April 24, 2025 • 43 mins
This week, Nate and Maria talk about the Trump administration’s deportation of Kilmar Abrego Garcia without due process. The stakes are high–but immigration is a stronger issue for Trump in the court of public opinion than tariffs were. Picking a fight with Harvard may also be good politics for the administration. So: how should Democrats, and other anti-Trump forces, respond?
Further Reading:
What if There’s No Way to Stop Trump’s Approach to Power? from Ross Douthat at the New York Times
Nate’s Silver Bulletin post about the Kilmar Abrego Garcia case
For more from Nate and Maria, subscribe to their newsletters:
The Leap from Maria Konnikova
Silver Bulletin from Nate Silver
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
Pushkin.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
Hey everybody, Nate here, jumping in before the short so
that we've been having a lot of fun answering your
listener questions. So far, we've covered things like Pascal's Wager,
the hot hand fallacy, or the fallacy of the hot
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(00:41):
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Speaker 3 (00:55):
We look forward to hearing from you.
Speaker 1 (01:03):
Welcome back to Risky Business, a show about making better decisions.
I'm Maria Kanakova.
Speaker 3 (01:07):
And I'm Nate Silver in the show.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
It's going to be a Trump heavy episode, I think, Maria,
there have been a lot of headlines lightly last week.
We took a break to talk about AI, but we're
going to talk about immigration, We're gonna talk a little
bit more about terrors, We're going to talk about Trump
versus Harvard, and more generally about political strategy. If you're
a Democrat, if you're anti trumped, if you're part of
(01:32):
the resistance, then.
Speaker 3 (01:34):
How should you fight back?
Speaker 2 (01:35):
How should you think about Trump's strategic objectives?
Speaker 3 (01:39):
And how do you know which are the right battles
to pick.
Speaker 1 (01:47):
Let's start with the case that has been in everyone's mind.
I'll let you start because you had an entire issue
of Silver Bulletin about this. But I go to c
NA give us a lignry.
Speaker 3 (02:01):
What that's fanis saying. I don't know, Maria, I don't know.
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
I'm jealous, but I'm not going to try it. I'm
going to anglicize everything.
Speaker 1 (02:08):
Ate Nate a broad in Spain.
Speaker 3 (02:10):
What can I say?
Speaker 2 (02:12):
One of the challenges with this case is that, like,
there are relatively few undisputed facts, right, But let's take
a couple of undisputed facts, right. Kilmar Aberdo Garcia, who
is twenty nine, is from El Salvador, entered the United
States illegally, I believe through Texas some time ago. Father
(02:34):
of two, He has never been arrested or charged with
the crime. He has, however, been detained on a couple
of occasions, and was not convicted of those charges. However,
you know, judges at various times revealed that a preponderance
of evidence was that he was a.
Speaker 3 (02:52):
Gang member of MS thirteen.
Speaker 2 (02:55):
His lawyer tells a different story, which is that, well,
in El Salvador, you kind of get forced into picking
a gang. I think the evidence is based on some
degree of hearsay and profiling. The government is not necessarily
releasing all the evidents that had but.
Speaker 3 (03:11):
You know, but the judge was making.
Speaker 2 (03:14):
These judges were making I suppose a probabilistic assessment, including
tattoos that he had and clothing that he was wearing. Right, However,
he was not supposed to be deported specifically to El
Salvador because of a status he had, which is a
step short of asylum, which said that because he could
(03:34):
be threatened by a rival gag to MS thirteen if
returned to El Salvador, that his deportation process was suspended.
Speaker 3 (03:43):
Right, and then was it a few weeks ago?
Speaker 2 (03:48):
He is supported Basically, the Trump administration is taking bus
loads and planeloads of immigrants and sending them back to
their native places or other countries that may be adjacent
to their native places or not.
Speaker 3 (04:05):
Right now, I've ingested a lot of information about this case.
I hope I'm remembering a right, right.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
It's not quite clear why he was included in one
of these deportation flights. Right anyway, he sent to prison
in Al Salvador. He's trince been transfer to another prison
right based on what the administration said was an administrative error.
I should say, not because I want to dignify it,
but just for the sake of completeness, that the administration
(04:30):
Stephen Miller has now changed this to and it said,
oh yeah, this was actually what we mentioned you all along.
But in court filings the administration said, we made this mistake.
A district court ruled that the US should quote facilitate
and effectuate his return to the US for due process right.
(04:54):
It gets appealed to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court
says facilitate, yes, but we're not going to pull this
effectuate part for now.
Speaker 3 (05:04):
Right.
Speaker 2 (05:04):
But like the point is, the administration has no interest
in bringing him back right now. How you would bring
him back at El Salveder really's won back is tricky, right.
This is why Supreme Court sot of Mayor wrote the
ruling was concerned that, Okay, are you now acquiring the
US to go and like snatch this guy from a
foreign country. You know, you can't have the court dictating
US foreign policy negotiations or invasions. So I don't think
(05:29):
the court ruling is as clear as some of the
coverage in liberal outlets that I've seen. I think the
court there's a good podcast with Russ Stout, who's a
conservative really center right Times New York Coimes columnists Jack Goldsmith,
who is a Bush era attorney, and Goldsmith's view is like,
the Court is actually trying to prevent a constitutional crisis
(05:53):
here and hope that the administration comes to its census.
And how the lower court is now kind of saying, okay,
you got to give us your little book report on
how you're trying to facilitate his return.
Speaker 3 (06:06):
Right.
Speaker 2 (06:06):
You know what's interesting and this now gets into the
theory is like and the strategy is like, you know,
Trump could take a bunch of kind of somewhat bad faith,
perfunctory steps to say, well, but Kelly Real doesn't want
him returned, right, And we sent an official democratic cable
and request to this officially, and we have a plane
(06:30):
or a battleship whatever ready to take him back whenever
El Salvador commits to it. Instead, they really kind of
like thumb their nose at this process by changing their story.
The other thing, too, is the administration is also making
these moves because of things. The political battle is fine,
too good for it, I think, right, you know, jd Vance,
(06:52):
I believe we could go Tuesday treated. Why is all
the liberal media making this not exact quote, Why is
all the liberal media making this such a big deal
of this case and then proceeds to tweet about it
like another nine times over the next three days. It's
clearly adminterstory for them than tariffs. I think that if
I bring Garcia, we're just a mirror and father with
no brushes with the law. By the way, his wife
(07:14):
also filed an order against him because of an accusation
of domestic abuse that he could become violent. She is
no longer pursuing that right. But you know, this is
not the ideal test case. So I've said a lot.
I have a longer summary of this in silver bulletin
the newsletter if you want to read that. But Maria,
I spoke for five minutes, so it's not I owe
(07:36):
you the floor.
Speaker 1 (07:39):
It's all it's all good. You were you were setting
up the you were setting the stage. But I think
we have a few things going on here that we
should really highlight because it is a mess and there
are a lot of gray zones here where we don't
have adequate information, right, Like we don't actually know a
lot about the background, we don't know a lot about
(08:00):
the decision process. Like there's just a lot of uncertainty
around this on purpose, by the way, like there it
could be much clearer. And I think that this ambiguity
is being put out there on purpose in this kind
of grayish way to allow for different interpretations and you know,
basically to give the administration in the room that they need.
(08:22):
But there are certain things that are that we do know.
One is the deportation did happen without any sort of
due process, right, So this is someone who was already
in the US legally, right. So he yes, he originally
entered illegally, but he now had protected status in the
(08:43):
United States, married to a US citizen, you know, US
citizen kids, and someone who has no criminal record in
the US, which is so here.
Speaker 3 (08:55):
Here's why I get set. I guess I have to
let you. But here's why get the spin part of
you know I mean.
Speaker 1 (09:00):
Well, I'm not trying to do spin right now, I'm
just trying to do like, what do we know? Right,
we know that there's someone who has a protected status
in the US. We have no idea if he was
a former gang memor or, like, we don't know, right,
Like we know that there's some evidence, there's some evidence
to the contrary, we just do not know. So so
that like, I don't know, but that doesn't That's not
the thing that's relevant right now. The thing that is
(09:22):
relevant is that he had protected status in the United
States and that he was just deported right without any warning,
without anything, without any due process of law. That's the
scary part, Right even if he was even if we
knew with one hundred percent certainty that he was a
former gang member, right, but he was granted protected status
(09:43):
in the United States. You can't just unilaterally say, you
know what, even though the courts have said that we
are not allowed to deport you, We're just gonna go
ahead and do it with no warning, no attempt to
have any sort of say your lawyer isn't going to know,
No one's going to know. We're just going to put
you on a plane and get you out of there.
That's the one part of this story that is incontrovertible,
(10:04):
regardless of who this person is, what his background is,
and that is the scary element of it. And I
think that that is the one thing that should be like,
it's a legal point, but it's an incredibly important legal point, right,
because that is the constitutional crisis. If that is allowed
to happen, and happened with no repercussions, then what happens
after that? Right? What happens if we just one of
(10:27):
the wonderful things about the United States used to be
due process of law, Right that you actually knew that
no matter what, you would have kind of the legal system,
and that that would that whole process would have to unravel.
And then if it decided against you, Okay, you know, sometimes.
Speaker 3 (10:46):
It's not fair.
Speaker 2 (10:47):
It includes, by the way, in actual wars, we have
foreign combatants who are still supposed to be given and
usually we're given process.
Speaker 3 (10:55):
And they do.
