[FEMALE NARRATOR] Funding
for Overheard with Evan Smith

is provided in part by
Hillco Partners, a Texas

government affairs consultancy.

The Alice Kleberg
Reynolds Foundation.

Claire and Carl
Stuart, and by Entergy.

[EVAN SMITH] I'm Evan Smith,

they're senior
writers for Politico

and the coauthors of its must
read Playbook newsletters.

Their first book,
instantly a best seller,

is "The Hill to Die On:
The Battle for Congress

and the Future of
Trump's America".

They're Anna Palmer
and Jake Sherman.

This is Overheard.

Let's be honest, is this
about the ability to learn

or is this about the experience

of not having been
taught properly?

How have you avoided what
has befallen other nations

in Africa? You could say
that he made his own bed

but you caused him
to sleep in it.

You saw a problem and
over time took it on

Let's start with

the sizzle before
we get to the steak.

Are you gonna run for President?

I think I just got an
F from you, actually.

This is Overheard.

(audience cheering)

[SMITH] Jake, Anna, welcome.

[ANNA PALMER and JAKE
SHERMAN] Thanks for having us.

[SMITH] Congratulations, I'm
so happy to see you succeed.

It's good when good
people succeed.

[SHERMAN] We'll take
that as a compliment.

[SMITH] I don't like it so
much when bad people succeed,

which happens. This book was
26 months of reporting, right?

Did you know, did you
know 26 months ago,

did you know when you
decided to write this book

that Congress was going
to be so off the rails?

[PALMER] I don't think we knew

how crazy it was going to get.

I think we knew it was
going to be interesting.

[SMITH] You're in the position
of praying for crazy, right?

We've got a book,
we hope it's crazy.

Bad for the country,
good for us.

[PALMER] I mean, I think
what really is true though,

is you had Donald
Trump, change candidate,

change election saying
he's gonna up end

the way Washington works.
You had Republicans

controlling everything
for the first time

in a long time,
salivating, trying to think

about what deals
they could get done.

And you knew there was
gonna be a lot of drama,

because Republicans are
probably gonna lose the House.

[SMITH] Donald Trump may
have told 10,000 lies

but "I'm gonna up end
everything" was true.

[SHERMAN] Yeah it was, but
remember there was another

candidate who said
he was gonna do that.

And it was Barack Obama,
and Washington is a city

much like Austin or any
kind of power center

that doesn't change so easily.
[SMITH] Resistant to change.

[SHERMAN] Right, and what
we didn't know though,

was that in that period,
from Election Day 2016

'til 2018, crazy
stuff would happen.

We didn't know that
because of Donald Trump.

We knew that because
we had covered Congress

for a decade and we
had written about

the craziest things
we'd ever imagined.

[SMITH] Except, it
exceeded expectations.

[SHERMAN] Yes, right.
[PALMER] I mean, there were

things that happened, whether
it was Brett Kavanaugh,

I don't think we would
have ever said and thought,

oh, we're gonna have a Supreme
Court nomination chapter.

Or all the sexual harassment
stuff that happened

and really permeated
Capitol Hill

for several of the months,
and then the shut down

and the immigration
fight I think,

was crazier than anybody,
way more dramatic

than anybody would have thought.

[SHERMAN] But we did know we
had a Speaker of the House,

Paul Ryan, who not
hated the president,

but during the campaign,
certainly didn't

see eye to eye with the
president or with the candidate

at the time. And we had
Nancy Pelosi who was

trying to get power again.
And we had Mitch McConnell

who would be able to
try to use the president

to try to achieve his
ends, so we had a mix

of power, people who were
in positions of power

who were gonna benefit
from Donald Trump.

[SMITH] Well, the key
element to any good story

is great characters,
and you had the absolute

best characters, probably
more than you could

have ever hoped for.
[PALMER] We had some really good

advice early on which was
saying, you really need

to pick the characters
and follow them.

And so you had the
kind of the characters

that you thought for
sure right, Donald Trump,

Nancy Pelosi, mentioned
Paul Ryan, Mitch McConnell.

But then you had the Freedom
Caucus, which is just

ripe for you know --
[SMITH] If you're a political

journalist, the Freedom
Caucus is Christmas every day.

