On Tuesday, ABC’s chief Washington correspondent Jonathan Karl’s third anti-Trump book hits shelves and will send Resistance types into further episodes of collective hyperventilation over Trump and the GOP as threats to national security who must be crushed in 2024. Karl hawked the book on Monday’s Good Morning America and lashed out at voters for “not” having “paid much attention to what” Trump’s “doing and saying,” including his “Third Reich” rhetoric.
Tired of Winning: Donald Trump at the End of the Grand Old Party is likely to be another bestseller and only further underline the liberal media’s symbiotic relationship with Trump of shrieking about him (as well as his supporters) but dismissing and ripping any legitimate Republican who’d give him a run for his money in 2024.
After reminding viewers that he’s covered Trump “for 30 years” dating back to when he was a young reporter at the New York Post, Karl shared a story from the book claiming Trump believed he would be reinstalled as president in summer 2021 as a way of showing a supposed lack of mental stability: “[P]eople around him were really worried about the fact that he was losing touch with reality.”
Karl sang a similar tune that he did a week earlier when he was on GMA to melt down over more bad polls for President Biden, telling co-host and former Clinton official George Stephanopoulos that Trump’s 2024 campaign “is a come retribution campaign,” which is “a phrase that Steve Bannon used...said it goes back to the assassination plot that the Confederacy had against Abraham Lincoln” (with his implication being Trump would carry out mass murder of Democrats).
“[T]his is a very dark, dark thing. We heard him refer to his opponents just the other day as vermin — using — using language out of the Third Reich,” he added.
Stephanopoulos interjected partway through with — wait for it — Trump-Hitler comparison, saying Trump’s engaging in “Adolf Hitler talk.”
Karl continued, warning Trump would “eliminate and annihilate his enemies and get retribution” and that his “hardcore base” believes him when he said his enemies as “coming after me because their real target is you and I’m standing in the way.”
Ignoring the dozens of campaign emails, videos from Trump himself, and an entire record of four years in office, Karl hilariously claimed Trump “doesn’t really have a policy agenda so much as a — as an agenda of getting revenge on his enemies and insisting on loyalty.”
Following an aside of Karl all but lecturing Republicans on how they should run their party, Karl dialed up the fear-mongering with Trump framing 2024 as him either “being elected again...or...go[ing] to prison”: “[T]his is really — an — he calls 2024 the final battle. I mean, it’s really kind of apocalyptic the way he talks about it.”
Karl then jabbed voters for “not” having “really actually paid much attention to what Donald Trump is doing and saying now” amid the “endless coverage of the court cases, the legal battles.”
Earth to Jon Karl: Who’s responsible for that “endless coverage” of Trump indictments versus, say, his TRUTH Social feed? That would be you, bud.
Karl made one last push to sell books to the liberals out there who believe Republicans are violent people: “Again, prison or the White House is quite a stark choice for him. But what will his supporters do or think or act on if he loses?...I asked [Steve] Bannon...aren’t you worried about violence? And he told me, no, because we’re gonna win.”
To see the relevant transcript from November 13, click “expand.”
ABC’s Good Morning America
November 13, 2023
8:47 p.m. Eastern[ON-SCREEN HEADLINE: Live on GMA; “Tired of Winning”; Jon Karls Talks New Book About Donald Trump]
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: We’re back with our chief Washington correspondent Jon Karl, who’s out with a new book. It’s called Tired of Winning: Donald Trump at the End of the Grand Old Party. This is your third book on Donald Trump. But, boy, your reporting history of him goes back a lot longer than that.
JONATHAN KARL: I have known Donald Trump, I mean, I hate to say it, George, for 30 years. I was a reporter in New York at the New York Post, which, for years, was his favorite newspaper. [STEPHANOPOULOS LAUGHS] I don’t know if it still is. He was a guy you could pick up the phone and, you know, if you — on a slow news day, he’d give you a story.
STEPHANOPOULOS: And he — and he — the gift that’s kept on giving for so — so many years. And you have so many revelations in this book that, you know, it’s hard to be startled by anything that Donald Trump does anymore. But he believed he could be reinstated even after Joe Biden took office?
