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On this episode of ZUCKER, ‘Sinking in the Swamp’ co-author Asawin Suebsaeng joins host Andrew Zucker to talk about his new book. Suebsaeng shares stories from the book and offers his perspective on the GOP, Trump’s White House, and the inspiration for the book.

On how Goodfellas helped inspire the book: When Lachlan and I were talking about getting a book together, we figured we should probably take that approach. We should tell it through, as we like to call it, ‘the worm’s eye view,’ from the bottom-up. So go in the ‘Trump World’ and gather as many Henry Hill’s as we could possibly find.

On Trump’s fascination with Wisconsin badgers: In early months of the Trump administration, the president would derail multiple times actual White House or policy conversations he was having with his then-White House Chief of Staff Reince Preibus to grill him about badgers in Wisconsin — like the little furry animal with teeth and claws.

On Trumpism: As ostentatious, as flamboyant, as different as a character he is compared to other presidents and republcian presidents of recent years and decades, the dirty little not-so-secret about it is — in terms of a lot of what he’s doing — there substantively isn't much of a difference between Trump’s GOP and the party of Mitt Romney and the party of John McCain and the party of Geroge W. Bush.