Latest / The Fourcast / Musk out: how billionaires and crypto bros still shape Trump's White House

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Musk out: how billionaires and crypto bros still shape Trump's White House · The Fourcast

0:00
The scandal is in plain sight. The amount of money that Elon
0:02
Musk spent to get Trump elected, that should be a major scandal
0:06
in and of itself. People are numb to the.
0:08
Fact that there is what? Feels like a money in politics
0:12
scandal every day because it's essentially Watergate every
0:14
hour. They haven't broken any laws,
0:16
have they? When people talk about it as a
0:18
scandal, it's difficult to work out precisely what the scandal
0:20
is. The backlash clearly really
0:22
shocked Musk. He seems to have found the outer
0:25
limits of public tolerance for raising oligarchic control of
0:29
government. Hello, This is Krishnan with the
0:35
forecast. And we're going to spend this
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episode talking about big money billionaires, the oligarchs in
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Trump's America, and what they're getting in return for
0:45
their money. We're also going to talk about
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crypto and how the Trump family and other people, families in
0:51
the Trump administration are involved in this growing
0:54
industry and how they're getting breathtaking amounts of money
0:58
from the Middle East. And we're also going to look at
1:01
two of the big news stories of the day.
1:03
Of course, the last day of Elon Musk in the US administration.
1:07
He's leaving DOGE and going back to his own businesses.
1:12
Some people think it's all been a disaster for him, but what's
1:15
he got out of the whole experience?
1:17
And with some great guests, We're also going to be talking
1:20
about the court ruling that says Trump's Liberation Day tariffs
1:25
are illegal and he's gone beyond his authority.
1:28
That's thrown the whole global economic system into confusion
1:32
and disarray because nobody really knows what that means for
1:36
negotiations with America over trade.
1:39
Joining me are two brilliant journalists and authors from the
1:43
United States. Evan Osnos is from The New
1:46
Yorker and the author of a new book coming out in the next few
1:49
days called The Haves and the Have Yachts about the ultra rich
1:54
in America. And Ken Vogel is from the New
1:56
York Times and is the author of several books, including Devil's
2:00
Advocates. He's a he's an expert in big
2:03
money and billionaires in this new generation of oligarchs in
2:08
America and their power in politics and what they are
2:12
getting out of it as well. So thank you both very much
2:14
indeed. Evan, let's start with Musk.
2:18
You know, it is tempting to think that it's all been
2:20
terrible for him. What's actually happened?
2:24
Well. He got, I would say as a return
2:26
on investment, a mixed picture in the short term.
2:31
He did run into this extraordinary public.
2:33
Backlash He. Seems to have found the outer
2:35
limits of public tolerance for brazen oligarchic control of
2:41
government. You know, in 250 years of
2:42
American history, we have never had somebody who could spend
2:47
more than anybody else and then quite literally get an office in
2:51
the White House complex. He was sleeping at times in the
2:53
Lincoln Bedroom and was given. Control over a vast swath.
2:56
Of the government that allowed him, in effect to fire 10s of
2:59
thousands of people, including at agencies that did business
3:02
with himself. And eventually you saw Tesla
3:06
sales drop 71%. Profit was down massively.
3:09
He he also took a big hit to. His personal favorability and he
3:14
read the signs and said, OK, this is it's time to go.
3:17
However, he has laid. In some extraordinarily
3:20
potentially profitable opportunities, including having
3:23
the Department of Defense consider SpaceX for its Golden
3:26
Dome project and other things, the Department of Commerce is
3:30
looking at using his other companies like Star Link to to
3:35
for enormous government contracts.
3:37
So this has been I. Would say in the short term it's
3:40
cost him culturally and in terms of his public profile because.
3:43
The public is really getting. Sick of this kind of.
3:46
Of abuse of. Of money in government, but it.
3:50
It will probably be profitable. For him over the long term,
3:53
Well, I mean, you say the public's getting sick.
3:54
I mean, the, the thing that I found absolutely astonishing is
3:57
how much has been allowed to go on.
3:59
I mean, this, this is an administration which not only is
4:03
welcoming in billionaires, but is making huge amounts of money
4:07
and enriching itself and is not shy about it or ashamed of it or
4:10
trying to really hide anything. So when you see, you know, what,
4:16
what Musk has ended up getting out of it in business terms is,
4:20
is he, you know, there's a sort of an element to where to in
4:25
which he's the sort of the trailblazer, the role model for
4:27
how billionaires can use the US government to their advantage.
4:32
Yeah, he, he is. In some ways the the.
4:36
Apex figure of this period of. A politics of plunder.
4:40
Let's call it what it is. I mean, this is a time in which
4:43
there is so much money swirling around the White House that it
4:48
is swamping whatever bulwarks against corruption were left in
4:53
law or in culture. And yeah, I think in some ways
4:56
Krishna and this phenomenon has been building over time, but it
5:00
has ballooned in the last. Few years just to put.
5:03
It in perspective, 20 years ago in 2004, American billionaires
5:07
spent on the order of about $13 million in the presidential
5:10
election. Fast forward to 2024, they spent
5:13
200 times as much money as that. That's just an astonishing
5:18
growth and that's partly because of decision by the courts to.
