April 12, 2025 • 45 mins
To The Contrary newsletter author Charlie Sykes examines Trump’s attacks on his political opponents. Democracy Americana’s Thomas Zimmer examines America’s continued lean toward authoritarianism.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hi, I'm Molly John Fast and this is Fast Politics,
where we discussed the top political headlines with some of
today's best minds and EDG prices continue to rise under Trump.
We have such a great show for you today to
the Contrary Newsletter author Charlie Sykes stops by to talk
about Trump's attacks on his political opponents. Then we'll talk
(00:23):
to Democracy Americana's Thomas Zimmer about how Project twenty twenty
five is happening right now. But first the news.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
Smillie, we have the rarest thing in America. And I
don't mean one of those pokemons you find very oddly somewhere.
I mean a's nine to zero Supreme Court ruling.
Speaker 1 (00:44):
Yeah, it turns out that even Alito and Thomas believe
in due process.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
I mean, I am shocked. I am very shocked.
Speaker 1 (00:55):
Right, You know things are bad when Alito and Thomas,
Alita and Thomas are like wa wa WHOA. Now I'm
going to say something which you're not going to hear
other people say. But I wonder if it's true. Again,
this is conjecture. I am not speaking with any insider knowledge.
There has not been reporting on this. Just I want
(01:16):
you to think for a second. During Tariff Mentum, tariff gait,
right the tariff Apocalypse Liberation Day, when Trump liberated the
markets of billions of dollars, there was a group that
got together to sue Trump and to take away the
tariff power. This group was headed by who very close
personal friends of Thomas and Alito. There is a case
(01:39):
that is winding its way to the Supreme Court right
now to take away Trump's tariff authority and it is
funded by Leonard Leo and the surviving Koch brother And
I just want you to know that that is happening
at the same time that Alito and Thomas. And maybe
(02:00):
this is the only time ever that Alito and Thomas
rule against Trump. Maybe this is it. Maybe they really
believe in due process. But maybe the fact that they're
people that Leonard Leo has a case that is going
against Trump for taps, maybe there is a real split
in the Republican party starting. And again we don't know,
(02:24):
we don't know what this means. But I'm just saying
Thomas and Alito have never ever, ever, ever done anything
but rubber stamp Trump's bullshit. So this seems notable to me.
And maybe it just happens once, but maybe not.
Speaker 2 (02:39):
Yeah, I really was shocked. Another really shocking thing was
Trump bragging in the Oval Office about how much money
his buddies and donors made. Why don't we to go
listen to that clip.
Speaker 1 (02:54):
It's not just today. Yeah. So Democrats want to make
this about insider trading, and for sure this is a kleptocracy.
Donald Trump will insider trade. He probably already has insider traded.
(03:18):
There is an endless possibility here of insider trading. That said,
there is also just stupidity and incompetence happening in our
public markets. And I actually think that Democrats should talk
more about the stupidity and incompetence. They can also talk
about the corruption. But just this, a Democrat had behaved
(03:41):
like this and had lost billions of dollars in value
for no fucking reason. If a Democrat had done this,
Republicans would be through the roof. So honestly, yes, there
is absolutely corruption. If we ever get back to normal democracy,
this thing is going to unroll like you can't believe.
(04:02):
But I still think it's important to also explain the
stupid because this is all very very very stupid.
Speaker 2 (04:11):
Yeah. Incredibly, with that has come a reaction, of course,
to the stupid, which is these people should be investigated
for insider trading, including Marjorie Taylor Green.
Speaker 1 (04:21):
Yeah, I know you'll be shocked to hear this. Marjorie
Taylor Green did a lot of buying.
Speaker 3 (04:25):
You know.
Speaker 1 (04:25):
Again, there's obviously corruption, and we have a rule of
law for reason, and all of this should be followed
through with. I don't know Marjorie Taylor Green. You know,
she could have also bought because she was I don't know.
I'm not as convinced about that. What I am convinced
about is that the way that Donald Trump is running
(04:45):
this government is absolutely beyond moronic, and I think that
is a real question. I do also think that it's
important to remember that the fact that Marjorie Taylor Green
has been so elevated in this administ station. We'll remember
eight years ago, in twenty eighteen, she was considered to
be the fringe of all fringes. Okay, it's twenty twenty five,
(05:10):
and she is now like the sort of Jeff Flake
of previous administrations. I mean, she is really one of
Trump's go tos, and I think that we sort of
lose track on how crazy the right has become over
the last six years.
Speaker 2 (05:25):
I mean, I do think she's a striking example. Going
from a net worth of seven hundred thousand dollars to
twenty two million since she gets to Congress is a
real telling story about how bad this has gotten.
Speaker 1 (05:36):
I mean, I also think she came from money. She
inherited money from her father. She's come from a construction business,
her family construction business, so I wonder how much of
that was inheritance. A lot of these people in Congress
are very rich, right, which is part of the problem.
But they should not be allowed to trade stock that period.
Paragraph should stop tomorrow, Members of Congress. If you are
(06:00):
serving your country, you should not also be serving your
bank account.
Speaker 2 (06:03):
Yeah, and I am convinced we'd get much better candidates
if this didn't exist. Anyway, speaking of things that we
could do to make this country get better people is
not televised cabinet meetings where everybody licks your feet and
it looks like an episode of The Apprentice.
Speaker 1 (06:17):
Okay, so hot take. I actually think you're wrong. I
think Democrats should. One of the many things Trump does
is he televises everything, right, so he tele advises he
has the White House press pool in all the time.
He does pool sprays. That's when he answers questions for journalists.
He does interviews, he's on television, he does podcasts. He
(06:39):
does this constantly doing media, even I mean to the
point where it's like I was watching him give a
press conference the other day and c Spahan cut away
because he did so much. I actually think this is
really smart because people pay so little attention that you
have to just be out there all the fucking time.
(07:01):
So I actually think when you watch these televised cabinet meetings,
this is something that normal politicians do not televise cabinet
meetings because it's ridiculous and they just don't do it.
That said, I actually think it's really smart because first
of all, you get to see, how I mean, these
cabinet meetings are just people telling dear leader how great
(07:23):
he is. But you get to see how government works
and the push and pull, and part of why I
think people are so removed from government is because they
don't totally know how it works. There isn't the kind
of transparency that we need. And if there were more transparency,
more people would run for office. They would be like, oh,
this actually doesn't seem so hard. You would also get
(07:44):
to see more accountability in government. You would see people
understanding how laws get passed. There is no reason to
not have a completely transparent federal government, and this should
be wanted on the left and the right. Right, there's
no reason that every one shouldn't know where our fucking
tax dollars are going. So, I mean, as someone on
(08:05):
the left, I truly believe this. I really think people
on the right have been saying this for a long time.
I mean, also they've been saying a lot of other
stuff that negates some of that. But you know, total transparency,
televise everything, do it. And also I think that it's good.
I think it's content and it ends up places and
people see it, and you need people paying attention in
(08:26):
order for democracy to survive, and these kind of things.
I mean, one of Democrats' biggest failings is that they
feel that people will read press releases. And nobody fucking
will read a press release. People want to see real stuff,
and this is actually real stuff. Yeah, sorry, Jesse, you're
really sick of me.
Speaker 2 (08:45):
I just don't know that this is the place for it.
Speaker 1 (08:48):
But do it. But if you have liberals too.
Speaker 2 (08:50):
I agree with you in philosophy. I just don't know
if I agree with you.
Speaker 1 (08:54):
A venue do it, man, do it. Charlie is the
author of the Newsletter to the Contrary and the book
How the Right Lost Its Mind Welcome Too Fast Politics.
Charlie Sykes, good to be back Executive orders. Never Trumper's
had a bad week when it comes to Donald Trump
(09:15):
targeting them discuss.
Speaker 4 (09:18):
Well, I'm glad you brought this up, because you know,
we can make a long list of things that Donald
Trump has done that reminds us that he's blowing through
every single red line of authoritarianism. But targeting Chris Krebbs
really was breathtaking. People who don't know, very highly respected
cyber security guru brought in by the Trump administration to
(09:39):
oversee the twenty twenty election, did a good job and
then told the truth. Said yes, this was a safe,
fair election. And Donald Trump has never forgiven him, fired
him by tweet. Cribs has gone on with his life.
But Donald Trump has decided that he is now going
to effectively criminalize belief in the validity of the twenty
twenty election. I mean, well, get your head around this
(10:01):
that he sits in the Oval Office, targeting somebody for
actual legal action who he has apparently been obsessing about
for four years because they would not go along with
the big law. So in many ways, it's kind of
the same old, same old. If you break the law
and try to overturn an election, he's going to pardon you.
(10:21):
If you tell the truth about the election, he's going
to sick the new Justice Department on you. This did
feel like one of his most egregious abuses.
Speaker 1 (10:31):
Yeah, Chris crabs. And also he's continually you know, the lawyers,
the law firms, the law firms that represented those election
workers in Georgia.
Speaker 4 (10:43):
Yeah, by the way, fuck the quizzling law firms were
caving in. I mean, this goes to the very heart
of what it means to have the rule of law.
That he's now going after the law firms that were
doing their job that successfully win, after the media, right
wing media companies that lied about the election, the people
who defamed election workers, people who are suing people like
(11:04):
the MyPillow guy. And so I mean it's there's no
government function here. He's using his power to pursue a
private political vendetta. And I'm sorry to say that most
of civil society seems to be shrugging its shoulders, and
law firms seem to be in this mad scramble to
(11:25):
see you know, who can climb up there but the fastest.
I mean, I just it's appalling. It is a bad week.
Speaker 1 (11:30):
Yeah, these executive orders, a lot of them aren't so legal.
These executive orders are often more messaging than actual like
they'll get thrown out. But one of the things that
I keep thinking about is that, and actually I talked
to an academic who was talking about this. All the
people who we thought would stand up have really not
law firms, billionaires. I think that the media has actually
(11:52):
weirdly now is, at least when it comes to reporting
side down, a pretty good job. But there has really
been a lot of obeying an event.
