Preet Bharara:

From CAFE, welcome to Stay Tuned. I’m Preet Bharara.

Martha Raddatz:

I’ve always sort of hated the term, have you ever seen anything like it, because that is generally said to someone who’s standing in front of a giant burning building or something just exploded and you want to say, “Of course not, no one has.” We say that again and again and again and again during these four years with the president, and there’s just an endless string of surprises.

Preet Bharara:

That’s Martha Raddatz. She’s the chief global affairs correspondent at ABC News, and the co anchor of This Week with George Stephanopoulos. Raddatz’s story-journalism career has taken her from the war zones of Iraq and Afghanistan to the White House briefing room and the presidential debate stage. She’s also traveled around the country to better understand the forces that led to the Trump presidency. Raddatz joins me this week to discuss what she’s learned in her travels, how Donald Trump has changed journalism, and what we should be concerned about the recent upheaval at the Pentagon. That’s coming up. Stay tuned.

Preet Bharara:

Now let’s get to your questions. This question comes in an email from Lee who lives in Decatur, Georgia. Hello, Preet. We are working hard in Georgia to get our two Democratic candidates elected January 5. If [there 00:01:28] isn’t a tie 50 Dems and 50 Republicans, from what party is the majority leader selected? Lee, who as I’ve said, is a resident of Georgia, is of course referring to the to run off Senate races going on in Georgia that will decide the ultimate fate of the Senate. If the Democrats win both of them, the chamber will be evenly split, 50-50, between senators who are either Democrats or a caucus with the Democrats versus Republicans.

Preet Bharara:

So to answer your question, we went back and did a little bit of research to refresh our recollections. It turns out, there’s only been a 50-50 split three times in American history. Once in 1881, once in 1953, and most recently within our memory, at the start of the second George Bush’s presidency after the 2000 election. So for a brief time, then Republican leader Trent Lott, who was the senate majority leader in name, shared power with the Democratic leader, Tom Daschle and they worked at a kind of an interesting agreement.

Preet Bharara:

So Dick Cheney, obviously, was the deciding vote, the 51st vote. Lott retained the title of Majority Leader, and the GOP had all of the committee chairs, but the makeup of each committee was evenly split between Democrats and Republicans. You usually don’t have that, as was funding allocations for staffers, as well as office space and these things I can tell you, as a former senate staffer, maybe not the most important things in America, but very important to the staff.

Preet Bharara:

The Senate also adopted an interesting and unique rule that allowed either Lott or Daschle to move bills and nominations to the floor, if there was a tie or a deadlock in the committee. That of course, didn’t last long because a few months later, Senator Jim Jeffords of Vermont left the Republicans to join with the Democrats and caucus with them, giving them a very tiny majority and then the Republicans took back the senate outright in 2002. So what would happen this time around if it was 50-50? I don’t think that circumstances are similar to what they were like just 20 years ago. It’s hard to imagine a similar power sharing agreement even with respect to internal rules of the Senate, between Mitch McConnell and Chuck Schumer.

Preet Bharara:

So if the results after the January 5 run offs is 50-50 in the Senate, the situation is the opposite of what we had in 2000. Senator Chuck Schumer, would become the majority leader because vice president Kamala Harris would have the deciding vote. Is it possible there would be some kind of power-sharing arrangement with respect to office space and the like? I doubt it because things are more partisan and polarized now, but it’s possible. So look, everyone who wanted Trump to be gone and wanted Joe Biden and Kamala Harris to be elected, there’s still more work to do. A lot hinges upon whether or not the Senate is in the control of Democrats or Republicans. A lot of Joe Biden’s agenda can either be pushed forward or stymied depending on what happens in the Senate. So I’m gladly you and others in Georgia and around the country are going to be working hard in those Senate runoff races.

Preet Bharara:

This question comes from Twitter user Josh Braun. #askpreet, is there any realistic limit to the number of specious lawsuits the Trump campaign can file? Or can they continue flooding the zone with BS and definitely just to gum up the works? Nope. Apparently no limit because he filed many, many, many as you have seen and our friend and former podcast guest, Mark Elias keeps kind of a running tally going with respect to the cases that he is working on. On Twitter, I think the last time I checked last night, the Trump campaign was one in 25.

Preet Bharara:

We have a free and open legal system in this country and there are limitations on whether or not a good faith lawsuit can be brought and whether or not the opposing party can move for sanctions and or get attorneys fees depending on the circumstances and the jurisdiction, but this is a desperate last ditch attempt for Donald Trump to try to change the outcome, which reasonable people understand to be a foregone conclusion. We don’t have a lawsuit quota system in this country. You can bring them as often as you want, and clearly, Donald Trump is trying to break a record.

Preet Bharara:

This question comes from Twitter user DBRPro. Could the president pardoned for future crimes, or would they all have to be committed before January 20, 2021?? #askpreet. Well, that’s an interesting question, and I think the clear answer is no, you cannot pardon for future crimes. I know no doctrine by which any executive, either a governor or a president under any understanding of pardon law or policy, could give a get-out-of-jail free card to a person indefinitely going into the future. Just doesn’t work that way. The confusion sometimes arises from the following distinction. It is true that you can pardon someone, the president can pardon someone for a crime not yet charged, but it has to have been committed during the presidency.

Preet Bharara:

The example that we give all the time on this show and in other places, was President Ford’s pardon of Richard Nixon. Richard Nixon had not been charged with anything yet in any federal court, but Ford, within the discretion of his constitutional powers, preemptively pardoned Richard Nixon for any crimes he may have committed against the United States during his time as President. You cannot give someone a blank check to in the future, murder or rape or defraud. That just doesn’t work.

