Of us 2020 feels like its been a decadelong and so this fall, two months from now we are going to be facing an election which will be the First Time Ever that an impeached president appears on the ballot. Could you talk a little bit about the dynamics that were set into motion by this investigation by the subsequent impeachment and the acquittal that are still playing out today as we head into this final stretch before the election . Thanks karen, i will start their. Two big big things, one is emboldened donald trump, he hates this, hes angry, he doesnt like the stain and he wants to win. The very night the house voted to impeach, he went to michigan got a big crowd and promised four more years. At the same time its jeopardize the republican majority in the senate. In key swing states people were upset, they like to think the senate are independent thinkers that check on the presidency. Sarah gideon is using what Susan Collins said and did in that voting not to acquit so you will see that both its been a boom for trump and supporters that we are to win it back but in the senate theres problems especially in these divided states. Could you remind people what it was that Susan Collins said in deciding to acquit the president what she said was, he will be chastened by this he will essentially clean up his act, any evidence hes done that . Absolutely not. Im from maine so i been watching this race closely up there and sarah gideon and a lot of political aare making the case that Susan Collins is always concerned, she seems like shes giving a very thoughtful consideration to whatever the issue is, kavanaugh or the trump impeachment and she always ends up coming down on the side of trump. Thats a big part of sarah gideons campaign is that Susan Collins, she may say shes a moderate but shes actually very much in the trump camp. We document that in the book and we show how she went through this whole process and ultimately came down on donald trump suicide. Another thing that has applications that go beyond the Trump Presidency is not over and over again in this book is what you see is that career Public Servants are being vilified over and over again as some sort of hostile deep state in the case of Lieutenant Colonel benjamin somebody literally has bled for his country. What you think the longterm implications of that are for the morale of Public Servants and also the willingness of people to take on these careers in the future . Its massive. Weve had a long tradition in this country of having the Civil Service career professionals who are experts in Foreign Policy and health and taxation and whatever else it is, they dont make policies, the president makes policy. The administration makes policies but you have to be able to rely on a wellinformed experience Civil Service to carry out whatever the president ial directives are. We saw that over and over in the impeachment with jovanovich in ukraine, Alexander Vindman in the white house, so many of these people who had such experience. There was one day there was a hearing and two people testifying were bill taylor, the acting ambassador to ukraine and georgia cant come of Top State Department official. Between the two they have almost 80 years of service to this country, in the military and diplomacy, and the state department, when they sat down the democrats thought, look at these two incredible witnesses unimpeachable witnesses and the republicans many of them looked at them and saw something to be suspicious of, these were people who were the deep state these are people out to get the president , without any evidence that was ever true, as we document in the book, these people were doing nothing but trying to serve their country. And we use both the republican and democratic testimony documents to show how the experts, these are experts in the state department in the intelligence service, people who served for decades both parties just felt undermined it. I think thats a huge factor. Donald trump junior tweeted at some point about these people, we need less of these jokers in these positions. Its hard, so many have been run out of the jobs, they been retired, forced out, it can have a longterm effect on morale. Before we delve a little more into some of the things you uncovered in your recording, id like to talk a little bit about your collaboration. I dont know if everyone who is watching realizes that you two have been married for 27 years that for over half your marriage youve shared overseas bureaus for the Washington Post and i believe you two are sitting in the very room where you wrote that book. Can you talk a little bit about what its like to take on a big project like this with yourself . People ask us all the time i tell them its honest to god truth, we Work Together so long that when i try to write something without mary, it feels like i have one hand on the keyboard, like a missing half my brain. We were overseas for your almost 16 years i cannot count the number of times that mary save me from humiliating myself. Oh, come on. Its one plus one equals seven, it just kind of works. Kevin used to say abthere is something about the mix. In this case we had to do it very quickly and we had a powerhouse of collaboration with the national staff, National Security staff, the white house staff, the Washington Post helped with reporting, oversees a staff and with steve luxenberg. We should also say steve luxenberg, pulse veteran, he was part of the process every step of the way. It can be funny when you edit each others lines, i really dont like that one ab hes a little more subtle. People say all the time, mary, how can you work with your husband, nobody has ever said to me, how can you work with your wife . [laughter] everything gets set into motion with a telephone call tween the president and the new president of ukraine on july 20sajuly 25 2019. I think we all thought we knew everything there was to know