Speaker 4 (12:01):
There have been, I mean, there has been some resistance
who want to give a shout out to the people
who continue to hold firm. But this has been the
biggest surprise I think of the last several months. Look,
you and I have talked about this. Donald Trump is
who he is, right, He's doing what he said he
was going to do. You and I warned people that
Donald Trump was going to be this way The surprise
was watching all these other folks cave in and cave
(12:24):
in in the most craven way possible. The law firms
keep coming back to these guys. They could win these cases,
but they choose not to even fight them, and there
is this sort of shrugging despair that unfortunately is emboldening
and empowering the Trump administration. Because what has to happen
for autocracy to be resistant collective action. The people need
(12:46):
to stand up and say no, we're not going along.
But not just the people. We need to have the
various institutions of society. We need to have the guard
rails in place, and unfortunately Donald Trump blows through the
guard rails, and the business community, the billionaire even people,
some people in the media and in the law firm
and in the universities have decided that for some reason,
it's not worth fighting, in part because they look around
(13:10):
and see that no one else is fighting, so they figure, well,
then why should we put our necks out if everybody
else is If everybody else stood up and said, America
is still America, the law is still the law. We
are not going to go along with this, it would,
in fact, I think inspire more resistance. But that's not
what's happening now. Again, we ought to like mention that,
as you and I are speaking, Donald Trump is getting
(13:32):
some absolute brutal poll numbers. There is a suggestion that
perhaps something is happening out there now. Whether that emboldens
the cowards, we don't know.
Speaker 1 (13:40):
Yeah, I think that's a really good point. There were
so many authoritarian things that Trump did before quote unquote
Liberation Day last Wednesday, when he crashed the public markets
for no reason. But it seems that Liberation Day may
have done some of the things that these authoritarian moves,
in my mind, should have gotten people awake too.
Speaker 4 (14:03):
Yes, they should have well woken up. And you know,
but there's something about focusing on the loss of trillions
of dollars that will focus the mind right. And what
I wrote was look as bad as the market meltdown was,
and it was horrific, And I'm not minimizing that what's
left behind is even scarier, which is to realize that
the entire economy now hangs by the whim of one man,
(14:26):
that somehow this country, which you know as a constitutional republic,
now is waiting on one man with no check to
unilaterally decide what happens with trillions of dollars and not
just that, but all of these other issues. Because Congress
has basically gelded itself, the courts are still a big
question mark. You know, the business community is not yet
(14:48):
pushing back against him. So somehow we are already at
this moment where in order to do business you have
to go you have to, you know, go on bended
knee Tomorrow Lago or the three own room and kissed
Donald Trump's ring. And we keep talking about that we
don't have any kings. Kings had parliaments they had to
deal with, right, they did have checks on them. We're
(15:10):
we're now at like Donald Trump is the emperor and
it's like, how the fuck did we get here? How
did this happen? And why are we letting this happen?
Speaker 1 (15:17):
Yeah, Like, I was just interviewing someone who's in the
UK and he was saying that watching millions of people
last weekend protest, it was like, oh, wow, Americans haven't
all lost their collective minds.
Speaker 4 (15:32):
This would be an important message to get out to
the world, don't you think.
Speaker 1 (15:36):
Yes, we were talking a lot about people not wanting
to absorb the news because it was just sucked, right,
But you can't when you look at your four oh
one K and it's now a four oh one, you
can't ignore that. You are going to look at the
news when things like that happen.
Speaker 4 (15:55):
Yes, and of course people lost a great deal of money.
But I also think it is the chaos, and we're
hearing that word a lot, that the chaos, the uncertainty,
the complete unpredictability, the way in which the world has
been turned upside down. You know, America is right now
in an escalating game of economic chicken with China, a
nuclear power, and we have no allies right now. We
(16:18):
have insulted, threatened, bullied all of our allies. And so
you know America first right now is America vulnerable, America
weaker than it was before, America poorer than it was before,
and America very isolated.
Speaker 1 (16:34):
Yeah. Canada has a catchphrase elbows up, which is meant
to signify their resistance to America. Yeah, right, elbows up.
That's what they tell each other when they think about us.
Speaker 4 (16:50):
And I'm sorry, I'm shaking my head here because we
need to keep asking the question, how did we get here?
In what weird time warp have we slipped in where
we are at odds with Canada, where we are threatening Denmark,
where we're insulting the European Union, where we're kissing up
to Vladimir Putin, and where we're again building these huge
(17:13):
walls that are crashing an economy that five minutes ago
was the enity of the world. And yet it's not
just that Donald Trump is this narcissistic, ignorant, megalomaniac. It's
that we're letting him do this. Congress is letting him
do this, the courts are going to let him do this.
The American establishment is letting him get away with this.
Speaker 1 (17:36):
Yeah, I want to sort of talk about what we
did see that was actually good. This yea, and there
was some There was some right the Supreme Court, even
Thomas and Alito, who are basically Hannity and Tucker, said
that even if you are not a United States citizen,
you are still entitled to do process. It's sad we're
celebrating this, but it's also important.
Speaker 4 (17:57):
It is important for some People's a half class four,
half class empty type thing. Because they didn't order the
government to return the man who had been sent to
El Salvador illegally. They just said that the administration had
to expedite it. But I do think I'm going to
look on the brighter side and the fact that it
was nine to nothing, not five four nine zero, That
(18:19):
you just cannot snatch someone and without due process send
them out of the country when you have no evidence
of any wrongdoing whatsoever. So that was kind of a
sigh of relief because if the court had gone the
other way, it would have been horrific. Then you and
I would have been writing the pieces like it is done.
You know, we've been waiting for the red line, and
that's the fucking red line.
Speaker 1 (18:39):
That's it.
Speaker 4 (18:40):
There's no coming back from that. That is a positive.
I mean, there have been so many positive signs and
I don't want to discount them. And what happened in
Florida and in my home state of Wisconsin, you know,
the Quarry Booker speech, the huge crowds that turned out,
the resistance, the blowback that Donald Trump has gotten for
tanking the markets. I mean, all of these things are
(19:01):
not insignificant, but they're not sufficient to change the trajectory
we're on, especially as as you started this conversation pointing
out that he continues to do things in broad daylight
that are absolutely breathtaking. I mean, you know, look a
few years ago, the President the United States tweeting out
stock tips to his buddies, you know, right before you know,
a major market moving announcement that would have been you know,
(19:24):
the scandal of the century. And now it's like, you know,
just another Wednesday afternoon. You know, a few years ago,
the President the United States sitting in the Oval Office
with you know, in front of the cameras, issuing orders
to go after a political foe who did not break
the lawn anyway whatsoever, like Chris Krebs, would have been
a Nixon level scandal, and now it barely survives the
(19:47):
news cycle. I mean, think about there's Gretchen Whitmer standing
there like some potted plant. He uses her as a
as a prop you know, while he is doing something
that no president would have done in broad daylight before
three days ago.
Speaker 1 (20:04):
So let's talk about Gretchen Wimer. Gretchen Wimer. Is that
a cautionary tale of when Democrats try appeasement? I mean,
I understand in the Midwest there is a real and
you are in the Midwest, so you know that there
was real manufacturing loss that people still feel they want
(20:24):
some tariffs, just not insane tariffs for no reason. Do
you think that was a miss But clearly like the
optics of it. You know, he's signing an executive order
to target Chris Krabs while the Democratic governor of Michigan
is standing there. So it seems like that was really
a mistake and Democratic voters really hate the idea of
(20:46):
Democrats working with this. But just talk me through what
you think went wrong there or didn't.
Speaker 4 (20:51):
Well, pretty much everything went wrong. I mean, I get
the point of buying more nuanced approach to teris there's
a time and a place for everything. Actually showing up
and letting yourself be manipulated that way by Donald Trump
and the White House? Is that a cautionary tale? Are
you kidding me? Of course it is. This again is
one of those moments. Do you understand who this man is,
(21:14):
what he is doing. Do you understand the moment we're in,
Because if you do, you don't go to the White
House under these circumstances to allow yourself to put yourself
in the position of being a prop for Donald Trump.
And I guess I was surprised by her naivete that
she thought that that was not going to be disastrous. See,
(21:37):
let me ask you, and what an alternative universe does
that work out great for her? Hey, you're sitting in
the room. Hey, Gretchen, you know I hear you're going
to the Trump White House to do some bipartisan thing.
This is why that's a good idea. What's the next sentence?
I mean what?
Speaker 1 (21:54):
Yeah? No, I mean I think that this is the car.
You know, this is everything Trump touches.
Speaker 4 (22:00):
Right, I've heard this.
Speaker 1 (22:02):
He doesn't play well with others. You're not going to
get anything from him, and offering him a photo op
will only destroy your career. Yes, and also your voters
want you to oppose him. I mean, contrast her to
that governor from Maine, right, Janet Mills, where he said
(22:23):
we're going to hold backfunding and she said, I'll see
you in.
Speaker 4 (22:26):
Court, which is the right answer. Which is the right answer.
And of course he's not going to retaliate against Maine.
He's going to try to hurt Maine. Look, this is
the thing. Donald Trump is not a great negotiator. The
trick of Donald Trump is he's just a bully. He's
a playground bully, and the more he gets away with it,
the more he's going to bully. But anybody that punches
the bully back has a chance to find out that
(22:46):
the bully's also a coward, and so more people need
to punch back because the cathing in is not working
out for us. I mean, I understand the people who
figure out I have to cover my ass, you know,
I will you know, lose this or lose that. Well,
some at some point we all hang together or we're
going to hang separately. And there's not a lot of
(23:06):
recognition of that at the moment. Unfortunately. Well maybe it's growing.
