(gentle music) - [Announcer] You're watching a production of South Dakota Public Broadcasting.

(gentle music continues) (lively music) - Welcome to the 2022 "Daschle Dialogues."

I'm Christi Garst-Santo, and I serve as the inaugural director for the School of American and Global Studies at South Dakota State University.

Tonight's guest, Jonathan Karl, will deliver yet another enlightening talk from someone with a front row seat to culture, history and politics.

To help introduce this evening's special guest, special guests, please welcome our president, Barry Dunn.

(attendees applauding) - Thank you, Dr. Garst-Santos, for that introduction.

We are humbled by Senator Daschle commitment to provide this "Daschle Dialogues" series and bring thoughtful leaders in a wide array of areas to our campus.

Tonight's guest, Jonathan Carl, is the latest in an amazing lineup of guests that we've had the privilege to host.

Please help me welcome our distinguished alum and our dear friend, Senator Tom Daschle.

(attendees applauding) - Thank you very much.

Thank you.

(attendees applauding) Please.

Thank you very much, President Dunn, for that incredibly generous introduction.

Many of us are so grateful for your stellar leadership.

You're changing lives with the Wokini Project and the Wokini Initiative.

And I am so impressed by all that's happening on campus now thanks to your leadership.

And I must say it is so good to be back on campus after three years and to see so many old friends.

(attendees applauding) This is great.

Thank you for coming.

I can't help but think of the old maxim that in every 70-year-old there's a 30-year-old wondering what happened.

(audience laughing) Well, it's been six decades, and I can say so many good things have happened in those six decades since I came onto the campus for the first time a freshman in 1965.

I think back, and I can say this without fear of contradiction, that I don't think most of the things would have happened in my life were it not for the fact that I made that choice; in so many respects, it all started here.

(audience applauding) Barry just mentioned tonight, 100,000 alumni.

I think I could say the same thing about thousands of students who came before me and came after me.

And so I have always felt a deep sense of gratitude to this remarkable university for all the opportunities that it has given me.

I'm gonna use that as a segue to thank, tonight, four people in particular who made this evening possible.

The first is one that won't come as any surprise.

Steve Erpenbach and his team not only organized but choreographed the entire program.

And this one's a little more complicated.

And I am so fortunate to have known Steve and work with Steve for so many years when we were working in the Senate together.

And I would say this program would have never gotten off the ground were it not for Steve and his team, so I'm especially grateful to Steve and his team for all they have done.

(audience applauding) The second person I wanna thank is Chuck Raasch.

Chuck and I have known each other for over 30 years.

He's a highly respected journalist and author.

His first book, "Imperfect Union," was a great success.

He's working on a new book now called "Life Painted Red," that's going to be out soon.

But as you know, some of you who are veterans of this program, he has moderated enormous, I think almost every one of them, and he's done it so well.

And he's again here tonight.

And I can't thank him enough for his willingness to come and drop all that he does.

And you'll see this is a very complicated program tonight, and he's choreographed it down to the minute, so I thank him for that.

(audience applauding) So the third person I want to thank is our very special guest, Jonathan Karl.

As I know you all know, he's the chief Washington correspondent for ABC News.

He is a co-anchor of "This Week" with George Stephanopoulos.

He's a best-selling author.

"Front Row at the Trump Show" and "Betrayal" were New York Times Best Sellers.

He and I have known each other for many years in the Senate.

He worked fo CNN, as you recall.

And I always thought he was such a fair and honest and forthcoming reporter.

I always worked well with him and enjoyed so much our opportunities to be together.

In fact, there was an interesting story of when I first learned that Jim Jeffords was going to switch caucuses from Republican and Democratic I was in Woonsocket.

Jonathan flew all the way to Woonsocket to cover all of that.

We talked about it today.

(audience laughing) So I really thank Jonathan for being part of the program tonight.

Please join me in a big round of applause- (attendees applauding) I am thrilled that Jonathan's mother Audrey Shaff is here tonight with Jonathan's brother Allan.

They came all the way from the Black Hills today.

In fact, Jonathan, you should know, came from Aspen today to be with us tonight.

But Audrey came all the way from the Black Hills.

She and I have known each other for many years.

She had the courage to put my signs up in her yard when I was running, (audience laughing) and that showed a lot of courage in Pennington County.

And I have loved her ever since, but she was a part of the program as well, so... (attendees applauding) So I don't have to say anymore.

We have a great program in store tonight.

And with that, I'm gonna turn it over to Jon.

- [Chuck] Jon, are you ready for this?

- I'm ready.

God, what an honor to be in Brookings at SDSU!

Go Jackrabbits!

(audience applauding) - I wanna start by introducing Jon as a friend, but I also want to introduce him as a friend of the American people.

And I think by the end of tonight, I hope you'll all consider him a friend despite what you may have heard (Jon and audience laughing) about the press from a certain former person.

And that's going to be part of the topic of the conversation tonight.

We're also going to talk about institutions.

We're gonna talk about the institutions of the press, we're gonna talk about institutions of Congress, and we're gonna talk about institutions that have been under assault over the last number of years; and not necessarily just the last five years, but the last 15 or 20 years.

And we hope to come to a conclusion at the end with Senator Daschle talking a little bit of a discussion about what we think is coming down the road and what citizens can do in this circumstance.

But, Jon, can you start us off?

Just give us a little brief history.

It's been 25 years, basically, since you've been in Washington, right?

- Yep.

- And in those 25 years, I was thinking today, we've had three impeachments of two presidents, we had 9/11, we had the anthrax scare that hit Senator Daschle office and other offices in there.

We had the Beltway sniper.

We've had horrific school shootings all over the country over the last 25 years.

And then we had COVID.

And now the world, you know, is in a situation with what's going on in Iran, with Russia, with China and Taiwan.

But if you could talk a little bit about the velocity of the events and the challenges you have in covering those.

- You know, there's a quote attributed to Vladimir Lenin that says, you know, "There are decades where nothing happens and then there are weeks where decades happen."

And I feel that we've been through so many of those.

I mean, I started to cover Capitol Hill right before the first impeachment, the only impeachment of Bill Clinton, and that's during that time I got to know Senator Daschle.

And you think about what we witnessed there: an impeachment of a president, a 50/50 Senate, September 11th attacks, like you said, the anthrax attacks, the Iraq War.

And I'll tell you, these were some...

Throughout some of that, there were some bitter, biting, brutal partisan battles that we witnessed.

But let tell you about one story I remember and I think about with Tom Daschle.

On September 11th, I was on Capitol Hill.

I got evacuated like everybody else.

In fact, I almost got arrested for not wanting to be evacuated 'cause I didn't wanna leave, I thought it was my duty to be there.

But I stayed, you know, in the vicinity outside the security perimeter while it was all evacuated.

And Senator Daschle got together with the other leaders, Democratic and Republican leaders, and they said, you know, "We need to send a message to the American people," yet the country was on edge.

The Twin Towers were knocked down, the Pentagon was hit.

There was a plane that went down in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, that we were convinced was headed towards that dome.

And people were scared.

And the leaders came together and said, "We're gonna come back to the steps of the United States Capitol and we're gonna tell everybody that we're coming back, we are coming back in session."

And they invited us, the press that was still hanging out outside the security primer to come in.

And I remember Senator Daschle assembled with all the other, you know, the Congressional leadership and the members, a big group members of Congress, and they made their announcement.

And then in a very spontaneous fashion, I'm sure you all remember the moment, they started singing "God Bless America."

It was a challenge, our country was under assault, and there was a sense that the leadership, Democrat and Republican, for all of the bitter and brutal battles they had been through were united in the sense of saying, "We're going to come back."

- Right.

My personal memory of that day was trying to get into the White House and seeing people running out of the White House with looks of fright on their face and leaving shoes behind.

The next day, there were shoes all over Pennsylvania Avenue, all around there, of people that were literally running outta their shoes.

So, you're right, it was a very scary time.

And I'm not sure Senator Daschle, actually maybe we can ask him when he comes up later, knew where he ended up that day.

He was taken to a secure location.

- They were taken out by helicopter, as I recall.

- Yep, exactly.