Isn't it?
[SHERMAN] Yes, but you know

they're actually, they're
close to the president,

but they couldn't
be more media savvy.

I mean, I spent so much
time with Jim Jordan

and Mark Meadows, I
traveled with them.

I went to visit Jim Jordan
at his home in Ohio.

They are really people who
respect what the press does.

And it might sound
ironic, because they are

close allies of the
president, but they give a lot

of access to reporters
and really try to explain

what they're up to.
[SMITH] Does writing a book

like this today, when
everything is being told to us

Anna, in real time, we are
watching the events play out

at a kind of microsecond
level, as never before.

In the old days you
know, you'd write a book

that was about the
political campaign.

The sort of standard
deal where we're not

gonna report any
of the stuff until

after the campaign
and it would hold.

You say in the book
that you did interviews

over the course of all
this, and you had certain

conditions that
people you talked to

agreed to, who were gonna
not report some of the stuff

until afterwards but,
how does this stuff hold

in this era for
as long as it did?

[PALMER] I think it was kind
of terrifying as first time

reporters that were doing
this, but I do think

upon reflection, we
benefited from the fact

that the media is always
moving on to the next story

and that Donald Trump,
the president, takes up

so much oxygen in Washington.
And this is really

a book about Congress
in the era of Trump.

And so, people really
gave us a lot of access

because we were
reconstructing things,

and it wasn't gonna
impact the election

or the next vote the next
day. They knew that they had

months, even over a year
before it was gonna come out.

[SMITH] The idea that we're
being distracted, Jake,

as much as we are by events,
I mean things happen today

and in the old days they
would have had hang time

on the front page of a paper
or on the evening news.

One day, two days, three days,
literally five minutes pass,

something else pushes
a major story off

of the front page. You benefit
from that sort of, don't you?

[SHERMAN] Huge, I mean
I watch good reporters,

great reporters, reporters
that should be sinking their

teeth into meaty issues
and projects like this

on Capitol Hill be chasing
members of Congress

around saying "What do you
think of the president's

most recent tweet? What
do you think of this?"

And we were able to, to an
extent, step back and say,

"Okay, well, while this is
happening, I'm gonna go meet

with Mark Meadows about
what his conversations were

with his friends,
with his colleagues,

what he thinks
about the president.

We weren't asking them
to reflect backward,

we were asking them
to say, in the moment,

what are you thinking right
now? And just by showing

an interest in their
work, they had a buy-in

in it too, I think,
was part of the --

[PALMER] You know I totally
agree, and I think the other

thing that we really
benefited from

is because members of Congress,

I mean they feel like they
have a great story to tell.

They are working for longer,
decades in Washington

where a president comes in
four years, eight years.

And most of the time, there's
so much more attention

the press plays on
the White House,

that we were saying
no, we want your story.

[SMITH] Right, well the
president is, as a general rule,

temporary and we,
including Congress,

the institution, are permanent.

But this president is
not just any president.

And in fact, you got an
opportunity to talk to him

for this book, and basically,
as you say in the book,

he wants everything
to be about him.

The interview you did
with him about Congress

and about this here, he
basically turned everything

back on him.
[SHERMAN] He did. I think

the thing about him that
we found most interesting,

a few things, he's much
more personally engaging --

[SMITH] Yeah yeah, talk about
that, because most of us

out in the world think
we have a sense of what

he's like up close, but you
actually have been up close.

So what's --
[SHERMAN] And we're not

experts on him, but I can
tell you our reflections

from our experience.
[SMITH] You've been in the room

though, yeah.
[SHERMAN] He's very interested

in people. He's very
interested in talking shop.

And you wouldn't expect
that because this is a guy

who wasn't involved in
politics for a long time.

And he expects
backbreaking loyalty.

And we write this in the
book, but doesn't return any.

He expects people to jump
off proverbial bridges

for him. Yet when it
comes time to return that

he's not always there
for that person.

And even those members
of Congress who expect

that loyalty from
him don't get it.

[PALMER] Yeah, I think we also,

I think if given the opportunity

he would spend
multiple hours a day

talking to reporters, he
likes talking to reporters.

He's very media savvy, he's
done it for a really long time.

