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Smerconish

Professor Pape: "We're In A New Era Of Violent Populism"; Kirk's Death Adds To A Ledger Of Political Violence; Gov. Cox: Violent Rhetoric Online Can Lead To Real World Tragedy; Remembering Charlie Kirk. "Inside DOJ's Pursuit Of The President, From Nixon To Trump". Aired 9-10a ET

Aired September 13, 2025 - 09:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN ANCHOR: Of those, 10 have their licenses like Kembria. The other three are getting their licenses in just a few days. So Kembria Parker and the new Tuskegee Airmen and woman, I see you.

If you see something or someone I should see, tell me. I'm on Instagram, TikTok, X and Bluesky and you can listen to our show as a podcast. Tomorrow on the "Whole Story with Anderson Cooper, Political Violence, America's Bloody History," it airs at 9:00 p.m. Eastern and Pacific on CNN.

Thank you so much for joining me today. I'm off for a few weekends to go enjoy the warmth of other suns. First of All, we'll be back in October. Smerconish is up next.

[09:00:54]

MICHAEL SMERCONISH, CNN ANCHOR: A picture is worth a thousand words. I'm Michael Smerconish in the Philly burbs.

Here every week I share editorial cartoons drawn exclusively for my daily newsletter. It's one of my favorite parts of the program. To make a point through a political cartoon is such a talent to have insight and then be able to draw it well. For yesterday's newsletter, take a close look at what Scott Stantis drew. Stantis is an award winning illustrator for the Chicago Tribune.

From Uncle Sam's mouth, we see an assault rifle just having been fired. Note that it's smoldering at one end. The gun represents the violent political verbiage that passes for discourse these days. But take a closer look, because to me, at the other end of that gun, it looks like a microphone. It's brilliant.

It's sad, it's true. It's the speech that is often pulling the trigger these days. We're a sick nation. We're frayed, we're fragmented, we're isolated, we're lonely. Connectivity, what they call connectivity, has actually disconnected us and our kids are bearing the brunt.

We don't have a sense of common purpose because we no longer have shared experience. And this is not some epiphany on my part after the unspeakable assassination of Charlie Kirk. Just a confirmation of so many interviews I've conducted right here over the past decade. This time, many of our leaders left and right, they said appropriate things, Mike Johnson, John Thune, Hakeem Jeffries, Chuck Schumer, all of them. Unfortunately, the Hill reports that some teachers, some firefighters, some public officials have been suspended or fired after celebrating Kirk's death online. The very idea that anybody would cheer an assassination it underscores just how sick our discourse has become.

And many of those whose livelihoods depend on creating conflict, they were quick to politicize with a ghoulish game of whataboutism. I'll not give them further notoriety by saying their names. But I want you to take a look at something and recognize this is an incomplete list. On one side, you've got the violence directed toward the Minnesota Democratic lawmaker and her husband murdered, Governor Josh Shapiro's home firebombed while his family slept. A conspiracy fueled attack that left Paul Pelosi with a fractured skull.

A shooter opening fire on the Centers for Disease Control. The plot to kidnap Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, and of course, the January 6th storming of the U.S. Capitol. And now shift to the other side, Charlie Kirk assassinated. Two separate attempts on Donald Trump's life. An armed man arrested outside Justice Kavanaugh's home.

A gunman opening fire on Republican lawmakers at a baseball practice that nearly killed Steve Scalise. More than 20 pro-life organizations vandalized or firebombed after a leaked Roe v. Wade decision. And even two Republican candidates in Minnesota physically assaulted while campaigning.

The point is that violence is coming from all angles, which is why I was disappointed when I heard the president say this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

AINSLEY EARHARDY, FOX & FRIENDS CO-HOST: How do we fix this country? How do we come back together?