But maybe he can talk about that later.

- It maybe classified.

But maybe he can think and it can be unclassified.

- Yeah, yeah, right.

That's true.

That's true, that's true, that's true.

- Maybe he can think.

- Right.

(audience applauding) But we're going to return a little bit later to... - Sorry, I was just like, oh, I don't know.

- to the friends of the American people.

But I want you to talk a little bit about what your average day is in... You know, how rushed is it?

Wat time do you go to work in the morning?

What time do you get home at night?

Just very briefly.

- I mean, there are no average days anymore, but I can tell you.

And I am no longer covering the White House in a full-time capacity.

I've got this larger role covering Washington and anchoring our Sunday show.

But let me tell you, covering the White House full-time as the chief White House correspondent for the entirety of Obama's second term and the entirety of the Trump administration, your day started very early and it went very late.

- [Chuck] Yeah, I can imagine.

- And you can never be too far from that building because if anything happens in the world, you've gotta be on the North Lawn reporting on it.

- Well, we've got a little clip that I think tells a little bit of the origins of your journalistic career.

- Wait a minute, when is this from?

- Can we show the clip?

Can we show the clip, please?

- To be able to see this stuff and and to get that sense of history is what drives me, and I think that's what it's all about.

- Do you know where you got this interest?

- My mom and my stepfather when I was in fifth grade, fourth or fifth grade... Now, it must have been even earlier than that.

But when I was in elementary school, we went and did a cross country trip; loaded up the van, went from Connecticut just a cross country.

We went to South Dakota and we got to Mount Rushmore.

And my mom and my stepfather were fascinated about the kind of the mountain itself and what it took to carve that mountain.

And all we saw there was a lot of... You know, all the exhibits were about the shrine of democracy, about each of the presidents, and there was almost nothing about the artist who was behind the mountain.

So they started to get fascinated by that.

We found out that there were 350 and men who worked on the mountain, mostly miners who had expertise in explosives and, you know, and blowing rock away, basically, and the artist goods Gutzon Borglum.

Somehow we just, basically we left Connecticut and we ended up moving to South Dakota within a year, moving into a motel, two adjoining motel rooms, so they could work on a project for the University of South Dakota where they got interested in this, on oral history of the men who worked on Mount Rushmore.

About 100 of them had already died, the rest were old and weren't gonna be around much longer, and they wanted to get their stories on tape.

And I went around with them.

I missed a lot of school (chuckles) 'cause they weren't all in South Dakota, they were all over the country.

And we went around and we interviewed, you know, dozens and dozens.

And I don't even know the final number, but we interviewed a lot of these guys.

And then we ended up talking to the... Borglum was long since dead, his son was dead, but his daughter was still alive, we got to know her.

So I went along.

And I was just the spectator as a little fifth grader as my stepfather and my mom would interview these men and hear about these experiences, it was just, "This is fascinating."

I didn't know you found that, deep in the archives.

(chuckles) - [Chuck] So here's your mother.

(attendees applauding) - [Jon] Come on up, Mom.

- [Audrey] Oh wow.

- This one?

- Yep.

- Welcome, Audrey.

- Welcome, Mom.

- [Audrey] Thank you.

- Audrey, can you talk a little bit about that trip and kind of what you remember and what you remember Jon doing on that trip?

- Yeah, he was just such a good kid.

- Oh, come on.

(all laughing) - He listened, you know, and put up with all of that.

We'd give him a little treat sometimes after.

But he was amazing.

And he listened, he cared, he learned some stuff.

- I think I learned how interview.

- I wouldn't be surprised.

- He sat in on a lot of your interviews, right, and, you know- - All of 'em, just about all of them.

- Yeah.

And off that, what was produced from that was not only the oral histories, but you actually wrote.

- The oral history came first.

- The oral history came first and then the book came after it, but it's a book that, you know, it's been out for a bit but you can still get it.

It's a very good book.

I've read the book.

And Jon pointed out earlier, he thinks his first byline is on this book because the photograph of Mom and Dad on the back was taken by Jon.

- [Jon] That's my first byline, yeah, yeah.

- But just very briefly, can you go into some of the stories?

What stands out, all these years later, from those great stories that you learned from the men that worked there?

- Well, I think of all the hours we spent at the Library of Congress, 'cause that's where all Borglum's books were, and sometimes he couldn't... Well, he also went to all the universities with us doing this research.

So he would do his little research.

Some of the libraries would let him in, you know, he had to sit out there, but they'd get something for him if he was interested in it.

And then we spent all that time in Washington D.C. And (chuckles) we were at the library for a lot of hours, but he was fascinated with Congress.

And when he saw- - I was a very strange kid.

I mean, come on.

(all laughing) - Yeah.

Yeah.

And he would see the light on the top of the Capitol and he'd know something was going on in there.

- That means they're in session.

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

- Right.

- So he had to go see.

And we'd be tired, we'd be ready to go to bed, but he had to go see.

And then there'd be nobody in there, you know?

Somebody'd be reading into the register (Jon laughing) and still he wanted to be there.

- I was like, "Wait, you gotta listen!"

I might have been the only one listening to those speeches.

(all laughing) Pre-CSPAN, by the way.

- That's right.

- No, yeah.

- Can you talk a little about the project itself and what you learned from the project, from the 350 of men that worked there and the ones you interviewed?

Was there any sort of unifying theme that came from that experience?

- In terms of?

- In just in terms of, you know, were they a certain type of person?

Were they adventurous?

Were they, you know... - I guess I would say they were all had a sense that they were doing something important.

You know, it was a job.

They made 55 cents an hour or something like that.

And it closed down in the winter 'cause you couldn't do anything in the winter.

And then they'd go, come back.

All of them couldn't wait to see- - 'Cause they were creating some piece of history, something that would last.

How about Jack Payne, the guy in Modesto?

- Oh.

That was our first interview.

And he lived in a trailer in Modesto.

We had put an ad in the paper, "Rapid City Journal," and there we asked for people who had been involved with Rushmore And we heard from Ray Berg, who had been a call boy on the mountain and he knew about Jack Payne.

He lived near Sacramento and Jack Payne was in Modesto, so he gave us Jack's contact.

So we called Jack and he couldn't wait to see us, 'cause nobody had talked to these guys about what they had done, so they were really anxious to talk to us.

So we went there, and he wouldn't let us leave.

We had to stay overnight.

He was gonna give us his bed.

- We stayed in his bed.

- So we stayed that night, and it was very nice.

I got to bed, put my hand under the pillow, and there was a gun there.

- Ooh.

(attendees laughing) - I'm a kid for- - My mom's not a big gun person, so- - No!

(all laughing) - So just as a way to sort of wrap wrap up the whole experience here, do you look at Mount Rushmore differently as a result of the work that you did?

How do you look at Mount Rushmore?

- Definitely it's hard.

And I'm glad it's there.

I understand there's a lot of controversy, you know, Natives have issues.

But I still think it's a wonderful tribute.

And, of course, none of us are really sure about Teddy Roosevelt because, you know, a lot of people said, "Well, you know, he started the National Parks system," and that would seem fine.

And others said, "He looks like Borglum."

- He looks like the artist, that's why.

Is that really Roosevelt or is that Borglum up there?

- Yeah, exactly.

So anyway, I see it as art and as a symbol of America.

- Well, I thank you for that work.

I think it's valuable work.

And they're still at the University of South Dakota, as I understand it, in the archives, and the oral histories.

And that's a very important thing to preserve, so- - Thank you.

- thank you for joining us tonight.

- How's that for a cameo?

That's pretty good, right?

(applause drowns out Jon) - We're gonna show you some photos tonight, and we're gonna do it a little differently than we've done it in the past.

And we're gonna work sort of from the photographs and explain what's going on in the photograph but also explain larger issues that emanate from it.

And if we could start with the first one, please.

And Jon, if you wanna take a look.

Explain what this is.

This the White House Press Room.

And this is President Trump, obviously, in the background here.

But explain, if you could, the confines of that space and how glamorous that space is.

(Jon and audience laughing) - Yeah, it's really something.

It's a very small place.

There are 49 seats.

