david from former white house stuff in george w bush's administration. now writer and columnist for the atlantic magazine. he says the stakes were and still are frighteningly high instantly, really to worry about. i can't, i wish i could give you more confidence about this. and i mean, we do have the future of american democracy on the ballot. that's the number one ballot issue last month. the u. s. supreme court spoke divisions over 2 of the most contentious issues, abortion, and gun control. so is america's political fabric breaking point, and are all the warning lights flashing red? why is donald trump full of praise reputed and do the russians have a point when they refer to the iraq war and the cues, the west of hypocrisy, key questions this week on complex. i, david from welcome to complex own. thank you. were told that on january 6 last year, a desperate donald trump arms flailing, saw to lead an armed mob to capitol hill in an effort to overturn an election that he just lost. what would have happened if he succeeded? what you focus on the last action of the drama as if that were the whole story. but in fact, the incident of violence on january 6th, 2021 followed sequence of events that added up to a plan. that wasn't a great plan but wasn't completely bonkers. either with donald trump, hope to do was to create enough confusion about the election to take the election away from the legal election process as we've had for the life of the constitution and throw the election into the court of last resort. and the american constitutional system, the house of representatives, if he could bust up the process, get the election into the house. the house of representatives was not one person by one person by one person, but state by state, by state. and sister republicans had the majority of the state delegations, if he could throw the election into the house, he could somehow hold on to power. so there was a plan, and it wasn't, it wasn't hopeless. it wasn't a great plan, but it was not hopeless. and the violent, dramatic act represented his last desperate attempt to get his trick plan back on track. so looking back, how close did he get to his goal? would you say? i don't think he became very close to school of remaining president, but he became very close to the school of disrupting the constitutional process. and he succeeded in putting twin and long tradition of peaceful alternation our united states. this was, this was a non peaceful transfer power, and it's a stain on american constitutional history forever. and it's a precedent as well. it's a precedent and it's a warning. if we can see the warning, we can avoid the precedent. do you think jumbo, his family or any of his most senior aides will ever stand trial for plotting what amounted to sedition? i have no idea what will happen, but i think it is important that the president do face legal consequences. you know, there's a lot of argument about this. mean, i'd say some people say it would backfire some people say it would not. i don't think you can predict the political consequences. and when you can't predict, when you're dealing with imperfect information, just do the right thing. if it's not illegal to overthrow an election by violence, i don't know what usually when this country you think it's vital that there's a full independent report into exactly what happened january the 6th and the events that led up to it. do you think that will actually happen, isn't the problem that this committee, the january 6 committee could have a very short lifespan? and if the democrats lose the house in the senate, in the mid terms, the republicans will shut it all down one day. i think the committee's work will be finished before the democrats lose control of congress if they do. and i think certainly there is an institutional republican party to cover up. but it's also true that we can see in the pools movements of republicans away from donald trump. just today, just before you and i spoke, there was the newport showed, a majority of people regard themselves as republicans now think donald trump was indeed lying in his big lie about the election outcome. that's a big change, isn't it? it's, it's a sufficient change. it may be, it's still only a 55 percent of republican think he's wanting, but that's enough. all that is going to happen here and much understand the goal because it's not to be that what i mean. it would be nice if they were remorse in that sense and a commitment to a better way. but if you simply make it impossible for donald trump to be the republican nominee again, that's already progress. and we have a lot of, we got a lot of toxins in the american political system to sweat out. but this is more than a talks, and this is an imminent threat. and if he is knocked out of the political, we can begin to retrace steps back to normal political activity. he is a long way from being knocked out of the political process though, isn't true. i mean, you said specifically that he's going to run, but the assumption is a working assumption by many people is that he will he said he's raised enormous amount of money. he's got to name recognition and he's got one other motive, which is there is an informal policy in united states that if someone somebody is nominated for major office, that the department of justice suspends any investigation of that person pending the election, they don't want to interfere in the election. and so if he does get the nomination, he buys himself some months where he can't be indicted. it's a gift, isn't it? as a gift to somebody who's the may have crooked intentions. i'm going to tell my theory about the way donald trump is run his life is that he's always been 36 hours ahead of the bailiffs, so he never has long term plans. he's just got a plan not to get arrested that week. how do you combat though the avalanche of lying and the seat that has swept in and captured the republican party during his tenure? how do you come by that? i mean, these are loosely held beliefs that the republicans hold the unshakable articles of faith and their rallying cries for radical action and violence. sunday, how do you, how do you turn this back inside the republican body? nothing important is ever done with ease. of course, it's challenging. you do it by focusing on repeating the truth over and over and over again. and it makes a difference. you know, there is an internet joke or twitter joke in the early part of the trump presidency, or trump campaigns l o l. nothing matters because donald trump would say something outrageous and his support would not collapse. but i don't think