Alexander Vindman On Trump, Biden and Russia

Retired Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman talked with Chance Seales about everything from working in the Trump White House to the service of whistleblowers.

Chance Seales: With us now is retired Army Colonel Alexander Vindman. He's the author of the new book "Here, Right Matters: An American Story." Alex, thank you for being here. You know the world knows you, primarily because of something you witnessed in the basement of the White House on July 25, 2019. President Trump pressuring Ukraine's president to investigate the Bidens. And you write this: "My reaction was visceral. My head snapped up. I looked quickly around the table. Were others tracking this?" What shocked you so much? He is well-known to be transactional. Alexander Vindman: He is known to be transactional but up until that moment, I thought that I, maybe in a way could convince myself that these shenanigans, this kind of corruption of our electoral process and free and fair elections was by toadies and kind of, proxies. You can see I'm not being the least bit kind to these folks because of the damage they've done to our institutions, but that they were trying to ingratiate themselves with the president. At that moment I dispelled any remaining notions that the president was above it or that the office of the president was above this kind of corruption and I realized that the president was the driving force. Chance: Not everyone had the same reaction you had that day. Did you ever ask yourself “am I overreacting?”