Jonathan Karl: Why Donald Trump’s Election Lies Matter

Conversations with Bill Kristol

In his recent book Betrayal, ABC News chief Washington correspondent Jonathan Karl writes: We now live in a nation where a large part of the population does not trust our elections. There are many reasons for this, but none greater than Donald Trump and the lies he told about the 2020 election. Based on extensive interviews with Donald Trump, key members of the Trump administration, and other prominent figures in the Trump orbit, Karl shows how the former president tried to undermine the 2020 election at every turn. In this Conversation, Karl shares new details from his reporting about how Trump laid the groundwork for questioning the results of the election in the months leading up to it, and how he responded to the results on election night. And he shows how Trump, after the election, was single-mindedly (if not always systematically) devoted to overturning the results—culminating in his effort to pressure Mike Pence to disregard the results of the Electoral College. Bill Kristol and Karl also discuss why it’s important to understand Trump’s actions in 2020 for the sake of a healthier politics going forward.