00:00 David Plotz A lie, piled upon a lie, piled upon a slur, piled upon a lie. 00:05 On Friday, Donald Trump blithely abandoned the birtherist hate that has been the foundation of his political career. 00:12 Emily Bazelon Oh, no, he didn't. 00:13 David Plotz Well, we can talk about that. 00:15 So there was a hotel infomercial pretending to be a press conference. 00:19 And during this hotel infomercial to announce the launch of his new D.C. hotel, which looked appalling, by the way. 00:24 Emily Bazelon But got an hour of free media coverage wall to wall. 00:28 David Plotz He said that President Obama was born in the United States, period, walking away from his many-year campaign to slur the president and diminish him and delegitimize him. 00:40 So this is actually an endless campaign. 00:42 John, you had a fascinating interview with Donald Trump's campaign manager this weekend on Face the Nation. 00:47 He's sort of walking away from five years of lying about this. 00:51 Is there any consequence that he will bear politically for the years of lying? 00:55 I think there will be 00:58 John Dickerson Some for a couple of reasons, some direct, some indirect. 01:03 The main one is that the reluctant Republicans, the white college educated voters that Hillary Clinton, the Republicans have won for the last 50 election cycles that Hillary Clinton is now ahead with and will be ahead with undoubtedly by the election time. 01:16 Those are the voters who would be in the position to find this the most repugnant. 01:20 And just to remind people why this is repugnant, I went back and reread a great piece from 1941. 01:27 That's an essay in Reporting Civil Rights, the modern library collection of nonfiction on the civil rights era about a man trying to get registered to vote. 01:37 And it's all of the fake tests he's being given to delegitimize his right to vote. 01:45 And I also interviewed John Lewis at the African-American History and Cultural Museum. 01:48 So this is also quite in my mind, the pattern in American life where African-Americans were 01:54 Consistently denied the vote, citizenship, housing, education through false tests to strip away their legitimacy. 02:02 So that's the historical context of this. 02:06 So anyway, I think those voters are the ones to be most upset by his – by reminding everyone that he was the nation's chief birther for five years. 02:13 Then I think there's something that happened in the press coverage. 02:17 Both in his specifically naming that as a lie over five years and then the two other lies that he told, the first being that Hillary Clinton started this and we should spend a tiny bit of time walking through that. 02:30 And then the second lie is that he – and he said this both publicly and then also in a press statement – that he had – 02:37 Not been stoking this for racial reasons, although he had been quoted various places along the line saying this was great for Republicans and – but that instead what he'd been doing was going – was trying to get to the bottom of this issue and that he did get to the bottom of it by getting the president to provide his long-form birth certificate. 02:53 The problem with that is the president did so in 2011 and Donald Trump subsequent to 2011 consistently and repeatedly – 03:00 questioned the president's birth, questioned whether the birth certificate was a fraud. 03:05 So those were two new lies minted out of the first one. 03:08 And I think that brazenness created a new kind of press coverage and the naming of the word and use of the word lie in press coverage in The Washington Post on Face the Nation, in The New York Times, on the Associated Press in a way that I think is different from what we've seen before. 03:25 David Plotz Emily, do you think that he is going to have to own up to this talk about this? 03:31 He has not really done any antagonistic press since this has happened. 03:34 He's been avoiding press conferences, perhaps because of this or perhaps for other reasons. 03:38 Do you think that he will actually have a reckoning in front of journalists where he's going to have to talk about this more? 03:44 Or do you think, you know, he every time we've attempted to, you know, to nail that Jell-O, the Jell-O slips and it doesn't appear that anything sticks to him. 03:53 Is this a sticking thing? 03:55 Emily Bazelon Well, that's on journalists to keep holding him accountable. 03:58 I mean, he said, I believe on Wednesday that he had finally admitted that the birther controversy wasn't true because he was ready to get on with campaigning. 04:07 So whether the press lets him get on with campaigning or continues to ask questions about his role in all of this is up to the press. 