Speaker 1 (10:56):
Yeah, we had so when I was in college, i
interned at the DOJ and I was an intern at
the Special Investigations which was prosecuting the remaining Nazi war criminals,
and they had a number of huge cases where these
notorious Nazis still got a trial, right, they went through
(11:17):
the entire trial process in the United States, and in
some cases, like the Demyano case, which was incredibly famous
case multiple decades ago, these were people who weren't notorious
guards who killed people, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
Due process, Right, you don't like it. You know they're guilty,
and yet they still have that entire process appeals Like
(11:39):
there's you go through the entire thing and in this
particular case, none of it right zero. That should be
actually scary to everyone. But as you point out strategically,
why does jd vance, Why is he so thrilled that
this is kind of the thing that people are talking about,
because most people aren't talking about like the the legal
(12:03):
part of it, the due process part of it. That's
actually you know, democracy is at stake in some senses.
They're talking about oh, you know, innocent man, et cetera,
et cetera, and so many people are like, oh, we
don't want gang members here. This is a talking point
where Trump actually resonates where like we don't want immigrants,
we don't want this, we don't want that. So they're
(12:23):
trying to conflate the two stories and use this as
a see, we're making the country safer and we're making
you safer. And so they're trying to take this something
very bad and actually conflate it with something that people
are more sympathetic with.
Speaker 2 (12:40):
The JD Evans, I mean, he is an old school blogger.
He'll argue with people on Twitter, not from the official
VP account, but from the JD Events account, which follows
me emmutually. His best version of the argument is that, look,
you elected me and Donald Trump to crack down on
(13:01):
illegal immigration, right, and Biden and Obama had put way
too much of a finger on the scale where it's
very hard to remove people, and we have to shift
that paradigm. And if there are a few mistakes, may well,
tough shit. These people are in the country illegally. And
this guy, a particular guy, is not a not a
(13:23):
good guy.
Speaker 3 (13:23):
Anyway, He's a gang member, right like.
Speaker 2 (13:26):
You know that gets undermined when Stephen Miller Lader says, oh,
we meant to deport him, right, that gets undermine when
Trump says what about US citizens?
Speaker 3 (13:34):
Right? You know they're bad guys. Want to send them
down there too.
Speaker 2 (13:37):
But like, you know, but that argument is like understandable,
I think, and relatable to some degree. And and you know,
immigration is Trump's least bad issue in the polls.
Speaker 3 (13:57):
I would debate in some sense both kind of like.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
The substance and the strategy of like picking this case.
Speaker 3 (14:07):
So, first of all, this is not the worst thing
Trump has done.
Speaker 2 (14:12):
The worst thing it was January sixth, from a standpoint
of undermining legal norms or some of the different firings
that he's done, you know, even in this term.
Speaker 3 (14:21):
I mean, you know, some people would say that.
Speaker 1 (14:22):
Like.
Speaker 2 (14:24):
What he's done with TikTok, where Congress basically passed a
law to say we're outlawed tektuck in the US, and
the administration is like filibustering that and delaying that, and
that's being litigated. Like that's directly over overturning you know,
Congress's vote.
Speaker 3 (14:41):
I think, you know, arguably that's bad.
Speaker 2 (14:43):
I mean, there are a whole array of deportation cases.
The Supreme Court issued a mid dank order saying stop
doing this. Right, it is a genuinely difficult point of
law to compel the United States administration to do something
in a foreign country, and Trump would make himself much
more sympathetic if he like gave a shit or pretended
(15:04):
to even pretended to pretend to give a shit, right,
But like it is like a genuinely ambiguous thing, and
I don't I mean, look, I don't think it absolutes, right.
I mean I think you know, if zero was everything
is great, and one hundred is a constitutional crisis, right,
you know this six is from sixty two to sixty.
Speaker 3 (15:24):
Six or something like or something.
Speaker 2 (15:26):
But you know what I mean, And you kind of
get in this kind of brinksmanship situation that does get
into game theory and things like that, right. And part
of the problem with brinksmanship is that the party who's
behaving inappropriately or trying to be more aggressive, right, can say, Okay,
well we're in it fourtify this territory a little bit
(15:46):
further across this line, right, But you're not going to
mix such a big deal over this.
Speaker 3 (15:50):
This isn't a battle worth picking.
Speaker 2 (15:52):
And then that kind of like cycles back again and
again and again.
Speaker 3 (15:55):
By the way, I.
Speaker 2 (15:56):
Think liberals are pretty I think the Supreme Court is
going to wind up being pretty unfriendly to Trump, right,
And I think it's very strategic. Roberts in particular is
quite strategic, and it's gonna say, Okay, we know we
have to be careful because we don't want to get
in a position where he's openly defying us, right, but
we can make his life hard in various ways, and
(16:18):
we see ourselves like maybe the only bulwark and st
I mean, it's ironic that, like you know, and Alito
and Thomas are too far to the right on many issues.
Speaker 3 (16:28):
Right, Roberts, to facto is a centrist right.
Speaker 2 (16:31):
So ironically, you know, the left is relying on three
on the three Trump avoided judges, right, Kavanaugh, Barrett, and Gorsich,
who you know have a little using differences from issue
to issue. Right, but those three are you know, kind
of you know, democracy's best.
Speaker 3 (16:51):
Defense until until the midterms at.
Speaker 2 (16:53):
Least, and excluding state government. But you know, but like
that there is a deep irony there.
Speaker 1 (16:58):
I think, yeah, no, there's an irony on the fact
that there are best defense actually puts my constitutional crisis
meter a little bit higher than yours. State. I think
we're a little above sixty six percent. But but I
think I think that there are two things here. One
this is just one, and you kind of hinted at
(17:19):
this of a litany of legal issues that are happening
right now. Right there are challenges all over the country.
But I think that there will probably come a moment
where there is kind of a black and white confrontation,
right because right now there are kind of degrees you
can say, well like he is he openly defying it.
(17:40):
But I think there will come a point where there
will be like a Okay, you have to do this,
or or where in a constitutional crisis. I think that
breaking point probably probably will come, and I'm interested to
see how the Trump administration will respond to that, because
right now they've been very defiant, and as you said,
it would be much more sympathetic if they at least
(18:02):
made an effort and was like, oh, you know, we're
really trying to get him back, and instead Trump's like,
fuck you, like we don't want to get him back,
We're not going to do that, and then they just
lie also about what the Supreme Court said, Oh you
didn't you know, you didn't tell us to do this.
That's why I said, right now we have like these ambiguities.
There will come a point where I think there will
be an an ambiguous moment where where there's going to
(18:22):
be a decision point.
Speaker 3 (18:27):
And will be right back after this break.
Speaker 1 (18:36):
I think that the other issue here, and this is
something that we've been hinting at and that I think
you've written about, Nate, is that so immigration, right? Why
is it a good issue for Trump? Because you can
make it emotional. You can make it visceral, like people
can be like, oh, you know, they're taking my jobs,
they're making me you know, whether or not it's true, right,
whether or not these things are true. You can make
(18:58):
this emotional appeal that people can like immediately see right,
it's something that they can respond to. Constitutional crisis, democracy
is at stake, is something that's much more intellectual, much
kind of broader, and in the long run, obviously this
is hugely important. This is kind of what our country
is founded on. But it's not if Democrats are going
(19:21):
to say, Okay, this is an issue that we can
focus on, that's probably not it if you want to
win votes, because it's much easier to say yeah, but
immigrants right, as opposed to oh, constitutional crisis, it's working
its way through the courts. It's a much more difficult
You can't make an emotional appeal here you can't be
and people will always say, oh, well, it doesn't affect me,
(19:43):
right until it does, they'll say it doesn't. And so
in some ways, like we can all agree that this
is important, and this is an important battle that needs
to be fought, but is this the one issue that
people should be focusing on? And you made the argument
and I actually agree with this, and we made this
argument on the show that there are things that people
(20:04):
do agree on that can win the election, that can
help you with everything, like the constitutional crisis says like tariffs.
I mean, Nate, why didn't the United States decide to
go to war with England before it was the United States,
when it was still a colony? Do you remember remember
the Boston Tea Party?
Speaker 3 (20:20):
What was that all about?
Speaker 1 (20:22):
Oh? Right, tariffs on tea. We went to war with
England over tariffs. That's how much we wanted to have
us say, no taxation without representation. Right. So tariffs are
an issue that has been resonant with the United States
for centuries and continues to be so, so we can
you know, on a broad level, there are lots of
(20:43):
people who can and should be fighting these battles, these
constitutional battles do process. I'm petrified. You know, I'm a
US citizen, but I'm a naturalized citizen, right, Like what
happens if he says, well, people who aren't naturalized citizens, Like,
we can deport those too. People even if you were
a natural born citizen but your parents were illegal, you know,
(21:07):
you can be deported too. And that is actually something
that's being fought in the courts too. So there are
things that are incredibly important and incredibly scary. But then
there's also Okay, how do we win elections? Right? How
do we get votes? How do we get people to
actually mobilize? And there are things like tariffs that have
worked for centuries and things that people can feel because
(21:31):
a tariff you can feel it viscerally. Bottom line, it hurts.
It hits, It affects a.
Speaker 3 (21:36):
Lot of people's stock propolebly is taken to hit.
Speaker 2 (21:38):
But also like the University of Mission consumer sentiment number
just had it's like second worst decline or print since
like the history of the index, right, and inflation expectations
are about as high as they ever been now.
Speaker 3 (21:51):
And the short way once some people do is they
accelerate purchases.
Speaker 2 (21:54):
Right, So I want to buy this card now before
tariffs go into effect, right to some acceleration of that cycle.
Speaker 3 (22:01):
But you already see different.
