How It Happened

Trump's Last Stand Part II: The Legal Team

National political correspondent Jonathan Swan traces how Donald Trump's strategy to dispute the result of the 2020 election evolved from targeted lawsuits to embracing — and amplifying — conspiracy theories.

Starting with the Four Seasons Total Landscaping press conference and digging into subsequent meetings, Swan offers new reporting on how Rudy Guliani and Sidney Powell became the faces of Trump's legal strategy.

Swan's reporting takes listeners behind closed doors, where President Trump's inner circle and a group of conspiracy theorists clashed over how best to advise the President. 


Note: This episode contains some explicit language.
Credits: This show is produced by Amy Pedulla, Naomi Shavin and Alice Wilder. Dan Bobkoff is the executive producer. Additional reporting and fact checking by Zach Basu. Margaret Talev is managing editor of politics. Sara Kehaulani Goo is Axios’s executive editor. Sound design by Alex Sugiura and theme music by Michael Hanf.
For more on this series and our sourcing, click here.

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How it Happened is an Axios podcast docu-series featuring instant histories. Each season, Axios reporters bring you behind closed doors to hear the people and decisions shaping the biggest stories of our time.
Trump’s Last Stand: In the first season of How it Happened, national political reporter Jonathan Swan reveals the inside story of Donald Trump’s last few months in office. The story starts with his COVID-19 recovery and ends with the insurrection at the Capitol.
The Next Astronauts: In the second season of How it Happened, Axios space reporter Miriam Kramer goes behind the scenes at SpaceX and the preparations for the first all-civilian mission into orbit.
Trump's Big Deal: In the third season of How it Happened, Axios’ Middle East correspondent Barak Ravid and national political reporter Jonathan Swan will uncover the surprising negotiations that led to the Abraham Accords, the most significant Middle East peace agreement in a generation.
Putin's Invasion: In the fourth season of How It Happened, Axios’ World editor David Lawler pulls together analysis and reporting from across the Axios newsroom to explain how the invasion of Ukraine happened in slow motion over 8 years and then all at once.