And when there is a press conference, all of those seats are taken and usually there's a lot of people standing, crowding on every nook and cranny you can find.

It's a small place.

But when the president of the United States goes into the White House Briefing Room, it's a major event under any circumstances.

You know, a lot of the big presidential press conferences are in a much bigger room in the East Room in the White House; but when they come into the Briefing Room, everybody's in there.

But that's COVID.

And I was the president of the White House Correspondents' Association when COVID hit.

And we had to figure out: How can we continue to cover the most important story of our lives and do it safely?

And by the way, the White House at that point was something of a COVID hot zone, you may recall, in terms of infections.

And we were worried about two things.

We were worried about journalists getting sick or COVID being used as a reason to lock journalists entirely out of the White House.

"Oh, we can't have anybody there, there's a pandemic."

Either situation was problematic.

So we went down to 14 seats so we could have social distancing, and we rotated.

- [Chuck] And there's a history behind this too, right?

I mean, the Trump administration, when it came in, actually wanted to do something with this, wanted do abolish it, right, or wanted to- - I wrote about this in... First, there was a big movement when they came in, Steve Bannon and my old friend Sean Spicer, (audience laughing) they got...

I mean, they wanted to move the White House Briefing Room outside of the White House.

You couldn't really call it the White House Briefing Boom anymore, I guess, right, just the briefing room.

And there was a big battle by the White House Correspondents' Associates that...

The one person that really didn't want that to happen was Donald Trump, by the way.

He liked having the ability to call the press whenever he...

But you know what?

He didn't go into the briefing room at all during his first three years.

There was one very brief appearance, he didn't take any questions.

So he hadn't actually gone there.

But when COVID hit, he started doing those daily press conferences.

And the world is watching.

We were all at home, right?

Well, except for me, I was there.

But I mean, we were all... (audience laughing) And so it's like it's must-see television, which he was bragging about the ratings: "This is bigger than 'The Apprentice.'

This is bigger than 'The Bachelor' finale."

But we were all tuned in because we were afraid, we didn't understand the pandemic, we were trying to get a sense of how to care for ourselves and for our families.

You know, you had the... You know, he'd bring in the medical professionals at least for a while.

But with all that intense interest and millions and millions of people watching, there were just 14 of us sitting there.

- Yeah.

You and I have talked a little bit about how surreal it was in some of those moments, where it seemed... You know, it is a setting, it's really intimate.

You're very tightly closed in.

What people don't see is behind the walls there and down in a basement, I don't know how big your office is there.

- It's a broom closet.

- Yeah, it literally...

The AP Office, two people work in a space smaller than this inside the White House Press- - It's glamorous.

- Yeah.

There literally are....

There should be rules against, you know, how many people in- - And there are mice.

- There are mice, oh yeah.

- Yes.

- It's the old White House swimming pool, so you're basically on top of a swimming pool.

But anyway, we talked a little bit about how surreal it was.

Could you go into that?

And in particular when the president would lash out at reporters and when he would attack reporters and call reporters names, including you.

- Yeah.

Yeah.

It got really intense.

And the president, particularly as things started to not go well, continued to have these briefings but he was resentful of the fact that his handling of the pandemic was being criticized.

And he was resentful at the questions we were asking.

And he was resentful of the fact that there were only 14 people in that room.

He likes crowd size, I don't know if you know that, but it's like a...

So, I mean, he's in an empty room, basically, with 14 people who he might not like very much, and that's it.

And it really, he really, it got, he got surly at times, and you saw it as I'm sure you guys were watching.

And he would really lash out at the reporters asking the questions.

I mean, I got called a whole series of names: "A third-rate reporter.

You're never gonna make it.

You're a disgrace to the ABC News Television..." He called Me cutie pie at once.

(audience laughing) But the strange thing about it is you're covering the president of the United States at a time when everybody is kind of hanging on the words coming out of the White House looking for information, and he's six feet away from me, you know?

And so it's an intimate, quiet setting, but you know there are tens of millions of people watching live.

- And you wrote about, in parts in both your books, about he would try to bait you in particular at some points, ask you what you would do in certain circumstances.

And you never would answer because you consider yourself an objective reporter.

You think it's important to get the facts out there, to dig in, to hold leadership accountable, all the things that good journalism should aspire to.

And Jon is one of the best at it, I can tell you.

But how difficult was it not to respond?

Because I watched those moments and I thought, you know, "If I were in those shoes, I'm not sure I would have been able to keep my cool like you did at that time."

- So I believed, first of all, he's the president of the United States, and whatever he's saying about me or my profession or my colleagues, it doesn't matter.

He's the president of the United States, I need to treat him with respect and I need to move ahead with my questions and my reporting.

And he came in and we...

I think it was about a week into the Trump presidency.

Steve Bannon gave an interview to "The New York Times" and he said, "The press is the opposition party," opposition party, which I thought was very interesting 'cause he was giving an interview to "The New York Times."

And I found this as a kind of dangerous formulation because we are not the opposition party.

I mean, I covered the entirety of President Obama's second term and, you know, I had some tough moments with President Obama's various press secretaries, with President Obama himself.

It's not my job to like or dislike a president or approve of the policy.

I'm there to ask the questions and the reporting.

My opinion does not matter.

Respectful but firm and do my job.

And it's kind of funny, there was a spokesperson for the RNC during that time with Obama, his name was Sean Spicer.

And they would send out clips of my questions because it was like, oh, I was like... You know, they were like almost cheering me on.

And now here I am, you know, and Steve Bannon is declaring me and all of my colleagues the opposition party.

No, we're not the...

So I went up to Steve Bannon, it was the day of the Gorsuch Supreme Court nomination.

And after the ceremony was over, it was in the East Room, I went over and I said, "What do you mean opposition party?

Why did you say that?"

And he said, "Oh, no, I think you guys are actually doing just fine, you know, it's...

But you guys are a much better opposition for us than the Democrats," you know?

You know, they wanted to win over certain Democrats, they wanted to win...

But the press, I mean, it's much easier.

And Trump actually said something earlier on to Leslie Stahl when she had a similar kind of confrontation: "Why do you attack the press?"

And he said, "I do that so that when you do something negative about me, nobody will believe you."

So they wanted to make us look like we were the Democratic National Committee, so whatever we report, whatever we asked could be dismissed: "What would you expect?

They are my opponents."

So I tried not to take the bait.

And I don't wanna get in a fight with the President, that's not my...

I've failed if that's happening.

- Some of your colleagues did take the bait, though.

- Yeah.

- And you wrote about that in the book.

Can you talk a little bit about that just without getting way down in the weeds here, but- - Yeah, sometimes it just got a little too personal and people got offended: "How could you say that about me?

How could you..." And look, and I understand it's kind of human nature to, like, respond when you're attacked.

And, look, it made me mad.

I mean, it did, but I couldn't...

But, you know, when he came out sometime later, when the president came out and said the press is the enemy of the people, which is a term that you could directly trace back to Nazi Germany, and also by the way to Stalin, he used that phrase as well.

And I, you know, to me this was a major issue.

It had to be responded to.

So he did bring us in.

And I went on television, and I went on our Sunday show, and I did a little tutorial about presidents and the press and some of the really terrible relations that various presidents had, you know, Jefferson, and Abraham Lincoln, and Teddy Roosevelt, and, you know, on and on.

But none of them went that far.

They engaged with the press and they realized that they had a responsibility to engage with the press.

And now you had a president saying we were the enemy of the people.

No, a free press that annoys presidents from time to time is not an enemy of the people, it is a key element of what makes American democracy democracy; it's a central element.

- And actually you were attacked from the left.

(audience applauding) I think you and some of your colleagues were attacked from the left for not taking on the president, for not taking the bait.

- People wanted us to boycott the press briefings.

"Send in the interns," was a phrase.

(audience laughing) And I was like, "You know, he is the president.

You may not like that, but he is the president and our job is to cover what he's doing."

- Right.

Let's go to the second, if we could, the second picture.

I believe this is taken at one of the Congressional office buildings.

Is this- - Yes, that's outside the House Agriculture Building with Liz Chaney.

- [Chuck] And can you tell me the context of this?