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Well, I'll tell you something that's going to get me in trouble, but I couldn't care less. The radicals on the right oftentimes are radical because they don't want to see crime. The radicals on the left are the problem and they're vicious and they're horrible and they're politically savvy.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SMERCONISH: No, Mr. President, the radicals on all sides are the problem. And the truth is that no side has a monopoly on political violence, nor on mental health. So now what? Writing at the Wall Street Journal this week, Peggy Noonan said the following, "The assassination of Charlie Kirk it feels different as an event, like a hinge point, like something that is going to reverberate in new, dark ways. It isn't just another dreadful thing. It carries the ominous sense that we're at the beginning of something bad."

I fear that she's correct. I'm sure she wants to be wrong. Yesterday, Utah Governor Spencer Cox, he framed it as follows.

[09:05:00]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SPENCER COX, GOVERNOR OF UTAH: The question is, what kind of watershed? And that chapter remains to be written. Is this the end of a dark chapter in our history or the beginning of a darker chapter in our history?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SMERCONISH: Well, he's inspired today's poll question. I'll get to it in a moment. But know this, Governor Cox also offered a prescription, the same as you've heard from me so many times. He said that social media is a cancer. He encouraged us to log off, turn off, touch grass, hug a family member and go do good in our communities.

Or as I like to say, it's time to mingle. Go to smercondish.com, answer today's poll question. Is this the end of a dark chapter in our history or the beginning of a darker chapter in our history?

Joining me now to discuss, University of Chicago Political Science Professor Robert Pape. He's also the director of the Chicago Project on Security and Threats. He has studied political violence for 30 years. You might remember in June, he was my guest because he wrote an essay in the New York Times and he said, "We may be on the brink of an extremely violent era in American politics."

And welcome to Shannon Hiller. She's the executive director of the Bridging Divides Initiative at Princeton University. Her organization tracks the alarming rise in threats and harassment against local officials.

Robert, you've said that Charlie Kirk's assassination is tragic but predictable. How come?

ROBERT PAPE, PROFESSOR OF POLITICAL SCIENCE, UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO: We are at a watershed moment. We are now seeing the era of violent populism that I've been discussing in the media for years escalating. It is now no longer a question of data points congealing. You've shown the data of this rising escalation on both sides. The second thing to tell you -- tell the audience is that there's underneath this a groundswell of radicalization on both sides of the political aisle.

We conduct quarterly surveys of support for political violence in the United States and have been doing this for four years. Our most recent survey, the one we did in May, was the one that showed the most radicalization on both the right and the left and prompted that New York Times op-ed. It showed that 39 percent of Democrats agreed that the use of force was to prevent -- to remove Donald Trump from the presidency. It further showed 24 percent of Republicans thought the use of the military by Donald Trump was justified to suppress Democratic protesters. This represents tens of millions of people supporting political violence on both sides of the aisle. That is why you are seeing since in the last year, we're seeing essentially a balanced escalation of political violence on both sides of the aisle. And we've got to do more, because left to its own devices, this will escalate.

SMERCONISH: Shannon, there's a tendency for us to nationalize this conversation, which is why I'm so taken with the work of the Bridging Divides Initiative, because, well, you explain what is your mission and what have you found?

SHANNON HILLER, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, BRIDGING DIVIDES INITIATIVE AT PRINCETON UNIVERSITY: Thanks. Well, at BDI, we focus on tracking and mitigating political violence just in the United States. And we do that because we think that can support communities to navigate these periods of heightened tension and ultimately continue to work on building the type of democracy where we can all belong. Three years ago, we were hearing from a lot of people using our national data that they were experiencing the same thing at the local level and that it felt like a rise. And so we started a project to study specifically threats and harassment against local officials, mayors, council members and others because we wanted to invent.

We -- is that true? Are we experiencing a rise? Is this affecting everyone equally? What are the facts on the ground? And unfortunately, what we found was, yes, there's an unacceptably high baseline of threats and harassment against local officials in this country, and it's affecting both parties and ideologies across the board.

SMERCONISH: Shannon, there's a colorful chart online from your materials. I'll put it on the screen. It's kind of hard to understand on television. I know you know what it is. Proportion of threats and harassment against local officials by issue type.