I don't know, you know, just before we started this conversation,
I'm looking at some of these new polling numbers of
Americans just getting sick of him. Look, the magabase is
not going to budge, but let's I'm sick of talking
about the MAGA base because the MAGA base is not
the whole country. There are a lot of people who,
for whatever reason, and we don't need to relitigate that
(23:29):
wanted change, you know, deluded themselves about who and what
Donald Trump was. But they're seeing the chaos and it
bothers them. The question is whether or not. This changes
the political dynamic, I mean in a fundamental way, in
a way that it hasn't over the last ten years.
And I am fully aware of you and I have
had these conversations. We've been in these conversations over and
(23:50):
over and over. This is the turning point. This is
it that you know that he won't come back from this,
or the walls are closing in on him, and it
always turns out to be now nothing ever matters, But
who knows, trillions of dollars disappearing from people's accounts might
make a difference. And also the sense that this guy
has no fucking idea what he's doing.
Speaker 1 (24:10):
Yeah, and we've seen very rich people online like I mean,
some of them have sucophantically sucked up to him, and
the hopes that sucking up to him will get him
to act rationally will that has never been true, but
perhaps it will be true. Now Who am I to
But you certainly see these very rich people being like.
Speaker 4 (24:33):
Oh, maybe I don't know.
Speaker 1 (24:36):
I mean, they definitely see that he's not playing three
dimensional chats.
Speaker 4 (24:41):
Well I hope not. They're seeing that. I mean, I
think that was what rattled a lot of people, that
he didn't have a plan, but of course the power
of rationalization is so great, and you know, there was
a moment at which they were so relieved. Okay, so
we finally got an adult, the one adult in the
cabinet maybe you know in there Bessen who talked to him,
who talked him down. But you know, so the stock
(25:01):
market absolutely exploded, and then people were realize, well, wait, wait, wait, wait,
we still have these massive tariffs with China, and they're
playing this weird game. It's almost like a cartoon game. No,
it's one hundred and four percent. No, well it's one
hundred and twenty five percent, one hundred and forty five percent.
Well then I'm going to one hundred and twenty five whatever.
Not a pretty picture. So all of that relief I
(25:22):
think was followed by a reality check. He's still him
and we are still at his mercy in his head.
And by the way, I'm not I don't want to
gloss over the incredible potential for corruption here or the
insider trading. Is that you know, the reality is that
Donald Trump now can move tens of trillions of dollars
(25:43):
of world wealth buy something in his own head, no
political check or balance that he decides, you know what,
I'm going to put on social media a good time
to buy stocks, doesn't make an announcement through the White House,
puts on his own social media site. His buddies go out,
bye bye bye, and then he announces this terror thing.
(26:06):
And now this is the new normal, right, this is
the new reality that Donald Trump knows that he can
make the stock market go up or down simply by
his whim. A single post can move vast amounts of money,
more money, by the way, than is at stake in
these tax cuts in the budget. He doesn't need Congress,
(26:26):
he doesn't need anybody. He just needs his own fucking thumbs.
Speaker 1 (26:29):
Charlie Sikes, thank you.
Speaker 4 (26:32):
I said fucking thumbs on your podcast. I'm sorry.
Speaker 1 (26:37):
Tomas Zimmer is a historian at George Washington University and
the author of the substack Democracy Americana. Welcome Back, Too
Fast Politics, My friend, Thomas.
Speaker 5 (26:49):
Zimmer, thank you so much for having me back. One
of these days. Hopefully maybe we can talk about something
just nice and you know, beautiful and.
Speaker 1 (26:59):
Yes, and we'll talk about how happy we are and rainbows,
talk about something nice. I don't know if you know this,
but we cannot have nice things here. No, So I
want to like talk for a minute about you and
I's relationships. In July. You were really a big part
of this podcast that we did about Project twenty twenty
(27:20):
five and what it would look like. We were right,
no one believed us, and Donald Trump became president and
immediately started enacting Project twenty twenty five discuss.
Speaker 5 (27:32):
So, yeah, I think it is interesting. I think there
was a moment last summer when people seem to believe
that Project twenty twenty five was actually real and was
coming right. There was there was a lot of talk.
It broke through at some point in the summer and
it became really toxic. And that's why that was the
reason why Trump himself and you know, the Trump campaign
they tried to distance themselves from it. Remember they talked
(27:53):
all about oh I don't know nothing about it and
all that kind of it was obviously nonsense, but you know,
they the fact that they tried to distance themselves told you, oh, okay,
say they think this is toxic, they think this is
going to make it hard for them to win the election,
And then yeah, I think so to me, right, it's
interesting that the Project twenty twenty five, people are certainly
claiming victory. I don't know if you saw this what
Paul Dance, the former director. When he was still at Heritage,
(28:14):
he was the official director of the whole planning operation.
He has recently claimed, yeah, we did it, and then
you know, we are so successful. They're not doing everything
we told him to do. By the way, that guy
left the project twenty twenty five and complete disgrace. He
was fired for toxic workplace behavior last summer.
Speaker 1 (28:28):
Yeah, by the way, the fact that you can still
get fired for toxic work place behavior in that yes,
I mean, imagine how bad it has to be, right.
Speaker 5 (28:37):
Yeah, in that Heritage scene. Absolutely. Yeah, So yeah, I
wouldn't necessarily trust that guy. Just because he says they're
doing everything we told him to do, it doesn't necessarily
mean it's true. But I'm trying. So I might have
been taught thinking about a lot about where are we
and what is the best way to kind of understand
what's happening. And I think to me the most important
thing is so the speed and the scope of this assault,
of this assault on the constitution and democratic order. I
(29:00):
think it's crazy how far they've been able to take
us away from a functioning democratic system and into authoritarian territory.
And when I think about why is it that they
have made so much counquid progress in their terms, it's
a completely different ballgame compared to the first Trump administration,
And a big part of that is absolutely one hundred percent,
they were just better prepared this time, Right, there's no
question about it. That doesn't mean there isn't chaos. I mean, look,
(29:23):
we're talking just as they have just announced they're going
to pause the tariffs again, I guess, so there is
a lot of chaos and there's still a lot of incompetence,
and Donald Trump is still Donald Trump, meaning he is
just a bumbling, cartoonish kind of character. Right, But it's
also true that again if you compare it to the
first Trump administration, these planning operations, of which Project twenty
(29:44):
twenty five was sort of the most important one, they
have clearly had in effect. The whole point of Project
twenty twenty five was we're going to centralize all power
with the president, no checks on presidential power. They're clearly
doing that, right, they're clearly trying it. The way have
they have been pursuing. This is especially with executive orders
as as an instrument, and that is again, I mean,
(30:05):
a whole big part of Project twenty twenty five was
this thing they called one hundred and eighty day Playbook,
and that was all about basically drafting executive orders.
Speaker 2 (30:13):
Right.
Speaker 5 (30:13):
We don't know how many exactly they never made that public,
but at least like dozens, maybe hundreds, And clearly clearly
they have had this stuff ready this time. Right. And
I'll mention just one other thing that I think don't
not many people maybe talk about, but also the way
they're mobilizing the regulatory apparatus. Right, if you look at
something like the FCC, the Federal Communications Commissions, the guy
(30:33):
in charge of that is Brendan Carr, who wrote literally
wrote the chapter on the FCC in Project twenty twenty five,
and he was like, Hey, you know what we should
use the FCC for. We should use it as a weapon.
We should threaten investigations left and right, and we should
threaten to revoke licenses to make all these media institutions
do what we want them to do. And that's exactly
what he's been up to since he became FCC chair.
(30:54):
And so I think in all those areas you clearly see. Well,
this is very different from twenty six seventeen, and a
big part of what is different is that these planning
operations had in effect, no question about it. There is
some surprising stuff also, I don't think like the role
Elon Musk has played.
Speaker 1 (31:11):
Yeah, none of us, no knew that was coming, and.
Speaker 5 (31:13):
I think that is important. Right, we have to be
able to say I mean, I get the impulse to
constantly say I told you so, right, but we also
have to be able to say, no, this is not
something that's in Project twenty twenty five is complete, Like
this fever dream of this kind of anarcho capitalist Fudel
order that he's living, right, that was not in Project
twenty twenty five. I think it only partially aligns with
(31:36):
the goals of Project twenty twenty five because if you remember, yes,
some parts of the state they wanted to just get
rid of and eliminate, but other parts of the state
they wanted to use in Project twenty twenty five. They
think they need to use that as an instrument to
impose their idea of what America should be on America,
whereas Musk is just now I'm just gonna just this
(31:57):
all needs to go. I'm just gonna wipe this all away.
And I think at some point these are not fully
compatible those two things, right. I think that is one
of the factors where you can see it's not all
Project twenty twenty five, but in specific areas, in important ways,
this has made a significant impact on what has unfolded. Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (32:17):
Yeah. One of the things I like to do, and
I now discovered I'm completely alone in this, right because
nobody else does this but I do it, is I
like to think about what I've gotten right, what I've
gotten wrong, and since you and I we want to
learn from our mistakes. Project twenty twenty five. Yes, happening. Yes,
they are really growing presidential power. They are doing all
(32:39):
of these executive orders that they hope to sort of
kick up to the Supreme Court, things like birthright citizenship,
things like I mean this in a very pejorative way,
but they're sort of shooting for the stars.
Speaker 5 (32:53):
Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (32:53):
Yes, they're going after things that they pretty much know
they can't get because they think that even if they
get a fifth.
Speaker 3 (33:01):
Of it, it's worth it. Yeah, Absolutely, so talk about that. Yeah,
I think that's absolutely right. And they have decided this time,
no holding back. We're going to go all in and
we're not going to do very much. In contrast to
the first Drup administration, where they tried to stay within
there was some plausible deniability that what they were doing
was not like blatantly unconstitutional or blatantly illegal. This time
(33:22):
they're like, no, we're going to go for it. And
if it's blatantly illegal, blatantly unconstitutional, well let's see if
someone's going to do something about it. Right, And you
see this with how about we just eliminate departments or
agencies we don't like, which is again that's blatantly unconstitutional.