And we'll get to the specifics in the book, but what was- - This was right after she was kicked out of the Republican leadership for what she was saying about Donald Trump and about January 6th, and they... You know, Liz Cheney was gonna be, I think, speaker of the House.

And, you know, she had a absolutely bright future, very conservative as you know.

And it was before January 6th.

What Donald Trump was saying after the election and refusing to concede and her colleagues were doing to try to overturn the election was a violation of the Constitution.

And this was right after she got thrown out, and I did an interview with her.

And it was...

I mean, now with all that's happened, you know, you may not be so shocked, but it was a truly shocking interview 'cause you had Liz Cheney, diehard conservative, recently thrown out member of the House Republican leadership, and she told me that she regretted voting for Donald Trump and that it was a mistake.

- And she said just recently, the last several days, that she will work for Democrats who run- - After she lost, in her concession speech in Jackson Hole, she said that she was gonna work against election deniers.

And then what she has just now said, making it crystal clear what she means, is that, yes, that means if there is a Republican election denier, she will be working for the Democratic candidate.

And then she was asked, "Could you still be a Republican if Donald Trump is the Republican nominee?"

And her answer was no, it was a flat no.

- Can you talk about what that says in the overall perspective of the Republican Party now?

And we'll get into the Democratic Party down the road, but let's talk about the Republican Party right now And what does that say about where the... Is it just the Trump Party now?

- Well, I think that is a battle that is being waged and that he is currently winning.

You know, on the one year anniversary of the January 6th attacks, I had a little tip that the former vice president was going to be coming to the chamber.

And Liz Cheney came and her father was...

He's a former House member, so he has privileges on the floor, and he was there.

And outside of her and Liz Chaney and Adam Kinzinger, there were no Republicans present for the commemoration of that day.

- Of that event.

- I mean, it's... You know, I don't know exactly where it is going, But when Donald Trump left the White House on January 20th of last year, he was a pariah, he was...

I talked to Republicans, top people in the party, who talked about him in past tense.

I went and I interviewed him at Mar-a-Lago on March 18th, so about six weeks after he left the White House.

And, you know, there was a sense that this was... That, you know, that they were just waiting for him to kind of fade away.

Well, what has happened since?

I mean, he is the dominant figure in the party by far.

And there is nobody else even close.

Now we can talk about how long that's gonna last, but- - Right.

And hat's a good segue to our next slide, if we could, please.

Tell us who this is and how this came about.

- [Jon] So that's Kevin McCarthy and me in front of Abraham Lincoln.

Abraham Lincoln's the one in the chair.

(audience laughing) - [Chuck] 100 year anniversary of the Lincoln Memorial this month, by the way, so- - So, I took a walk on Saturday January 2nd, 2021, on the mall.

It was a beautiful day.

It was kind of cold.

It was a beautiful day, the sun was starting to go down, and I ran into Kevin McCarthy, who I know, I've known for a long time.

And actually, you know, I've had a very good relationship with McCarthy over the years.

And we took a walk on the mall.

I recounted this in "Betrayal," in my book.

And the House Republicans, many of them, were preparing for this effort on January 6th to overturn the election results in six or seven states that they were contesting.

And McCarthy had not taken a position on this.

He hadn't said whether he opposed it or he was in favor of it.

And as we walked down the mall from the Capitol, or near the Capitol, to the Lincoln Memorial, you know, I said, "So what are you gonna do?"

I said, "This could be a big moment for you.

You could give the speech of your life on January 6th and say why this is an absolute assault on the Constitution, the idea of overturning the votes of six states, tens of millions of voters, and, you know, making a stand against, you know, some elements of your own party and your current president."

And, you know, he tried to explain to me that he had very difference approach, that he tried to work to prevent Trump from doing things that were damaging.

And he gave an example of, you know, where Trump had threatened to veto a COVID relief bill in December, and it's right around Christmas, and he like, you know, really worked in there, worked with him, and he got Lindsey Graham and the Secretary of Treasury Mnuchin, and they got him to take back the veto threat.

So he says, "I work from within."

And I said, "No, but if you do this, this could be your moment."

And then to, like, emphasize my point, I exaggerated, I said, "You know, who knows, maybe there'll be a statue of you hear someday if you do that."

(audience laughing) And he said to me, "Where is the statue for Jeff Flake?

Where's the statue from that guy from Tennessee?"

He meant Bob Corker.

These were two Republican senators who stood up to Donald Trump and were rewarded with exile from the Republican Party.

Neither one decided to run again because they knew they would've lost the Republican primaries in their states.

- So maybe in that moment that's the explanation of what we were talking about earlier, of how it went from Trump being the pariah to Trump being feared and now technically the leader of the party, or at least the front runner for the next- - Yeah, I mean, McCarthy had a role in that, obviously.

He went down to Mar-a-Lago eight days after Trump left, I think it was the 28th of January.

You know, he... Look, I... And McCarthy ended up supporting the election challenges.

He even voted in favor of the challenge to the Pennsylvania election results after the riot, after the attack on the Capitol.

And it's a riot, it was an attack on the Capitol.

They came back in a moment of actual...

I think a great moment for the Congress that was very brief, but kind of like that January, I mean that September 11th moment, they came back to resume the counting of the electoral votes.

But McCarthy and the Republicans again voted, instead of like many in the Senate, it's like, "Okay, enough.

I mean, let's come together," they again voted to challenge the results.

And then he tried to explain... Actually it was the day that I met with Trump in Mar-a-Lago that this news was flashing just as I was sitting down to interview him.

McCarthy had a press conference, he said, "Well, no, I wasn't challenging the...

I wasn't voting to challenge the election results because it was just Pennsylvania," and there was one other state he voted, "and that wouldn't have added up to enough to overturn Biden's victory."

It's like, "Wait a minute.

What?

So you were, but you weren't or you weren't?"

And I remember trying running that by Trump and he was like, "He said that?

What did he say?"

But, look, McCarthy knows that he can't be the Republican leader if Trump is gonna be on a jihad against him.

I mean it's... You know, he doesn't want to be Jeff Flake or Bob Corker.

- Let's go to the next slide, if we could.

Explain this.

- [Jon] Okay, so I got a hold of some photographs that were never released.

They were taken by an official White House photographer on election night.

And this is somewhat early on in election night- - [Chuck] And this is 2020.

- 2020.

- Election '20.

- Very cheery group of folks.

So you've got Eric Trump and his wife Laura.

You've got Bill Stepien, the campaign manager.

You've got Jared Kushner, Ivanka.

That looks like Don Junior, Meadows.

And Steven Miller is the dude over there on the right.

And, you know, I mean, it's just like, "Hey, here we are, it's election night," and they're very happy.

And they were very happy, it was early on in election night.

And I had gone on.

And I write about this in "Betrayal," too, 'cause I thought it was really important for people to understand how this election was going to be different, different in part because of COVID.

And there was a massive increase in mail-in voting because the pandemic was raging, and for some people going to vote in person could be a death sentence, literally.

So most states did what they could to expand mail-in voting so that people, particularly, you know, those that would be high risk, could vote by mail.

And that meant that it was gonna take longer to count some votes.

And some states, Pennsylvania being the prime, actually instituted a rule, and the Republicans pushed this, by the way, that said that they weren't gonna start processing the mail-in votes until all of the in-person voting was completed and polls closed, and then they could start looking at the envelopes, checking signatures, making sure that the numbers matched up and nobody was voting twice and all this kind of stuff.

So that meant was gonna take a long time to find out who won.

And because of historic trends, and it's just a fact, Republicans are more likely to vote in person on election day, Democrats are more likely to vote either early or do mail-in voting.

I went on air at 7:03 or so pm on election night and said, "Look, be prepared," I was talking to Stephanopoulos who was anchoring.

"Be prepared for two things.

We could have, in some states, a red mirage where it looks like the Republicans are out to a huge lead and they're, you know, gonna win, and that's because those states are counting mail-in, you know, they aren't starting counting mail-in till after.

And that mirage will fade away, that's a mirage.

And there are some states where they actually process the mail-in vote first, one of those is Ohio."

