017 as sort of the december know, like a month from help in white house coverage. And james kobe being fired, the russian investigations were kicking into gear. You trump giving information to the Russian Foreign minister in the oval office. It was story after story is breaking a month anybody will live through it knows that there would be 56 00 p. M. Every day and there would be some New Washington post and New York Times story that would be like needing to be covered and im not ashamed to say that we were chasing a lot of these stories of the time. None of us and cover the white house before and wait sort of thunderhead together to try to figure out what value we can add to the legions of the reporters that were covering the stuff on a daily basis. And we sort of organically set on looking at the midlevel we like to call it the warm side view of that sort of function in the white house having to deal with fall out of every one of the left side and the political event. In terms of these people were more than happy to talk to us anonymously and give us very fun quotes. So we sort of unleashed ourselves and we took that folks to look try to get the midlevel white house staffers perspective on all of these things goings on. And when it came to 20182019, and were actually trying to get a book together, but we sort of correlate some of that building that from the ground up and came to a premise for a book was that we were initially approached to write it checkbook is a lot of white house resort for business particular era have been in one of the ideas that was originally pitched to us westward into guys do a book about the adults like the john and rex and jims and they were sort of, maintaining this stability against the totes and the champion access. In our flight response to that was were flattered that anybody would approach is one is to write anything for them especially a Nonfiction Book but the entire premise of the reporting at the point in up until this point, has been the adults in the room have either do not exist when the degree to which they do exist they do not matter. Asawin to appropriately cover the trump world and to show what donald j trump, the man who the president is, and is way more accurate to observe it through the lens of the raving lunatics the market should heads. The raving cable news ideologues. That is where breadandbutter was next how we really told the true story. In one of the inspirations, and in my trespassing on your time pretty okay. [laughter]. Thank you sir. When we were trying to figure out about this, god knows theres been so much ink spilled about trump era, they make it different. Years ago, long before trumps them came along the long before i was even a political reporter percent, i was living in some decrepit group house in washington dc living with this guy actually. I hate him. And just hung over with the fingertips one random saturday or sunday morning and a handful of this clip on youtube that was in many documentaries on the making of the movie bedfellows. Classic mob movie. Based on the book called why skype quickened by his great Crime Reporter cases in this any documentary to watch all those years ago on youtube, and whiteley paraphrasing here convincingly books written about the mafia, like your lucianas. He not want to do that. If you write a book about napoleon, would want to jump in a time machine rabbit foot soldier off of the battlefield plans army and taken the guys story. And through the lens of the footsoldier tell this story of napoleon from the ground up. He did not tell the story of napoleon through napoleons eyes. In the same way we do not want to tell the story of donald. J trump must through his trump eyes. That is been done to death. To diminish in certain respects. So we applied that template from gang language and we wanted to superimpose it onto the trump world. And it is highly did that. There was no meeting and we were comparing the white house to that. Asawin thats when was scribbled on a piece of paper. I had to concede to her that were there were some differences between gangsters like hardcore gangsters and donald trump. And she thanked us for conceding that. But my only to what was different white house and stronger mbas. So that kind of thing. Anyway, that is my line long answer to how we got to be the apprentice. Molly so the idea of good fellows is the warm side view, the more varnished, more accurate picture of your singles bigger pictures, you are saying the unvarnished truth, how people treat things that are so revealings. What you learned from this approach that you dont learn by just having sources at the top level. Lachlan this is not a policy book by any means. Were not going through the various like immigration or Foreign Policy decisions the white house made. It is really light, both a process book in its character study. So the idea started illustrate how the applications of it or that the workings of this white house, uniquely affect Health Policy or communications or any other aspect of what the white house just now. In our view, you cannot really get that story without talking to the people who are aware of where the rubber meets the road and actually talking to the press or members of congress. Or say, operating the present help teleprompter or anyone of the number of characters we go through the book. Asawin do to get into that the moment so they know what we are talking about. Lachlan i was referring to a character who would write about who really, we mentioned him a couple of years ago on the fly but beyond that he had never been mentioned in print ever as far as i can tell. He is trumps favorite