Could Trump Become Speaker?

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out full episodes on YouTube. Welcome to Posse of America.
I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Dan Pfeiffer.
On today's show, Donald Trump is gagged by the judge in his fraud trial for attacking the judge's staffer.

And former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson stopped by to talk about her decision to testify against her former colleagues in the Trump administration.

But first.

The yeas are 216.

The nays are 210.

The resolution is adopted.

Without objection, the motion to reconsider is laid on the table.

the Office of the table.

The office of Speaker of the House of the United States House of Representatives is hereby declared vacant.

Someone said, now what?

Kevin McCarthy is no longer Speaker. He's no longer Trump's Kevin.
He's no longer anyone's Kevin. He's just a backbencher from Bakersfield who got cucked by Matt Gaetz and seven other House Republicans that he helped elect in the first place.
They joined every House Democrat in voting to remove McCarthy after Gates filed a motion to vacate, which he was allowed to do because of a deal McCarthy agreed to back in January in order to get the job that he has now lost. Anyway, McCarthy ally Patrick McHenry is serving as temporary speaker until House Republicans hold an election next week.
But between now and then, we can all continue to enjoy a whole lot of this. Those eight people are anarchists and they're chaos caucus members.
They're traitors. All eight of them should, in fact, be primaried.
They should all be driven out of public life because ultimately, Matt Gaetz, who hates, let's be clear, he hates Kevin McCarthy. And I hope they expel him from the conference.
The Republican Party today just can't govern. Democrats have become the party of discipline, and the Republicans have become the party that lacks discipline.
Now the House that has a slim Republican majority looks like they can't govern. They have a strong case when you go to these swing districts and say, look, you saw the chaos in the House.
You've got to put a Democrat in charge. Give Hakeem Jeffries the gavel.
That was Fox and Friends, Ari Fleischer, Newt Gingrich. Oh, it's good.
It's good, Dan. All right.
So reporters who were on the Hill Tuesday said they saw multiple House Republicans crying and praying over McCarthy's demise.

Which one have you been doing, Dan? Crying or praying?

Laughing. Laughing hysterically the whole time.

Do you see any way McCarthy could have saved his job?

Or was this inevitable from the moment he struck a deal with the Freedom Caucus

that would allow a single member to file a motion to vacate, which Matt Gaetz took him up on. I don't know that it was inevitable, but it was highly likely.
Once he made that decision, which no person should ever have accepted that, and he accepted that to get Matt Gaetz's vote, who also did not vote for Kevin McCarthy. So it just shows what a brilliant legislative leader Kevin McCarthy is.
The way McCarthy has governed his speaker since agreeing to the motion to vacate is he was going to operationalize his entire strategy around appeasing the Matt Gaetzes of the world. And like every other historical example of an appeasement strategy, that one did not work.
What he could have done, which may not have worked, but would have given him a greater chance of survival, would have been to try to build a coalition where he did what – and this pains me to say this – what Paul Ryan and John Boehner did, which was to try to isolate the Freedom Caucus. Two of your mentors.
Two people on my personal Mount Rushmore would be where he put himself in a position where he maybe cut some deals with Democrats, governed in a slightly more bipartisan fashion, and then maybe could have counted on. You could see a world where Jared Golden, Josh Gottheimer, some of these other more, these Democrats who operate or sort of problem-solver caucus or in more Republican districts might have voted to save McCarthy.
But he never did that because he stuck his thumb in the eye of every Democrat in order to crawl up the butts of all the MAGA Republicans. Yeah, I hear a lot of people, pundits, Democrats, Republicans saying, you know, this was inevitable.
You know, you give Matt Gaetz a loaded gun. He's going to use it.
Right. And it's just it's only inevitable if you think that the only path is to placate the hard right Republicans in your caucus.
Like, I don't understand why McCarthy couldn't have, like, built a coalition government, you know, a coalition style government where like you got the Republican problem solvers, plus the Biden district Republicans, plus a few of the Democrats you mentioned.

And then if a Gates or someone like that files a motion to vacate, then maybe you have a couple Democrats willing, or a good chunk of Democrats willing to bail you out.

And all you have is eight to 10 hard right Republicans who are willing to kick you out of the chair. There's a chance some number of Democrats would have voted for McCarthy if they thought he was better than the alternative.
But he did nothing, not one single time during his tenure to show Democrats that he would be better than the alternative. He just sort of ran as the Freedom Caucus speaker, and the Democrats are never going to help that person.
Well, Republicans are unsurprisingly criticizing House Democrats for not voting to save McCarthy. Here's a good summary of that argument from conservative columnist Matt Lewis in The Daily Beast, quote, although Dems aren't to blame for this chaos, they have a moral obligation to strive for the best outcome for America.
And based on the likely alternatives, Speaker McCarthy is probably as good as it gets. Instead of siding with sanity, Democrats have decided to side with Gates.
It's not a good look. No, you made that last part up.
I honestly, it sounds like a take that Elijah would make up for take appreciators. First of all, anyone who says it's not a good look, I'm just I'm sorry.
I don't care what side of the aisle you're on. I don't care what your political persuasion is.
It's a I'm so sick of the phrase. It's a Twitter phrase.
Doesn't doesn't work for me. Don't put it in your fucking column.
Dan, why did partisan hacks like you want to put politics ahead of the best outcome for America? You were out there with your message box telling Democrats not to save Kevin McCarthy. Why do you care so little about the country's well-being? Many people are saying Democrats were about to save him until I hit send on that Substack app and the tide turned.
The Capitol Hill reporters really like Kevin McCarthy. He is an affable doofus.
He pals around with them. He's probably a big Punchbowl subscriber.
He chit-chats with them off the record. They like him.
He gives them access. And it actually says how bad a job Kevin McCarthy did at his job, that he got such bad press coverage over the course of that time.

But whenever an opportunity comes where they can write nice things about him, they leap at it.

So all of a sudden, there's been this transformation that Kevin McCarthy is a martyr when he's

actually just a moron.

He would think about Kevin McCarthy's tenure.

He pushed the big lie after the election.

He voted to overturn the election hours after a violent mob tried to murder his staff and

colleagues.

He held the full faith and credit United States hostage in order to get a budget deal.

He walked away from that budget deal to try to shut down the government to hold aid to

Ukraine hostage.

He pushed a partisan, unfounded, ridiculous impeachment of Joe Biden.

What possible reasons would Democrats have to help this person keep his job?

It's absurd.

Kevin McCarthy was bad at his job.

He was a bad faith actor.

He was not someone Democrats could work with.

And you imagine that you would vote.

Democrats cannot vote to make someone in the line of the presidency who voted to overturn

the election out of fealty to Donald Trump. That is an absurd proposition.
I- No, you don't, you don't, no. I can't wait to hear this.
No, I just think that you don't even need to get that far with him, right? Like, because first of all, I think going through your list of McCarthy grievances, all of which are points very well taken. Though I will say that he surprised me a little bit on the debt ceiling and this last government funding thing.
He risked the full faith and credit of the United States, but he didn't do what the hard right wanted there. He cut a deal with Joe Biden, which was the beginning of his problems.
And then his problem snowballed to the point where he then lost his speakership when he kept the government open, which they also did not want him to do. Now, I don't think this is because like Kevin McCarthy is like a responsible guy or a genius tactician or anything like that.
But I think that if Democrats, like the whole premise that it's actually Democrats fault they should have worked with McCarthy is based on like, OK, well, Democrats should have just trusted McCarthy one more time to keep his word, even though he hasn't kept his word during the last two deals. Didn't keep his word on the deal he made with Joe Biden on spending.
Right. Didn't keep his word any number of times.
But it's not that Democrats would have had to trust Kevin McCarthy because they didn't even get the chance to trust him because he didn't want to deal with them. He said publicly in the last week, I don't want to make a deal with Democrats.
I don't want to work with Democrats. I don't want to cooperate with Democrats.
So like, if you're a Democrat, even if you want to punish him for his like odious behavior around January 6th and all the other bullshit that he's done, which would be like the right thing, it would be a fair thing to do and you understand it.