Those are like USAID, for instance, right created by a
law passed by Congress. That money is Congress said no,
(33:45):
you're going to spend that money on this, and then
the Trump administration says, no, we're not going to do that.
This is fundamentally ignoring the power of the Purse of Congress.
It goes against the Impoundment Act. So this is blatantly illegal,
blatantly unconstitutional. And they're like, well, will make us stop, right,
that's basically what they're saying, make us stop.
Speaker 5 (34:03):
And you see this everywhere. You see it with the
way they are basically disappearing these migrants off the street,
right and grad student absolutely, yes, yes, So basically just look,
we're just gonna go for it. And then if Bush
comes to shove, let's see, let's see what the courts do.
And even if the if the federal courts, as they
have been doing, tell us to stop, let's see what
(34:23):
the Supreme Court says, or maybe even go as so
far as to just to tell the courts we don't
care because we think we're just enacting the coronerunquote will
of the people. You see this more and more that
even in court, the Department of Justice has now said, look,
we're no longer cooperating with you in this court case
because we are enacting the will of the people. So again,
I think this is just it's just fundamentally different. It's
(34:43):
also where you see how this Trump administration. A lot
of people were sort of pointing to Victor Orban in Hungary,
right as kind of like this is probably what they're
gonna do, or this is the big role model. And
in some areas that's true. But Victor Orban he pursued
a strategy that you would called autocratic legalism, meaning he
never blatantly ignored like the Constitution. He never went fully unconstitutional,
(35:08):
fully illegal. He tried to sort of change the system
from within the constitutional boundaries. And the Trump is such
as clearly they're going like two steps further than that,
and so yeah, I think that is surprising to me.
I have to say that that is surprising to me,
the way they have been so all in and in
many ways, I think they have gone beyond Project twenty
twenty five, as radical as that was, I think in
(35:28):
many ways, and you know, the Musk stuff is a
key example here, they have been more radical than what
was outlined in there.
Speaker 1 (35:35):
Yes, Musk has definitely been more radical than was what
was outlined in there in some ways. Orbon is just
better organized and a little smarter, right probably.
Speaker 4 (35:48):
I'm sorry.
Speaker 1 (35:48):
I know you're a fancy academic, so that's kind of
an unfair question for a fancy academic. But ultimately that's
kind of how we're not going to be hungry and
also bigger and we've been a democracy for longer.
Speaker 5 (36:02):
But you know, I think what's so interesting about the
hungry comparison is that the assumption amongst people like me,
you know, people who study like I don't know democratic
breakdown or how offered terarian regimes managed to bring democracy
down and more people. I mean, I'm focusing in the
United States, but people who study this stuff internationally and
they compare and they look at Hungry, right, I think
(36:23):
they all expected. And I think this is another area
where this stuff is a bit surprising and in a
really concerning way to me, they all expected. Look, America,
if you look at it in international comparison, at least
on paper, has on paper relatively strong institutions and democratic traditions, right,
and so people expected a relatively high level of democratic resilience,
(36:45):
not because you know, like some exceptional democratic spirit or
DNA or whatever, but simply because democratic rules and institutions
had more time to develop in this country if you're
compared to Hungary, is what I mean. Right, Civil society
actors had a lot more resources at their disposal, and
so the expectation was look as difficult as it's been
for Victor ORBN in Hungary to bring that system down,
(37:08):
and it took him like a decade or so, Right,
it's going to be more difficult here. And we just
don't think this is a widely shared assumption amongst again
these scholars of international authoritarianism. They said, we just don't
think Trump and the Trump regime is going to be
cunning enough and organized enough, right and disciplined enough to
go up against what they expected was a higher level
(37:30):
of democratic resilience compared to like Hungary. And I think
the very concerning picture that has emerged over the last
two and a half months or however long it's been,
I don't even know. I'm just really tired. The really
concerning picture is that, no, the level of democratic resilience
has been like far lower than we would have hoped,
(37:50):
right because mostly because there's there's been no resistance from
Congress obviously, and the key civil society institutions like these
universities sitting onlike massive fortunes, these powerful law firms, media companies,
they have just not taken on the fight. They have
just decided that now we're going to use some strategy
(38:11):
somewhere between appeasement and open complicity. And that's really concerning.
Speaker 1 (38:16):
Yes, we are a country filled with cowards. Okay, Thomas,
let's just sum this up here. You were not expecting
American billionaires to be as cowardly and craving as they were,
but I was because I live in New York, and
so I knew that they would just be cowardly and
craven in the hopes that it would work. But what
(38:38):
I think is super interesting is that it didn't work,
and they are as fucked as everyone else.
Speaker 5 (38:45):
I mean, look, this old terriffing is. If it wasn't
so dangerous, and if there wasn't so much real harm
being caused by this, it would be so funny. But
I will say, look, you're right, no one should ever
have any expectations from like billionaires. But I'm not just
talking about billionaires. I'm talking about again, like universities right
where I think what is concerning to me if you
(39:07):
ask the question, if you ask people who have either
lived through the downfall of democracy somewhere maybe again and
like hungry or whatever, or you talk to people who
study that stuff, right, they will tell you the way
you defend democracy if it is under assault from an
autocratic movement, which that's where we are, right, I hope
everyone's clear about that. Right, So we have an authoritarian
(39:29):
the leader of an authoritarian movement is now in power, right,
he's the president, and their goal is to turn this thing.
Their goal is regime change. They want to turn this
thing into some kind of plebiscitarian autocracy. Right, that's clearly
the goal. That's what they're going for. Okay, Now, how
do you push back against that? How do you make
that not happen? And I think everyone would tell you, well,
(39:50):
it is all about quick, decisive and collective action from
all the institutions that have the resources to push back, right,
because it's never going to be easier than today to
push back tomorrow. It's already going to be harder. The
window is closing, right. The more time you give them,
the more difficult it gets. And instead what we are
seeing is all these like universities, everyone for themselves, no
(40:11):
collective action, all coming together, finding like a common response,
and instead they're all just you know, like thinking they
can appease the Trump administration when clearly what's going on
this is all just dominance tests. Right. These are not
like good faith invitations to like find common ground or
fight anti Semitism or whatever they're talking about. These are
all dominance tests, right, and you cannot react to that
(40:34):
by appeasing them. They will only invite furthersus dominance tests. Right,
You have to push back, and that we've seen just
not nearly enough of that, even from again institutions who
are sitting on massive fortunes and should have, at least
on paper their resources to say, you know what, no,
we're not going to go along with this, We're going
to push back a little bit.
Speaker 1 (40:53):
Yes, it is true, and it is also true that
university is you haveans. A lot of these universities have
billions of dollars, and I understand that a lot of
these college presidents worry that they serve at the pleasure
of their donors. That's right, but I'm telling you you
serve at the pleasure of American democracy, and when it's gone,
(41:16):
you're all going to feel real bad. But I do
think I think it's true, and I also think I
want you to talk about these protests this weekend and
what a big deal they were, because I think they
were a big deal and I think they show a
real shift.
Speaker 5 (41:31):
Yeah, so I one hundred percent degree. I mean, I
will tell you that every single interview I've done with
international media, and I do a lot of those because
I'm German, so you know, the German media will talk
to me every single one, every single time I've been
asked the question, where are the protests, where's the mobilization,
Why are they not protests? And so I think there
was this perception internationally, certainly that maybe Americans are just
(41:53):
too lazy, or maybe they are actually on board with Trump, right,
and maybe Trump is right when he says that he
had the people behind them and all that stuff. And
I think we can now finally conclusively say no, look,
that's just not true, right on these protests. And the
first thing that makes these protests so important is they
prove that the trump Ist regime's main justification for what
(42:15):
they are doing, for their authoritarian assertion of power, that
he has a mandate, that he's enacting the quote unquote
will of the people, that his agenda represents a broad consensus.
It's just not true, right, and we must not perpetuate
that and kind of support that. And I think these
protests were a clear sign, look, no, clearly he doesn't
have the will of the people behind him. Obviously, America
(42:35):
is a deeply, deeply divided society. I'm not saying everyone
is against him, but this was a clear sign. And
I also think they's protests are also an urgent call
to precisely the leaders of these institutions that we just
talked about, right, these I don't know, university leaders, but
also our elected officials, the democratic leadership, democratic elected officials,
(42:55):
to tell them, look, you know, there's so much anger,
there's so much frustration. We don't want it. Can you
please do something about this? We are expecting you to
do something about this. And this is so important because
I mean, clearly the Democratic Party has been kind of
divided between those who do want to push back and
fight and those who think maybe politics as usual is
still an option and maybe we should just wait for
(43:16):
the midterm elections or whatever. And I think this is
again so important because it should tell democratic leadership, It
should tell these institutions, the civil society institutions, no, look,
the people want us to fight. Maybe we should do something.
Speaker 1 (43:30):
Yeah, And this is the thing, it's people want their
electeds to fight. We don't care if it's left or center,
left or center. They want their leaders to fight for
them and to protect them. And I think we're going
to see.
Speaker 5 (43:43):
More of that.
Speaker 1 (43:44):
Thomas Zimmer.
Speaker 5 (43:45):
I hope you'll come back anytime. It's always a pleasure
to talk to you, even if again I feel very
tired and very frustrated and also terrified. But it is
always a pleasure to at least get a chance to
talk with you about all this kind of stuff. Thank you, No.
Speaker 1 (44:02):
Moment, Thickly Jesse Cannon.
Speaker 2 (44:06):
So why Elon runs the States bribes people for votes?
And since Greenland a very tiny place fifty five thousand people,
less than the size of most New York neighborhoods and population,
Greenland does not want to be annexed by US, so
what is Trump considering giving them ten thousand dollars to
each person to be able to do it? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (44:26):
I don't get this at all. I don't know why
they want Greenland. I don't know what we're doing here.
It doesn't make any sense to me at all. Honestly,
it's just ridiculous. And that is our moment of houckery.
That's it for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in
(44:49):
every Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday to hear the best
minds and politics make sense of all this chaos. If
you enjoy this podcast, please send it to a friend
and keep the conversation going. Thanks for listening.
