BUTLER, SALENA ZITO & THE SHOT THAT CHANGED AN ELECTION
Tonight I talk to the amazing Salena Zito - she is an incredible reporter and her new book, BUTLER, is out today. We cover what happened the day that President Trump was shot, just a few short feet away from Salena and her daughter. Salena and President Trump have a terrific friendship, and what she witnessed that day and those that followed, she believes, changed the course of the election. A little bit about the book: Butler, The Untold Story of the Near Assassination of Donald Trump and the Fight for America's Heartland: "Salena Zito…. She understands you people and me better than we do.” -- President Donald J. TrumpFrom the acclaimed journalist standing only a few feet away from the stage when the gunshots began is this gripping first-hand account of the near assassination of Donald Trump – and the inside story of Trump’s heartland-fueled victory. That day in Butler, had the wind gusted less, had Trump’s head turned in a slightly different direction, or had the adrenaline-fueled heart of the shooter beat slower, America would have been plunged into chaos, possibly even civil war. As a local reporter with deep ties to the area, Salena Zito had been invited by the president to interview him at the Butler Farm Show Grounds. She was standing only four feet away from the presidential podium when the bullets started to fly. A campaign staffer tackled her to the ground. Throughout it all, Salena never stopped reporting. She spoke by phone to Trump several times in the immediate aftermath and was granted access to community members, rally participants, family members and local law enforcement officials. “I rarely look away from the crowd,” Trump told her in one of several of those conversations. “Had I not done that in that moment, well, we would not be talking today, would we?” Known for her on-the-ground reporting on populism and rural America, Salena zooms out to tell the fascinating story of the battle for America’s heartland and the issues that actually motivate voters. To understand how and why Trump won the 2024 election, you have to understand places like Butler. Big cities like Los Angeles, New York and D.C. don’t decide who wins election cycles, but people in places like Butler, Pennsylvania sure do. President Trump gave the author extraordinary access for this book, including to his top aides, to his running mate JD Vance, to billionaire supporter Elon Musk, and even his security detail.There are moments that define America. The late afternoon hours of July 13, 2024 was one of them. This book is a narrative of that fateful day, the people of the heartland and the untold story of how the president found his way back into the heart of the electorate. https://a.co/d/94Bbk5K @LyndaMick @RogueRecap @ZitoSalena https://a.co/d/94Bbk5KSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Hey everybody, it's Linda McLaughlin of The Rogue Recap.
Super stoked tonight to be here with my dear friend and colleague Selena Zito.
Today is the release day of her book Butler.
We have all been waiting for it.
I've been waiting for it because I knew she was writing it back in December when she let me in on Little Secret.
And I was like, I have to wait how much longer for this.
So we're super excited.
The full title, just I don't want to, you know, dip anybody.
It's the untold story of the near assassination of Donald Trump and the fight for America's Heartland.
So Selena, so excited to have you here.
I mean, what a day for you, right?
I guess you've been nonstop.
I I'm so excited to be here with you because it there's nothing better than be able to do good storytelling with someone that you're super comfortable with that you know and you can be chill with, and I suspect your audience is the same way.
And and so this is this is an honor for me.
So I think the one thing that I would ask you, I mean, obviously, you know, I've been I know your story of the day of Butler and just being so close to the president and the proximity, and I know your daughter's also, you know, a photojournalist.
She's in our business, like you guys get it.
Yeah.
And I think when you become a part of news and you are the news that you're typically just reporting on, it's a very different thing.
Yeah, please.
Yeah, absolutely.
So I should backtrack a little bit.
When when I became a reporter, yeah, nobody knew who a local reporter was, right?
No, nobody.
I I love that anonymity, right?
That I could be just there, report on a story, go do my job and file my story and do my job.
Yeah.
I could not get in the business really like with this with this expectation of attention, right?
But that's what the business morphed into.
And and for people to see and read and feel your stories, you have to be able to talk about them in a meaningful and authentic way.
Um, and so when you are a reporter and you find yourself in the middle of like you always want to not be in the story.
I I make sure I'm not even in the photo.
You know, if there's people taking photos, I'll just I'll be just like Homer Simpson, like don't get me in the photo.
I'm not the story.
And and so that day started off, you know, like a typical day.
When you're a reporter, you have no level of expectation that anything's gonna go as planned, nonetheless, you have to have a plan.