5:21
Free up the ability to. Spend money in elections.
5:24
But the public, the mood, the culture, the laws.
5:27
The institution, the checks and balances have been slow to adapt
5:31
and to. Evolve, but I think that.
5:32
If there's one thing to keep in mind, it's that you've begun to
5:35
see some of these protests this spring that have been much
5:37
larger than expectations. You're seeing people like Bernie
5:41
Sanders. Get these very large rallies.
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Of not just diehard. Supporters, but people who are.
5:47
Disillusioned by Trump, and it is a sign that that the Trump
5:52
era of, in a sense, throwing the gates open to money in
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government has not just galvanized him and his friends,
6:00
but it has also galvanized their opposition.
6:04
Ken, has this just moved so quickly that the American public
6:07
are really struggling to catch up with what's actually
6:09
happening? Maybe.
6:12
I mean, you look at polls and they consistently show that
6:15
people, when when the questions are put to them, will say that
6:19
they oppose the influence of the outsized influence of major
6:24
donors and the ultra wealthy in American politics.
6:26
But it just tends not to be a voting issue.
6:30
And it really hasn't been. And, you know, and so, you know,
6:34
we look at at times when there has been the the public will
6:39
that has generated the political will to create reforms that
6:43
restrict the flow of big money into politics.
6:46
And it usually follows a major scandal.
6:49
You know, something like Watergate precipitated the, the
6:53
reforms that created the Federal Election Commission and some of
6:56
the campaign contribution limits that we had.
6:57
There was the, the Enron Worldcom scandals that created
7:01
like corporate restrictions on money and politics.
7:04
And the early aughts or mid aughts, there was the Jack
7:07
Abramoff lobbying scandal that created some restrictions.
7:10
But I think people are just getting a nerd to it.
7:13
Like the scandal, what it's, it's there.
7:15
You know, the, the scandal is in plain sight and, and the, the
7:19
amount of money that Elon Musk spent to get Trump elected, that
7:23
should be a major scandal in and of itself, but it doesn't seem
7:27
to be moving the needle in the same way.
7:28
And part of that, I should say, is because it takes members of
7:32
Congress to actually create substantive legislative reforms
7:36
that would restrict the flow of money into policies.
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And like all these members of Congress, whether they're
7:40
Democrats or Republicans, they got elected under this system.
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So it's it's to create the incentive for them to change a
7:47
system that worked quite well for them really requires a great
7:51
deal of of public backlash. And while we do see some signs
7:55
of it, I've alluded to the protest of the Tesla, you know,
7:59
the Tesla dealerships and the the real hits that Tesla is
8:02
taking in the stock market, in the consumer market.
8:05
I don't know if if it's enough, frankly.
8:08
I mean, the, the, the backlash clearly really shocked Musk
8:11
himself because he, he felt he was doing nothing wrong.
8:14
He'd done something public spirited in his terms to come
8:17
and try and save the American economy from vast overspending.
8:23
And the Trump administration also said there's there's
8:25
absolutely nothing wrong with what we've done in terms of
8:27
bringing people like him into government.
8:31
I mean, they haven't broken any laws, have they?
8:34
So when when people talk about it as a scandal, it's difficult
8:37
to work out precisely what the scandal is.
8:40
Yeah, I mean, I would just say one thing.
8:42
I must say that that sort of I think captures this dynamic that
8:46
I'm talking about. I'm not trying to both sides the
8:48
issue here, but but the law, the the, the Federal Election
8:53
Commission advisory opinion that allowed this new wrinkle in
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terms of spending vast sums of money through outside groups
9:01
that are technically not supposed to coordinate with
9:04
campaigns. That was the the sort of
9:07
loophole that Elon Musk used to prop up this giant canvassing
9:11
operation that Donald Trump really lacked.
9:13
Like his campaign did not have a lot of money.
9:15
It probably wouldn't have been able to do the type of canvas
9:17
saying that Elon Musk fund it. Now whether that was
9:20
determinative, I don't know. But the, the actual advisor
9:23
opinion that allowed that was actually requested by a
9:26
Democratic lawyer, a very well connected Democratic lawyer by a
9:31
guy by the name of Mark Elias, who was doing it on behalf of a
9:34
George Soros super PAC that wanted to use this new
9:37
flexibility in Texas to help elect a a member of Congress who
9:42
was running against Ted Cruz, who lost is a guy by the name of
9:45
Colin Allred. So it just shows that like, you
9:49
know, the, the, the, the, the laws of unintended consequences,
9:52
but also the way that like both sides really do engage in this
9:55
type of spending. I mean, the interesting thing
9:56
with Musk and, and the exposure that he he got and the, the, the
10:01
risk that he took that is that is redounding to his detriment
10:04
financially right now, at least in the short term.
10:06
Is that like the, the, the goal of his project, the conceit of
10:10
like shrinking the size of government is actually a very
10:13
traditional Republican idea, but it's not one that Trump has
10:17
embraced. So it's like he took all this
10:19
risk and Trump took risk as well, letting this become like a
10:22
major initiative of the second administration.
10:25
And it's like, who was clamoring for that?
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It wasn't his base. His base doesn't care about that
10:30
stuff. Maybe it was the traditional
10:32
Republicans, but Trump always sort of thumbed his noses at, at
10:35
the at the traditional Republicans.