about that call, the white house put out what described as a transcript, it was just loose notes. One thing you guys managed to get a hold of was what was happening on the other end of that call. Could you talk a little bit about that . What were the motivations in washington and what were the motivations in ukraine and even having this conversation. One of the key things we were trying to do is create vivid scenes. We realized that while we knew that who was in the situation room listening to donald trump when he was on the phone and the private residence of the white house we needed the other side. With reporting we actually were able to piece together a halfhour before that call in a small room on the fourth floor of the president ial mansion that overlooks this gorgeous cathedral, thousands of miles away, the aides of the president ukraine were passing him notes and funny enough they were saying things like this guy has a big ego, make sure to boost him up. Do think we should actually say that we should have a trump tower here, maybe not that. But for sure talk about the swamp, he loves that word. Of course brandnew president depending on a Critical Military aid wants to get along with the newly elected president. It was an illuminating scene and an important one of the whole picture of what was going on. To motivation for the what you mentioned, and ukrainians desperately wanted donald trump to meet with zelinski at the white house. They wanted that gripping burn at the white house mainly so they could show to Vladimir Putin and say, this shows the relationship between the United States and ukraine is solid, they are allies and allied against our military aggression and ukraine. Estimate the ukrainians wanted. Donald trump had been given talking points from his people saying we should talk about russian aggression, we should talk about standing tall with ukraine which talk about fighting corruption in that country and vindman and some of the others were literally holding their breaths to see if they would go because trump ad libs we all know that. That is right. Very quickly went off the rails and started talking about joe biden and crowd strike and some of these other things. They were so jarring to the ukrainians when we do the reporting on the ukrainians it was really funny because the ukrainians were googling crowd strike, what is crowd strike. They had no idea what he was talking about. Crowd strike was seeing a company that supposedly had access to the dnc server and according to conspiracy theories had hidden it somewhere in ukraine, correct . Its a long pretty naughty Conspiracy Theory. That rudy giuliani, talking about undermining the experts, he was going around flying to europe and elsewhere saying things like, its really not russia that interfered, its ukraine. Then he would throw in crowd strike. This call was going off the rails and they had been used to that because sometimes donald trump when you hear the word ukraine he would say, miss america pageant, Miss Universe pageant. Even while used to that, they were still surprised. They still regarded it as a friendly call they didnt get what they wanted but they regarded it as a step forward in afterward someone brought in bowls of chocolate and vanilla ice cream, it was a very hot afternoon they were eating it celebrating and that it occurred to them, wait, we got absolutely nothing out of that call that we wanted, we got was talk about joe biden and crowd strike. Their enthusiasm cool very quickly with the ice cream. Zelinski and trump have something in common, zelinski before he was elected was known primarily as a television celebrity, just like donald trump was. You get almost the sense that these two guys kind of get each other on some level, dont you . They do and during the call zielinski was very quick to say, mr. President , we learned some lessons from what you did in your election, we are trying to drain the swamp too. I think he meant it. I think he also understood that this was the way to get into Donald Trumps good graces was to butter him up. I think he did mean it and a lot has been made about the fact that zelinski never stood up and said, i was pressured by the president of the United States. He would be insane to say that and he knows it because hes a performer. He needs his relationship with truck. He needs his relationship with the United States. But we document all kind of people right around and in ukraine who said absolutely that he felt pressure. Absolutely. Another one of the really interesting characters in the book was nancy pelosi who at the outset of this says shes absolutely against impeachment, she uses the phrase with our colleague joe heim that trump is not worth it. Essentially this is something that has been decided by the election but the forces kind of build and in some ways almost take this decision out of her hand, could you talk a little bit about that . A lot of the book is that because she is, after all she is the leader of this whole unruly group, some far left, some more centrist and she was kind of taking the temperature all along. There was one spurring moment, life is so fastpaced theres so much going on that its worth revisiting, pelosi always looked to john lewis who was then alive and at one point stood in the house and one of his last times we heard from him before he died and a lot of people listened to john lewis, who is such an icon in the civil rights movement, he said, and nancy pelosi was listening as she was trying to figure out what to do, he said, people are coming up to me and they say that under this president i feel we are descending into darkness. He said when i go to sleep at night a worry when i wake up, our democracy wont be here. I think at the time it didnt really get as much attention because so much is going on but she was listening to lewis and she was listening to other people and eventually felt she had to go. We document