Jonathan Karl: Why Donald Trump’s Election Lies Matter

Conversations with Bill Kristol

News, Society & Culture, Government, Politics

4.7 • 1.7K Ratings

🗓️ 20 January 2022

⏱️ 71 minutes

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Summary

In his recent book Betrayal, ABC News chief Washington correspondent Jonathan Karl writes: We now live in a nation where a large part of the population does not trust our elections. There are many reasons for this, but none greater than Donald Trump and the lies he told about the 2020 election. Based on extensive interviews with Donald Trump, key members of the Trump administration, and other prominent figures in the Trump orbit, Karl shows how the former president tried to undermine the 2020 election at every turn. In this Conversation, Karl shares new details from his reporting about how Trump laid the groundwork for questioning the results of the election in the months leading up to it, and how he responded to the results on election night. And he shows how Trump, after the election, was single-mindedly (if not always systematically) devoted to overturning the results—culminating in his effort to pressure Mike Pence to disregard the results of the Electoral College. Bill Kristol and Karl also discuss why it’s important to understand Trump’s actions in 2020 for the sake of a healthier politics going forward.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi, I'm Bill Crystal. Welcome to Conversations. I'm very pleased to be joined today by Jonathan
0:19.6	Carl, Chief Washington correspondent for ABC News, Chief White House correspondent for, I guess,
0:25.7	the second term of the Obama administration and the only term of the Trump administration.
0:30.0	It's a long stretch at the White House, kind of a new, more than usual, would you say?
0:34.2	Yeah, long stretch, and I was there on and off going back to my early days as a CNN
0:39.0	correspondent. So I actually have been in there in the White House as a correspondent
0:45.2	beginning with Bill Clinton. So yeah, long, long, long term.
0:49.9	She's a young person too, amazing, right? And I also, you covered State Department and
0:54.4	defense and I've always said to someone myself interested in foreign policy, you've always been,
0:58.8	I'd say more interested in that than typical Washington correspondent. So, but you've been
1:05.1	honestly a very good reporter in all these areas. And I've written two very good books on the Trump
1:10.5	administration in 2020 Front Row at the Trump show, which covered, I guess, the first three years,
1:15.5	really, of the Trump administration, two and a half three. And then the 2021 betrayal covering the
1:22.0	last year, really. I've got to say, I think that they're really excellent books and good reads,
1:29.2	many great stories. You know, you're good, you're good at conveying the characters and
1:34.4	there are plenty of characters to convey, but also a real narrative of what why it mattered and
1:39.7	what's important about it. I would praise the books more, but I'm just going to get and say that
1:44.2	they are, but the two books you should read more than any others about the Trump White House and
1:47.9	Trump administration, but I'll just get in so much trouble with all of our friends who've also written
1:51.3	books, right? I'll stop with that. But then you should read the books. But anyway, thanks for
1:56.8	coming on today and thanks for joining us in conversations. Absolutely. Thanks for having me.
2:02.3	So I want to talk about sort of the beating of what happened over the last year,
	...

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