Hi, I'm Molly John Fast and this is Fast Politics,
where we discussed the top political headlines with some of
today's best minds and EDG prices continue to rise under Trump.
We have such a great show for you today to
the Contrary Newsletter author Charlie Sykes stops by to talk
about Trump's attacks on his political opponents. Then we'll talk
(00:23):
to Democracy Americana's Thomas Zimmer about how Project twenty twenty
five is happening right now. But first the news.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
Smillie, we have the rarest thing in America. And I
don't mean one of those pokemons you find very oddly somewhere.
I mean a's nine to zero Supreme Court ruling.
Speaker 1 (00:44):
Yeah, it turns out that even Alito and Thomas believe
in due process.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
I mean, I am shocked. I am very shocked.
Speaker 1 (00:55):
Right, You know things are bad when Alito and Thomas,
Alita and Thomas are like wa wa WHOA. Now I'm
going to say something which you're not going to hear
other people say. But I wonder if it's true. Again,
this is conjecture. I am not speaking with any insider knowledge.
There has not been reporting on this. Just I want
(01:16):
you to think for a second. During Tariff Mentum, tariff gait,
right the tariff Apocalypse Liberation Day, when Trump liberated the
markets of billions of dollars, there was a group that
got together to sue Trump and to take away the
tariff power. This group was headed by who very close
personal friends of Thomas and Alito. There is a case
(01:39):
that is winding its way to the Supreme Court right
now to take away Trump's tariff authority and it is
funded by Leonard Leo and the surviving Koch brother And
I just want you to know that that is happening
at the same time that Alito and Thomas. And maybe
(02:00):
this is the only time ever that Alito and Thomas
rule against Trump. Maybe this is it. Maybe they really
believe in due process. But maybe the fact that they're
people that Leonard Leo has a case that is going
against Trump for taps, maybe there is a real split
in the Republican party starting. And again we don't know,
(02:24):
we don't know what this means. But I'm just saying
Thomas and Alito have never ever, ever, ever done anything
but rubber stamp Trump's bullshit. So this seems notable to me.
And maybe it just happens once, but maybe not.
Speaker 2 (02:39):
Yeah, I really was shocked. Another really shocking thing was
Trump bragging in the Oval Office about how much money
his buddies and donors made. Why don't we to go
listen to that clip.
Speaker 1 (02:54):
It's not just today. Yeah. So Democrats want to make
this about insider trading, and for sure this is a kleptocracy.
Donald Trump will insider trade. He probably already has insider traded.
(03:18):
There is an endless possibility here of insider trading. That said,
there is also just stupidity and incompetence happening in our
public markets. And I actually think that Democrats should talk
more about the stupidity and incompetence. They can also talk
about the corruption. But just this, a Democrat had behaved
(03:41):
like this and had lost billions of dollars in value
for no fucking reason. If a Democrat had done this,
Republicans would be through the roof. So honestly, yes, there
is absolutely corruption. If we ever get back to normal democracy,
this thing is going to unroll like you can't believe.
(04:02):
But I still think it's important to also explain the
stupid because this is all very very very stupid.
Speaker 2 (04:11):
Yeah. Incredibly, with that has come a reaction, of course,
to the stupid, which is these people should be investigated
for insider trading, including Marjorie Taylor Green.
Speaker 1 (04:21):
Yeah, I know you'll be shocked to hear this. Marjorie
Taylor Green did a lot of buying.
Speaker 3 (04:25):
You know.
Speaker 1 (04:25):
Again, there's obviously corruption, and we have a rule of
law for reason, and all of this should be followed
through with. I don't know Marjorie Taylor Green. You know,
she could have also bought because she was I don't know.
I'm not as convinced about that. What I am convinced
about is that the way that Donald Trump is running
(04:45):
this government is absolutely beyond moronic, and I think that
is a real question. I do also think that it's
important to remember that the fact that Marjorie Taylor Green
has been so elevated in this administ station. We'll remember
eight years ago, in twenty eighteen, she was considered to
be the fringe of all fringes. Okay, it's twenty twenty five,
(05:10):
and she is now like the sort of Jeff Flake
of previous administrations. I mean, she is really one of
Trump's go tos, and I think that we sort of
lose track on how crazy the right has become over
the last six years.
Speaker 2 (05:25):
I mean, I do think she's a striking example. Going
from a net worth of seven hundred thousand dollars to
twenty two million since she gets to Congress is a
real telling story about how bad this has gotten.
Speaker 1 (05:36):
I mean, I also think she came from money. She
inherited money from her father. She's come from a construction business,
her family construction business, so I wonder how much of
that was inheritance. A lot of these people in Congress
are very rich, right, which is part of the problem.
But they should not be allowed to trade stock that period.
Paragraph should stop tomorrow, Members of Congress. If you are
(06:00):
serving your country, you should not also be serving your
bank account.
Speaker 2 (06:03):
Yeah, and I am convinced we'd get much better candidates
if this didn't exist. Anyway, speaking of things that we
could do to make this country get better people is
not televised cabinet meetings where everybody licks your feet and
it looks like an episode of The Apprentice.
Speaker 1 (06:17):
Okay, so hot take. I actually think you're wrong. I
think Democrats should. One of the many things Trump does
is he televises everything, right, so he tele advises he
has the White House press pool in all the time.
He does pool sprays. That's when he answers questions for journalists.
He does interviews, he's on television, he does podcasts. He
(06:39):
does this constantly doing media, even I mean to the
point where it's like I was watching him give a
press conference the other day and c Spahan cut away
because he did so much. I actually think this is
really smart because people pay so little attention that you
have to just be out there all the fucking time.
(07:01):
So I actually think when you watch these televised cabinet meetings,
this is something that normal politicians do not televise cabinet
meetings because it's ridiculous and they just don't do it.
That said, I actually think it's really smart because first
of all, you get to see, how I mean, these
cabinet meetings are just people telling dear leader how great
(07:23):
he is. But you get to see how government works
and the push and pull, and part of why I
think people are so removed from government is because they
don't totally know how it works. There isn't the kind
of transparency that we need. And if there were more transparency,
more people would run for office. They would be like, oh,
this actually doesn't seem so hard. You would also get
(07:44):
to see more accountability in government. You would see people
understanding how laws get passed. There is no reason to
not have a completely transparent federal government, and this should
be wanted on the left and the right. Right, there's
no reason that every one shouldn't know where our fucking
tax dollars are going. So, I mean, as someone on
(08:05):
the left, I truly believe this. I really think people
on the right have been saying this for a long time.
I mean, also they've been saying a lot of other
stuff that negates some of that. But you know, total transparency,
televise everything, do it. And also I think that it's good.
I think it's content and it ends up places and
people see it, and you need people paying attention in
(08:26):
order for democracy to survive, and these kind of things.
I mean, one of Democrats' biggest failings is that they
feel that people will read press releases. And nobody fucking
will read a press release. People want to see real stuff,
and this is actually real stuff. Yeah, sorry, Jesse, you're
really sick of me.
Speaker 2 (08:45):
I just don't know that this is the place for it.
Speaker 1 (08:48):
But do it. But if you have liberals too.
Speaker 2 (08:50):
I agree with you in philosophy. I just don't know
if I agree with you.
Speaker 1 (08:54):
A venue do it, man, do it. Charlie is the
author of the Newsletter to the Contrary and the book
How the Right Lost Its Mind Welcome Too Fast Politics.
Charlie Sykes, good to be back Executive orders. Never Trumper's
had a bad week when it comes to Donald Trump
(09:15):
targeting them discuss.
Speaker 4 (09:18):
Well, I'm glad you brought this up, because you know,
we can make a long list of things that Donald
Trump has done that reminds us that he's blowing through
every single red line of authoritarianism. But targeting Chris Krebbs
really was breathtaking. People who don't know, very highly respected
cyber security guru brought in by the Trump administration to
(09:39):
oversee the twenty twenty election, did a good job and
then told the truth. Said yes, this was a safe,
fair election. And Donald Trump has never forgiven him, fired
him by tweet. Cribs has gone on with his life.
But Donald Trump has decided that he is now going
to effectively criminalize belief in the validity of the twenty
twenty election. I mean, well, get your head around this
(10:01):
that he sits in the Oval Office, targeting somebody for
actual legal action who he has apparently been obsessing about
for four years because they would not go along with
the big law. So in many ways, it's kind of
the same old, same old. If you break the law
and try to overturn an election, he's going to pardon you.
(10:21):
If you tell the truth about the election, he's going
to sick the new Justice Department on you. This did
feel like one of his most egregious abuses.
Speaker 1 (10:31):
Yeah, Chris crabs. And also he's continually you know, the lawyers,
the law firms, the law firms that represented those election
workers in Georgia.
Speaker 4 (10:43):
Yeah, by the way, fuck the quizzling law firms were
caving in. I mean, this goes to the very heart
of what it means to have the rule of law.
That he's now going after the law firms that were
doing their job that successfully win, after the media, right
wing media companies that lied about the election, the people
who defamed election workers, people who are suing people like
(11:04):
the MyPillow guy. And so I mean it's there's no
government function here. He's using his power to pursue a
private political vendetta. And I'm sorry to say that most
of civil society seems to be shrugging its shoulders, and
law firms seem to be in this mad scramble to
(11:25):
see you know, who can climb up there but the fastest.
I mean, I just it's appalling. It is a bad week.
Speaker 1 (11:30):
Yeah, these executive orders, a lot of them aren't so legal.
These executive orders are often more messaging than actual like
they'll get thrown out. But one of the things that
I keep thinking about is that, and actually I talked
to an academic who was talking about this. All the
people who we thought would stand up have really not
law firms, billionaires. I think that the media has actually
(11:52):
weirdly now is, at least when it comes to reporting
side down, a pretty good job. But there has really
been a lot of obeying an event.
