S covert 19 death toll reaches a grim milestone. We begin with don winslow the best selling and award winning crime and mystery author. His latest novel is broken recently. He’S done a series of anti trump videos which have racked up millions of views online. He joins me from rhode island to talk about that don. What what led to doing these videos! You know i started uh with the the police issue about police violence and made a couple of videos uh. They had some effect. They reached a few million people. You know i i’m, basically a storyteller. I never aim to be a political person, but these are extraordinary times uh. If i write a book you know it might reach a couple of million people, but over the course of several years one of these videos reaches three million people within an hour or two. So it’s an amazing opportunity. My motive is very simple. I want to affect the vote. I want to help defeat donald trump, with the death of ruth bader ginsburg. How do you look at the gop’s response by trying to replace her quickly? Well, the hypocrisy is mind. Boggling, but not surprising, you know mitch mcconnell’s going to do what mitch mcconnell is going to do lindsey graham’s going to do what lindsey graham’s going to do despite what they said in the past uh. They have no shame at all, and, and the invertebrates of the uh republican senate will go along with it.
I think, do you think they might get enough votes to uh? Those republicans need like three or four votes right to stop it yeah. I i don’t know that that’s going to happen i’m, not optimistic. You have been publicly slamming donald trump since he was a candidate as a president. Has he turned out better what you expected or, worse worse, by far listen. This is unprecedented. This is is no longer larry, an issue of politics or the democratic party or the republican party, or even right and left. This is these are issues of right or wrong. These are ethical issues. You have a man who has told thousands of lies to the extreme detriment of this country, a man who has blackmailed foreign governments basically and was impeached for it in order to further his political aims. Uh, a man who i think doesn’t see anywhere past his own nose only concerned about himself and not the welfare of this country. I could go on and on and on don’t worry i won’t, but you know it’s every day something new happens and larry that’s part of the problem. You know we there’s one more outrage, we’re all outraged by it and then the next day, there’s a new one, and we forget yesterday’s outrage. You think one of the bases of people thinking he might be defeated. Is that we’re, tired of him yeah? I think a significant part – and i think a majority of americans are very, very tired of him and listen i’m hopeful.
I think it’s going to be an extremely close election. The last one was – and i think that this will be closer i’m guardedly optimistic at this point, but yeah look, you know, i think, of a line from shakespeare’s macbeth. You know each new mourn, new babies, howl new widows mourn because every day something else happens. Uh we had a post office scandal that came and went what didn’t come back were the 700 machines they took out, which is what they were trying to do. That’S just one example. So again, every day there’s some sort of fresh outrage, some sort of offense against this country and we simply move on from it don do you fear an upheaval on november 3rd yeah? I do, i think, it’s a very serious issue protecting this election. You know. Listen! You have these now you have right wing groups, we saw them during some of these covet demonstrations threatening governors and state houses riding around in pickup trucks with automatic rifles. This is insane. This is not the country that i know it’s, not the country that i want. So certainly, i fear for that uh you earlier this month you released a video calling out what you said was the greatest lie. Trump has ever told. What lie is that well that he’s, one of you know the guy comes he’s one of us. The guy tries to come across as a working class hero and listen. He had some success with that i’m.
Not one of these people by the way who thinks that everybody who voted for trump is a bad person. There are a significant number of people who, i think, looked at what they thought was as self made, which is a lie billionaire, which might be a lie businessman and thought. I want that guy working for me he’ll bring some success to this country. I think there were other people who felt left behind in the new economy felt that they weren’t being talked to, or they were being talked down to, and this guy was telling these people i’m. One of you it’s ridiculous. You didn’t, you know, inherit millions of dollars from your old man. He didn’t bail you out to the tunes of tens of millions of dollars. Again, i could go on and on, but the idea that donald trump of all people represents the average american working person is his biggest lie. Is joe biden a worthy opponent? Absolutely he is listen. Joe biden is fundamentally a decent human being and what we lack in the white house right now is decency. We’Ve learned, i think, larry a very hard lesson over these past few years and that’s the character, matters, character matters and particularly when you have a major crisis like this pandemic, come in character matters joe biden is experienced. I don’t agree with everything biden’s ever done or said, but with a lot of it with most of it, he’s a decent human being, who does come from working class roots and does represent the average person in this country.