But if I was if I had a choice between kicking McCarthy out of the speakership and keeping the government funded and like getting the Ukraine funding in there, too, and making sure that we don't have a government shutdown in 45 days. You know, I'd probably keep McCarthy there if I could be guaranteed those other things.
But like, it's not even that we couldn't trust him, it's that he didn't even want to try. And, but it's also that goes to show how untrustworthy he is that he announced he was not going to work with Democrats, but then at the end, reportedly called Hakeem Jeffries to see if he could get a deal.
But did he really? I'm just telling him, it was reported in one of those political newsletters that he had reached out to him. Even beyond just this specific example, there is no more bad faith, intellectually lazy argument than Democrats are responsible for Republican behavior.
It is not Barack Obama's fault for beating Mitt Romney that we ended up with Donald Trump. It's not Democrats' fault for refusing to support Kevin McCarthy as Speaker, that the Republican Party is in absolute chaos.
And the problem is, this is not like MAGA pundits who do this. It's the never Trump faux intellectuals who should know better who do this because they can't reckon with how terrible their party is.
They have to blame Democrats as a way to explain why their party went down the toilet. Matt Lewis is an example here.
We see this all the time. They should know better.
And it's embarrassing. I will say that a lot of the Hill reporters that you so malign today, the Republicans tweeted out the Democrats are the chaos caucus.
Yeah, and then a lot of the whole reporters like this is such bullshit like this like people people get that it's bullshit i think but look i think if you're a democratic lawmaker you're trying to figure out like yes it's all the republicans fault but like how do we and we're going to talk about this but like how do we now keep the government open and again that's the most important priority and whichever fucking joker they put in there as speaker matters less than what the policy outcome here which is keeping the government open and making sure that support for ukraine goes through all right let's talk about what comes next uh steve scalise the number two republican in the house who reportedly once referred to referred to himself as David Duke without the baggage, says he's running for Speaker.

Jim Jordan, the Trump pal who former Speaker John Boehner once called a, quote, political terrorist, says he's running too. And there may be one more candidate for the job as well.
Sources telling me at this hour some House Republicans have been in contact with and have started an effort to draft former President Donald Trump to be the next speaker. I've now heard from a number of people.
I know for a fact Donald Trump has been contacted about possibly him being an interim speaker. Is that a reality? A lot of people have been calling me a better speaker.
i can say is we'll do whatever's best for the country and for the republican party so uh right before we started recording today thursday morning we uh apparently now trump is expected to go to capitol hill on tuesday Tuesday. And he is apparently open to pitching himself for the job when he goes to the Capitol for the first time since he incited an insurrection on January 6th.
Now he is thinking about thinking about being speaker. What do you think you on the the Trump for speaker train yet? As Elijah always says, content trumps the constitution.
So absolutely. I mean, are we doomed to repeat the same news cycle over and over and over again? This is at least the third or fourth time we've done Trump for speaker, I think, since we started doing this podcast.
I know we did it around the McCarthy vote,

the 15 votes.

I guess we did it probably back in the Trump era.

Did we do that?

Yeah, I think so.

Yeah.

I think we did it in 16 maybe before even.

I don't know.

It's not great.

So he will be nominated as Speaker by at least one House Republican

who's already said they're going to nominate him.

Marjorie Taylor Greene said that he's her first and only choice so far for speaker. So he'll probably get some votes on the first ballot.
But two reasons why he's probably unlikely to win. Number one, any speaker could only lose four Republicans.
So Trump could only lose four Republicans, which makes it seem a little tricky that he's going to get every single Republican on board, but four. And then there's another problem, something known as Rule 26 in the House.
These are part of the House Republican rules. A member of the Republican leadership shall step aside if indicted for a felony for which a sentence of two or more years imprisonment may be imposed.
So that's tough. But of course, of course, Republicans made that rule.
I'm sure they would change it for Donald Trump. Yes.
Also, I would like to know the legislative history of how they chose the two-year minimum. Like, are there a series of crimes they thought someone in line for the leadership could get that had a maximum sentence below two years in prison?

That are felonies, by the way. That are felonies, yes.

So it's not like a misdemeanor. It's like it's a felony, but it's an under two-year.
Yeah, okay.

All right. Jordan and Scalise, how do you think this race plays out? And is there any chance we

get someone who's not worse than McCarthy in every way? I would say that Jim Jordan and Steve Scalise are both worse than Kevin McCarthy, but I don't know. How do you think this plays out? We should assume whether it's Steve Scalise or Jim Jordan or anyone else, including Donald Trump, that whoever is the elected speaker by these House Republicans is a deeply dangerous, malicious, dishonest, conspiracy theory propagating MAGA asshole.
That is a job requirement to be Speaker of this Republican House. Like that is going to happen.
Now, how this plays out, I think, is interesting. Jake Sherman of Punchbowl tweeted yesterday, Wednesday, that every person he had talked to in the Republican caucus staffers members thought there was no way this could be over by Wednesday.
It just would seem impossible. Now, while we were preparing today, Lauren Bobert tweeted that she...
Do you even know what I'm going to say? No, I'm just laughing at you pronouncing her name Bobert. I know.
Look, when I think theatergoer, I think vaguely French. She's really fancy now.
Yes. Look, she's a theater fan.
Lauren Boebert,

Boebert,

Lauren Beetlejuice Boebert tweeted that she would abandon the motion to

vacate role.

If Jim Jordan became the speaker,

which was interesting.

But if this goes long,

I think the,

the odds that it ends up being someone other than Jordan and Scalise goes up

because it gets hard to get.

