Latest / Pod Save America / Rachel Maddow on Surviving Trump 2.0

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Rachel Maddow on Surviving Trump 2.0 · Pod Save America

• 0:00
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  Speaker 1: your 2025 story to be? A romantic comedy. Oh, that's nice.
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  Speaker 1: Sure. Every January brings you 365 blank pages waiting to
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  Speaker 2: The first 100 days, bills are passed, executive orders are signed,
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: and presidencies are defined. And for Donald Trump's first 100 days,
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: Rachel Maddow is on MSNBC five nights a week.
• 1:26
  Speaker 3: Now is the time, so we're going to do it.
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  Speaker 2: Providing her unique insight and analysis during this critical time.
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  Speaker 3: How do we strategically align ourselves to this moment of information,
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  Speaker 3: this moment of transition in our country?
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: The Rachel Maddow Show, weeknights at 9 p.m. Eastern on MSNBC.
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. So, this
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: is our first Sunday show of the new year. We
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: are going to be doing one of these every other
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: Sunday every year. for 2025 exciting on each of these
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: shows we're going to talk to someone really smart in
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: politics or media and the idea is to sort of
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: step away from the churn and the breaking news and
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: to have interesting thoughtful conversations about the big ideas and
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: forces and trends shaping the news shaping politics and that
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: we are all scrambling to digest every day, as I'm
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: sure all of you are as well. I am thrilled
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  Speaker 1: that our first Sunday guest is Rachel Maddow, host of
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: the Rachel Maddow Show on MSNBC. Rachel is back to
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  Speaker 1: anchoring the 9 p.m. hour every weeknight for the first
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: hundred days of the second Trump administration. They somehow got
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: her to come back and do five nights a week.
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: Poor Rachel, but lucky us. On day three, of the
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  Speaker 1: administration on Wednesday. I sat down with Rachel here at
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  Speaker 1: the Sirius XM studios in New York, across from MSNBC's
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  Speaker 1: offices at 30 Rock. No doubt by the time you're
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  Speaker 1: hearing this on Sunday, a ton of crazy new shit
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  Speaker 1: will have happened. But already by Wednesday, things were feeling
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  Speaker 1: not great, pretty surreal. Here's a sampling of some of
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: what's happened this week. Do you intend to continue selling
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: products that benefit yourself personally while you're president?
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  Speaker 4: Well, I don't know if it benefited.
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: I don't know where it is.
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  Speaker 5: I don't know much about it other than I launched it.
• 3:46
  Speaker 5: I heard it was very successful. I haven't checked it.
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  Speaker 5: Where is it today?
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  Speaker 3: You made a lot of money, sir. How much?
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  Speaker 6: Several billion dollars, it seems like, in the last several days.
• 3:59
  Speaker 4: Several billion?
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  Speaker 5: That's peanuts for these guys. By pardoning not some of
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  Speaker 5: the rioters, but all of them, Political violence in this
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  Speaker 5: country just became mainstream.
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  Speaker 1: It is now a fact of life in America.
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  Speaker 5: This was a political hoax. And you know what? Those people,
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  Speaker 5: and I'm not saying in every single case, but there
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  Speaker 5: was a lot of patriotism with those people.
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  Speaker 4: There are gay, lesbian, and transgender children in Democratic, Republican,
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  Speaker 4: and independent families. Some who fear for their lives.
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  Speaker 3: She should never be allowed to preach the message of
• 4:43
  Speaker 3: Jesus in her life because she's not even talking about Jesus.
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  Speaker 6: This is why no one's going to these.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, this is why these denominations are dying. Well, that's just,
• 4:50
  Speaker 3: you know, Elon's thing to grab your heart with one
• 4:54
  Speaker 3: hand and then shoot it out in the sky.
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  Speaker 1: You're asking for it. You're asking for it.
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  Speaker 3: Maybe he's just not very well coordinated.
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  Speaker 4: I don't know.
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  Speaker 5: FEMA is going to be a whole big discussion very
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  Speaker 5: shortly because... I'd rather see the states take care of
• 5:09
  Speaker 5: their own problems.
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  Speaker 6: A lot of my friends on the other side of
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  Speaker 6: the aisle are sitting by idly while Donald Trump proposes
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  Speaker 6: by executive order to destroy Section 1 of the 14th Amendment,
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  Speaker 6: which establishes that everybody born in the United States is
• 5:23
  Speaker 6: a citizen of the United States.
• 5:24
  Speaker 3: That's the difference in leadership style, so masculinity's back. How
• 5:28
  Speaker 3: many genders are there, Tommy?
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: How many genders are there, Tommy? The honest answer, Desi,
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: I don't care. I'm a libertarian. I don't care. You
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  Speaker 1: can be what you want to be.
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  Speaker 5: I won youth by 36 points. Now, maybe that's because
• 5:42
  Speaker 5: I went on TikTok. I don't know.
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  Speaker 3: These people are disgusting. They say that they're for women.
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  Speaker 3: Turns out MAGA and conservatives are the feminists now. We
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  Speaker 3: are the ones like Donald Trump who are protecting women
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  Speaker 3: and children. They're not doing it.
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: I wanted to talk to Rachel for this first Sunday show.
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  Speaker 1: Not just because, like us, it's her job to cover
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: this day in and day out, but because as listeners
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  Speaker 1: of this show know really well, she thinks about things
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  Speaker 1: and talks about things and crystallizes things in a way
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  Speaker 1: that no one else does. Here's my conversation with Rachel Maddow.
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  Speaker 1: Rachel Maddow, welcome back to Pod Save America. Hi, John.
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  Speaker 3: Nice to see you.
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: You too.
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  Speaker 3: I used to work here.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, we're in Sirius XM in New York City. I
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: forgot about that.
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  Speaker 3: And I was thinking, oh, I remember where this address
• 6:34
  Speaker 3: is ringing a bell. And then I got out of
• 6:35
  Speaker 3: the elevator and I thought, ah, this is where I
• 6:38
  Speaker 3: did my gay love song call-in late night show.
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  Speaker 4: Really?
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  Speaker 3: As a fill-in host, I wasn't the main host.
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  Speaker 1: You get a lot of callers?
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  Speaker 5: Oh, yeah.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah.
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  Speaker 4: Yes.
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  Speaker 3: All men. That was weird. But yeah, that was a
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  Speaker 3: little known grace note on my resume.
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  Speaker 1: Most requested songs?
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  Speaker 3: It was a lot of disco.
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  Speaker 1: A lot of disco.
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  Speaker 3: See, I thought it was love songs. And so the
• 7:07
  Speaker 3: Collins were going to be like heart to heart, like, oh,
• 7:09
  Speaker 3: he left me and I want to win him back
• 7:11
  Speaker 3: and everything. But it was really like love songs. Like,
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  Speaker 3: I remember we met at the club and play that,
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  Speaker 3: you know.
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  Speaker 1: Diana Ross, whatever. That works too. Thank you so much
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  Speaker 1: for taking the time during an especially busy week for
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: you now that they have pulled you back in into
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: doing five nights a week for Trump's first 100 days.
• 7:29
  Speaker 3: I'm happy to do it.
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  Speaker 1: This is our inaugural Sunday show. The idea is to
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  Speaker 1: have a weekly conversation with smart people in politics and media.
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: It lets us sort of step back from the breaking
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: news coverage, focus on the big picture. Love to start
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: with how you are processing the return of Donald Trump.
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  Speaker 1: I think we've all learned in the Trump era that
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  Speaker 1: it's possible to be shocked even when we aren't surprised.
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: There's a difference between fully expecting what will happen and
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  Speaker 1: then experiencing it as it happens. So what's been going
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  Speaker 1: through your mind this week?
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  Speaker 3: I feel like, oh, yeah, that's what these muscles are for.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah.
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  Speaker 3: This is what we train for. You know, being back
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  Speaker 3: five days a week is its own experience for me.
• 8:14
  Speaker 3: It's been a few years since I've been doing Monday
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  Speaker 3: to Friday shows. And so that's got its own vibe
• 8:19
  Speaker 3: and its own feeling. But there is a cadence to
• 8:23
  Speaker 3: the Trump chaos news cycle, or a lack of cadence, rather.
• 8:29
  Speaker 3: The 24 hours a day, turning on a dime, internal incoherence.
