Dnc chair Donna Brazile in her new book. The president pounces. You take a look at Hillary Clinton. She basically bought the dnc, and she stole the election from bernie. Donna brazile responds here live in our exclusive interview. Plus, trump pushes his tax plan. People are loving it. But our brandnew poll shows weak support. Big questions now about the bills impact on middle class families, the deficit. As lobbyists line up to save their special breaks. So can the gop stick together and pass this bill . What will it mean for you . Well break down the politics. Smoke out the spin. The facts that matter, this week. From abc news, its this week. Here now chief anchor george stephanopoulos. Good morning. Its the First Anniversary of his election approaches this week, President Trump is in a deep hole with the american public. Our abc news poll with the Washington Post shows more americans disappre of the president than ever before. 59 are unsatisfied with his performance. Only 37 approve. The worst numbers for any president at this point in office since polling began. Hes the only president since harry truman whose first year Approval Rating is underwater. Every other president has had positive numbers. As the president begins his trip across asia, special counsel Robert Muellers investigation has cast a cloud over his presidency. Nearly half of americans think its likely trump committed a crime in connection with russian attempts to influence the election. That may explain why President Trump worked hard this week to focus his fire back on the democrats. And he got some ammunition with the explosive revelations in former dnc chair Donna Braziles new book, hacks. Tin side story of the breakins and breakdowns that put donald trump in the white house. Brazile claims the dnc gave Hillary Clinton an unfair edge over bernie sanders. And reveals she considered replacing clinton as a nominee after clinton fainted at the 9 11 ceremony. The ticket i liked most, she writes, was joe biden and cory booker. I felt certain that that combination would win the general election. And Donna Brazile who has been a long time abc contributor, joins us now. Welcome back. Thank you. Lets get some facts on the table first. As dnc chair, you didnt have the power on your own to replace Hillary Clinton on the ticket . No. The charter and the Convention Rules say that the chairman shall, in consultation with the leadership and others. I had to put it on the table. I was under tremendous pressure after secretary clinton fainted to have a quote unquote plan b. I didnt want a plan b. Plan a was great for me. I supported hillary. I wanted her to win. We were under pressure. How serious was it . You got a call from Vice President biden at the time. Did you mention it to the Vice President . No. I did not. Everyone called to see, do you know anything . How is she doing . And, of course, my job at the time, george, was to reassure people. Not just the Vice President , but also the Democratic Party, the members of party that hillary was doing find she would resume her campaign the following week. Do you still think biden and booker would have won . Had a lot of other combinations. This was something you play out in your mind. At the time, i was sitting next to Charlie Baker, her chief clintons campaign. Charlie and i picked out. I had the former chair call me. Donald fowler jr. I mean, senior. What are you doing . Look, the bottom line is she she resumed campaigning. I went on tv. To say that the campaign was back on track. As you can imagine, theres been quite a reaction to this, including this open letter from the hillary for america 2016 team signed by about 100 people. They say they are shocked to learn you were considering this. They go on to say it is particularly troubling and puzzling that she would seemingly buy into russian fueled propaganda spread by the russians and the opponent about the candidates health. As i said, i spoke to Charlie Baker did you mention this to him . I kept my own counsel. Im the chair of the party. I decided i wanted to be up front with someone inside the campaign. Charlie was there sitting across from me. But let me just address what my former colleagues. I wasnt a staff person. I did not work for the Hillary Clinton campaign. I was not on their daily strategy calls. I had nothing to do with their data analytics. I was the chair of Democratic National committee. I was concerned about the entire party. Not just the president ial. But the senatorial, congress nal. It sounds like you had a dysfunctional relationship with the high command in hillarys campaign. You talk about saying im not patsy the slave . Oh, george, let me tell you something. I could not control the the purse string of the Democratic Party. I had to figure out what was going on within the party that the chair of the party, remember, i wasnt just the chair. Im also a vice chair. I was an officer for eight years. Eight years under president obama. I knew what was going on within the party. I become chair. Im trying to write a check for something. I raised the money. Theyre like, you have tget signed off from brooklyn. I said brooklyn . This wasnt a standard joint fundraising agreement. They had a memorandum of understanding. And i needed to break that. In order to break it, i would cause a great commotion. Yeah, im not patsy the slave because i got sick and tired of people telling me how to spend money. All i was trying to do i wasnt getting a salary. I