And I said, "Some states, you're gonna see a blue mirage."

And as the day went on, this is a true fact you never hear Trump talk about, Joe Biden had a lead, I think it was six or seven points in Ohio at 9:00 PM because, Ohio, they processed the mail-in vote first.

And we looked at that, it was like, "Oh my God, is Biden gonna win Ohio?"

I mean, all the polls showed Trump winning and, you know, Trump won it big four years ago.

It was a blue mirage.

He didn't complain about that one.

I mean, Trump ended up winning decisively in Ohio.

But Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, it was the opposite situation.

And so I think you have another photo.

- [Chuck] Yeah, and then let's pull the next one up, please.

- [Jon] So this is, again, a photo that was never released that I got a hold of.

- [Chuck] Let me set the scene on this, just how unusual this is.

Let's talk about that.

This is in the White House.

This is breaking years and years and years and years and years of protocol, of tradition- - [Jon] Okay, this is in sacred ground.

This is in a room called the Map Room.

It's where Roosevelt, you know, got his, you know, briefings on the progress of the war, World War II.

- [Chuck] And presidents don't do this kind of stuff in the White House on elections.

- [Jon] I mean, there rules about campaigning.

You know, you have to keep campaigning separate from government and all that kind of stuff.

But this was the entire campaign team assembled with...

There's big monitors you can't see over here, you know, tracking the election results as they come in.

Some people have compared this to the photo in the Situation Room of the Bin Laden raid.

'Cause if you look, every picture tells a story.

And you can look at this photo- - It's in the book- - Exactly, yeah, it's in the book.

- it's in the book.

- [Jon] But this is as the red mirage is starting to fade way.

And you can see the anguish.

I mean, look, there's Jared Kushner off in the end just looking absolutely horrified.

That's the campaign manager Bill Stepien being deep in paper because he doesn't wanna make eye contact with anybody else around the table.

(audience laughing) - Mark Meadows.

- God only knows what Mark Meadows is thinking right there, but he doesn't look happy at all.

Ronna McDaniel, the chairman of the RNC is... She ended up leaving, I think, shortly after this photo was taken, leaving the White House, and didn't wanna be around for it.

It's right before Rudy Giuliani comes in, according to Jason Miller who's sitting back over there, entirely inebriated, wanting to get Trump to get out there and quickly declare victory before the red mirage completely faded.

- But Jon, these folks, they understand the blue and the red mirage, right?

They know it.

They know it, right?

- I mean, they knew exactly what was going on.

They knew exactly what was going.

I don't know if Eric Trump knew what was going on.

(audience laughing) I don't... (audience laughing) I mean... (audience laughing) I just say this.

But let me be really serious for a moment.

One thing that I try to do with "Betrayal" was try to explain what happened to those who believed or believed the lie that the election was stolen.

Because I think that there are millions of well-meaning people in our country who believe, and actually believe for good reason, and I'll explain this, that there was something fishy with the election and that Trump really won.

I explain this not because there's any evidence of it, there is none, and it's been debunked over and over and over again.

But if you were tuning in on election night and you were watching the results, and you weren't watching me on ABC, maybe you were watching another network and there wasn't a discussion and an explanation of this, all the stuff that I just explained to you about the mail-in and, you know, and you saw Trump is winning in Pennsylvania by hundreds of thousands of votes, he's winning in Wisconsin, he's winning in Michigan, you know, you would've thought... You know, winning in Florida, winning, you would've thought that it was going your way and then you, like, maybe you go to bed.

'Cause a lot of the, you know, the numbers started changing really late.

I mean, Pennsylvania took days for... And he had a lead for days in Pennsylvania.

And even people...

I'm not...

Even people who knew what was going on...

I recount in the book Rahm Emmanuel, who is the, you know...

I mean, as experienced the political hand as you could ever have: former mayor of Chicago, obviously, former White House chief of staff, former member of the leader, you know, member of Congress, House leadership.

He's currently the ambassador to Tokyo He was an ABC analyst at this point, a Democratic analyst.

We had Chris Christie and Rahm Emmanuel.

And I remember doing a commercial break, at about 10 o'clock or so, when the numbers were really looking positive on Trump, I mean, he came over to me and he was like, "Ah," he was really worried, he was like, "Man, it doesn't look good for my guys.

I mean, this feels like a replay of 2016," that's what he felt.

So even somebody like Rahm who knew all of this stuff.

But here's the other thing: In the lead up to the election, Trump started breaking through the COVID staff.

"Forget the COVID precautions, I'm having rallies."

They were outdoor rallies except for the one he had in Tulsa, but these were outdoor rallies in the lead-up.

And he was holding three, four, in the last days five a day.

He was going to multiple states.

Biden was doing almost nothing, he had a couple, you know, for COVID reasons.

But he was doing very, very little in terms of actual events.

And if you were going to any of these events, what did you see?

You saw packed crowds.

You saw people in the northern states waiting for hours on line, frigid cold temperatures.

There was a rally in Nebraska, cause they were going for that one electoral seat in Omaha, that was in, you know... - [Chuck] There's one.

- There's one that's very competitive.

- There's one you can pick up, right.

- And something like a dozen people were taken to the hospital, you know, with frost bite and various... And, you know, you would've thought, "I mean, my God, look at the energy, look at this."

And that's why I mentioned Eric Trump, because Eric Trump was on the plane throughout all of this.

And I recount this on the very last day before the election, he wants to do a little like straw poll: "What's the electoral account gonna be?"

He's on the plane, right before their last event.

And, you know, everybody's predicting a big Trump victory.

I mean, they're feeling the energy.

If you went to any of these things you could understand.

But he went to one of the guys and he said, "I think it's gonna be 269-269, tie in the Electoral College," which means it goes to the house and then they could win, but maybe not.

We could talk about that later.

But Eric looked at him, "Are you're crazy, man?

We're gonna get, you know, 400 votes!"

I mean, he was like...

They thought they were headed towards a big win.

And a lot of Americans who weren't listening, you know, weren't watching me or reading your stuff thought that.

So I think you need to explain and- - [Chuck] Right.

You absolutely do.

Let's go to the next, please.

Explain what this is, Jon.

And this, to me, is one of the most interesting revelations in Jon's new book.

- So, I mean, one of the things that that haunts me, 'cause I covered this all in real-time and then I went back to write about it in my book to really go deep into what happened, is how close we came to potentially losing our democracy, to a crisis far greater than even the very big crisis that we witnessed.

These are the boxes that the electoral votes sent by each state, each state has to send in.

You know, they're certified.

There are very strict rules on how they have to be signed.

They have to get sent to the vice president at the U.S. Capitol where he is the president of the Senate, and then they're put in these boxes and they're paraded into the House Chamber to be counted, opened up and counted.

We already know 'cause the states have already announced, you know what they are.

But this is an absolutely essential thing in certifying the new president.

It's required by the U.S. Constitution that these electoral votes signed by a specific date, in this case December 14th, need to be sent in and need to be brought into the chamber, opened, counted, the account announced by the vice president.

It's all very, you know, ceremonial, but it's required by the U.S. Constitution to have a new president.

Well, when the rioters came in, the House and Senate had split 'cause they were debating one of the state challenges, Arizona, right?

And so those boxes were in the Senate, and the riots are coming in, and they're coming in.

And we saw how close they were.

We saw that they were 30 feet away from Vice President Pence.

We saw that MIT Romney, if he hadn't turned one way and the Capitol policeman hadn't sent him in the other direction, you know, would have run right into the rioters, they were coming, and they had to rush out of the Senate Chamber, down the stairs, through the network of underground tunnels, to a secure location.

They're running out.

A young person working in the Senate Parliamentarian's Office has the presence of mind, 20 something, young woman, never wanted her name to be out there: "Gotta get the boxes," and they got the boxes.

And let me tell you, it's unclear what would've happened.

This just one of many things, by the way.

But it's unclear would've happened if they would've gotten a hold of those certificates and destroyed them.

And did they want to do that?

Well, let's consider this: The room in the Capitol that got ransacked the most, more than Nancy Pelosi's office, more than any, was the Parliamentarian's Office, and I think it's because they were looking for the certificates, they were looking for those boxes.

