Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. We'll talk now about one of the striking developments in the last day in the election fraud-related indictments against Donald Trump, the Georgia one, and the federal one, brought by special counsel Jack Smith as more people take pleas or immunity from prosecution deals. We'll talk about them in conjunction with a book interview of a very special guest, Cassidy Hutchinson, the young aide to Trump's chief of staff, Mark Meadows, who witnessed so much personally and was such a key witness for the January 6th Congressional Committee.

One of those developments in the last day is the report by several news organizations that Meadows has been granted immunity from prosecution by the special counsel. That could be very bad for Trump, though we should say that Meadow's attorney has denied the reports. Cassidy Hutchinson's book has a one-word title. It's called Enough. Enough introduction, let's hear from her. Ms. Hutchinson, thanks so much for making this one of your stops. Welcome to WNYC.

Cassidy Hutchinson: Thank you so much for having me. I'm so happy to be here with you all.

Brian Lehrer: We'll get to the breaking news about your former boss and his former boss, but let me first respect that you're here for a book interview. Why did you title the book Enough?

Cassidy Hutchinson: I wanted to leave some of that to the readers’ interpretations. I think some of them are fairly obvious, but what I will say to that and there's a big clue at the end of the acknowledgment section, but I decided to write the book because my path to where I got on June 28th when I testified live before the country and the January 6th committee wasn't a linear journey. It was when I was welcomed to the right side of history by Liz Cheney.

I was coming out of Trump world and I was just in a emotionally dark place and honestly really isolated and alone. I didn't really have much confidence or faith in myself. Liz reminded me that my voice alone is enough, not only to change history, but to shed light on the atrocities that happened that day and to restore some normalcy in our political system. There are other points in the book where enough, it's denied throughout the book.

Brian Lehrer: That's a refreshing answer. I think people might've expected you to say, “I had had enough.” You said you were learning that your voice was enough. Many of our local listeners may not realize that you were a local kid, a Jersey kid. Where'd you grow up?

Cassidy Hutchinson: Well, I grew up right outside of Princeton in Pennington, New Jersey. I graduated from Hopewell Valley.

Brian Lehrer: You write about your parents in the book, their troubled marriage, and some really bad stuff your father did. They eventually divorced. I'm curious if there was politics in your household. Did your parents or your mom and her later partner Paul, who you call your chosen father, talk about politics or government much in ways that made you want to get involved in that professionally?

Cassidy Hutchinson: Short answer is no. From a young age, one of my uncles, my mom's brother-in-law, Joe was in the military. Now, my biological father had a lot of hostility towards the government, so it wasn't necessarily the most friendly environment for me to aspire to have a career in public service just because there was negative preconceived notions that ran rampant throughout my home life about the government. My Uncle Joe served in the military. He is what inspired me to pursue a career in public service. He was my earliest example of it.

My family didn't really ever talk about politics per se. The first time my parents voted was actually for Donald Trump in 2016. In 2012 when I was in high school, that was when the 2012 election was happening between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney. That's when I first became interested in politics myself.

Brian Lehrer: Interested, and I guess on the Romney side because you became a Republican.

Cassidy Hutchinson: Mitt Romney is my first and earliest example of a noble Republican. I still hold his examples to the highest honor today.

Brian Lehrer: Well, what made you a Republican growing up in a relatively blue part of New Jersey near Princeton? Because one review of your book that I read said the number one question people have starting out about you is what's a nice girl like you doing in a White House like this? How'd you first become a Republican?

Cassidy Hutchinson: I try to delicately address this issue for a variety of reasons. Candidly and primarily, I think right now what we're facing as a country is bigger than politics. I think that there is a negative notion and a somewhat warranted negative notion about the Republican Party because of what Donald Trump has turned it into. Again, going back to this too, I was about 14 years old when I first felt drawn to the Republican Party.

I felt drawn to the platform that Mitt Romney stood on and stands on today. I still consider myself a moderate Republican, and I think that there does need to be some consensus in our government. Going back to the larger point here, talking about individual political issues right now, I personally don't really think is the most productive way to approach conversations, especially around my book.

If we look at what's happening on Capitol Hill right now, it's in my opinion, one of the biggest travesties to happen in our government, and it's a direct result of a threat that Donald Trump continues to pose on our democratic system. The House of Representatives is effectively frozen because we don't have a speaker of the House. The Republican Party doesn't have it together right now.