Preet Bharara:

This question comes from Twitter user, the Bs and Cs. Good name. Hi, Preet. Given the proliferation of alternative right-wing news channels like OANN, and Newsmax and the damaging misinformation they put out, is there a case for revisiting the First Amendment? #askpreet. So I want to say right off the bat, no. The First Amendment is the first one in the Bill of Rights for a reason. It’s a bedrock of freedom in this country. It’s a hallmark of our democracy and I think it is a dangerous business, to try to figure out ways to whittle away First Amendment freedoms. So I want to be clear on that.

Preet Bharara:

In our democracy, we believe in the proposition, the truth of the proposition that sunshine is the best disinfectant, and the antidote to bad speech or incorrect speech or disinformation is more speech and there should be enough outlets out there for people to get out their point of view. We don’t stifle speech, at least the government is not entitled to stifle speech or censor speech, and I think that’s important in this country. So I appreciate your point of view, that there’s damaging misinformation put out by right-wing news channels.

Preet Bharara:

The people listen to those outlets would say, in their view, in their perspective, there is misinformation put out by outlets on the left, and it begins to be a dangerous business for government to decide who is correct and who is not. Your question does raise an issue that we’ve discussed on the podcast before, and that is the legacy of the Fairness Doctrine. You may remember we had historians Kevin Kruse and Julian Zelizer on our podcast some months ago, and they have written about this topic, both in their book and in op ed pieces.

Preet Bharara:

In their view, the demise of the Fairness Doctrine, has contributed to the rise of partisan media and some of our polarization in this country. What was the Fairness Doctrine? Well, as they put it, it was a policy of the Federal Communications Commission, the FCC, starting back in 1949, that television networks were considered public trustees. They were licensed by the federal government, and they were supposed to serve the entire nation. So the argument went, by airing and requiring them to air competing perspectives on controversial issues, something good was accomplished in democracy. The policy was intended to foster a full and fair debate, but as historians point out, in practice, what it did was it really led networks to avoid employing anchors or reporters with obvious biases, and so they played things down the middle.

Preet Bharara:

The media was a lot more centrist as opposed to having a left wing person balanced by a right wing person, everyone’s kind of sort of in the center. Conservatives did not like this. So the FCC, under the presidency of Ronald Reagan, basically announced it would no longer enforce the Fairness Doctrine, and Reagan’s FCC, effectively killed it. Members of Congress tried to restore the doctrine through statute, but Reagan vetoed that bill. That is what has given rise to a lot of television and talk radio, especially, that has proliferated on the right, and a little bit on the left as well.

Preet Bharara:

So while I do think it would be anathema to most people, myself included, to do something dramatic with the First Amendment, I think we should, as they say, leave it be. It’s an open question as to whether the Fairness Doctrine should have been allowed to die or not. I’m mixed on it. I haven’t really decided. I wonder what do you think? Let us know your thoughts about the Fairness Doctrine. Write to us at letters@cafe.com.

Preet Bharara:

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Preet Bharara:

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Preet Bharara:

Martha Raddatz is my guest this week. She’s the chief global affairs correspondent at ABC News and the co anchor of This Week with George Stephanopoulos. Raddatz recently embarked on a 6,000-mile road trip to speak with swing-state voters about the presidential election. Today we discussed the lesson she’s learned in her travels throughout the country, the lasting impact of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and some memorable moments from her distinguished career in journalism. Martha Raddatz, welcome to the show.

Martha Raddatz:

Great to be with you, Preet.

Preet Bharara:

We were talking before we started taping, not about the election, not about the pandemic, not about the Department of Defense, but it’s an interesting thing that happens now, during the time of the pandemic. We talked about which shows we binge watch.

Martha Raddatz:

Yeah, we got to escape all those other things.

Preet Bharara:

Do you want to share a recommendation?

Martha Raddatz:

I highly recommend Unbelievable, which I watched about six months ago, but it’s based on a true story. I think it was three, four parts. Netflix, amazing. Then my favorites are Fauda, and the same people have … It’s from Israeli TV, and Tehran, which is dark and rich and I’ve been there so I can kind of relate to that and love it.

Preet Bharara:

You chickened out of Ozark

Martha Raddatz:

I chickened out of Ozark. I watched one part and it was just too violent, frankly, just so cleverly violent and horribly violent. So many friends of mine recommended it but I just couldn’t do it.

Preet Bharara:

It’s very good. Have a glass of wine and try it maybe one more time-

Martha Raddatz:

And try it again. Wine makes me like violence. I-

Preet Bharara:

It numbs you. It numbs you. Look, I don’t want to … Different strokes for different folks.

Martha Raddatz:

Exactly.

Preet Bharara:

Do you think there’ll come a time when busy people, like I know you are and I tend to be, that will stop watching so much television?

Martha Raddatz:

I have to say there’s so much good television on, there’s so much quality television that if you find something I don’t feel guilty about it at all. I really don’t. I read and for relaxation, with a glass of wine, it’s pretty great to watch streaming TV.

Preet Bharara:

You’ve adopted that suggestion very quickly, I note. For the record.

Martha Raddatz:

Absolutely. So I’m not giving it up.

Preet Bharara:

So we are recording this in advance when it drops on Tuesday, November 17. Who won the election, Martha?

Martha Raddatz:

Wait, was it Joe Biden? I think so. I think that’s pretty much solidly decided. Some people don’t believe it.

Preet Bharara:

You people, by which I mean, the enemy of the people, the press, the mainstream media, all say that Joe Biden won. Is there going to come a time, based on your deep psychological observations of the President and his team, that he will concede or is that not in the cards for us at all?