What types of threats and harassment are we talking about with regard to local officials? What do they have to put up with, is what I'm asking?

HILLER: Well, a whole range of issues. You're right, that's quite the eye chart when you look at it on T.V. and even on the paper. But what it's showing is that local officials are experiencing really a broad hostile climate across a number of issues. So some of those are what you might think of as hot button issues around education, the election, and otherwise. But others are actually the results of this broader climate of normalized use of threats and harassment against our opponents.

[09:10:13]

So people tell us they're receiving threats around things like local zoning ordinances or local judicial decisions, reflecting the idea that the barrier to the use of threats and harassment in our political life has just been lowered.

SMERCONISH: It makes me worry, Robert Pape, who's going to be willing to serve? I mean, I learned from Shannon that 80,000 people in the United States are members of school boards. Who's going to be willing to step forward unless we get this under wraps, Robert Pape?

PAPE: Well, we face a danger right now that the people most willing to be -- to serve will be the most radical. So we need --

SMERCONISH: Right.

PAPE: -- to recognize that we are seeing a rising tide of radicalization in the body politic. These are not just isolated events, they are coming on top of a clear evidence of radicalization in the body politic. That's going to encourage social media influencers to be more radical. That's going to encourage political leaders left to their own devices to actually become more radical. And you showed some clips of this earlier on and you're wondering why is that, Michael, that's because of the data I'm showing you of the pool of people they can appeal to.

Now as a country --

SMERCONISH: Robert Pape, you have said -- you have said previously that there -- it's a complicated --

PAPE: Go ahead.

SMERCONISH: Yes, OK. There are drivers of this that include historical shift in demographics and relative to income and the economy. Robert Pape, quickly address that if you can.

PAPE: We are seeing social change, not just the Internet drive -- for our first time in our 250 year history, we're going from a white majority democracy to a white minority democracy. 1990, we were 76 percent non-Hispanic white, today, 57 percent. It'll be 10 years, maybe 15 if we have mass deportation before we'll become a white minority democracy. We are going through the tipping point, 20 years of this change. It started about 10 years ago that accounts for the meteoric rise of Donald Trump, why immigration is his signature issue and why immigration has more from stop now many million.

This is also producing virulent reaction to Donald Trump and the MAGA movement on the left because many on the left, not all, want to continue and maybe even make the change happen quick. This is one of the core things we find in our data that's doing the radicalization. There are other factors, but this we need to understand, left to its own devices, Michael this is going to go on for years. And this is why this is not fading away and why de platforming people isn't making a difference at all.

SMERCONISH: Shannon Hiller, talk to me about something prescriptive. As I read your data, one of the lessons for me was the importance of local news. Because when all of this anger is nationalized, we forget the glue that holds us together on a local level. Final thought is yours.

HILLER: Absolutely. Well, one of the main recommendations we have in this moment is to reject the idea that this is normal, to believe that it can be different, and to hold our politicians accountable. This isn't the time to be scoring political points. It's a time to be thinking about the type of society we want to be and how we want to live together despite our differences. And so we all have a role in both doing that in our everyday lives and holding our leaders accountable when they fail to live up to that expectation.

SMERCONISH: I appreciate both of you and the expertise that you bring to the table in this conversation. For everybody at home, what are your thoughts? Hit me up on social media. I'll read some responses throughout the course of the program.

From the world of X, the Democrats can't seem to learn. I mean, you kind of lost me. OK. I too, am disgusted. Leave it up there for a second. I, too, am disgusted by all the vile comments from the left about Charlie Kirk.

And I condemn all of those comments, all of that nastiness. But the minute that I see the first part of the sentence the Democrats can't seem to have, I not. Catherine (ph), can you put that back on the screen, that rudimentary yellow legal pad ledger that I asked very specifically be created for today's program? I mean, gang, this is an incomplete list. Come on.