I think that we need to get back to a point where Republicans and Democrats can have constructive and responsible debates about actual policy issues. We're not debating whether or not the Republican Party has become some fascist regime. It's not a productive conversation to have.

Brian Lehrer: Cassidy Hutchinson is our guest. If you're just joining us, her memoir is called Enough. Mark Meadows, your former boss has written his own memoir. You do mention his book in yours. Getting to the news of the day after reading his book, do you get the impression that Meadows is ready to tell the world the truth about the plot to flip the election results?

Cassidy Hutchinson: I don't want to get ahead of anything that Mark may or may not have testified to. Again, you led with the show that there has been an article published about the fact that he is seemingly cooperating with Jack Smith's investigation. I give ABC a lot of credit for that report, but I don't want to get out ahead of anything that might be happening behind closed doors at the Justice Department. Our justice system is designed to operate effectively behind closed doors. What we are reading in the press may be just a fraction of what is actually happening.

What I will say is, the Mark that I worked for and the Mark that I knew, I thought fairly well considered himself to be a man of faith and a man that cared about our government and democracy. I've long prayed that Mark would uphold the oath that he swore to protect and defend the Constitution and the country. I think that if he is actually testifying truthfully and candidly to Jack Smith, it's an important step towards accountability to make sure that something like January 6th never happens again.

Brian Lehrer: Well, what's a key question or two that you might like to see Mark Meadows asked under oath that perhaps he didn't address in his book?

Cassidy Hutchinson: Again, I don't want to boil it down to his book. What I will say is I think there are a lot of questions that can be asked of him. I had firsthand knowledge that there was nobody closer to Donald Trump during that period than Mark Meadows. Mark Meadows was at the center of everything and knew everything that was going on. I think anything from what Trump's plan actually was on January 6th to the fake elector schema, I think any question that investigators have, I think that Mark Meadows would be equipped to answer.

Brian Lehrer: Since you have obviously had enough, you come from a Republican or a moderate conservative background as you described, work your way up in a Republican Washington before you had enough. I'm- -curious Cassidy how you understand the reasons that so many people still support Trump when he appears so obviously to many people to be a selfish conman and potential authoritarian, which I think is one of your main concerns, the state of democracy if he gets back into office. Why do you think people who maybe grew up around you or however you want to think of them still have Trump as their far and away number one choice to be president again despite everything that you've seen and revealed?

Cassidy Hutchinson: Yes, that was another reason that I decided to write the book, because for me after I testified I had thought long and hard about that. I think from my experience I wasn't somebody that Trump would have considered a Never Trumper. I was very loyal to him. In my hindsight now, I still appreciate the experience I had working for him, but I appreciate the perspective it's given me and the platform it's now given me, because I do think there has been a void of people who are not willing to talk about the dangers that he poses to democracy in a productive way.

I say this and I’ve referenced one of my best friends, Alyssa Farah Griffin, who I worked with in the Trump administration, and she was very outspoken after January 6th that Donald Trump was at fault for what happened that day. Alyssa turned into a villain on the left and a villain on the right, and I don't think that that's productive. In my personal opinion, I think there are a variety of reasons, but in my opinion too, and from my own experience there has not for a long time been a welcoming environment for people who were Donald Trump supporters or who did work for Donald Trump. Because if you leave that side, many people including myself, often feel that there's not really a place for them, or their voice isn't worthy of being heard, and you're going to be vilified by society.

My goal with the platform that I have is not only to educate people about the dangers of Donald Trump, but if Donald Trump was to drop off the face of the earth tomorrow, these problems don't just go away. We've entered this point in society where political violence is encouraged and this behavior isn't normal.

Brian Lehrer: We have one minute left. Now that you've become an accidental national public figure we might say, and you're still in your 20s, do you still want to have a career in government, or what are your longer term goals for yourself?

Cassidy Hutchinson: I like to think that I have about a one-year plan right now. My one-year plan right now is to use the platform that I do have to help educate people and to have a national productive conversation to make sure that Donald Trump is not the Republican nominee on the ticket for the presidential election next year. God forbid he is, I think everybody has a collective responsibility to make sure that he never wins the candidacy for President, because we saw what happened at the end of the administration and it would happen again. He has showed us time and time again who he is, and he's not going to change.

Brian Lehrer: Cassidy Hutchinson, her memoir out now is called Enough. Thank you so much for joining us. We really appreciate it.

Cassidy Hutchinson: Thank you so much for having me. I appreciate being here with you all.

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