So I went, as I was writing the book, I wanted to get up and close and personal and just kind of get a sense of what these old, traditional mahogany boxes are.

They carry these certificates.

- Yeah.

You know, the officer that basically took the crowd away, that he moved them away from Senator Romney and others, if they'd have gotten some of those folks, who would have known what would have happened?

- I mean, they were chanting for the execution of Mike Pence, so what would they have done to, you know, Mitt Romney?

- To Mitt Romney, right.

Let's go to the last photo, please.

This is a very good story, and I want...

It's just a really nice story, so- - [Jon] So I was on the White House grounds on January 20th as President- - Inauguration Day.

- as Joe Biden was being sworn in, and it was the last hours of the Trump White House.

And it was a fascinating time.

I mean, I'm just so fascinated by transitions.

I think there's the founding miracle of American democracy.

I wrote up that in the first book.

I mean, this is what's made our... For all the flaws we've had, and...

This is it, is that we have a peaceful transition of power.

So Trump left the White House at eight in the morning, becoming the first president to blow off the inauguration in over a century.

Actually he wasn't invited, so it was kind of complicated, it wasn't really his fault, but... (audience laughing) But you have a lot of press there getting ready for Biden's arrival.

You start to see some of the staff coming in, there's...

Most of the Trump staff is now gone, there's just...

This was basically the last guy left, and his name is Chris Liddel.

And he was walking on the driveway right behind where all the television cameras are, and nobody paid any attention to him.

I don't think anybody recognized him, my fellow reporters.

I went over and I was like, "Chris, what's going on?

What are you doing?"

And he's like, "I'm just..." And he'd been there all four years.

He was there on January 20th 2017, so he is the longest serving Trump administration staffer.

And he said, "It's, you know, four years for better or for worse," and then he asked me to take a photo of him, which apparently he had never done in these four years, you're busy, you're doing other things.

And I took that picture.

But here's what's... You know, I know we're running outta time.

But he was in charge of the transition.

It was a job that he was given, you know, early on in 2020.

He's somebody who had handled Mitt Romney's transition team.

Mitt Romney didn't actually have a transition 'cause he lost, but he did have a... You know, the preparations start way before the election.

And he's a very accomplished guy, he worked for Microsoft, he's a... You know, he's a serious guy.

He was a Trump supporter and very close to Jared Kushner and everything else, but he was in charge of the transition.

And he ran what I described as kind of a clandestine operation out of the second floor of the West Wing to try to make sure that what was required by law was happening in terms of, you know, the transition, getting briefings and materials, you know, for the incoming Biden team.

But he never once talked to Trump about it.

He got the sense if Trump knew about it, you know, he would have been fired.

But there are stories like that.

There are people who did the right... Now, is that courageous?

He was doing what he was required to do by law.

But still, in that context, if he hadn't done it, you know, just like Mike Pence on that, if he...

He had no authority to throw out those votes and do what Trump wanted, but what if he had tried?

- But these are the institutions that we talk about, right, these people that are doing this type of work, yeoman's work, frankly, that keep things moving.

keep the train running.

And Senator Daschle, if you would join us.

But I wanted to make further point on this, Jon, as the senator is coming up to join us, and that is, is that there were a lot of things going on.

I mean, the Pentagon wasn't giving much briefing to the new administration.

Can you explain that?

There really wasn't much cooperation at all between the two.

- Yep.

I mean, it was a really... Look, the Presidential Transition Act, which I know you are a scholar of, it's designed to be, to ensure that we have continuity of government.

If there is a.... You know, our enemies may try to exploit us during that cleavage between one president's, you know, one administration leaving, one coming in.

And it is so, you know, you can't just come in and say, "Wait, where's the light switch?

How does this work?"

you need to, it takes preparation.

And the transitions start well before the election, and it requires cooperation.

And there were some who were working and doing the cooperation and there were others who absolutely weren't.

The Pentagon was a big problem.

The Office of Management, OMB, was a big problem.

And then there was a guy named Johnny McEntee, who I wrote about extensively, he was in charge of presidential personnel, who sent word out that if anybody, you know, was daring talking about a transition, you know, there would be consequences.

And some people were entirely uncooperative, but there were, you know, there were some.

And by the way, we were in the middle of a crisis, we were in the middle of a pandemic.

And there were people like Chris Liddel that were doing the right thing.

- All right.

Well, that ends this segment.

And we're gonna segue now went to Senator Daschle.

And can you catch us up on what you've been doing lately?

- Well, I've just enjoyed this discussion so much.

And I think the star has been Audrey so far.

- No question, yeah.

- But I've been, as I said at the beginning, I've been so blessed.

My son Nathan and I and eight other just incredibly talented people have run an international consulting firm for about 10 years now, called the Daschle Group, and we've really enjoyed the opportunity to work together.

I have three adult children, of course, and six grandchildren.

My oldest daughter is 51, which I think is impossible 'cause I'm 51.

(all laughing) - How did that happen?

- So I'm not sure how that works.

But six grandchildren, and they're just the prides of Linda's and my life.

Linda serves on a number of boards, including the Air and Space Museum, so she has some things this weekend involving that.

In addition to that, I serve on a number of boards.

Madeleine Albright, who some of you may recall from her time here, used to chair the National Democratic Institute, which was created by Congress, Jonathan may remember this, in the 1980s.

Ronald Reagan and Tip O'Niell came together, they said, "We need to promote and build democracies around the world."

And so this organization now is in 70 countries, and we work to do as much as possible to build democracies.

We're legally precluded from being involved in the United States' democracy work, which I think may require a lot of attention too.

But when we lost Madeleine, I became the chairman of the National Democratic Institute.

I'm the chair of one of the think tanks, the progressive think tank called the Center for American Progress.

I've tried to spend time on things I care about, and I... One is food, I'm on the board of the World Food Program USA.

And then the other is democracy in the country, and I chair a couple of boards there: one is the National Committee for Civil Discourse and the other is the National Committee for Election Integrity, and so I spend a lot of time there.

And then I love to paint.

And so my son is the real artist in our family, he paints portraits, and I just do abstract work.

- [Chuck] Can we show some of the- - [Senator Daschle] These are a couple of my abstracts.

I just do abstract.

And then my son Nathan, I don't know if we have, I think he- - I think we do.

- [Senator Daschle] This is his Churchill.

And then he has one of Martin Luther King.

Here is Martin Luther King.

- That's amazing.

- But, so anyway, we compare notes, but he's so much better.

The interesting thing about his portraits is he paints them upside down because he thinks he can be more accurate if he paints upside down.

But this summer, we took a... We've been planning to do a trip for a long time on a safari at Africa.

There are 14 of us in the family, with adults and grandchildren.

And so we went to Zimbabwe, Victoria Falls, and then a couple of camps in Botswana, and then South Africa.

And it was just, if you ever get the chance to do something like that, I just couldn't tell you what a life-changing experience it is to see nature in all of its glory and beauty and to see these animals so close.

It's just, it's really, it just gives you a whole different perspective about life.

- [Chuck] Yeah, particularly with what's going on in the world right now.

- [Senator Daschle] Exactly, absolutely.

- And let's talk a little bit about what you perceive as kind of the moment that we're in.

I'd like it from both of you.

How perilous is this moment with what's going on in Russia with the threats of nuclear use, and with what's going on in Iran?

And by the way, we talked earlier about, you know, the government talking about, you know, the enemy of the people.

Well, this week, the protestors in Iran who were protesting the death of this young woman were labeled by that government as the enemy of the people, the people that were in the street protesting this young woman's death over the moral code law.

And talk about it how perilous is it.

- Well, Chuck, I don't....

There are a few moments in history where I think it's been any more perilous.

Obviously the world wars, there's no question, those were real threats to democracy and world order.

And we survived those, thank goodness, thanks to the extraordinary leadership of the United States in many respects.

But now it's so multifaceted and it's compounded more now, I think, with the technological changes that have occurred, and the extraordinary... You know, we not only have threats from all the traditional sources, the nuclear threats and all the things that are going on now in Ukraine, but now we have cyber threat that may be even more serious in the capacity they have, either in space or through cyber activities, to threaten the integrity of our elections, the information around our elections with the algorithms.