[SMITH] Even out of the
news organizations that he

takes out after on Twitter,
the failing New York Times.

But then he calls Maggie
Haberman, or the Bezos

Amazon Washington Post,
and he calls Bob Costa.

[PALMER] I mean I would venture,
I don't have his chronicle,

but I would venture that
this president has given

more interviews in the
two and a half years

that he's been president,
to the New York Times,

than Barack Obama
did for all eight.

[SMITH] And probably broadly
more accessible to the press

than Obama was in
the sense that he may

not be doing formal press
conferences, but under

the helicopter blades,
or this gaggle, right?

[PALMER] Absolutely, I
mean he is unlike anything

we've ever seen in terms of
one, you have that access,

but then you also have a real
time with his Twitter feed

how he is feeling in the
moment, which is really

something that
reporters never get

at a principle of that level.

[SMITH] Do you consider
his Twitter feed, Jake,

to be legitimate as
a source of news?

[SHERMAN] Yeah I find
the argument befuddling
that it's not.

I don't think it's an
unbiased and unvarnished

source of truth.
[SMITH] But he's the president,

he said it, it's news, period.

[SHERMAN] Yes, 100 percent.

Just to follow up
on what Anna said,

I think that the interesting
thing about the president

is that he is always in
search of elite approval.

Approval from the
New York Times.

Approval from big networks.
[SMITH] He's still a kid

who grew up in Queens
and he had sort of,

bridge, bus, and tunnel
envy of the big city.

[SHERMAN] Exactly. And
he says that, he says,

"Can't I get a good story out of

my hometown paper
once in a while?

I'm a kid from Queens."
I mean, he said this.

You can go back and
look at the transcripts

of the interviews of
the New York Times.

Which people, when I tell
some of my conservative

friends this, they just
are like, what is he doing?

Why does he care so much
about what the Times says?

They wanna take him down.
[SMITH] Because he's who

he always was. He was
the kid from Queens.

[SHERMAN] Exactly, exactly.

[SMITH] Is he nice?
[PALMER] Oh, I think he is

very personable, you
can tell he was in the

hospitality industry
for his entire career.

That comes across, I think he
seems genuinely interested,

whether he is or not.

I mean, he'd talk about
golf courses with Jake

or different things
like that, yeah.

I think he tries to find a
commonality and a connection

with people.
[SHERMAN] I'll take you behind

the curtain for one
second, it was interesting.

So we had a few questions
we were able to ask

for Politico, for daily
consumption, but 99 percent

of our interview, or 90
percent is for the book.

And we, at a certain point,
one of his handlers said,

"All right Mr. President,
that was all for the book.

Now are the questions that
could be used at any time."

Kind of like warning
him what the story was.

And he said, "I don't
care, they could use

all of this right now."
It's funny how he's

just, he loves the back
and forth with reporters.

And especially because
we weren't there

to get into a fight
with him. We were there

to ask him about his
view of other people

and people that
he interacts with.

[SMITH] So on the subject
of his view of other people,

I wonder if he's not his
own worst enemy sometimes,

in terms of how he takes
after people he needs.

So Paul Ryan is a great example.

Paul Ryan is as much
an important character

in this book as any
character in this book is.

And the president at
various points was pretty

unkind publicly and
privately to Paul Ryan.

Who after all was
Speaker of the House,

the Republican leader in one
of two chambers of Congress.

He needed Paul Ryan
to be on the same page

with him to a large degree,
to get anything accomplished.

And yet he felt perfectly
comfortable taking

out after him.
[PALMER] I just think

you have to realize that
as Jake mentioned earlier,

in the beginning, Paul
Ryan was not with him

on the campaign trail. [SMITH]
He was still Speaker though.

[PALMER] Yes, he was still
Speaker, but there was not even

a single photo of the two
of them during the entire

campaign season. Paul Ryan
was the Chairman of the

Republican Convention,
and this is your nominee.

There's not a single photo
of the two of them together.

I also think that
you have to realize

that Paul Ryan let the
president down early,

very early, he came
up to Trump Tower

right after the election
saying "This is what I

wanna do, we're gonna do
healthcare, that's gonna make

room for tax reform and
then we're gonna do this,

we're gonna get all this
passed." And he had this whole

kind of process laid
out, healthcare --

[SMITH] Didn't happen.
[PALMER] Inflamed, and so all

of a sudden, he's getting
killed in the first

couple months of his
presidency, and it's because

this guy promised
him, the Speaker,

that he was gonna be the guy

that was gonna get the job done.

