Latest / Question Everything / He quit journalism to fight authoritarianism. How’s that going?

Transcript

He quit journalism to fight authoritarianism. How’s that going? · Question Everything

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: Hey, y'all. This is Question Everything from KCRW and Placement Theory.
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: I'm Brian Reed. And today we're joined by somebody that
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: a bunch of you have been asking us pretty urgently
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: to get back on the show. Someone who, when we
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: had him on last fall, was dedicating himself to preparing
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: for this very moment, a moment when Donald Trump would
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: be trying to overpower the Constitution.
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: I'm a little bowled over by the pace of events
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: and by the tornado of illegal actions. by the president.
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: Barton Gellman on the front lines. Stick around. Over the
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: last month, a bunch of you have asked us to
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: follow up with Barton Gellman. Barton's a legendary investigative reporter.
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: He's won three Pulitzer Prizes. He worked for the Washington
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: Post for years, covering national security and other beats. He
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: was one of the reporters Edward Snowden came to with
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: the massive NSA leak. And then he reported on threats
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: to our election system for The Atlantic. We had Barton
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: on the show back in September before the election. If
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: you haven't heard that episode, go check it out. It's
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: one of my favorites. It's in our feed called The
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: Journalist and the Firefighter. In that episode, we told the
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: story of how a little more than a year ago,
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: Barton decided to suddenly quit journalism to join the Brennan
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: Center for Justice, a nonpartisan nonprofit. Barton joined the Brennan
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: Center with a very specific mission, to prepare for a
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: possible second Trump term. He wanted to strategize ways for
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: how to legally and tactically restrain Donald Trump from taking
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: authoritarian acts as president. And he'd lost faith in journalism's
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: effectiveness at doing that. It's important to say that Barton
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: and the Brennan Center, which again isn't partisan, are really
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: deliberate about their approach here. They're not trying to oppose
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: policies like climate policy, say, or tax policy. They're focused
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: on behavior that is authoritarian. So Actions by the president
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: that circumvent laws or constitutional protections, like due process or
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: free speech. Or one of the moves of the week,
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: trying to pursue a third term as president. When I
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: talked to Barton last year, he had just finished running
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: a series of simulations, war games essentially, with more than
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: 100 high-powered politicians and military leaders and the like, gaming
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: out different authoritarian acts Trump might take in office and
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: how to stop them. or at least stem the damage.
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: In the last few weeks especially, as the Trump administration
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: has been abducting international students on the street without charges
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: and deporting Venezuelan immigrants without any due process and targeting
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: law firms and government agencies and the press and hugely
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: defying orders from judges, I have been very aware that
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: we are right now living through the moment that Barton
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: was readying for. The battle he left journalism to fight
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: is here. So I've really wanted to know what he's
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: up to now that we're living it for real. And
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: I know some of you have been wondering about this too,
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: because you've written us to say that you've also been
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: thinking about that story I did with Barton. A couple
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: of you said you re-listened to it recently, and you've
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: encouraged us to get him back on the show, to
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: fill us in. How does what the Trump administration has
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: been doing stack up to what he learned in the
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: war games? What are he and his colleagues doing in response?
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: So I called up Barton last Friday.
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: A lot of things he's doing were things that we
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: forecast in the game. Some of the things he's doing
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: are worse. He still hasn't done some of the things
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: that we played, but it's been a very rough two-month
• 3:35
  Speaker 2: start to the new administration. We expected him, for example,
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: to weaponize government agencies against his political enemies. But the
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: idea that he's issuing executive orders against explicitly because his
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: political enemies, as he sees them, may be at big
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: law firms that attempt to destroy those law firms, which
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: is what they are. They're barring any government contract with
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: those firms. They're barring contracts with any other company that
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: pays those firms. They're barring entry to government buildings. I mean,
• 4:12
  Speaker 2: it's blatantly illegal, blatantly unconstitutional. but so desperately damaging that
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: some of the firms are just caving in and giving
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: in to extortion. And it is disappointing to see that
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: the whole legal profession has not risen up in defense
• 4:29
  Speaker 2: of those firms.
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: Can you take me into some specifics? You know, like
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: how are you actually spending your days? What are you
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: up to?
• 4:36
  Speaker 2: Well, we actually just did another tabletop exercise, what people
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: generally call war games. And that was an exercise to
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: consider options when Trump disobeys a court order. And we considered, um,
• 4:52
  Speaker 2: a number of scenarios, you know, for example, as the
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: underlying issue, one that has a political valence that favors Trump.