Martha Raddatz:

I think the reporting is different pretty much every day. Some day, it’s he’ll concede other days, he won’t concede. I did the show on Sunday the 15th. They did the Sunday morning show and we had taped an open … We call it page two about the news and the fact that he hadn’t conceded and about 15 minutes before the show, or maybe it was, whatever, half an hour before the show, it all changed because he tweeted, he won because the election was rigged. So we’re like, oh, my gosh, we got a pre .. We got to do that over again and we’ll do that. So we did it over again. We included that he was vaguely conceding and then by the end of the hour, in fact, less than by the end of the hour, he had said, don’t pay any attention to that. I’m not conceding whatever.

Martha Raddatz:

So, who knows? At some point, I guess it won’t make any difference because he’ll be out of the White House, but in so many ways, we can joke about it but it’s so important to start the transition process. There’s not anyone who’s going into the White House and who’s going into government who doesn’t think it’s important to get the information they need right now, and especially on COVID and national security.

Preet Bharara:

You observe how many Republican senators have said, Biden has one, not that many, but lots and lots of Republican senators have said it’s really important no matter what, either way, for Joe Biden to start getting intelligence briefings. Is that … What what level of concern are you hearing when you talk to people in the Senate on the Republican side?

Martha Raddatz:

I think there’s some level of concern for sure. I think the only thing that gives them comfort is that Joe Biden has been there before. So it’s not exactly, he’s the new guy going in but the world has changed in those four years since he has been there. He needs them. I mean, it is absolutely vital. So I think you see, at some point, maybe more Republican senators will start coming forward and saying, “Hey, we really got to do something about this,” but so far, there hasn’t been a lot of movement.

Preet Bharara:

You said something a second ago about how Trump said something at the beginning of your live hour and then said something different before the hour was over. I guess my question is over the four years or more than four years, if you include the campaign as well, have you and other members of the press ceased to be surprised by things the President doesn’t says, or have you built in some sort of resignation to the fact that these things are going to happen? How do you think the press has adjusted over the four to six years of Trump being in the national spotlight?

Martha Raddatz:

I think you get used to his surprises, but he never ceases to surprise. That’s one of the things that was astonishing. I’ve always sort of hated the term, have you ever seen anything like it, because that is generally said to someone who’s standing in front of a giant, burning building or something just exploded and you want to say, “Of course, not no one has.” We see that again, and again, and again and again, during these four years with the President and there’s just an endless string of surprises. I couldn’t begin to name how many times we are surprised, or how many times our white house correspondent have said, “We’ve never seen anything like it.”

Preet Bharara:

And it’s not over-

Martha Raddatz:

I think … And it’s not over and the surprises continue. I think probably a week ago, people would have thought, okay, now he’ll concede. In a week from now, who knows what will be surprised about.

Preet Bharara:

Will you be surprised if he runs in 2024?

Martha Raddatz:

I guess not. Again-

Preet Bharara:

What kind of answer is that?

Martha Raddatz:

We never ceased to be surprised. You know what it is? It’s a Trump-era answer is what that is. There’s nothing you can say with certainty. There just isn’t, and trying to read him, I mean, in some ways, you get used to that, and you can kind of read him. You might say, “Okay, he just said that on Twitter, but is that what he really meant?” I think that’s probably what happened with that Sunday tweet, probably realized he just vaguely conceded. When he heard the news coverage, then, oh, I got to turn that around. So I guess I can see him running, at the same time I guess I can see him just wanting to do something entirely different because he’s already done this. It’s just … It’s impossible to predict with any certainty, absolutely impossible and I’m just not the kind of smarty pant who says anything about President Trump with absolute certainty.

Preet Bharara:

It’s good not to predict these days. Let me ask you the question about the press and its evolution a different way. I haven’t gone back and looked at all the early clips, but I think it’s the case that when the President said something, I’ll use this phrase, non factual during the campaign … I mean the 2016 campaign, and right after he became president, there was a general reluctance on the part of the press to use harsh language to describe what he had done, namely lied. Fast forward to the run up to this election and you see people saying it all the time.

Preet Bharara:

You see people cutting away from the President’s talks from the White House, you see real time fact checking, you see the word falsehood, you see the word lie, by mainstream anchors. I don’t know if you’ve done if. I didn’t do a check. What do you think accounts for that, and was that the right evolution?

Martha Raddatz:

I think, first of all, you were presented with so many facts that just … Or there were so many things that were said that were just simply not true. I think the … I mean, it’s not easy, believe me, it’s not easy and it has not been easy making those decisions and we talk about it all the time. I think there was that evolution from, this isn’t exactly true, or he misrepresented to that was a lie. I think most of us have said, “That is not true.” I think the one thing you want to avoid, and at least we do, I think at ABC, is when it goes over to name calling. You’re a liar.

Martha Raddatz:

That was a lie. This was a lie, that was misrepresented. I think you have to say that when it’s just so out there, but the name calling, I would not stand there and say, “You’re a liar. Mr. President.” I would say, “That was a lie, or that was misrepresented.” Because this is the office of the President of the United States and he was duly elected to that office.

Martha Raddatz:

So it has been very tough. I mean, what also is very tough is knowing that there are millions and millions and millions of people who don’t care that he states things that are not true. I’ve had that experience.

Preet Bharara:

I want to get to your cross country trip in a moment, but [inaudible 00:22:08] may not appreciate is that in certain courts, there’s a distinction in the law between what is appropriate and what is not appropriate. Appropriate to say that a witness made a misstatement or a falsehood, or even a witness lied, but to call a witness a liar, in some places, is not acceptable for the reasons you described. So there’s a parallel in the law as well.

Martha Raddatz:

I’m glad I’m following that [inaudible 00:22:28].

Preet Bharara:

So you went on how many … 6,000 miles across the United States? Is that correct? Do I have the right mileage?

Martha Raddatz:

That is correct. Just about 6,000 miles-

Preet Bharara:

Did you use your … How did you? How many steps is that? Did you use your iPhone?