[09:15:13]

I could sit here for the whole hour and I could go through all of the violence, direct -- this whataboutism has got to end. This week, it was horrific. It was unspeakable. I saw that video and I wish, I wish I could unsee it like many of the rest of us, but we got to get beyond the idea that it's all coming from one direction. There's an industry in play here of individuals who are benefiting not from the violence necessarily, but from keeping us abutting one another.

It's largely it's tech companies, it's the media, and it's the politicians, OK? Because some get to laugh all the way to the bank, others get to maintain their position in government, and others get to draw mouse clicks and radio ears and television eyes by pissing everybody off. The answer is shared experience. I know it's a complicated subject. I've got an hour long presentation called the Mingle Project that you can go to YouTube and watch and I lay the whole thing out.

But the bottom line is we need to join. Our parents were joiners, our grandparents were joiners, they were involved in their communities and they had common bonds formed of shared experience. But the Internet has now fueled our disconnect from one another.

Go read Jean Twenge, go read Richard Louv's "Last Child in the Woods," go read Bill Bishop's "Big Sort." All of these people have been guests here in the last 10 years of mine. I see it all so clearly.

Go to my website at smerconish.com and answer today's poll question. Here it is, is this the end of a dark chapter in our history? I sure as hell hope so. Or the beginning of a darker chapter? That's Spencer Cox's well framed question from yesterday.

Up ahead, a view of Charlie Kirk from the inside with Andrew Kolvet, executive producer of that radio program, the "Charlie Kirk Show." Kolvet knew Kirk as few others did, professionally, privately. He'll be here in a moment.

And don't forget, sign up for my newsletter at smerconish.com. Steve Breen drew this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:21:33]

SMERCONISH: Charlie Kirk was only 31 when he was murdered. He was one of the most influential conservative voices of his time. In Erika Kirk's touching tribute to her husband last night, she acknowledged the people who helped get his voice out to millions.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ERIKA KIRK, CHARLIE KIRK'S WIFE: I want to thank the staffers of this, his amazing "Charlie Kirk Show," who helped him broadcast from this studio. This, this chair.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SMERCONISH: Andrew Kolvet, executive producer of the "Charlie Kirk Show," was a central part of that program, and he joins us this morning from Phoenix.

Andrew, my condolences on the passing of your close associate and friend. It was horrific. Prove me wrong, prove me wrong, it tells us a lot about Charlie Kirk and his ideas of engagement. Will you expand on that mantra?

ANDREW KOLVET, TPUSA SPOKESMAN: Yes. Thanks for having me. Charlie, Charlie was never afraid of intellectual combat. He was not -- he was willing to go into any arena, debate with anybody and discuss anything. And he loved it.

He loved it. It energized him. He knew that those interactions were what people were hungry for. They didn't want the sanitized in a box, censored anything like that. It was raw, it was riveting.

It was impossible to take your eyes away from and he loved it. And he spent all of his waking moments learning and studying and trying to hone his skills, hone his ability to make his arguments more persuasively. And he was a student of history, a student of Western civilization, and it was really remarkable. He loved to learn, and he loved to give those things he was learning away to the next generation.

SMERCONISH: And when he would tour college campuses, what would the typical event consist of? How was it structured?

KOLVET: Yes, I mean, the crowds -- I remember it was actually spring of 2024, he was at Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo. And you got to remember, we've been doing this for years, Turning Point USA, and it used to be that there was more protesters than there were supporters. And, you know, he'd have to sort of encourage people to come up to the table. And the crowd started growing slowly, and then suddenly. And I remember at Cal Poly, there was about a thousand or fifteen hundred students gathered in the quad to hear Charlie debate.

And all of a sudden, they started singing the national anthem. Just organically, they did it themselves. And it was this beautiful moment. And we all paused to kind of take that moment in. And that was in the spring, it was before the fall run up to the election.

And we paused to take that moment. And I looked at Charlie and I said, Charlie, something's happening. Something remarkable is happening on these college campuses. And it was at that point he fully embraced the moment. He fully realized that there was something we had to seize and we had to pour into.

