GEOFF BENNETT: In his new book, ABC News chief Washington correspondent Jonathan Karl offers a behind-the-scenes look at key moments at the White House and on the 2024 campaign trail that ended one party's hold on the White House and brought another back to power.

The book is "Retribution: Donald Trump and the Campaign That Changed America."

And Jon Karl joins us now.

It's great to have you here.

JONATHAN KARL, Author, "Retribution: Donald Trump and the Campaign That Changed America": Great.

Thank you for having me.

GEOFF BENNETT: So you open this book by recounting a phone call with President Trump right after the election.

JONATHAN KARL: Yes.

GEOFF BENNETT: And you say the president wanted to hear you acknowledge his election victory, and you compare this interaction to a scene from "Breaking Bad."

Tell us about that and what it suggested to you about how he was approaching the second term.

JONATHAN KARL: Look, this was such an incredible election, so many twists and turns.

And you know what it's like on election night.

You are up all night, and then you have to be on the morning shows of you're in television doing this.

So I had been up all night, and I just figured I would call Trump to congratulate him, which is strange, by the way.

Why would you call Trump?

I had been talking to him throughout the campaign, like every and -- some weeks, every couple of days.

GEOFF BENNETT: And you had known him for some 30-plus years.

JONATHAN KARL: And I have known him for a long time, and so I didn't think he was going to answer, by the way.

I mean, he's the president-elect now.

GEOFF BENNETT: Right.

JONATHAN KARL: But he answered, and I said: "President-Elect Trump, I'm just calling to say congratulations."

And he paused and he said: "On what?

On what, Jonathan?

You tell me.

Congratulations on what?"

And I said "on the greatest comeback victory in the history of American politics," which is what it was.

But it reminded me, in "Breaking Bad," the Walter white character played by Bryan Cranston, who is out there at one point with some other drug dealers he's clearly bested.

And he says: "Say my name.

Say my name."

Trump wanted to hear me say what had happened, wanted to hear me say, after all that I had written about him, to hear me say that he had won this great victory.

GEOFF BENNETT: Another revelation in this book, you cite Mike Pence's handwritten notes from the morning of January 6 documenting this call he had with President Trump, where Trump called him a wimp if he certified Biden's victory.

What new insights do those notes provide about the pressure Pence was under or the way that President Trump viewed that moment?

JONATHAN KARL: First of all, it's a fascinating historic document.

You think about all that we have studied on January 6, hours and hours of prime-time hearings, criminal investigations.

I wrote a book about January 6, other great journalism about January 6.

These notes had never been seen before.

Pence referred to them in his memoir, but even in -- Pence didn't reveal the actual content of these notes.

And he scribbles on his day timer.

So you get the sense that Pence -- it's 10:00 in the morning on January 6.

He's about to go up and preside.

Trump wants him to use that power that he has, which is really nothing, to overturn the presidential election.

He has refused up until now.

And the furiousness of his notes, he's trying to document that conversation for history.

There's one little piece on those notes that just blew me away when I finally got to see them, which is what looks like an emoji that he writes, he kind of scribbles of an angry face.

And it says -- it quotes Trump saying: "You listen to the wrong people."

And Pence's answer is: "I listen to my heart and my mind."

And he's clearly, like, anguished by it.

And is he angry?

Is it Trump's anger or is it his anger?

Unclear, but that's the document.

GEOFF BENNETT: There are people who will wonder, why hold a detail like that for this book?

If this exists, if that reporting exists, in the public interest, why not report it in real time?

JONATHAN KARL: Yes.

No, that's a great question.

And I get -- I hear this a lot.

Other reporters who write books hear this a lot, why are you saving stuff?

Isn't it your responsibility to get it out?

Well, here's the real -- the reality here, and I really hope people listen to this.

I break news in this book because I am writing a book.

It is a different kind of journalism.

I am burrowing far deeper than I would ever be able to do in daily reporting.

And I talk to people who wouldn't be willing to talk to me about a story that's going to air that night or the next morning and get in-depth stuff.

This took a lot of work to unearth.

I didn't sit on it to put it in a book.

I got it because I was in the process of writing a book.

GEOFF BENNETT: Another detail you got in your conversations was the sense that Kristi Noem, when she was nominated to serve as secretary of homeland security, that this was a personal favor that the president did to Corey Lewandowski.

This is despite concerns about her qualifications.

There were similar doubts raised about Sean Duffy, his lack of relevant experience, now transportation secretary.

What does that tell you about how power and loyalty and competence have been redefined in this second Trump term?

JONATHAN KARL: It really points to the contrast with the first, because Trump, in part, in his first term was looking for credentials.

He wanted to be affirmed.

So you have people like Four-Star General John Kelly as the secretary of homeland security, Four-Star General Mattis as the secretary of defense.

You had Senator Sessions as attorney general, later Bill Barr as attorney general.

These were people with long, distinguished careers.

But a lot of them in, Trump's mind, especially the people I just mentioned, Trump felt were not actually loyal to him.

So now it's not about what your credentials were.

It's about how deeply loyal you are to him.

And this is a Cabinet of people that have professed near-total loyalty, if not total loyalty to Donald Trump.

GEOFF BENNETT: He's surrounded by loyalists, as you say.

I think another hallmark of the second Trump term is the degree to which institutions have folded to him.

JONATHAN KARL: Yes.

GEOFF BENNETT: So when the present these days sort of muses aloud and wonders aloud about running for another term, a third term... JONATHAN KARL: Yes.

GEOFF BENNETT: Although most recently he said that it's pretty clear he's not allowed to do it.

But the idea has been implanted.

JONATHAN KARL: Yes.

GEOFF BENNETT: Do you think he's serious?

JONATHAN KARL: I don't think he is serious.

I will say that first.

I think he's doing it to troll people and to make people freak out about it.

But I think that idea is gaining some traction and it needs to be watched, because I'm not so sure that Trump is ready to hand over the baton.

He may understand that the 22nd Amendment would make it impossible to run again.

But if he can be convinced that he's the only one and he's got to stay, I don't know.

But I will tell you this.

In my reporting more recently, Trump has told people privately, people close to him, when the cameras aren't on and when he's not on social media, that he does not intend to stay for another term.

That could change.

So stay tuned.

But that's what he's saying now.

GEOFF BENNETT: Retribution, how far do you think this will go, given that it has really been operationalized in recent months?

JONATHAN KARL: Yes.

I don't -- I honestly don't know.

He seems like almost everything that he is doing now is either punishing the people that he feels betrayed him or went after him, rewarding friends, and also kind of like a legacy pitch, whether it's building the big ballroom.

He's very serious about wanting the Nobel Peace Prize.

These are different than the first term.

He is thinking about lasting changes to this country.

And he's dead serious about getting back at his enemies.

GEOFF BENNETT: The book is "Retribution: Donald Trump and the Campaign That Changed America."

Jon Karl, always good to speak with you.

JONATHAN KARL: Yes, thanks a lot.

Appreciate it.