Martha Raddatz:

Well, how about just the odometer. That’s what we use because we drove-

Preet Bharara:

Oh, you were in a vehicle. You were in a vehicle.

Martha Raddatz:

We were in a vehicle. We did not fly. We we took COVID precautions as much as possible. We pre-planned the trip. I would say 90% of our interviews were set up beforehand, if not more, because we wanted to stay safe and jumping out of the car as I could do last year and say, “Hey, you, can you tell me what you think?” Is just not safe, and particularly in places where no one’s wearing masks. So we set that up … But it was a marvelous experience to go in the middle of a pandemic, see how people are living, see who’s wearing masks, see who isn’t and actually talk to people outside of DC. I try to do that as much as possible.

Martha Raddatz:

So we drove Pennsylvania, down through Missouri, ended up anchoring the Sunday show from Boulder, Colorado, and then that very same day, drove down to Santa Fe, and then into the Navajo Nation. We did not go to California, because we pretty much knew that that state was going for Joe Biden. So we didn’t go all the way there. Then we came back through Texas and through the south and Georgia and North Carolina, and then back. It took about 10 days, two weeks, but really such a great way to get kind of a feel for the country and I have to say that my feeling was when I came back, that it would not be as easy for Joe Biden to win at some of the polls said.

Preet Bharara:

That’s interesting. Now you have previously reported from war zones. How did this compare to that? United States of America, circa 2020.

Martha Raddatz:

Well, certainly you see some behavior that you see in places overseas when you’re talking about democracy and some behaviors that are more authoritarian than you think of in a democracy. So I think some of that sort of out of the playbook and particularly elections, it’s not fair. It’s rigged. It’s not fair. I won. You can see that overseas. I think conflict zones … I used to kind of say to people that when I first moderated a debate that I would rather be in Iraq, because the debates are such no-win situations.

Martha Raddatz:

I’ve covered conflict for 20 years. I was doing that Afghanistan drawdown story and thought, oh, my gosh, it really … We have just entered the 20th year. We’ve been there 19 plus years, we are in the 20th year. 20th year of a conflict I’ve covered. It really goes fast and it’s extraordinary to sort of have that experience and that institutional memory. Although I can’t … Definitely can’t remember everything but to just know how those countries fared during the time … From 2005 to 2007, I covered the Bush White House.

Martha Raddatz:

So I covered … that was essentially covering the Iraq war, but the most amazing vantage point was being able to sit in the White House, in a briefing able to question a president about policy, that you have seen what happened to that policy. That you not only see the policy enacted, you see the effect of that policy when you’re in Iraq, when you’re in Afghanistan. So that has been an extraordinary experience and in many ways, for me, the equivalent is going cross country and talking to voters and being able to see what the President does, and the effect of that.

Martha Raddatz:

You really do … It’s kind of the same thing in the domestic world. The last foreign trip I took, and COVID is horrible. It has changed everyone’s life and you and I are lucky because we are healthy, and my family is healthy and I feel terrible for people. It has also just changed the way we work, of course then. The last foreign trip I took was in mid January, to Tehran, just days after the US killed Soleimani. In the center of those massive crowds, and that’s my last time I have done anything in terms of foreign news, and who knows what it will be on the ground again, able to cover them.

Preet Bharara:

So I have this question, based on your 6,000 mile trip. You’re a reporter, and you deal in facts and data points, but you’re not a pollster. I wonder how you balance … How you take in information that you get anecdotally. So you go to Missouri, or Pennsylvania or Colorado and you talk to people, presumably you’re not picking statistically significant samples. You’re not micro targeting them to get a sense of, as a scientific matter how the country is going to go or how that state or that community is going to go. So on the one hand, you have what’s supposedly a scientific polling, we know that didn’t work out so well.

Preet Bharara:

Then you are an intelligent reporter who’s been around the block and has studied not only our country, but other countries. How do you take in this information that is just anecdotal and had you turned down this other street, maybe you would have met a different family, had you turned down a different street, you might have met a Biden family, and they might have conveyed their thoughts about the two candidates differently. It’s like this soft science, like the guy’s got a big crowd, but the polling says otherwise, or people are staying longer, and they’re just more excited. Like all that is soft stuff. How do you process that?

Martha Raddatz:

Well, I think one of the things you do is, you do look at the polls. You look at the polls, and you try to see what is behind them and pollsters are asking these questions, and is that how these people feel who you meet? Clearly, anything you get from gathering either randomly or set up … When you go on a cross country trip is going to be anecdotal and I think without question, it’s anecdotal, but I think it gives you … So it’s not a poll, but I think my approach has been to see what’s behind those polls, and if people are saying they are voting more for … If they’re voting against Donald Trump, rather than for Joe Biden, then that’s a way to approach that and helps you with your questions.

Martha Raddatz:

So I think that’s the way to approach it, and obviously, I would say it’s anecdotal. It is pretty interesting, though, because I do think just from my own experience, they do match the polls. What you also … What was really quite incredible, for the Biden voters and the Trump voters, the messaging really works. If they’re getting blasted on their phone that Joe Biden’s socialist or whatever, there’s a lot of people out there who believed that. So that messaging was resonating. Some of it with the Biden voters too, but I thought what was really heartening as people are [incredibly 00:30:14] as is obvious from the election numbers from the voter numbers are deeply interested in the election, in politics, in all of this. It will be interesting to see how far that goes now.

Preet Bharara:

Well, how we solved apathy. Have we-

Martha Raddatz:

I think we solved apathy.

Preet Bharara:

Martha Raddatz, you heard it here first. We have cured apathy. We have an apathy vaccine, and his name is Donald J. Trump. Is that right?