Speaker 4 (12:01):
There have been, I mean, there has been some resistance
who want to give a shout out to the people
who continue to hold firm. But this has been the
biggest surprise I think of the last several months. Look,
you and I have talked about this. Donald Trump is
who he is, right, He's doing what he said he
was going to do. You and I warned people that
Donald Trump was going to be this way The surprise
was watching all these other folks cave in and cave
(12:24):
in in the most craven way possible. The law firms
keep coming back to these guys. They could win these cases,
but they choose not to even fight them, and there
is this sort of shrugging despair that unfortunately is emboldening
and empowering the Trump administration. Because what has to happen
for autocracy to be resistant collective action. The people need
(12:46):
to stand up and say no, we're not going along.
But not just the people. We need to have the
various institutions of society. We need to have the guard
rails in place, and unfortunately Donald Trump blows through the
guard rails, and the business community, the billionaire even people,
some people in the media and in the law firm
and in the universities have decided that for some reason,
it's not worth fighting, in part because they look around
(13:10):
and see that no one else is fighting, so they figure, well,
then why should we put our necks out if everybody
else is If everybody else stood up and said, America
is still America, the law is still the law. We
are not going to go along with this, it would,
in fact, I think inspire more resistance. But that's not
what's happening now. Again, we ought to like mention that,
as you and I are speaking, Donald Trump is getting
(13:32):
some absolute brutal poll numbers. There is a suggestion that
perhaps something is happening out there now. Whether that emboldens
the cowards, we don't know.
Speaker 1 (13:40):
Yeah, I think that's a really good point. There were
so many authoritarian things that Trump did before quote unquote
Liberation Day last Wednesday, when he crashed the public markets
for no reason. But it seems that Liberation Day may
have done some of the things that these authoritarian moves,
in my mind, should have gotten people awake too.
Speaker 4 (14:03):
Yes, they should have well woken up. And you know,
but there's something about focusing on the loss of trillions
of dollars that will focus the mind right. And what
I wrote was look as bad as the market meltdown was,
and it was horrific, And I'm not minimizing that what's
left behind is even scarier, which is to realize that
the entire economy now hangs by the whim of one man,
(14:26):
that somehow this country, which you know as a constitutional republic,
now is waiting on one man with no check to
unilaterally decide what happens with trillions of dollars and not
just that, but all of these other issues. Because Congress
has basically gelded itself, the courts are still a big
question mark. You know, the business community is not yet
(14:48):
pushing back against him. So somehow we are already at
this moment where in order to do business you have
to go you have to, you know, go on bended
knee Tomorrow Lago or the three own room and kissed
Donald Trump's ring. And we keep talking about that we
don't have any kings. Kings had parliaments they had to
deal with, right, they did have checks on them. We're
(15:10):
we're now at like Donald Trump is the emperor and
it's like, how the fuck did we get here? How
did this happen? And why are we letting this happen?
Speaker 1 (15:17):
Yeah, Like, I was just interviewing someone who's in the
UK and he was saying that watching millions of people
last weekend protest, it was like, oh, wow, Americans haven't
all lost their collective minds.
Speaker 4 (15:32):
This would be an important message to get out to
the world, don't you think.
Speaker 1 (15:36):
Yes, we were talking a lot about people not wanting
to absorb the news because it was just sucked, right,
But you can't when you look at your four oh
one K and it's now a four oh one, you
can't ignore that. You are going to look at the
news when things like that happen.
Speaker 4 (15:55):
Yes, and of course people lost a great deal of money.
But I also think it is the chaos, and we're
hearing that word a lot, that the chaos, the uncertainty,
the complete unpredictability, the way in which the world has
been turned upside down. You know, America is right now
in an escalating game of economic chicken with China, a
nuclear power, and we have no allies right now. We
(16:18):
have insulted, threatened, bullied all of our allies. And so
you know America first right now is America vulnerable, America
weaker than it was before, America poorer than it was before,
and America very isolated.
Speaker 1 (16:34):
Yeah. Canada has a catchphrase elbows up, which is meant
to signify their resistance to America. Yeah, right, elbows up.
That's what they tell each other when they think about us.
Speaker 4 (16:50):
And I'm sorry, I'm shaking my head here because we
need to keep asking the question, how did we get here?
In what weird time warp have we slipped in where
we are at odds with Canada, where we are threatening Denmark,
where we're insulting the European Union, where we're kissing up
to Vladimir Putin, and where we're again building these huge
(17:13):
walls that are crashing an economy that five minutes ago
was the enity of the world. And yet it's not
just that Donald Trump is this narcissistic, ignorant, megalomaniac. It's
that we're letting him do this. Congress is letting him
do this, the courts are going to let him do this.
The American establishment is letting him get away with this.
Speaker 1 (17:36):
Yeah, I want to sort of talk about what we
did see that was actually good. This yea, and there
was some There was some right the Supreme Court, even
Thomas and Alito, who are basically Hannity and Tucker, said
that even if you are not a United States citizen,
you are still entitled to do process. It's sad we're
celebrating this, but it's also important.
Speaker 4 (17:57):
It is important for some People's a half class four,
half class empty type thing. Because they didn't order the
government to return the man who had been sent to
El Salvador illegally. They just said that the administration had
to expedite it. But I do think I'm going to
look on the brighter side and the fact that it
was nine to nothing, not five four nine zero, That
(18:19):
you just cannot snatch someone and without due process send
them out of the country when you have no evidence
of any wrongdoing whatsoever. So that was kind of a
sigh of relief because if the court had gone the
other way, it would have been horrific. Then you and
I would have been writing the pieces like it is done.
You know, we've been waiting for the red line, and
that's the fucking red line.
Speaker 1 (18:39):
That's it.
Speaker 4 (18:40):
There's no coming back from that. That is a positive.
I mean, there have been so many positive signs and
I don't want to discount them. And what happened in
Florida and in my home state of Wisconsin, you know,
the Quarry Booker speech, the huge crowds that turned out,
the resistance, the blowback that Donald Trump has gotten for
tanking the markets. I mean, all of these things are
(19:01):
not insignificant, but they're not sufficient to change the trajectory
we're on, especially as as you started this conversation pointing
out that he continues to do things in broad daylight
that are absolutely breathtaking. I mean, you know, look a
few years ago, the President the United States tweeting out
stock tips to his buddies, you know, right before you know,
a major market moving announcement that would have been you know,
(19:24):
the scandal of the century. And now it's like, you know,
just another Wednesday afternoon. You know, a few years ago,
the President the United States sitting in the Oval Office
with you know, in front of the cameras, issuing orders
to go after a political foe who did not break
the lawn anyway whatsoever, like Chris Krebs, would have been
a Nixon level scandal, and now it barely survives the
(19:47):
news cycle. I mean, think about there's Gretchen Whitmer standing
there like some potted plant. He uses her as a
as a prop you know, while he is doing something
that no president would have done in broad daylight before
three days ago.
Speaker 1 (20:04):
So let's talk about Gretchen Wimer. Gretchen Wimer. Is that
a cautionary tale of when Democrats try appeasement? I mean,
I understand in the Midwest there is a real and
you are in the Midwest, so you know that there
was real manufacturing loss that people still feel they want
(20:24):
some tariffs, just not insane tariffs for no reason. Do
you think that was a miss But clearly like the
optics of it. You know, he's signing an executive order
to target Chris Krabs while the Democratic governor of Michigan
is standing there. So it seems like that was really
a mistake and Democratic voters really hate the idea of
(20:46):
Democrats working with this. But just talk me through what
you think went wrong there or didn't.
Speaker 4 (20:51):
Well, pretty much everything went wrong. I mean, I get
the point of buying more nuanced approach to teris there's
a time and a place for everything. Actually showing up
and letting yourself be manipulated that way by Donald Trump
and the White House? Is that a cautionary tale? Are
you kidding me? Of course it is. This again is
one of those moments. Do you understand who this man is,
(21:14):
what he is doing. Do you understand the moment we're in,
Because if you do, you don't go to the White
House under these circumstances to allow yourself to put yourself
in the position of being a prop for Donald Trump.
And I guess I was surprised by her naivete that
she thought that that was not going to be disastrous. See,
(21:37):
let me ask you, and what an alternative universe does
that work out great for her? Hey, you're sitting in
the room. Hey, Gretchen, you know I hear you're going
to the Trump White House to do some bipartisan thing.
This is why that's a good idea. What's the next sentence?
I mean what?
Speaker 1 (21:54):
Yeah? No, I mean I think that this is the car.
You know, this is everything Trump touches.
Speaker 4 (22:00):
Right, I've heard this.
Speaker 1 (22:02):
He doesn't play well with others. You're not going to
get anything from him, and offering him a photo op
will only destroy your career. Yes, and also your voters
want you to oppose him. I mean, contrast her to
that governor from Maine, right, Janet Mills, where he said
(22:23):
we're going to hold backfunding and she said, I'll see
you in.
Speaker 4 (22:26):
Court, which is the right answer. Which is the right answer.
And of course he's not going to retaliate against Maine.
He's going to try to hurt Maine. Look, this is
the thing. Donald Trump is not a great negotiator. The
trick of Donald Trump is he's just a bully. He's
a playground bully, and the more he gets away with it,
the more he's going to bully. But anybody that punches
the bully back has a chance to find out that
(22:46):
the bully's also a coward, and so more people need
to punch back because the cathing in is not working
out for us. I mean, I understand the people who
figure out I have to cover my ass, you know,
I will you know, lose this or lose that. Well,
some at some point we all hang together or we're
going to hang separately. And there's not a lot of
(23:06):
recognition of that at the moment. Unfortunately. Well maybe it's growing.
I don't know, you know, just before we started this conversation,
I'm looking at some of these new polling numbers of
Americans just getting sick of him. Look, the magabase is
not going to budge, but let's I'm sick of talking
about the MAGA base because the MAGA base is not
the whole country. There are a lot of people who,
for whatever reason, and we don't need to relitigate that
(23:29):
wanted change, you know, deluded themselves about who and what
Donald Trump was. But they're seeing the chaos and it
bothers them. The question is whether or not. This changes
the political dynamic, I mean in a fundamental way, in
a way that it hasn't over the last ten years.