And so my plan was to interview the president, Chris La Civita, the co-campaign chairman, had told me you've got five minutes with the president before the rally.
Now I hadn't interviewed President Trump since Latrobe, Pennsylvania in 2020.
Oh my god.
Between that time, he got a little mad at me for interviewing Ron DeSantis.
And um, I Ron DeSantis didn't tell me he was running for president in the story, and nothing was said bad about the president, but nonetheless, uh I didn't see him, I definitely know he didn't like it, and it was a true social post.
Um, so but I I you know that's part of the business, right?
It is you have to have a thick skin.
If you went into journalism for people to like you, you definitely went into the wrong business.
Yes, you did.
And and I also understood at that moment in in um February of 2023 that you know he had a lot of stuff piling up on him.
And so I didn't take it personal because I'm Italian, it's not bit personal, right?
Um, and I just let it roll off my back.
And also there really wasn't people that who chimed in on it because people had followed me for so long and knew I had been very good at covering um people in the up um Midwest, the um Appalachia and the Great Lakes Midwest.
So, you know, uh there wasn't any sort of blowback towards me.
Um, so I'm I'm there to cover him.
It's be our first interview in in four years.
And um I I'm supposed to interview him for five minutes.
That changes to you're gonna only interview him, you're gonna interview him for five minutes after the event.
Then that changes to Susie Wiles calls me and says, So what do you think about flying to Bedminster?
And and doing minutes of five hours.
I was like, well, I didn't have that on my bingo card, but I'm in his daughter, got a babysitter, which by the way, you have four children, you know that getting a babysitter for four children is literally an act of God.
It is needs to rise up and put his hand on your shoulder for that to happen.
I got you.
So, okay, we're gonna interview him.
And then all of a sudden, the the pr Trump had landed, he was um behind the stage, he was doing what's called the click line, where he meets and greets people that are um you know, first responders and and do gooders in the community, and and he spent some time talking with them and they get the picture taken, that hence the word click.
And so they rushed me back and and and I said, Oh my, okay, I guess we're doing the interview now, right?
They rushed Shannon and Michael and I back, and um we there's a curtain, and I said to the uh handler, his name is Michelle Picard the third, where am I doing this interview?
And he looks at me like I don't I actually don't know anywhere you can.
I don't know, but he didn't like know where to put me.
Right.
And so he goes, excuse me.
And he goes around the curtain to talk to here President Trump, like basically say, where do I put?
Yeah.
Yeah.
And and then he comes back very sheepishly, he goes, um, he just wants to say hi to you.
You're still going to Bedminster.
This isn't the interview.
I'm like, okay.
So I go around this curtain and I hear Salina, like the way says it.
And then he makes a big deal about doesn't she like, and this is where I just wanna crawl in a hole.
He says, look at her hair, everyone.
Doesn't she have the most beautiful hair?
And there's like 30 state troopers there all staring at my hair.
And by the way, I had been in 101 degrees weather.
Very hot that day.
Literally Monica from Friends when she's and and um, but then he gives me a hug.
He asks about my grandchildren.
We talk about you know, I really are interested in this interview about Pennsylvania in particular.
And then, you know, I go to leave, but I hear the beginnings of um Lee Greenwood.
I'm like, that's when he comes out.
And I look at Michelle Picard and he said, We can't get you back to the riser.
You go in the buffer, um, follow the president out.
You can take pictures, take video, do whatever you want, just end up, you know, towards the end on the other side.
And that's exactly what I did.
And that's how we ended up with the cover that we have.
Shannon took that photo that day.
And that that um that photo on the cover really hacks has some very depth and meaning.
And I'll explain that later.
And um, so we go out, we take pictures, and then we we work our way over to the side, you know, at this point.
There's no reason to be standing in front of him.
Sure.
And um, he does two things he never does.
He puts a chart down.
And I remember when he put the chart down, I turned to my daughter and said, What is he, Ross Perot?
Candidate that always had a chart, right?
Everything else is not a chart.
He had no personality, but he had great charts.
Sure it is.
And then um he also um turns his head.
Now you would think so President Trump does never turn his head away from a rally goer and people in a rally.
There's a reason for that.
There's a very transactional relationship.
He feeds off of them, he they feed off of him.
He doesn't, he does he he's very respectful of them feeling as though he is present with them.
Yeah.
And in the moment that he turns his head, I hear the first four shots.
Now I knew what it was immediately.