[SHERMAN] I have a lot
of thoughts about this.

And so does Anna,
as you can tell.

Donald Trump ran
a family company

where he didn't need anyone's
approval to do anything.

[SMTIH] People think that the
Trump organization was big.

It was actually
pretty small, right?

[SHERMAN] And he was the
sole deciding factor,

from what we know. [SMITH]
Right, everything we think.

[SHERMAN] Couldn't speak
to his corporate structure.

[SMITH] I think it's all
Eric. We're gonna discover

in the last scene of the
movie, it was Eric all along.

[SHERMAN] Right, and Donald's
a robot or something.

So I think when he
came to Washington

and had to deal with
Congressional committees

and the Speaker of the House.
[PALMER] Process.

[SHERMAN] In Washington --
[SMITH] He thought he was

running the America
Organization, didn't he?

[SHERMAN] Exactly, and
there's this amazing scene

we have in our book where
Jared Kushner is in a room

with all of, a bunch of
Republican leadership aides

and he says, they're talking
about the committee process.

The process by which
Congress has been operating

for you know, 150, 200
years, and Jared says,

that sounds inefficient,
we'll get to that later.

As if he felt like, this
was something where he could

change the process --
[SMITH] Wave a wand

and everything fixes. [SHERMAN]
And it, but by the way,

this isn't so far removed
from Barack Obama,

who also thought, who
had similar kind of,

who had been in Washington
but his administration

didn't like the
slow pace either.

[SMITH] Right. The upside
of having an outsider

as president is that
the person is not bound

by what's always been.
The downside of having

an outsider as president,
is that the person

is not bound by what's
always been, right?

I mean, there's an
upside to a downside,

downside to the upside.
[PALMER] Yeah, I mean,

I think we've seen that
to the fits and starts

of his first two and
a half years, right?

In some ways the
audacity of tax reform

and thinking that
they could get it done

as fast as they
could get it done

would never have happened
for most politicians

who would say, "No,
that's gonna take,

you know, at least two
years, four years, you know.

We're gonna have to have
all the committees."

This president pushed
that along in a way

and believed that
it could happen.

Where most people who
were steeped in politics

would say, "Oh that's,
we just can't do that.

[SMITH] Do you think that
in the end, Jake, Anna,

whatever happens next,
whether it's after 2020

or after 2024 that we
go back to something

that looks more
normal? [SHERMAN] I
don't know it's tough

to say. We keep saying
to people that we

don't know how
long this tale is.

And we did an event
with Maggie Haberman

as you mentioned in
New York, where we got

a similar question,
and it was very,

we kind of struggled
with that answer.

We don't know. I don't
think everything will

go back to being
normal, or won't go back

to being as it was
before. It's impossible

to say what's normal,
and it's impossible

to say how the next president
will use social media.

[SMITH] Well, but
you know what I mean.

So if Mitt Romney had
been elected in 2012,

or Jeb Bush, low energy Jeb,
had been elected in 2016,

we would have seen something
that looked more normal.

You had disagreements
within normal parameters,

right, as opposed to
this complete abrogation

of every bit of normal
behavior in approach

to governing, right?
[PALMER] I don't know though.

I push back a little bit on that

because when you look at
some of these new members

that are coming, the freshmen
that have been elected,

I think they are
much more comfortable

and authentic in terms
of using Twitter,

and they are much less
beholden to, both sides,

much less beholden to
the party structure.

In the same way that
Nancy Pelosi has a lot

of problems on her
hands because she's got

a lot of members that
haven't spent their entire

career in politics.
[SMITH] So in some ways

the elimination of
what we think of

as normal behavior is a
little bit on the president,

but it's also on AOC.
[SHERMAN] Sure.

Right, and some would argue
that that's a response,

obviously, and that's
a direct response.

Don't know the answer to that.