Speaker 2 (22:04):
Local manufacturers surveys at the Federal Reserve index. People are
already kind of back planning and hiring. If you go
to polymarket check it sult forth. There's more likely than
not the US will hit a recession this year. I
think if we don't hit a recession, we'll probably scrape
just above a recession with zero point five percent GDP
growth and stagnant maybe some job losses, some stagflation most likely. Right,
(22:29):
And Trump's priple ratings in the economy are like now
his worst numbers except maybe on healthcare. I think his
numbers are pretty bad. Right, So it's like it's and
by the way, we at silver bills and track Trump's
approval rating. It was declining to decline more sharply after
the Liberation Day terraces, and then when the topic turns
to immigration, democracy, due process, then they begin.
Speaker 3 (22:47):
To level out again, because it is abstract.
Speaker 2 (22:51):
Unless you are you know, I mean, you know, a
student A four and visa. There are other cases like this, right,
and also like I mean, like.
Speaker 3 (23:02):
You know of the many.
Speaker 2 (23:05):
Test cases that you could pick on immigration and due process.
I'm not sure or why, like Democrats are choosing this
guy who was the propriers I have everge accorded too.
Speaker 3 (23:17):
Judges was that he was.
Speaker 2 (23:17):
More likely not to be a gang member, right, And
I just kind of sense whereas like on I'll put
it like this, right on terroriffs, I was down in
Miami like kind of briefly for like poker tournament a
couple weeks ago, right, and like that's the kind of
thing you can like, Man, these terriffs suck, right and
bring it up like in a poker table where you
(23:40):
don't know what people's politics are, and that's like safe
territory to do that, right, because if you look, you know,
the poll's basically eighty twenty against that. And people I
know that were like, well, you know, some of the
stuff's Trump's sewing. Not I'm a liberal, but right, they
were like, Okay, these terrifts are terrible. Why is he
taking the economy? Why is he taking the sococker market?
(24:01):
If I run a small business, it's fucking up the
small business, right.
Speaker 3 (24:04):
And then and.
Speaker 2 (24:05):
Then immigration, it's kind of back to the partisan spin wars,
at least with this particular case.
Speaker 1 (24:12):
Right, Yeah, absolutely, And I think that a lot right now,
A lot of the constitutional crisis stuff and the democracy
stuff is unfortunately centered around immigration. Right So those are
the two, Like, it's the counterpoint. So you can't you
can't go into one without the other. There isn't kind
of this visceral like oh Man tariffs, right like, or
(24:37):
inflation like how much eggs cost? Oh Man, enger crisis
right Like. There isn't that kind of reaction that you
can say right now to kind of the democratic crisis.
And because if you start talking about the court cases,
you're going to have to talk about, oh, well, he's
a gang member. And even if we don't know this, like,
this is going to come up and people are going
(24:59):
to respond negatively and no one who is pro Trump
is going to be convinced by this, which I think
is the other part of this, right Like, what is
the end goal? Is the and goal to try to
score a rhetorical victory, you know and say look, you
know we were right about this, Or is the end
(25:20):
goal to win the twenty twenty six mid terms, to
win in twenty twenty eight, right as the democrat And
again we're talking as a democratic party, You should really
prioritize the shit that brings people together. You're absolutely right, Nate.
Like the poker community, lots of Republicans there, right, lots
of Trump supporters, lots of things I don't want to
bring up at the poker table. You know, I've been
(25:42):
accused of being a fucking liptard to my face at
the poker table. So you know that happens, and you
just you just kind of want to try to keep
it kind of more even keeled. But tariffs and the
economic policy is something that people can really come together
(26:03):
on now, as you say, they can and should be
fighting these battles elsewhere, and there are other institution tutions
that can be fighting other battles because we know we
have these we have immigration, we have tariffs, but we
also have other things that are happening that we've also
talked about on the show. You know, the huge funding cuts, right,
the kind of death of research in the United States.
(26:26):
And now you have Harvard University who has been threatened
with well, first of all, two point two billion dollars
in funding was frozen to them after they said no,
we will not be will not be following Trump's demands Columbia.
By the way, It's funding has never been returned to it.
It's still frozen. Even though Trump got what he wanted
(26:46):
at Columbia and they acquiesced to everything. But this week
Harvard said, we're actually even going to file a lawsuit
because it's also been threatened with an end to its
tax exempt status. And what they're trying to say is, hey,
you are not allowed to freeze our funds. This goes
back to do process. By the way, there's a process
to doing it right. There's you actually have to go
through a process to prove that what you're saying is true.
(27:09):
And only then after the court rules, can you freeze
the funds. You can't just preemptively freeze all of them,
which is exactly what Trump has done. And so Harvard
is actually now trying to fight back in the court system.
We know, we've talked about this before. Harvard is not
popular among the everyman, and so Harvard is a good
(27:30):
target for Trump. But Harvard's the single richest private university
in the world, I'm pretty sure, certainly in the United States,
I think in the world. Please correct me if I'm wrong,
But they actually have, you know, the money to fight
Trump legally, which a lot of private institutions don't, and
so we have other actors who can very strategically try
(27:52):
to bring this to the courts to try to get
at some of the extra legal things that Trump is
doing and try to get a due process that way.
And that is also something that you know, in the
long term is incredibly harmful to the US right the
cuts to the NIH, the freezing funds, all of these things,
it's really bad. But it's also very hard for every
(28:14):
man to care about that and say, well, I don't care,
like I don't work for the NIH. Well, you do
care if you're in a trial, clinical trial that has
been that has been suddenly halted. These have happened in
the United States, but if you're not someone who's directly affected,
it can be harder, once again to kind of viscerally
feel it. But we do need people fighting these battles
(28:34):
and making sure that you know that it remains a priority.
Speaker 2 (28:39):
The King Abdullah University of Science Technology in Saudi Arabia
has an adabtment of twenty billion, still no match though
for Harvard, So I believe it is like there rich
is university in the world.
Speaker 3 (28:48):
By the way, to Harvard.
Speaker 2 (28:51):
Have you ever sent an email, Maria and unintentionally copied
someone who is not supposed to receive the email?
Speaker 1 (28:58):
Uh? Yeah, I have. I've definitely copied someone unintentionally because
I've meant to copy someone else, right, Like the I
use Gmail Gmail autofill and sometimes like I'll click on
the wrong one. I now use the undo like I
have the undue feature, which which I use liberally, but
sometimes you can't undo, like and I've definitely had an
(29:21):
oh shit moment.
Speaker 2 (29:22):
When I work for Baseball Prospectus back in the day.
We were kind of frustrated with our book publisher, right,
and I think I said something like this is going
to be late, but they're not paying in US anyway,
so screw them, right, And they were copied on it.
Speaker 3 (29:38):
But like, but.
Speaker 2 (29:39):
Yeah, So apparently the demonstration was negotiating with Harvard, as
it's with a lot of universities, and Harvard had like
hired lawyers to preempt this and and but anyway, the
Trump administration apparently an error sent a list of demands
to Harvard.
Speaker 3 (29:56):
And now they're saying, oh, you.
Speaker 1 (29:57):
Believe this to night, do we believe that it was
an error to send that letter to Harvard. I actually
don't believe that. I think that this this is one
of the many. After the fact, Lie is like, oh yeah,
there's a pattern.
Speaker 2 (30:11):
I mean, keep in mind that there are a lot
of new people and experienced people.
Speaker 1 (30:14):
There is a lot of sloppiness. There is a lot
of sloppiness. Okay, you know what, that's the counterpoint. All
the people who knew what they were doing have been fired. Well,
all the budgets for everything have been completely slashed. There's
no more oversight, incompetent people are in every department. So yeah, okay,
that's the counterpoint that you're absolutely right. It might have
been an error. Please continue.
Speaker 2 (30:34):
Yeah, but anyway, Harvard had been helpful that could negotiate this.
And then I don't know if you looked this. I mean,
you know you're our ivylea correspondent for you, so I'll
I'll let you.
Speaker 1 (30:43):
Take the Yeah. No, I mean I saw, I saw
the list of demands. I saw before the news broke
that Harvard was suing. We got we being alumni, I'm
assuming Curtain students as well, got a letter from Alan Garber,
the president, kind of outlining that they were about to sue.
What was going to happen and why they were doing this.
(31:04):
But it was I mean, if it was sent and error,
it was not a draft, right Like, That's one of
you can always be like, oh, that was a draft,
Like sorry, and I've done that too, By the way,
I was horrified. Back when I was an undergrad. I
was working on kind of a term paper for one
of my classes, and I saved multiple drafts, you know,
(31:28):
and as I go, like, I will update the version.
And I had finished this and I, buy mistake, sent
the wrong one to my TA and it had like
placeholder paragraphs that had like three words that said what
I was going to put there, and instead of telling me,
he just grated it. And it was just it was
(31:50):
very clearly a draft. And I asked him, I was like,
why didn't you say something like I clearly sent you
a draft.
Speaker 2 (31:55):
Hey, if the Trump administration is looking for new hirey,
I seem very qualified?
Speaker 3 (31:59):
Can I seem very qualified? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (32:01):
I'm very good at sending drafts. But this is just
to say that the letter that they sent to Harvard
with the demands was not a draft, right that was
it was like a it was a full like, it
was a completely there were no placeholders there, and so yes,
they might have sent it in air, but it was
clearly something that want and the demands were totally crazy.