• 4:59
  Speaker 2: So he's trying to do something that is relatively popular,
• 5:02
  Speaker 2: even though a judge has said it's against the law.
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: We also varied things like, is he defying a trial
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: court or an appellate court or the Supreme court? Um,
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: Is he doing so openly and notoriously and simply saying,
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: you're not the boss of me? Or is he pretending
• 5:19
  Speaker 2: to comply but not in fact complying?
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: So you played out all these different possibilities, basically?
• 5:25
  Speaker 2: Yes. It was an immigration scenario where he was deporting
• 5:29
  Speaker 2: people without the legally required due process and the ability
• 5:33
  Speaker 2: to be heard. It closely followed the news.
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: I mean, that's what's happening now, yeah.
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: The current Venezuela case. Yeah.
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: I imagine you've been following this case, but just to summarize,
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: a few weeks ago, the Trump administration rounded up more
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: than 200 Venezuelans that it claimed were gang members and
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: put them on planes to El Salvador, which is now
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: holding them in a prison. The administration cited a rarely
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: used law from the 1790s to justify deporting these people
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: with no hearings, no due process, no chance for them
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: to provide evidence showing that maybe they weren't gang members.
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: As the deportations were happening, a district judge in D.C.,
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: James Boasberg, intervened and ordered the administration to stop the
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: planes from taking off to El Salvador or, if they
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: were in the air, which some of them were, make
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: them turn around. But the Trump administration ignored those orders
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: and sent the deportees to El Salvador anyway. Judge Boasberg
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: has been looking at what happened behind the scenes to
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: figure out if officials are in contempt of court. So
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: this is the case that Barton and his colleagues did
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: a mock version of in their recent simulations. They imagined
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: where this case might end up soon and played it out.
• 6:40
  Speaker 2: In that one, we had the Supreme Court had ruled
• 6:43
  Speaker 2: against it. And the question was, was he going to
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: defy the Supreme Court? And there are questions like, what
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: happens if a judge orders the U.S. Marshal to produce
• 6:57
  Speaker 2: a witness who hasn't come voluntarily or to seize an asset?
• 7:01
  Speaker 2: And then the U.S. Marshal is ordered by the Attorney
• 7:05
  Speaker 2: General not to do that thing.
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah, this is one of my questions for you in
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: terms of our system of checks and balances. My understanding,
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: you have a court that can issue injunctions, orders, can
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: put people in contempt of court. But then to actually
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: enforce those things, you need the marshals who are part
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: of the executive branch, essentially. And so they've got this
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: kind of like divided loyalty, I guess, or obligation.
• 7:29
  Speaker 2: They've got potentially conflicting chains of command. I'm not aware
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: of a case in the past in which a judge—
• 7:36
  Speaker 2: And the Justice Department gave directly conflicting orders. But you
• 7:40
  Speaker 2: could imagine it happening under the Trump administration. And having
• 7:44
  Speaker 2: spoken to a number of senior U.S. marshals.
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: Oh, so you've spoken to U.S. marshals about this?
• 7:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah, including a former director of the U.S. Marshal Service.
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: What are they saying will happen in a case we
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: have where, you know, a judge is saying, turn these
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: planes of immigrants around and they aren't turned around. And
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: that judge finds officials in contempt of court for not
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: listening to that order.
• 8:05
  Speaker 2: Well, I think one of the lessons is that if
• 8:07
  Speaker 2: it comes down to a direct conflict of hard power,
• 8:12
  Speaker 2: then the president is going to win. Because you have
• 8:17
  Speaker 2: a scenario where the marshal says my primary mandate is
• 8:21
  Speaker 2: to obey and enforce court orders and does so, then
• 8:24
  Speaker 2: the president can fire that marshal. And if one marshal
• 8:28
  Speaker 2: is not willing to carry out the president's orders, then
• 8:31
  Speaker 2: he finds another one who will. What's going to stop
• 8:35
  Speaker 2: that from happening is public opinion. I mean, are people
• 8:38
  Speaker 2: prepared to tolerate a president who explicitly says, yes, I've
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: been ordered to do this by the Supreme Court, but
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: I won't do it. Ha ha. There's polling I've seen
• 8:50
  Speaker 2: that says 80 plus percent of the public thinks that
• 8:54
  Speaker 2: obeying judges orders is a big deal and very important,
• 8:57
  Speaker 2: including 68 percent of Republicans. the president would not have
• 9:02
  Speaker 2: public support for defiance of a court order.
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: Let's take this specific example of the deportees on the planes.