was volunteering my time. I was trying to increase the level of enthusiasm and passion for Hillary Clinton and the rest of the ticket across the country. They take exception to your description as the campaign as an antiseptic, sterile inside the headquarter. A lot of people saying sthat not the campaign they knew. They should take a page from hillarys book. Write their own book. I enjoyed hillarys book. Part memoir. A history book. I loved reading her book. If they dont like my book. Dont buy it. Let me say this. I have ery right as a former chair of the party, next year, ill celebrate almost 50 years arican politics. The Democratic Party is 170 years old. I get that. Theres a lot of traffic on twitter. I have gotten emails from democrats. Passionate democrats who say they feel betrayed by all this. Any regrets . Do i regret taking on a job the second time in my life as chair of the party . Cleaning up everyones mess . Taking all of the incoming . Being unable to spend funds that i raised . Do i regret being on the road 100 of the time . Being hacked by the russians . Being being harassed, getting Death Threats . Do i regret any of that . George, this was worse than Hurricane Katrina in terms of the emotional toll. Do i regret stranding up for what is right . Helping Hillary Clinton . Helping the Democratic Party . And let me just say this. As somebody who went through the hacking experience. Being able to tell the truth about what happened with the russians, the taattack on our government . Do i regret that . I wish i could have done more. Do you think this helps for the book to come out . Well, george, this is a lesson of 2016. If i released it next year, they would say, donna, youre impacting our 2018. Donna, youre impacting for those who are telling me to shut up, they told hillary that a couple of months ago. You know what i tell them, go to hell. Im going to tell my story. Im going to tell my story, george. Because this is a story of a young girl who started in american politics at the age of 9. Who continues to fight each and every week of her life. I went down to virginia last week, to kick off the canvassing campaign. Nobody paid me to do that. Nobody. Nobody im not on the payroll, george. I care about my country. I care about our democracy. And i say go to hell because, why am i supposed to be the only person that is unable to tell my story . Now, if i have had a lot of people tell me various things as well. Heres what they dont know. What it was like to be over at the dnc during the hacking. What its like to bury a child. I did, seth rich. They dont know what its like to protect a staff from further harassment. They dont know what its like because theyre the high command of brooklyn. The people making the decisions, even for the dnc, they didnt come and work with us. They told us to shut up. And basically let them win the election. When we tried to intervene, we had to spend money we raised to try to help them win. That was my job as chair of the party. Clear you have no regrets. You mentioned seth richards. Killed during the campaign. Did you feel under threat . Every day. Especially when donald trump donald trumpould go out there and tweet. I have worked on campaigns all my adult life. I have been called some of the worst things in america. When donald trp would attack me, i got the threats were just unbearable. My house right now is i got every different kind of security device. I had to get my home swept. I had to get the dnc swept twice. It was horrible. As you know, hes tweeting again, based on your book. He put out, the real story on collusion is in donna b. s new book. Crooked hillary bought the dnc and then stole the democratic primary from crazy bernie. Well, donald trump likes to distract. What he should be focusing on is protecting our country from being hacked again. He should be working with congress to ensure that the American People will feel confident that we are going to have a good election season in 2017, 2018. Donald trump loves to distract us and divide us. Im not playing his game. He wants an investigation. The department of justice. I think he needs to look at his own house before he tries to clean up someone elses house. Do you think the joint fundraising agreement was illegal . I didnt like the fact that there was an additional memorandum that spelled out what the Clinton Campaign could do in exchange for bailing the Democratic Party out. I give secretary clinton credit for bailing the Democratic Party out. Because we were we were in debt. I have seen the email traffic. It appears from at least one email that the Sanders Campaign was offered the exact same term. They could offer an agreement of their own if they raised more money. They chose not to. The Sanders Campaign set up a joint fundraising account as well. They chose not to put money in it. They also chose the allow the dnc to control what little funds they did put in it. This was a separate. What this was was an additional memorandum. They were offered that same thing. Heres the email. If youre raising significantly more than the amount to cover the vote apart from the dnc. The dnc would be happy to chat with the sanders team. And come to an understanding about the best way to use those funds to prepare for the general ey wtion at the dnc. The offered a similar chance. George, when i went, when i found t, the rean the chair of the party, the chair of the Democratic National committee could not spend the funds, i