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  Speaker 3: shocking for shock value, shocking for incompetence. All of that
• 8:39
  Speaker 3: stuff is just kind of flooding back in terms of
• 8:42
  Speaker 3: how to do it. And you can despair over that
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  Speaker 3: because the first Trump term was, broadly speaking, bad times
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  Speaker 3: for America. But I also think, well, you know what?
• 8:54
  Speaker 3: We know a little bit about how to cover this.
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  Speaker 3: We know a little bit about what to expect. We
• 8:58
  Speaker 3: know a little bit about what he's like. And so
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  Speaker 3: it is our responsibility and our privilege to cover it
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  Speaker 3: as best as we possibly can. And I know how
• 9:06
  Speaker 3: to do that.
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  Speaker 1: And I'm, I'm here.
• 9:08
  Speaker 3: I'm ready to go. Put me in coach.
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: I'm ready to play. I feel the same way from
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: the perspective of like me covering politics and talking about
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: it on Pod Save America. Has there been a moment
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: where it's like hit you personally, where you're just watching
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: it and you're like, Oh yeah, this is going to,
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  Speaker 1: we're going to be doing this for four more years now.
• 9:27
  Speaker 3: You know what it was? It was the, um, In
• 9:31
  Speaker 3: the flurry of first couple days of actions, there was
• 9:35
  Speaker 3: the stuff about water in California that Trump started sort
• 9:39
  Speaker 3: of elaborating on. There was an executive action about it,
• 9:42
  Speaker 3: but then he also started talking about it, about how
• 9:44
  Speaker 3: we need to turn the valve.
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah, there is a valve in Northern California that if
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: you just turn it, we will get water in Los Angeles.
• 9:52
  Speaker 3: He thinks, I think, that North is also up and
• 9:56
  Speaker 3: that up there's a water tower. like it's a new
• 9:59
  Speaker 3: york building and if you just turn the valve then
• 10:03
  Speaker 3: down gets the water and in the campaign you might
• 10:08
  Speaker 3: remember him riffing a lot on um the difficulty of
• 10:12
  Speaker 3: washing his hair And how many times he has to
• 10:15
  Speaker 3: flush the toilet to make what's in the toilet go
• 10:17
  Speaker 3: down the toilet. I was realizing, we're going to get
• 10:22
  Speaker 3: the plumbing stuff again.
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah, playing the hits.
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  Speaker 3: It's one thing to think about the truly radical designs
• 10:29
  Speaker 3: he has for the country and for the democracy. But
• 10:34
  Speaker 3: it's another thing just to remember the personal pathology that's
• 10:37
  Speaker 3: going to be played out loud. ad nauseum and just
• 10:41
  Speaker 3: repeated until other Republicans start articulating it as a value too.
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  Speaker 3: And that, the reminder of the nonsense of it, the
• 10:50
  Speaker 3: human nonsense of it, is a visceral thing for me. Also,
• 10:54
  Speaker 3: I also think like, wow, how could history have been
• 10:56
  Speaker 3: different had he been able to realize his dream of
• 10:58
  Speaker 3: being a plumber? Maybe we as a country wouldn't be
• 11:03
  Speaker 3: going through all this stuff.
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah, he was a plumber, a hug from dad, something
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: like that. We're recording this on Wednesday, so who knows
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: what else will happen over the next few days. I
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: haven't been able to get past him pardoning supporters of
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  Speaker 1: his who were convicted of violent crime on January 6th
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  Speaker 1: because of the message it sends to other Trump supporters
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  Speaker 1: who also want to commit political violence because only around
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: 20% of Americans support the pardons. And because somehow it's
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: not the only thing or even the main thing that
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: everyone's talking about. Why do you think that is? And
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: what has your thoughts been on that?
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  Speaker 3: Well, the flood the zone idea is real. And we
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  Speaker 3: not only lived through that before, but they articulate that strategically,
• 11:44
  Speaker 3: people like Steve Bannon and Stephen Miller and others. They
• 11:48
  Speaker 3: don't want us to be able to focus on any
• 11:50
  Speaker 3: one bad nominee because there are so many bad nominees.
• 11:54
  Speaker 3: They don't want us to be able to focus on
• 11:56
  Speaker 3: any one outrageous action or policy because there are so
• 11:59
  Speaker 3: many outrageous actions and policies. And that's a strategy. And
• 12:03
  Speaker 3: so that's part of the reason why we find it
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  Speaker 3: hard to focus. I do think that the pardons thing
• 12:09
  Speaker 3: is going to be something that they regret. And I
• 12:11
  Speaker 3: think it's going to be something for which they have
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  Speaker 3: to pay a political cost because we've already seen it
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  Speaker 3: just in the immediate aftermath of the pardons that just
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  Speaker 3: about every Republican elected official who is asked about it
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  Speaker 3: has to say, I haven't seen the details. I haven't,
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  Speaker 3: Tommy Tuberville, I haven't watched the videos of the police
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  Speaker 3: being assaulted. So therefore I can't comment on it. But
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  Speaker 3: of course, anybody who assaults police officers shouldn't be pardoned.
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  Speaker 3: But seeing Republican elected officials, including the Speaker of the House,
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  Speaker 3: Mike Johnson, including all of these Republican senators who now
• 12:43
  Speaker 3: have to, for example, vote on Trump nominees, seeing them
• 12:47
  Speaker 3: unable to articulate a justification for it, seeing them uncomfortable
• 12:52
  Speaker 3: wanting not to be asked about it, knowing that it
• 12:55
  Speaker 3: is indefensible, and nevertheless being asked to defend it, that
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  Speaker 3: is constructive.
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  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 13:00
  Speaker 3: Because Trump may have his own, I don't know what's
• 13:03
  Speaker 3: going on inside his head, and I don't know exactly
• 13:05
  Speaker 3: what he wants in the world, and I don't like
• 13:06
  Speaker 3: to think about his brain. But I do know a
• 13:10
  Speaker 3: little bit about how politics works, and I do know
• 13:13
  Speaker 3: that while he may want to be a one-man sort
• 13:15
  Speaker 3: of tyrannical monarch-style ruler, he for now exists in a
• 13:19
  Speaker 3: democracy that has other elements of authority and governance. And
• 13:24
  Speaker 3: to the extent that Republicans are personally repulsed by what
• 13:27
  Speaker 3: he's doing, and asked about it constantly and can't defend
• 13:30
  Speaker 3: it and essentially are being forced into a corner where
• 13:34
  Speaker 3: they either have to hide from questions or say they
• 13:38
  Speaker 3: disagree with them, that's probably good in terms of slowing
• 13:41
  Speaker 3: down the worst things he wants to do. And I
• 13:43
  Speaker 3: think it's a good sign that so many Republicans had
• 13:46
  Speaker 3: a terrible, terrible first full day of Trump's second term.
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: It's wild because I thought your monologue about this and
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: about sort of the use of shame as a tool
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  Speaker 1: for elected Republicans who have to defend this was wonderful.
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  Speaker 3: From time to time, we enter into a period where
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  Speaker 3: people in public office very frequently do lots of terrible things.
• 14:08
  Speaker 3: What turns them around? What stops them from doing terrible things?
• 14:13
  Speaker 3: What makes them correct course and start doing the right
• 14:15
  Speaker 3: thing instead? One thing that sometimes works is shame and embarrassment.
• 14:23
  Speaker 3: being confronted with the wrongness of what they are doing,
• 14:26
  Speaker 3: feeling shame or embarrassment, or at least the possibility of
• 14:29
  Speaker 3: public rebuke and the awkwardness of being unable to explain
• 14:32
  Speaker 3: their actions in a way that satisfies anyone. Sometimes you
• 14:35
  Speaker 3: can't turn public officials around, but sometimes you can. Sometimes
• 14:39
  Speaker 3: that sort of thing can cause public officials who are
• 14:41
  Speaker 3: otherwise behaving in ways that are weak and wrong to
• 14:44
  Speaker 3: find their spine and to change their minds.
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: I noticed right before we started recording today, Mike Johnson
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: got up and was asked about the pardons. And he said, well, look,
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: it's Donald Trump. He has the authority. And all along,
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: the case has been that people who protest peacefully shouldn't
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: be punished. And then announced that they're going to investigate
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: Joe Biden's pardons.