(32:23):
They were crazy for Columbia too, And you know, you
know when I when we talked about Columbia, it looked
like Harvard was going to cave because it was before
this new letter came out, and I'd said that, you know,
I'm ashamed to be a graduate of Columbia, which I
still am, even more now than I was before. But
like I'm glad that Harvard has finally, you know, grown
(32:44):
some balls, and and I fully support that, but it
made it, this second letter made it much more clear
cut that they really could not accede to the demands
because they had oversight. They wanted basically oversight over hiring
over all foreign students, over the research that was being done,
over everything that would completely undermine the independence and the
(33:07):
academic integrity of the institution. And this is a fight
for the future because we want you know, there are
lots of and we've talked about this many times, there
are lots of issues with academia. Lots of reforms need
to be made, but academic inquiry and scientific inquiry and
all of these things are the reason that the United
(33:30):
States has the industry that we have, the innovation that
we have, all of the you know, all of the
good stuff, right, it comes from there as well. And
right now it's just everything is being completely slashed with
no I think there's no plan that is there's what's
the grand plan? Let's just destroy everything with a sledgehammer
(33:51):
and see what happens.
Speaker 2 (33:55):
Should I try to steal man it, Maria, let me
steal man a version of risky business in ten years
where we feel like the US is doing relatively well, right,
the steelman is probably that, Look, you had a lot
(34:16):
of layers of fat and sediment that built up over
the course of the expansion of the bureaucratic state over
you know, three democratic presidencies or twelve it out of
sixteen years and whatever else, right, And yes, Trump and
Elon did kind of shock therapy. And what happened in
(34:36):
the end is that the court fought back and they
got about like one third of what they wanted.
Speaker 3 (34:41):
And was it the ideal third? Maybe not. But then
Democrats won the mid.
Speaker 2 (34:45):
Term, and they won in twenty twenty eight, and then
they restored some of it, and now and now things
are NORMALI ish, but we trimmed some of the fat
with some mistakes made along the way. Right, Like that
that to me is not crazy. It does depend on
the courts and eventually the Congress and the people like
like fighting back a little bit, right, But I mean
(35:05):
this is why companies do layoffs. Right, Sometimes you easier.
It's also easier by the way, from like a legal perspective, right,
but like sometimes just.
Speaker 3 (35:13):
Getting rid of everybody is.
Speaker 2 (35:16):
Actually more rational than making case by case decisions, because
you want to avoid special pleading, right, you want to
avoid the transaction costs, and because someone will be clawed
back anyways, you kind of like deliberately overshoot the target.
Speaker 1 (35:36):
I just want to push back against one thing. I
think that that's plausible in some cases, but not in others.
And what we're specifically, like when we're specifically talking about
kind of the scientific funding, what's happening there, it's not
as easy to say, oh oops, two years later, we'll
restore it and it will go back because so many
things like you can't disrupt some of these trials, you
(35:57):
can't disrupt this research, and in the meantime, people are
going to go elsewhere, right, So that might be a
permanent change that will make the US worse off for
decades that you can't just roll back because oops, I
guess we shouldn't have slashed, you know, eighty percent of
that budget.
Speaker 3 (36:14):
No, and the.
Speaker 2 (36:15):
Decline and again like the the ambitiousness of it and
the chao. I mean, the New York Times had like
one of these news analysis pieces a day that was like,
it seemed like Trump really had.
Speaker 3 (36:26):
A shit together in.
Speaker 2 (36:28):
The first two months, and now he doesn't. I don't
quite know that I buy that frame. I mean, I
think from the start you had a very ambitious administration
and a sloppy, chaotic one. I think those two ingredients
have been present from the start. And or I mean,
there are somewhat in some public opinion, right, like rumors
there that Pete Hegseth will get fired. Elon Musk has
(36:52):
been back seated a little bit, right, They haven't picked
fights on issues like abortion, whereas conversely, so let me
just give you just so we're at least staying somewhat
grounded in the data.
Speaker 3 (37:01):
Twenty fifteen Gallup Poll.
Speaker 2 (37:02):
Please tell me how much confidence you yourself have in
higher education twenty fifteen, fifty seven percent of Americans have
a great d are quite a lot of confidence.
Speaker 3 (37:11):
Only ten percent have very little or no confidence.
Speaker 2 (37:13):
Right so, mad to twenty twenty four, those numbers are
thirty six great deal and thirty two very little or
no confidence. Thirty two percent also say some confidence. So
basically you've gone from six to one high confidence to
low confidence to even And you know, some of that
happened during Trump's first term, but it's pretty linear and steady.
(37:35):
It's been you know, so this is a case where
Trump is picking an un sympathetic target. Now if you
go so far and sympathetic target, then like that target
may become like more sympathetic.
Speaker 3 (37:49):
You know, I I.
Speaker 2 (37:51):
A couple of friends who kind of work in university emissions.
I'd be like, if I are you, I'd be like, Wow,
now you can not feel selfish and greedy for donating
to Harvard because you're fighting in a good fight. I
would fucking I would fucking love it if I worked
in Harvard's fundraising committee.
Speaker 3 (38:04):
Right now, now you're you know.
Speaker 2 (38:05):
Because before I would say that giving money to a
richivally union is I'm not sure it's actually better than
setting your money on fire. Sending your money on fire
at least at least causes some degree of deflation.
Speaker 3 (38:18):
Right, But if universes are actually tapping.
Speaker 2 (38:21):
To their own downlands, then I'm much more sympathetic to that,
I would say.
Speaker 1 (38:28):
And we'll be back right after this to kind of
sum up all of this chaos and everything we've been
talking about. From a strategic standpoint, it seems like these
(38:50):
are all crucial issues and people should be fighting all
of them. But from a messaging like let's win election standpoint,
I do think trying to focus on the economics, right,
on the tariffs, on the stuff that can actually appeal
to people and get them to potentially kind of change
their to change their minds or start voting. I think
(39:11):
that that should be kind of if we're talking about
democratic leadership, that should be the number one messaging, and
then all of the other stuff has to keep happening, right,
Keep fighting the court battles, delegate some stuff to Harvard, right, like,
keep fighting all of those things, keep those talking points going,
yet have that strategic unity that will bring people to
(39:32):
your cause and will be sympathetic and will not let
Trump pull the cards of the unpopular stuff.
Speaker 3 (39:38):
Right, we bring on one more final game theory example.
Speaker 2 (39:41):
Right, Yeah, even when there is some risk of cheating
or rules not being followed, then there is still an
equilibrium that emerges.
Speaker 3 (39:55):
Right, Like you know, if you're in a cash game.
Speaker 2 (39:58):
It's a very good cash game, but you're worried about
not getting paid, particularly if another.
Speaker 3 (40:04):
Player loses too much money. I mean, that might affect
your play of certain hands.
Speaker 2 (40:09):
Right if you think, you know, we've probably had all
the situation where you're playing poker and you check your cards.
Both us keep a pretty good lid on our carac right,
but sometimes you're can little sloppy. You kind of or
the car to slippery. You lift her a little high,
and you're worry that your opponent to the right saw
you know, at least a suit of the car. Right,
that might make you a little bit more cautious when
you're playing out At the point is like Trump is
(40:30):
not completely un constrained, right if he had a twenty
percent approval rating, so he's unpopular even in redistricts in Congress,
would I'm sure have no trouble finding grounds to impeaching, Right,
Will it come to that during the next three and
a half years, I would tend to doubt it, right,
But the point is that like that, like that is
some constraint operating on some level.
Speaker 1 (40:53):
Right.
Speaker 2 (40:53):
The fact that Jade Vance, I presume, would like to
be president and not lose to AOC whatever in four years,
that that provides some constraint on Trump.
Speaker 3 (41:06):
Right.
Speaker 2 (41:06):
The fact that Trump likes to be well liked by
certain types of people.
Speaker 3 (41:09):
Rides some constraint.
Speaker 2 (41:10):
And and the court provides some constraint because you know
this everyal Garcia case is what I call a finder's
keeper's case, where oops, he's in El Salvador.
Speaker 3 (41:19):
The default is he's still there. Right. In other cases,
the default is that like, okay.
Speaker 2 (41:24):
Well now now someone as if you were in the
US and you say you can't deport him, well, now
someone who acts in that chain to deport him is
violating a law and then they could get in trouble
and so like so you know, it's not always the case.
Speaker 3 (41:37):
And by the way, if you have stage sitting and
we're not.
Speaker 2 (41:39):
Going to respect these court decisions, right, I mean you
have had this during the Civil rights era, not in a
good way, where Southern states were being you know, disobedient
and things like that, and then and then you know,
it gets very it gets very messy. But the point
is that like Trump does face some constraints. They're not
the constraints that I might want or the constraints that
the founders might have envision, but like, but they basically
(42:00):
all boil down to, like can you marshall public opinion
on your side? And the kind of silver bulletin article
makes a case that like, you know, it might be
kind of a moral thing too, oh, you know, fighting
the good fight. Well, we are a democracy, right, Like,
if you think Trump is very damaging to the health
or republic, and I'm eighty percent of the way there,
(42:21):
I think, right then, like then, like you have to
be politically smart.
Speaker 1 (42:26):
Yep, I think that's a good end message, be politically
smart because we do not want the damage to be
permanent and fatal. Let us know what you think of
the show. Reach out to us at Risky Business at
Pushkin dot fm. And by the way, if you're a
(42:48):
Pushkin Plus subscriber, we have some bonus content for you.
We'll be answering a listener question each week that's coming
up right after the credits.
Speaker 2 (42:56):
And if you're not subscribing yet, consider signing up for
just six ninety nine a month. What a nice price
you get access to all that premium content and for
listening across Pushkin's entire network of shows.
Speaker 1 (43:08):
Risky Business hosted by me Maria Kanikova.
Speaker 3 (43:11):
And by me Nate Silver.
Speaker 2 (43:13):
The show is a co production of Pushkin Industries and iHeartMedia.
This episode was produced by Isabelle Carter. Our associate producer
is Sonia Gerwit Sally helm As our editor, and our
executive producer is Jacob Goldstein.
Speaker 3 (43:25):
Mixing by Sarah Bruguer.