that was true. i think the real story of the trumpeters was that everything mattered. it was just that there was a lot of everything. and so people relentlessly work to tell the truth, report, honestly, to uphold standards. there all kinds of ambiguous people, people who were not heroes, but didn't go all the way to billing the either. and they made a difference. everything mattered. it all adds up. look, american, but america just one country of many. it's just one democracy out of many, but it is so big and so consequential that what happens here as global implications . so when so on the rise and so polarized isn't it and, and so polarized. well, i think democracies generally are becoming more, more, more polarized. i think that's part of modern life for reasons that maybe go beyond the end of the show. i think it's something but the nature of the way modern democracy works. but here it is most intense. and of course, here we have systems that are not mediating our differences. and here we have 400000000 firearms, by the way, in a country of 33330000000 people. so when it does get polarized, they can get violent very fast. how did trump find so many enablers? so many defenders. so many liars and she threw to follow him. you wrote about the complicity and cowardice of people who should have kept polarizing figures in check . did you mean mitch mcconnell, the republican leader in the senate? there are, there are circles of people in the republican in congress. they are the people in the world around donald trump. donald trump does have a few great gifts, and one of them is he's got miss wolf like ability to smell weakness. if there's a corrupt, if there's corruption, if there's weakness, if there's the ability to bully, he can sense that and people and use it for his own purposes. and he also saw that there are some inherent weaknesses in the american political system that we had not suspected before. but he, he said maybe in a sub rational way, where he's got the bullies instinct for the person to target. and he wasn't above threatening and intimidating people as best he could. and using pardons as a means of basically undermining investigations into those around him. you know, the pressure in the constitution, the president inherited the kind of kingly, pardon, power, that the british kings used to have. but in modern times, this power has been kind of regularized precedence before trump did not pardon people at whim. they were, they delegated it to a committee that made recommendations, and then presence would do pardons, typically in big batches toward the end of their career based on recommendations from committee. and there is sometimes be some personal interest. but the idea of using the pardon power as a regular tool of politics to protect people, to testify against you. that's one of donald trump's innovations. and so very dangerous innovation. and what we need to do, we need to get back to the idea. the pardons should be regularized and should be staff review federal cases and say, here's someone who looks like they are punished too heavily, or someone may be innocent or someone is reformed. and mister president, we recommend that you use hard power. his former national security adviser, john bolton said that obstruction of justice was a way of life for donald trump. fits in well with the description that you've given him. yeah, i mean, donald trump, before he became president, was the least bankable name and your real estate. i mean, no reputable person would do business with him. i must absolutely had to talk to people in the real estate industry. i mean, he might have a piece of property that it was indispensable to a land assembly and then you had to do business with them. but major even a lot of lawyers because he was not a reliable or trustworthy person. so once you get that person, the power to control the department of justice, they're going to use it and he did. how helpful is it that in the midst of all the political polarization that we've been talking about, you have a right wing dominated supreme court seemed determined to stop the divisions on abortion. and loosen, at least as far as new york is concerned, already, inadequate controls on gun ownership. how help was that when the supreme court has proven to have very much an agenda of its own, it has been very unhelpful to donald trump on the particular things that, that he wanted to do. that donald trump didn't, i think may not have understood quite the way the bargain he signed up forward. mitch mcconnell got mitch mcconnell judges, but they were mitch mcconnell, judges who have delivered for republicans on, as you say, agenda items like abortion, like guns like regulation of the environment. but when donald trump turned to the court and said, i want you to protect my financial documents from waffle subpoenas by the congress . the court said nothing doing your on your own. so this is one case where he didn't read the fine print and he got out maneuvered by mitch mcconnell on guns. you put the arguments time and again that people with guns are in fact less safe than those who don't have them. no one listening that do you foresee a time when people might listen and what do you think it needs to happen? what needs to happen to change people's orientation on this? i think it begins with the kinds of changes in attitude we had. we were things like drunk driving, the whole world is driven by these horrifying massacres, especially when it's actual and, and it's just, it's just heartbreaking. but day in day out. dozens of americans are killed or injured in accidents or negligible. p will be that will discharge them and, and hurt someone they lot of father will hear a noise and go down stairs. if there's a house breaker and kill his own child on these things happen. i mean, literally every day and the killings are dwarfed by the wounded. in these accidental cases, people don't aim very who are not intending to kill. so we don't aim. and so the gun fires near the person and we've been with lifelong disabilities in those thousands of cases of those. and i think americans be to wake up that gun in your house is not keeping your safe. it is a threat to the people you love. most get rid of it, get a dog instead. if you want to keep your house safe on abortion, your more optimistic than guns on you suggested in a piece last month that the new state law is on abortion. could collapse in the same way that support for prohibition collapsed in the 990. why do you think that republicans are at the state level massively overreaching that they every poll tells us that we have about a 6030 split on abortion. 