• 15:07
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: Without even commenting on the people who are convicted of violence.
• 15:13
  Speaker 3: And then it's incumbent upon anybody who next encounters him
• 15:19
  Speaker 3: to to ask him the follow-up questions. So the peaceful
• 15:22
  Speaker 3: protest is not something that has been criminalized in this country,
• 15:27
  Speaker 3: in this environment around January 6th. January 6th was not
• 15:29
  Speaker 3: a peaceful protest. Among the people who Donald Trump deliberately pardoned,
• 15:34
  Speaker 3: even though he had the option not to, were people
• 15:36
  Speaker 3: who explicitly pled guilty not to peacefully protesting, but rather
• 15:41
  Speaker 3: to attacking police officers and trying to kill them with
• 15:44
  Speaker 3: baseball bats and two-by-fours. So I mean, it just means
• 15:47
  Speaker 3: that this should follow Mike Johnson around. Like a smell.
• 15:50
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: Apparently, according to reporting from Axios and Notice, J.D. Vance
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: saying on the Sunday shows before Donald Trump was inaugurated
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: that obviously we shouldn't pardon people who committed violence. It
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: was the response to that that finally led Trump to say, apparently,
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: according to a source, according to Axios, fuck it, let's
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: let them all out. Because the Trump-based people were mad
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: that J.D. Vance thought that they were going to go
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: one by one. So that was basically a trial balloon.
• 16:19
  Speaker 3: Yeah. And think about what that means for the dynamic
• 16:22
  Speaker 3: between Trump and J.D. Vance. In the same way with
• 16:26
  Speaker 3: the Matt Gaetz nomination, right? I mean, they nominated somebody
• 16:29
  Speaker 3: for attorney general, reportedly at the behest of Boris, who
• 16:34
  Speaker 3: they later said were shaking people down for bribes in
• 16:39
  Speaker 3: order for him to suggest to them. Suggest them to
• 16:41
  Speaker 3: the president as potential appointees.
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: I don't know.
• 16:44
  Speaker 3: Maybe somebody should follow up on that. But reportedly at
• 16:47
  Speaker 3: the behest of Boris Epstein, they named a guy who
• 16:51
  Speaker 3: was actively under investigation for statutory rape, drug use and
• 16:54
  Speaker 3: prostitution to be attorney general of the United States. And
• 16:57
  Speaker 3: you can question Donald Trump's judgment in doing that.
• 17:01
  Speaker 4: Sure.
• 17:01
  Speaker 3: That's a discussion. What's in Trump's head? What are his aims?
• 17:04
  Speaker 2: Fine.
• 17:04
  Speaker 3: I'm politically more interested in the fact that. that they
• 17:08
  Speaker 3: then had the vice president-elect J.D. Vance personally grab Matt
• 17:13
  Speaker 3: Gaetz by the arm and walk him into the offices
• 17:17
  Speaker 3: of all of these Republican senators, who they then leveraged
• 17:20
  Speaker 3: into endorsing Matt Gaetz for attorney general and saying, yes,
• 17:24
  Speaker 3: they would vote for him. Give Matt a chance to
• 17:27
  Speaker 3: have humiliated J.D. Vance that way and cost those Republican
• 17:33
  Speaker 3: senators forever. Those Republican senators will have it on their
• 17:36
  Speaker 3: record that they thought Matt Gaetz was a great choice
• 17:39
  Speaker 3: for attorney general before they then pulled him and wasted
• 17:42
  Speaker 3: all that political capital. That's just political malpractice within the
• 17:46
  Speaker 3: Republican Party and between the president and vice president. And
• 17:50
  Speaker 3: if that's how they're going to act, they should pay
• 17:53
  Speaker 3: for it politically and they should be asked about that
• 17:56
  Speaker 3: stuff constantly.
• 17:57
  Speaker 6: J.D.
• 17:57
  Speaker 3: Vance has been now twice publicly humiliated on core issues.
• 18:02
  Speaker 3: that he purports to be principled on. Law and order
• 18:06
  Speaker 3: with Matt Gaetz and the pardons thing where he said
• 18:09
  Speaker 3: anybody who attacked a police officer or was violent shouldn't
• 18:12
  Speaker 3: be pardoned. And then they were. He should be asked
• 18:14
  Speaker 3: about that every time he pops his head above ground.
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: Sean Hannity did this event last night where he's interviewing
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: Mike Johnson, but he's got all the other Republican House
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: members sitting there. And he basically talks to them like
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: they're kindergartners. And he was like, now you all know
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: you're not going to get everything you want. out of
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: these bills in the first year. Could you imagine you
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: doing a show where you're like interviewing Hakeem Jeffries and
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: like all the other house Democrats are there and you're
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: just like wagging your finger at them and telling them like,
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: this is what you can expect.
• 18:43
  Speaker 3: This is what you can expect. And if you have
• 18:45
  Speaker 3: a problem, take it up with daddy.
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: I just think they've all decided to like become supplicants
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: to Donald. Like they don't, I don't know that, I
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: hope that shame works, but I don't know if there's
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: any of them left that have, that have shame.
• 18:59
  Speaker 3: I think being a supplicant and doing this sort of
• 19:03
  Speaker 3: dear leader, yes, sir, whatever you say, sir. Yes, I'm
• 19:06
  Speaker 3: going to turn in my mother. Yes, two plus two
• 19:08
  Speaker 3: equals five. Yes, Matt Gaetz is a good attorney general choice. Yes,
• 19:12
  Speaker 3: people who hit police officers with baseball bats should be
• 19:19
  Speaker 3: sprung from prison. Yes, the January 6th defense attorney should
• 19:24
  Speaker 3: be the U.S. attorney, the acting U.S. attorney in the
• 19:28
  Speaker 3: all of these things are humiliations to every Republican who
• 19:32
  Speaker 3: lines up with them. And there's no such thing as
• 19:35
  Speaker 3: humiliation for Donald Trump. He doesn't, I think, experience shame
• 19:39
  Speaker 3: or embarrassment. And again, I don't care to investigate why,
• 19:42
  Speaker 3: but other Republicans do. And Donald Trump isn't going to
• 19:46
  Speaker 3: live forever. And the MAGA movement is maybe at its
• 19:50
  Speaker 3: apex right now, but it won't be forever. All of
• 19:52
  Speaker 3: these guys are going to have to run for something
• 19:53
  Speaker 3: and they're all going to have to look at themselves
• 19:54
  Speaker 3: in the mirror. And they all have, you know, mothers, children,
• 20:00
  Speaker 3: and they have to live with themselves. And I do
• 20:02
  Speaker 3: think that I'm not counting on human decency, but I
• 20:05
  Speaker 3: am counting on human embarrassment and shame. And awkwardness, difficulty
• 20:12
  Speaker 3: of answering questions about these things, to be a moderating
• 20:17
  Speaker 3: force in terms of what he can get from his
• 20:19
  Speaker 3: own party. And I think what he can get from
• 20:21
  Speaker 3: his own party for the foreseeable future is going to
• 20:24
  Speaker 3: be the only de facto limiting constraint in terms of
• 20:27
  Speaker 3: what he can get away with.
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: This podcast is sponsored by Squarespace. Squarespace is the all-in-one
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• 21:53
  Speaker 1: or domain. That's squarespace.com slash crooked. You're a student of history,
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: especially as it relates to authoritarian movements in other countries
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: and in our own. If you're listening, you haven't already,
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: you should go listen to Rachel's podcast, Ultra, or read Prequel,
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: both of which tell the story of a fascist movement
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: in 1930s America.
• 22:16
  Speaker 3: Excellent.
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: Both excellent. Thank you. What are you seeing right now
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: that feels like history is repeating itself? What feels new?
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: And any lessons from all your research that could be
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: useful to us right now?
