Monday’s CBS Mornings featured longtime journalists Michael Isikoff and Dan Klaidman, the co-authors of the new anti-Trump book Find Me the Votes, focused specifically on the Trump-Georgia case.
Not surprisingly, the authors and co-hosts not only reassured viewers the case against former President Trump and his co-defendants won’t fall apart if Fulton County D.A. Fani Willis and Special Prosecutor Nathan Wade are forced off the case due to their rumored relationship, but swooned over Willis as a “badass,” “force of nature,” resilient,” and “tough” woman.
The first half of the interview focused on the case itself and playing yet another phone call between Trump demanding his team call then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) to demand he help them overturn the vote in Michigan.
After Michael Isikoff claimed Georgia, however, “was ground zero for what was arguably the greatest anti-democratic plot in American history”, co-host Tony Dokoupil pivoted to Willis, noting “the book is really a profile of” her as “a force of nature, widely respected, but at this particular moment is also under a cloud of doubt because of an apparently improper relationship.”
Klaidman argued that she had remained silent was unfortunate given the “void you know you’re getting this feeding frenzy” when no one is saying anything, but stemmed from “a classic tension between the PR-minded people in her office and the lawyers.”
After the stimulations that Willis is certainly telling herself, “what in the world was I thinking” and it “was a serious lapse of judgment if it happened,” Klaidman did his best to reassure his fellow liberals both at the table and watching that the case won’t be going anywhere:
[B]ut that said, it has no bearing on the underlying case itself. These 19 people were indicted for conspiracy crimes to overturn the election. And the fact that she was maybe having an affair with someone or an improper relationship with someone in her office has no bearing on the case. And nor should it I think in the end disqualify her because there isn’t really a conflict.
Co-host and Democratic donor Gayle King had a natural reaction, which was boasting she’s “fascinated by Fani Willis” seeing as how “she’s described as a badass who really knows her stuff” and “vowed to enforce the law without fear or favor.”
King even touted her relationship with Wade, claiming he “was a well-respected judge when she was getting prosecutors” who agreed “to take this case” when “[n]obody wanted” it. Based on The Washington Post’s reporting, Wade’s resume isn’t exactly expansive and solid.
Isikoff had to add his praise and assurances Trump will still be prosecuted before Klaidman interjected to swoon over how many times and for how long the two interviewed Willis, whom he hailed as a “complex” and “very human” “force of nature” who was robbed of glory on the night the indictment was announced by a death threat that required a body double for her to leave her office (click “expand”):
ISIKOFF: Oh, she is the prime expert in Fulton County for prosecuting RICO cases. She’s done it before. She was the star litigator in the Fulton County District Attorney’s Office. We’ll see how this plays out. But so far, there’s nothing that suggests it.
KLAIDMAN: Let me just say one more thing about Fani Willis. You know, we interviewed her a half a dozen times over many hours over the two years of reporting this book. She is exactly as Tony said, a force of nature. She is also complex and she is very human. One thing I will say about her is do not count her out. She is tough and resilient and she has been through a lot even before this happened and one of the most dramatic stories in our story in our book, which has not come out until now, I’ll let Isikoff tell us, illustrates this.
ISIKOFF: Yes, it was the night of the indictment. And she does this midnight press conference. The entire press is there. Then she goes back right before the indictment. They had picked up a threat, a possible assassination threat on a MAGA website. The best time to shoot her is when she’s leaving the building.
BURLESON: Mmmm.
ISIKOFF: Fani Willis goes back to her office, takes off her business suit and pearls and puts on t-shirt —
KING: Sweatpants, a baseball cap.
ISIKOFF: — sweatpants, a baseball cap –
KING: Yes.
ISIKOFF: — a body double —
KING: Yeah.
ISIKOFF: — then with a Kevlar bulletproof vest —
DOKOUPIL: Yeah.
ISIKOFF: — puts on the Fani Willis suit, goes out. Fani Willis is smuggled out the back door of the office.
BURLESON: Mmmm.
KING: That’s how intensive for her team, yeah.
DOKOUPIL: She’s safe.
ISIKOFF: — for her safety.
Three times going to break, King had gush over this anti-Trump screed, telling Isikoff and Klaidman their book is “so good.”
To see the relevant transcript from January 29, click here.