04:16 Yeah. 04:16 In my view, this new lie about Hillary Clinton is just so devious and so Trumpian, right, that you then slide from attacking Barack Obama, of course, is not up for election, to using your own misdeeds to slam and tar Hillary Clinton and create some confusion in the mind of someone. 04:35 Simply by repeating the lies, I always worry that we are entrenching them in people's 04:40 Hearts and minds. 04:41 And that is the genius of Trump. 04:43 And we've seen it over and over again. 04:46 And I just find it as a reporter, as someone who devotes time to reporting facts like I don't know what to say. 04:53 It makes me want to strangle someone. 04:55 John Dickerson When you say repeating a lie, I think what you meant to say or I'm going to decide you meant to say. 05:00 Is repeating the lie for the purposes of rebuking it precisely. 05:03 Yes. 05:03 And that's a theory. 05:05 And this should actually come along. 05:06 We should have a better word for this, which is the strategic lie told in order to get it fact checked so that the underlying lie gets carried along in the course of the fact check. 05:17 But let's just run through the fact check super quickly on the way in which the Clinton campaign in 2008 was or was not associated with this idea. 05:25 There are three data points. 05:27 One is that a volunteer coordinator for the Iowa campaign forwarded an email that did not include the question about birtherism. 05:35 It raised issues about Barack Obama being a Muslim. 05:37 That person, once the email was forwarded, was fired by the campaign. 05:41 Hillary Clinton only knew about the firing, didn't know about anything else. 05:43 Remember, the underlying assertion here is that Hillary Clinton herself started – 05:46 Yeah, that's right. 06:04 And basically what Penn said was he's trying to be the Cosmo guy who's lived all over the world but regular American voters are going to like that you are like Mrs. America. 06:17 Yes. 06:18 They said from – what is it? 06:20 The middle class from the middle of America and the middle of last century. 06:24 But that had nothing to do with citizenship. 06:26 It wasn't a laudable strategy, but nevertheless had nothing to do with this. 06:29 And then the third thing is that Sid Blumenthal, who is a longtime friend of the Clintons, reportedly had a conversation with a bureau chief for McClatchy in which he, according to the bureau chief for McClatchy, suggested that somebody from McClatchy go check out Obama's birth. 06:43 in Kenya. 06:44 Blumenthal denies having done this. 06:46 The bureau chief for McClatchy originally said he sent someone to Kenya to do that. 06:50 Now he has come to say, well, he asked the Kenya bureau chief to check it out. 06:54 Now it turns out that he just asked the Kenyan bureau chief for the Kenyan reporter just checked out Obama's ties to Kenya. 07:02 He has family in Kenya, but that's different than whether he was born there or not. 07:06 So basically, in sum, all you have is a rumor about Sid Blumenthal talking to one reporter... 07:12 Emily Bazelon Sid Blumenthal does all kinds of things that Hillary Clinton should disassociate herself. 07:17 John Dickerson But that's that's all you have is a single conversation that may or may not have happened between two people, one not affiliated with the campaign and a reporter that compared to Donald Trump's five year advocacy for this idea is like the difference between. 07:31 a parent whose child talks about playing pro football, and Tom Brady. 07:36 There is no... 07:37 Emily Bazelon I think it might be a parent whose child, like, once tried out for whatever the pop. 07:42 David Plotz No, no. 07:43 I can't even... Stop the metaphor. 07:45 It also doesn't make sense because Tom Brady is a praise, is praiseworthy, whereas this... 07:50 John Dickerson No, but the comparison is not being made about praise. 07:52 David Plotz Tom Brady is Donald Trump in that. 07:53 Right, but the question is – yeah, but the question is – The skill is lying and – Lying and obfuscating. 08:02 John Dickerson Right, but don't – that's not – that's obviously not what the point of the metaphor is. 08:07 The point is that on the one hand, you had somebody actively for five years participating in pushing a story. 08:12 And in the other, you not only didn't have Hillary Clinton pushing the story but was not knowing of it and that the underlying pushing of the story may not have even happened. 08:21 So what's important here is perspective. 