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The only power Trump acknowledges is the Supreme Court · INSIGHT TODAY

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: So what do you make of the president's decision, praising
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: the Supreme Court decision to expand his powers to fire
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: officials within the executive branch of the government, calling it
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: a big win.
• 0:11
  Speaker 2: Well, it's one of the few pieces of good news
• 0:13
  Speaker 2: for him. Frankly, out of what we've seen in the
• 0:15
  Speaker 2: ruling so far from the Supreme Court day, this has
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: been a case that has been long in the making
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: by a number of the president's top advisors, a small
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: group of advisors who were preparing for a second Trump term.
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: We write about this actually extensively in the book. How
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: they had looked at Jonathan extensive reporting on this at
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: Axios even before it was at the Times, How they
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: had looked at pockets of independence inside the executive branch.
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: How they believe there is no such thing under the
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: unitary executive theory that the president controls these so called
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: independent agencies and has the power to make changes there.
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: So this was an expected ruling, but it is an
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: affirmation of how Trump has governed and sought to expand
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: executive power.
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: That's interesting because the Supreme Court also said this morning
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: that it wouldn't hear President Trump's challenge of that five
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: million dollar jury award to Egen Carroll for sexual abuse
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: and defamation. Are we likely to hear the last of
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: this case from the president? What do you think?
• 1:16
  Speaker 3: I'm reluctant to speculate, but based on our reporting, I
• 1:19
  Speaker 3: think it's unlikely that you've heard the last about it.
• 1:22
  Speaker 3: There are a few things that he was more enraged
• 1:25
  Speaker 3: about than the Egen Caroll case, So I don't think
• 1:28
  Speaker 3: you've heard the last of that at all.
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: What do you think?
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: No, I mean, based on our reporting, and we write
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: extensively in the book about all of these court cases.
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: During the campaign, he was extremely unhappy about the Egen
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: Carroll decision and being there for one of the second
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: trial during the primaries. I assume he will say something
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: at some point before.
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: And Meggie, you know Trump, You've covered him, and you
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: understand you think he's actually going to write out a
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: check for five million dollars to Egen Carroll.
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: I'm reluctant to speculate as to whether he will actually
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: do it. Think that if he does it, it will
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: be under extreme protests. A choice.
• 2:06
  Speaker 4: I want to dig a little right if he doesn't
• 2:08
  Speaker 4: want to break the law. And your book is named
• 2:10
  Speaker 4: Regime change inside the Imperial presidency of Donald Trump. I
• 2:14
  Speaker 4: emphasized the title because I think it really encapsulated this
• 2:18
  Speaker 4: interaction you had with President Trump where you go, you
• 2:21
  Speaker 4: meet with him and he pulls out this document that
• 2:23
  Speaker 4: he says was written by historian. You later find out
• 2:25
  Speaker 4: it's written by a golf caddy, where it lists names
• 2:29
  Speaker 4: of historic dictators, in some cases very brutal dictators, and
• 2:34
  Speaker 4: makes an argument that Trump is more powerful. And so
• 2:36
  Speaker 4: I'm wondering, what is your understanding of how Trump views
• 2:40
  Speaker 4: his power and his level of satisfaction or lack thereof
• 2:45
  Speaker 4: what the power he currently has.
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: It was a remarkable moment sitting in the Oval office,
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: having him hand us or having Aid hand us this
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: document that you were describing. And he did it because
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: we had asked about how he views his power and
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: how he views his power in the context of past
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: American presidents. It's something he had been talking about privately.
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: We wanted to see if he would talk about it
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: with us, and he was clearly he was not making
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: a moral judgment about these people who he was listing off,
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: and he referred to them as the top ten. And
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: it was Stalin Mao, the Caesar's Attila the Haun, Alexander,
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: the Great Hitler, Napoleon. I mean, you know, I'm missing
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: a few, I think. But he was not in any
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: way reflecting on what they had done to bring them
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: to power and what they had done as leaders. It
• 3:35
  Speaker 2: was the notion that they were memorable. They had had power,
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: but that he had more. And what he wanted us
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: to understand was that he is willing to use his power.