I do think though,
when you mentioned Jeb,

and you mentioned Mitt
Romney, what a lot of

Republicans tell us
behind the scenes is,

ignore the noise,
ignore all of that,

and look at what he's
done, is it different

than anything Mitt Romney
or Jeb Bush would have done?

We had very high level
people tell us that

in interviews that we had.
[SMITH] It was substantive?

[SHERMAN] Substantively. [SMITH]
Look, Trump, on the judges,

what Conservatives will
say is, "I might not like

his tweets, I might not
like the way he deals

with people, but how could
I not like the judges?

How can I not like
the tax cuts?"

[SHERMAN] Right and the
regulation-- [SMITH] Regulation.

[SHERMAN] --cut back,
and all those things.

There's a point to that,
but that's like you know,

eating a dish that you
don't like and saying,

"Well, at least there
was bread in it,

and you like bread."
You know what I mean?

It doesn't make
sense on the whole.

[SMITH] So Speaker Pelosi's
name has come up, Anna,

and the return of Nancy
Pelosi to the Speakership

is another significant
narrative thread in this book.

And you gotta admire
her, whether you like her

or don't like her, whether
you agree with everything

that she says or does or you
don't, she's a survivor, right?

[PALMER] Absolutely, I mean, I
covered her first Speakership

out of the depths
of the minority,

and I think truly if they
had not won the majority back

she was done. She is
somebody who we said

this about her and
Mitch McConnell a lot,

but I think it holds so
true, she picks something,

her goal at the end point,
so does Mitch McConnell.

And they steadfastly
work towards that goal

and wait to get
people towards it.

She said she was
gonna become Speaker,

she outworked it, I mean
there was a lot of noise,

people wanted a lot of
things and she got it.

And I think, even when you
look at how the president

reacts to her, in our
interview with her,

he has a real sort of
reverence about her ability

to get things done and
keep Democrats together.

[SMITH] Yeah, I mean in some
ways, Jake, the thought was,

the best thing that could
happen to the president

is that Nancy Pelosi
become Speaker again.

He would at least have a
foil. But there's kind of

an inverse to that, which is
that she's not afraid of him,

she's not cowed by
him, she's not bending.

She's a lot tougher
versus the president,

than Paul Ryan ever was
or would have been, right?

[SHERMAN] It's a
very complicated
relationship and dynamic.

The White House, in the
lead up to the election,

made the case to
everybody in Washington,

that it's okay if
Democrats take the House.

Republicans are too complicated.

We can't get anything through --

[SMITH] Right, well
the president said
he admired the fact

that at least Democrats
hold together, our guys

don't hold together,
but they hold together.

[SHERMAN] He said
that, and he also said,

"Now I can just say
go get me a bill

and I'll see if I'll sign it."

Obviously, over simplification

of the legislative
process, and now he has all

these investigations, but
yes he does have a foil.

But as you said, I mean
Pelosi just has no problem

looking him in the eye
and saying "No. This is

where I am, and you're not
gonna get what you want to get."

And if you're a
Republican or a Democrat,

as you said, you have
to admire Pelosi because

she's able to get things done.

You might not like what
she's able to get done.

But she has an incredible savvy
of the legislative process.

[SMITH] At least so far,
since she was put back into

the Speaker's office, she
has been pretty effective,

in terms of slowing
the president's
agenda and effectively

everything in this
administration to a crawl

if not a halt.
[PALMER] Yeah, I mean, I think

we would both believe that
she's the most powerful person

in Washington right now,
things do not happen

unless she--
[SMITH] But for her.

[PALMER] But for her. [SMITH]
Elections have consequences.

[SHERMAN] Big time.
[SMITH] The oldest song

in the world, right?
[SHERMAN] I think also

there's a dynamic, the
dynamic that you spoke of

which is, she's able to
keep her troops together,

and nobody else can, and
Donald Trump is like,

why don't I have somebody
like that, who can keep

their people together?
And I also think,

to be honest, she
is a powerful woman,

and that is a
dynamic in Washington

that a lot of people
have been thrown off by,

in her caucus too, right,
I mean big newcomers

to her caucus have been
thrown off by that at times.

[PALMER] Yeah, she also benefits
from having Donald Trump

as a foil. If there's
one thing that Democrats

can agree on, is that
they don't like--

[SMITH] America's fun couple.
[SHERMAN] I would argue,

that she benefits from--
[SMITH] Benefits from her.