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: I saw today, just the news broke, that that is
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: going to the Supreme Court. So the scenario that you
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: played out, I guess, is happening, essentially. You think public
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: opinion would support the administration obeying an order to kind
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: of reverse those actions?
• 9:23
  Speaker 2: I think it's going to have to take courage and
• 9:26
  Speaker 2: protection of constitutional prerogatives and by the other branches of government.
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: I believe that most judges, most of the time, are
• 9:37
  Speaker 2: going to be reluctant to step right up to the
• 9:40
  Speaker 2: edge of a crisis, reluctant to issue an order that
• 9:44
  Speaker 2: is direct and immediate and right now that the judge
• 9:48
  Speaker 2: knows the president doesn't want to obey because it would
• 9:51
  Speaker 2: undermine public faith in the law and the judiciary if
• 9:55
  Speaker 2: they could make an order and the president didn't obey.
• 9:58
  Speaker 2: I believe myself that judges risk far greater damage to
• 10:03
  Speaker 2: the rule of law and to respect for the courts
• 10:07
  Speaker 2: if they pretend that the president is not violating the law.
• 10:11
  Speaker 2: If they keep on kicking the cat forward, if they
• 10:13
  Speaker 2: keep on giving one more chance.
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: I saw that this quote from the administration's filing with
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: the Supreme Court their argument. They're arguing that under the
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: Alien Enemies Act, which is the law, the like very old,
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: rarely used law that the administration is trying to use to,
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: or has used, I guess, to deport these immigrants without
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: due process. They said that detentions and removals are, quote,
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: so bound up with critical national security judgments that they
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: are barely amenable to judicial review at all.
• 10:44
  Speaker 2: In other words, you have no authority here, Judge, and
• 10:46
  Speaker 2: we're not answerable to you. They're saying this is a
• 10:49
  Speaker 2: question so vitally connected to national security that it's out
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: of the purview of judges entirely or almost entirely.
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: And the act they're using is a wartime act. So
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: they're claiming there's some kind of war going on in
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: order to justify use of the act, right?
• 11:05
  Speaker 2: Right. And, I mean, it's a crazy abuse of a
• 11:08
  Speaker 2: law that, frankly, shouldn't exist anymore. It's from 1798. It's
• 11:13
  Speaker 2: only ever been used in such a way as to
• 11:16
  Speaker 2: create great national shame. So this was what was used
• 11:20
  Speaker 2: to lock up Japanese Americans during the Second World War
• 11:24
  Speaker 2: and in detention camps for the duration of the war
• 11:28
  Speaker 2: and accusing them of dual loyalty based on no evidence.
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: And this is the precedent that Trump wants to follow now.
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: So this situation that we're living right now, I mean,
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: this case got kicked up to the Supreme Court today,
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: a few hours before we're talking. This is a scenario
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: that you considered in a war game 10 days ago.
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: How did it play out?
• 11:48
  Speaker 2: I don't want to say all the ways that it
• 11:49
  Speaker 2: played out because some of the things have not yet
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: been done. And we haven't quite crossed the red line
• 11:56
  Speaker 2: that would require those things to be done.
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: Is the reason you don't want to say it because
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: it would be like giving away the moves and you
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: think the moves might be necessary?
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right. I mean, they're not huge secrets, but
• 12:08
  Speaker 2: as we work out what tactics and strategies we want
• 12:13
  Speaker 2: to put forward, lawyers and grassroots movements and NGOs of
• 12:18
  Speaker 2: various flavors, I don't want to give away all the
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: strategies because we might really need them.
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: But they were effective in one way or another.
• 12:28
  Speaker 2: There was one game in which they were effective and
• 12:31
  Speaker 2: one in which they weren't.
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: I'm not trying to goad you into saying anything. I
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: just want to kind of figure out the parameters of
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: what I can ask about here. The moves you're talking about,
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: are they kind of legal maneuvers?
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: So there are maneuvers in and out of court. But ultimately,
• 12:47
  Speaker 2: if what you're playing is a case in which the
• 12:49
  Speaker 2: court has ruled and there's been a final legal resolution
• 12:54
  Speaker 2: and the president is refusing to comply with that, then
• 12:58
  Speaker 2: you're no longer in the courtroom. We– did find that
• 13:02
  Speaker 2: there were ways to bring this before the public that
• 13:06
  Speaker 2: could engage various constituencies and stakeholders in resisting and in
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: pressuring Trump to obey the law. What happens in the
• 13:18
  Speaker 2: business community? What happens in the financial markets? What happens
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: in terms of mass demonstrations? What happens in terms of
• 13:26
  Speaker 2: strikes in vital areas of our economy? What happens when
• 13:32
  Speaker 2: people are making their anger known to their own members
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: of Congress? What happens when Congress realizes that the laws
• 13:43
  Speaker 2: it passes can be just set aside by the president?
