On Monday’s edition of Amanpour & Co., which airs on PBS and CNN International, journalist Walter Isaacson talked to George Stephanopoulos, the former Democratic operative in President Bill Clinton’s White House and now the cohost of ABC’s Good Morning America and the Sunday political roundtable This Week, about his new book The Situation Room -- The Inside Story of Presidents in Crisis.
The weirdest plug for the book was ABC's Jeopardy! Masters having George narrate a category on presidential crises.
After hailing President Barack Obama for making the call that took out Osama Bin Laden for 9/11, the discussion predictably turned to Stephanopoulos’s ongoing pretentious fretting about the possible reelection of Donald Trump. Isaacson set the Democratic operative turned media up to spread his fear-mongering about a second Trump term to a tax-funded media outlet.
After Isaacson noted Trump barely used the Situation Room, Stephanopoulos pounced:
George Stephanopoulos: He hardly ever went there. And his reason was not unlike that of Richard Nixon. In some ways, this was not his place and he was actually very suspicious of those who worked in the Situation Room. He famously called those people the Deep State, and he was a little paranoid about it. So, he didn't use it that much at all and didn't draw that much on the information from the Situation Room….
And I think that’s one of the most chilling conclusions about the Trump experience in the Situation Room: Those who had the highest, most sensitive national security positions, from his first secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, to his defense secretary, James Mattis, to his White House chief of staff, John Kelly, to his national security adviser, John Bolton, are the ones who have the most damning critiques of his competence and character.
Isaacson prodded his guest to mention “the unsung heroes of the Situation Room,” i.e. the permanent bureaucracy, i.e. the “deep state.” Stephanopoulos praised the dedication patriotism of the so-called “deep state,” (this after years of the media denying its existence) while basking in reflected glory.
Stephanopoulos readily obliged.
Stephanpoulos: ….their sense of duty, their sense of patriotism, their rigorous ethic of being apolitical, serving the presidency, not the president, was so impressive to me at a time when, so many are deriding the so-called deep state. I was talking to people from the Deep State every single day, and the biggest thing I learned is that they are the most patriotic people in the government, out there serving their country every single day to the best of their ability, and making it work in the highest-pressure situation, in the White House.
Isaacson didn’t challenge Stephanopoulos or even suggest he was overstating things a bit, instead egging him on to suggest the media needs to keep its Trump coverage focused on how dangerous Trump is for refusing to accept the results of a presidential election that hasn’t yet taken place.
Isaacson: You've been very eloquent about what's at stake in this election, and you've talked about the concept of the peaceful transfer of power being at the total core of what a democracy is about. What are you worried about and what do you think journalists should be doing in covering this?
Stephanopoulos: I'm most worried about how, what is shameful and unconstitutional becoming normalized. I mean, for me, I think it's very possible to just say that the beginning and end of the conversation should be looking back at what happened on January 6th. You know, never before in American history has a former president incited an insurrection instead of handing over the reins of power. Never before in American history has a president continued to lie about that election after being both indicted and impeached. And also never before has a candidate for president refused going in to say, I'm not going to accept the results basically if I lose.
The peaceful transfer of power is what's -- you know, is fundamental to our democracy. And what I'm concerned about as we all try to figure out how to cover this race every single day, is how that just becomes one more issue to be discussed, on a par with tax policy or environmental regulations when it's wholly another character. It's very difficult to keep that in context. And I think to keep the focus on how dangerous that is.
A transcript is available, click “Expand.”
PBS's Amanpour & Co.
6/4/24
2:19:29 a.m. (ET)
ISAACSON: The odd scenes in the situation room, a lot of them, are during the Trump presidency. And he doesn't seem to either care about the place, as you call it, the situation room, or the people, or the process. And he barely goes in and lets it work, especially during COVID, when the room was used to coordinate the response to the coronavirus epidemic.
STEPHANOPOULOS: He hardly ever went there. And his reason was not unlike that of Richard Nixon. In some ways, this was not his place and he was actually very suspicious of those who worked in the situation room. He famously called those people the deep state, and he was a little paranoid about it. So, he didn't use it that much at all and didn't draw that much on the information from the situation room.
One of the odd things he had, situation room duty officers collect were the banners from news programs, not even the recordings of what was being said in the news programs, just the banners of what was going on below the screen. I end up titling that chapter "Postcards from the Edge." It's really just a series of oral histories from the people who served in top national security positions in the Trump White House. And I think that's one of the most chilling conclusions about the Trump experience in the situation room. Those who had the highest, most sensitive national security positions from his first secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, to his defense secretary, James Mattis, to his White House chief of staff, John Kelly, to his national security adviser, John Bolton, are the ones who have the most damning critiques of his competence and character.
ISAACSON: When we talk about the situation room and you write about it, you talk about the unsung heroes of the situation room, which are actually sort of the permanent -- the bureaucrats and the people we don't know that well.
STEPHANOPOULOS: You know, for me, the best part of doing this book was every afternoon, having the chance to talk to these duty officers. I spoke with more than a hundred of them who served across administrations, who come from every part of the government to serve one to three years in the situation room, tracking information, synthesizing intelligence, setting up communications for the White House. These are the best of the best from the government. And their sense of duty, their sense of patriotism, their rigorous ethic of being a political, serving the presidency, not the president, was so impressive to me at a time when, you know, so many are deriding the so- called deep state. You know, I was talking to people from the deep state every single day, and the biggest thing I learned is that they are the most patriotic people in the government, out there serving their country every single day to the best of their ability, and making it work in the highest-pressure situation in the White House.
ISAACSON: You talk about people deriding the deep state, of course the person doing that the most, or most prominently, is Donald Trump, as he's running for re-election. And he says he'll get rid of the civil service protections. He'll try to just root out this entire group of people who serve different presidents. How dangerous do you think that is?
STEPHANOPOULOS: Huge, huge. And we came close. I talked to one duty officer, Mike Stigler (ph), who was actually serving inside the situation room on January 6th. When he was in contact with the Secret Service on Capitol Hill, worried that they were losing the vice president and explaining to me that most people don't know how close we came to losing the vice president that day. He and his fellow duty officers that day did worry that our institutions were crumbling. And, you know, they even started to implement these continuity of government procedures, which were designed to ensure that the government survived an attack like a nuclear war was being implemented on January 6th. Thank goodness. The republic did stand that day, the institutions didn't crumble. But Mike Stigler (ph), and he's talked to several of his colleagues, is deeply worried to see -- knowing what he had seen inside the situation room and inside the national security decision-making process during those years, that if -- in a second term, we wouldn't have that kind of guarantee.
ISAACSON: You've been very eloquent about what's at stake in this election, and you've talked about the concept of the peaceful transfer of power being at the total core of what a democracy is about. What are you worried about and what do you think journalists should be doing in covering this?
STEPHANOPOULOS: I'm most worried about how, what is shameful and unconstitutional becoming normalized. I mean, for me, I think it's very possible to just say that the beginning and end of the conversation should be looking back at what happened on January 6th. You know, never before in American history has a former president incited an insurrection instead of handing over the reins of power. Never before in American history has a president continued to lie about that election after being both indicted and impeached. And also, never before has a candidate for president refused going in to say, I'm not going to accept the results basically if I lose. The peaceful transfer of power is what's -- you know, is fundamental to our democracy. And what I'm concerned about as we all try to figure out how to cover this race every single day is how that just becomes one more issue to be discussed, you know, on a par with tax policy or environmental regulations when it's a wholly another character. It's very difficult to keep that in context. And I think to keep the focus on how dangerous that is.
ISAACSON: George Stephanopoulos, thank you so much for joining the show.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Thank you, Walter.