Martha Raddatz:

Yes. Yes. I think you’ve said it. Yes, it has definitely changed. I found … Well, in 2016, I did a similar trip and I’ve done them there on the whole border. During immigration … We’ve done many of these trips, some of them shorter than others. Some you just go to Texas or some you just go to Pennsylvania. I can’t remember the last time I went up to somebody randomly pre COVID and asked them a question about Joe Biden or Donald Trump or any of the candidates that they were completely unaware of what was going on. That happened quite a bit over the years, but not this election cycle. Not at all.

Preet Bharara:

Here’s a corollary, if you allow me. So we solve or cure apathy. Is the necessary consequence of that polarization, divisiveness? if everyone’s all of a sudden interested-

Martha Raddatz:

That’s sure what I saw. That is true what you see-

Preet Bharara:

Should we go back to apathy, then?

Martha Raddatz:

No, how about we just go back to learning as much as possible about facts. That’s what I would like people to learn about. Again, we can joke about enemy of the people, but it’s destructive. It always is interesting when I’m standing there, and people have agreed to be interviewed, and they’ll say, “Oh, no, it’s not you, particular. Nothing personal, but you’re the enemy of the people.”

Preet Bharara:

It’s like everyone hates Congress, but they love their congressmen.

Martha Raddatz:

Right, exactly.

Preet Bharara:

Martha’s great, but the rest of you hacks in the media…

Martha Raddatz:

Well, let me just say not everybody says Martha is great, for sure, but it’s so divided. It is sad that we’re such a divided country. Although we had a good experience in a neighborhood in Ohio and it was a neighborhood of Biden’s supporters and Trump supporters, both pretty hardcore on either side. The neighbor said they … Massive dump Trump signs and we love … There’s Trump, Pence, and there’s dump Trump right next door to each other. I asked both those neighbors if they got along, and they were like, “Yeah, sure, no problem,” but man, as soon as they ever talked to politics, it was over.

Martha Raddatz:

So they just never did, and that’s so central to everybody’s life, in the last year in particular, because of COVID. Because of the election, because of all that goes on that that’s a big thing to cut out of any … If it’s kind of getting along with your neighbor.

Preet Bharara:

Oh, wait, can you elaborate on something you said that I didn’t follow up on and that is, after your 6,000-mile road trip to the US, you were less sanguine about Biden’s chances. Why was that? What were you hearing, and what were you seeing that made you feel Biden was not as strong as the poll suggested?

Martha Raddatz:

I think probably the enthusiasm, and that there were a lot of people kind of on the fence. Not a lot of people but voters that we talked to who were undecided. When I talked to them, there was particularly a farmer in Kansas, Bob [Hazelwood 00:34:00], and Bob had voted independent in 2016, but had been a lifelong Republican. He said he was undecided because he just didn’t like Donald Trump’s character. He didn’t like the chaos, but he didn’t like Joe Biden’s policies and he liked what Donald Trump had done for farmers. I think I drove away from that interview thinking, so it comes down to a guy like Bob [Hazelwood 00:34:28] goes into the polling place and says, do I vote for my needs, which I interpreted to be, he liked Donald Trump for what he’d done for farmers, or if he thought in a bigger way, I don’t like what Donald Trump has done to the country, he’ll vote for Joe Biden.

Martha Raddatz:

In the end, he actually did vote for Joe right, which frankly, surprised me. There he is on his beautiful farm. He is doing really well. He’s done well under President Trump, but when he went … Actually ended up not going to the polling place. He mailed in his ballot, but he told me two weeks before the election that he’d voted for Biden. His nephew, on the other hand, who was also undecided, and leaning Trump, ended up voting for Donald Trump and said he just could not vote for Joe Biden. So when you hear that nuance, and when you talk to people about what it is, what it is you like about Donald Trump, and then I had the people who considered Donald Trump a water walker. It was in Ohio, and-

Preet Bharara:

Wait, by water walker, you mean walks on water?

Martha Raddatz:

For these lifelong Hamilton, Ohio residents, Trump’s word is gospel.

Speaker 3:

I think he almost walks on water.

Martha Raddatz:

He could walk … Walks on water.

Preet Bharara:

Like Jesus?

Martha Raddatz:

Yes. Yes.

Preet Bharara:

Can you explain those people?

Martha Raddatz:

And seriously just said to me, I said [inaudible 00:35:59] getting shot on Fifth Avenue, shoot someone on Fifth Avenue. Said is there anything that Donald Trump could do that would dissuade you from voting for him? “No, absolutely not. Absolutely not. To me, he walks on water.” That guy in Ohio, even though he voted for Trump, thinks Trump should just move on. Can’t believe he’s not conceding and thinks Joe Biden was elected president. So there were surprises from the trip, but I think one of the reasons I came back from that trip thinking it would be harder for Joe Biden than pollsters thought, which it was, is because I had the same feeling in 2016 when I came back from a trip, right.

Martha Raddatz:

I remember telling some friends like, “You guys are discounting this guy. I’m not sure you should do that.” I wasn’t like … I wasn’t shocked about it like everybody was on election night and that was mainly because of the polls.

Preet Bharara:

A lot of people that you and I know, I don’t mean to speak for you, but people in the cities well, and people who are involved in the news and are involved in public policy, they have pretty strong worldviews about politics and ideology and they generally over the course of their adulthood, generally, not always … My parents have voted Democrat, generally but they voted for Reagan, once, if not twice. So there are exceptions like that, but lots of people, they’re not doctrinaire and sometimes they’ll vote for the Democrat for president, sometimes they’ll vote for the Republican.

Preet Bharara:

There are people who voted for Bush, then Bush again, then Obama, then Obama again, and then Trump and that seems to a lot of “elites” who have firm and fixed views about ideology and politics and where on the spectrum they are, that seems ludicrous, and almost incomprehensible. I think a lot of folks who are in the business of analyzing politics and news forget that there are lots and lots of folks who can go either way, every presidential election, right?