very very vividly in the book the republican view of this whole thing too. From the beginning the republicans were saying this is nothing but a democratic effort to undo the 2016 election we been trying to do this since the day donald trump was elected this is a witch hunts, a scam and scheme and all the other words weve heard. Nancy pelosi heard that too and kept saying, we have to make sure this isnt a onesided impeachment that this has to be bipartisan, we need something that we need a crime basically that everyone can understand, its easy for the public to understand and at least some of our republican colleagues will also join us. Early on some of the things that were happening she didnt think they rose to that level, then the phone call happened and we had a whistleblower complaint that laid out what was said on that call and we document it in the book, her evolution she heard that more and more people in her caucus were starting to call for impeachment and she finally september 24 decided she had a responsibility she had a duty to go forth. A lot of the republicans we spoke with said i dont like what donald trump ablet the Voters Decide and that is why they said its important to look at this. The whole point is, be informed, know everything thats happened as we head to the polls because there were republicans who at least privately were upset but just didnt feel that they should throw him out of office, especially when we were this close to election. Thats why we feel this book is so relevant to the election, its not a history book about impeachment, its about the factors going into this election now in the case for and against trump are laid out and voters can read it and decide for themselves. At the beginning they feel like they might be able to pull a couple of republicans off here and there but it comes clear to them that that just isnt going to happen. I think probably becomes clear at that wonderful moment you write about where will heard the congressman from texas on the Intelligence Committee who everyone thought was most likely to the fact gets up and announces this does not rise to impeachment. Was that the moment where sort of the die was cast in the Republican Party decides theyre all on board with the president . That was a key moment and we have great reporting in therefrom will heard who i think at some point was getting annoyed at the fact that everyone understood he was a they understand he wasnt just a kneejerk supporter of donald trump he had wrote an oped in the ashe was somebody in the middle. But the more he looked at the impeachment, the more he decided that it didnt rise to the level but he would show up on these media lists of republicans who might flip and i think he was getting more and more frustrated in the fact that he was being called that. I forget the date but in one of the hearings rather than use his time to ask questions of the witness he used his time his five minutes to make a release during speech where he said, this doesnt rise, this bumbled Foreign Policy, this is ridiculous. Its inept handling of our Foreign Policy but i dont see a crime here that the president should be impeached for. That was a pretty key moment because i think there was a lot of democrats were just aif they couldnt flip will herd, who were they going to flip . We have a question from one member of our audience. Sandra stevenson from maryland who wants to know what was your Biggest Surprise when you are writing and reporting this book . I think we lay out exactly how trump uses pro trump media, for instance, fiveyearold networks that most people hadnt heard of. One americans network. He puts giuliani or encourages giuliani to go on, he gets a clip, talks about some Conspiracy Theory about ukraine and then there it goes, don junior treats it, then he tweaked it, all of a sudden its all over the news. With 85 million twitter followers, donald trump is famous for boasting hes given any media company. We lay out in great detail one example of this on march 20, hill tv which has a few thousand followers put up a report that was basically sourced from prosecutor in ukraine really just discredited, not somebody the United States regarded as may be involved in corruption certainly not reliable, he said that the u. S. Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch was corrupt, which there wasnt then and there still is zero evidence that she is in any way corrupt. That goes off at 11 00, 3 00 p. M. Sean hannity has it on his radio show which has abthat evening hannity has on his television show, the one of the most powerful Media Outlets in the planet. Right after that Donald Trump Tweets the headline from this relatively obscure story in the morning and the next morning trump himself tells john bolton to fire yovanovitch who had done nothing wrong. From a spark of basically nothing to the president order desk was less than 24 hours and it was remarkable to watch. In many ways this book is an xray of the president s playbook and how he operates. By using documenting testimony and documents both republican and democrats that were used in impeachment, here is a way to show because the methods and things that were going on here dismissing the experts, having rogue characters like giuliani, using pro trump media, this is not a one time off thing for donald trump. I think we think there is great value in using it to really up close analyze the trump playbook. Thats the other thing about this the hill tv report ultimately hill tv doesnt quite write a retraction of this but they acknowledge that there are reporting methods were improper, that they should have identified the journalist who did it as an opinion journalist, not somebody who was just a straightforward news guy. But by then, its not that the horse is out of the barn, its like a herd of horses out of the barn. Theyve already achieved with this journalistically suspect report, what they wa