10:37
So like it, it seems to be like a major unforced error for both
10:40
Musk and Trump. And, and now they're sort of
10:43
wound up together and maybe they're trying to extricate
10:45
themselves. But it's going to be it's going
10:48
to be tricky for Musk to sort of reclaim his stature as someone
10:52
who is at the really at the forefront of like the green
10:55
economy of me and, and, you know, niche of the industry that
10:58
relies on liberals to be, you know, to, to be profitable.
11:02
And now he's, he's, you know, Public Enemy number one for a
11:06
lot of people who'd be the natural buyers of his products.
11:09
Yeah. I mean, Public Enemy number one,
11:10
perhaps because he's the most famous, but there are loads of
11:12
these very, very rich people sort of hanging around the
11:14
administration investing in it and and getting close to.
11:17
I mean, Evan, give us a sense of how money, how big money is
11:23
linked now into the administration and what they're
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getting. Well, you saw and the whole
11:28
world saw in very vivid fashion on Inauguration Day.
11:32
That the stage was filled. With billionaires, I mean the
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world. 'S 3 richest people, Jeff.
11:36
Bezos, Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg were standing right
11:40
next to the president. We've never seen anything like
11:42
that. In fact, it was telling that
11:44
members of the cabinet were pushed into the background and
11:47
in fact, leaders of Congress were relegated to the audience.
11:51
The the this is an. Administration in which the
11:54
president named 13 billionaires initially.
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To his. To his.
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Cabinet and his top positions. This is, in a way, the kind of
12:02
fluorescence of a phenomenon that has been building for a
12:04
very long time. I think it's easy for Americans
12:08
to lose sight. Of of just how big the.
12:10
Change is, and I think as Ken put it so well, people are numb
12:13
to the. Fact that there is what?
12:14
Feels like a money in politics scandal every day because it's
12:18
essentially Watergate every hour.
12:20
But the long term effect, it's a little bit more like climate
12:23
change. You can forget about it for the
12:25
moment, but then all of a sudden it becomes.
12:27
A fact of your life. When some big scandal erupts,
12:30
the the dominant fact of our time is that in 1990.
12:33
There were 66. Billionaires in this country
12:35
there are now more than 800 and in the period of time since
12:39
Donald Trump was first elected in 2016 to now, the net worth of
12:44
those billionaires has more than.
12:45
Doubled we are. Living through a period.
12:47
Where the the the the the. Line is essentially going
12:50
vertical. And people are.
12:51
Feeling it in their lives if you're one of the 400 richest
12:55
Americans today. You're effective tax rate is.
12:58
About half. Of what it was 50.
13:00
Years ago, but if you're in the middle class, it's actually gone
13:02
up a little bit. That is something people feel
13:05
and as Ken described rightly, I think in our political behavior,
13:09
we don't often attach our primary frustrations to that
13:12
fact. We'll say I'm, I'm angry about
13:13
bread prices or I'm, you know, I'm angry about eggs or
13:16
something, or, or often times they'll.
13:18
Be directed to to. Focus on immigration instead.
13:22
But the underlying fact is a profound disparity of political
13:25
and economic power and wealth. And that is what's driving this
13:28
phenomenon. And Ken, I mean, you've been
13:31
tracking what, well, perhaps not billionaires, but certainly the
13:34
wealthy seem to be getting in return from from Donald Trump
13:40
because he looks after his people, doesn't he?
13:42
And, and you've been showing how he's been using the pardoning
13:46
powers of the presidency to reward that.
13:49
Yeah, this is a big change. I mean, the one thing I'll say
13:52
on, on like the wealthy sort of using the political process to
13:56
get their way, like, that's not new.
13:58
And in fact, you know, the the wealthy that the ones who were
14:00
sort of most adept at navigating the process are not the ones
14:03
like Elon Musk who stick their head up and become a public
14:07
figure in their own right. They're the ones who quietly
14:09
give, you know, a few million to 10 million to $100 million
14:15
range, just super PACs every year and just kind of keep their
14:19
head down and and derive benefits from, you know,
14:23
policies and particularly when they're Republican
14:25
administrations that are, you know, small, small government,
14:30
low taxation. And so the biggest benefit for
14:34
the wealthy overall is going to be the Trump tax cuts.
14:37
If the Senate is able to pushed through this bill that the House
14:41
passed that that will be hugely beneficial to.
14:44
Well, there are specific special pleaders who we see getting
14:48
specific things. And I think the Trump
14:49
administration has has been both Trump administrations, but even
14:53
more so in this one have been, has been like incredibly
14:57
receptive to it. And the pardon power is one that
15:00
these clemency grants that are given to major donors or
15:04
relatives of major donors or allies of the president, wealthy
15:08
people, but not all wealthy, but just people who are willing to
15:11
say, I'm a Trump supporter. And even more than that, I was
15:15
prosecuted because I'm a Trump supporter.
15:18
And that's something that really resonates with Trump's own
15:21
feeling that he was unfairly prosecuted and singled out by
15:24
the Biden, by the Biden Justice Department and speaks to his
15:28
concerns, his claims about the weaponization of the justice
15:31
system and the way that people are able to sort of manipulate
15:36
him by just saying the words. It's kind of akin to like, like
15:40
the way Putin was able to manipulate him early on.