08:24 But I think as Emily says, people will hear – 08:27 David Plotz an attempt clumsy as it may have been to put the things in perspective and and then we've already said like 20 sentences about this totally ridiculous allegation you know what's funny to me is this isn't even the second or third worst thing of trump's week this this business about him proposing hillary clinton's security detail be disarmed uh and let's see what happened which is the threat of political violence is one of the foundational tenets of fascism and 08:53 Emily Bazelon And he's already said something like this and gotten a lot of criticism from it. 08:58 So he's indefatigable in this idea of calling into question Hillary Clinton's personal safety. 09:04 John Dickerson You know, his argument was basically she she wants more gun control, but she's a hypocrite because she has people protecting her with guns. 09:13 That's a standard. 09:14 That's about the president. 09:15 David Plotz But when you say let's see and let's see what happens, it's it is a that's it. 09:21 It's that implied thing that he does around violence and the possibility of violence, which is a thing that that is that is a characterological of fascism. 09:29 It really is. 09:30 Right. 09:30 I just want to flag that. 09:31 John Dickerson I get that. 09:32 I guess my point is it's a I don't know how to classify this insinuation. 09:38 What I'm trying to distinguish between is the active promotion of an idea for a specific intent, which is what birtherism was versus this. 09:47 It may have the result that you're talking about, but I don't I think in his mind and in the minds of his voters, it's just like, isn't she a hypocrite? 09:55 And they don't see they see the other as being like, oh, that's not what he meant. 09:58 You're just being politically correct. 09:59 So I'm just trying to put them in their proper category. 10:01 Emily Bazelon But it has a useful dual purpose and meaning. 10:04 You could also argue that he's very cleverly. 10:07 David Plotz He knows what he's doing. 10:08 Emily Bazelon Exactly. 10:09 David Plotz Well, that was it. 10:09 Did you guys read that? 10:10 I'm going to get to my other thing that was infuriating. 10:13 But the Atlantic story, the Atlantic story about by James Parker, about Trump as punk rock. 10:19 I thought this was fascinating. 10:20 So James Parker is an Atlantic cultural critic, basically wrote this thing saying that one useful way to look at Trump is as punk rock, which is that it's all performance art. 10:30 It is all about rage and destruction and that creates a joy and frenzy in the audience. 10:39 And it doesn't matter that if you kind of compare how the Sex Pistols behaved on their tours to how Trump behaves, it's very similar. 10:46 I mean, the message is, as he says, it's like not screw the queen. 10:49 It's like. 10:50 yay for cops is the trump message but it's that same kind of incoherent angry like chaos live off chaos against you that actually is like direct right um it doesn't matter if any of it makes sense or not like it's not important whether it makes sense president of the united states i thought it was i advise people to look at it and 11:10 I'm not doing a good job explaining it, but I thought it was a new way of thinking about Trump that was kind of scary. 11:15 Yet another scary way. 11:16 Well, my other story, the brilliant David Fahrenthold comes out with this fact that Trump used his foundation to pay private legal obligations, which is, you know, classic self-dealing, was incredibly spent a quarter million dollars on this. 11:32 And I don't know. 11:32 John Dickerson This is the fourth thing. 11:34 A piece of evidence of foundation donations going back to benefit Trump, the other ones being the portrait, the football helmet and some luxury vacation. 11:45 Emily Bazelon That's what the attorney general of New York is looking at. 11:54 People, lots of people, most people think the Clinton Foundation is also something set up to manage Bill and Hillary's wealth. 12:01 It is its own. 12:02 I have no idea that its entire purpose is charitable, that whatever issues there are with donors to the foundation seeking influence with Hillary when she was secretary of state, the work of the foundations is things like fighting AIDS. 12:16 John Dickerson Can I just go back to what I think is a bigger issue, particularly about birtherism, is that it reflects a habit of mind of his, a conspiratorial habit of mind that was on display not only over those five years, but also when he responded to the criticism from former Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who said, both candidates have issues, but Donald Trump is unfit to be president. 12:40 Trump responded by calling him a clown and a mess. 12:42 And then he said, and there's probably something wrong with him we don't know about. 