Speaker 1 (43:27):
If you like the show, please rate and review us
so other people can find us too. Thanks so much
for tuning in.
Pushkin.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
Hey everybody, Nate here, jumping in before the short so
that we've been having a lot of fun answering your
listener questions. So far, we've covered things like Pascal's Wager,
the hot hand fallacy, or the fallacy of the hot
hand fallacy actually, and the expected value of learning new languages.
And we want to keep doing this kind of thing,
So send us all your questions about risk decision making,
(00:41):
game theory, poker, you name it. Reach out to us
on social media or email at Risky Business at pushkin
dot fm. Even if you're not a premium subscriber, this
is a great way to support the show, so you
can keep sharing it free of charge.
Speaker 3 (00:55):
We look forward to hearing from you.
Speaker 1 (01:03):
Welcome back to Risky Business, a show about making better decisions.
I'm Maria Kanakova.
Speaker 3 (01:07):
And I'm Nate Silver in the show.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
It's going to be a Trump heavy episode, I think, Maria,
there have been a lot of headlines lightly last week.
We took a break to talk about AI, but we're
going to talk about immigration, We're gonna talk a little
bit more about terrors, We're going to talk about Trump
versus Harvard, and more generally about political strategy. If you're
a Democrat, if you're anti trumped, if you're part of
(01:32):
the resistance, then.
Speaker 3 (01:34):
How should you fight back?
Speaker 2 (01:35):
How should you think about Trump's strategic objectives?
Speaker 3 (01:39):
And how do you know which are the right battles
to pick.
Speaker 1 (01:47):
Let's start with the case that has been in everyone's mind.
I'll let you start because you had an entire issue
of Silver Bulletin about this. But I go to c
NA give us a lignry.
Speaker 3 (02:01):
What that's fanis saying. I don't know, Maria, I don't know.
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
I'm jealous, but I'm not going to try it. I'm
going to anglicize everything.
Speaker 1 (02:08):
Ate Nate a broad in Spain.
Speaker 3 (02:10):
What can I say?
Speaker 2 (02:12):
One of the challenges with this case is that, like,
there are relatively few undisputed facts, right, But let's take
a couple of undisputed facts, right. Kilmar Aberdo Garcia, who
is twenty nine, is from El Salvador, entered the United
States illegally, I believe through Texas some time ago. Father
(02:34):
of two, He has never been arrested or charged with
the crime. He has, however, been detained on a couple
of occasions, and was not convicted of those charges. However,
you know, judges at various times revealed that a preponderance
of evidence was that he was a.
Speaker 3 (02:52):
Gang member of MS thirteen.
Speaker 2 (02:55):
His lawyer tells a different story, which is that, well,
in El Salvador, you kind of get forced into picking
a gang. I think the evidence is based on some
degree of hearsay and profiling. The government is not necessarily
releasing all the evidents that had but.
Speaker 3 (03:11):
You know, but the judge was making.
Speaker 2 (03:14):
These judges were making I suppose a probabilistic assessment, including
tattoos that he had and clothing that he was wearing. Right, However,
he was not supposed to be deported specifically to El
Salvador because of a status he had, which is a
step short of asylum, which said that because he could
(03:34):
be threatened by a rival gag to MS thirteen if
returned to El Salvador, that his deportation process was suspended.
Speaker 3 (03:43):
Right, and then was it a few weeks ago?
Speaker 2 (03:48):
He is supported Basically, the Trump administration is taking bus
loads and planeloads of immigrants and sending them back to
their native places or other countries that may be adjacent
to their native places or not.
Speaker 3 (04:05):
Right now, I've ingested a lot of information about this case.
I hope I'm remembering a right, right.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
It's not quite clear why he was included in one
of these deportation flights. Right anyway, he sent to prison
in Al Salvador. He's trince been transfer to another prison
right based on what the administration said was an administrative error.
I should say, not because I want to dignify it,
but just for the sake of completeness, that the administration
(04:30):
Stephen Miller has now changed this to and it said,
oh yeah, this was actually what we mentioned you all along.
But in court filings the administration said, we made this mistake.
A district court ruled that the US should quote facilitate
and effectuate his return to the US for due process right.
(04:54):
It gets appealed to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court
says facilitate, yes, but we're not going to pull this
effectuate part for now.
Speaker 3 (05:04):
Right.
Speaker 2 (05:04):
But like the point is, the administration has no interest
in bringing him back right now. How you would bring
him back at El Salveder really's won back is tricky, right.
This is why Supreme Court sot of Mayor wrote the
ruling was concerned that, Okay, are you now acquiring the
US to go and like snatch this guy from a
foreign country. You know, you can't have the court dictating
US foreign policy negotiations or invasions. So I don't think
(05:29):
the court ruling is as clear as some of the
coverage in liberal outlets that I've seen. I think the
court there's a good podcast with Russ Stout, who's a
conservative really center right Times New York Coimes columnists Jack Goldsmith,
who is a Bush era attorney, and Goldsmith's view is like,
the Court is actually trying to prevent a constitutional crisis
(05:53):
here and hope that the administration comes to its census.
And how the lower court is now kind of saying, okay,
you got to give us your little book report on
how you're trying to facilitate his return.
Speaker 3 (06:06):
Right.
Speaker 2 (06:06):
You know what's interesting and this now gets into the
theory is like and the strategy is like, you know,
Trump could take a bunch of kind of somewhat bad faith,
perfunctory steps to say, well, but Kelly Real doesn't want
him returned, right, And we sent an official democratic cable
and request to this officially, and we have a plane
(06:30):
or a battleship whatever ready to take him back whenever
El Salvador commits to it. Instead, they really kind of
like thumb their nose at this process by changing their story.
The other thing, too, is the administration is also making
these moves because of things. The political battle is fine,
too good for it, I think, right, you know, jd Vance,
(06:52):
I believe we could go Tuesday treated. Why is all
the liberal media making this not exact quote, Why is
all the liberal media making this such a big deal
of this case and then proceeds to tweet about it
like another nine times over the next three days. It's
clearly adminterstory for them than tariffs. I think that if
I bring Garcia, we're just a mirror and father with
no brushes with the law. By the way, his wife
(07:14):
also filed an order against him because of an accusation
of domestic abuse that he could become violent. She is
no longer pursuing that right. But you know, this is
not the ideal test case. So I've said a lot.
I have a longer summary of this in silver bulletin
the newsletter if you want to read that. But Maria,
I spoke for five minutes, so it's not I owe
(07:36):
you the floor.
Speaker 1 (07:39):
It's all it's all good. You were you were setting
up the you were setting the stage. But I think
we have a few things going on here that we
should really highlight because it is a mess and there
are a lot of gray zones here where we don't
have adequate information, right, Like we don't actually know a
lot about the background, we don't know a lot about
(08:00):
the decision process. Like there's just a lot of uncertainty
around this on purpose, by the way, like there it
could be much clearer. And I think that this ambiguity
is being put out there on purpose in this kind
of grayish way to allow for different interpretations and you know,
basically to give the administration in the room that they need.
(08:22):
But there are certain things that are that we do know.
One is the deportation did happen without any sort of
due process, right, So this is someone who was already
in the US legally, right. So he yes, he originally
entered illegally, but he now had protected status in the
(08:43):
United States, married to a US citizen, you know, US
citizen kids, and someone who has no criminal record in
the US, which is so here.
Speaker 3 (08:55):
Here's why I get set. I guess I have to
let you. But here's why get the spin part of
you know I mean.
Speaker 1 (09:00):
Well, I'm not trying to do spin right now, I'm
just trying to do like, what do we know? Right,
we know that there's someone who has a protected status
in the US. We have no idea if he was
a former gang memor or, like, we don't know, right,
Like we know that there's some evidence, there's some evidence
to the contrary, we just do not know. So so
that like, I don't know, but that doesn't That's not
the thing that's relevant right now. The thing that is
(09:22):
relevant is that he had protected status in the United
States and that he was just deported right without any warning,
without anything, without any due process of law. That's the
scary part, Right even if he was even if we
knew with one hundred percent certainty that he was a
former gang member, right, but he was granted protected status
(09:43):
in the United States. You can't just unilaterally say, you
know what, even though the courts have said that we
are not allowed to deport you, We're just gonna go
ahead and do it with no warning, no attempt to
have any sort of say your lawyer isn't going to know,
No one's going to know. We're just going to put
you on a plane and get you out of there.
That's the one part of this story that is incontrovertible,
(10:04):
regardless of who this person is, what his background is,
and that is the scary element of it. And I
think that that is the one thing that should be like,
it's a legal point, but it's an incredibly important legal point, right,
because that is the constitutional crisis. If that is allowed
to happen, and happened with no repercussions, then what happens
after that? Right? What happens if we just one of
(10:27):
the wonderful things about the United States used to be
due process of law, Right that you actually knew that
no matter what, you would have kind of the legal system,
and that that would that whole process would have to unravel.
And then if it decided against you, Okay, you know, sometimes.
Speaker 3 (10:46):
It's not fair.
Speaker 2 (10:47):
It includes, by the way, in actual wars, we have
foreign combatants who are still supposed to be given and
usually we're given process.
Speaker 3 (10:55):
And they do.
