Cassidy Hutchinson in the Trump White House

Cassidy Hutchinson made history last summer, delivering explosive testimony before the January 6 Committee. As a top aide to President Trump’s chief of staff, Mark Meadows, Hutchinson had a front-row seat to the final months of the Trump White House. She details what it was like to break with Trump world in her new book, Enough. I sat down with her earlier today.

(00:22)
Cassidy, thank you so much for joining us.

Thank you for having me.

Your life changed dramatically over a year ago, and it has been over a year, but just big picture, how are you doing today?

I’m doing pretty well today. I have spent the last year, 15 months-ish in pretty much very private. So, I sort of went off kind of overnight from living privately with my dog, George, to being on national television, which that was a little bit of an abrupt adjustment. But I feel good about it, and I feel good about what we’re doing and the larger conversation at hand too.

Life in the White House, I think it’s fair to say, was a world away from where you grew up, right?

Mm-hmm.

A kid from Pennington, New Jersey, for a 20-something to suddenly be in the halls of power with some of the most powerful people.

(01:18)
You eventually join Mark Meadows’ team when he becomes chief of staff to then-President Trump. And you’re really, it’s fair to say you’re in the inner circle. And I wonder how that contributed to your sense of this idea of loyalty we hear again and again.

I took the job in legislative affairs knowing that I wanted to pursue a career in public service and that my loyalty was to my country.

(01:43)
When I took the job with Mark Meadows, I still had that mind-set. I had that conversation with him, that my loyalty and my duty and obligations were to the office of the chief of staff, not Mark Meadows as an individual. And I still felt that loyalty, but I also felt it towards the principles that I served.

(02:02)
And that is a notion that’s expected in Trump world. And when you falter from that, you’re seen as somebody that you have a target on your back. You become subjected to either Donald Trump attacking you, or you get exiled from that world.

It sounds like a really oppressive environment. Is that the right word?

In hindsight, looking back now with the perspective that I have, I would say suffocating, in a way, because I found myself in a position where I was in very staunch disagreement for what happened on January 6. And I was fairly vocal about that. Actually, I was very vocal about that after January 6, but I also still felt that lingering senses of loyalty to Donald Trump, to the administration. But I spent really a year-and-a-half overcoming that.

(03:01)
And that’s how I ultimately… That’s really why I decided to write the book, is because I wanted people to understand that I didn’t just magically appear in that chair on June 20th. I’m not saying this to be flattering or pat myself on the back. A lot of this isn’t flattering for me. There are a lot of things looking back now that I have this perspective that I wish I had at the time, but I’m happy with where I’m at now.

I mean, as you say, look, hindsight is 20/20, but you do touch on a number of times when you’re in the White House and you see things that give you pause. And you think, “What’s going on here?” The one that stuck out to me was Mark Meadows repeatedly burning documents in his office. You said, you would walk in to hand him lunch or something else. He always had a fire going. And you didn’t know what he was burning. Did you ever think, I should tell someone about this?

In the moment, no.

And why not?

On one hand, yes, it was abnormal. And, yes, I was aware that that was not what he should be doing, but what I think it’s difficult for people to understand, and rightfully so, almost every moment of every day was sort of a hair-on-fire moment. So, I was going in there sometimes delivering him lunch, but I also had a list of things to talk to him about. So I would see this. I would know that there were things that were wrong. It gave me an unsettling feeling. It caused me pause. The person that I would have talked to about that naturally would have been Mark Meadows, but, at that time, it wasn’t something that I was going to raise, because I also didn’t feel that I would either get an honest answer, or it wouldn’t be something that would be a productive conversation.

You didn’t feel like it would go anywhere.

Mark Meadows was a grown man, and I had a job, and my job had a purpose, but the purpose of my job was not to police and control every single one of his actions.

(04:59)
Looking back now, should I have said something? Possibly. But would that have changed anything? I don’t know. But what I do know is, I came forward truthfully and honestly, and I have been candid and honest. I don’t know what those documents were.

(05:14)
But, bigger picture here too, these are the same people that are avoiding subpoenas or avoiding testifying. They’re also the same people that have all this information. I came forward with what I know, hopefully to give other people the opportunity to come forward with their stories and what they know.

You have just gotten a subpoena to testify before the committee investigating January 6, and you can’t find or afford a lawyer at that point. So you end up relying on so-called Trump world to pay for one.

(05:46)
And until you free yourself from that lawyer, you’re basically told, the less you know, the better. But then you change your testimony when you get a new lawyer. Tell me about that. Why?

Ultimately, I spoke with hundreds of attorneys. I could not find someone that was willing to work pro bono or work out a reasonable cost structure, because I wasn’t working at the time. I was relying off of my savings account.

(06:11)
Then I was served as a subpoena, ultimately turned to Trump world. And I was very candid with Trump world about my situation and I was desperate. Yes, I was given counsel that I followed in the first few interviews with the committee. But I also knew, because I was on the inside, that there is a sense and an expectation of, when you take something from Donald Trump, in this case specifically legal counsel, there’s an expectation that you are also protecting somebody else. That somebody else is Donald Trump.

You did vote for him before, right?

I did.

If he’s the nominee again, would you vote for him?

I would not vote for Donald Trump in 2024. But I also do not want to sit here and catastrophize the scenario where he is actually the Republican nominee. I think it is the responsibility of all Americans right now to have a national conversation and to provoke difficult conversations about the dangers of Donald Trump as an individual. And what I would fear most about a second Trump term is, we saw how it ended. We saw that the people who were surrounding him were not only offering bad advice, but were offering dangerous advice. He was and continues to be surrounded by people who believe and proliferate poisonous conspiracy theories that is becoming the bedrock of the Republican Party.

(07:35)
And I think that, in this next year, we need to do everything we can to make sure that the man who is now facing four criminal indictments is not the Republican nominee on that ticket, that we can help restore normalcy and decency and ethics to our politics.

Cassidy, one of the most explosive moments from your testimony was when you shared the story about, on January 6, Mr. Trump insisting he wanted to go to the Capitol, then trying to grab the steering wheel to get Secret Service to take him there.

(08:04)
What do you think he wanted to do there? What do you think he would have done if he made it to the Capitol?

I could speculate. I don’t believe it’s the most responsible thing for me to do, be to sit here and speculate. But what I will say is, Donald Trump knows the effect that his words have on people. He knows that his words have power to rile people up, that his words have power to stroke violence. He knows that his words have power to turn a massive portion of the population against a single individual.

(08:36)
It is not lost on me that there was a reason that Donald Trump wanted to go to the Capitol. He summoned those people to Washington, D.C., on January 6 for a reason. He knew what was happening on January 6, the certification of the election, of the Electoral College votes.

(08:53)
I believe that Donald Trump wanted to go to the Capitol, not just to make another little speech. He knows what the impact that his presence would have at the Capitol that day.

You have your whole life ahead of you. This was the first few years of your professional career. What do you want to do? Do you still want to stay in politics?

In the immediate, no. And what I mean by that, though, is, I don’t see myself right now wanting to go work on Capitol Hill. I think that the most effective use of my time right now is contributing to a national conversation about the state of our democracy, which is in… I mean, our democracy is fragile.

(09:38)
I don’t want to say, no, I would never return to politics, because I do still feel that passion. I still feel that dedication to… that politics is about bettering our nation and our institutions.

Even after what you lived through?

Even after what I lived through.

Cassidy Hutchinson, thank you so much for your time.

Thank you for having me.