[09:25:00]

And we doubled and tripled how many stops we did. And we did all of these quad events because oftentimes the campuses were really hostile to Charlie, and the administrations didn't want him on the campus. And so they would give us these tiny little rooms, and we'd have 3,000 people that couldn't get into the venue. And so we decided, let's start doing all these prove me wrongs out in the quad, so everybody could come, the sea of kids could come. And, you know, Charlie put up a card table and a tent, and we'd have to bring more and more speakers.

And because the crowds kept growing and growing, and growing, and they became -- I mean, these almost festival rock concert events and he would come out, we'd drive him up, we'd always plan his route. He'd come up, and the crowd would see him. There'd be a huge cheer, and he loved that.

And that is one of the great comforts in all of this, I can tell you, is that he died doing what he loved. I was texting with him minutes before it happened, and we were talking about different concepts and different debate points about different topics, and he was -- he was focused on, you know, he wanted to be as persuasive as he could be. And that was my -- he died doing what he loved, and it truly energized him.

I want people that love Charlie to know that he loved it. He loved that moment. He was more energized doing campus stops than just about anything else. And there's some solace for me in that. And the crowd loved him and the people loved him, and I think you're seeing that with all of these vigils.

And I just want to say I'm so proud of the people that love him and support him all around the world. We're not burning things down, we're not -- we're not rioting, they're praying. And I am so proud and honored by that testament to his character and his message.

SMERCONISH: Andrew, to that point, if it had happened to somebody else and Charlie were still among us, what do you think he'd be saying right now?

KOLVET: He would be condemning the violence and saying that we need to be using words, not violence, not guns. And, you know, Charlie, some of the last messages that he sent to some of my mutual friends was that we have to stop these groups that are fomenting violence, that that's actually their core mission. And, you know, I just know that Charlie would never want his legacy to be that this was used to rip apart the country or to tear us apart as a nation. He devoted his life and every measure of his life to restoring the promise of the founding that we could be one nation under God, and he wants that for his kids.

He doesn't want his kids -- he's not -- he was not a revolutionary, he was anti-revolutionary. He wanted to bring the nation together and to make a better nation for his kids.

SMERCONISH: Can I just offer this one observation? I have a hot mic in front of me for 16 hours a week, I know what it's like to say something stupid and regret it. I know that many are now parsing things that Charlie said over the course of his career. I've not seen anything suggestive of him embracing anything other than there might be some combative language, but other than engagement and intellectual debate on the issues. You get the final word on that issue.

KOLVET: Yes, I mean, there's -- you know, Charlie had detractors. He had people that didn't like what he had to say and that was never going to stop him. And that's never -- that never should be the issue. Charlie was not -- he was not afraid of, like I said, ideological combat and debating the ideas vigorously. And he was passionate about them and he believed in them deeply.

And that should be OK. And you're free to disagree. And there's not -- you won't find one single word that Charlie ever uttered that would have condoned or encouraged violence. He was exactly the opposite, as a matter of fact. And he -- ultimately, his message and his legacy will be one of faith, love, calling people to get married, to love Jesus, and that's his legacy.

And there's just -- there's just no debate about that.

SMERCONISH: Andrew Kolvet, sorry for your loss. Sorry for the nation's loss.

KOLVET: Thank you. I appreciate it.

SMERCONISH: Let's see what you're saying via social media. You can follow me on X and all of the usual platforms. I disagreed with much of Charlie Kirk's ideology, but he was the real deal. So much can be learned through rigorous debate.

Yes. And from a guy who like, hey, I'm not going to go to college, I'm going to immerse myself, there's a funny story about the back and forth between he and David Urban because Urban, of course, went to West Point, Charlie Kirk, you know, wanted to go to West Point and then decided to pursue another path and no one doubts his intellectual rigor. I didn't mean to cut off halfway through that statement.