12:47 That's the conspiratorial instinct, which is also why he thinks that Hillary Clinton was involved in Vince Foster's murder. 12:54 So he thinks he's being audited. 12:55 Emily Bazelon Yeah, yeah. 12:57 Sorry. 12:57 Exactly. 12:58 John Dickerson Sorry. 12:59 I got my sentences mixed up. 13:00 Yes, it was a suicide. 13:02 It's been investigated anyway. 13:03 Then that he's being audited because he's a Christian. 13:06 Like he has a whole peanut cluster of conspiracies that Donald Trump says that he Donald Trump is being audited because he's a Christian. 13:14 David Plotz He's not even a Christian. 13:15 He's like he's as Christian as I am. 13:18 Anyway, the point is that he doesn't go to church. 13:22 I bet he's been to church. 13:25 Emily Bazelon He has like a church that he's affiliated with. 13:27 David Plotz Yeah, I have a synagogue that I'm affiliated with. 13:30 I bet I've been to church more than he has. 13:31 Let me put it that way. 13:32 I've been to church many a time. 13:34 John Dickerson What I find interesting here is when you constantly are involved in these conspiracies, if you really believe in them, then your habit of mind of approaching issues is going to be far different than all the people who are working around you. 13:46 And then if you use conspiracies as a weapon, which clearly it is in this case against both the president Obama and a crutch and a diversion and all of that. 13:54 I mean, it is a central part of his wiring. 13:57 It is the wiring he will bring to the White House. 13:59 And that's just as we interrogate Hillary Clinton's penchant for secrecy and what she'll bring to the White House in that regard. 14:08 And then and then the extent to which outside forces can shape that weakness of hers, that this is, you 14:15 his weakness and I don't know how you operate and you saw the clash between his conspiracies and the structures of even a campaign which is that you know when you have to issue a statement that puts down in words 14:28 David Plotz stuff about the conspiracy it just falls apart you know because they had to confect a statement that said he had given up birtherism in 2011 so i think that's the bigger presidential question right and what does this mean about the way his brain and there's this fantasy that people have that when oh when he's president he will be different or there will be constraints on him or whatever but people it's the same as human beings generally it's like we are who we are 14:52 It is totally delusional to believe that if he is this way as a candidate that he will somehow be different as a president. 14:58 There's no evidence in human history of people behaving that way. 15:00 John Dickerson I mean often what happens is presidents get driven deeper into their weaknesses and the question is what would they all have them as we all do. 15:09 Presidents have big blind spots, and that's why it's really important to find out if they know what their blind spots are and can have people around who can help cover for their blind spots. 15:19 If they don't, then, and they have just enablers, you get, you know, Haldeman and Ehrlichman enabling Nixon's worst instincts. 15:27 David Plotz It would be great to have Haldeman and Ehrlichman these days. 15:30 That would be a step up. 15:31 I would take Nixon. 15:32 Oh, my God. 15:33 It would be so great. 15:34 All right. 15:36 We're going to close on two things. 15:37 First, Emily, despite all this, despite the usual abominations, the polling for Trump has really never looked better. 15:43 Emily Bazelon But wait, John, I thought there was a new one yesterday that was sunnier for the anti-Trump world. 15:50 John Dickerson So just to give this – so there was a Wall Street Journal – NBC Wall Street Journal poll that has Clinton nationally up. 15:57 Six points in a four-way race, up seven points in a two-person race. 16:02 NBC has just switched their screen from registered to likely voters. 16:05 What's interesting is Hillary Clinton is actually ahead by a smaller amount among registered voters than likely. 16:10 The reason that's interesting is traditionally Republicans benefit when you tighten the screen because Republican registered voters tend to vote more than Democratic registered voters. 16:19 And so usually when you tighten the screen to likely voters, the Republican benefits. 16:23 So that's a good poll for her, especially given the weeks that she just came through. 16:26 Emily Bazelon And she's up in New Hampshire, kind of important. 16:29 John Dickerson And she's up – you can take the problem with the polls in the states and the polls more broadly is you should look at averages more than individual polls. 