You never want to be the first couple candidates in a speaker's race. Well, it's hard to if you if it's highly polarized and you end up with a whole bunch of people who are voting for Scalise and against Jordan and vice versa.
It gets harder. It's easier to get those people to vote for a third person than to vote for the person they've been opposing this whole time.
And Jim Banks, who is the head of the Republican Study Committee and sort of a prominent-ish conservative, tweeted that he was supporting at least Stefanik as speaker. I know.
But as I said, this only ends one way and it's not good. Yeah, I've been watching today as we were about to record, sort of a slew of House Republicans came out saying that they were going to endorse Jordan.
The trick here is you would expect like, you know, Scalise is McCarthy's number two. So you'd expect like McCarthy's leadership allies and all the people who are McCarthy folks and some of the more like main, I won't call the moderate, but mainstream Republicans who like McCarthy to just go with Scalise in this scenario.
But because McCarthy and Scalise never got along or haven't gotten along for a couple of years and there's always been bad blood between them. There was reporting this morning that McCarthy's staffers have been like quietly reaching out to lawmakers on behalf of Jim Jordan because Jim Jordan became really tight with McCarthy by the end.
So if you've got like the Freedom Caucus nuts, plus some McCarthy allies going with Jordan, I think it becomes a closer race. I think Scalise, you know, the advantages he has is, you know, he is number two.
He has a whipping operation because he was the house whip. So he knows a lot of these members.
Famously good good at counting votes, Steve Scalise and delivering someone who just lost like nine consecutive votes on the floor last week. But he doesn't, but it doesn't seem like he doesn't have anyone who's like really pissed at him, you know, like he doesn't inspire a lot of hatred.
I think some of the wild, that is why I know, I know. Well, this is in this Republican house Republican House, it's not as wild.
And I think Jordan probably has made more enemies over the years, specifically among the more moderate members of the Republican caucus, which are now few in number. Whoever Republicans pick feel like it's more likely now we're headed for a government shutdown in 45 days and less likely that Ukraine funding will pass.
But what do you think? I think that's exactly right. I think Ukraine funding in particular, once you have opened the door to short-term continuing resolutions, it gets easier to do it, which is one of the reasons why the right tried so hard to stop this.
Because once you've done 45 days, we'll do another 30 days to get through Thanksgiving and the holidays, we'll come back and have this fight next year. I'm not saying that's going to happen, but there's a chance of that.
The defining issue in this speaker's race between Jordan and Scalise and whoever else may get involved at the end is going to be about the aid to Ukraine. That will be the thing that they will base their candidacy on, that they will not allow that to happen without some set of probably unmeetable criteria.
And it's going to cause this is a place where Democrats and moderate Republicans could work together if there is if the Senate were to pass something where that they could do a discharge petition on to get to find a way to bring that to the floor, because it's hard to imagine that someone is going to become speaker if this Republican to get nearly every member of this Republican caucus to do it, who can then turn around in the coming weeks and months, which is what the Biden administration said they need the aid by, to get that done. That seems very, very hard to imagine.
I think that's all correct. And even if you zoom out from the Ukraine funding and just talk about keeping the government open in general, the reason, or at least the given reason, that those eight Republicans mccarthy out of the speakership at the end is because he used democratic votes to keep the government open the first time which of course he had to do it because you cannot keep the government open without democratic votes because democrats control the senate republicans have a four seat majority in the house and a fucking democrat is president these guys are going to run for Speaker.
And Jordan's already saying, I will not put a Ukraine funding vote up if I'm Speaker. So even if Scalise wants to, even if he wants to do the responsible thing or wanted like McCarthy to like maybe figure out Ukraine at some point, how's Scalise going to win if he doesn't match Jordan's promise on Ukraine? And I'm sure Jordan's going to say the same thing about keeping the government open in general.
Like these people, they want a shutdown. They wanted a shutdown under McCarthy.
He didn't give them one. And now there's going to be a race to see who can get the most Republican votes.
And if you don't think that like shutting the government down is going to be a stipulation for getting those votes, I don't know what to tell you. Yeah, I think that's exactly right.
Now, it's also, I think possible and maybe even likely that the next speaker will have a different threshold for the motion to vacate. Yeah.
I think there will be enough people who will want to change that, that even some of these people in the far right, other than Gates, are not going to want to have to go through this again three weeks from now. Right.
And that could be the case, especially if you end up with a third candidate, that would be that. That's how it happened with how Paul Ryan ended up speaker was they couldn't get McCarthy.
They couldn't find anyone else who the caucus supported to do it. They went to McCarthy to Ryan and he said as his criteria to do it, he had they had to change the motion of a kit rule so he could not be at the same risk that Boehner was.
And they were changed for McCarthy. They could change back.
The other issue that I think will come into play here is the border. And you're already starting to hear Jim Jordan talk about, you know, we can't be caring so much about Ukraine and not enough about our own border.
And I'm not going to pass any Ukraine funding unless we do something about the southern border. And then you're hearing Senate Republicans saying who really want to pass Ukraine funding, saying, OK, maybe we have to send something over that funds Ukraine, but also funds more border security, which some Democrats are OK with funding more border security.
But I think what Jordan and some of the House Republicans want to do is not just like more money for border security, but more immigration restrictions. So like rewriting immigration laws.
Yeah, policy changes, which I think Democrats aren't going to go for as they shouldn't. So then we get into government shutdown territory.
This is what McCarthy sort of kind of tried to do at the end was to make the shutdown about border policy. He just waited too long to do that.
That's a much stronger political hand for Republicans where you will find some, you know, given the polling on immigration recently and the trust gap between Republicans and Democrats, you could find some Democrats getting pretty nervous pretty quickly on that. And you could see the next Republican speaker, whoever they are, be able to execute that with more competence and coherence than McCarthy did.
Yeah. And they're all, I think they're all going to realize that, you know, negative partisanship rules all and instead of like Republican chaos, they all have to unite against the great Democratic enemy.
You already saw that with Patrick McHenry, who is this temporary speaker. His first move was to kick Nancy Pelosi and Steny Hoyer out of their offices in Capitol Hill, which sort of like there's a a few like Freedom Caucus people that were like, oh, I didn't like McCarthy.
But if this McHenry guy was kicking Nancy Pelosi and Steny Hoyer out, I like them already. It's just so petty and stupid.
Fucking assholes. It's so silly.
All right. So Democrats are already pointing to this mess as another example of why the Republican Party is chaotic and incapable of governing because they are.
Do you think Democrats can make that stick or will most voters have no idea what happened this week? Most voters will have no idea what happened this week. And even if they did have an idea, it is memory hold.

I mean, it was only nine months ago that Republicans did this huge national embarrassing spectacle to get McCarthy.

And people forgot that pretty quickly.

I think they'll forget that. I think there was an argument about Republican chaos and incompetence that we can run on.
And this can be a data point, but I don't think it's a particularly salient one by next November. No, I think what people are going to realize and what people are going to feel is a government shutdown.
And I think if Democrats can make a case, and we should be able to, that Republicans have caused the shutdown because they are chaotic and incapable of governing, and that shutdown has real effects for people and people's lives, then that's an argument. But I think the chaos among Republicans needs to have a consequence for real people and not just like a fun drama to watch on the news about Kevin McCarthy getting ousted.
All right. Speaking of making Republican chaos stick with voters, Donald Trump is back at Mar-a-Lago after spending three days sitting in a Manhattan courthouse for the civil fraud trial that could spell the end of Trump's business empire.
Judge Arthur Ngoren slapped a gag order on Trump after he attacked one of the judge's clerks on Truth Social by suggesting that she is dating Chuck Schumer. That's just that.
So there's a new one, which of course she's not. And the post was removed.
But that didn't stop Trump from attacking the judge, the attorney general and everyone else. He's a Democrat judge out of the clubhouses.
He's controlled and it's a shame. What's going on here is a shame.
Our whole system is corrupt. This is corrupt.
Atlanta is corrupt. And what's coming out of D.C.
is corrupt. It's all corrupt.
He's putting the whole system on trial. I'm not out of order.
You're out of order. The whole system's out of order.
So, lesson learned, I guess, from Trump. Do you think he doesn't care about this gag order and other potential gag orders? Judge Chukin is going to rule on this in D.C.
for the Jack Smith case there? Or is Trump just constitutionally incapable of shutting his mouth? Both. He's obviously constitutionally incapable of shutting his mouth.
I also think every part of his life has taught him that he does never face his consequences for what he does. Yeah.
I mean, if you can lead, I mean, he may end up in prison and that would be a pretty severe consequence, but up till now. 78 years old, the first consequence, going to prison for Donald Trump.
There you go. I mean, the guy led a violent insurrection in the United States that almost tried to murder a Republican vice president and the Republican Party embraced him three months later.
So I think he probably feels pretty secure that a couple of mean truths about someone are not going to lead to real consequences. Yeah, because I think that like, I mean, I'm surprised that he actually took the post down because the judge ordered him to and he did take it down.
So apparently he was afraid of something happening. I don't feel like he was in the settings at Truth Social being the one who pulled that down.
You don't think he was doing that? You don't think he was actually truthing while he was scowling during the trial? You should take a look at the pictures. Trump didn't have to be at this trial.
He was not legally obligated to be at this trial. He was there for three days.
Why do you think he showed up? There has been some reporting or maybe speculation in the form of reporting that this was part of some strategy where he could help control the message of the trial. And maybe, I mean, I do think he is drawn to where cameras are and there are going to be cameras there.
I do think that even though he is not afraid of things like these gag orders because he thinks they will never have teeth as it relates to him, I think this case scares the crap out of him, even maybe more than some of the other ones, because this goes at his identity. Even before he took a sharp pivot into authoritarian politics, New York businessman was who he was.
All he branded himself was a New York businessman. Here they're going to say, not as rich as he said he was, complete and total fraud, and he can't do business in New York anymore.
And so I think there is a real level of insecurity here. And he's trying to be there to, I don't know, maybe he thinks his presence can shape it, or he can stare at the judge or do something.
But I think he's scared by this one. I don't want to assign strategy to anything Donald Trump does, but maybe it was instinct.
And I think he's finding a lot of value in always being on camera, talking about how the system is against him and everything's corrupt. And it's like it's served him well in the primary so far.
Which is a wild thing to for donald trump every day is a republican primary that's what that he knows how to win a republican primary that's like all of his politics are around winning a republican primary that's that's where he feels most comfortable i saw you see that he uh raised 45.5 million dollars last quarter apparently three3 million of that was just selling merch

with his mugshot on it.

$3 million they made.

So he thinks there's some value in this.

He thinks there's value

in just going in front of the cameras

and arguing his case

to the only jury he cares about,

Republican voters.

If either Ron DeSantis or Nikki Haley

is able to narrow this polling gap,

do you think he's going to commit extra crimes? Poss yeah he'll he'll be he'll be demanding cameras in the courtroom and the federal trials even though cameras aren't supposed to be in the courtroom he'll probably fucking take the stand and incriminate himself more just he's just turning himself in for other crimes we haven't gotten to yet he's like you guys get me for this emoluments thing can we do that it was me i did i i shot tupac um also by the way the fundraising numbers uh de santis raised 15 million dollars to trump's 45.5 but trump has 36 million dollars on hand to spend in the primary de santis has five million dollars polls getting worse for him. He's now behind Nikki Haley in a lot of these polls, especially the early state polls.
And he's moving his entire staff to Iowa. Seems like things aren't going that well for our boy Ron DeSantis.
No, the only person who's doing well in that campaign is Jeff Rowe, who's the person who has all of Ron DeSantis' money in his other pocket.