[SHERMAN] Because she
has much more knowhow.

[SMITH] On this question of
the Democrats being able to

hold their folks together
and the Republicans not,

let me now push
back gently and say,

where are the Republicans
breaking with this president

as evidence of the Republicans

not holding their guys together?

Does he have to literally, as
he said during the campaign,

shoot somebody in the
middle of 5th Avenue

for a Republican
senator to cross him?

I mean, he really
has benefited from

a unanimity of support
among Republicans

in the Senate, in a
way that I don't know

that anybody could
have imagined.

What does he have to
do that is out of sync

with our expectations,
or with what's normal

for one of these
guys to cross him?

[PALMER] I would say
a couple of things.

I think one, there
have been some moments,

whether it was the
national emergency.

[SMITH] John McCain.
[PALMER] John McCain.

You also had started to
see on the Federal Reserve,

when he put up some of the
nominees that they didn't like.

But I also think, when
we travel for this book,

what you really see is, if
you're a Republican in Congress

and you go back home, you are
not getting the conversation

you just had, it is, why
are you not defending

this president more. They
love him, he's a rock star.

So I think there's a real
friction there between

what people like
yourself are saying

and then what they're
getting back home.

[SMITH] I mean, but of course
if it takes Steve Moore

and Herman Caine for
the Republicans to break

with this president, that's
an extreme case, is it not?

[SHERMAN] It is, but they broke
with him on foreign policy,

on some of the wars
in the Middle East.

They've broken with him on--
[SMITH] They haven't sustained

a veto though have they?
[SHERMAN] They've not.

And that's a numbers problem,
more than an ideological

problem, I would
argue, but Anna's point

is the overwhelming thing that
we've learned in this book,

one of the overwhelming
lessons is that

members of Congress go
home, and they couldn't

be close enough
to this president.

[SMITH] They're voting
with their districts.

[SHERMAN] Oh my god, and I know

a couple members of Congress,

I mean, there were
a lot of retirements

this cycle, in the
House of Representatives

among Republicans. One
member who retired said,

"My district is very red,
I can't live with myself

going home and having
to be with him as much

as I have to be with him to win
election." This person left.

So I think it's a, I think
people tend to not remember

how popular he is
in some districts,

in our gerrymandered country.
[SMITH] Right.

We just have a
couple minutes left.

We did the last 26
months of reporting.

I want you to look at the
next 26 months of reporting.

Who is the Democratic nominee
for president gonna be?

(audience laughing)

[SHERMAN] Anna Palmer.
[PALMER] Yeah, right.

[SMITH] Palmer, Sherman,
yay. [PALMER] Take a
ticket in for fall.

No, I mean, I think, maybe
I'll speak for both of us,

but I'll definitely
speak for myself.

After the 2016 election--
[SMITH] Don't predict.

[PALMER] Reporters should get

out of the prediction business.

[SMITH] Yeah, but
do you have a sense,

let me rephrase. After
the last election,

are the Democrats stupid
enough to put two white men

on the ticket? [SHERMAN]
I remember, by the way,

some of our editors at
Politico saying in 2012

there would never be two
white people on the ticket.

I would have to imagine
that there's always a chance

but it doesn't seem to be
the most appealing option--

[SMITH] How about,
let me, two white men?

Will there be a woman on the
ticket this next election?

[PALMER] I would think so.
[SMITH] And is that because they

ought to or because they
know that they have no choice

but to.
[PALMER] It's partially

a numbers game, you also
look at who are the people

that are running for
president, and there's a number

of women who are
running and are--

[SMITH] More than
qualified to serve

as Vice President or President.

[SHERMAN] Here's my
big question, the
president won in part

because voters in my estimation,

believed that he was
uniquely qualified

to unlock a city that was
mired in gridlock for,

choose however many number
of years you wanna say.

Do those voters
believe that again?

[SMITH] Has he
done it, you think?

[SHERMAN] I think
in some ways he has,

in many ways he has not.
Like every presidency

it's a mixed bag, and this
bag is more mixed than others.