16:36 It's not a perfect way to do it, but it's better than looking at individual polls. 16:40 And so the states are tightening, but she is still – 16:43 She's still in good shape with the states and as everybody needs to be reminded. 16:47 Emily Bazelon With the battleground states? 16:47 Right. 16:48 Sorry. 16:48 John Dickerson Yes. 16:49 Sorry. 16:49 Yes. 16:49 The battleground states. 16:50 And everybody should be reminded that there are 18 states that Democrats traditionally win, which gives her a starting place with 242. 16:57 And the reason that's important to remember is obviously. 17:00 The Democrats start ahead in terms of the states they traditionally carry, which is why Reince Priebus of the RNC says that Democrats just have to be good. 17:09 Republicans have to be perfect in order to win. 17:11 And so when Donald Trump, perfect, what an idea. 17:15 When thinking about the states, it's important to remember that she just has more pathways. 17:21 So he needs to be up in a bunch of different states by a lot for it to change the state of play, which is that he would have to pull off, as Carl Rose says, an inside straight to win as opposed to Hillary Clinton, who just needs, you know, two pair. 17:36 David Plotz All right. 17:36 Last question on this topic, then we will move on. 17:39 John, to you. 17:39 So this is our last Gap Fest before the debates, which start on Monday. 17:44 I'm interested in your thoughts on what are we looking out for as an audience? 17:49 What should we be watching for on Monday? 17:51 John Dickerson You know, I'm struck recently and going back and looking at all the debates since 1976 this week that – Did you watch them all? 17:58 Emily Bazelon No. 17:58 John Dickerson I know. 17:58 I watched – no. 17:59 David Plotz That would be so – that would be such a Dickersonian move. 18:02 Emily Bazelon John Dickerson marathon. 18:03 David Plotz He's already watched them. 18:04 Emily Bazelon I know. 18:04 He's just like refreshing his memory. 18:06 John Dickerson Well, it's true, is that a lot of what happens in these debates in the coverage – That wasn't even like an ironic answer. 18:13 Yeah, okay. 18:13 Yeah, it's true. 18:14 Yeah. 18:14 Emily Bazelon I've memorized them. 18:15 That's true. 18:15 I don't need to watch them again. 18:17 Oh. 18:17 John Dickerson is that the gaffes or the winning moments are so much a part of their time. 18:24 I mean, whether it's Dukakis and the question from Bernie Shaw about his wife being raped or Gerald Ford and there's no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe – 18:32 They were a big deal, not so much by themselves, but because of the frame that existed before the debate took place. 18:40 And this is why you see the Clinton campaign talking about how she's preparing for two Trumps. 18:44 That's not about them telling us how she's preparing for the debate. 18:46 It's about the Clinton campaign trying to spin the pre-debate Trumps. 18:50 narrative so that if Donald Trump comes out and comports himself in a way that is not like the Donald Trump of his rallies, there will be a lot of coverage that will say, well, he looked presidential, a word that I think is pretty useless. 19:04 Emily Bazelon Pretty useless? 19:05 I think we should ban it. 19:06 John Dickerson Totally useless. 19:07 Not just with respect to him, but with respect to anyone. 19:10 So they're trying to guard against that because if he stays within the, you know, within the lines, then they want to be able to remind people or have people have already in their heads that this is, you know, a low bar, a well, a different Donald Trump than the than those kind of essential Donald Trump. 19:25 They also are saying that Hillary Clinton is getting prepared to fact check him. 19:29 That's not just about telling us that that's what she's doing, but it's about reminding everybody that he has issues on on the question of fact. 19:37 What we're looking for is what lives past the night. 19:40 What is the thing that's going to get played over and over again and define the period between the debates more than the narrative of the debate from start to finish? 19:49 Because mostly a lot of people are just going to see what they want to see in the two candidates. 19:53 It'll just reaffirm their preexisting notions. 19:56 I mean, I have a bunch of stuff I'm looking for, but I'm not the regular person. 20:00 Emily Bazelon I have two questions. 20:02 So who's moderating on Monday? 