Whenever you're moving your whole staff to Iowa and you're camping out in Iowa, that's a red flag. Yeah, I can think of at least two, maybe three campaigns that made that exact move.
And none of them ended up as president. I saw also today that RNC insiders are talking about how to maybe change or forego the rest of the debates because Trump isn't showing up.

It's a sideshow.

No one's getting close to him.

I mean, things are he's going to be the fucking nominee.

That's that's where we are.

Yeah.

You think that with his 50 point lead in the polls, he might be that in his multimillion dollar financial advantage, he might be the nominee.

Yeah, it seems possible.

Yeah, I think that's it.

I think that's it.

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Also, there's a high stakes November coming up and it might not be the November you're thinking of. The media hype has turned to 2024.
I guess we're part of the media hype. But that won't stop 2023 elections from having massive implications for abortion access, voting rights, and more.
From the Virginia legislative elections to the Ohio reproductive rights ballot measure, we have got work to do in the next few weeks. Visit votesaveamerica.com slash no off years to see how you can help.
Okay, when we come back, I will talk to a former aide who worked for

Donald Trump and Mark Meadows in the White House. Her new book is Enough.
She testified before the

January 6th committee. When we come back, Cassidy Hutchinson.
We cannot keep pretending that Donald Trump is an outlier when everyone else seems to be out there with him. But instead of feeling paralyzed, our job now is to pull what we've got and see what we can make happen.
Here at Assembly Required, we will continue to face each executive order, legislative policy, and news cycle, no matter how terrifying or absurd, by asking, what can we do to learn more about what's happening? What can we do to solve problems, however small? And how can we find the kind of hope that can sustain our work in difficult times?

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Joining us here in studio, the star witness of the January 6th hearings, who served as the top aide to Trump White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows. She's written a new memoir called Enough.
Cassidy Hutchinson, welcome to Pod Save America. Thank you guys for having me.
So I want to start by saying that, like most of America, I first saw you when you testified before the January 6th committee. It was obviously the right thing to do, but just because something is obvious doesn't make it easy.
And so I have a lot of respect and admiration for what you did, which came at great risk to your future and even your personal safety. I know you said you were nervous about returning to the spotlight like this.
What's it been like so far? And has your nervousness been justified? Yeah, I like to operate probably at a constant level like a level four of anxiety which i think it it's to me it's a benefit it keeps you a little sharp you've gone through i'd say that's pretty good yeah uh over the life it's been like a week and a half since the book release i had some time to prepare myself for it just like as i was writing the book in collaboration with my fantastic collaborator Mark Salter who helped me fantastic writer fantastic human perfect person to help me write this book as he was very never trumped from the beginning so yeah got some very good sparring matches uh but all for the benefits I hope and believe in the book all that said uh you know with Mark's counsel too I don't think I ever really could have prepared myself for being in the spotlight. Again, this is not something I ever saw myself doing, but I realized and recognized the gravity of this moment.
And it's important to have voices and people like us, hopefully, that we can sit and have a diplomatic and productive conversation, even though we might not politically agree on everything,

because there is a much bigger issue at stake,

and that's our country and our democracy.

So, you know, that said, it's been an adjustment.

I don't think it'll ever feel normal, but it's good.

Yeah, I'm sure.

So I've talked to plenty of Trump voters.

I'm related to a few.

You are the first Trump voter I've talked to who's actually worked for him. Really? Yeah.
Ever urged on this podcast? I think ever. I'm pretty sure ever.
Like I said, a lot of never Trumpers. Trump voters I've sat with in focus groups.
I know some, but like no one who's worked in the White House for Donald Trump or in the campaign. So I'm not interested in shaming you for that, but I really want to try to understand it just with an eye towards figuring out how we can all make sure he doesn't end up in the White House again, which I know is a goal you share.
So just to start, like what was it about Trump at that first rally you went to in April of 2017, I believe, that made you want to work for him? Like, you described him in the book as, you talked about his magnetism. You said you were transfixed.
Like, what was it in that rally? You know, there's a long and a short answer. The short answer is, at that moment at the first rally, I didn't have in my mind, my goal is to work for Donald Trump in the White House.
I set off to have a career in public service. I identified with the Republican Party and I had internships on Capitol Hill that summer.
that said though I did vote for him in 2016 I identified as a Republican

but I grew up in a very apolitical family, but a blue collar family. So being part of the Republican Party made sense to me.
And I agreed with the platform. I voted for him at that first Trump rally.
I remember being in the crowd and looking around. It's so difficult to describe because I also haven't been to a ton of other politicians' rallies.
But I was standing around and just looking at not just him, but everybody around me. And it was people that I felt like I recognized, not because I knew them, but because I grew up around people

like them. And I saw that they saw something in him.
And then I felt pulled toward them. And then

I felt pulled towards him. And it was almost this sense of like, he is representing people like my

family. He is going to be the politician that changes things.
And it wasn't like I just fell

on my representing people like my family he is going to be the politician that changes things and it wasn't like i just fell in love with the maga movement in that moment but i i felt the allure and i felt the draw and i think that was the moment where my blinders sort of went off and i was looking back now at this i'm telling this as in that moment, where I sort of just shut off what he is saying about immigrants is wrong. That kind of didn't completely go out of my mind, but it went into the back of my mind.
Because what I saw there and felt there was that there was a politician that was very abnormal in terms of what we have seen and experienced as a country. But I felt like he was there for the right reasons at the time.
And again, this is... No, I know.
I'm not including my hindsight now, but I also tried to write the book in the present moment because I wanted readers to be able to feel that connection and at least try. Because it's difficult to describe and it was difficult to write about.
And it's not without shame. Yeah, no, look, I mean, I ask this partly because I've spent the last, since 2016, 2015, like trying to figure out what so many voters saw in him, if not for, you know, there's many explanations out there, right? You can look at people, voters with higher levels of racial resentment, you know, are attracted to Trump.
There's all, but there's this, other people will say there's a working class populist pitch. There's an anti-establishment pitch.
There's a, I was on The Apprentice and I'm a businessman, so I can be successful pitch. And I think people's motivations are complex and voters are complex and they believe all kinds of different things but i'm just like i'm so curious what it was for you like what part of the message for you was like oh this is i think at first it really was i mean this is such a good question it is i've thought a lot about it it's hard to put into words i think at first it was really less about specific policy initiatives and it was more about how he spoke to people and how people felt they could relate to him.
And, you know, I would hear my parents or my relatives talk, not necessarily in admiration of the policies, but talk in admiration of how they felt represented for the first time in their life. Like my parents had never voted, but the first time they voted was for Donald Trump.

And that was sort of a trend throughout.

And this is my experience with my family.

But he had that poll and it was, I felt that I could relate to it in a way.

But I also, at that point, I was halfway through undergrad.