Donald trump told bob woodward. He knew that the pandemic was bad. He knew it as early as february, but he didn’t want to scare people. What do you make of that reasoning? Well, it’s, terrible, listen! What donald trump didn’t want to do was bring bad news that might hurt his candidacy that’s. His reason for lying about this, the idea that he didn’t want to panic people is ridiculous. We’Re, not children. The president owes it to us to tell us the truth to tell us the truth about whatever it is. This is a man who lies every day, multiple times, and then he sends his minions out to lie for him and to repeat the lie until people start believing it uh. So what the american people need to know about this pandemic are the facts, the science and the truth, uh don you, these videos, uh they carry more weight than the written word. How do you work, then? When do you decide what you’re gon na do? How much money do you have to outlay to do them? Where do you do them? I work with with my buddy uh shane salerno, who works on them with me. Shane is my agent also, you know very a list screenwriter in his own right uh. You know the money outlay varies from from one to the other. I don’t want to get into exact figures about that, and you know we’re busy producing them almost all the time.
Do they almost write themselves? No well yeah! You know you might be onto something there in a sense they do. I mean certainly the trump administration uh provides one with an amplitude of ammunition. Shall i put it that way. I wouldn’t say that they’re right themselves and we work pretty hard on them. Uh we’re trying to shape a message you know. Sometimes that message is to be critical, it’s to take a hit at trump other times, though it’s to reach out you know, one of the videos was an open letter to republican voters. Saying come home. You know come home to real american values and vote this guy out, so you know we’re not always taking the offensive. There are times we simply want to reach out and we want to let people know facts and things that maybe they didn’t know. In july, you told deadline, quote it’s extraordinary to me that 62 million americans voted for this man, knowing what they knew about him before election day. I think it points to a much larger problem that we have to address once trump is out on trump’s out of office. What is that problem? Well, the problem, i think, is communication. I think it’s social media, i think it’s the lies that are told on facebook. Uh the the non facts that get put out there that that people believe the interference from foreign countries uh providing disinformation to the american people. I also think that there’s, simply, though, a problem of divisiveness, you know that we seem these days to pick a team and stay with that team.
No matter what the facts are and that’s something that we need to get over, and i think that we need to realize as a people that we have more in common than we have that separates us what’s. Your prediction on november well listen again: i’m guardedly, optimistic i’m, i’m going to say that biden and harris is going to win. I i don’t think it’s going to be decided overnight. I think that that trump and his people will will fight this with whatever weapons they have at hand, which are considerable, so i don’t think it’s going to be over on november 4th. But i i am predicting again with guarded optimism of biden victory, but people need to get out there and vote people need to get out and vote new york times got an interesting story this week that cnn elected trump by covering him from day one that they Were out for ratings and they he had hosted the apprentice and they knew he could bring them ratings and hence one and one equals two. You buy that i don’t know that i buy that listen i mean i think he gets a lot of free publicity. He gets a lot of coverage trump, famously sucks, the air out of the room and and it’s hard for anybody else to get any oxygen, but whether i blame specifically cnn on that or not i don’t think i’m ready to say that all right. All of this has been a muddle as you look back on it, i guess you wonder how how did we ever pick him yeah? I wonder that a lot you know look i mean for me.
It was over uh the day that that he mocked a handicapped reporter. I i couldn’t believe that anyone would vote for him after that it and then, when he mocked john mccain and and when he calls our our veterans and – and you know, people who died for this country losers and suckers. So it’s it’s hard for me to figure. Why people voted for him uh and how we got to where we are? But here we are there’s there’s, not a lot of point in looking back. We need to look forward. We need to get the vote out. We need to get the truth out there and and get this guy out of office and evangelical support. Does that surprise you uh? Yes, and no. It surprises me on one level that evangelicals could support a man with with his uh. How do i put this personal history, uh and behavior? I think, though, where the evangelical support comes in is is on the anti abortion movement and, and i think that they will put up with a lot and apparently have in order to try to further that don winslow thanks for your time today, you’ve been a great Guest, thank you very much.M8VK2NKV59k