15:43
Maybe that's changing a little bit.
15:44
But like, I'm your friend and therefore you.
15:47
You're my friend sort of thing. We're used to the idea here that
15:50
Trump pardoned the January 6th rioters because that was
15:54
ideological. But but these are cases that
15:57
you've been writing about that are straightforward bang to
15:59
rights, people pleading guilty sometimes.
16:02
Yeah. I mean, yeah, I was going to say
16:03
like that, that that is the like a really acute thing that I
16:07
think people can understand because it's this unilateral,
16:11
unfettered power of the president to effect some change.
16:14
He doesn't need Congress to pass a, you know, to pass a bill to
16:17
get a pardon. He doesn't need a treaty.
16:20
He doesn't. It's not even like tariffs.
16:22
It's just like a single stroke of the pen or several chompy
16:25
strokes of his big Sharpie are able to like effectuate
16:30
something that has a real impact in a very discreet way on
16:33
individuals. And he is using that to, you
16:37
know, score political points to reward his allies and even to
16:40
punish his foes. That means I think it's it
16:42
speaks to his mindset that like I did, like I control the
16:47
presidency, I control the levers of power and I'm going to use
16:51
them as I see fit. And whether that's to, you know,
16:55
start a crypto company and welcome people, you know, to
16:58
raise, welcome the top buyers of his cryptocurrency to a dinner
17:02
with him or whether that's giving a pardon to a friend or a
17:05
family member. This is how he thinks about
17:08
like, what he likes about the presidency, frankly.
17:12
And is this normal? I mean, the presidents continue
17:15
to pardon people through the course of their presidency.
17:18
I mean, we can't. I'd always sort of assumed this
17:21
was something that happens, you know, towards the end of a
17:23
presidency, you know, when they're about to go and they're,
17:26
they're doing, you know, that they're looking for, you know,
17:30
to do some good if you like, and to exercise some, some mercy.
17:35
Is it, is it normal for a president to just keep doing it
17:37
all the way through an administration?
17:40
Not, not the way he's doing it. I mean, he's really like
17:42
redefine the approach to clemency.
17:44
And there's a system that was set up inside the Justice
17:48
Department to try to bring some order to this.
17:51
And that Justice Department had criteria that said that in order
17:55
to be considered for a pardon through this system, you had to
17:57
have served your time. You had to pay back the
18:00
restitution, you had to show remorse.
18:03
And Trump has completely set all those criteria aside and
18:07
completely brought the, the, the clemency operation oration
18:10
inside the White House where it's handled by just a few folks
18:13
who are very close loyalist to him.
18:15
And he's pardoning people like you, like you alluded to, who
18:17
before they serve their time. He's pardoning people before
18:20
they're even sentenced or while they're fighting their
18:23
sentencing. This example they wrote, we
18:25
wrote about where this, this guy got a pardon just 12 days after
18:30
his mother attended a $1 million ahead fundraiser at Mar a Lago.
18:34
He had been sentenced between the fundraiser and the and the
18:38
pardon, but he had yet to go to jail.
18:40
And his lawyers were pushing off his, his report date as well as
18:45
his his payment of $4.4 million in restitution for having
18:50
essentially cheated on his taxes.
18:52
And he got the pardon and that was all wiped away.
18:54
And so we see a lot of these cases, if you add up the total
18:57
of the restitution that these people who are getting pardons
19:01
are being freed from the burden of paying.
19:03
It's it's in the hundreds of millions, maybe over a billion
19:06
dollars at this point. And again, This is Money that
19:09
like Elon Musk is trying to save the government money.
19:13
Well, This is Money that like is owed to the government or in
19:16
some cases owed to victims. And, and the Trump
19:18
administration is completely, you know, closing, closing the
19:23
book on it without collecting that money.
19:25
Yeah, I thought Ken made an important point a second ago.
19:28
Which is, you know, it's easy to.
19:30
Think, oh, is any of this new? You know, this is not new.
19:33
There's always been money in politics.
19:34
But as Ken pointed out, there has never been a pardon.
19:37
Process like this that we're. Seeing right now in which you
19:40
have a president essentially constantly pardoning people who
19:44
are. Political.
19:45
Supporters have hit in the most brazen way.
19:47
I'd I'd just give an example. There was a guy named Trevor
19:49
Milton, for instance. Who was convicted of?
19:52
Defrauding investors in an electric car company.
19:55
Company he had distributed. A promotional.
19:57
Video in which the car. Appeared to be speeding along.
20:00
It was, in fact rolling downhill.
20:03
And he, then Donald and then Trevor Milton and his wife
20:07
donated $1.8 million to Trump's campaign and hired.
20:12
The as a lawyer they hired. The brother of Attorney General
20:15
Pam Bondi, Donald Trump's chief law enforcement officer.
20:19
And lo and behold, Trevor Milton got a pardon which not only will
20:23
spare him having a felony on his record.
20:25
It will also relieve. Him perhaps of an estimated $680
20:30
million in restitution payment. So if you think this isn't
20:33
partly about money, 680 million. Dollars so there is a.