[SMITH] But you know,
Anna, what I see is,

there's still gridlock,
the swamp is full,

but also, the country
added 236,000 jobs

in the month of April,
and the unemployment rate

right now is 3.6%.
[SHERMAN] 46-year low.

[SMITH] If he can just
keep his mouth shut,

and run on the economy,
the next election

might be very different.
[PALMER] He was tweeting today

"Jobs, jobs, jobs." I
mean, I think you see him

return to that, but he
also is very savvy--

[SMITH] Yeah, but later it
will be "Lou Dobbs, Lou Dobbs,

Lou Dobbs." I mean,
that's it, right?

[PALMER] I think we
underestimate him.

I think people think he's just
sitting there and going off

and not really
having a strategy.

I actually think he does
believe in what he's doing

whether it's going against
Mueller, whether it's

what he's tweeting about.
He thinks he's smarter

than all of us, at the
@Twitter, and at keeping

his base together.
[SMITH] Hard to argue with him

at this point, honestly, right?
[SHERMAN] It is, and if you

talk to Kevin McCarthy, the
number one House Republican,

he says, "It's like Bill
Clinton in 1998. Good economy,

under siege by the opposition
party. Some believe

that they will overreach.
He believes that's a recipe

for reelection." Those two
things which Bill Clinton had.

[SMITH] Will there be
impeachment proceedings?

[SHERMAN] Doesn't matter to
me, because it shouldn't matter

to Democrats either,
because what Democrats

are doing now is just as
damaging to the president

in that, constant
investigations, no matter

if you call it impeachment
or not, has the same

political risk for Donald Trump

and dominates the news cycle.
[PALMER] I think Democrats

are gonna turn their fire on
Attorney General Bill Barr.

I think that--
[SHERMAN] For the moment.

[PALMER] For the moment,
but you can see contempt,

you can see impeachment, I
think when they are able to

train, Democratic leadership
is much more comfortable

training their attention
on that then the president.

[SMITH] But you know, a year
ago there was a question

in the middle of the
Mueller investigation,

would this president even
be on the ticket in 2020?

That seems assured
at this point.

[SHERMAN] Yes.

[PALMER] I think that was
people's wishful thinking.

[SMITH] But nonetheless,
you know, if you don't have

dreams, you have nightmares,
for a lot of people,

the thought of the
president somehow

being ensnared by Mueller
was a present thought

or possibility and now,
he really does seem

to have gotten on the other
side of that, hasn't he?

[PALMER] I think so.
[SHERMAN] And he's got

the headline he wants, which is,

no collusion from Bob Mueller.

[SMITH] Total exoneration,
whatever he wants,

whether it turns out to be
legitimately the case or not,

he's kind of survived that--
[PALMER] And that ran on

newspapers across the country.
[SHERMAN] I think one of the

geniuses of Donald Trump
that history will notice

is that he just talks
about whatever he wants

the story to be, no
matter what the story is

to other people,
or to news outlets,

he'll go out into a
rally and say whatever

he wants and just plow ahead,
and it sets the narrative

in a more firm way than I think

almost any politician
we've ever seen.

[SMITH] Well yeah, it's an

extraordinary moment
to be doing this.

And what an extraordinary
moment to read this book

and to get the back story,
and to read you all every day.

You guys are telling
us every single day

what we need to know.
[SHERMAN] Thanks, Evan.

[SMITH] Thank you
Jake, Anna, good luck.

Give them a big hand. Jake
Sherman and Anna Palmer.

(applause)

[SMITH] We'd love to have
you join us in the studio.

Visit our website at
klru.org/overheard

to find invitations
to interviews, Q&As

with our audience and
guests and an archive

of past episodes.

[SHERMAN] Republicans held

Eric Holder in contempt in 2012.
[PALMER] Over Fast and Furious.

[SHERMAN] Over the Fast and
furious gun running probe.

And Eric Holder
didn't leave office,

and neither will Bill Barr.
And a court eventually

told the Department of
Justice that they needed

to fork over documents to
Congress, and Congress won.

[NARRATOR] Funding for
Overheard with Evan Smith

is provided in part
by Hillco Partners,

a Texas government
affairs consultancy,

the Alice Kleberg
Reynolds Foundation,

Claire and Carl
Stuart, and by Entergy.

(bells chiming)