And I am fully aware of you and I have
had these conversations. We've been in these conversations over and
(23:50):
over and over. This is the turning point. This is
it that you know that he won't come back from this,
or the walls are closing in on him, and it
always turns out to be now nothing ever matters, But
who knows, trillions of dollars disappearing from people's accounts might
make a difference. And also the sense that this guy
has no fucking idea what he's doing.
Speaker 1 (24:10):
Yeah, and we've seen very rich people online like I mean,
some of them have sucophantically sucked up to him, and
the hopes that sucking up to him will get him
to act rationally will that has never been true, but
perhaps it will be true. Now Who am I to
But you certainly see these very rich people being like.
Speaker 4 (24:33):
Oh, maybe I don't know.
Speaker 1 (24:36):
I mean, they definitely see that he's not playing three
dimensional chats.
Speaker 4 (24:41):
Well I hope not. They're seeing that. I mean, I
think that was what rattled a lot of people, that
he didn't have a plan, but of course the power
of rationalization is so great, and you know, there was
a moment at which they were so relieved. Okay, so
we finally got an adult, the one adult in the
cabinet maybe you know in there Bessen who talked to him,
who talked him down. But you know, so the stock
(25:01):
market absolutely exploded, and then people were realize, well, wait, wait, wait, wait,
we still have these massive tariffs with China, and they're
playing this weird game. It's almost like a cartoon game. No,
it's one hundred and four percent. No, well it's one
hundred and twenty five percent, one hundred and forty five percent.
Well then I'm going to one hundred and twenty five whatever.
Not a pretty picture. So all of that relief I
(25:22):
think was followed by a reality check. He's still him
and we are still at his mercy in his head.
And by the way, I'm not I don't want to
gloss over the incredible potential for corruption here or the
insider trading. Is that you know, the reality is that
Donald Trump now can move tens of trillions of dollars
(25:43):
of world wealth buy something in his own head, no
political check or balance that he decides, you know what,
I'm going to put on social media a good time
to buy stocks, doesn't make an announcement through the White House,
puts on his own social media site. His buddies go out,
bye bye bye, and then he announces this terror thing.
(26:06):
And now this is the new normal, right, this is
the new reality that Donald Trump knows that he can
make the stock market go up or down simply by
his whim. A single post can move vast amounts of money,
more money, by the way, than is at stake in
these tax cuts in the budget. He doesn't need Congress,
(26:26):
he doesn't need anybody. He just needs his own fucking thumbs.
Speaker 1 (26:29):
Charlie Sikes, thank you.
Speaker 4 (26:32):
I said fucking thumbs on your podcast. I'm sorry.
Speaker 1 (26:37):
Tomas Zimmer is a historian at George Washington University and
the author of the substack Democracy Americana. Welcome Back, Too
Fast Politics, My friend, Thomas.
Speaker 5 (26:49):
Zimmer, thank you so much for having me back. One
of these days. Hopefully maybe we can talk about something
just nice and you know, beautiful and.
Speaker 1 (26:59):
Yes, and we'll talk about how happy we are and rainbows,
talk about something nice. I don't know if you know this,
but we cannot have nice things here. No, So I
want to like talk for a minute about you and
I's relationships. In July. You were really a big part
of this podcast that we did about Project twenty twenty
(27:20):
five and what it would look like. We were right,
no one believed us, and Donald Trump became president and
immediately started enacting Project twenty twenty five discuss.
Speaker 5 (27:32):
So, yeah, I think it is interesting. I think there
was a moment last summer when people seem to believe
that Project twenty twenty five was actually real and was
coming right. There was there was a lot of talk.
It broke through at some point in the summer and
it became really toxic. And that's why that was the
reason why Trump himself and you know, the Trump campaign
they tried to distance themselves from it. Remember they talked
(27:53):
all about oh I don't know nothing about it and
all that kind of it was obviously nonsense, but you know,
they the fact that they tried to distance themselves told you, oh, okay,
say they think this is toxic, they think this is
going to make it hard for them to win the election,
And then yeah, I think so to me, right, it's
interesting that the Project twenty twenty five, people are certainly
claiming victory. I don't know if you saw this what
Paul Dance, the former director. When he was still at Heritage,
(28:14):
he was the official director of the whole planning operation.
He has recently claimed, yeah, we did it, and then
you know, we are so successful. They're not doing everything
we told him to do. By the way, that guy
left the project twenty twenty five and complete disgrace. He
was fired for toxic workplace behavior last summer.
Speaker 1 (28:28):
Yeah, by the way, the fact that you can still
get fired for toxic work place behavior in that yes,
I mean, imagine how bad it has to be, right.
Speaker 5 (28:37):
Yeah, in that Heritage scene. Absolutely. Yeah, So yeah, I
wouldn't necessarily trust that guy. Just because he says they're
doing everything we told him to do, it doesn't necessarily
mean it's true. But I'm trying. So I might have
been taught thinking about a lot about where are we
and what is the best way to kind of understand
what's happening. And I think to me the most important
thing is so the speed and the scope of this assault,
of this assault on the constitution and democratic order. I
(29:00):
think it's crazy how far they've been able to take
us away from a functioning democratic system and into authoritarian territory.
And when I think about why is it that they
have made so much counquid progress in their terms, it's
a completely different ballgame compared to the first Trump administration,
And a big part of that is absolutely one hundred percent,
they were just better prepared this time, Right, there's no
question about it. That doesn't mean there isn't chaos. I mean, look,
(29:23):
we're talking just as they have just announced they're going
to pause the tariffs again, I guess, so there is
a lot of chaos and there's still a lot of incompetence,
and Donald Trump is still Donald Trump, meaning he is
just a bumbling, cartoonish kind of character. Right, But it's
also true that again if you compare it to the
first Trump administration, these planning operations, of which Project twenty
(29:44):
twenty five was sort of the most important one, they
have clearly had in effect. The whole point of Project
twenty twenty five was we're going to centralize all power
with the president, no checks on presidential power. They're clearly
doing that, right, they're clearly trying it. The way have
they have been pursuing. This is especially with executive orders
as as an instrument, and that is again, I mean,
(30:05):
a whole big part of Project twenty twenty five was
this thing they called one hundred and eighty day Playbook,
and that was all about basically drafting executive orders.
Speaker 2 (30:13):
Right.
Speaker 5 (30:13):
We don't know how many exactly they never made that public,
but at least like dozens, maybe hundreds, And clearly clearly
they have had this stuff ready this time. Right. And
I'll mention just one other thing that I think don't
not many people maybe talk about, but also the way
they're mobilizing the regulatory apparatus. Right, if you look at
something like the FCC, the Federal Communications Commissions, the guy
(30:33):
in charge of that is Brendan Carr, who wrote literally
wrote the chapter on the FCC in Project twenty twenty five,
and he was like, Hey, you know what we should
use the FCC for. We should use it as a weapon.
We should threaten investigations left and right, and we should
threaten to revoke licenses to make all these media institutions
do what we want them to do. And that's exactly
what he's been up to since he became FCC chair.
(30:54):
And so I think in all those areas you clearly see. Well,
this is very different from twenty six seventeen, and a
big part of what is different is that these planning
operations had in effect, no question about it. There is
some surprising stuff also, I don't think like the role
Elon Musk has played.
Speaker 1 (31:11):
Yeah, none of us, no knew that was coming, and.
Speaker 5 (31:13):
I think that is important. Right, we have to be
able to say I mean, I get the impulse to
constantly say I told you so, right, but we also
have to be able to say, no, this is not
something that's in Project twenty twenty five is complete, Like
this fever dream of this kind of anarcho capitalist Fudel
order that he's living, right, that was not in Project
twenty twenty five. I think it only partially aligns with
(31:36):
the goals of Project twenty twenty five because if you remember, yes,
some parts of the state they wanted to just get
rid of and eliminate, but other parts of the state
they wanted to use in Project twenty twenty five. They
think they need to use that as an instrument to
impose their idea of what America should be on America,
whereas Musk is just now I'm just gonna just this
(31:57):
all needs to go. I'm just gonna wipe this all away.
And I think at some point these are not fully
compatible those two things, right. I think that is one
of the factors where you can see it's not all
Project twenty twenty five, but in specific areas, in important ways,
this has made a significant impact on what has unfolded. Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (32:17):
Yeah. One of the things I like to do, and
I now discovered I'm completely alone in this, right because
nobody else does this but I do it, is I
like to think about what I've gotten right, what I've
gotten wrong, and since you and I we want to
learn from our mistakes. Project twenty twenty five. Yes, happening. Yes,
they are really growing presidential power. They are doing all
(32:39):
of these executive orders that they hope to sort of
kick up to the Supreme Court, things like birthright citizenship,
things like I mean this in a very pejorative way,
but they're sort of shooting for the stars.
Speaker 5 (32:53):
Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (32:53):
Yes, they're going after things that they pretty much know
they can't get because they think that even if they
get a fifth.
Speaker 3 (33:01):
Of it, it's worth it. Yeah, Absolutely, so talk about that. Yeah,
I think that's absolutely right. And they have decided this time,
no holding back. We're going to go all in and
we're not going to do very much. In contrast to
the first Drup administration, where they tried to stay within
there was some plausible deniability that what they were doing
was not like blatantly unconstitutional or blatantly illegal. This time
(33:22):
they're like, no, we're going to go for it. And
if it's blatantly illegal, blatantly unconstitutional, well let's see if
someone's going to do something about it. Right, And you
see this with how about we just eliminate departments or
agencies we don't like, which is again that's blatantly unconstitutional.
Those are like USAID, for instance, right created by a
law passed by Congress. That money is Congress said no,
(33:45):
you're going to spend that money on this, and then
the Trump administration says, no, we're not going to do that.