You know, we have an enormous disinformation.

One of the countries we work very closely with is Taiwan.

They get millions of attempts a day with the algorithms from China to distort the information that's going on and that's received in Taiwan.

So we have a whole new set of challenges that we've never had before.

And we've gotta....

It really calls for leadership and order and strength in that leadership.

And frankly, we've got a lot of work to do to try to create that dynamic around leadership.

I think Joe Biden deserves some credit for, once again, uniting a lot of the democratic countries.

But we have a long way to go.

And we have serious threats as a result of all of these circumstances that I think put our country, both domestically and in a foreign policy context, in greater peril than we've been since World War II.

- I mean, my formative years as a college student were the fall of the Soviet Union and, you know, the Berlin Wall coming down and all those Eastern Bloc countries going from communism to democracy.

You know, there were setbacks.

There were Tiananmen Square in 1999, but there was a sense that the world was becoming a freer, more open place.

I mean, George W. Bush, in his second inaugural address, 2005, talked about ending tyranny in the world was the goal, ending tyranny in the world.

And now, I mean, we're in a situation where the pendulum is going way back in the other direction and, you know, the tyrants seem to be on the rise.

I think it does feel to be an incredibly perilous moment.

- And we're approaching an election in- - And disinformation, I have to say, is the real threat.

Propaganda has always been an instrument of, you know, used by the good and the bad.

But the ability to spread disinformation, and I think it's going to get worse with artificial intelligence, the use of deep fakes, I think the ability to spread disinformation, both in this country but around the world, and really believable disinformation is growing.

- And when that disinformation comes from high offices in this country, that, you know, coupled with the fact that....

I saw a poll, I believe, last week or the week before, that indicated fairly large percentages of people in both parties, not just Republicans, in both parties, don't have faith in elections, and we have one coming up.

- This is what really keeps me up at night.

I mean, first of all, we know what Trump has done and what his allies have done to try to erode faith in our democratic system, how directly they did that in 2020 and how they are preparing to do it again.

I mean, you have, you know, the candidate for governor in Arizona who has said openly that the only way she could lose is that the election is stolen.

It's a direct, you know, plagiarism of Donald Trump.

But you also have changes being put in place, you know, by Republicans in state after state that will give you good reason not to trust the elections.

I mean, when you have election deniers running for office for secretary of state, the people responsible for overseeing the election What Brad Raffensperger, a Republican, did in Georgia, standing up to the pressures of Donald Trump, now you have people that... Now Raffensperger, Trump tried to...

He got reelected.

I mean, he won the Republican nomination and he will, in all likelihood, be reelected, but he's an outlier.

That worries me.

But then you also have... And, you know, Senator Daschle, I mean, there are lots of challenges, a lot of things to be concerned about in terms of election integrity and Democrats have had a lot of concern about voter suppression and all that.

What I would say is there's certainly a concern, and that's not a new thing, but the greater concern is people that are trying to go through and actually break the system that we use to elect people.

That's the real present threat.

But if you have a situation where you have Democrats not trusting election results and Republicans not trusting election results, then we don't have a democracy anymore.

- I think there was a little episode when you were leaving the Senate in 2004.

There was actually a challenge to Ohio.

It wasn't to overturn the election, but there was... And then the Democrats made that challenge because of allegations of suppression.

- Exactly.

- So it's not...

I mean, Trump wasn't the first one to do it.

Trump was the first one that tried to overturn the election results and hold office.

- But there's a new dynamic, Chuck, that I think is really worth mentioning, and it's really troubling and concerning to me, and that there's a growing discussion and it's primarily focused in cells right now around the country about whether democracy is a threat to the status of some Americans or whether it's still functioning in a way that enhances their status.

And there's a growing sentiment that: "Maybe democracy isn't working for me," and that we ought to abandon our democratic principles.

That is new.

That is scary.

That is really a growing problem, as I see it, that we're gonna have to address at some point.

And it's particularly true in some states, Arizona in particular right now.

- [Chuck] But it's not just elections.

- No, that's right.

- It's attacks on the FBI, it's attacks on Congress, it's attacked on on science, Dr. Fauci, whether you believe he was right or wrong or whatever, but just the basis of science in how we get through COVID- - And a free press.

- And a free press.

All institutions that hold democracies together are being attacked on the highest office, the biggest pedestal in the world.

And, you know, if you look at polling, it could be another close election.

The thing I'm, as a journalist concerned about, and I know Jon is, is the safety of reporters in some of these rallies that- - Oh, absolutely.

- You know, I remember- - We now have to have security in...

I mean, the idea of, I mean, I've got a security personnel.

I understood when you had security, you were the, you know, the leader in the Senate.

But I mean, I'm just, there's something wrong.

- Absolutely.

- Look, the press has a lot of flaws.

I mean, Jon and I will be the first to admit that.

And I think part of the problem, and maybe Jon could talk a little bit about this, is we conflate people who are news reporters with people who are on TV spouting their opinions every night, it's all the media.

And, you know, you have entire channels that...

I mean, Fox will go months without interviewing a Democrat in position, and MSNBC will go months without, you know, interviewing a Republican in... CNN tries to, you know, and you guys are balanced, you guys cover the spectrum, you're objective reporters.

- But look, it's challenging now.

And you have a lot of politicians, political leaders, who don't want to go and do an interview with anybody that's not friendly.

- [Chuck] Right.

Exactly.

- Senator Daschle didn't...

I mean, you engaged with the press and so did your Republican counterparts, Senator Lott and the rest of the... You know, you had regular interactions with the Capitol Hill press corps, taking questions, you did lots of interviews.

- [Chuck] Not always happy.

- You didn't always like the questions I was asking you, but you... Look, but here is a responsibility for those in power to open themselves up.

And it's not just talking to me, but it's the 8 million people that are watching "World News" every night at 6:30 or the 3 million people that are watching "This Week" on Sunday, it's you know, the people that are reading the newspapers.

The reporters are, we are servicing our readers and our viewers.

And you have leaders now who will go months and months and months without exposing themselves to the scrutiny of the press.

I mean, an example, we talked about him earlier.

- McCarthy, right?

- You know, Kevin McCarthy.

And you can name a lot of others, he is not the only one.

But he is right now the odds-on favorite to be the next speaker of the House, two heartbeats away from the presidency, an incredibly important, powerful position, even more powerful than the Senate majority leader.

- True.

- It is, I mean, it's... And Kevin McCarthy has not done an interview, a network television interview, since January 6th 2021 when he did a series of, you know, telephone interviews as the Capitol was being attacked.

And, you know, to me, there's something not right about that.

And then you have... You know, you also have Democrats who don't wanna expose themselves to, you know, anything about a friendly audience as well.

I mean, absolutely across the board.

And that is just... - There's an institutional aspect to this, Chuck, that I think is so important.

You know, the reason I...

It used to be there was a... We called it the dugout.

And the reason it had that term is because my predecessors as leaders, Republican and Democrat, if you were the majority leader, before the session would start, you'd go down to the well of the Senate and invite the media to come in, and they would ask questions for about a half hour of the majority leader every day, and that was called the dugout session.

Well, when we started electronic media and C-Span, you can't allow...

They don't allow any electronics on the floor, so we moved the dugout to one of my conference rooms and virtually every day we did this session.

And Jonathan showed up almost every day, you know, with tough quite questions.

But it's there's an institutional requirement because that transparency, explaining what we're trying to do in the Senate that particular day.

And of course it gave me an opportunity to give my spin to what's happening, but it gave Jonathan to say, "Well, wait, that's spin.

I want the real truth here," and ask a tough question to get the facts out.

But that's part of the... That's how a democracy should work.

And they don't, unfortunately, don't do that anymore.

- And, Jon, I think you were making a point when we were talking the other day about it's imbued now in Congressional races and Senate races, there's no more debates.

You know, the candidates aren't debating, all they're doing is lobbying, you know, insults over.

- There are a shockingly few number of debates in the current midterm races.

So this is, I think Senator Daschle made a point earlier, you know, arguably...