found the agreement myself. This is the agreement they put out. This is the agreement i found. What i tried to do, george, was to work within the parameters of this agreement so that i could hire staff. So that i could spend money, money that we raised. So that i could help hillary and tim kaine and all of the other democrats win. As for any agreements or side agreements with senator sanders. I have never seen that before, george. Do you agree with Elizabeth Warren that the primaries were rigged . I dont think she meant the word rigged. What i said, george, as you well know, after i left the show on july 24th, i said i would get to the bottom of everything. Thats what i did. And i called senator sanders to say, you know, i wanted to make sure there was no rigging of the process. Im on the rule and bylaws committee. I found no evidence. None whatsoever. The only thing i found, which i said, i found the cancer. Im not killing the patient. Was this memorandum that prevented the dnc from running its own operation. You write about the email where you appear to share questions with the Clinton Campaign. From a debate on cnn. Yes, i did. Were showing it on the screen. In the past, you said sending those emails was a mistake youll forever regret. In the book, youre not sure you sent the email. Well, george, when youre hacked. Look, i have seven email accounts. Maybe more. When youre hacked. And you dont know. Im the only person in america that had to go and look and say, where is it . Where is it . I knew i sent emails. Of course, george. Youre not denying you sent it . George, im not first of all, i said, straugt up. I said, look, if this was sent, i know why i sent it. I apologized. I spent the entire month of august apologizing for the leaked hacked emails. Which is a crime. And so far, no one has been charged with a crime. Ive apologized. I said im sorry. Heres what i also say in the book that i thought was helpful to the reader. To tell people that during this time when we were under pressure to add more debates to the schedule. I went out to get more debates. Cnn was the beneficiary. Of those debates. But i wanted more diversity. More diverse voices. And yes, i wanted issues that people cared about. People were, as you recall, black lives matter were marching in the see. They wanted us to address criminal justice reform. Yes, when cnn agreed to go to flint, michigan, we wanted to discuss the water crisis. All of that is in the memo. All of that is in the book. Did you share questions with the Sanders Campaign . I shared let me tell you something, george. Even when i knew the topics on nbc, i talked to republicans about the topics. I shared with everybody. I wanted the best information possible. I didnt want the candidates shocked by the nature of the questions. For the first time, we were going to go beyond talking about the usual issues that animate democratic primaries. We were going to talk about issues that concern black lives matter. You have tough words for the leaders of your party in there as well. You say, we have had three democratic parties. The party of barack obama. The party of Hillary Clinton. And the weak little vestige of a party that was led by debbie that was doing a very poor job of getting people who were not represented elected. These three titanic egos have stripped the party to a shell for their own purposes. I take responsibility, too, george. Im a democrat. We lost thousands of state legislative seats. Weve lost gubernatorial seats. We have an opportunity on tuesday in new jersey and virginia to fight back. To regain some of the lost ground over the last ten years. Thats what im hoping will happen. Every voter should know their vote counts. Their voice must be heard. I encourage them to vote in virginia, new jersey, and alabama, where ill be many alabama by the end of the month. Its important that everybody votes. Yes, i take a hard, hard hit at people within the party because i love my party. I love my country. Im going to continue the fight for it. Continue the fight for it. And are you confident now that the Democratic Party can be fixed . What is the most important thing it can do . Im confident that tom perez is leading in the right direction. We have a Unity Commission that is going to examine the things i raised about the pmary contest and the caucus system. We have Keith Ellison and others energizing the grass roots. The party is making a substantial investment in the states. George. One of the things that bothered me in the patsy the slave chapter. I got some controversial chapters. I understand. Anyone from louisiana knows im going to put hot sauce on every page. Its if not dripping with hot and spicy, its not me. What im most confident of is we now have a party this is invested in all 50 states. Imagine youre the chair of the party. Im from louisiana. Im from the south. I cannot get one pollster outside of florida, virginia, North Carolina, to go home to louisiana or mississippi or louisiana. I cant send resources to those states. I was the chair of the party. I didnt ask to be chair. When i left your show on july 24th, i thought i was going to have a nice brunch. Instead, i was called. They said, we need you to step up again. And i did. It has been some year. Donna brazile, thank you very much. Always a pleasure, george. When we come back, what this weeks indictments mean. Ken starr, Preet Bharara and dan abrams join us live. 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