I knew it was gunfire.
I'm a gun owner, right?
I grew up in western Pennsylvania.
So it's it's like a bird.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And um I watch him, and and everything goes in in very slow motion.
Uh it's true when they say about that, at least it was for me.
It was it was sort of like layers of time.
And I watch him grab his ear, I watch the blood streak across his cheek.
Uh I see him take himself down.
That was my first understanding that he might be okay.
Um, but he takes himself down behind the podium.
And and I remember like praying and saying, Dear God, please that someone's protect him.
The that shooter, that that gunshot came over my head, right?
That didn't come from the front where the proteum would protect him.
And and then I kept thinking, well, I hope everybody else is okay in the stance.
And then came the next four shots.
In between those two rounds, um, there was like a sea of secret service that surrounded him, navy blue suits that were just a protective stance.
You you could barely see him.
If it if there was more bullets coming his way, they were gonna take them.
And um, I can see his head, his face.
Um, he's holding his ear, his hat is off.
Um, and then the Michelle Picard takes me down.
He knocks me down.
And because I'm I in that moment I have purpose.
My purpose is I'm a reporter, God gave me this talent.
Um, I need to chronicle what's happening because this is being this is what it is when you are a witness to history and you have a depth of understanding.
I've always been graced with with sort of a great total recall.
I can remember things, I can remember smells.
Uh, you know, I can I can see uh um dimensionally, so not just what's in front of me, but I can see what's behind you know, beyond in the background.
And and so uh, and I have my recorder on, I always have my recorder on.
And people say, Well, why would you record a speech?
You can just get the transcript.
Well, what's important in reporting and often missed is conversations are not a transcript, and speeches are not a transcript because there's nuance in conversations, right?
People's voices change.
You want to be able to capture that when you're telling a story because saying something one way, just writing it flatly, is very different than framing it with the emotion that it's said, which is why I always um record things.
So my recorder's on, I kind of forget that.
Um, and I watch him fight with the Secret Service to get his shoes on, and there's a reason for that.
Uh and and the crowd starts chanting USA.
And I can see him mouth it.
I can't hear him, but I can see him say USA along with them at least twice.
And he get they get him up and they're going to take him away.
And he goes, no, no, no, no, no.
Or wait, wait, wait.
I think he said wait, wait, wait.
And he turns around, and that's when he says, fight, fight, fight.
And that moment, that decision is so pivotal to whatever happens from that moment on through the rest of the campaign, but also since January.
That was that moment is so profound.
And why he says it, people don't understand why he said it, but why he says it is even more profound.
So listening to you, I mean, obviously, I think you're terrific, and I read all your columns and and have for a gajillion years and proud to call you a fellow Pennsylvania native and all the things.
But I think the thing that I really want people to pull away when they listen to you is you're so embedded in the messaging, right?
Even down to the point of recording the voice and getting the nuance because it's lost in a transcript.
It's so true.
And you think to yourself, oh, I'll remember that, but you won't.
You won't remember that because there is first of all, my God, you're on the Trump detail, you're in the buffer.
There's so much going on to even attempt to remember everything, all the things that are happening around you.
It's difficult, right?
And you may even give yourself a little note.
Remember to talk about, you know, white shirt, red shorts, great USA hat, or whatever you're gonna add as an anecdote, right?
Because they give color to those people who couldn't make it to Butler.
I mean, to be perfectly frank, nobody heard of Butler before this incident.
You know what I mean?
They're like, where the heck is Butler, Pennsylvania?
Right.
And the fact that he went back, I mean, the audacity and the whole to me, it was like he was reclaiming it.
I know we're both very good friends with Sarah Carter.
And I was on the phone the day that Sarah Carter showed up to cover it, right?
And she's saying to me, I can't even, I I can't even tell you how many people are here.
It's she goes, It's eight o'clock in the morning.
Yeah.
And it was like mopped, you know.
And it just shows that, you know, and I wasn't there.
I it was one of those things I was like, man, you know, and it I had a an obligation for one of the kids, and it was like you make those choices, right?
But it's crazy to think how all of that sort of culminated into this one moment because I mean, I don't know how you feel about Matthew Crooks, but my God, I know I read some of your book, and it's like it was just strange, right?
The polls they came after, the five hour call later with the FBI and the dad, you know, you really delineated a lot of that really well.
And I again, guys, if you're listening, this is Selena Zito.