• 22:30
  Speaker 3: The thing that feels new in modern America, like in
• 22:35
  Speaker 3: the past century, I'd say, in the United States, that
• 22:39
  Speaker 3: is something that we do see in other countries. And
• 22:44
  Speaker 3: this is something where even contemporary other countries, I think,
• 22:47
  Speaker 3: offer a good lesson in terms of what this means,
• 22:50
  Speaker 3: is the attempt to integrate loyal, lawless paramilitary force with
• 22:58
  Speaker 3: the state. So we have these executive orders that direct
• 23:06
  Speaker 3: people within the Justice Department and the intelligence agencies and
• 23:09
  Speaker 3: even like the SEC and the FTC to investigate past
• 23:13
  Speaker 3: actions by those agencies, basically to see if there's anything
• 23:17
  Speaker 3: that they can use as a pretext to bring prosecutions
• 23:19
  Speaker 3: against government officials and former Biden administration officials. Like that's
• 23:23
  Speaker 3: the use of the government to essentially terrorize the opposition
• 23:28
  Speaker 3: and to terrorize the previous government. At the same time,
• 23:32
  Speaker 3: you've also got flinging open the doors of the federal
• 23:36
  Speaker 3: penitentiary and letting out over 200 people who were actively
• 23:40
  Speaker 3: incarcerated for federal crimes, most of which involved violence on
• 23:43
  Speaker 3: January 6th. And you've got pro-MAGA members of Congress like
• 23:47
  Speaker 3: Lauren Boebert offering to give them guided tours of the
• 23:50
  Speaker 3: Capitol now that they're out. I highlighted on the show
• 23:53
  Speaker 3: on Tuesday night one of those guys who she was
• 23:55
  Speaker 3: offering a tour of the Capitol flashing the white power
• 23:57
  Speaker 3: sign behind her while she was saying it. Those sort
• 24:02
  Speaker 3: of twin threats that we're going to use the government
• 24:05
  Speaker 3: to destroy opposition, but we're also going to use lawless, loyal, paramilitary,
• 24:12
  Speaker 3: immunized force to physically menace people and to create an
• 24:16
  Speaker 3: environment in the civic space that makes regular people afraid
• 24:21
  Speaker 3: to enter, regular people afraid to participate. That is something
• 24:25
  Speaker 3: that we've seen in lots of other authoritarian countries. We've
• 24:29
  Speaker 3: seen that, for example, in Turkey in modern times. We've
• 24:32
  Speaker 3: seen that a little bit in Hungary. We've seen that
• 24:36
  Speaker 3: in some other– we've seen it in the Philippines. Seeing
• 24:40
  Speaker 3: that in the United States, those things happening at once,
• 24:42
  Speaker 3: feels new. And it's worth remembering that paramilitary violence and
• 24:48
  Speaker 3: militias are illegal in every state in the country. And
• 24:51
  Speaker 3: even if they are going to be immunized federally, this
• 24:52
  Speaker 3: may be a place for state law enforcement.
• 24:54
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: I'm interested in how you're thinking about covering Trump 2.0.
• 24:57
  Speaker 3: Mm-hmm.
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: I saw you say that you're trying to follow a
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: watch what he does, not what he says mantra, which
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: we're trying to do on this show as well. It's hard.
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: It's hard to know when he's being serious, when he's trolling.
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: It's hard to know what matters, what matters less. It's
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: hard to know where to focus people's attention. How are
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: you thinking about navigating all that?
• 25:16
  Speaker 3: How are you thinking about it?
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: I'm still working it out right now. I'm trying to
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: focus on like, what the effects of his policies on people.
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: Because I'm thinking just from a political perspective that we
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: need to persuade people that maybe people who voted for
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: Trump for the first time or people who didn't vote
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: at all, that what he promised is not going to happen, right?
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: He's not going to make their lives better. And I
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: don't think that just means sort of kitchen table issues,
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: though it does. I think it also means like making
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: sure people know that now there are these violent criminals
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: who are convicted of assaulting police officers out on the streets.
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: And that's what he's doing too. So I think that
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: I'm trying to do less of what was the salute
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: that Elon Musk gave, right? Because it's like, okay, who
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: wins that fight? Like we can have that debate and
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: then maybe everyone in the country can say, oh yeah, no,
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: it was a bad salute. And then what happens? Well,
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: we didn't vanquish Elon Musk. He's still around.
• 26:13
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: He still bought his speech now. Right.
• 26:18
  Speaker 3: He could put a new label on it, but he's
• 26:20
  Speaker 3: still doing all the things he does.
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: He gets to do all the things he does. So
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: I'm trying to focus on like what actually affects people
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: that Donald Trump is doing and making sure that we're
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: clear about it. And also making sure that, you know,
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: I'm trying not to make, I feel like if you
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: turn the dial, the outrage dial to 11 all the time,
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: then it sort of numbs people.
• 26:39
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: And then when something's really serious, they'll be like, ah,
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: you said that before. And, you know, it didn't come true.
• 26:45
  Speaker 3: How does that apply to like the Greenland and Panama stuff? Like,
• 26:49
  Speaker 3: how are you thinking about that?
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: I'm thinking that he seems pretty serious about Panama. I mean,
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: you put something in an inaugural address and he seems
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: pretty serious about Greenland too. So I think you got
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: to watch it. Like I don't subscribe to that's just
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: a distraction and we can't talk about Greenland and Panama,
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: especially because it involves, potentially involves military force, right? Anything
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: that involves like again, this is affecting people's lives, right?
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: People in the military here, people at home, our safety,
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: our security, the alliances that we have, like that does
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: affect people. I would love to talk about it and
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: cover it in a way that people can say, all right,
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: this is how it matters to me. But I don't
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: think you can just wave it away as a distraction.
• 27:25
  Speaker 3: The thing that is interesting about it to me is
• 27:28
  Speaker 3: that it is invented out of whole cloth for the
• 27:31
  Speaker 3: purpose of this Trump term. Like there was no pressure
• 27:35
  Speaker 3: on the issue of Panama that anybody was agitating about.
• 27:38
  Speaker 3: There was no, I mean, yeah, like competition for the Arctic.
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: Sure.
• 27:41
  Speaker 3: Like that's, you know, Russia has a lot of icebreakers.
• 27:43
  Speaker 4: Okay.
• 27:44
  Speaker 3: Like, yeah, I've been covering that for 15 years. But
• 27:47
  Speaker 3: this is something, this is a place they've decided to
• 27:49
  Speaker 3: plant a flag and to put a lot of rhetorical energy,
• 27:53
  Speaker 3: to put it in the inaugural, as you say. And
• 27:57
  Speaker 3: I feel like it's like a good test case for
• 27:59
  Speaker 3: us to figure out the doing versus saying line. One
• 28:03
  Speaker 3: of the things that's interesting now that he's president is that,
• 28:07
  Speaker 3: you know, Panama's response, was to go to the UN
• 28:12
  Speaker 3: and to lodge a complaint with the United Nations saying, hey,
• 28:16
  Speaker 3: one of the rules here of us all in the
• 28:18
  Speaker 3: United Nations is we're not supposed to threaten and menace
• 28:21
  Speaker 3: other countries. He's doing that. He said in his inaugural,
• 28:24
  Speaker 3: we're taking it. And when asked ahead of his inaugural,
• 28:29
  Speaker 3: will you rule out military force? He said, no, I won't. Well,
• 28:32
  Speaker 3: we actually aren't supposed to do that within the United Nations.
• 28:35
  Speaker 3: He probably knows that. That's probably part of this. Similarly,
• 28:39
  Speaker 3: with Greenland, there's a lot of, I think, very elementary
• 28:44
  Speaker 3: level understanding about what it means to be a NATO,
• 28:46
  Speaker 3: which is that if any NATO country gets menaced or attacked,
• 28:50
  Speaker 3: all the other NATO countries are treaty bound to defend
• 28:54
  Speaker 3: them and respond to it. Very little discussion, though, about
• 28:57
  Speaker 3: what happens when one NATO country threatens another. That's not
• 29:01
  Speaker 3: a thing that we usually have. But we really can't
• 29:04
  Speaker 3: do that within NATO. And threatening to take Greenland is threatening.
• 29:08
  Speaker 3: And to do so potentially via military force is threatening
• 29:11
  Speaker 3: to make war on our NATO ally, Denmark. So it
• 29:15
  Speaker 3: seems to me that maybe the important thing here is,
• 29:19
  Speaker 3: you know, why did Trump have one of his executive
• 29:22
  Speaker 3: orders be taking us out of the World Health Organization?
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that just sort of slipped by yesterday.
