I'm Brian Lehrer. This is my daily politics podcast from WNYC Studios. It's Wednesday, July 21st.

So if you thought there would be no bombshells left to reveal by now about the drama of the Trump administration from the

pandemic through January 6th, then you haven't been hearing some of the revelations from the new book

by Washington Post reporters Philip Rucker and Carol Lennox called I Alone Can Fix It.

Many of you know where that title comes from. It was one of Trump's lines from the 2016 Republican Convention.

Nobody knows the system better than me.

Which is why I alone can fix it.

And you already do know some of the ways that Trump tried to fix the pandemic and fix the election during the last year of his administration.

But did you know that on January 6th during the Capitol riots, Vice President Mike Pence refused to take a Secret Service ride to safety because he was afraid they wouldn't let him return to the Capitol to finish the job of certifying the election.

Did you know Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman General Millie was afraid of Trump pulling off an

actual coup to stay in office and that General Millie was thinking of parallels to Nazi Germany in the

1930s. Those are just two of the new things in this book. Philip Rucker and Carol Lenig were on

this show for their previous book about Trump with the title of another famous way he referred to

himself, A Very Stable Genius. Remember that book? And we're glad they're joining us for this one. I

alone can fix it. Carol and Philip, thanks for making this one of your stops. Welcome back to WNYC.

Thank you for having us, Brian. Philip, do we have you? Yes, it's so such a privilege to be with you.

We had such a great conversation the last time

and we're looking to dig in. And let me just start with those anecdotes because they're so mind-blowing

and then we'll zoom out to a bigger picture. Carol, what happened with Mike Pence and the Secret Service

on January 6th? Brian, I'm so glad you think this is a bombshell because Phil and I did too when we first heard

it and began digging deeper.

You know, what many people didn't realize is while President Trump was sort of gleefully

...