I want to remind all of you, please go to my Web site at Smerconish.com. So, Governor Cox, Spencer Cox, has inspired today's poll question. These are his words from yesterday. Is this the end of a dark chapter in our history or the beginning of a darker chapter in our history? Go to Smerconish.com and vote on today's poll question. Still to come, your social media reaction to my commentary. Plus, imagine a series of blockbuster scripts that Hollywood never wrote. Prosecutors taking on presidents, rules changing mid-game, careers and constitutions on the line. Our very own Elie Honig, a brand-new book, lifts that curtain -- that curtain on the drama inside the DOJ that shaped American history. He'll be here in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:35:22]

SMERCONISH: Hey, if you want me to react to your social media during the course of the program, well, follow me on X and then I'll see it, or subscribe to my YouTube channel.

We are contouring the same trajectory. People are siloed in their own political bubbles, have no contact with people they disagree with, and social media being an abomination where radicalization happens daily.

I agree with everything. How did that get in there? I agree with everything that is reflected. And I think we have a tendency -- I'll just add one thought. I could add so many. We have a tendency to think that it's only affecting, you know, the youth and adolescents and those who are in their 20s.

But it has also driven loneliness among people of all ages. It's a -- it's a great thing you're into crochet, and now you can carry on a conversation with somebody who's in crochet in Ukraine. You know, you want to play a video game and you can do it with somebody in South Africa, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

But keep this in mind. It allows you to associate with someone of similar interest and makes it easier for you to spend no time with people of different interests, including political. That's the problem. That's why I say the solution here is shared common experience.

Here's more social media reaction. What do we have?

It starts with the president and his hatred and revenge crusade against the Democrats. You don't care because you're one of Trump's MAGAs now.

No, it doesn't begin with him. I criticized President Trump because I was really disappointed with what he said on "Fox and Friends" yesterday morning. There was just no point -- first of all, he was wrong. And secondly, there was no point to like, single out radicals at one end of the spectrum or the other end of the spectrum.

How about this? There's plenty of blame to go around. And can we please end the whataboutism once and for all? Screw all of them who are instilling these violent thoughts in people's heads and stirring the pot and laughing all the way to the bank.

You know how I want to laugh all the way to the bank? With a message of unity, with a mingling message, with a message of putting us back together as a society. Yes, then I'll chuckle all the way to the bank.

Building bridges, shared common experience. Go read Robert Putnam. Again, he wrote "Bowling Alone" 25 years ago.

More social -- I'm out of time. OK. Don't forget vote on today's poll question. Someday I'm going to come in here and the guests will have canceled on me. And I will be elated. And I'm going to say to Catherine, no sweat, for an hour, all I want to do is sit there and react to social media. And I don't see any of them in advance. That will be a great hour.

Here is your poll question on this Saturday. Is this the end of a dark chapter in our history or the beginning of a darker chapter in our history? Go vote at Smerconish.com.

Still to come, what happens when a sitting president faces legal scrutiny? It's a question America has faced before and is going to face again. Elie Honig takes us inside the justice department's, there he is, most epic showdowns, the power struggles, the political pressure, the prosecutors who became household names. And he has got a provocative proposal for how to handle the next round.

Elie is here in a minute. Sign up for the newsletter at Smerconish.com. Check out what Rob Rogers sketched.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:42:49]

SMERCONISH: So, how should we handle the next time? And there will be a next time. Well, we have a sitting or former president investigated for possible criminal conduct. Elie Honig, our senior CNN legal analyst, has given the matter great thought. He's about to publish a deep dive into every instance where the DOJ, since its founding, has been called upon to conduct such an investigation.

This book has the pace of a Scott Turow thriller. And with new inside reporting based on interviews with the actual participants in these cases, Elie traces the evolution from the ruleless wild west era through the independent counsel and special counsel eras. It's kind of a greatest hits recounting of the work of Watergate prosecutors involved in the Saturday Night Massacre, and reminds us of the work of many prosecutors who, in their time, have all become household names, Archibald Cox and Ken Starr and Patrick Fitzgerald, Robert Mueller, John Durham, Robert Hur, David Weiss and, of course, Jack Smith.