Martha Raddatz:

Yeah. Exactly. I like that thoughtfulness. I like that it’s not doctrinaire, I vote this, I vote that. That they look at the person as a whole, that they look at the policies, that whatever it is that makes them choose, it’s not necessarily party or … If you ask people on policy issues, they’ve some pretty firm beliefs and if the candidate they like better doesn’t comport with that, that’s okay. They’ll let some things go. They’ll juggle that around. I just know … We were talking about Donald Trump and the difficulties of covering that for four years.

Martha Raddatz:

The one thing I tried really hard to do over every single day, is just be straightforward and just say what you know. Can I do analysis on the show sometimes? You bet. I think it’s informed analysis and I think it’s from experience. I think it’s from travels overseas, travels throughout the country that you can do some analysis. I still try and I think it’s really important to just do facts, do straightforward, not make judgments. Certainly you can talk to people. I mean, I talk to people at the Pentagon so I can say senior leaders think this, that and the other even though this is happening, but I just think the media needs to kind of even its keel and remember what our jobs are.

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Preet Bharara:

So the Saturday after the election, in cities all around the country, people erupted in jubilation and dancing and singing. I posted on Twitter that I just had to explain to my teenage kids that this is not the normal level of celebration that occurs when a president is called, that this was something different. My question to you is, when you think about the person who says Trump walks on water, and then you think about the person who spontaneously began dancing in the streets in Washington Square Park in New York, and you look at their different reactions to Trump, and Trump and Biden, I guess, how do those two human beings ever talk to each other? Can they ever understand each other? Do they need to understand each other? Explain to us what’s going on, Martha.

Martha Raddatz:

I’m glad you talked about the people who were jumping up and down. I actually … Our Bureau is just a few blocks from the White House and after we were on the air, and I could hear things outside, I walked down to the gates, as close as you could get to the White House and watched that. Then honestly, I didn’t think about that neighborhood. Those neighborhoods I’d been in with all Trump signs and what they were feeling. I have no room for … Zero room for any racism or homophobia, but a lot of people were hugely disappointed Biden won and I think both sides have to kind of understand that and reach out in some ways.

Martha Raddatz:

I love telling the story, and these are not particularly political stories, but I did … Two, three years ago, National Geographic did an eight-part series on a book I wrote called, The Long Road Home and it’s about a battle in Iraq, where … And I’m seriously not trying to sell books here. I’m telling you a story about people coming together. Because I’m not sure the book even exists, but the series is terrific. There were soldiers who were in that battle, survivors from that battle, who were consultants on the show.

Martha Raddatz:

There was the showrunner and one of the executive producers, his name is Mikko Alanne. You could not be more liberal than Mikko Alanne. He is a vegan, cat lover who lives in LA, and those soldiers … Many of them very conservative, probably some of them voted for Trump for sure, and Mikko got along just fantastically. I always tell people that that’s where I got my faith in this country, that we can come together because they respected one another for what they respected them for. Mikko has deep respect for the military, and they had deep respect for Mikko’s skills as a writer and producer and someone who respected them. So if you can respect one another and find that middle, I think it could work and if Mikko and my soldiers can get along, well, anyone can.

Preet Bharara:

Can we unpack your metrics for a moment because I think you said about that person, they’re as liberal as they come and you said vegan, cat lover. So cat … This is new to me.

Martha Raddatz:

Cats are liberals.

Preet Bharara:

So only liberals like cats?

Martha Raddatz:

No, no, come on. You’re not going to get me [crosstalk 00:43:42]-

Preet Bharara:

Look, you’re taking a position-

Martha Raddatz:

We joke with him about that. Yes, yes and my son … My son who is as kind of like jockey as they come, absolutely adores cats.

Preet Bharara:

Look, I just want you to have a chance to elaborate.

Martha Raddatz:

I happen to be allergic to them.

Preet Bharara:

I’m allergic to cats.

Martha Raddatz:

Please … Yes, I am too and sneeze like crazy. I love cat lovers. I love dog lovers.

Preet Bharara:

All right, now you’re pandering. Can we switch gears and talk about the Department of Defense, and you have covered a lot of national security issues. Let me put it to you this way. It’s not a very eloquent question, but what the hell is going on and should we be worried?

Martha Raddatz:

I started reporting last week that there are definitely concerns at the Pentagon, inside, outside the Pentagon about what Donald Trump will do in the coming months. I think they’re concerned clearly about Iran, and I believe he’s been talked out of any action. Clearly a drawdown in Afghanistan. We all remember that the President wanted … He said all troops should be out of Afghanistan by Christmas. That’s not going to happen. We have Robert O’Brien and others now saying on the record, that the drawdown and that’s from 4,500, to about 2,500 troops. I also think in this case, as long as it’s not done too quickly, and I have faith in senior leadership at the military, senior military leaders that they would not put our troops in danger by pulling them out too fast or not in the proper way.

Martha Raddatz:

Joe Biden has never been an advocate of having a massive amount of troops in Afghanistan. I think what people have to do when they look at Afghanistan, though, it’s again, we’ve said, we are in the 20th year of that conflict in Afghanistan. Also think about, they’re saying, he’s going to end the war. You don’t really end wars just because you want to. You can get out of them, you can leave, but you don’t really end them. You can end your participation in there. My one worry, and my bad is that what Joe Biden will do is a counter-terrorism presence, and that means sort of keep an eye on the place.