She wrote the book, Butler, it's out today.
I urge you buy the audio book, buy the print book, buy it today.
It's on sale, by the way, right?
It's on sale today and tomorrow.
Yes, it is on sale today and tomorrow on Amazon.
Um, and and it's a true witness to history, not just what happened in Butler, why does he go to Butler?
You know, and it's a really deal detailed explanation about why there's only ever been two US presidents that have campaigned for president in Butler and the other one was JFK.
So it's so funny.
I was gonna go to that point and just talk about that whole idea while they were on opposite sides politically, they're both disruptors.
They both were men of the people, if you will.
And so I wanted to go back for a minute and just ask you, how did your relationship with President Trump come of to be?
Like, where did this I need to know the origins, you know, a little bit of where this all came from.
Well, you know, uh, if people have not read me before or heard me before, I'm based in Western Pennsylvania.
Um, the the region that I cover tends to be Appalachia, uh, but also the Great Lakes Midwest, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, and Wisconsin.
And and I've always zigged where everyone zagged.
I understood for a while that this conservative populist coalition was forming.
And and so I understood and and my writing showed that.
And and so you you would see that in my coverage of Wisconsin and uh of Scott Walker, right?
Of of Ohio, just how these states were changing, it was very granular beginning in 2006, but something definitely was happening.
And so um one his Pennsylvania guy, uh David Urban, I had known forever.
And so David is the one that kept giving him my stories and trying to convince him to do a sit-down.
Now, at the time, I did my first sit-down with him, I was a local reporter for the Pittsburgh Tribune Review.
Well, I was supposed to do it as as that, but the day the day that they asked me to do the interview was also my last day on the job.
Uh, they had urged people to take the buyout.
It became clear that if I didn't take the buyout and get the um, you know, the the money that you get when you do a buyout, then I probably would be fired after the buyer out was over, right?
There was there was that hint that boy, you should you should really take that.
Um, and so I was walking out of the newsroom crying, and you know, newsrooms are like, especially old school newsrooms, they're like the land of the misfit toys.
Oh, trust me, I'm in one right now.
It's just totally You you all are doing wildly different things, but you somehow come together to produce a newspaper or produce a show, right?
Um, and and so I'm walking out and I get a call from David Urban.
He goes, Hey Selena, you have an interview with Donald Trump in two days.
And I was like, Oh, that's awesome.
And I hang up and I'm like, I don't have a job.
I have no outlet to print said article.
And they're like, no, we're not interested.
And I called, was it Daily Beast?
I think it was a Daily Beast and Umbe Politico or Washington Post, I can't remember at this point.
I called a whole bunch of them.
Finally, I thought like exhausted, you know, and I didn't even know these beats.
It's like a cold call.
It's like Glenn Gary Glenn Ross.
And um, it was the Atlantic that took the story.
Of all places, all places.
I think I got paid 200 for that job.
It was two things happened in that interview that I think started our mutual respect for each other.
Um I saw for him, it was at a Marcella Shale coalition convention in Pittsburgh, and he was not that interested in the suits that were attending.
He was very interested in the people that put the event together.
So after we do the interview, and it was in that interview that I said to him, you know, voters take you seriously, but they don't take everything that you say literally.
Whereas the press takes you everything that you say as literal, and they don't take you very seriously.
But what happened in that moment is he's like, come on, take a walk with me after the interview.
I'm like, okay.
Um, so we take a walk and he stops and talks to the janitor.
He talks to the guy that's pushing the big carts of water.
He's talking to the caterers that are going to be serving all these C suite suits that are out there waiting to hear Trump speak.
And the his connective tissue with those people told me that you know what the what what what why people like him?
Because he's from the outer borough, he's not Manhattan, right?
He's a guy who had his punches way up.
And if anybody's ever seen the movie Age of Innocence, that sort of tier system in New York, if you're not old money, you don't belong with the crowd.
100%.
He and he had that grit that is possessed by the working class people.
That's what they saw in him.
But also C-suite guys saw them in too, because a lot of them had to punch their way up to get there.
So that's sort of how that coalition.
So that that is where that moment, I said that to him.
I'm like, you're really curious guy.
Like the collar billionaire.
Yeah, you're asking all these questions of people that people don't expect you to be connected to.
That I think belie began our um our respect for each other.
Um two weeks later, the New York Post hired me to drive across the country to um do a story on again, I'm freelancing, right?