Provocatively, Elie suggests that we need a semi-permanent special counsel position within the DOJ. The book is called "When You Come at the King." CNN senior legal analyst and former federal prosecutor Elie Honig joins me now. Elie, congrats on the book. Like you, I love "The Wire," but you better explain the book title to everybody else.

ELIE HONIG, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: So, Michael, this is an expression that goes back centuries. The idea when you come at the king, you best not miss. But of course, nobody said it better than the great Michael K. Williams, who, of course, played Omar in "The Wire." And I most definitely did take the title from "The Wire."

What it reflects to me is two things. One, from speaking with these dozens of people on record who were involved in cases from Watergate through Jack Smith, the drama, the stakes, every one of them realized -- somebody said to me, I knew that whatever else I did in my career, I would take this one to the grave with me.

The other thing that the title reflects is the era we're in now. During Donald Trump's second term, he has made entirely clear, A, there will be no inward-looking investigation of him, in contrast to his first term. And, B, anyone who does will be punished. There will be retribution. And even since I finished writing the book, Michael, we've seen these series of retributive DOJ prosecutions launched.

[09:45:05]

So, I think we are in a different historical era now.

SMERCONISH: Something that occurred to me while reading your book is that every person who has played this role has been selected because they have impeccable credentials, and then they see their conduct called into question. Why is that the case?

HONIG: Well, some of them have just done a lousy job. I mean, Ken Starr has not aged well in terms of history. I talked to people from Starr's team. I talked to people from Clinton's team. I'll let the reader draw their own conclusion.

But beyond that, presidents have a long history of undermining and obstructing these investigations. I mean, most infamously, Nixon the Saturday Night Massacre. I actually talked to two members of the Watergate team who told us what it was like in that office the Sunday morning after. They didn't know if they had been fired.

There was erroneous reports that they had all been fired, and they both told me the team got together and met and said, what should we do? And Archibald Cox walks in and says, do not give him what he wants. You stay here and you do your job.

And then there's Robert Mueller more recently, right? The man's an American hero, Purple Heart winner, FBI director during 9/11. Yet he comes out of it. He was attacked by Donald Trump verbally every day. His reputation was shattered among right wingers. And left wingers were disappointed. They were hoping for more definitive results from him.

I interviewed members of Mueller's team. They worshiped the man. They support what he did, but they also raised some questions about his tactics.

SMERCONISH: You referenced Secretary Clinton. You argue in the book that the decision not to appoint a special counsel on the email case back in 2016, that that was a mistake and that it demonstrates why we sometimes need outside prosecutors. So, what's that lesson?

HONIG: Yes, the best example of why we need some rules is what happens when we ignore the rules. So, Loretta Lynch has this tarmac meeting with Bill Clinton. They both say nothing inappropriate happened. But Loretta Lynch herself said that it casts a shadow, that's her word, over the case.

Yet rather than appointing a special counsel, which the A.G. could have done, she basically hands the reins over to Jim Comey, who proceeds to make it all up as he goes along. There's no rules, guidelines. He runs wild. He makes the two election eve 2016 announcements.

And I do a deep dive in the book. And I think the bottom line is he probably, not certainly, but probably swung the result of that election. And that's what happens when somebody ad libs.

SMERCONISH: Yes. Lanny Davis wrote a whole book making that argument about swaying the election. Elie, you focused on the recent run of the special counsel cases. I'm thinking Mueller. I'm thinking Durham. I'm thinking Hur. I'm probably leaving somebody out, Weiss, Smith. Was that period, this period, the outlier or is this the new way it's going to get done?

HONIG: It absolutely was an outlier, Michael. You named all five. We went through five special counsels in a seven year or so period. But in the 17 years before that, we only had one. So, I do think it was historically anomalous that we had that period. But I think we've learned a lot from it.

Now, look, we're not going to have a traditional special counsel for the next three years. I think that's clear unless they're used in a retributive way. But one thing I argue in the book is this institution is too vital, it's too important, and it needs to be restored.