20:38
Way in which Donald Trump has. In new ways collapsed.
20:42
The boundaries between his personal politics, his business
20:46
interests and the interests of the country.
20:49
But the, the trouble is, I mean it, it underlines even more the
20:51
absolute disaster of Joe Biden pardoning his own family and his
20:56
own son because there is no high ground anymore for the Democrats
21:01
to criticize Trump, you know, for any of his behaviour.
21:04
I I do think there were Democrats at the time who
21:06
worried about the precedent that would set and would say, well,
21:09
this is going to make it easy for Donald Trump to do it.
21:12
I I think that it will leave it to will leave it to the public
21:16
to decide if. They think that these are
21:17
equivalent and equal. I think you're going to see many
21:20
more of this kind of essentially transactional pardon commerce
21:27
over the course of the next. Three years because after.
21:29
All we're only four or five months into this.
21:31
Let's then move on to the whole the question of crypto, which
21:34
can also mention because again, again, you know, it's, it's a,
21:38
it's a first. We have a president who is
21:40
involved in his own cryptocurrency, whose family are
21:45
getting rich from it, whose employees or, you know, members
21:48
of his administration, you know, Steve Witkoff, his son is
21:53
involved in crypto as well. And this is all kind of swirling
21:57
around, you know, the administration's moves, you
22:01
know, that there are meetings going on around crypto that, you
22:06
know, follow the president's travel schedules as well.
22:12
I mean, how? How is that even legal?
22:16
Well, it in a way he's exploiting the.
22:18
Fact that this hasn't been thoroughly tested in the courts
22:21
yet. Now there is.
22:22
The you know, the white. House makes her performance of.
22:26
Of saying. That there's no conflict of.
22:27
Interest here. Because it's the president's
22:30
son, Don Junior, who is an Eric Trump, who are involved directly
22:36
in a lot of these transactions. But let's be blunt here.
22:38
I mean, we are talking about something that we've never seen
22:41
in this country where you have. The families crypto venture
22:45
auctioning. Off dinner with the president
22:49
for 220 of the highest bidders, then.
22:53
And by the way, they make money. The family and their partners
22:56
make money on the buying and selling of these tokens.
22:59
Even if the tokens eventually go to zero, they have made, by some
23:03
estimates, hundreds of millions of.
23:05
Dollars already. In the first few months of this
23:07
administration and then on top. Of it they are.
23:09
Sitting on a stash of their own crypto coins, which would now be
23:14
worth in the billions. So I think you're going to see,
23:17
but this is going to be an area where Democrats who are
23:19
motivated on this, on this issue will be drawing attention to it.
23:22
And you may well see it in the courts, Ken.
23:26
Yeah, I'll say a couple things about the the crypto ventures.
23:29
They are really remarkable and I can't think of any precedent for
23:33
them. Number one is to this point that
23:35
that Evan made about the White House sort of justification of
23:39
this saying it's the sons and not and not Trump.
23:42
And also another justification they say is like this is his
23:45
personal, you know, this is the families like personal finances
23:49
separate from the presidency. Well, this dinner that you
23:52
mentioned where they had the top 220 holders of this Trump mean
23:56
coin and, and Trump spoke at this dinner.
24:00
They, they, they had the presidential seal on the podium
24:03
when he was speaking. So you know, the clearly that
24:05
that's not the message that they're sending the people who
24:08
are investing in this. And they gave some of them tours
24:11
of the White House, the top 20, I think holders of the of the
24:15
mean claims. I'm gonna read 1 quote that
24:17
Donald Trump junior gave at AI believe a crypto conference, the
24:23
government sponsored business forum in Qatar last week.
24:27
And he says we tried during the first administration to to be,
24:31
you know, to abide by the rules and the norms.
24:34
And he felt like they didn't get credit.
24:35
So he said even the deals that were totally legit, it didn't
24:38
stop the insanity. I assume he's referring to
24:41
protest there. So this time around, we said,
24:43
hey, we're going to play by the rules, but we're not going to go
24:46
so far as to stymie our business forever.
24:48
They're going to hit you no matter what, so we're just going
24:51
to play the game. So he's sort of admitting like,
24:54
yeah, we went through say we did, we sort of paid lip service
24:57
to the norms last time, and this time we're just not even going
25:00
to do it. I mean, it was really
25:02
interesting evidence as well that the thing that the public
25:05
and the commentators and even Trump supporters seem to find
25:07
really distasteful was the plane.
25:10
You know, they did. They did because that was
25:11
something that they could get their heads around.
25:12
There was this big giant plane on the tarmac.
25:15
And they didn't like the idea of that being something that was
25:18
essentially for Donald Trump after he becomes president.
25:21
But this whole question of of crypto investment and the money
25:25
that they're getting from the Middle East into that and what's
25:28
really why, Why is the Middle East putting so much money into
25:33
this crypto venture that is closely aligned to the Trump
25:37
family? No one's really asking.
25:39
Yeah, the the plane is a classic example of what happens
25:44
periodically in politics. Which is that you?
25:46
Get a moment. That is just so inescapably
25:50
vivid, so clear that. Even the most.
25:53
Casual watcher of politics, Somebody who tries.
25:55
To tune it out. Who says I don't want?