This is fundamentally ignoring the power of the Purse of Congress.
It goes against the Impoundment Act. So this is blatantly illegal,
blatantly unconstitutional. And they're like, well, will make us stop, right,
that's basically what they're saying, make us stop.
Speaker 5 (34:03):
And you see this everywhere. You see it with the
way they are basically disappearing these migrants off the street,
right and grad student absolutely, yes, yes, So basically just look,
we're just gonna go for it. And then if Bush
comes to shove, let's see, let's see what the courts do.
And even if the if the federal courts, as they
have been doing, tell us to stop, let's see what
(34:23):
the Supreme Court says, or maybe even go as so
far as to just to tell the courts we don't
care because we think we're just enacting the coronerunquote will
of the people. You see this more and more that
even in court, the Department of Justice has now said, look,
we're no longer cooperating with you in this court case
because we are enacting the will of the people. So again,
I think this is just it's just fundamentally different. It's
(34:43):
also where you see how this Trump administration. A lot
of people were sort of pointing to Victor Orban in Hungary,
right as kind of like this is probably what they're
gonna do, or this is the big role model. And
in some areas that's true. But Victor Orban he pursued
a strategy that you would called autocratic legalism, meaning he
never blatantly ignored like the Constitution. He never went fully unconstitutional,
(35:08):
fully illegal. He tried to sort of change the system
from within the constitutional boundaries. And the Trump is such
as clearly they're going like two steps further than that,
and so yeah, I think that is surprising to me.
I have to say that that is surprising to me,
the way they have been so all in and in
many ways, I think they have gone beyond Project twenty
twenty five, as radical as that was, I think in
(35:28):
many ways, and you know, the Musk stuff is a
key example here, they have been more radical than what
was outlined in there.
Speaker 1 (35:35):
Yes, Musk has definitely been more radical than was what
was outlined in there in some ways. Orbon is just
better organized and a little smarter, right probably.
Speaker 4 (35:48):
I'm sorry.
Speaker 1 (35:48):
I know you're a fancy academic, so that's kind of
an unfair question for a fancy academic. But ultimately that's
kind of how we're not going to be hungry and
also bigger and we've been a democracy for longer.
Speaker 5 (36:02):
But you know, I think what's so interesting about the
hungry comparison is that the assumption amongst people like me,
you know, people who study like I don't know democratic
breakdown or how offered terarian regimes managed to bring democracy
down and more people. I mean, I'm focusing in the
United States, but people who study this stuff internationally and
they compare and they look at Hungry, right, I think
(36:23):
they all expected. And I think this is another area
where this stuff is a bit surprising and in a
really concerning way to me, they all expected. Look, America,
if you look at it in international comparison, at least
on paper, has on paper relatively strong institutions and democratic traditions, right,
and so people expected a relatively high level of democratic resilience,
(36:45):
not because you know, like some exceptional democratic spirit or
DNA or whatever, but simply because democratic rules and institutions
had more time to develop in this country if you're
compared to Hungary, is what I mean. Right, Civil society
actors had a lot more resources at their disposal, and
so the expectation was look as difficult as it's been
for Victor ORBN in Hungary to bring that system down,
(37:08):
and it took him like a decade or so, Right,
it's going to be more difficult here. And we just
don't think this is a widely shared assumption amongst again
these scholars of international authoritarianism. They said, we just don't
think Trump and the Trump regime is going to be
cunning enough and organized enough, right and disciplined enough to
go up against what they expected was a higher level
(37:30):
of democratic resilience compared to like Hungary. And I think
the very concerning picture that has emerged over the last
two and a half months or however long it's been,
I don't even know. I'm just really tired. The really
concerning picture is that, no, the level of democratic resilience
has been like far lower than we would have hoped,
(37:50):
right because mostly because there's there's been no resistance from
Congress obviously, and the key civil society institutions like these
universities sitting onlike massive fortunes, these powerful law firms, media companies,
they have just not taken on the fight. They have
just decided that now we're going to use some strategy
(38:11):
somewhere between appeasement and open complicity. And that's really concerning.
Speaker 1 (38:16):
Yes, we are a country filled with cowards. Okay, Thomas,
let's just sum this up here. You were not expecting
American billionaires to be as cowardly and craving as they were,
but I was because I live in New York, and
so I knew that they would just be cowardly and
craven in the hopes that it would work. But what
(38:38):
I think is super interesting is that it didn't work,
and they are as fucked as everyone else.
Speaker 5 (38:45):
I mean, look, this old terriffing is. If it wasn't
so dangerous, and if there wasn't so much real harm
being caused by this, it would be so funny. But
I will say, look, you're right, no one should ever
have any expectations from like billionaires. But I'm not just
talking about billionaires. I'm talking about again, like universities right
where I think what is concerning to me if you
(39:07):
ask the question, if you ask people who have either
lived through the downfall of democracy somewhere maybe again and
like hungry or whatever, or you talk to people who
study that stuff, right, they will tell you the way
you defend democracy if it is under assault from an
autocratic movement, which that's where we are, right, I hope
everyone's clear about that. Right, So we have an authoritarian
(39:29):
the leader of an authoritarian movement is now in power, right,
he's the president, and their goal is to turn this thing.
Their goal is regime change. They want to turn this
thing into some kind of plebiscitarian autocracy. Right, that's clearly
the goal. That's what they're going for. Okay, Now, how
do you push back against that? How do you make
that not happen? And I think everyone would tell you, well,
(39:50):
it is all about quick, decisive and collective action from
all the institutions that have the resources to push back, right,
because it's never going to be easier than today to
push back tomorrow. It's already going to be harder. The
window is closing, right. The more time you give them,
the more difficult it gets. And instead what we are
seeing is all these like universities, everyone for themselves, no
(40:11):
collective action, all coming together, finding like a common response,
and instead they're all just you know, like thinking they
can appease the Trump administration when clearly what's going on
this is all just dominance tests. Right. These are not
like good faith invitations to like find common ground or
fight anti Semitism or whatever they're talking about. These are
all dominance tests, right, and you cannot react to that
(40:34):
by appeasing them. They will only invite furthersus dominance tests. Right,
You have to push back, and that we've seen just
not nearly enough of that, even from again institutions who
are sitting on massive fortunes and should have, at least
on paper their resources to say, you know what, no,
we're not going to go along with this, We're going
to push back a little bit.
Speaker 1 (40:53):
Yes, it is true, and it is also true that
university is you haveans. A lot of these universities have
billions of dollars, and I understand that a lot of
these college presidents worry that they serve at the pleasure
of their donors. That's right, but I'm telling you you
serve at the pleasure of American democracy, and when it's gone,
(41:16):
you're all going to feel real bad. But I do
think I think it's true, and I also think I
want you to talk about these protests this weekend and
what a big deal they were, because I think they
were a big deal and I think they show a
real shift.
Speaker 5 (41:31):
Yeah, so I one hundred percent degree. I mean, I
will tell you that every single interview I've done with
international media, and I do a lot of those because
I'm German, so you know, the German media will talk
to me every single one, every single time I've been
asked the question, where are the protests, where's the mobilization,
Why are they not protests? And so I think there
was this perception internationally, certainly that maybe Americans are just
(41:53):
too lazy, or maybe they are actually on board with Trump, right,
and maybe Trump is right when he says that he
had the people behind them and all that stuff. And
I think we can now finally conclusively say no, look,
that's just not true, right on these protests. And the
first thing that makes these protests so important is they
prove that the trump Ist regime's main justification for what
(42:15):
they are doing, for their authoritarian assertion of power, that
he has a mandate, that he's enacting the quote unquote
will of the people, that his agenda represents a broad consensus.
It's just not true, right, and we must not perpetuate
that and kind of support that. And I think these
protests were a clear sign, look, no, clearly he doesn't
have the will of the people behind him. Obviously, America
(42:35):
is a deeply, deeply divided society. I'm not saying everyone
is against him, but this was a clear sign. And
I also think they's protests are also an urgent call
to precisely the leaders of these institutions that we just
talked about, right, these I don't know, university leaders, but
also our elected officials, the democratic leadership, democratic elected officials,
(42:55):
to tell them, look, you know, there's so much anger,
there's so much frustration. We don't want it. Can you
please do something about this? We are expecting you to
do something about this. And this is so important because
I mean, clearly the Democratic Party has been kind of
divided between those who do want to push back and
fight and those who think maybe politics as usual is
still an option and maybe we should just wait for
(43:16):
the midterm elections or whatever. And I think this is
again so important because it should tell democratic leadership, It
should tell these institutions, the civil society institutions, no, look,
the people want us to fight. Maybe we should do something.
Speaker 1 (43:30):
Yeah, And this is the thing, it's people want their
electeds to fight. We don't care if it's left or center,
left or center. They want their leaders to fight for
them and to protect them. And I think we're going
to see.
Speaker 5 (43:43):
More of that.
Speaker 1 (43:44):
Thomas Zimmer.
Speaker 5 (43:45):
I hope you'll come back anytime. It's always a pleasure
to talk to you, even if again I feel very
tired and very frustrated and also terrified. But it is
always a pleasure to at least get a chance to
talk with you about all this kind of stuff. Thank you, No.
Speaker 1 (44:02):
Moment, Thickly Jesse Cannon.
Speaker 2 (44:06):
So why Elon runs the States bribes people for votes?
And since Greenland a very tiny place fifty five thousand people,
less than the size of most New York neighborhoods and population,
Greenland does not want to be annexed by US, so
what is Trump considering giving them ten thousand dollars to
each person to be able to do it? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (44:26):
I don't get this at all. I don't know why
they want Greenland. I don't know what we're doing here.
It doesn't make any sense to me at all. Honestly,
it's just ridiculous. And that is our moment of houckery.
That's it for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in
(44:49):
every Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday to hear the best
minds and politics make sense of all this chaos. If
you enjoy this podcast, please send it to a friend
and keep the conversation going. Thanks for listening.
Host
Molly Jong-Fast
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