teleprompter operator. A sort of came out of nowhere nobody ever heard of him. Please apparently just a wizard when it comes to scrolling words in front of the president. And if you have ever watching trump speech amino that he tends to meander and go off into these tangents and then after 15 minutes, will come right back to his prepared remarks. You can imagine its a difficult to do is itself telephone for operator. To keep up with the l. Rambling. At this guy could do it better than anyone and everyone we talked to said bus dude in the whole wizard when it comes to the teleprompter. You need would do scroll slowly and he knew exactly when the pickup when President Trump came back to his train of thought this was like a great example of of where to find these people and a lot of writers have never heard of that played these outside roles in and the last three years of american politics. That is my favorite example in the book. Molly the president should be gracious enough to care of the person somewhat is this guy, is larger or as real world influence rather than being just a service worker. Lachlan because he some damn good at his job right. Operating Donald Trumps teleprompter is not like operating brother thomas or george bushes teleprompter. And anyone who ever saw the sky work which is marvel and his ability to essentially read the president s train of thought. President trump train train of thought is not easy to read even for folks who cover him on a daily basis. So when you hear words coming out of the president s malcolm we can think dave for them to be coming out intelligently as they do. In the create a candy crush because that is what gave often played to warren buffett. The trump event. And we started reporting on the sky, theres a slight his protection racket in the trump world as we call it. Around the spot and we did not even know his last name. We just knew he was a guy named dave out there. And we would ask, sources in the white house and the rod of sort of fear of trump acquaintances and almost two a man, horror we would ever ask about the guy. He is in this like pretty tremendous influential role. And we were time to get warded off freeman inquiry about the guy. Molly want to ask you about your reporting process because so much of this book to me is tremendously fun behind the scenes look how you get the stories and hanging out the trump hotel and socializing with this bizarre cast of characters. So talk a little bit about how that works and. You guys dont pull any punches. Youre not very nice to mr. Trump. [laughter]. And yes, and yes, these people continue to talk to you. How does that exactly work. Lachlan for starters, we are very upfront. At the daily and also in this book. Anybody who spends five and half seconds or less on social media pages or talking to figure out where locklin and i stand politically. Asawin is very much coming from the a perspective right wing conservative intellectual position as a reporter. Jon and im ver. Lachlan we sort of discovered people would often time would be way nicer to me the guy that theyll believe who is the mark of this and locklin who the know is a guy who is a conservative because you forgive love the sinner but you despise the heartache. Maybe he can into that a little bit more. Lachlan i kind of hard to separate my political views for my reporting when it came to the trump era and really have secrets that i wasnt really big fan of his and is kind of liberating. When you are not kind of hope beholden to your own sort of opinions just looking for a good story. But it certainly like i joined the daily beast, they sort expected, the sky comes from the role of conservative journalism and he knows all the people and to the republican politics. He will be well sourced stuff. And it was like oh my goodness oh my gosh she joined the daily beast. They were definitely, they liked the fact that there was this raving left lunatic. They was not going to burn sources so the talk to him for you like you he was an evil plastic and it did not work out like our editors thought it would. Molly eight he was a member. Asawin what is that influence will benedict. And yet for all of that there is a point in the book when you almost get into a fist fight the Trump Administration official. Doing its own list . Asawin follett locklin start that pretty. Lachlan clear at museum for james comey release party actually. He wasnt making any news and is kind of boring but there was never far a masonic books. We had a few drinks and so when connie would be cute and he asked comey if he would like to come to the trump and the fireball shots with us. At the hope trump hotel. Coco he was not interested. [laughter]. So we went alone we came out with some various ambassador germany was there and at one point, cliff, we may know is the author of vipers, his tellall book but is two years at the white house. He still of the west wing into time and he showed up and we had written a story a few months earlier about his involvement with would be the what russia war room in the white house. Basically the Rapid Response unit to deal with that cascading series of scandals. He had called me up like hours after the story published this was on the friday night and just like real bombing. He screamed at me about this whole fake news. So i had not talked to him. And it was not pretty is inaccurate story. He showed up to the trump hotel they sort of came over to her table stormed and someone decided theyre going to stir shut up to and that story. And it resulted in him and Asawin Suebsaeng standing up and they were insisting it was fake and Asawin Suebsaeng said not