• 3:45
  Speaker 3: The whole point of the title of this book, regime changed.
• 3:47
  Speaker 3: People when they think of regime changed, I think of
• 3:50
  Speaker 3: foreign regime were always used to talking about regime change
• 3:53
  Speaker 3: in Iraq, regime change in Iran, regil. We came up
• 3:56
  Speaker 3: with this title long before Trump went into Caracas and
• 4:00
  Speaker 3: snatched Maduro out of his bedroom or started a war
• 4:02
  Speaker 3: in Iran. It occurred to us pretty early last year
• 4:06
  Speaker 3: that we were covering a form of regime change in
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  Speaker 3: America that Trump was using presidential power like no president
• 4:13
  Speaker 3: in our lifetimes, and in some respects like no president
• 4:17
  Speaker 3: ever in some of the respects that we cover in
• 4:19
  Speaker 3: the book.
• 4:20
  Speaker 4: Do you think he sees any ceiling on his power
• 4:23
  Speaker 4: or is it just an insatiable appetite?
• 4:25
  Speaker 2: He has said publicly that he sees, you know, at
• 4:29
  Speaker 2: least so far, no limits. Now it's been in specific
• 4:31
  Speaker 2: content war. What he said to our colleagues earlier this
• 4:36
  Speaker 2: year was about the limits of his own power internationally.
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: I think this is what he was saying. I'm paraphrasing,
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: but it was that, you know, his own morality, his
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: own sense of what's acceptable, and not what our reporting
• 4:47
  Speaker 2: shows in the book. And I think you were seeing
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: this again with some of these rulings today. He is
• 4:51
  Speaker 2: going to test the limits of his power in many
• 4:54
  Speaker 2: different ways. And the court system in the US really
• 4:57
  Speaker 2: was not built for someone like Donald Trump. It's not
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: equipped to keep up with him. And what we have
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: seen is the only authority that this administration really acknowledges
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: is the Supreme Court, because they will take various cases
• 5:15
  Speaker 2: through lower court challenges and then see whether they can
• 5:18
  Speaker 2: expand power for good at the Supreme Court.
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: Your new book, Jonathan, includes a really amazing insight into
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: President Trump's decision to launch these strikes on Iran alongside Israel.
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: You also note the confusion and even the pushback among
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: some of his key cabinet members in public. They all
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: seem to show unfailing loyalty and support, but tell us
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: more about what actually was going on behind the scenes.
• 5:42
  Speaker 3: It was a pretty astonishing sequence of events, starting with
• 5:45
  Speaker 3: Benjamin NETTNYA, who the Israeli Prime Minister, coming down to
• 5:49
  Speaker 3: the White House situation room pitching Trump on this war,
• 5:52
  Speaker 3: showing a video montage of possible new leaders to take
• 5:56
  Speaker 3: over Iran. Overnight. The CIA didn't analysis of that presentation,
• 6:02
  Speaker 3: and they concluded that the regime changed scenarios from debt
• 6:05
  Speaker 3: now who were divorced from reality. So Trump meets in
• 6:08
  Speaker 3: the situation room with his team. John Ratcliffe, the director,
• 6:13
  Speaker 3: tells him it's fascicle. Rubio uses coarser language. Trump goes
• 6:17
  Speaker 3: ahead with it anyway for his gun instincts. What I
• 6:20
  Speaker 3: think people don't realize about this war is there's basically
• 6:24
  Speaker 3: no one on Trump's senior.
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: Team who thought it was President was very tough too.
• 6:28
  Speaker 3: Well, he was the only one who really vocalized it. Basically,
• 6:31
  Speaker 3: no one on Trump's team thought it was a good idea.
• 6:33
  Speaker 3: The closest to think it was a good idea was Hegseeth.
• 6:36
  Speaker 3: There was various levels of skepticism from almost everyone, but
• 6:39
  Speaker 3: unlike the first term, they didn't really express it to Trump.
• 6:42
  Speaker 3: They weren't these big heaced. He was the exception and
• 6:45
  Speaker 3: it actually cost him with it irritated Trump. You did
• 6:49
  Speaker 3: have people layout risks, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs
• 6:52
  Speaker 3: absolutely did, But there wasn't the sort of direct you
• 6:55
  Speaker 3: shouldn't do this arguments I wouldn't.