• 29:26
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 29:27
  Speaker 3: It's because he doesn't want us to be in any
• 29:31
  Speaker 3: organizations of any kind that represent the post-World War II
• 29:36
  Speaker 3: international legal order. So take us out of the World
• 29:38
  Speaker 3: Health Organization. thereby effectively probably collapsing the World Health Organization,
• 29:44
  Speaker 3: really screw up NATO by threatening war on a NATO ally,
• 29:48
  Speaker 3: potentially forcing the question of whether or not the United
• 29:51
  Speaker 3: States is rightfully within NATO, within the United Nations, start
• 29:57
  Speaker 3: menacing another... I mean, Panama... Panama does not have a military.
• 30:02
  Speaker 3: So us proposing military force against Panama isn't actually even
• 30:10
  Speaker 3: threatening a war, it's just threatening an invasion. But it
• 30:14
  Speaker 3: does so in a way that is already calling the
• 30:16
  Speaker 3: question as to whether or not we are a member
• 30:18
  Speaker 3: in good standing of the United Nations. So if all
• 30:21
  Speaker 3: of this is about blowing up not just our international standing,
• 30:25
  Speaker 3: but blowing up the post-war international order and all of
• 30:28
  Speaker 3: the international institutions that we bolster that make up the
• 30:33
  Speaker 3: post-World War II international landscape, well then, you know, maybe
• 30:39
  Speaker 3: these things have some logic. And it also means that
• 30:43
  Speaker 3: Trump's second term in office will be the greatest pinnacle
• 30:45
  Speaker 3: of achievement of Vladimir Putin, who more than anything wants
• 30:49
  Speaker 3: to destroy the post-war world. liberal order and have a
• 30:53
  Speaker 3: supposedly multipolar world where big countries just take what they want. Yeah.
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: And that's, again, back to that's something that people should
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: care about or because if the, you know, at a
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: time when we have Putin and China and Iran and
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: North Korea cooperating more, it is a dangerous world.
• 31:11
  Speaker 3: For us to stand alone? Or are we going to
• 31:12
  Speaker 3: stand with them?
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And it's a question that Americans should get the
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: answer to from Donald Trump, right? Like, this is a
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: dangerous time. What are you planning to do to keep
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: us safe? Is it just to take Greenland and Panama?
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: Is that going to keep us safe?
• 31:26
  Speaker 3: Are we going to be an Axis power now?
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: Are we the bad guys this time?
• 31:31
  Speaker 3: Because if it's China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea, which
• 31:36
  Speaker 3: is the Axis that's like, for example, waging war on
• 31:39
  Speaker 3: Ukraine right now. And that's the model that Trump likes
• 31:44
  Speaker 3: in terms of how countries should not be constrained and
• 31:47
  Speaker 3: how they behave. Is he proposing that, you know, he
• 31:51
  Speaker 3: talks about his love letters from Kim Jong-un. He says,
• 31:55
  Speaker 3: I know I said that I would end the Russia-Ukraine war.
• 31:58
  Speaker 3: In 24 hours, within one day of me being elected,
• 32:01
  Speaker 3: let alone sworn in. But he actually said, but I
• 32:04
  Speaker 3: need to talk to Putin in order to see how
• 32:06
  Speaker 3: that's going to go. I mean, the way that he's
• 32:09
  Speaker 3: easing up all of his big talk on China, everything
• 32:12
  Speaker 3: that he had threatened against China, all of a sudden
• 32:15
  Speaker 3: China's good. China doesn't have to worry about anything. I mean,
• 32:19
  Speaker 3: we'll see how it goes with Iran. Apparently the last
• 32:23
  Speaker 3: warning is, that the Biden administration gave to Trump's incoming
• 32:27
  Speaker 3: national security team before they walked out of the White
• 32:30
  Speaker 3: House was, watch out, Iran wants to kill U.S. government
• 32:34
  Speaker 3: officials and former U.S. government officials. Whereupon Trump immediately withdrew
• 32:39
  Speaker 3: the Secret Service protection detail from John Bolton, which had
• 32:42
  Speaker 3: been put in place because of the Iranian hitman who
• 32:45
  Speaker 3: tried to kill him. The Axis powers, to the extent
• 32:48
  Speaker 3: that there is one, are... the people and the entities
• 32:52
  Speaker 3: that Trump is acting most inexplicably positive toward. And if
• 32:57
  Speaker 3: we're going to join that kind of an axis, I
• 32:59
  Speaker 3: don't think that's the way Americans think of ourselves.
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  Speaker 1: you covered the first four years of Trump, anything you
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  Speaker 1: would have done differently?
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  Speaker 3: I would have hydrated more systematically.
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: That's good. That's fair.
• 35:06
  Speaker 3: Rather than relying on individual little paper cups of water
• 35:09
  Speaker 3: that I filled up and then drank while coming back
• 35:13
  Speaker 3: from the water cooler. Yeah, I would have taken, honestly,
• 35:15
  Speaker 3: I would have taken better care of myself. I do
• 35:18
  Speaker 3: think that that chaotic cadence of there being no normal
• 35:25
  Speaker 3: day of, you know, the president's, what is it? He
• 35:29
  Speaker 3: sleeps in until 10 or 11 in the morning and
• 35:31
  Speaker 3: then watches some TV and rolls in around noon and
• 35:33
  Speaker 3: then just pounds Diet Cokes until four in the morning
• 35:36
  Speaker 3: and makes up policy based on whoever he last spoke
• 35:38
  Speaker 3: to and posts it on his social media. I mean,
• 35:41
  Speaker 3: that environment for people who are trying to cover the
• 35:45
  Speaker 3: most important country in the world and its workings, is trying.
• 35:50
  Speaker 3: It's physically trying. And so I think we need to
• 35:55
  Speaker 3: do more tag team relay stuff. We need to take
• 35:58
  Speaker 3: better care of ourselves. We need to, as you say,
• 36:00
  Speaker 3: sort of calibrate to understand what the biggest threats are
• 36:04
  Speaker 3: and what's just gross.
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that is hard. I mean, I struggle with, and
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: I heard this from people during the course of the campaign,
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: people I know, who are like, look, I don't love Trump.
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: But we survived the first Trump term. And everyone, you know,
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: everyone was hair on fire and saying it was going
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: to be the end of democracy. And here we are.
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: We survived. There were bad things that happened. You know,
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: there were some bad things that happened. These are people
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: who are like January 6th, awful. He's a bad person.
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: But like, how bad can it be? We survived the
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: first time. Wow. I know. And it's hard because I'm
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: trying to like, I'm trying to figure out how to calibrate. Like,
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: because I do think that this time, this time it's
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: actually much more serious. And I'm like, I think the
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: threat is much more dangerous than it was in the
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: first term. And I'm trying, it doesn't seem like most, well,
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: clearly because they voted for him, but it doesn't seem
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: like most people in the country believe that.
• 36:54
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I think there is a bias toward thinking that
• 37:00
  Speaker 3: the institutions that we have are durable and that they'll
• 37:04
  Speaker 3: always exist and that no work had to happen to
• 37:06
  Speaker 3: get them and they'll defend themselves. But just look at elections.
• 37:11
  Speaker 6: You know?
• 37:13
  Speaker 3: One of the things that Pam Bondi talked about after
• 37:15
  Speaker 3: the Matt Gaetz attorney general nomination fell apart and Pam
• 37:18
  Speaker 3: Bondi got in there, one of the things that is
• 37:20
  Speaker 3: expected from the Justice Department under Bondi is that they're
• 37:23
  Speaker 3: going to do some sort of examination of the 2020
• 37:27
  Speaker 3: election because of this predicate lie that the election was
• 37:32
  Speaker 3: somehow stolen from him. Now, I don't think that's just
• 37:35
  Speaker 3: for Trump's ego. And I don't think that's because he's
• 37:39
  Speaker 3: embarrassed that he hasn't ever provided any evidence. that demonstrated
• 37:45
  Speaker 3: that the 2020 election was stolen. And he wants to
• 37:48
  Speaker 3: show that evidence because he wants to be, you know,
• 37:50
  Speaker 3: wants everybody to know he's not a liar. I don't
• 37:52
  Speaker 3: think that's what's motivating that.
• 37:53
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 37:54
  Speaker 3: I think what's motivating that is an effort to try
• 37:56
  Speaker 3: to make elections seem suspect, dangerous, wrong, and something that
• 38:05
  Speaker 3: we shouldn't depend on in the future. And it's really, really,
• 38:09
  Speaker 3: really important that we have a 2026 midterm.