take. Asawin attendant upon myself to set up for not only my but your honor. And what is this idiot doing. Asawin thank you for doing that on my favorite thing. So mean the sky, and you are too kind. So this then senior white house official and i spend the timeconsuming at each other in the lobby of the chomsky hotel. In with people around us, sort of egging us on and trying to break things up pretty so at some point, he said enough extends his hand to shake mine. And i scream at least twice. Im not shaking his f and because he just got in my face. They dont just f do that. So he threw up his hands at some point and started walking away with one of his principal when we got to the middle of the lobby, i think he also felt like he was cute. So i turned around and made eye contact. At that point, i think its a good idea to pursue it and if he wants to step outside, we can do that, why not. Simply somebody puts a hand on my shoulder and i think i shut that person harder than i thought and the security was called and people started screaming at me, rick, bless his heart with us one tiny specific things start doing this and telling security that they can go away. And we spent the rest of the night drinking in the lobby of the trump hotel. And this is a microcosm for a lot of the trump era. A lot of threats and noise but nothing really gets done or accomplished. And i remember distinctly even before you night were working on the book together, back in the respective, apartments and you say to me, i think my favorite new memory about the covering trump altogether as you must getting into with a fist fight with a senior official. And i said we ought to work of book if we ever write a book together, we should put that in there. Molly it also raises another question about so much has been said about the difficulty of truth in the trump era. In the sort of mirror effect created by the president s relationships. Hello stories in this book or people attack or question your reporting. And it takes a lot of confidence to know that something youve reported is true. How do you deal with that. Especially when you know that all of these people the white house are trying to plant fake stories. Theres a great story in the book where one of you sort of have this attempt. Jonah tell a story. Asawin one youre talking about we started getting synonymous tips from a guy the claim to be a Senior Administration official. Eventually found out later, multiple people operating this one email account from the white house. [laughter]. And was, hustle bdc insider yahoo. Com. Hotmail. Com. And they would send us these ridiculous things in the best when they were so this was they claim thats some of you might know stephen chung, before tony the trump promoter, they claim that he was doing under ground boxinboxing fights and we shoulo this. Really hot story. So just like ridiculous tips like that. Lachlan it was an amazing attempt to get us to do other things like outsources and you saw him talking to soandso. But yes, it was like sort of the fact that we were lied to and at least in the early days of the white house. Its very factual at the time. So the start of the method we developed was well this fact is telling meet this and is bs. In this other one is telling me this crops reference and we try to triangulate one like tool kernel of truth between when everybody is telling us and then we might actually be onto something. Molly so everybody, i will throw out questions in a minute. But before i do that, you talk about this book being about the infants in the room, the toddlers at least. But one of these kind of scary things about it is that these people being quite significant. In one of the really interesting passages in the book concerns a couple of guys that we have no allout about quite a bit. But you came to know him long before they were mixed up in this building. Asawin weve never really actually met by him deep connection to him. Molly are you facebook friends or what. Asawin maybe. It was before they were ever associated with Rudy Giuliani this whole ukraine dustup. There were a big republican and they seemed very shady. They were from florida thank god and floridas really easy to look up public records on people. I love that state for that very reason. It was like digging these guys past and realizing they were part of this very sketchy Eastern EuropeanFlorida Community that was involved in all sorts of white penny stock deals and very sketchy real estate transactions and things like that. I had a lot of fun writing about it. But after like a year, my editors were sort of running at me telling me that i need to move on to Something Better then we both got indicted. For the role of the giuliani ukraine saga. And suddenly they become these gigantic brick in the road trump actually getting something. As the wildest wildest thing because i remember this because i didnt have a lot of involvement in this reporting but i remember part a month, ths was sort of a passing project. I could not really understand why youre like a dog with a bone in obsessed with this all of a sudden, i was like i guess that paid off. But giuliani himself was just such a ridiculous character. And these were sort of the third order folks. The name on the totem pole. Just write it in a social cast. Very sort of postsoviet like drafty corrupt students stooge and they go off that error from the very beginning. So we have a chapter at the end about them and it was a very late edition in this. Because thes impeachment stuff started unfolding. Oh my gosh you guys are perfect examples of everything were talking about in this book. Molly all right, i