25:57
Anything to do with this topic? Who sees it?
25:59
Just on the, you know, on a screen in the corner of their
26:02
office or in the in an airport or something.
26:04
Gets the feeling that this. Is not normal and I think what
26:08
one of the things we've been talking about, so that's so
26:10
important on this. Show is the idea that you know.
26:13
When is the public mood going to move?
26:15
When is the public going to recognize this?
26:17
Each one of these things is like a Pebble on the pile of public
26:20
awareness, and it takes a long time.
26:23
Historically, I mean, there is actually a very direct analogy
26:26
to the United States in the 19th century.
26:28
That it it took. A long time between the moment
26:31
when Mark Twain gave us the name The Gilded Age in 1873, it took
26:38
at that .17. Years before the United States.
26:41
Could even pass the first law against trusts, the Sherman
26:45
antitrust act in 1890 and it was A and.
26:48
Even. Then it was not a permanent
26:50
change because there was this long struggle over the.
26:54
Years to, you know. They were robber barons, as they
26:56
were called at the time, would try to pry open again their
26:59
access to unlimited power and and then there would be.
27:04
Efforts by civil society. And others in government to try
27:07
to bring it back into some more sustainable balance.
27:10
That is, the take away is that there is a.
27:12
It is a. Long process and and what builds
27:15
that process, frankly, is things like public pressure and
27:20
investigative reporting and. A process of.
27:24
Demonstrating and revealing the fact that there are things going
27:28
on. That the public does care.
27:30
About I mean it the the plane was an own goal by this
27:35
administration because it. Took what has.
27:37
Often been done in nods and winks and made it unbelievably,
27:47
almost inescapably brazen. And, and do you feel, you know,
27:52
when you say it's about investigative reporting, I mean,
27:55
to both of you, I mean, can, you know, there's clearly an attempt
27:59
to sort of delegitimize the media.
28:02
They're very open about it. They call you the fake news
28:06
media. They're building their own clubs
28:08
to try and exclude journalists from them so that only the Super
28:12
rich can sort of hang out in bars and restaurants and country
28:15
clubs and you won't get access to them.
28:18
I mean, do you think journalism can still uncover and operate
28:26
with this administration in the same way as it could before or
28:30
or is it much harder? Yeah, Well, I, I actually think
28:33
it's in some ways it's easier because because it is just so
28:36
blatant and it's so out there. And also the maybe a little bit
28:40
less so than in the first term, but there's certainly still like
28:43
a high degree of factionalism in Trump world.
28:46
So there are motivated sources and leakers who want to, you
28:50
know, tell you something because they think it's going to make a
28:53
rival look bad. And so you have some of that.
28:56
But like the ability to to to report a story that moves the
29:02
needle, you know, and captures the public attention and
29:04
generates this, you know, this, this, this, this public will
29:08
that can generate the political will for change or restrictions
29:12
or, or election results or move the needle in election results,
29:15
I think is diminished. And I think part of that is the
29:19
the, you know, an intentional effort by the the Trump folks,
29:23
not just the White House, but the allies, you know, on the
29:26
outside to, you know, change the subject.
29:29
And to be so chaotic and to be throwing so much out there that
29:34
they are able to sort of shift attention away from the outrage
29:38
of the moment. That seems to be like a bad
29:40
story to them for them to another outrage that maybe is a
29:43
better story for them. And they're pretty savvy at it.
29:46
It's not just like the chaos theory.
29:47
I think it is sort of a thoughtful thing and maybe it's
29:50
instinctive with Trump and his understanding of the media
29:53
coming up in in the sort of go go, you know, tabloid 80s in in
29:57
New York. He is pretty effective at, like,
30:01
shifting the focus to, you know, chaotic stories that are more to
30:06
his sort of political benefit. Yeah, I mean, Evan, I mean, when
30:09
the MAGA crowd will, they'd look at this program and go, well,
30:12
there's a guy from the New York Times, there's a guy from The
30:14
New Yorker. You know, these are sort of, you
30:17
know, liberals from the fake news media who don't even live
30:19
in in the real America, you know, Are you being
30:22
delegitimized? Well, there's certainly an
30:25
effort to do so. And.
30:27
And I think that this is a part of the strategy.
30:30
Is to make people doubt that any kind of fact, no matter how
30:36
vivid and. Obvious it is like a.
30:39
Plane being given by a foreign country in which you're seeking
30:43
an enormous personal business deal that that is somehow not
30:47
that you know that you're. As they say, you're that your
30:48
eyes are deceiving you, but I will tell you I think that there
30:51
is. Something that runs beneath
30:53
this. This is in fact part of what
30:55
got. Donald Trump elected to
30:57
politics. Was that he figured that out.
30:59
He picked the. Lock on that.
31:01
And he said, you know. I can figure.
31:02
Out a way to make. People feel as if.
31:05
My money gives me special knowledge of the inside game and
31:09
then I will then. Use that.
31:10
To drain the swamp, to use the immortal phrase.
31:13
There were a lot of people who voted.
31:14
For him on that basis and the more that this comes up, the
31:19
more that these kinds of examples.
31:20
Show this, you know, obvious. Favor trading among friends,
31:24
among allies, creating literally clubs you mentioned before.
