WEBVTT 00:00.420 --> 00:04.540 JUDY WOODRUFF: It has been nearly six months since Donald Trump left Washington, after 00:04.540 --> 00:07.060 losing the presidential race to Joe Biden. 00:07.060 --> 00:12.060 And, for months, the former president has falsely claimed the election was rigged against 00:12.140 --> 00:17.140 him. But his defeat and his chaotic, controversial final year in office is the focus of a new 00:18.390 --> 00:23.390 book, "Frankly, We Did Win This Election: The Inside Story of How Trump Lost, " by Michael 00:25.070 --> 00:27.180 Bender of The Wall Street Journal. 00:27.180 --> 00:29.789 His book is out today. And he joins us now. 00:29.789 --> 00:32.430 Michael Bender, welcome to the "NewsHour." 00:32.430 --> 00:37.430 It was a famous quote the president gave as he was talking on television after it was 00:40.309 --> 00:45.309 becoming clear he had lost, but he goes before the American people to say: I won. 00:45.879 --> 00:48.232 It was the beginning of this process of denial, wasn't it? 00:48.232 --> 00:49.850 MICHAEL C. BENDER, Author, "Frankly, We Did Win This Election: The Inside Story of How 00:49.850 --> 00:51.329 Trump Lost": Yes, that's right. 00:51.329 --> 00:55.850 I mean, it was an unscripted line uttered after 2:00 in the morning. He didn't even 00:55.850 --> 01:00.850 want to come down to address the nation and the guests at the White House, where he was 01:01.729 --> 01:04.460 planning a victory party. 01:04.460 --> 01:09.460 And he decided on stage to blurt out that he had won the election, obviously quite falsely, 01:12.079 --> 01:16.359 And that set off a chain of reactions for the next six months into 2021. 01:16.359 --> 01:20.840 JUDY WOODRUFF: I mean, the book is just a remarkable collection of stories. 01:20.840 --> 01:25.840 You follow the administration, the campaign. You spent -- you had a number of interviews 01:26.890 --> 01:31.890 with him in person. You talked to, what, over 150 people working for him. And you paint 01:32.590 --> 01:37.590 this picture of this chaotic, disorganized campaign that never really could settle on 01:38.380 --> 01:43.380 a message or a strategy, and surrounded by people who basically didn't stand up to this 01:46.539 --> 01:47.539 president. 01:47.539 --> 01:52.229 MICHAEL C. BENDER: This book focuses on 2020, but it is informed by over five years of covering 01:52.229 --> 01:57.229 him and the people around him, and use a lot of the stories to give context to what happened 01:57.999 --> 01:59.539 in 2020. 01:59.539 --> 02:04.539 And you mentioned the chaos of the Trump administration. It was beyond chaos. And the people closest 02:05.319 --> 02:10.319 to him thought he was, at different points of the year, a danger to the country and tried 02:11.879 --> 02:16.879 various ways to stop him or to keep him in line and tried to act as guardrails, some 02:17.840 --> 02:19.620 without very much success. 02:19.620 --> 02:24.319 JUDY WOODRUFF: And, as we said, many of them were afraid to stand up to him. But, as you 02:24.319 --> 02:26.150 point out, Michael Bender, some were. 02:26.150 --> 02:31.150 You have that really fascinating episode in here where he is with General Mark Milley, 02:32.280 --> 02:37.159 the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. This is after the death of George Floyd. There 02:37.159 --> 02:42.159 are protests all around the country. The president is saying to him and others, we need to crack 02:43.409 --> 02:48.409 their heads, talking about the protesters, shoot them if necessary. 02:49.540 --> 02:50.790 And Milley says no. 02:50.790 --> 02:53.019 MICHAEL C. BENDER: That's right. 02:53.019 --> 02:58.019 This is in June of 2020. If you recall, it's - - Trump opened up the year in 2020 really 03:00.090 --> 03:04.720 primed for reelection. Yes, he had just been impeached, but he survived it and was thriving. 03:04.720 --> 03:08.200 His poll numbers were as high as they had ever been. The issue that he wanted to run 03:08.200 --> 03:10.810 on was the economy. And the economy was red-hot. 03:10.810 --> 03:15.810 And then, suddenly, COVID struck, George Floyd was killed, and triggered massive civil rights 03:17.980 --> 03:22.800 protests. The economy tanked. And he struggled to find a message. And what played out was 03:22.800 --> 03:27.800 that he lashed out at the people around him. He tried to get back to his law and order 03:27.840 --> 03:29.989 image at any cost. 03:29.989 --> 03:34.730 And you're right. It fell to General Mark Milley. The top general in the world's most 03:34.730 --> 03:39.730 powerful military was the only one who could sit in front of Trump and tell him no. 03:40.209 --> 03:44.269 And there's one, I think, very resonant scene in the book. He points to the portrait of 03:44.269 --> 03:49.269 Abraham Lincoln behind Trump and tells him: "That, man, sir, had an insurrection. What 03:50.440 --> 03:52.879 we have is a protest." 03:52.879 --> 03:57.879 JUDY WOODRUFF: And this is when they were discussing whether to invoke the Insurrection 03:58.370 --> 03:59.370 Act. 03:59.370 --> 04:04.370 And you mentioned COVID., of course, all this taking place during the pandemic. It turns 04:05.060 --> 04:10.060 out, from your reporting, the president was tested -- had tested positive for COVID before 04:11.400 --> 04:16.400 it was made public, and went on to do a fund-raiser in Bedminster, New Jersey, where he has a 04:19.280 --> 04:20.280 home. 04:20.280 --> 04:22.490 Why did that -- why was that allowed to happen? 