SMERCONISH: OK. And you say, therefore, there ought to be a semi- permanent version in DOJ. What would it take to establish that? I can only imagine no president -- no president is going to want that to happen.

HONIG: Well, that's the thing. Whenever the next president, the 48th president, takes over, there's going to be a lot of guardrails that have been kicked down by Donald Trump, and it's going to be tempting to leave them on the ground. But I argue to whoever that person may be that this needs to come back.

Now, I went through all sorts of scholarly articles, law review articles, but I also talked to the participants and I said, what worked for you? And what did you think did not work? Defense side, prosecution side.

And I came up with this proposal, which has been proposed before, that we need someone who is embedded within DOJ, like the FBI director serves a set term of years, five years. So, they'll carry across administrations ideally would need to be nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate. So that person has a combination of independence but also political accountability.

I argue the person needs more protections against firing. I argue that we need to vet the members of that team for any political bias. I think you need people on those teams who cannot possibly be labeled as partisan.

So, there's no perfect solution, Michael. We've been trying for centuries to get it exactly right. But history does show us that every 20 or 25 years or so, it's time to renew and reexamine the system and we are right at that point. We've had the current regime for 26 years. So, let's take a look at how we can do it better moving ahead.

SMERCONISH: Final question, yes or no, no BS, if you were offered a special counsel role to investigate a president would Elie Honig take it? I think I know the answer.

HONIG: I would. It's just my old prosecutor genes would kick in. I get --

(CROSSTALK)

SMERCONISH: Right, I knew it. I knew it. I knew it. Yes.

HONIG: I'd want to be back --

[09:50:02]

SMERCONISH: I would hate to be the president -- I would hate to be the president, whomever the president might be, if Elie Honig is the special counsel. And one last thing. I can't wait to buy a copy of "When You Come at the King," because I don't know if you can see this, but my advance copy, which I've read thoroughly, is literally held together with electric duct tape. All right. There it is. Because that's how frayed I've made it. Good luck on the book.

HONIG: Thanks, Michael. I appreciate it.

SMERCONISH: You still have time to vote on today's poll question at Smerconish.com. Spencer Cox, the governor of Utah, his words, we're voting on what he said yesterday. Is this the end of a dark chapter in our history or the beginning of a darker chapter in our history?

When you're there, subscribe to my newsletter. You'll love it. You'll also get the exclusive editorial cartoon work of the likes of Jack Ohman.

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[09:55:02]

SMERCONISH: OK. There's the result so far. Just under 40,000 votes, oh, boy, on the Spencer Cox, the Governor Cox question. Is this the end of a dark chapter in our history or the beginning of a darker chapter? And 92 percent -- I'm sure -- I hope that you all want to be wrong in saying, uh-oh, it's just the beginning. Which I guess begs the question of, what are you going to do about it?

What are you going to do about it, if that's what you see for the country, in light of the expertise that you heard on today's program and over the span of the 12 years I've been here? You know what the answer is? Go volunteer, go mentor someone, go to church, go to a synagogue, go to a mosque.

Go where you are among people. Get off line and rub shoulders, especially with those who are dissimilar from you. I could give you a laundry list of 50 ways to get it done. Go mingle.

Social media reaction? I've only got time for one. What is it?

Michael, you are missing the point, as usual, right? There has never been such hatred against a politician as there is against Trump. And his supporters are getting fed up and will retaliate.

Hey, I get that. I get that. I get the vitriol directed toward him. And, you know, you're talking to somebody who, during the course of the campaign and through all four of those criminal prosecutions, said that I thought that they were over the top, and analyzed each one on the merits, which is not to give him a clean bill of health across the board, but to say, I get it, and his supporters feel aggrieved.

Let's just lessen the temperature, everybody, OK? And remember what a tragedy we saw this week. If you missed any of today's program, you can always listen anywhere you get your podcasts. Thank you for watching. I'll see you next week.

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