31:27
But it's worth making explicit. A club with a an initiation fee
31:31
of up to. $500,000 Invite only for people who are invited by
31:38
Donald Trump junior and people around him.
31:40
That does begin to bother conservatives.
31:44
Who didn't vote for that? They voted.
31:47
For, in fact, the draining. Of the swamp, so.
31:49
You know, I think that the the Elon Musk's ejection from
31:52
politics, even though in the long run it will pay dividends
31:55
for him, is a sign that on some. Level.
31:59
It did cross a threshold. With the American public, and I
32:02
think it's worth keeping in mind, this is important.
32:05
Important point is Americans are very ambivalent about big money.
32:08
This is like a core fact we if you look at.
32:11
At polls about US, what you find is that 60% of Americans believe
32:15
that billionaires are making the country more unfair, and 60%
32:19
identical share want to become billionaires themselves.
32:22
That is like the essential American condition, this deep
32:25
ambivalence, A cynicism and aspiration, and Donald Trump.
32:29
Is is. Gambling with that and and
32:32
betting that he can come out on the right side of it, but it is
32:34
a gamble. Let's just end on the course
32:37
then, because that's where this always ends up.
32:39
I mean, it's years before the voters get their say.
32:42
And Congress doesn't seem to be doing anything.
32:43
So it does end up in the courts. And today we've seen the courts
32:47
with this major intervention into a huge part of Trump
32:51
policy, which is tariffs. And it's thrown, you know, the
32:54
the global economic system into chaos because nobody really
32:57
knows what it means, what it means for, you know, for trade
33:00
negotiations, for existing deals.
33:02
You know, Britain's done a deal. What does that deal mean now?
33:06
You know, and and yeah, there there is genuine confusion.
33:09
And it makes the, you know, America look even more unstable
33:12
and unpredictable than it did before.
33:15
But can the courts withstand the pressure that the
33:19
administration, you know, puts on them when they talk about the
33:23
courts as a coup? It.
33:26
Is clearly moving in the direction where the.
33:28
Courts are the bulwark. Against some of the largest,
33:34
most questionable. Abuses of the law.
33:36
And I think interestingly, it's friends in the legal profession
33:40
when you talk to legal. Scholars who say, look you.
33:42
Can't count on the courts. Ultimately, the courts don't
33:45
have an army. They don't have a.
33:46
Police force. They have limited powers to be
33:49
able to. Enforce their own rulings.
33:51
They have the US Marshals, which can hold people, and they can
33:54
hold people in contempt. But ultimately, if a president
33:57
chooses. To defy court orders.
33:59
It gets. It gets to be.
34:00
The essence of a constitutional crisis.
34:03
But in the meantime, the courts have proven over and over again.
34:06
And you? See this in the data that over
34:07
the course. Of the last four or five months,
34:09
over and over they have stepped in to impede.
34:11
Disrupt or. Delay some of the Trump
34:15
administration's most aggressive tactics, and it has in fact, had
34:20
an impact. And so I think you'll.
34:22
You should. Expect to see a a a growing
34:24
confrontation between these two branches of government, Ken.
34:29
It is the ultimate question whether the Trump administration
34:31
will continue to abide by the court rulings.
34:33
We have seen like a few examples where they seem to be, you know,
34:38
sort of testing the boundaries. The, you know, the, the, the
34:42
questions about whether the deportees were in flight before
34:48
the court ordered them not to be deported and the sort of some
34:51
gamesmanship around there. But like, surprisingly, Trump
34:56
has seemed to defer to the courts in some ways.
35:00
But it's it's one of the reasons why, by the way, I think this is
35:04
a bigger issue than just Trump. I think like a lot of politics
35:07
is moving into the courts. And there's so much, you know,
35:11
there's so much litigation around the voting rules and the
35:14
campaign finance rules and the, the recounts and the, you know,
35:18
the vote, the vote counting after the fact that this is
35:21
really becoming like an increasing forum for, for our
35:25
politics. And it's one of the reasons why,
35:27
you know, in some ways, like, I, I think like Trump gets too much
35:30
credit that, you know, he sure, he came in and this project 2025
35:35
laid out all these initiatives that he's taken and, and has
35:38
gotten some pushback from the course.
35:39
And but but they were not, they were not the plans were not so
35:45
sophisticated as to prevent that court scrutiny and prevent the
35:49
court from like coming down on them.
35:50
Now, the one thing I'll say that, and I don't know whether
35:53
this is a part of Project 2025 or just part of Trump's like
35:57
grievance and retribution tour, but it's why his his his fights
36:02
with these big law firms are are so significant in his effort to
36:06
like cow them and get them to back down with like all of you
36:11
know, with all of his his agenda being sort of litigated in the
36:16
courts and so much of public which.
36:17
Again, he's lost in the courts. Yeah, but if you don't have
36:20
lawyers who are willing to stand up to you like good lawyers at
36:23
big firms, like that's going to be potentially a major
36:27
advantage. And so that is something that I
36:29
think people like, right. I think some of the hand
36:32
wringing about authoritarian impulse is a is a little
36:35
overwrought, but that's one place where I do think that the
36:38
concern is, is appropriate because that is a major check.
36:42
The, the legal system is the major check on his impulses.