My boyfriend at the time did not want to be at that Trump rally with me. And he's sitting there with Cassidy.
He probably saw it happening in my mind. Was he a Republican? Yes, but not a Trump person.
Which was completely fine. There were not big disagreements at that point about it.
But no, and then as I interned, so I went through two internships that summer on Capitol Hill, one for Steve Scalise and second for Ted Cruz. I applied for the Steve Scalise internship.
I wanted to stay on Capitol Hill, so I applied for every Senate office. So it wasn't, you know, Ted Cruz had an opening.
I took the internship. Yeah, right.
Just to be clear. So it was once I also began, though, to be exposed into the actual inner workings of Congress.
And Republicans at the time had the majority. It seemed normal and natural to me.
That was my first real exposure to politics. And I saw how House Republicans, at least from my perspective, how they were working with him to advance the administration's agenda and they were passing bills.
So it wasn't, you know, there wasn't much thought going into the actual like nuances of the policies. Again, I'm not trying to excuse anything, but I, at the time was 20 too.
No, I was interested because in the book you, you're like, I, you know, I entered for Ted Cruz, didn't like his politics. Steve Scalise you liked, but you said he's more conservative than you were.
But then you said that Donald Trump was moderate in some ways. When I say that, and I still believe this to this day, and we could debate it if you would like to, although I don't know how debating 2016, his platform 2016 is vastly different.
But he did, in my opinion, have policies that weren't appealing to, let's say, Freedom Caucus members or appealing to the ultra right wing conservatives. He had some policies that a lot of them didn't agree with.
And even in the first six months eight months throughout his presidency a lot of the hard right-wingers didn't agree with yeah so again from a bird's eye view at that point i you know like look i thought from a just a political perspective of like a political strategist he tried to move at least rhetorically to the center on like protecting medicare and medicaid and social security and like at one point he said he was going to tax hedge fund people and so he did what he had to do at points to just yeah get what whether it was during an election or in congress or in when he was in the oval office that he did what he had to do he wasn't donald trump doesn't have a firm policy platform you know what i think did serve him well into i was not on the 2016 campaign but i think did serve him well is he had some some sound voices around him that understood washington and understood what voters wanted to hear and he sometimes would listen to them sometimes would not but you know as he sometimes. But, you know, as he- Sometimes.
Well, we said to him very loosely. But as he went through, obviously, the presidency, that sort of tapered off.
So, like, I totally understand just being a Republican, right? Like, I worked for Obama in 2008. After the campaign, I made friends with a lot of McCain staffers, still friends with some of them.
We'd argue about politics. It was fine.
I am very proud of the race we ran against Mitt Romney in 2012, though I also have a ton of respect for him, especially of what he's done over the last couple of years, as I know you have respect for him too. But even setting aside 2016 for Trump, in just the first year of his presidency, there was the travel ban, family separation, Charlottesville, which was like the cause of the first set of resignations.

And then, you know, there's all the stories around that Gary Cohn, economic advisor, was thinking about leaving too.

Like, how did you think about that first year as you were deciding to intern there in 2018 and then later work there in 2019? Like, did that give you, did those give you, those incidents give you pause or policies give you pause? Yeah, I'm putting myself back in that moment just for clarity. Sure.
No, that's, I'm dying to understand it. That's why.
I interned, after I interned on Capitol Hill, I mean, I fell in love with the institution. I, and that's why I wanted to stay.
I fell in love with the house. I interned in i interned on capitol hill i mean i fell in love with the institution i and that's why i wanted to stay i fell in love with the house i interned in the senate realized that i fell in love with the house i i know i saw i read the senate senate feels pretty slow and i was like yeah we felt the same thing when we were in there did you ever work in the senate yeah i worked for obama his first couple years in the senate and then and then he was like yeah this place the house is fun it's things move fast and i that's i i like the you know things are different now but yeah regardless another conversation um i had in my opinion great mentors who i still believe are not ultra partisan aren't never trumpers but aren't aren't pro Trump necessarily.
Like they're, they're institutionalists. They want to seek the institution function.
And after I spoke with them and I was thinking about like, do I go to a think tank next summer? Because again, I did not grow up in a political environment, but my singular goal with graduating college was how do I get a job in DC? They knew that I loved the institution and they're like, well, the office of legislative affairs at the white house would be the best option for you because you are going to see how the two branches work together. So it was in that moment, I was like, okay, that's, that's my next goal is.
So for me, it was just very, I had one thing I checked the box. It's like, like okay what do I have to do next so I I didn't really have any qualms about interning in the office of legislative affairs under Trump and perhaps I should have but you know even looking back now I and I'm not excusing anything that happened in the first year but I think you know I used to say I was the right place at the wrong time.
I don't know if I was in the wrong place at the wrong time or the wrong place at the right time. But, you know, I think anybody that has the opportunity to intern or work in government or in the white house, I mean, you've been there, it's an incredible place.
But I also, I learned so much in that internship that wasn't just you know how to be the slinger for trump's policies it's how does the white house actually work with congress because at that time too my goal was to get a job back in leadership i never thought that i would get hired at the white house after i graduated yeah but when you were like when you were seeing all those what was your reaction when you were like read about all those stories in that first year i thought and i felt it was wrong crazy or yeah but i again it putting myself back yeah no that 20 year old i wasn't really putting all that much thought into it and i i wish i had and this kind of gets a little deep philosophically with myself, but I, and I've gotten some heat for this. I'll try to explain it a little bit better, but sometimes I do wish I had, really wish I had, because I think that I would have avoided a lot of this.
But at the same time, I don't regret my tenure in the administration because it brought me to this point. That's why I'm sitting here with you.
And, you know, I'm not saying that what I did, by any means, I'm not saying what I did and how I came forward was courageous or brave or anything. But what I am saying is I hope that there will always be people in the institutions that have some sense of moral integrity and ethics.
And I do worry looking back that if I had put more thought into it or had that hindsight, I would have ran for the hills and maybe that would have been better. I don't know, but I, it helps in a sense having the blinders up because I was able to just do the job and accept it for what it was and be a person on the inside that was a moderate Republican.
And I believe, I will pat myself on the back, I believe I have some sense of semblance of integrity and ethical compass, but that can also be debated, I guess. Look, if you listen to old episodes of this podcast, you know, in those days, we would yell a lot about Dina Powell and Gary Cohn and, like, the Committee to Save America and all that kind of stuff because I was like, why? I don't think that they're doing much.
And yet, like, if they all left and went in front of a microphone, then maybe something would have happened, you know, I will say I get that it's more complicated than it seemed at first, because now that we're facing the prospect of a second Trump presidency, clearly the administration is not would not be staffed with people like you or people like Dina Powell or any of any institutionalists. Forget about moderate Republicans, just like conservative Republicans who care about the institution.
One, because i would hope that people would i hope would hope that a few people would slip in but one day i was there at the end like i i know what second term plans were i i don't want to catastrophize or hypothesize about exactly who would be there because i hope to god that in this next year collectively collectively as a country, people can come together and we can do everything we can to make sure that he is not the Republican nominee on that ticket. But that being said, I think that they would vet people so extensively that people wouldn't have the opportunity to slip in and be ethical voices.
Vet them're 100 loyal to trump yes correct and even like towards the end of the administration like there this is publicly reported and it's also been publicly reported since i believe it's schedule f but how the going through and firing the career institutions like that's undemocratic like it's also like why are we even debating this like this is not an an issue that should even be on anybody's radar yeah but yeah and this is why your book is is great to read because when you read it and some of it is reliving it and there's a lot of new detail too you're like oh if it was like and i imagine like you know uh rudy giuliani is ag and uh my pillow guy is the secretary of commerce. I don't know.
Like it's fucking wild. I talk to people.
I try to talk to people about too. And I think it's that there's there there needs to be voices like ours that will call attention to it.
I am trying to think of the most effective way to do it. But Donald Trump would be president.
Yes, but he is not the end of the problem. if Donald Trump was to disappear tomorrow, if he were just to drop off the face of the earth or just drop out of the race altogether, the issue is still going to exist.
Now, next-term presidency to be debated. But if there were to be a second-term presidency, there's not going to be people, institutionalists willing for multiple reasons.
I mean, one, I can't think of many people that I respect that would want to put themselves in that line of fire, knowing what happened at the end and even just how the administration unraveled in the final few years. But, you know, from a very practical matter, I was extremely fortunate at a very low and dark place in my life to have people that gave me a second chance.
My legal bills would be insurmountable if I didn't have that opportunity. And I'm very fortunate, very fortunate for it.
And that's why I also feel this need to talk to people about it. But there's the point of who would it be, but it's also like, why? Why would you do that? Because his loyalties are to himself.
Yeah. You write about various turning points for you and how you viewed Trump and the White House.
When was the first time you remember thinking there might be something different and wrong with this administration and this president? Like, when did you start getting the real doubts? There were several times I'm trying to think. I mean, the first time that I really I remember having this jarring feeling of there's something more here was the night that

we had a rally in Rome, Georgia. And I write about this extent, or not extensively, but I write about

it in great detail in the book. But essentially we had a rally in Rome, Georgia, and a campaign

official had asked me to go into the middle of this massive crowd. There was a little shack,