Speaker 1 (10:56):
Yeah, we had so when I was in college, i
interned at the DOJ and I was an intern at
the Special Investigations which was prosecuting the remaining Nazi war criminals,
and they had a number of huge cases where these
notorious Nazis still got a trial, right, they went through
(11:17):
the entire trial process in the United States, and in
some cases, like the Demyano case, which was incredibly famous
case multiple decades ago, these were people who weren't notorious
guards who killed people, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
Due process, Right, you don't like it. You know they're guilty,
and yet they still have that entire process appeals Like
(11:39):
there's you go through the entire thing and in this
particular case, none of it right zero. That should be
actually scary to everyone. But as you point out strategically,
why does jd vance, Why is he so thrilled that
this is kind of the thing that people are talking about,
because most people aren't talking about like the the legal
(12:03):
part of it, the due process part of it. That's
actually you know, democracy is at stake in some senses.
They're talking about oh, you know, innocent man, et cetera,
et cetera, and so many people are like, oh, we
don't want gang members here. This is a talking point
where Trump actually resonates where like we don't want immigrants,
we don't want this, we don't want that. So they're
(12:23):
trying to conflate the two stories and use this as
a see, we're making the country safer and we're making
you safer. And so they're trying to take this something
very bad and actually conflate it with something that people
are more sympathetic with.
Speaker 2 (12:40):
The JD Evans, I mean, he is an old school blogger.
He'll argue with people on Twitter, not from the official
VP account, but from the JD Events account, which follows
me emmutually. His best version of the argument is that, look,
you elected me and Donald Trump to crack down on
(13:01):
illegal immigration, right, and Biden and Obama had put way
too much of a finger on the scale where it's
very hard to remove people, and we have to shift
that paradigm. And if there are a few mistakes, may well,
tough shit. These people are in the country illegally. And
this guy, a particular guy, is not a not a
(13:23):
good guy.
Speaker 3 (13:23):
Anyway, He's a gang member, right like.
Speaker 2 (13:26):
You know that gets undermined when Stephen Miller Lader says, oh,
we meant to deport him, right, that gets undermine when
Trump says what about US citizens?
Speaker 3 (13:34):
Right? You know they're bad guys. Want to send them
down there too.
Speaker 2 (13:37):
But like, you know, but that argument is like understandable,
I think, and relatable to some degree. And and you know,
immigration is Trump's least bad issue in the polls.
Speaker 3 (13:57):
I would debate in some sense both kind of like.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
The substance and the strategy of like picking this case.
Speaker 3 (14:07):
So, first of all, this is not the worst thing
Trump has done.
Speaker 2 (14:12):
The worst thing it was January sixth, from a standpoint
of undermining legal norms or some of the different firings
that he's done, you know, even in this term.
Speaker 3 (14:21):
I mean, you know, some people would say that.
Speaker 1 (14:22):
Like.
Speaker 2 (14:24):
What he's done with TikTok, where Congress basically passed a
law to say we're outlawed tektuck in the US, and
the administration is like filibustering that and delaying that, and
that's being litigated. Like that's directly over overturning you know,
Congress's vote.
Speaker 3 (14:41):
I think, you know, arguably that's bad.
Speaker 2 (14:43):
I mean, there are a whole array of deportation cases.
The Supreme Court issued a mid dank order saying stop
doing this. Right, it is a genuinely difficult point of
law to compel the United States administration to do something
in a foreign country, and Trump would make himself much
more sympathetic if he like gave a shit or pretended
(15:04):
to even pretended to pretend to give a shit, right,
But like it is like a genuinely ambiguous thing, and
I don't I mean, look, I don't think it absolutes, right.
I mean I think you know, if zero was everything
is great, and one hundred is a constitutional crisis, right,
you know this six is from sixty two to sixty.
Speaker 3 (15:24):
Six or something like or something.
Speaker 2 (15:26):
But you know what I mean, And you kind of
get in this kind of brinksmanship situation that does get
into game theory and things like that, right. And part
of the problem with brinksmanship is that the party who's
behaving inappropriately or trying to be more aggressive, right, can say, Okay,
well we're in it fourtify this territory a little bit
(15:46):
further across this line, right, But you're not going to
mix such a big deal over this.
Speaker 3 (15:50):
This isn't a battle worth picking.
Speaker 2 (15:52):
And then that kind of like cycles back again and
again and again.
Speaker 3 (15:55):
By the way, I.
Speaker 2 (15:56):
Think liberals are pretty I think the Supreme Court is
going to wind up being pretty unfriendly to Trump, right,
And I think it's very strategic. Roberts in particular is
quite strategic, and it's gonna say, Okay, we know we
have to be careful because we don't want to get
in a position where he's openly defying us, right, but
we can make his life hard in various ways, and
(16:18):
we see ourselves like maybe the only bulwark and st
I mean, it's ironic that, like you know, and Alito
and Thomas are too far to the right on many issues.
Speaker 3 (16:28):
Right, Roberts, to facto is a centrist right.
Speaker 2 (16:31):
So ironically, you know, the left is relying on three
on the three Trump avoided judges, right, Kavanaugh, Barrett, and Gorsich,
who you know have a little using differences from issue
to issue. Right, but those three are you know, kind
of you know, democracy's best.
Speaker 3 (16:51):
Defense until until the midterms at.
Speaker 2 (16:53):
Least, and excluding state government. But you know, but like
that there is a deep irony there.
Speaker 1 (16:58):
I think, yeah, no, there's an irony on the fact
that there are best defense actually puts my constitutional crisis
meter a little bit higher than yours. State. I think
we're a little above sixty six percent. But but I
think I think that there are two things here. One
this is just one, and you kind of hinted at
(17:19):
this of a litany of legal issues that are happening
right now. Right there are challenges all over the country.
But I think that there will probably come a moment
where there is kind of a black and white confrontation,
right because right now there are kind of degrees you
can say, well like he is he openly defying it.
(17:40):
But I think there will come a point where there
will be like a Okay, you have to do this,
or or where in a constitutional crisis. I think that
breaking point probably probably will come, and I'm interested to
see how the Trump administration will respond to that, because
right now they've been very defiant, and as you said,
it would be much more sympathetic if they at least
(18:02):
made an effort and was like, oh, you know, we're
really trying to get him back, and instead Trump's like,
fuck you, like we don't want to get him back,
We're not going to do that, and then they just
lie also about what the Supreme Court said, Oh you
didn't you know, you didn't tell us to do this.
That's why I said, right now we have like these ambiguities.
There will come a point where I think there will
be an an ambiguous moment where where there's going to
(18:22):
be a decision point.
Speaker 3 (18:27):
And will be right back after this break.
Speaker 1 (18:36):
I think that the other issue here, and this is
something that we've been hinting at and that I think
you've written about, Nate, is that so immigration, right? Why
is it a good issue for Trump? Because you can
make it emotional. You can make it visceral, like people
can be like, oh, you know, they're taking my jobs,
they're making me you know, whether or not it's true, right,
whether or not these things are true. You can make
(18:58):
this emotional appeal that people can like immediately see right,
it's something that they can respond to. Constitutional crisis, democracy
is at stake, is something that's much more intellectual, much
kind of broader, and in the long run, obviously this
is hugely important. This is kind of what our country
is founded on. But it's not if Democrats are going
(19:21):
to say, Okay, this is an issue that we can
focus on, that's probably not it if you want to
win votes, because it's much easier to say yeah, but
immigrants right, as opposed to oh, constitutional crisis, it's working
its way through the courts. It's a much more difficult
You can't make an emotional appeal here you can't be
and people will always say, oh, well, it doesn't affect me,
(19:43):
right until it does, they'll say it doesn't. And so
in some ways, like we can all agree that this
is important, and this is an important battle that needs
to be fought, but is this the one issue that
people should be focusing on? And you made the argument
and I actually agree with this, and we made this
argument on the show that there are things that people
(20:04):
do agree on that can win the election, that can
help you with everything, like the constitutional crisis says like tariffs.
I mean, Nate, why didn't the United States decide to
go to war with England before it was the United States,
when it was still a colony? Do you remember remember
the Boston Tea Party?
Speaker 3 (20:20):
What was that all about?
Speaker 1 (20:22):
Oh? Right, tariffs on tea. We went to war with
England over tariffs. That's how much we wanted to have
us say, no taxation without representation. Right. So tariffs are
an issue that has been resonant with the United States
for centuries and continues to be so, so we can
you know, on a broad level, there are lots of
(20:43):
people who can and should be fighting these battles, these
constitutional battles do process. I'm petrified. You know, I'm a
US citizen, but I'm a naturalized citizen, right, Like what
happens if he says, well, people who aren't naturalized citizens, Like,
we can deport those too. People even if you were
a natural born citizen but your parents were illegal, you know,
(21:07):
you can be deported too. And that is actually something
that's being fought in the courts too. So there are
things that are incredibly important and incredibly scary. But then
there's also Okay, how do we win elections? Right? How
do we get votes? How do we get people to
actually mobilize? And there are things like tariffs that have
worked for centuries and things that people can feel because
(21:31):
a tariff you can feel it viscerally. Bottom line, it hurts.
It hits, It affects a.
Speaker 3 (21:36):
Lot of people's stock propolebly is taken to hit.
Speaker 2 (21:38):
But also like the University of Mission consumer sentiment number
just had it's like second worst decline or print since
like the history of the index, right, and inflation expectations
are about as high as they ever been now.
Speaker 3 (21:51):
And the short way once some people do is they
accelerate purchases.
Speaker 2 (21:54):
Right, So I want to buy this card now before
tariffs go into effect, right to some acceleration of that cycle.
Speaker 3 (22:01):
But you already see different.
Speaker 2 (22:04):
Local manufacturers surveys at the Federal Reserve index. People are
already kind of back planning and hiring. If you go
to polymarket check it sult forth. There's more likely than
not the US will hit a recession this year. I
think if we don't hit a recession, we'll probably scrape
just above a recession with zero point five percent GDP
growth and stagnant maybe some job losses, some stagflation most likely. Right,
(22:29):
And Trump's priple ratings in the economy are like now
his worst numbers except maybe on healthcare. I think his
numbers are pretty bad. Right, So it's like it's and
by the way, we at silver bills and track Trump's
approval rating. It was declining to decline more sharply after
the Liberation Day terraces, and then when the topic turns
to immigration, democracy, due process, then they begin.