KARL: Yeah. This is truly mind blowing. So, he became enthralled with this idea that, after he left the White House, that somehow all of this evidence was gonna come forward that was gonna force the Supreme Court to declare that the 2020 election didn’t happen, wasn’t valid. They were going to eject Joe Biden from the White House. He would be able to go in. Mike Lindell, the myPillow guy who pushed a lot of this stuff, had an oddly specific date for it. He said it was going to happen on August 13, 2021. What I realized — I knew that Lindell he was saying this back then — what I realized reporting on this, he was obsessed with the idea and seemed to truly believe that he could make it happen. And people around him were really worried about the fact that he was losing touch with reality.
STEPHANOPOULOS: It’s not just him spreading lies for the sake of baking that in. He actually believed this.
KARL: It — it sure seemed that way. You know, there’s a big debate whether or not he really knew he lost or whether he came to believe he lost. But, on this, he seemed to believe that, whatever the truth was in 2020, that he was going to somehow be reinstated. And by the way, this lasted into — into last year. There was a very dramatic moment I describe in the book with a very conservative, pro-Trump congressman Mo Brooks. This guy wore body armor to the President’s speech — to Trump’s speech on January 6. I mean, as loyal as anybody. And he got a call from Trump demanding that he go out and publicly announce that Biden needed to leave the White House and — and that Trump should be reinstated. He refused. And Trump cut him off. Took away his endorsement in a race and the guy ended up losing a Republican primary.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Since then, of course, we’ve seen 91 different charges —
KARL: Yeah.
STEPHANOPOULOS: — felony charges against the former President. Yet, at the same time, he seems to have solidified his hold on the Republican party.
KARL: Yes. He has found a new birth for his campaign in the cases against him. As I write in the book, he — his entire campaign and now, you’re really seeing it just this past week, is — is a come retribution campaign. By the way, a phrase that Steve Bannon used in my interviews with him, said it goes back to the assassination plot that the Confederacy had against Abraham Lincoln. So, this is a — this is a very dark, dark thing. We heard him refer to his opponents just the other day as vermin —
STEPHANOPOULOS: Adolf Hitler talk.
KARL: — using — using language out of the Third Reich. He wants to eliminate and annihilate his enemies and get retribution. He tells his people that they’re coming after me because their real target is you and I’m standing in the way. And, for the hard core base, it’s working. He’s seen as a victim and it — he doesn’t really have a policy agenda so much as a — as an agenda of getting revenge on his enemies and insisting on loyalty.
STEPHANOPOULOS: How do you explain how that’s worked with so many Republican leaders?
KARL: Well, I think, you know, there are two really pivotal moments right after he left the White House. One famously is when Kevin McCarthy went to visit him in Mar-a-Lago —
STEPHANOPOULOS: Former speaker.
KARL: — the former Speaker of the House, eight days after Trump left the White House, giving him a — you know, a kind of a new lifeline back into the party. But another really critical moment was when Ronna McDaniel, the chairman of the party faced a threat from Donald Trump on the day he left office. He threatened he was going to leave the party. He was going to create his own party. And she begged him to stay in and then threatened him to — you know, that they would stop paying his legal bills, that they would take away his ability to raise money. It was going to cost him a lot of money. And he ended up not leaving. So, the question is, what would have happened if Ronna McDaniel said good riddance? If Kevin McCarthy said he’s a disgraced former President, let’s move on? But the reason why they made a different calculation, George, is they both believed that, if Trump moved away from the party, he would bring his hardcore supporters with him and the Republicans would not be able to win another election.
STEPHANOPOULOS: And he’s determined now to win the presidency again, in large part to keep himself out of jail.
KARL: I mean, it really is looking at two possible paths here — is being elected again as president or the very real possibility that he’ll go to prison. I mean, this is really — an — he calls 2024 the final battle. I mean, it’s really kind of apocalyptic the way he talks about it. And listen to what he says. I think that — I think that what’s happened over the past year, you know, his campaign’s almost a year old now is people have not really actually paid much attention —
STEPHANOPOULOS: To what he says.
KARL — to what Donald Trump is doing and saying now. There’s been endless coverage of the court cases, the legal battles. But listen to what he’s saying. He is saying this is the final battle. And, of course, that raises questions. And you can see why he’s doing it again. Again, prison or the White House is quite a stark choice for him. But what will his supporters do or think or act on if he loses?
STEPHANOPOULOS: We’ll find out over the next year.
KARL: Yeah and I — and I asked Bannon that. And Steve Bannon, I think, is a — is a very key figure in this. And, again, I asked, aren’t you worried about violence? And he told me, no, because we’re gonna win.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Jon Karl, thank you very much. Tired of Winning: Donald Trump at the End of the Grand Old Party is out tomorrow.