I think. And essentially, we had a rally in Rome, Georgia, and a campaign official had asked me to go into the middle of this massive crowd.
There was a little shack and to retrieve this man named Tony Bobulinski, who is Hunter Biden's former business partner. Tony Bobulinski had been publicly seen with Trump at a rally or at the debate in Nashville a few weeks prior.
and I immediately I can't describe it as anything else other than I

just had this really nauseating feeling inside of me. And again, no real reason, but I pressed, and I write about in detail in the book, but I kept pressing it.
Like, this is not a good, why is Mark doing this? I don't want Mark to do this. This is not a good idea.
If he's been seen publicly so it was just this like i felt that i knew a lot that was going on and i in some ways did but that was the first time where i was like okay i had been shoving a lot of the red flags in the back of my mind like a lot of our covid policies our covid messaging how we were handling the term in cain story yeah like tell too and all very should have been very jarring experiences but when you're living

you how we were handling the Herman Cain story yeah like tell too and all very should have been very jarring experiences but you know when you're living and you you've lived that life in the White House I'm I hope it wasn't as chaotic as ours but it was like it was not one hour was like a week sometimes that that is true and that's also I think like yeah I'm not excusing anything but like sometimes I'd go in with a a to do list for Mark with seven things and I would maybe get half of something done. So like things would you're in survival mode.
Right. And you're in survival mode.
How big of a deal the day's events are. Because it's also you're doing a job, right? Like so it's it is I always tried to keep that perspective and that hindsight.
But it is I was there to do a job and I had a role and I had to fulfill that role. And if I didn't, then something would happen.
But Tony Bobulinski was

really the first, like, okay, this is, there's something very shady and whether it was or not,

I don't know. I just had that feeling.
So the election happens and like a week afterwards,

there's this like now famous quote that a senior Republican official gives the Washington Post about Trump. And the quote is, what is the downside for humoring him for this little bit of time? No one seriously thinks the results will change.
He went golfing this weekend. It's not like he's plotting how to prevent Joe Biden from taking power on January 20th.
And like we go back to this. Did the committee discover who said that? No.
And I've asked like Ashley Parker, too, because it was her piece. But like, you know, no one reveals who that is.
No one reveals who that is. But it's like, is that is that how you felt at the time? Is that how other people on the way? I immediately knew that we lost.

I was like, it's over.

Because I immediately

went into, well, I also had COVID,

but went into

what's next. The president had talked

to me about, even before the election,

about, if the Democrats steal this election from

us, will you move to Florida with me?

What an offer. To be discussed.
Yeah, right. So there was a 10-day gap where Mark Meadows and I had COVID, so I was out.
When I came back, it felt different, and I couldn't quite place my finger on it. But I knew it wasn't just going to end.
I didn't think it was going to end the way it did.

And to be clear about things, too, I think when there is a close election, whether it's state level at the congressional level, Senate, House, Senate, president, no matter what it is, like you candidates have the right to file lawsuits.

But it's when you are def have the right to file lawsuits.

But it's when you are defying what the courts are saying and you're defying our rule of law.

Yeah.

And then the administration was pushing it and pushing it and pushing it.

That's when I sort of started to gain a sense of,

okay, there's something that's not normal.

Like he's not golfing and ready to leave at the 20th.

And I never thought

that he would give up easily.

But I don't,

you know,

I can't speak for others.

I didn't see it ever getting

to the point

that it did

at that juncture.

I doubt many people did,

but, you know,

I think the people

that may have

have avoided subpoenas or pled the fifth. We cannot keep pretending that Donald Trump is an outlier when everyone else seems to be out there with him.
But instead of feeling paralyzed, our job now is to pull what we've got and see what we can make happen. Here at Assembly Required, we will continue to face each executive order, legislative policy, and news cycle, no matter how terrifying or absurd, by asking, what can we do to learn more about what's happening?

What can we do to solve problems, however small? And how can we find the kind of hope

that can sustain our work in difficult times? Listen to new episodes of Assembly Required

every Thursday on Amazon Music. on music.

You write that even though you felt strongly at the time that he should concede, you said,

I didn't blame the president for any of it yet.

I didn't want to blame him.

Why is that?

Because I felt as staff,

and so I felt working for Meadows. When I took the job with Meadows, I was clear I work for the chief of staff, who happens to be Mark Meadows, not Mark Meadows.
And to me, that was a very clear distinction, not because I, you know, I liked Mark, but I worked for the office. saying that I felt that as staff it was our job to provide him

with the information and counsel

that he needed to make sound decisions. And if we were not keeping the floodgates up and letting people in or letting him be privy to conversations, again, this is my perspective at the time.
it was our fault and he was not receiving the best advice from the staff that should be working in his best interests so again it's just so wild to think because even like from we never had anything like this but when like i knew if i felt responsible if i wrote a shitty speech which which I did, and I was like, I didn't spend enough time on that. That's my fault.
But, like, if Barack Obama was, like, going to go out to the cameras and say something stupid or make a mistake, which, you know, he did, I was like, well, dude, that's on you. That's not our fault.
There is a mentality in the Trump administration, though, and around Donald Trump's circles.

And this is, again, I'm speaking as somebody who,

I was not a never-Trumper.

I was not somebody that he would have considered a rhino.

I was very much so on Team Trump.

Yeah.

And this is from my perspective now, too, though.

And I knew this at the time, but much more heightened now.

The sense of loyalty and dedication to him is not normal but it felt normal at the time it's the dedication to him but it's also everyone's about loyalty and it's like treating him like a child though there's a little a mix of a child and sort of this divine that's what i'm trying to. On one hand, everyone's like, worships him.
On the other hand, it's all like, oh, what are we supposed to do? We just gotta, we gotta keep, I mean, how much good advice did he get? Like, Bill Barr's telling him there was no fraud. Like, all the people around him are giving him all this advice.
But then it's like, oh, well, he happened to run into Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powellell and so therefore we gotta be like oh shit like you guys should have kept like you guys should have kept rudy giuliani and sydney powell away from ever like how would you have done that again questions that i i wish i had better responses to but i i mean rudy's rudy's a separate rudy's been in his life for a very long time but i i did, and I would talk to Mark about it. I was like, we can't be letting these people around him.
Mark would say, sometimes he would agree, but sometimes he would say, well, the president wants to talk to him. We're going to have these meetings.
But I felt this responsibility, and that was a big reason why I wanted to go to Mar-a-Lago with him afterwards. It was because I, yes, while we were filing lawsuits and all that was fine, there still were those, the casts of characters coming in.
And I was privy to a lot. I wasn't privy to anything.
But I also could see a very clear picture of Mr. Trump going to Florida in his post-presidential life at the time, predicting that he would still be a force in Republican politics and at the time wanting there to still be sound and reasonable voices around him.
Yeah, I was going to ask that because like there's this heart-wrenching scene at the night of January 6th where you have a phone call with your mom and she's like begging you not to go to Florida. She never wanted me to go to Florida.
And it's like in January 6th it's just happened and you're like I have to go I've already committed the boss needs good people around him the only reason today happened is because we let bad people crazy people around him I need to try to fix like I was like what are you trying to fix at that point he's he's he's done. At that point Like, again, I, at the at the time it was if there's anything to preserve with his legacy that's we need to try to do that but it also from the bigger picture you know i had i knew i would i would say with great confidence 98 to 99 98 to 100% of every Republican House and Senate member.
I would say a greater maybe 65 to 70% of Democrats in both chambers. So I had the connections.
I was predicting that he, unfortunately, would still be a force in Republican politics. and if I could be there, I knew that they trusted me because I had built the reputation with them and I built a trusting relationship with a lot of members on both sides of the aisle.
If I was down there, at the time, I felt I might be able to help. I might be able to bring some,

might be able to rationalize some of this for them and make sure that things don't go completely awry.

Again, I'm also somebody,

I realized this in the last year or so,

I put a lot of blame on myself for things,

which isn't necessarily a bad thing,

but I, there were no adults in the room.

And I am an adult.