• 38:11
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 38:13
  Speaker 3: It's also very important that we have a 2028 presidential election.
• 38:16
  Speaker 3: But I don't think in 2025 you assign your Justice
• 38:20
  Speaker 3: Department to proclaim the falsity of a previous election because
• 38:26
  Speaker 3: you're interested in holding normal elections going forward. You do
• 38:29
  Speaker 3: that in order to discredit elections as a system in
• 38:32
  Speaker 3: this country so that we don't have them anymore. And
• 38:36
  Speaker 3: maybe that sounds like hair on fire. Maybe that sounds
• 38:40
  Speaker 3: like I'm being alarmist because we did, in fact, just
• 38:43
  Speaker 3: have an election. But I don't think we should assume
• 38:46
  Speaker 3: that that threat is resolved. I really don't think it is.
• 38:49
  Speaker 3: And I think if you watch what he's doing, you
• 38:52
  Speaker 3: can see the real danger there.
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: I mean, you can just tell yourself a story, put
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: out a hypothetical about how this could work, right? Which is,
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: we have the 2026 midterms, and Democrats maybe take back
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: the House. We get to 2028. Let's say Democrat wins
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: in 2028. And Donald Trump's still in the White House,
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: and he's leaving, or he's supposed to leave, and he says, no, J.D.
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: Vance actually won. This was fraud. And now he controls
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: the whole government. And he has lessons that he's learned
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: from failing to stay in power forcefully in 2020. And
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: when you say, oh, this could lead to the end
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: of democracy, people are like, oh, you're exaggerating. But like
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: what I just laid out, couldn't we see that happening?
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: Do we see Donald Trump? And now that he already
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: did that once, do we see him just saying, oh, no, J.D.
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: Vance lost. He's a loser. That's fine. I'll let the
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: next Democrat in. Right. Or maybe I'll stay. Or maybe
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: I'll stay until we settle this. There was some fraud.
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: Prop me up in the corner. I'll be fine. There
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: was some fraud. And I know the Constitution says, but
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: you know what? It's instability right now. I'll leave eventually,
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: but I'm just going to stay for a little bit.
• 39:57
  Speaker 3: It could happen like that. And there's other factors at
• 40:01
  Speaker 3: work here. I mean, what are the other constituent parts
• 40:05
  Speaker 3: of democracy that we need to be worried about? One
• 40:06
  Speaker 3: of them is the fourth estate. We need to worry
• 40:11
  Speaker 3: about having an actually free press and not having state TV.
• 40:15
  Speaker 3: And the press is under incredible pressure from without, but
• 40:22
  Speaker 3: also demonstrating all of the wrong instincts, I think, broadly speaking,
• 40:28
  Speaker 3: in terms of supplicating themselves to the new power in Washington.
• 40:33
  Speaker 3: And that is something that is not a fait accompli.
• 40:36
  Speaker 3: It's not done. It's an iterative process. I think the
• 40:39
  Speaker 3: public should react to that. I think that People should
• 40:42
  Speaker 3: vote with their feet and people should support independent and
• 40:46
  Speaker 3: free-spirited press that isn't cowed and that isn't afraid and
• 40:50
  Speaker 3: that isn't intimidated. But that is something that we need
• 40:53
  Speaker 3: to fight for, too. And public opinion and public behavior
• 40:56
  Speaker 3: there really matters. It's not a done deal. All of
• 40:58
  Speaker 3: this stuff is– nothing's inevitable. All of this stuff is live.
• 41:02
  Speaker 3: I mean, one of the wild cards here is– and
• 41:04
  Speaker 3: this is something that's been surprising to me– I think
• 41:08
  Speaker 3: one of the sort of caustic and maybe slightly mean-spirited
• 41:10
  Speaker 3: observations that was also true about the first Trump term
• 41:13
  Speaker 3: is that while every president after a term looks about
• 41:16
  Speaker 3: 25 years older than he did at the start of
• 41:19
  Speaker 3: his term, that didn't really happen to Trump. Like at
• 41:21
  Speaker 3: the end of his four years, he kind of looked
• 41:22
  Speaker 3: the same.
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: Still looks the same.
• 41:23
  Speaker 3: And maybe that happens when you only roll him in
• 41:26
  Speaker 3: the middle of the afternoon. Maybe that says something about
• 41:29
  Speaker 3: his work ethic as president. But as he is now
• 41:32
  Speaker 3: sworn in for his second term, he looks old and
• 41:36
  Speaker 3: unfit and frail. And he is the oldest person ever
• 41:38
  Speaker 3: to take the oath of office as president. And we've
• 41:41
  Speaker 3: obviously just been through a version of this with President
• 41:45
  Speaker 3: Biden and his age issue being so determinative and important
• 41:48
  Speaker 3: in terms of what happened in the last electoral cycle.
• 41:52
  Speaker 3: But Trump doesn't look good. And J.D. Vance is like
• 41:56
  Speaker 3: 15 and ready to go. But that is going to
• 42:01
  Speaker 3: Those dynamics, I think, are going to be a real
• 42:03
  Speaker 3: wild card in terms of what happens between these two men,
• 42:07
  Speaker 3: between what happens in terms of how together Trump is.
• 42:11
  Speaker 3: You don't get to age infinitely and poorly without it
• 42:16
  Speaker 3: ultimately affecting the way that you behave and speak. His
• 42:19
  Speaker 3: second inaugural address, for whatever you can say about its content,
• 42:24
  Speaker 3: was also delivered in a low slurring mumble.
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: Real workmanlike. He hates giving speeches that are written for
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: him because he just wants to be a host and
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: just do his thing. His real speech was the speech
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: he gave after. It was like a 33-minute speech to
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: the Republicans where he just got to do all of
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: his stuff.
• 42:45
  Speaker 3: He got to do all of his stuff, but it
• 42:46
  Speaker 3: was also very poorly done.
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah, well, he doesn't care. He's not an orator. He's
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: just trying to like, you know, he's just doing his show.
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: He's a host.
• 42:54
  Speaker 3: He's never been like, you know, he's not Churchill, right?
• 42:59
  Speaker 3: That's never happened. But he's also not himself. He's also
• 43:03
  Speaker 3: just not as good as he was even a couple
• 43:06
  Speaker 3: of years ago, even at the start of the campaign.
• 43:08
  Speaker 3: And to see him physically decline, if he's going to
• 43:11
  Speaker 3: fall apart mentally and or physically- in this term, that's
• 43:15
  Speaker 3: really going to be a wild moment within this crazy
• 43:20
  Speaker 3: and humiliated, magified Trump Republican supplicant party.
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I'm sure they'll handle it well. Yeah. You were
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: talking about the press and obviously, you know, Trump's suing
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: everyone now.
• 43:33
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: Poor Ann Seltzer and the Des Moines Register and ABC settled.
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: Are you afraid? Do you worry? Oh, I'm not afraid.
• 43:42
  Speaker 3: But I do expect that there'll be, you know, that
• 43:46
  Speaker 3: Elon Musk and all of the other, you know, who
• 43:49
  Speaker 3: paid Rudy's settlement with the Ruby Freeman and Seamus? I'm
• 43:52
  Speaker 3: assuming that all of the money people who are doing
• 43:56
  Speaker 3: Trump's bidding in order to get their own interests catered
• 44:01
  Speaker 3: to by the U.S. government, I'm assuming that they will
• 44:04
  Speaker 3: all fund a gazillion defamation lawsuits that are designed to
• 44:07
  Speaker 3: ruin not only individual critics in the press and individual reporters,
• 44:12
  Speaker 3: but also whole news organizations. I am hopeful that news
• 44:17
  Speaker 3: organizations writ large will understand this as a threat to
• 44:20
  Speaker 3: them all, and they will band together and make sure
• 44:22
  Speaker 3: that there aren't, for example, meaningful attacks on the Sullivan
• 44:28
  Speaker 3: decision that defends the freedom of the press in terms
• 44:30
  Speaker 3: of libel and defamation protections. So I'm not afraid. I
• 44:35
  Speaker 3: am eyes wide open and expecting that Yeah.
• 44:38
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: Pod Save America is brought to you by Magic Spoon.