60 percent of americans want to pretty broad abortion right. 30 percent of americans want to narrow abortion right. only a tiny minority want to see abortion band. under all circumstances, republicans are passing laws that are much more restrictive than public opinion, even in the conservative states. and they did it because they thought it was a free vote. the supreme court was, you know, because the 3 court would stop the law from going to affect. so don't get too mad at you. it was a way of demonstrating your commitment to your core politics. but now it's real and now when you pass a law saying no rape exception, no instruct exception, no exceptions for life of the help of them that even in conservative states are big cities, atlanta, houston, doubts, tampa, tampa, phoenix, and they're a republican leaning suburbs for women say, you know, i'm pretty conservative and i don't think abortion should be using the form of birth control. it shouldn't be on demand. but no bush and ever, even if the mother's life in danger, are you joking? and republican parties are going, i think, what is going to happen badly over portion is going to move from being a battle between democrats and republicans to battle within the republican party. where some republicans are going to say, other republicans, you've gone too far. we talked earlier about the possibility of trump running for election. we're already seeing efforts by his supporters to take control of election infrastructure in many states. how extensive is that in your view? it's a real world. it is a real worry and there's a because what donald trump did in the end was too clumsy and too gross for the american political system. that what other people have more shrewdly recognized, is that if you manipulate the system a little bit, you can't refuse to count votes once they've been cast. but it's not so difficult to stop the votes being cast in the 1st place. and it's not too difficult to wait, devote some people's will count for more and other people's votes counts, count for less. and the american system is never been as represented as a parliamentary system is. but you can make it more equal as happened between about 960 and about 2005 or even pushing the opposite direction as we've been doing since 2005 and now with turbo power since 2020. but it depends who's in control? of the election infrastructure isn't it? at the beginning of june, at least $35.00 election denies were running for governor in 20 states. and in 6 states they were running for all 3 top state positions. should they win how safe our elections going to be in america? it's a, it's something really to worry about. i can't, i wish i could give me more confidence about this. i mean, we do have the future of american democracy on the ballot. that's the number one, valid issue. and it's, it's hard for people because, you know, gas prices are so crazy and food prices are rising and your real fears about world peace because of the russian aggression and new crayton. there's so much every day, bread and butter stuff to worry about. it's hard to remember that beyond all this, our 1st concern is the house of our democracy and that's on the ballot too hard to remember. but in its biden's poll ratings continue to fall the way they have been. trump may well not have to cheat too. when the next round, if suppose a right almost 2 thirds of registered voters, voters in the, in the democratic party, don't one biden, to run for a 2nd term. can be, can the democrats afford to ignore that message? well, that particular pull you decided, i think is less meaningful than it sounds that one asked, would you like biden, or would you like somebody else? and it's like me ask you what you like for dinner. would you like chicken or would you like something else that might be better than chicken? no, i don't know. consequential isn't the present. yeah. yes but, but it's a hyphen, you're offering people hypothetical unnamed unspecific alternative. and i think the questions. okay. if not by and then who, and that becomes a real problem. but here's, here's, i think the way this plays out, the democrats are obviously heading into a very bumpy 2022. as encumbered parties are heading into bumpy elections all over the world. inflation is so real and so painful and the supply shocks are real and we are still unwinding the, the cobra disaster. but if republicans do well, then they have the job of not overreaching, not passing, that not try to pass national abortion bands, not going crazy. the way they did in the middle 900 ninety's. remember, the election of 1994 that swept the democrats out of power when president clinton was in charge. and republicans then went so far. so while the president quinton read one real election by campaigning against the republican congress and history never repeats itself, but that potential is there. it will take a lot of discipline by republican congress not to make themselves the issue with 2024. the stakes are enormously high for 2024, aren't they? joe biden? hinted at that himself when he told a senior diplomat senior diplomat recently, i certainly hope my presidency works out if it doesn't, i'm not sure we're going to have a country. things really that bad. while things are, it's ominous as we've been saying, the state of democracy is on the line. one thing that is also on line is look on the question of ukraine versus russia. the republican leadership is reasonably solid. mitch mcconnell is a true friend of ukraine. he that he visited and committed to the craniums at arms supplies would go through the senate. kevin mccarthy. the republican leader analysis is a much weaker and was effective leader than mitch mcconnell, but he to has been pretty good. but there is going to be an important caucus in the republican house of representatives group that is anti ukraine. and the question after loading day in november 22 is how much power will those people have within the republican world? and of course, donald trump is no friend of ukraine and a great friend of russia. and some of the other republican candidates kept very quiet. the likeliest alternative to donald trump is the governor, florida governor to santa and governor, just had this has not said a word, a support of word it gets you great about ukraine is not said anything against ukraine, but it's an incredible thing for someone who's obviously running for president to have kept so silent about that, he's struggling, one of the most crucial foreign policy lines we have. how do you read donald trump's praise for russia? calling put in a very savvy guy