Speaker 3 (22:47):
To level out again, because it is abstract.
Speaker 2 (22:51):
Unless you are you know, I mean, you know, a
student A four and visa. There are other cases like this, right,
and also like I mean, like.
Speaker 3 (23:02):
You know of the many.
Speaker 2 (23:05):
Test cases that you could pick on immigration and due process.
I'm not sure or why, like Democrats are choosing this
guy who was the propriers I have everge accorded too.
Speaker 3 (23:17):
Judges was that he was.
Speaker 2 (23:17):
More likely not to be a gang member, right, And
I just kind of sense whereas like on I'll put
it like this, right on terroriffs, I was down in
Miami like kind of briefly for like poker tournament a
couple weeks ago, right, and like that's the kind of
thing you can like, Man, these terriffs suck, right and
bring it up like in a poker table where you
(23:40):
don't know what people's politics are, and that's like safe
territory to do that, right, because if you look, you know,
the poll's basically eighty twenty against that. And people I
know that were like, well, you know, some of the
stuff's Trump's sewing. Not I'm a liberal, but right, they
were like, Okay, these terrifts are terrible. Why is he
taking the economy? Why is he taking the sococker market?
(24:01):
If I run a small business, it's fucking up the
small business, right.
Speaker 3 (24:04):
And then and.
Speaker 2 (24:05):
Then immigration, it's kind of back to the partisan spin wars,
at least with this particular case.
Speaker 1 (24:12):
Right, Yeah, absolutely, And I think that a lot right now,
A lot of the constitutional crisis stuff and the democracy
stuff is unfortunately centered around immigration. Right So those are
the two, Like, it's the counterpoint. So you can't you
can't go into one without the other. There isn't kind
of this visceral like oh Man tariffs, right like, or
(24:37):
inflation like how much eggs cost? Oh Man, enger crisis
right Like. There isn't that kind of reaction that you
can say right now to kind of the democratic crisis.
And because if you start talking about the court cases,
you're going to have to talk about, oh, well, he's
a gang member. And even if we don't know this, like,
this is going to come up and people are going
(24:59):
to respond negatively and no one who is pro Trump
is going to be convinced by this, which I think
is the other part of this, right Like, what is
the end goal? Is the and goal to try to
score a rhetorical victory, you know and say look, you
know we were right about this, Or is the end
(25:20):
goal to win the twenty twenty six mid terms, to
win in twenty twenty eight, right as the democrat And
again we're talking as a democratic party, You should really
prioritize the shit that brings people together. You're absolutely right, Nate.
Like the poker community, lots of Republicans there, right, lots
of Trump supporters, lots of things I don't want to
bring up at the poker table. You know, I've been
(25:42):
accused of being a fucking liptard to my face at
the poker table. So you know that happens, and you
just you just kind of want to try to keep
it kind of more even keeled. But tariffs and the
economic policy is something that people can really come together
(26:03):
on now, as you say, they can and should be
fighting these battles elsewhere, and there are other institution tutions
that can be fighting other battles because we know we
have these we have immigration, we have tariffs, but we
also have other things that are happening that we've also
talked about on the show. You know, the huge funding cuts, right,
the kind of death of research in the United States.
(26:26):
And now you have Harvard University who has been threatened
with well, first of all, two point two billion dollars
in funding was frozen to them after they said no,
we will not be will not be following Trump's demands Columbia.
By the way, It's funding has never been returned to it.
It's still frozen. Even though Trump got what he wanted
(26:46):
at Columbia and they acquiesced to everything. But this week
Harvard said, we're actually even going to file a lawsuit
because it's also been threatened with an end to its
tax exempt status. And what they're trying to say is, hey,
you are not allowed to freeze our funds. This goes
back to do process. By the way, there's a process
to doing it right. There's you actually have to go
through a process to prove that what you're saying is true.
(27:09):
And only then after the court rules, can you freeze
the funds. You can't just preemptively freeze all of them,
which is exactly what Trump has done. And so Harvard
is actually now trying to fight back in the court system.
We know, we've talked about this before. Harvard is not
popular among the everyman, and so Harvard is a good
(27:30):
target for Trump. But Harvard's the single richest private university
in the world, I'm pretty sure, certainly in the United States,
I think in the world. Please correct me if I'm wrong,
But they actually have, you know, the money to fight
Trump legally, which a lot of private institutions don't, and
so we have other actors who can very strategically try
(27:52):
to bring this to the courts to try to get
at some of the extra legal things that Trump is
doing and try to get a due process that way.
And that is also something that you know, in the
long term is incredibly harmful to the US right the
cuts to the NIH, the freezing funds, all of these things,
it's really bad. But it's also very hard for every
(28:14):
man to care about that and say, well, I don't care,
like I don't work for the NIH. Well, you do
care if you're in a trial, clinical trial that has
been that has been suddenly halted. These have happened in
the United States, but if you're not someone who's directly affected,
it can be harder, once again to kind of viscerally
feel it. But we do need people fighting these battles
(28:34):
and making sure that you know that it remains a priority.
Speaker 2 (28:39):
The King Abdullah University of Science Technology in Saudi Arabia
has an adabtment of twenty billion, still no match though
for Harvard, So I believe it is like there rich
is university in the world.
Speaker 3 (28:48):
By the way, to Harvard.
Speaker 2 (28:51):
Have you ever sent an email, Maria and unintentionally copied
someone who is not supposed to receive the email?
Speaker 1 (28:58):
Uh? Yeah, I have. I've definitely copied someone unintentionally because
I've meant to copy someone else, right, Like the I
use Gmail Gmail autofill and sometimes like I'll click on
the wrong one. I now use the undo like I
have the undue feature, which which I use liberally, but
sometimes you can't undo, like and I've definitely had an
(29:21):
oh shit moment.
Speaker 2 (29:22):
When I work for Baseball Prospectus back in the day.
We were kind of frustrated with our book publisher, right,
and I think I said something like this is going
to be late, but they're not paying in US anyway,
so screw them, right, And they were copied on it.
Speaker 3 (29:38):
But like, but.
Speaker 2 (29:39):
Yeah, So apparently the demonstration was negotiating with Harvard, as
it's with a lot of universities, and Harvard had like
hired lawyers to preempt this and and but anyway, the
Trump administration apparently an error sent a list of demands
to Harvard.
Speaker 3 (29:56):
And now they're saying, oh, you.
Speaker 1 (29:57):
Believe this to night, do we believe that it was
an error to send that letter to Harvard. I actually
don't believe that. I think that this this is one
of the many. After the fact, Lie is like, oh yeah,
there's a pattern.
Speaker 2 (30:11):
I mean, keep in mind that there are a lot
of new people and experienced people.
Speaker 1 (30:14):
There is a lot of sloppiness. There is a lot
of sloppiness. Okay, you know what, that's the counterpoint. All
the people who knew what they were doing have been fired. Well,
all the budgets for everything have been completely slashed. There's
no more oversight, incompetent people are in every department. So yeah, okay,
that's the counterpoint that you're absolutely right. It might have
been an error. Please continue.
Speaker 2 (30:34):
Yeah, but anyway, Harvard had been helpful that could negotiate this.
And then I don't know if you looked this. I mean,
you know you're our ivylea correspondent for you, so I'll
I'll let you.
Speaker 1 (30:43):
Take the Yeah. No, I mean I saw, I saw
the list of demands. I saw before the news broke
that Harvard was suing. We got we being alumni, I'm
assuming Curtain students as well, got a letter from Alan Garber,
the president, kind of outlining that they were about to sue.
What was going to happen and why they were doing this.
(31:04):
But it was I mean, if it was sent and error,
it was not a draft, right Like, That's one of
you can always be like, oh, that was a draft,
Like sorry, and I've done that too, By the way,
I was horrified. Back when I was an undergrad. I
was working on kind of a term paper for one
of my classes, and I saved multiple drafts, you know,
(31:28):
and as I go, like, I will update the version.
And I had finished this and I, buy mistake, sent
the wrong one to my TA and it had like
placeholder paragraphs that had like three words that said what
I was going to put there, and instead of telling me,
he just grated it. And it was just it was
(31:50):
very clearly a draft. And I asked him, I was like,
why didn't you say something like I clearly sent you
a draft.
Speaker 2 (31:55):
Hey, if the Trump administration is looking for new hirey,
I seem very qualified?
Speaker 3 (31:59):
Can I seem very qualified? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (32:01):
I'm very good at sending drafts. But this is just
to say that the letter that they sent to Harvard
with the demands was not a draft, right that was
it was like a it was a full like, it
was a completely there were no placeholders there, and so yes,
they might have sent it in air, but it was
clearly something that want and the demands were totally crazy.
(32:23):
They were crazy for Columbia too, And you know, you
know when I when we talked about Columbia, it looked
like Harvard was going to cave because it was before
this new letter came out, and I'd said that, you know,
I'm ashamed to be a graduate of Columbia, which I
still am, even more now than I was before. But
like I'm glad that Harvard has finally, you know, grown
(32:44):
some balls, and and I fully support that, but it
made it, this second letter made it much more clear
cut that they really could not accede to the demands
because they had oversight. They wanted basically oversight over hiring
over all foreign students, over the research that was being done,
over everything that would completely undermine the independence and the
(33:07):
academic integrity of the institution. And this is a fight
for the future because we want you know, there are
lots of and we've talked about this many times, there
are lots of issues with academia. Lots of reforms need
to be made, but academic inquiry and scientific inquiry and
all of these things are the reason that the United
(33:30):
States has the industry that we have, the innovation that
we have, all of the you know, all of the
good stuff, right, it comes from there as well. And
right now it's just everything is being completely slashed with
no I think there's no plan that is there's what's
the grand plan? Let's just destroy everything with a sledgehammer
(33:51):
and see what happens.