• 6:57
  Speaker 4: Ask just to follow up. But do you see any
• 6:59
  Speaker 4: correlation with the fact that it irritated Trump? The jad
• 7:01
  Speaker 4: Evans was pushing back and now Trump has sort of
• 7:03
  Speaker 4: made him the face of many ways.
• 7:06
  Speaker 3: I don't see that really. I think jd. Vance from
• 7:09
  Speaker 3: our reporting, seems by all accounts to be quite happy
• 7:12
  Speaker 3: to be the one to try to steer this toward
• 7:14
  Speaker 3: a piece steel and to be associated with the piece
• 7:17
  Speaker 3: of this. I mean, you barely heard from him during
• 7:19
  Speaker 3: the war itself, and he's everywhere now. I think he's
• 7:22
  Speaker 3: quite comfortable talking about the peace steel element of this.
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: Because he thinks that could help him potentially if he
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: decides to run for president.
• 7:28
  Speaker 3: I also think it's what he believes. I mean, really, again,
• 7:31
  Speaker 3: there wasn't really a political advantage to him doing what
• 7:34
  Speaker 3: he did with Trump. He needs Trump support, yeah, to
• 7:36
  Speaker 3: be a nomini.
• 7:37
  Speaker 4: We were interviewing chairman Comer coming up, of course, the
• 7:41
  Speaker 4: head of a House oversight, and I wanted to bring
• 7:44
  Speaker 4: up Epstein. We're going to ask him about Epstein. And
• 7:46
  Speaker 4: you really really bring us inside the White House, inside
• 7:49
  Speaker 4: the situation Room as White House officials deliberated how to
• 7:54
  Speaker 4: handle Epstein, which is really unusual to be in the
• 7:56
  Speaker 4: situation room talking about it something like.
• 7:59
  Speaker 2: This, right, Yeah, The White House Situation Room complex, as
• 8:02
  Speaker 2: you know well, as you know well, it is typically
• 8:05
  Speaker 2: used for national security discussions, emergencies, discussing foreign policy, sometimes
• 8:13
  Speaker 2: natural disasters. This was the first time that we knew
• 8:16
  Speaker 2: of where it had been used for essentially a crisis
• 8:20
  Speaker 2: PR center on how to get out of a clamor
• 8:26
  Speaker 2: within the MAGA base over unreleased files related to Jeffrey
• 8:31
  Speaker 2: Epstein and Gallaine Maxwell. And there were a number of
• 8:35
  Speaker 2: meetings in that room. We just focused on a few
• 8:38
  Speaker 2: of them. And there were people in Trump's orbit who
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: were concerned about the victims, but that was not the
• 8:45
  Speaker 2: primary discussion at these meetings. This was about how do
• 8:48
  Speaker 2: you deal with something The President just wanted to go away,
• 8:51
  Speaker 2: and we report on this in the book. He wanted
• 8:53
  Speaker 2: it to disappear. He was snapping at AIDS when they
• 8:55
  Speaker 2: would bring up Epstein. So what ended up happening were
• 8:58
  Speaker 2: these series of remarkable meetings with the top levels of
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: this government, the vice president, White House Chief of Staff,
• 9:05
  Speaker 2: white House Counsel, Attorney General, Deputy Attorney General, FBI director,
• 9:08
  Speaker 2: and that's just a partial list, discussing what they saw
• 9:12
  Speaker 2: as their options. And some of these meetings were described
• 9:16
  Speaker 2: to us as surreal, at least in terms of how
• 9:18
  Speaker 2: detailed they got.
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: Before as you go very quickly, how do you react
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: when Trump bitterly and awfully he goes after you in
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: public and social media and elsewhere.
• 9:29
  Speaker 2: It's not the first time he's attacked me. We've both
• 9:33
  Speaker 2: been through it. It doesn't impact how we report, and
• 9:36
  Speaker 2: we're in pretty good company at this point in terms
• 9:38
  Speaker 2: of him attacking people.