Jonathan Karl: What Would a Second Trump Term Look Like?

Conversations with Bill Kristol

News, Society & Culture, Government, Politics

4.7 • 1.7K Ratings

🗓️ 28 November 2023

⏱️ 71 minutes

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Summary

Has Donald Trump changed since he first ran for president in 2015? How is he conducting his campaign now? What might a second Trump term look like? To discuss these questions, we are joined by Jonathan Karl, Chief Washington Correspondent for ABC News and author of Tired of Winning: Donald Trump and the End of the Grand Old Party. Trump’s 2024 campaign is "based on grievance and revenge,” according to Karl. And he is concerned “we’ll have a constitutional crisis from day one,” because many who upheld the rule of law during Trump's first term would not be around in a second. Karl shows how Trump and his closest advisers now are more determined to root out ordinary members of the bureaucracy who oppose Trump—the so-called “Deep State”—and to weaken Republicans who are not Trump acolytes. What could be a defining feature of the second term, Karl explains, is the highest offices of the land being selected based on personal loyalty to Donald Trump rather than on policy experience or competency.

Transcript

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0:00.0	And the Hi, I'm Bill Crystal. Welcome back to Conversations. I'm very pleased to be joined for the second time by Jonathan Carl,
0:21.5	ABC News Chief Washington correspondent.
0:24.0	We had an earlier conversation right at the beginning,
0:27.6	2022, focusing on John's previous book on Donald Trump, Betrayal, the final act of the Trump show,
0:35.3	really an excellent account of January 6th and its implications and I think that was a very helpful
0:42.4	conversation for people and so I'm very glad that
0:44.7	John has joined me again to now talk about what's happened since that book and where we now
0:52.2	stand with with Donald Trump the author of a new book,
0:56.0	tired of winning Donald Trump in the end of the grand old party.
1:00.0	John, did you encounter Trump, I think, a little bit when you were a New York Post reporter in the 90s and
1:04.8	did you expect to end up writing not not even two but three books right was the first one was the
1:08.7	Trump show front row at the Trump show while he was still in the White House. Three books on Donald Trump?
1:13.0	Is this what you, was this your dream when you were a young, a cub reporter, you know?
1:18.4	As I was a young reporter in my 20s for the New York Post, I had a great source named Donald Trump, but it was never about anything remotely to do with politics and I certainly
1:29.8	I mean if you had asked me what do you think you'll be a White House reporter
1:34.9	you'll be the president of the White House Correspondence Association and that dude
1:38.1	you're with at Trump Tower is going to be the president I I, you know, fantasy land. Yeah, but unfortunately if I might editorialize not, right? All too true, all too real. The one reason I so respect John's reporting is that he does real reporting,
1:55.7	grandular reporting, but also sees the forest as well as the trees, which isn't always the case I would say.
2:01.8	And also I think you've been willing to be
2:04.4	surprised by events and not sort of stick to your first impression of something if
2:09.2	it turns out that he's changed or we've changed or the country's changed and so you've really been an excellent chronicler of the Trump years and I think now a very important
2:20.3	chronicler of the current moment as we speak in what is it the end of
	...

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