Martha Raddatz:

Obviously, you can’t keep as close an eye on the place if you don’t have a big presence on the ground, but it’s also, you’ve got other places in the world you’ve got to keep a presence to and that you have to constantly look for terrorist activity. I was on what was at the time, called the last convoy out of Iraq. That was in 2011, and then was back, I suppose three years later, when ISIS had overrun some of those towns we pulled out of in 2011. So that’s certainly a lesson Joe Biden knows as well. They went down to zero, essentially, in Iraq, and that really did fuel the rise of ISIS and it didn’t take them long to nearly do in Iraq.

Martha Raddatz:

I remember sitting in Baghdad in a hotel thinking, whoa, hope we get out of here. I mean, me and my group, and it was a really dangerous, dangerous time. I was with, in fact, the National Geo series in the book, a soldier, a general at the time, who I’d met when he was a colonel in Iraq. There we are flying around Mosul, about 12 years later saying, “I cannot believe we’re still here, and that we’re back.” He by then was, again a general, it seemed like an endless conflict and that’s still a very dangerous place in some spots.

Preet Bharara:

Do you feel that if the senate remains in Republican hands, and Joe Biden is constrained domestically in so many ways, that his presidency will be defined by foreign policy?

Martha Raddatz:

I think it’s just impossible to say. That is clearly something Joe Biden has experienced with. I think there are always cycles to, when you’re a reporter, and your kind of coverage, and boy have I’ve been busy in the last couple of days with foreign policy, where I hadn’t been very busy with foreign policy for about four or five months. So I think that will ramp up, plus he will be handed North Korea, which is in worse shape than when Donald Trump took office. But every president before him, it was in worse shape before and in fact, when Donald Trump took office, he probably had the most dangerous set of circumstances there were because Kim Jong-un, trying to put a … Perfect a nuclear warhead on an ICBM. That’s what he faced.

Martha Raddatz:

Frankly, even his diplomatic efforts, if that had worked, great. It didn’t work. Everybody’s tried everything and nothing seems to work with North Korea. So we’ll see what Joe Biden comes up with. Iran as well, I mean, Joe Biden has said he wants to get back into the JCPOA, the nuclear deal. Again, I don’t know how you get back to the same set of circumstances because the world has changed and Iran, according to the inspectors, has more nuclear material now. So it’s just a different world that Joe Biden’s going to face, but he’s definitely going to have to tackle some of those problems.

Preet Bharara:

Is there any concern that in these days, while the president becomes sort of more volatile, and I think there’s evidence that that’s the case, or uninterested in his job, generally, not having a lot of public appearances and not making a lot of waves like he ordinarily does, is there a concern among people you know who are experts in and out of government, that one of our adversaries will try something, because they think there’s some confusion here, and there’s lack of continuity, and there’s something real to be concerned about from Iran or some other country?

Martha Raddatz:

I think the concern lies, perhaps not so much with Iran, which I think knows full well that Joe Biden would like to get back to that deal, and if they did anything, that would definitely mess it up and definitely get Donald Trump’s attention. I know we’re in a vulnerable time. We are, in fact, when new presidents take over, it’s a vulnerable time. People see what’s happening. We’ve got president in the White House who has not yet conceded, and that makes us vulnerable in so many ways. They probably think the exact same thing you were saying. Is he distracted? Is he not engaged? He would say otherwise, I’m sure, but I don’t know. They don’t know.

Martha Raddatz:

If you look at history, and when attacks have occurred … Bill Clinton when he was first in office in the first year, he was in office, in fact, I think it was within months, the First World Trade Center bombing. Barack Obama in the first year was the embassy bombings-

Preet Bharara:

And 9/11-

Martha Raddatz:

And George Bush, 9/11. Yeah. Actually, Barack Obama, I take that back. That was before him. Sorry. The embassy bombings were before him. It was the Underwear Bomber, the so-called Underwear Bomber-

Preet Bharara:

Abdulmutallab, right.

Martha Raddatz:

That’s right after-

Preet Bharara:

In Detroit.

Martha Raddatz:

That’s right after Barack Obama.

Preet Bharara:

Can I ask you about some other thing that you have done. As a journalist, it’s gotten a lot of attention, and I wonder what you think about the viability of this thing, and that is the presidential debate. You famously, I think got a lot of praise, you moderated the debate back in 2016 between Clinton and Donald Trump. It was the second debate. Your co moderator, I think, was Anderson Cooper. Based on that experience … I guess my first question is, How hard is it to moderate a presidential debate, and then my second question is based on the experience in 2016, were you surprised at how the first debate won in 2020 between Trump and Biden?

Martha Raddatz:

Yeah.

Preet Bharara:

Your were?

Martha Raddatz:

I guess I was and I … When we talk about surprise-

Preet Bharara:

I know. You’ve told me this already. It was my bad-

Martha Raddatz:

Yes, when he doesn’t surprise you … So I also did the vice presidential debate in 2012, between Biden and Paul Ryan, and that was the most civilized, sitting-at-a-table, conversational, fair exchanges, a little bit combative, but overall, it was just such a feeling that democracy works.I was so proud of that debate, because I really felt like the American people got a good look at both these candidates, how they perform under pressure, what their policies were. Now, fast forward to 2016, I’m not sure exactly what the American people got out of that.

Martha Raddatz:

It was combative. It was, why aren’t you asking her? It was a lot of interruption. I probably got praised because it was like, move on. We’re going on. I tried to control the debate.

Martha Raddatz:

Secretary Clinton, we’re moving to an audience question. We’re almost out of time. We have another-

Donald Trump:

We have the slowest growth-

Martha Raddatz:

Mr. Trump, we’re moving to an audience question-

Donald Trump:

Since 1929. It is … Our country has the slowest growth and jobs are a disaster-

Martha Raddatz:

Mr. Trump, Secretary Clinton, we want to get to the audience. Thank you very much, both of you.

Martha Raddatz:

But the 2020 debate, I just … I felt for Chris Wallace. Chris Wallace is an excellent moderator. I just don’t know what you would have done to-

Preet Bharara:

Well, the mute button, there’s been discussion of the mute button, and I guess that made its appearance.