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• 46:14
  Speaker 1: a larger challenge with media that I think about a lot,
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: which is that most Americans aren't paying attention to anything
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: we say and aren't following much news at all, right?
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: And Kamala Harris does really well. among people who don't
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: just tune into MSNBC and Pod Save America, but just
• 46:31
  Speaker 1: follow the news, right?
• 46:33
  Speaker 3: In any venue.
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: Right, in any venue. Trump did well with people who
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: don't follow the news or who follow some news like
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: on social media, right? And those people care a lot
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: more about cost of living, safety of their communities than
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: they do, you know, the threat Trump poses to democracy, right?
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: They feel like that's sort of esoteric. And it makes
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: me wonder if we're all just like sitting here talking
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: to ourselves and to an audience that's already been convinced
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: that And I wonder how we break out of that
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: so that, you know, more Americans know what's going on.
• 47:04
  Speaker 6: What do you think?
• 47:05
  Speaker 3: I mean, it sounds like you're worried that we are
• 47:07
  Speaker 3: just talking to ourselves. I am.
• 47:09
  Speaker 6: I am.
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: And I just, I think that, I mean, a lot
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: of this is the way technology has changed the way
• 47:13
  Speaker 1: that we talk and communicate and interact. And if this
• 47:16
  Speaker 1: is all going to be done on social media, I
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: don't know. I mean, it's one of the reasons I'm
• 47:19
  Speaker 1: still hanging around on X because, like, you know, I
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: don't love it. Not a great platform. It was never
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: a great platform. Now it's a really bad platform. But,
• 47:30
  Speaker 1: you know, there's part of me that I'm like, oh,
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: we're all going to go to Blue Sky and then
• 47:32
  Speaker 1: we're all just going to talk to each other on
• 47:33
  Speaker 1: Blue Sky and then we're going to talk to each
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: other on Pod Save America and we're going to talk
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: to each other on MSNBC. And it's like, we all
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: got it. I mean, maybe we're coming up with a
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: plan altogether. Like, how are we going to get outside
• 47:42
  Speaker 1: that bubble? And I don't know.
• 47:46
  Speaker 5: I don't know.
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: But I think that like that is maybe the central
• 47:49
  Speaker 1: challenge that the Democratic Party faces from a political perspective,
• 47:53
  Speaker 1: but also the media faces, traditional media faces, from a
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: perspective of getting people to trust the information that they're
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: getting and making sure that the information gets out there.
• 48:03
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 48:04
  Speaker 3: I also think that it's one thing to think about
• 48:07
  Speaker 3: it from a sort of 30,000 foot, like, academic structural perspective.
• 48:10
  Speaker 3: It's another thing to think about it in terms of, like,
• 48:13
  Speaker 3: what are you, John, going to do every day? What
• 48:17
  Speaker 3: are your skills? What are you going to expend calories
• 48:20
  Speaker 3: on today? And you do what you can. I mean,
• 48:23
  Speaker 3: I'm very happy that MSNBC is actually very highly performing
• 48:28
  Speaker 3: on TikTok and on YouTube. Volume-wise, we're among the most
• 48:36
  Speaker 3: widely viewed news organizations on both of those platforms. That's good.
• 48:40
  Speaker 3: During the transition, I did a series of segments that
• 48:45
  Speaker 3: were for YouTube only, that weren't for TV, that were
• 48:48
  Speaker 3: looking at the backgrounds of a number of the Trump nominees.
• 48:52
  Speaker 3: Those got huge traffic on YouTube. I was really happy
• 48:55
  Speaker 3: for that. I am at Blue Sky and at matto.msnbc.com,
• 49:02
  Speaker 3: at Blue Sky, and encourage you to be there because
• 49:05
  Speaker 3: maybe right now it feels like Blue Sky is people
• 49:08
  Speaker 3: who already listen to Pod Save America talking to each
• 49:10
  Speaker 3: other about what they saw on MSNBC. But if it
• 49:13
  Speaker 3: gets bigger, it won't all be that.
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: Well, community is important too. Building community is also important.
• 49:18
  Speaker 3: And when you're on an iterative social media platform, meaning
• 49:22
  Speaker 3: it's a place where you don't just receive stuff, you
• 49:25
  Speaker 3: interact with people, and that's an important part of what
• 49:28
  Speaker 3: you're doing there. I think it's important to not be
• 49:31
  Speaker 3: in a place where the interaction is rigged to favor
• 49:34
  Speaker 3: MAGA outcomes. And that's explicitly happening at.
• 49:40
  Speaker 2: At Twitter.
• 49:41
  Speaker 3: And I think there's a reason that everybody has jumped
• 49:44
  Speaker 3: ship from Threads, which was a Twitter knockoff that seemed
• 49:50
  Speaker 3: like it might be better, but now it's essentially going
• 49:53
  Speaker 3: through the same process that Twitter went through because Mark
• 49:55
  Speaker 3: Zuckerberg's politics have also followed Elon Musk's down that particular hole.
• 50:00
  Speaker 3: So if you're in an iterative environment where your interactions
• 50:05
  Speaker 3: are going to be are going to be gamed in
• 50:08
  Speaker 3: order to favor Donald Trump and Elon Musk's desired outcomes.
• 50:12
  Speaker 3: Don't do that. Don't spend your one precious life providing
• 50:18
  Speaker 3: free content to those gentlemen.
• 50:20
  Speaker 1: Do you ever think about going into the lion's den,
• 50:23
  Speaker 1: going on some of these other right-leaning shows, some of
• 50:26
  Speaker 1: these other right-leaning podcasts? Not necessarily like go on Hannity
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: and have a debate kind of thing, but like the
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: Joe Rogans of the world. That's shorthand for all of
• 50:34
  Speaker 1: those because I don't want to get into another debate
• 50:37
  Speaker 1: about Joe Rogan. But do you ever think about that?
• 50:40
  Speaker 1: Like that's one way to start. How do you think
• 50:42
  Speaker 1: about persuading people?
• 50:44
  Speaker 3: I mean, what I do is talk about the news, right?
• 50:47
  Speaker 3: So I read all day and do reporting and fact-checking
• 50:51
  Speaker 3: and research and then try to observe what's happening in
• 50:54
  Speaker 3: the world, try to make some sense of it, try
• 50:56
  Speaker 3: to present it truthfully and explain what's important about it
• 50:59
  Speaker 3: and why it matters and what might happen next. And I...
• 51:03
  Speaker 3: I'm doing that instead of one day a week on MSNBC,
• 51:06
  Speaker 3: I'm now doing that five days a week on MSNBC.
• 51:08
  Speaker 3: And I'll do that for the whole first hundred days.
• 51:10
  Speaker 3: I'm trying to do as much of that as I
• 51:13
  Speaker 3: can on social media as well. I'm trying to keep
• 51:17
  Speaker 3: the pots that I've got boiling, boiling in terms of
• 51:20
  Speaker 3: my next podcast and my next book and the other,
• 51:23
  Speaker 3: there's a scripted TV show and three different movies and
• 51:26
  Speaker 3: a documentary that I'm doing interviews for right now and
• 51:29
  Speaker 3: trying to do all that stuff. And I just feel like,
• 51:31
  Speaker 3: you know what? I'm going to wake up every day.
• 51:33
  Speaker 1: You're going to do my thing.
• 51:34
  Speaker 3: I'm going to do my thing. And I'm going to
• 51:36
  Speaker 3: do it in a way that I'm proud of and
• 51:39
  Speaker 3: that I hope is persuasive. And I can't make people
• 51:43
  Speaker 3: who don't want to hear it from me want to
• 51:45
  Speaker 3: hear it from me. But if you are persuaded to
• 51:49
  Speaker 3: hear from me, I hope that I'm always speaking in
• 51:52
  Speaker 3: a way that is fair and persuasive and you can
• 51:56
  Speaker 3: take it to the bank in terms of its factual spine.
• 51:59
  Speaker 1: I know you're not a democratic strategist. You're a commentator,
• 52:02
  Speaker 1: but you are a close observer of democratic politics.
• 52:06
  Speaker 3: Excellent caveat. That was very well done.