I'm very much so an adult, but I don't ever want to be judged for my gender or my age. I want to be judged for my competence and what I have or have not achieved.
And I'm very candid also about the mistakes that I've made, I think. You can call me out if I haven't.
No, look, my reaction reading a lot of the book was you did seem like the adult in the room with a lot of crazies and I was wondering I'm like well she certainly seems like the adult in the room like did this not all raise a bunch of flags like before that or is it just like flags that you were like yeah these are some crazy people and like I'll I'll work to fix it late november through mid to right before christmas to around like probably december 17th it was red flags but this is going to be over but again i didn't have this like january 6 electoral college get certified like no concept of this at all no i look i remember reading a lot of pieces about like he's gonna stay and there could be a coup and blah blah blah and even i at the time was like look i'm pretty nervous about all this and like we got to get to january 20th but like i i don't see how this is gonna like i i wasn't you know december 18th was the big bigger turning point for me and okay things are starting to get dark. And that was the night of the meeting that started in the oval office with mike flynn sydney powell patrick byrne who was the former current ceo of overstock.com pushing for him to invoke the insurrection act or martial law which then carried up to the yellow oval in the residence that night and went

past midnight. So that was like, things started to feel really dark after that.
So then I started to tune in a little bit more, but again, January 6th, and I'm not, not excusing any of it at all, at all. I, I look back and I wish that I had done more and I live with that regret regret every single day of my life.
But again, there are still things going on. We were working to pass the NDAA.
We were working, it was more than just election stuff. We were also still trying to keep the gears moving.
Like there were some people that were trying to start transition process. So there, you know, there wasn't like, it was a huge and massive focus of, and took way too much attention and resources from staff who should not have been dealing with all of that.
But there were other things that I also was doing to try to keep myself and my job functioning. So you make the decision to testify and the second set of testimony and then go to the January 6th committee.
And now you've sort of turned on Trump and Trump world. Now that you look back, because we're talking a lot about what you thought at the time.
Now that you're looking back, like you said, it's not like you're renouncing all of your conservative positions that's your political beliefs right but like when you look at the republican party today and you think about the republican party that you wish would be the reality like what does that party look like and who so hopefully I can explain this a little bit. And feel free to prod.
I do still consider myself a Republican in principle. I do not identify or associate with any part of the Republican Party that is what I consider the Trump Republican Party, the MAGA, whatever you want to call it it it is technically the same republican party yeah i do not personally believe it is i am holding on to hope that we can you know we i i we i strongly believe in speaker pelosi has also spoken on this we are in theory, to have a two-party system that requires a strong Democratic Party and a strong Republican Party, whatever you want to call them.
Yeah. Healthy.
Yes, where we can sit and have – like, I look forward to a day where we can sit and not have to talk about the extremism of what the Republican Party has turned to. I hope that we can get back to a place, you know, it's never, I don't say never, it's not in the next year going to go back to a place where it was in 2000 or like the McCain Republican Party.
I don't know we can ever get back to that place, but also the Democratic Party has evolved beyond what it was in 2002. Yeah,'s...
Party's changed. But, you know, I, with that said, if Trump, and it's a strong if, if Trump is the nominee, the Republican nominee next year, I haven't decided whether I will turn in my Republican card.
but I think there's a much greater chance that I will turn in my Republican card,

but I think there's a much greater chance that I will not associate myself

with the Republican Party anymore

because that to me will be the turning point

maybe and should have been a long time ago

or maybe should have been the day I testified,

but I still hold on to hope

that we can have a functioning two-party system,

but it's going to take people that believe in the agenda to get it back to that place.

You said it was a big if.

I wish it was a big if.

I mean, his full number.

I hate to doomsday hypothesize about it because I really think that the closest he should ever get to the Oval Office again is when he goes to the Prettyman Courthouse in Washington, D.C. for his trial.
He belongs nowhere near the Oval Office, the White House, anywhere. But like, here's...
But he is innocent until proven guilty. Right, of course.
But he does not belong. But I don't want to hype up, because we all should be doing everything we can to make sure that's...
Well, you know, look, I've been spending the first part of this being like, why did it take you so long kind of thing. But now I'm going to ask, like, what is going on with everyone else? Like, you've watched these Republican primary debates.
Like, why aren't more Republican politicians and staffers and strategists breaking with him still now? Like, and what, what, because you worked with these people and you know them, like, what do you think's going on in the heads of like DeSantis staffers, Nikki Haley staffers, Pence staffers, right? Like all these people, you know, I mean. I'm largely cut off from Republican circles in some ways.
I also spent the last year largely in isolation for practical and security matters, but also because I was working on only really spent anyway.

But I can't climb into the psyches of those staffers.

But what I will say, pertaining to my experience at least, I was very candid after January 6th about it being our, meaning the administration's fault, not Antifa, not Nancy Pelosi. It was our fault.
I was not shy about that. One of my best friends in the administration was Alyssa Farah Griffin.
She left in early December because she saw where things were going. January 7th, Alyssa came out and sharply denounced what happened on January 6th.
And part of me was really ticked off at her about it because in my mind at the time, it was she promised to be loyal. But there's also this part that was a little bit more subconscious, but I also was able to recognize it where I was sort of envious of her because I saw that she was doing something that felt impossible.
And we're wrapping that into like the year and a half that I spent with this moral tug of war and also just very limited financial resources to retain my own attorney from the onset of being subpoenaed. I also was afraid because I saw people like Alyssa, who, in my opinion, took a very courageous stand, like Liz Cheney, like Adam Kinzinger, like the 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach him.
And I saw what they were dealing with.

And it was sort of like,

you're damned if you do and you're damned if you don't.

So it was easier to stay quiet and be complicit in it.

And again, I say that with shame,

but they, I sort of,

I accept it and I thank people and they say that I was brave and courageous,

but I wouldn't be in this position

to have people not set the example before me. You know, I was there and it was my obligation.
I was subpoenaed and I swore an oath and I was ashamed and disgusted with myself that I ever, ever lost sight of that. Do you think they're afraid of a second Trump term? So all this said, you know, I can't climb into their psyches.
I can speak from my experience. I would anticipate, or I would expect some of them might be afraid of just breaking because the opportunities do seem bleak.
It doesn't really feel like there's a home. And if you feel like you're going to get beat up by the left and then chastised by the right, like, but you still care about the country, like where, where do you really fall? I think some of them are opportunists that don't want to take a stand in case he is the nominee and they want to be able to work for him or if their candidate might be a vp you know i can't climb into all the psyches but there there is something there that's you know it's this the selfishness of the trajectory of how a lot of my former colleagues or just people in general that are working on these campaigns aren't willing to at least adhere to democratic principles it's not about a man it's not about this movement it's not even about the base like the base is being fooled yeah they're not being represented and you know i would hope that we could get somebody on the ticket but the debate a couple weeks ago almost, almost all of the candidates on stage raised their hand if they, when Brett Baier asked if he was convicted.
Yeah, not just indicted, like convicted felon. Convicted felon of violating and obstructing the constitution of the United States.
Like that is disqualifying. And if it were Democrats on that stage that did the same thing, you know that the right right wing media would go after them.

I mean, they're doing it already.

If there were two people on that stage who raised their hands, it was Chris Christie and Asa Hutchinson.

Asa Hutchinson wasn't on the second debate stage.

I think Chris Christie is great.

I don't think he is presidential material.

But I admire that he is willing to take that stand right now. Yeah.
It's just, it seems like that. But it's a movement from the ground up.
And absolutely. But, you know, but when you live in a culture where as Republicans that are living in this culture of they're getting away with evading subpoenas or not testifying truthfully and honestly or pleading false memory or pleading the fifth