20:03 John Dickerson Lester Holt. 20:04 Emily Bazelon Well, I'm also interested in the way the press fact checks and deals with Trump and how much Trump is allowed to lie, because surely that's one of the things he will do. 20:16 And to some degree in debates, there's always reeling off of statistics that fall apart upon analysis. 20:22 But since Trump takes this penchant further and 20:26 And I still think the most effective moments in the Republican primary debates were the ones in which he was played his former statements and asked about them. 20:34 And the most ineffective was when he repeated a lie and was not called on it because someone didn't have the facts at her fingertips. 20:41 I want to see Lester Holt. 20:43 I think doing one's job in this debate is different than doing one's job in a debate where people, candidates essentially play by the old rules. 20:51 John Dickerson I think that's a really important and interesting and correct point. 20:56 We're in the middle of a medium moment here where everybody is trying to figure out 21:03 how to handle a candidate like Donald Trump, who is in its special category in terms of some of the things he said. 21:10 And birtherism is not just – birtherism is the latest one, but things like the Iraq war, saying he was against it. 21:15 I just, for Whistle Stop, did an episode on Obama in Iowa in 2008 and went back and listened to everything he said in 2002. 21:22 That's what a person who's against a war sounds like. 21:26 Donald Trump not only was not against the Iraq war, but even when he – 21:31 expressed doubt about it after the war had started. 21:34 It was nothing close to the way he expressed doubt about, say, something like the Central Park Five. 21:39 And it certainly was nothing close to the way Barack Obama expressed doubt about the war in 2002. 21:44 I think you're right. 21:45 I think it's really, and I think the way that it'll be framed will be interesting. 21:48 And then the way in which Donald Trump, who's already said that it's rigged and the media is out to get him, the way he and his supporters will respond. 21:55 I think when 80% of your supporters are voting for you because they're terrified of Hillary Clinton, 22:00 Donald Trump doesn't have to do anything for those people because it's Hillary Clinton they don't like. 22:05 Emily Bazelon The other thing I am looking for are the gender dynamics on Monday night. 22:09 So part of me is just feels a sense of horror that any woman is going to have to stand on a stage with someone who is such a certifiable misogynist. 22:18 That just seems upsetting to me. 22:20 But of course, I can't decide whether it will be better for Trump to say something totally offensive and awful so that people will see his true colors and 22:29 Clinton can get the benefit of having to – Sympathy. 22:34 David Plotz The sympathy benefit. 22:35 Emily Bazelon The sympathy benefit of that insult or whether to hope that she is spared such a rotten ordeal. 22:43 But then on the other hand, then people will pretend – some people will try to – 22:49 woo themselves to sleep that this isn't a real thing and that actually like well then we'll hear about how respectful he was toward her and how he treated her with dignity and that will make me also want to vomit let me add one final thing on the debate question quickly if i can which is 23:04 John Dickerson Hillary Clinton, again, going back to the 2008 race, one of her worst moments in 2008 was a debate at Drexel University in Pennsylvania, where the whole beginning of the debate, they beat up on her about her lack of transparency, lack of candor, trying to have it both ways. 23:19 And then she stepped into that when an answer on driver's license for undocumented workers that was on both sides of the issue. 23:25 It was as if they'd said, we've said all these bad things about you. 23:28 Now, would you please prove this right after we set this up? 23:31 And I think if she either whether it's on the question of the server, her responses to the server questions, Benghazi, her health, if she gives an answer that sounds in its coming when it's coming out of her mouth, regardless of the words, if it sounds like someone that's hedging, that will be the clip that gets played over and over again. 23:52 It will read. 23:53 animate this her bigger problem biggest problem 23:56 Emily Bazelon Can I say one more time, though? 23:58 So for a piece I'm writing, I was going back into years of Hillary bashing and Hillary land, like way back. 24:06 I mean, the 90s, but even in the 70s. 24:08 Man, that woman has taken some unfair hits. 24:12 And I just think there is a way in which we can't really imagine how that affects the way she hears criticism. 24:21 There's no way her whole psychology couldn't have been distorted by all of that. 24:25 It's crazy.