• 52:08
  Speaker 1: Also someone who is very studied in how pro-democracy movements
• 52:13
  Speaker 1: and parties have succeeded in the past. When you look
• 52:16
  Speaker 1: at the Democratic Party right now, what do you think
• 52:19
  Speaker 1: it has to change going forward in order to defeat
• 52:23
  Speaker 1: or at least marginalize the anti-democratic faction in this country?
• 52:26
  Speaker 1: And so it really isn't a question beyond just the
• 52:29
  Speaker 1: Democratic Party, though that is, we have two parties and
• 52:31
  Speaker 1: that's the party right now that is the pro-democracy party.
• 52:34
  Speaker 1: But what do you think needs to be different?
• 52:38
  Speaker 3: Well, I mean, I think that there isn't much magic
• 52:42
  Speaker 3: to it. You have to be excellent opposition. The Republican
• 52:45
  Speaker 3: Party under Trump has consolidated power in Washington in all
• 52:49
  Speaker 3: three branches of government, undoubtedly. It's a very narrow margin
• 52:52
  Speaker 3: in the House. It's not that huge a margin in
• 52:54
  Speaker 3: the Senate, but they've got everything. Therefore, when you're in
• 52:59
  Speaker 3: opposition from that position, I think the obvious thing to
• 53:02
  Speaker 3: do is to stick a wedge in every awkward division
• 53:09
  Speaker 3: among the party that has consolidated power. I mean, there's
• 53:14
  Speaker 3: hugely incompatible forces at work within the MAGA universe, literally
• 53:22
  Speaker 3: even between the president and vice president. And so- Let's
• 53:27
  Speaker 3: start there.
• 53:29
  Speaker 1: The tech billionaires and the base of the party.
• 53:31
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 53:32
  Speaker 3: So, I mean, yes, on H-1B visas, right? Should we
• 53:35
  Speaker 3: have immigration controlled by corporations for that purpose in the
• 53:41
  Speaker 3: way that we have or not? Yeah, on that stuff,
• 53:43
  Speaker 3: but on everything. I mean, they can't even decide what
• 53:46
  Speaker 3: they're going to do about SALT, about the state and
• 53:49
  Speaker 3: local taxes deduction. They're at a trillion dollar impasse within
• 53:55
  Speaker 3: their party. On that issue alone, okay, let's start there.
• 54:00
  Speaker 3: You do have the palpable, self-loathing, humiliation, and escape-hunting fear
• 54:11
  Speaker 3: of every Republican senator who is asked about the pardons
• 54:14
  Speaker 3: of those violent felons. You do have, I think, legit,
• 54:20
  Speaker 3: law-and-order-minded Republicans in elected office, including some of whom some
• 54:26
  Speaker 3: of whom had to run for their lives on January 6th.
• 54:31
  Speaker 3: One of their number, an elected Republican in the House
• 54:34
  Speaker 3: of Representatives, is offering guided tours of the scene of
• 54:38
  Speaker 3: the crime of January 6th to some of the people
• 54:40
  Speaker 3: who were there with baseball bats and two-by-fours beating police
• 54:44
  Speaker 3: officers and threatening to kill members of Congress not that
• 54:47
  Speaker 3: long ago. So that's a divide there.
• 54:51
  Speaker 1: You either think that's cool or you don't.
• 54:53
  Speaker 3: Yeah. And that party, the ruling power in Washington, which is,
• 54:58
  Speaker 3: that's it. I mean, they are in complete control. They
• 55:01
  Speaker 3: own everything that happens.
• 55:02
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 55:02
  Speaker 3: They've got those divides among themselves. And just go with
• 55:07
  Speaker 3: those hammer and tongs and make them figure out who
• 55:10
  Speaker 3: they are. And I think that the American people are
• 55:12
  Speaker 3: not going to like it. But just, I don't think
• 55:16
  Speaker 3: there's more magic to it than that right now. Yeah.
• 55:18
  Speaker 1: We've talked a lot about what we're doing. What's one
• 55:21
  Speaker 1: habit or tip that you'd give to anyone for maintaining
• 55:25
  Speaker 1: their sanity through these next four years? And we started
• 55:29
  Speaker 1: off you saying that maybe hydrate better, take better care
• 55:33
  Speaker 1: of yourself. Is there anything you do? I mean, you're
• 55:35
  Speaker 1: working all the time, so I can't imagine.
• 55:38
  Speaker 3: What do you do?
• 55:39
  Speaker 1: I got to figure that out. I mean, I'm playing
• 55:40
  Speaker 1: with my kids now. I have a four-year-old and a one-year-old,
• 55:44
  Speaker 1: so That's a full-time job. It is a full-time job.
• 55:47
  Speaker 1: I'm better now about when I'm with them to like,
• 55:50
  Speaker 1: I put the phone in another room and I'm like,
• 55:52
  Speaker 1: I don't need to, I can't do the news all
• 55:54
  Speaker 1: weekend long, you know? So I'm trying to do that,
• 55:57
  Speaker 1: but I don't know.
• 55:58
  Speaker 3: I think that's, I mean, again, not magic, but that's real.
• 56:02
  Speaker 3: And you can tell day to day that has an
• 56:03
  Speaker 3: effect on you.
• 56:04
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 56:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 56:06
  Speaker 3: I believe in compartmentalization. Absolutely.
• 56:09
  Speaker 5: That's cool.
• 56:10
  Speaker 3: Just do it. I mean, and everybody has to calibrate
• 56:14
  Speaker 3: it differently, right? If you're caring for an elderly parent
• 56:17
  Speaker 3: and also caring for your kids and working full time
• 56:21
  Speaker 3: and trying to do something at school, like that, you're
• 56:23
  Speaker 3: already compartmentalizing in order to get to a meal once
• 56:26
  Speaker 3: a day. I mean, so everybody has different levels and
• 56:30
  Speaker 3: sort of different imperatives about how they need to do that.
• 56:32
  Speaker 3: But I think as a principal, that's good. There should
• 56:34
  Speaker 3: be certain times of day when you are not doing
• 56:37
  Speaker 3: things that you were otherwise doing in other parts.
• 56:39
  Speaker 2: Of the day.
• 56:41
  Speaker 3: For me, that means starting looking at the news at
• 56:44
  Speaker 3: a specific time and trying to stop looking at the
• 56:46
  Speaker 3: news at a specific time. It means spending time outdoors.
• 56:50
  Speaker 3: I'm a person who likes being outdoors when it's cold.
• 56:54
  Speaker 3: Ice fish is my winter recreation of choice. So far,
• 56:58
  Speaker 3: it's been an excellent ice season. And so I try
• 57:01
  Speaker 3: to just make myself do that. Conveniently, there is no
• 57:04
  Speaker 3: cell surface anywhere. There is also available ice fishing, at
• 57:07
  Speaker 3: least where I live.
• 57:08
  Speaker 1: That's smart.
• 57:08
  Speaker 3: Which is really good. I mean, all that stuff matters
• 57:11
  Speaker 3: to me. For me personally, it's important to read fiction.
• 57:16
  Speaker 3: It's important to exercise. It's important to spend time outdoors
• 57:20
  Speaker 3: and with animals and family and loved ones. So it's just.
• 57:25
  Speaker 1: That's great. That's good advice.
• 57:26
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Take vitamins, drink a lot of water, drink less.
• 57:29
  Speaker 1: It's okay.
• 57:29
  Speaker 3: You'll be all right.
• 57:31
  Speaker 1: Rachel Maddow, thank you so much for joining Pod Save America.
• 57:34
  Speaker 1: And we are so glad you're back.
• 57:35
  Speaker 5: Me too.
• 57:36
  Speaker 1: Five nights a week.
• 57:37
  Speaker 4: Me too.
• 57:38
  Speaker 1: I know you tried. You tried to escape. You just
• 57:40
  Speaker 1: couldn't do it.
• 57:41
  Speaker 3: I will escape again on April 30th, which makes it
• 57:43
  Speaker 3: very doable.
• 57:44
  Speaker 1: I will believe you.
• 57:45
  Speaker 5: I believe you.
• 57:45
  Speaker 1: Thanks, John. Take care.
• 57:46
  Speaker 2: Appreciate it.
• 57:52
  Speaker 1: That's our show for today, but two things before we go.
• 57:55
  Speaker 1: So the next four years are obviously going to be
• 57:57
  Speaker 1: a challenging, disorienting time, to say the least. We just
• 58:02
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• 58:03
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