Martha Raddatz:

Yeah, the mute button … The mute button, but the mute button, you’d still hear somebody trying to interrupt. It was just so out of control. I actually think what I would have done is just stopped it and said-

Preet Bharara:

That’s it?

Martha Raddatz:

But it’s easy for me to Monday morning quarterback. I mean, just like … Either we’re going to play by the rules, or I don’t see any reason we should go on. I think that I always tell people being a parent, helps you be a good debate moderator because you just sort of can give them timeouts, and threats, but also any parent knows that sometimes that doesn’t work. Then what do you do? It’s like escalating force. It’s like in a diplomatic standoff, if you don’t do this, I’m going to do that. Eventually you have to do that, or you have no credibility. So that’s a little tough in a debate, but that was just … It was absurd. It was absurd.

Preet Bharara:

Do you spend more time thinking about the questions or thinking about the ways in which the questions might be answered that need to be fact checked or followed up on or more time thinking about how you’ll control it if it goes off the rails, or all of those things?

Martha Raddatz:

All of those things. All of those things you do. You start out and I was a complete newbie in 2012 in particular. I was just like … I was covering wars and out of the blue, I’m asked to do a presidential debate. I hadn’t covered politics for years.

Preet Bharara:

Since you’re covering wars, why don’t you come into this debate?

Martha Raddatz:

Yeah, maybe that was it. Maybe that was the reason, and I was just immersed myself in whatever. Then you decide what you think people will think is important to ask about. You’re never going to please everybody. That will be on my gravestone. You’re never going to please everybody, but you choose topics that you think people need to know about. You try to … one of the things I try to do is sort of get out of the way what you know they’ll come back at you with like, oh, please don’t give me all your talking points. So you try to kind of put those in the question.

Martha Raddatz:

Doesn’t always work doesn’t always work, and it never works for the first question, it just never works. Thank you for having me. Blah, blah, presidency will be blah, blah, blah. So it’s that, but very much. So you want to try and figure out if they say this, do you say that. If they say this, and then there’s that line of, you don’t want to be the ticker-tape fact checker. You can’t really do that. So you kind of have to fact check in your question. You’ve said this. So let’s do that, or how does that work with this, that and the other.

Preet Bharara:

In the modern era, when you’re doing a debate, like you did in 2016, tell the truth, do you check your iPhone? Do you check social media? Are you seeing how-

Martha Raddatz:

Afterwords?

Preet Bharara:

No, during-

Martha Raddatz:

Absolutely not-

Preet Bharara:

I’m asking during. I think some people do.

Martha Raddatz:

Wow. No.

Preet Bharara:

I think that’s why.

Martha Raddatz:

No, no, no, no.

Preet Bharara:

I think that’s why I asked.

Martha Raddatz:

You completely, you completely get in the zone. Then remember, in 2016, that was 48 hours after the Access Hollywood tape. Then Donald Trump brings the women who were accusing Bill Clinton. So you really had to just get in a zone, you had to get in a zone. My one fun debate experience with David Muir and I did a primary debate in 2016. It was the Republican debate, and David and I were facing the audience and introducing the candidates and there were seven at the time.

Preet Bharara:

How quaint.

Martha Raddatz:

I say a name … How quaint, I know. David would say a name, and now we welcome Jeb Bush. I would say now we welcome Ben Carson, and he would say now we welcome Chris Christie. Then we’d turn around and they aren’t on stage because Ben Carson did not hear his name call. My immediate thought was, oh my God, I don’t know if I can even remember everybody’s name again to call them out again, but eventually they all came out and-

Preet Bharara:

There’s footage of that. I think we’ve seen a footage-

Martha Raddatz:

It was definitely Saturday Night Live.

Preet Bharara:

There was like a sheep-ish-

Martha Raddatz:

Yeah, definitely Saturday Night Live. True. Yep. I almost … And I hate to say this, but I think it was because David did the first one and David in his booming, fantastic voice, and I think Ben Carson was expecting to hear that voice and when he heard mine, he didn’t hear his name. It’s like, yo, I’m here. Okay-

Preet Bharara:

Oh, maybe there’s some sexism going there-

Martha Raddatz:

A woman is introducing you. Let’s … I’m not going to say that. I’m just saying I think he was expecting that other voice.

Preet Bharara:

He probably hates cats. We don’t know. Martha Raddatz, thanks so much for being on the show. Really appreciate it. Great treat for me.

Martha Raddatz:

Great talking to you, Preet. Thanks.

Preet Bharara:

My conversation with Martha Raddatz continues for members of the CAFE Insider community. To try out the membership free for two weeks head to cafe.com/Insider. Again, that’s cafe.com/Insider. Well, that’s it for this episode of Stay Tuned. Thanks again to my guest, Martha Raddatz. If you like what we do, rate and review the show on Apple podcasts or wherever you listen. Every positive review helps new listeners find the show. Send me your questions about news, politics and justice. Tweet them to me @PreetBharara with the #askpreet or you can call and leave me a message at 669-247-7338.

Preet Bharara:

That’s 669-247 Preet, or you can send an email to staytuned@cafe.com. Stay Tuned is presented by CAFE Studios. Your host is Preet Bharara, the executive producer is Tamara Sepper, the senior producer is Adam Waller, the technical director is David Tatasciore and the CAFE team is Matthew Billy, David Kurlander, Sam Ozer-Staton, Noa Azulai, Nat Weiner, Jake Kaplan, Calvin Lord, Geoff Isenman, Chris Boylan, Sean Walsh, and Margot Maley. Our music is by Andrew Dost. I’m Preet Bharara. Stay tuned.

Preet Bharara:

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