• 13:48
  Speaker 2: Can you crystallize all that latent opposition into something that
• 13:55
  Speaker 2: will make a difference to the president? You're saying, for example...
• 13:59
  Speaker 2: All over the country during the congressional recess, there were
• 14:02
  Speaker 2: these town halls and Republicans came home and found a
• 14:06
  Speaker 2: lot of anger from their voters and found it hard
• 14:10
  Speaker 2: to defend what was happening in Washington. And that has
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: a big impact on that.
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: Was this specifically around like some of the federal cuts
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: and Doge's work?
• 14:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah, a lot of it was about job losses and
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: loss of programs and loss of funding. You know, why
• 14:26
  Speaker 2: are you cutting money to schools? Why are you cutting
• 14:30
  Speaker 2: money to FEMA, the job of which is to help
• 14:33
  Speaker 2: people recover from disasters? Yeah.
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: I was in Birmingham, Alabama not long ago, and they
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: have tons of NIH-funded jobs there.
• 14:42
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: And it's just like a huge issue.
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: Right. Why are you trying to cut the jobs and
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: funds of people who are supposed to make our medicine safe?
• 14:50
  Speaker 2: Why are you cutting benefits to veterans? This is not
• 14:56
  Speaker 2: what we expected from you. Who wants that? Who's for that?
• 15:01
  Speaker 2: Trump is ultimately a politician. He has to care about
• 15:04
  Speaker 2: public opinion at a certain point. He cares about the
• 15:06
  Speaker 2: financial markets at a certain point. He cares about what
• 15:09
  Speaker 2: happens to the economy at a certain point. He has
• 15:12
  Speaker 2: shown in his first, what is it, 65 days or something,
• 15:16
  Speaker 2: as we're speaking, he's shown more tolerance than he did
• 15:19
  Speaker 2: in his first term for losses in the financial markets
• 15:24
  Speaker 2: and for kind of drop in his public support. But
• 15:27
  Speaker 2: I don't think that that can go on indefinitely.
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: Welcome back to the show. We've been talking a lot
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: about moves the courts are making to slow many of
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: President Trump's authoritarian actions. But one of the big lessons
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: I remember Barton Gelman telling me about that came out
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: of the simulations he ran last year was something that
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: some of you have been wondering about, too. Somebody wrote in,
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: someone named Alex Bloom. I'm very interested in a follow-up
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: conversation with Barton Gelman because the one thing he said
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: that stuck with me is that the courts will be
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: too slow to keep up with Donald Trump. He was
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: so right. And then someone else, Kyle Evitz. I'm really
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: curious to know what you, Barton, think of the current situation,
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: it seems like we're falling into the lawsuit trap that
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: played out in the war games you discussed on the show.
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: So people are kind of wondering, and I was wondering too,
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: it seems like, okay, the courts are like the main
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: battleground right now in terms of trying to slow these
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: authoritarian moves. But we remembered that what you learned in
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: the games is that that wouldn't be enough.
• 16:29
  Speaker 2: So I want to leaven the point about the courts
• 16:33
  Speaker 2: a little bit. There are numerous courts now that have
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: been remarkably swift and clear and in many ways effective,
• 16:42
  Speaker 2: that have said to the president, hold up, you can't
• 16:45
  Speaker 2: do this. And to a substantial extent, he has held up.
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think the New York Times is keeping a
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: running up-to-date list. And there's something like, as of March 25th,
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: there were at least 53 rulings that have at least
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: temporarily paused some of the administration's efforts.
• 17:00
  Speaker 2: Right. So... I certainly don't discount litigation as an important
• 17:05
  Speaker 2: part of the strategy for ensuring that Trump stays within
• 17:09
  Speaker 2: the boundaries of our constitutional democracy. He has to follow
• 17:13
  Speaker 2: the law.
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: Is that going better than you expected, like the legal
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: front or as you expected based on the war games
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: and all your preparations?