36:47
And if he is sort of working the refs or working the the
36:51
litigants of people who might be on the other side of these cases
36:53
and, and potentially scaring them away preemptively, well
36:58
that would, you know, potentially have a major impact
37:00
here. It's quite difficult even though
37:02
it's work out where this all ends up though, isn't it?
37:04
Because on the one hand, a confrontation with the courts,
37:07
you might expect it to play for Trump politically.
37:10
He can say, I'm elected. The courts aren't.
37:13
They're trying to frustrate the will of the people.
37:15
On the other hand, if they keep stopping him from doing things
37:18
for which he hasn't, you know, made the work to get it through
37:21
Congress. And it turns out that he can't
37:24
just do whatever he wants on immigration and he can't do
37:26
whatever he wants with Harvard University, and he can't do
37:29
whatever he wants with tariffs, and he can't actually do that
37:32
much, it turns out, to transform American lives.
37:38
You know, the question is, how will the American people judge
37:40
him? Well, he has the advantage of
37:43
the first mover. I mean this is the the nature of
37:47
relying on the. Courts as a bulwark, is that it
37:51
it it is when the president. Does something, Does something.
37:53
It's a fait accompli. And then it.
37:55
Takes the court's. Time and it's slow to roll
37:59
things back, so at times they can put a stay in or they can
38:01
delay something. But it is very, very disruptive.
38:05
In the meantime. Just look at the volatility.
38:07
In global markets, look at what the impact has been for people
38:11
who on their retirement savings and I think look fundamentally
38:15
Americans. And let's remind ourselves we're
38:17
talking partly about elite Americans here because, you
38:21
know. For this, for the Trump project
38:23
to succeed. He needs to maintain the.
38:25
Support of. The business community of people
38:28
in this country who fund his campaigns and will ultimately
38:32
fund the the successors to his politics in the future of MAGA
38:37
America and. They have benefited.
38:40
Over the years from. The rule of law.
38:42
In this country, you know, I can name all of the reasons why that
38:45
is an imperfect description, but fundamentally this is a country
38:49
where if you have a contract, it can be protected and defended in
38:52
a court of law if he undermines. The validity of the rule of law
38:57
by. Challenging and defying the
38:58
courts, he is moving United States fundamentally from a.
39:01
Phase of that is defined its. History into a completely
39:04
different phase and you know. Scholars will say this, we have
39:07
traditionally been a civil. Oligarchy in this country
39:10
meaning. That powerful figures respected.
39:13
Fundamentally, the rule of. Law if you lose.
39:15
That you move into what's known as a.
39:17
Sultanistic oligarchy, which is exactly?
39:20
What it sounds like, and that's a country.
39:22
In which the rule of law is less.
39:24
Powerful than the personalistic. Power of the leader.
39:27
And the question for I think America's business elites is,
39:31
is. That a world that you.
39:32
Really want to live in? If I, if I could take a shot at
39:36
your question. So like what will the legacy be
39:38
if the courts sort of check him on the policy stuff?
39:42
And I think it's, it's cultural. There is like a cultural shift
39:45
that he is attempting to effectuate.
39:48
And I think there's some evidence that he has
39:50
successfully effectuated where it's like he is, is moving some
39:54
of these elite institutions off of some of their principles and,
39:57
and moving parts of the business community and parts of this sort
40:00
of oligarchy. Evan mentioned the tech.
40:04
The tech Titans who sat behind him at, at his inauguration,
40:07
well, tech was like a sort of, it wasn't just coded left.
40:11
It was like a major engine, financial engine behind the
40:14
Democratic Party. And now it's not.
40:16
And, and like, I, I don't want to give Trump too much credit,
40:20
but it seems like there was, there was already there already
40:24
sort of libertarian instincts in Silicon Valley and among some of
40:27
these, you know, tech Bros, so to speak.
40:30
And Trump really tapped into that and, and also some of the
40:34
sort of cultural, you know, some of the backlash to the woke, you
40:39
know, the woke dictates that that people felt were sort of
40:43
shaping culture. And and so not only did he like
40:46
tap into that to get elected, but but he also harnessed the
40:51
pet, the, the money of some of these extremely wealthy folks.
40:54
Not, you know, not necessarily just in, in funding his projects
40:58
and his his political groups, but but also in, in cutting off
41:03
the funding that they were steering to the left.
41:05
So I think that could have a long term impact.
41:08
I mean, we'll see what happens. Certainly when he leaves, I
41:09
think there will be like a battle for the soul of the
41:11
Republican Party. And there will be a real pushed
41:15
by some of the the billionaires and operatives who are more
41:18
traditional, you know, Country Club conservatives who are in
41:21
favor of free trade and in favor of immigration and the neocons
41:25
who were in favor of interventionism that the the
41:28
likes of which Trump says that he is opposed.
41:32
But but I think that Trump has already sort of made an impact
41:35
by showing that like the right broadly, Republicans can tap
41:41
into some of these, some of these channels and sources of
41:45
funds and dynamics that were previously seen as off limits
41:50
and were previously seen as like the property of the left.
41:53
We'll leave it there. Ken Vogel, Evan Osnos, thank you
41:55
both very much indeed. That's the forecast.
41:57
Until next time, bye bye.