when that is normalized and you're seen as heroic or you're seen as doing the right thing like there's not really an incentive to do otherwise if you're being lionized by the people that you're looking up to and that you're relying on for employment again i'm not agreeing with any of it at all. well i mean you've said that which i think is very admirable that you want to spend the next year year in a couple months making sure that he doesn't get back to the white house like what what are you thinking uh like what what arguments would you make to people your age who might be considering working on his campaign or in the White House? What arguments are you making to people that you might still talk to in Republican politics or just you have a platform and you're speaking out? What do you think can reach people that were like you? Still trying to figure that out.
No, but in all honesty, and I hate to plug the book because i you don't even need to buy the book you go to your local library i say this because that i would appreciate if you know to listen to my story to listen to what i have to say i'm not asking for anyone to believe me. I hope that by asking people to listen, it'll at least create a thought process and make people think about the impact of their actions.
Because there was a time where I felt like maybe it isn't my responsibility to speak to all of this. There should be the quote unquote adults in the room, the men, many more years my senior, men like Rudy Giuliani, who was born during World War II, I just would like to add, who are, in my opinion, not doing the right thing.
But again, like I, in any way that I can just try to reach people, whether it's through my book, which I tried to be as honest and as raw and vulnerable in my personal life and also in my political life, because it, you know, there is a story to be told here. And I think it required a lot of thoughts.
You know, I knew what I was doing was wrong on a subconscious and also conscious level but I also was excusing it and it took a lot to get me to the point where I am and I also don't want I am here because I had I mean truly like not to bring religion into it but like angels that came. And I did work for a second chance, but just really incredible people that didn't owe me anything or didn't have to believe in me or didn't have to grant me this opportunity.
Not even to testify, but to tell my story. I didn't feel deserving of that, but I have that now.
And I think by listening to my story, i want to create an environment where either people feel like they can talk to me or they can relate to or the it provokes them to think about what they're doing and how they may or may not be complicit or they might have the blinders up and also like there's a place for them it's i don't want to to come back home but like there's a place for them. It's, I don't want to say come back home, but, like, there's a place that's about decency, and it's about standing up for our country and our democracy.
And, again, like, I want to get back to a place where, like, we could sit. I have an event on Monday at Politics and Prose talking about all of this, and Jamie Raskin is the moderator for the event.
Oh, nice event we can have conversations because we don't just need to debate insane Trump policies but like I hope that we can get back to that place yeah no I mean me too it's just oh we got we got him in the way right well him in the way but it's also again like I said earlier if he were to disappear and we see it with what's happening in the House right now, if he were to disappear tomorrow or just whatever, the movement doesn't go with him. Normalcy isn't just restored.
We need to elect responsible people to government. We need to elect people who have integrity and character and care about our country and constitution and to do that we need to educate people and to have people listen and I think one thing that was sort of a disadvantage for me at least the way I saw it at the time was like okay there's the anti-Trump voices in the media and online or whatnot but it doesn't really feel welcoming because you just sort of feel chastised for believing in what you do.
And it's not excusing, it's okay, but like they're- Look, it's hard to shame people out of their beliefs. I think that, I believe that.
It's not productive. It's not productive.
If it's Trump and Biden, vote for Biden. I am reserving at this time because I plan to do everything I can in this next year to ensure that Donald Trump is not the nominee on that ticket.
But what I will say is if he is the nominee on that ticket, I think everybody needs to, again, collectively come together to make sure that he is not nominated for a second term and voting third party is not the way to do that that's good okay that's good and i'm look i'm i i've been wondering too in like the last year it's like george w bush get out there and at some point say like there's just i think that people are not i think what honestly helps though like i admire george bush i think it helps having people like General Kelly go out or Mark Milley or people who were on the inside, people who were in his inner circle, come out. I think so too.
George Bush's voice is valuable, but it's not going to channel the... It's not like the Trump-based loves Vincent Bush at this point.
But no, I'm just thinking... Rhino George Bush.
Right, yeah, exactly. But like, you know, a lot of cabinet secretaries that were Trump cabinet people are not with them this time.
You know, I do think they're like- There's been a slow trickle in this last year of people coming up. The loudest voices are the ones that are often heard and they drown out other voices.
And I think, you know, part of it's the media's fault. I'm not going to just take blame away from them.
But I also think I never saw myself in a position like this. I am adjusting to it.
At least I'm trying to. But to have voices that people feel like they can trust and have integrity to them.
Again, I admit my faults. I'm not trying to excuse any of it.
I was not forthcoming to the committee in a lot of instances. And I, again, live with a lot of regret and shame that not because of legal jeopardy for myself.
I was very candid. I was like, look, if you guys send me to jail, I accept the consequences of my actions.
I just want to do the right thing. But it's just, we need people out there that see the danger of this moment.
And I hope that people will listen and sort of start to come around to that because it's a hard jump to make, but it's really not that bad once you do it. I'll end with a, I guess this qualifies as a lighter question, even though it's not a much lighter topic.
The speakers race. Oh, gosh.
You spent a lot of time with Kevin McCarthy. Worked closely with a lot of these.
Unfortunately, a lot of time with Matt Gaetz. Steve Scalise, you interned for.
Jim Jordan. Jim Jordan.
What's your take on what's going on there? Who should we be rooting for here? Oh, God. In this shit show.
Or does it make a difference? Should we just be like, Jordan and Scalise will be the same? I don't think they'll be the same. Candidly, I haven't been following the nuances of it all that closely, but I do know these characters as individuals and on a professional level.
What I'll say about McCarthy briefly is I did work very closely with him. I had a great professional relationship and friendship with him.
Kevin made his own bed with this. He had so many opportunities, not only to do the quote unquote right thing, what I define as the right thing, but he came out on January 6th announcing the president's involvement in what happened.
And then he was at Mar-a-Lago weeks later. He quite literally got the gavel because he agreed that one member could- Take it from him.
Yeah, right. Which he did.
I'm just like, it babbles me because I'm like, so there were shreds to me earlier this week where I sort of felt bad. And I, at times I was like, you know, I could see the point of why would Democrats vote to oust him? But I think they made the courageous decision in doing so.
He has not been a speaker of integrity and honesty. He's not been a trustworthy player.
He's done everything to appease the masses just to keep that gavel. Even like, look at Ukraine aid.
Like, whatever your politics are about Ukraine and Russia, for Republicans, like, U.S. national security depends largely on European stability.
Like, Ukraine needs aid. So, you know, I don't blame them for that decision.
But that being said, and Matt Gaetz is a whole other, anybody that takes Matt Gaetz seriously or thinks that he did this for the good of the country does not know Matt Gaetz. Matt Gaetz did this for a soundbite and to make a name for himself.
He is not a serious politician by any means. And I could go on, but that's all I have to say about him.
Shitposted the speaker out of a job. I mean, yeah, he chastised Kevin for working with Democrats on the spending negotiation and then Matt turned around and did the same thing to oust him.
So he's just a man that has absolutely no principles. But between Scalise and Jim Jordan, I would hope that there would be a third person.
Jim Jordan, I'm trying to delicately phrase this and be diplomatic about it because I don't want to fear a stroke Jim Jordan is a man of principle and I will give him that he is in my experience he is one person I don't agree with his politics but I do believe that he actually believes in his agenda and he doesn't just go with the masses he agrees with the masses in large part. But Jim Jordan was privy to nearly everything, if not everything, about and pertaining to January 6th.
Jim Jordan can't be trusted with the Constitution, in my opinion. And if he is elected speaker, you know yes maybe he can his voice will resonate with the more extreme conservatives but he's not going to be representative of the mass in congress which is you know the people who represent america there there are moderate republicans still in congress as there are still moderate democrats but jim jim can't be trusted with the constitution he can't be trusted to represent those people oh steve is a different i would hope that there would be a third person that would emerge you know i think patrick mckenry has a lot of character and integrity i don't think his name is in the head i don't think that he would want the job frankly it's not a job that I would want.
Yeah, I don't know why anyone would want it at this point. Yeah, it's also just really an unfortunate place for the Republican Party to be in and honestly embarrassing.
But, you know, is that what causes change? I don't know. I don't think so.
But it's... Cassidy Hutchinson, thank you for doing this.
Again, like, just because something's obviously right doesn't mean it's easy. And I am like, so I have a lot of admiration for everything you've done.
It was not easy to do. And I really hope that you can come back and we can just argue about policy.
Just yell at each other about just regular old politics stuff and not have to worry about the creeping threat of authoritarianism posed by your former party or your current party, but the one that you're trying to change. The one I don't identify with is what I still have hope for.
Well, in saying that too, I just want to thank you and everyone here too, because my attorneys and everybody who's very warmly embraced me and offered the kindest words I still don't feel deserving of. I have the opportunity to sit here with you guys is honestly means a lot to me too.
God, I'm supposed to be stoic and not emotional. But it's seriously, it means a lot because it gives me hope that we can get back to that place and that we don't have to agree politically,

but we agree on a human level

and that we're Americans

and are important conversations to have.

So just thank you guys for welcoming me

and being so kind.

You don't have to, but I appreciate it.

You're welcome and thank you for stopping by.

Thank you.

Thanks again to Cassidy Hutchinson for joining us today everyone have a fantastic weekend and we'll talk to you next week bye everyone Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production our producers are Olivia Martinez and David Toledo our associate producer is Farrah Safari writing support from Hallie Kiefer Reed Churlin is our executive producer the show is mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick Jordan Cantor is our sound engineer with audio support. Thank you.
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