I mean, and I know we tend to say this pretty often, but I think it's, you know, occasionally it's true.

This may be the most important midterms, you know, of our time.

It's a very consequential midterm election.

And in race after race, statewide race, Senate races, governor races, there are no debates or very, very few.

Pennsylvania Senate race which may well decide, you know, the control of the Senate, there's gonna be one 1-hour debate, there is gonna be one single debate in Georgia; but in many of these other races, there are none.

So if you're not exposing yourself, as a political candidate, to serious interviews or to your opponent on a stage, you know, what are you doing?

What kind of an election are you having?

- I remember Ted Kennedy had a... You know, Ted Kennedy, his reelections, I mean, there were occasionally, you know, he would've a tough race.

- With Mitt Romney.

Yeah, with Mitt Romney.

But, you know, he had a lot of walks.

I remember when Jack E. Robinson ran against him.

Not Jackie Robinson, it was Jack E. Robinson.

(audience laughing) Wasn't exactly a threat to Ted Kennedy in Massachusetts, but Ted Kennedy felt it was a responsibility to have debates no matter how weak the opponent was, no matter if it wasn't gonna...

The strategist would say, "No, this is not gonna help you," you know, that it was a responsibility to go before the voters on a, you know, stage with your opponent and take questions.

- I wanna talk a little bit about...

Senator Daschle, I want you to address this first, and then Jon, if you would.

It took you a long time to get into a leadership position.

You were what was at one time called a back-bencher, the term, you know, of a freshman that come in, a freshman in Congress Now it seems like the people that are making the most noise, frankly in your party sometimes, but in particular in the Republican Party, are back-benchers, people with no power.

Some of them don't even serve on committees because they've been kicked off committees.

Some of them have never introduced legislation or signed onto legislation, all they do- - I think you're talking about Marjorie Taylor Green.

And to be fair, she- (audience laughing) To be fair, she has submitted six different impeachment resolutions for Joe Biden Biden, so- - Well, that's true.

- That's true, by the way.

- That is true.

But, you know, they're on the left.

Alexandria Ocasio Cortez came up, you know, out of the blue and has now become a big voice in your party, where 20 or 30 or 40 years ago someone who won a Democratic primary with 15,000 votes would not have her voice.

Is that good or bad for democracy, first of all?

And secondly, how do you think it's happened?

- Well, I'll answer the second question first.

I think it's happening in part for two reasons.

One is social media.

The people we've just mentioned just have these incredible followings; and the more outrageous you are, the more people you bring onto your social media platforms.

And so they have this ability to amplify that they didn't have when I was in... We didn't have much social... We had no social media when I was the Senate.

So that's the first thing.

The second thing is the primary systems today.

The primaries in most elections are by far the more important of the two elections.

You win the primary, it's a slam dunk in the general, so they play to their bases.

They wanna play to their bases to ensure they have that base support.

And so the more outrageous you can be, oftentimes the more you placate the base, and that really creates an enormous opportunity.

You know, and then I do think there are a lot of... Media, of course, Jonathan represents the, you know, what I think is the essence of good media.

But there are a lot of media platforms that really play to the spectacular, and they love to amplify the spectacular; and so they can play into that as well.

So it's not just the social media, it's cable news and all of that.

So they get platforms that just didn't exist before.

Is that good?

No, I don't think it is.

- I mean, I don't think it's necessarily bad to have new blood that can come in and have an impact.

I don't know if the glory days of having to, you know, be in the Senate for 30 years before having the ability to have, you know, much of an impact is necessarily where you want to go back to.

But the problem it's all for the sake of exposure.

I mean, it's all... You know, it's all the play into... You know, with the right: "It's gonna own the libs.

The more outrageous we can be, the better."

And if it's not substantive, if it's based on, you know, finding a way to get more attention, to get more famous, to raise more money, which is what too often it is, it's a problem.

- So just closing here now.

What's the average citizen supposed to take from this?

What should the average citizen do in consuming media and in this getting involved as far as, you know, civic activity?

- Let me just offer one, and I'm sure Senator Daschle has more valuable advice on this than me.

But I would say one thing in my advice to all of you here is take some time to try to understand the other side.

Expose yourself to opinions that challenge your own.

I think that one of the challenges that we have have in our country is that we can all have our own set of information streams that reaffirm our own biases and our own opinion and don't challenge us.

And I think it's really, really problematic.

I mean, get out and... You know, if you're a, you know, diehard conservative, you know, spend some time watching MSNBC.

If you are, you know, a born, you know, liberal and can't stand anything... Take some time and watch some FOX and get a sense.

And that's, by the way, very simplistic.

Those are the two.

But it's beyond that.

You know, get out there, talk to people, try to understand where others are coming from, and then we can get back to what you're trying to do, which is create civil discord.

But too many people only here an echo chamber.

I mean, this candidate, the Republican candidate for... And again, this is not a partisan thing, but my example here is the Republican candidate in Arizona for secretary of state who...

He said in an interview just in this past week with "Time Magazine," he was asked, you know, "Would you certify Joe Biden's victory if he runs again and wins in Arizona?

Would you certify that victory as the secretary of state?"

And he said, "Well, if there were no fraud, and it was totally safe, you know.

I'm obligated to certify, you know, only an accurate, no-fraud election."

He was like, "But what you're asking is a fantasy.

I mean, how is it that nobody I've ever talked to has ever admitted that they voted for Joe Biden?"

That's a problem.

If he's never spoken to anybody that voted for Joe Biden and he's gonna be, like, maybe the guy in charge of running the election, I mean, that's a bigger problem.

But for citizens, get out there and, you know, try to understand where the other side's coming from.

- I wanna share one anecdote that kind of relates to something you were talking about earlier with regard to transitions.

I'll never forget, 1993, Bill Clinton was just elected, beat an incumbent president.

I went to the inaugural.

It was a big deal, of course, when you get the opportunity to sit up there and it's just the ceremonial extraordinary experience, you get chills just to sit up there.

I was walking out of that inauguration with Justice Scalia, and I'll never forget what he said to me as we were walking out, he said, "We've just seen the transfer of power from one political party to the next, and not a shot was fired."

And I'm thinking, after January 6th, how important that observation really was and how important it is for all of us to take seriously the challenges that we're facing in democracy today.

And I've always told every student group I think I've ever spoken to, and I did it again today, I said, "Democracy only leaves us two options: we either have to fight for it, as they're doing right now in Ukraine, or we have to work at it."

And it's not a spectator experience, it requires us to work at it.

It isn't just our votes, it's our engagement, it's our determination to work with others, to persuade others, to involve others, to work at this democracy.

And if we don't, I fear we may have to fight for it someday.

So let's all commit to working at it in whatever way we can to ensure that it stays as strong as it has for all these years.

- And just to follow on that.

You have an interesting story to tell about from an ex staffer.

- Oh, absolutely.

Thanks for reminding me.

Well, we've talked about... Tonight we've talked about 9/11 and we've also talked about January 6th.

One of my staff was with me on 9/11.

And as Jonathan so eloquently described, we literally ran out of the building, ran out of the building.

And Chuck mentioned leaving shoes.

Well, I remember Senator Byrd grabbing as many of the Senate papers as he could, and this is a man in his 80s, running out of the Capitol with just this bundle of papers, and just because we didn't... We were told a plane was coming to due to the Capitol what it had already done to the Pentagon.

So that was 9/11.

On January 6th, that staff person's daughter had the opportunity and the responsibility of carrying that electoral box into the Senate.

And when the attackers came, like her mother, she ran out of the building, 19 years later.

What an irony.

- Well, it's been great to be with you folks.

I hope you've enjoyed it tonight.

They've asked me to read something.

"In appreciation of Jonathan's appearance here tonight, the Daschle Center will be making two $5,000 gifts on his behalf.

The first $5,000 will go towards scholarships for students involved with student media, primarily the collegiate here at SDSU.

Another 5,000 will be given to South Dakota News Watch, which is an independent nonprofit organization committed to reporting the most important statewide news stories.

South Dakota News Watch was started in 2017 and is funded by private donations and foundations."

Thank you.

(lively music) (attendees applauding)