• 17:21
  Speaker 2: You know, I'd have to say it's going a little
• 17:22
  Speaker 2: better than I expected. Courts can be very slow and
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: the judges have a lot of discretion. But Trump's assault
• 17:29
  Speaker 2: has been so direct and so brazen that courts are
• 17:34
  Speaker 2: responding swiftly. But it is always in the nature of
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: human endeavors that it is faster and easier to wreck
• 17:43
  Speaker 2: things than to put the back together again. So I
• 17:47
  Speaker 2: am concerned that this festival of wrecking balls that is
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: represented by Trump and Elon Musk and Doge can outpace
• 17:58
  Speaker 2: what's happening in the courts. But even so, the courts
• 18:01
  Speaker 2: have done a faster job and have been quick and
• 18:04
  Speaker 2: decisive and do represent some level of restraint. On the
• 18:09
  Speaker 2: other hand, I mean, you can look at it as
• 18:11
  Speaker 2: I think Trump and Musk may look at it, which
• 18:16
  Speaker 2: is that if they try 25 times to do something
• 18:20
  Speaker 2: crazy illegal and eventually the Supreme Court says, that in
• 18:26
  Speaker 2: five of them yeah it's a new interpretation of law
• 18:29
  Speaker 2: but it's within your power the score is not you
• 18:32
  Speaker 2: know 20 losses and five wins the score is five
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: to nothing.
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: I remember from last year's simulations what you learned kind
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: of in totality from the number of games you ran
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: is that really one of the most effective things in
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: each instance in stopping authoritarian president was mass demonstrations by
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: the public am i remembering that correctly.
• 18:55
  Speaker 2: Well, I think some things will eventually come to that.
• 19:00
  Speaker 2: Certainly not right away, certainly not for all cases. But
• 19:03
  Speaker 2: I guess the way I would put it is, you know,
• 19:07
  Speaker 2: we've been a constitutional democracy for coming close to 250
• 19:12
  Speaker 2: years now. And if someone tries to turn it into
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: something else, if Trump tries to turn this into an autocracy... Ultimately,
• 19:22
  Speaker 2: he can only do it if the American people let
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: him get away with it. And if we collectively go
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: along with this. And I don't believe that most of
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: the voters who voted for Trump want an autocracy. Some
• 19:39
  Speaker 2: of them probably do. But I think they voted for
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: him for lots of reasons, including principally economic reasons. I
• 19:47
  Speaker 2: don't think the majority of Americans is prepared to tolerate
• 19:51
  Speaker 2: a despot. And what he's doing, going after every kind
• 19:56
  Speaker 2: of instrument of accountability, inspectors general, law firms, judges, universities.
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: The press.
• 20:04
  Speaker 2: And so on. He is trying to obtain unaccountable power.
• 20:09
  Speaker 2: And as that sinks in, as people start to realize
• 20:13
  Speaker 2: what that is and what it costs them, I don't
• 20:16
  Speaker 2: think the American people will stand for it.
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: As I mentioned, we had this conversation on Friday. On Sunday,
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: President Trump said in an interview that he was considering
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: doing something else that would be unconstitutional, something that's explicitly
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: banned in the Constitution— trying to get a third term
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: as president. There are methods which you could do it,
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: he said. In response, I saw the president of the
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: Brennan Center, Barton's colleague Michael Waldman, quoted in a CNN
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: article saying, it's illegal. He has no chance. That's all
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: there is to say. By the way, I did talk
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: to Barton about how he thought journalists and news organizations
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: have been doing in these first 100 days. what specific
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: stories have risen to the occasion for him, and what
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: coverage he had critiques of. I also asked if he
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: missed journalism. I'm going to write about what he told
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: me in our newsletter this week. Go to kcrw.com slash
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: question everything. Sign up. Also, if you've been enjoying our show,
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: will you share it with a friend? Your group chats,
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: your knitting club, your fantasy league, whatever. Not even a friend.
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: You could share it with a nemesis. That's fine, too.
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: We so appreciate it. We actually rely on real recommendations
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: from real people to keep the show going. You texting
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: this episode to your friend.
• 21:42
  Speaker 2: It matters.
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: Today's episode was produced by Zach St. Louis. It was
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: edited by Neil Drumming. Our show is executive produced by
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: me and Robin Simeon. Producer Sophie Casis and associate producer
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: Emily Malterre also make the program. Jen Kinney is a
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: contributing editor. Annika Robbins fact-checked this episode. Sound design was
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: by Brendan Baker. Matt McGinley created our music. Thanks as
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: always to our attorneys, Cassandra Cito, Matt Klein, and Ellie
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: Ward at O'Melveny. Our partners at KCRW include Arnie Seipel,
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: Gina Delvac, Tejla Jamera, Natalie Hill, and Jennifer Farrow. Thanks
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: for listening, and we'll see you next time.