I'm like barely making ends meet.
I just want to finish this election because I knew what was gonna happen.
And and and why I knew it was gonna happen was I understood my state was changing, our our state, Pennsylvania, right?
Bill Clinton had won our state um by winning 28 of our 67 counties, and and it eroded every four years by 0.1%.
If you're a nerd, you know this stuff.
But by 2012, Barack Obama had only won 13 of our counties.
Yeah, it got very purple.
Yeah, and that was telling me that the possibility was going to happen.
And there was 10 counties that I had identified that if Trump won just 2,000 more votes in those counties, he would win the election.
Didn't matter what happened in Pennsylvania or Pittsburgh and Philly.
If he won those 10 more rural counties, he would win the state.
Yep.
So I drove across the um country uh for the New York Post on Route 30, um, and came back and wrote this election's over.
Y'all just don't know it yet.
I remember I think he thought that was a pretty bull, like Rush Limbaugh at the time, like was like, whoa, I think Sean did too.
He did.
I gave it to him.
Sean in Rush Limbaugh.
And then that's when the president started to really follow the work that I do.
And you know, it is not easy to be me, this person, right?
There, not because I'm a fan, like a cheerleader for the president.
I just understand people.
And I could see the shift and change in people.
Yep.
Um, and and so that's that's sort of where that mutual respect began.
Again, he did get mad at me once.
Um, but you know, less than a year later, he made a phone call to me.
Um, I was watching my four grandchildren who at the time were six, four, two, and an infant.
And and he calls, and I'm like trying to navigate four children.
He is a laughing his head off.
I love kids, yeah.
Um, and that was that was it.
With everything was good.
It just humanized it all.
It makes it, I mean, honestly, kids are the best thing ever.
So it really does, you know.
And he wow, there was he's wonderful with children.
I mean, you know, he met my son.
We went uh we did it, we were at one of his uh rallies, and and he did this sit down with Sean Hannity, and and we were in the front row, and Sean was you know, pointing me out, and he goes, and that's her son Liam.
And he came over and shook Liam's hand, and Liam was like, Oh, I don't know, I don't understand what's happening right now.
Like, totally my my other my older kids were there too, but it was like, and he had a picture from my niece, which he gave to the president, and the president took it very graciously, and I just was like, This is surreal.
I hadn't even met him yet, yeah.
Um, which was pretty funny, you know.
So it was like a moment for me, but back to back to Butler and your book out today, you know.
I think obviously people want to read this account because it's firsthand, you're there, you you you saw it, you smelt it, you felt it, you saw all the other people and what they went through.
And obviously, we lost some really wonderful people that day who the president has honored, you know, since then so many times, which is amazing.
But I think if I was gonna ask you one question about the book, what would you think?
What do you want people to come away with?
Just their own interpretation.
Is there something about the book that you're like, I really hope they get this.
And I hope they get and understand that America changed in that moment, and and reading my reporting every day on the road, right?
I don't fly, I don't even go in interstates, I only take back roads.
Seeing how this election unfolded, seeing how bad I was also covering Harris, seeing how bad she was doing and the decisions that she made, that has not been prosecuted in the in the um in the um blogosphere, whatever, whatever we want to call it in a way that it should be, because there were some unbelievable, terrible mistakes made in the most important state in the country.
Yep, ones that you should never ever make.
And and I and I think that there was also a joy that they will find in this book because there were moments that were joyful, like McDonald's, and and also the one five minutes from my house, by the way.
I'm like, this is so great.
That was great.
I was there, and um, but also I remember the Madison Square Garden thing, right?
And the garbage thing, and every reporter, every single reporter I knew said, This is it, it's over, it's done.
He's lost him.
And I go out to Eastern PA in the most populous city in the state of um people that are from Puerto Rico, and you know, there's supposed to be this big protest because he's coming to do a rally, big protest, they've left him, and and there were six people at the protest.
Um, and not find one voter that left him.
No, not one.
Let me tell you something.
You know what I learned from the garbage truck moment, aside from the fact that it happened around Halloween and every child I knew wanted to be a garbage truck man.
I mean, do you remember that?
Grown men dressing up as garbage truck men.
My whole neighborhood.
The whole neighborhood.
Yes, I was like, okay, you know, it did the exact opposite.
It said to me two things.
One, nothing is beneath this man.
Nothing.
And two, whoever he got to turn that truck around that fast.