04:22.490 --> 04:27.490 MICHAEL C. BENDER: There was very few people around him at that point who were in a position 04:29.550 --> 04:30.550 to tell him no. 04:30.550 --> 04:35.550 He had -- anyone who was pushing back on the president -- this is year four in the administration 04:35.580 --> 04:40.040 - - was long gone, and even, you can argue, in those first three years, didn't happen 04:40.040 --> 04:41.360 all that effectively. 04:41.360 --> 04:46.100 So, on that morning, when his -- some of his senior aides -- one of his senior aides test 04:46.100 --> 04:51.100 positive, it's kind of chaos in the White House. And Trump -- this is new reporting 04:54.030 --> 04:59.030 in this book -- had several false positive tests throughout the year. And some -- several 04:59.750 --> 05:04.750 people tell me that Trump tested positive that morning and assumed it was false, and 05:06.110 --> 05:09.360 had another test show negative, and then he left her Bedminster. 05:09.360 --> 05:14.360 That account is disputed. But, Judy, even the fact that we have competing accounts of 05:15.610 --> 05:20.610 whether or not the president tested -- or tested positive for COVID the morning his 05:22.600 --> 05:27.600 - - one of his top aides was sick, I mean, is a story in itself and tells you a lot about 05:30.590 --> 05:35.590 the struggle to address one of the -- the biggest health crisis in the country in a 05:37.180 --> 05:38.180 century. 05:38.180 --> 05:43.180 JUDY WOODRUFF: There is a fair amount of -- a lot of time spent in the book, Michael Bender, 05:44.090 --> 05:49.090 on sort of the unraveling at the end, after the election results are known. 05:51.530 --> 05:56.530 People around the president, as we said, are just not able to say directly to him "You 05:57.670 --> 06:02.670 lost" in a way that he would even hear. And then you see the rise of Rudy Giuliani. 06:05.840 --> 06:07.180 What was going on at that moment? 06:07.180 --> 06:11.970 MICHAEL C. BENDER: People who were around him in a position to act as these guardrails 06:11.970 --> 06:16.970 never quite told him no directly. They always sort of left a little wiggle room that this 06:17.790 --> 06:20.430 president heard and latched on to. 06:20.430 --> 06:25.330 And so those first couple of weeks after the election, you had Vice President Mike Pence, 06:25.330 --> 06:30.330 you had Ronna McDaniel, the Republican National Committee woman, even Mark Milley, to a degree, 06:30.690 --> 06:34.970 leaving the Oval Office saying, you know what, the president just needs a little bit of space, 06:34.970 --> 06:39.970 give him time, and he will get to a -- he will get to this himself, he will find his 06:41.090 --> 06:42.810 own path out of this. 06:42.810 --> 06:47.810 But they gave him space. And what that did was create an opening for Rudy Giuliani and 06:48.170 --> 06:52.590 some of these characters to come in and tell the president exactly what he wanted to hear. 06:52.590 --> 06:57.030 JUDY WOODRUFF: We hear Donald Trump now teasing a lot about whether he's going to run for 06:57.030 --> 07:00.449 president again in 2024. 07:00.449 --> 07:05.449 How does that keep him at the center of what's going on in the Republican Party? And do you 07:06.580 --> 07:08.030 think he will run again? 07:08.030 --> 07:12.340 MICHAEL C. BENDER: Yes, I mean, that's where it comes back to, is -- you're right, Judy 07:12.340 --> 07:17.340 - - is, he wants to be the center of attention about what we're -- what people are talking 07:17.710 --> 07:22.450 about, about the subject of the headlines, right? 07:22.450 --> 07:27.050 And one of the things I try to do in the book here is show how Trump's priority from day 07:27.050 --> 07:32.050 one was to win reelection. And very few people around him shared that priority. They all 07:33.421 --> 07:38.090 had their different reasons for wanting to be around Trump, mostly their own personal 07:38.090 --> 07:39.970 reasons. 07:39.970 --> 07:44.970 But Trump is going to -- he has to wait to see what happens in 2022, because, right now, 07:46.300 --> 07:51.300 the Republican Party has a choice. Are they or are they not going to try to redefine themselves 07:52.510 --> 07:57.510 post-Trump? And how they answer that question will inform what Trump decides in 2024. 08:01.340 --> 08:06.340 And I think what this book does is provide new information and a new set of data points 08:06.720 --> 08:11.210 that shows that Republicans, when they make this decision, are doing it with their eyes 08:11.210 --> 08:16.210 wide open. They know who this president is and, after reading this book, what kind of 08:16.401 --> 08:17.890 political candidate he is. 08:17.890 --> 08:22.520 JUDY WOODRUFF: Well, it is a book full of astonishing stories, "Frankly, We Did Win 08:22.520 --> 08:26.280 This Election: The Inside Story of How Trump Lost." 08:26.280 --> 08:27.970 Michael Bender, thank you very much. 08:27.970 --> 08:28.810 MICHAEL C. BENDER: Thanks for having me.