Oh my God, they must have started working on it the second it happened.
I know.
And incredible.
And a couple days later, this was this was um a powerful moment.
He has this event in Pittsburgh.
He has um uh it's the night before the election.
So it's a couple days later after um after garbage.
Um, and the place that he has his PPG arena, and it is packed, and I see people lined up for a half a mile in each direction to get in.
And I'm looking, and and this is a phenomenon I kept writing about, but guys, there's a lot of young people here.
Oh, by the way, guys, these crowds are really diverse.
How how are you not writing about this?
Where is your intellectual curiosity?
And I remember the next night was election night.
Yeah, and I had a reporter, local reporter come up to me and say, I'm just gonna have to disagree with your story about the diversity and the young people.
And I'm like, I I, you know, uh I take a selfie together and get the background.
I mean, yeah.
If I was there too, and I said, well, then your eyes weren't wide open.
No.
But but at that event sat Roberto Clemente Jr.
He's born in Puerto Rico.
He is a pillar of the community, the clemente family.
If people don't know who Roberto Clemente is, he was the best baseball player that ever was from Puerto Rico.
And his children were born there too.
And he's a pillar of the community.
He runs the Clemente Foundation, and he is boldly sitting right there to um to welcome President Trump.
And that's and then Megan Kelly is there, and then the the announcement comes through that Joe Rogan has endorsed him, right?
You have like all this diversity of thought, experience, ethnic background, and nobody wrote it but me.
And it frustrated the heck out of me.
So I think that people will see and be able to feel the real truth that was going on in this in this election, but also you know, the reckoning with my with my profession.
I think it's amazing.
You you really did do something that is very difficult, which was you stood alone.
Yeah.
And to stand alone is very difficult when everyone in your industry is staring at you.
Oh, yeah.
And or throwing tweets at me that aren't very nice.
Yeah, well, that's I mean, to your point.
I mean, you started the interview by saying I didn't get in this business because I didn't have a thick skin, I'm Italian.
Right.
You're right, because as many people that love you, and I always say this, you know, I'm my mother told me this growing up, and it's very, very true, as are many things she has told me in my life, which is you will always hear more negative than positive because positive people are not wishing you ill, they're saying, Oh my god, she's amazing, and then they move on with their day.
Right.
But the people that are saying negative, like, oh, I don't like doing this, all right.
And they like just dwell in it and it just projects it.
It's like, oh God, could you please, you know, get a hobby.
But it's like you just persevered.
You're like, no, I was there.
This is real.
I was there with my daughter.
We experienced this.
I'm gonna write a book about it.
You guys are gonna read it, and it is the truth, and nobody can take it away.
I didn't go to an Ivy League school, I went to community college.
Same.
I did a waitress.
I have worked in a sewer treatment plant.
I have been the cafeteria lady.
Um, I have been a shampoo girl.
So I uh uh I understand the people that I cover and I respect them.
And I thank them so much for letting me into their homes and their businesses and soccer fields and bowling alleys and diners and and letting me be able to tell their story in an incredibly meaningful way.
Well, I think you have done that in spades.
I think you are by far one of the most talented writers.
I loved reading what you wrote before I ever knew you.
And then I was like, I have to be friends with her.
How do I do that?
Okay, I'll just keep emailing her and telling her that I like her and I want her to come on every show that I work on.
And that's what we did.
But I have to say, every time I would say to somebody, oh, did you read that piece by Selena Zeto?
Because first of all, your website's great.
And wherever you, you know, I always, what is it?
Nowhere is the somewhere.
Right.
Everything is the middle of somewhere.
And I was like, man, that isn't that the truth.
It's no, it's no my god Butler.
I mean, like.
And my family was one of the founding families of Butler.
No kidding.
1750s.
Wow.
They served in the American Revolution.
They served in the French and Indian War.
My family was one of the founding families of Butler.
So I'm very rooted.
And I think place is really important.
It's a nuance in American politics that pollsters and strategists don't understand.
Yeah.
Um, and and how much place means to someone when they're deciding their vote.
Yeah.
And that is that is a the theme throughout the book that I hope that people start to really reflect and think about.
Well, I'll tell you what, ladies and gentlemen, Selena Zito, she's fantastic.
Her new book, Butler is out today.
Please get it.
You can get it on Amazon.
Continue to read our article.
Selena Zito, thank you so much for being on the road recap.