Speaker 2 (33:55):
Should I try to steal man it, Maria, let me
steal man a version of risky business in ten years
where we feel like the US is doing relatively well, right,
the steelman is probably that, Look, you had a lot
(34:16):
of layers of fat and sediment that built up over
the course of the expansion of the bureaucratic state over
you know, three democratic presidencies or twelve it out of
sixteen years and whatever else, right, And yes, Trump and
Elon did kind of shock therapy. And what happened in
(34:36):
the end is that the court fought back and they
got about like one third of what they wanted.
Speaker 3 (34:41):
And was it the ideal third? Maybe not. But then
Democrats won the mid.
Speaker 2 (34:45):
Term, and they won in twenty twenty eight, and then
they restored some of it, and now and now things
are NORMALI ish, but we trimmed some of the fat
with some mistakes made along the way. Right, Like that
that to me is not crazy. It does depend on
the courts and eventually the Congress and the people like
like fighting back a little bit, right, But I mean
(35:05):
this is why companies do layoffs. Right, Sometimes you easier.
It's also easier by the way, from like a legal perspective, right,
but like sometimes just.
Speaker 3 (35:13):
Getting rid of everybody is.
Speaker 2 (35:16):
Actually more rational than making case by case decisions, because
you want to avoid special pleading, right, you want to
avoid the transaction costs, and because someone will be clawed
back anyways, you kind of like deliberately overshoot the target.
Speaker 1 (35:36):
I just want to push back against one thing. I
think that that's plausible in some cases, but not in others.
And what we're specifically, like when we're specifically talking about
kind of the scientific funding, what's happening there, it's not
as easy to say, oh oops, two years later, we'll
restore it and it will go back because so many
things like you can't disrupt some of these trials, you
(35:57):
can't disrupt this research, and in the meantime, people are
going to go elsewhere, right, So that might be a
permanent change that will make the US worse off for
decades that you can't just roll back because oops, I
guess we shouldn't have slashed, you know, eighty percent of
that budget.
Speaker 3 (36:14):
No, and the.
Speaker 2 (36:15):
Decline and again like the the ambitiousness of it and
the chao. I mean, the New York Times had like
one of these news analysis pieces a day that was like,
it seemed like Trump really had.
Speaker 3 (36:26):
A shit together in.
Speaker 2 (36:28):
The first two months, and now he doesn't. I don't
quite know that I buy that frame. I mean, I
think from the start you had a very ambitious administration
and a sloppy, chaotic one. I think those two ingredients
have been present from the start. And or I mean,
there are somewhat in some public opinion, right, like rumors
there that Pete Hegseth will get fired. Elon Musk has
(36:52):
been back seated a little bit, right, They haven't picked
fights on issues like abortion, whereas conversely, so let me
just give you just so we're at least staying somewhat
grounded in the data.
Speaker 3 (37:01):
Twenty fifteen Gallup Poll.
Speaker 2 (37:02):
Please tell me how much confidence you yourself have in
higher education twenty fifteen, fifty seven percent of Americans have
a great d are quite a lot of confidence.
Speaker 3 (37:11):
Only ten percent have very little or no confidence.
Speaker 2 (37:13):
Right so, mad to twenty twenty four, those numbers are
thirty six great deal and thirty two very little or
no confidence. Thirty two percent also say some confidence. So
basically you've gone from six to one high confidence to
low confidence to even And you know, some of that
happened during Trump's first term, but it's pretty linear and steady.
(37:35):
It's been you know, so this is a case where
Trump is picking an un sympathetic target. Now if you
go so far and sympathetic target, then like that target
may become like more sympathetic.
Speaker 3 (37:49):
You know, I I.
Speaker 2 (37:51):
A couple of friends who kind of work in university emissions.
I'd be like, if I are you, I'd be like, Wow,
now you can not feel selfish and greedy for donating
to Harvard because you're fighting in a good fight. I
would fucking I would fucking love it if I worked
in Harvard's fundraising committee.
Speaker 3 (38:04):
Right now, now you're you know.
Speaker 2 (38:05):
Because before I would say that giving money to a
richivally union is I'm not sure it's actually better than
setting your money on fire. Sending your money on fire
at least at least causes some degree of deflation.
Speaker 3 (38:18):
Right, But if universes are actually tapping.
Speaker 2 (38:21):
To their own downlands, then I'm much more sympathetic to that,
I would say.
Speaker 1 (38:28):
And we'll be back right after this to kind of
sum up all of this chaos and everything we've been
talking about. From a strategic standpoint, it seems like these
(38:50):
are all crucial issues and people should be fighting all
of them. But from a messaging like let's win election standpoint,
I do think trying to focus on the economics, right,
on the tariffs, on the stuff that can actually appeal
to people and get them to potentially kind of change
their to change their minds or start voting. I think
(39:11):
that that should be kind of if we're talking about
democratic leadership, that should be the number one messaging, and
then all of the other stuff has to keep happening, right,
Keep fighting the court battles, delegate some stuff to Harvard, right, like,
keep fighting all of those things, keep those talking points going,
yet have that strategic unity that will bring people to
(39:32):
your cause and will be sympathetic and will not let
Trump pull the cards of the unpopular stuff.
Speaker 3 (39:38):
Right, we bring on one more final game theory example.
Speaker 2 (39:41):
Right, Yeah, even when there is some risk of cheating
or rules not being followed, then there is still an
equilibrium that emerges.
Speaker 3 (39:55):
Right, Like you know, if you're in a cash game.
Speaker 2 (39:58):
It's a very good cash game, but you're worried about
not getting paid, particularly if another.
Speaker 3 (40:04):
Player loses too much money. I mean, that might affect
your play of certain hands.
Speaker 2 (40:09):
Right if you think, you know, we've probably had all
the situation where you're playing poker and you check your cards.
Both us keep a pretty good lid on our carac right,
but sometimes you're can little sloppy. You kind of or
the car to slippery. You lift her a little high,
and you're worry that your opponent to the right saw
you know, at least a suit of the car. Right,
that might make you a little bit more cautious when
you're playing out At the point is like Trump is
(40:30):
not completely un constrained, right if he had a twenty
percent approval rating, so he's unpopular even in redistricts in Congress,
would I'm sure have no trouble finding grounds to impeaching, Right,
Will it come to that during the next three and
a half years, I would tend to doubt it, right,
But the point is that like that, like that is
some constraint operating on some level.
Speaker 1 (40:53):
Right.
Speaker 2 (40:53):
The fact that Jade Vance, I presume, would like to
be president and not lose to AOC whatever in four years,
that that provides some constraint on Trump.
Speaker 3 (41:06):
Right.
Speaker 2 (41:06):
The fact that Trump likes to be well liked by
certain types of people.
Speaker 3 (41:09):
Rides some constraint.
Speaker 2 (41:10):
And and the court provides some constraint because you know
this everyal Garcia case is what I call a finder's
keeper's case, where oops, he's in El Salvador.
Speaker 3 (41:19):
The default is he's still there. Right. In other cases,
the default is that like, okay.
Speaker 2 (41:24):
Well now now someone as if you were in the
US and you say you can't deport him, well, now
someone who acts in that chain to deport him is
violating a law and then they could get in trouble
and so like so you know, it's not always the case.
Speaker 3 (41:37):
And by the way, if you have stage sitting and
we're not.
Speaker 2 (41:39):
Going to respect these court decisions, right, I mean you
have had this during the Civil rights era, not in a
good way, where Southern states were being you know, disobedient
and things like that, and then and then you know,
it gets very it gets very messy. But the point
is that like Trump does face some constraints. They're not
the constraints that I might want or the constraints that
the founders might have envision, but like, but they basically
(42:00):
all boil down to, like can you marshall public opinion
on your side? And the kind of silver bulletin article
makes a case that like, you know, it might be
kind of a moral thing too, oh, you know, fighting
the good fight. Well, we are a democracy, right, Like,
if you think Trump is very damaging to the health
or republic, and I'm eighty percent of the way there,
(42:21):
I think, right then, like then, like you have to
be politically smart.
Speaker 1 (42:26):
Yep, I think that's a good end message, be politically
smart because we do not want the damage to be
permanent and fatal. Let us know what you think of
the show. Reach out to us at Risky Business at
Pushkin dot fm. And by the way, if you're a
(42:48):
Pushkin Plus subscriber, we have some bonus content for you.
We'll be answering a listener question each week that's coming
up right after the credits.
Speaker 2 (42:56):
And if you're not subscribing yet, consider signing up for
just six ninety nine a month. What a nice price
you get access to all that premium content and for
listening across Pushkin's entire network of shows.
Speaker 1 (43:08):
Risky Business hosted by me Maria Kanikova.
Speaker 3 (43:11):
And by me Nate Silver.
Speaker 2 (43:13):
The show is a co production of Pushkin Industries and iHeartMedia.
This episode was produced by Isabelle Carter. Our associate producer
is Sonia Gerwit Sally helm As our editor, and our
executive producer is Jacob Goldstein.
Speaker 3 (43:25):
Mixing by Sarah Bruguer.
Speaker 1 (43:27):
If you like the show, please rate and review us
so other people can find us too. Thanks so much
for tuning in.
Hosts And Creators
Maria Konnikova
Nate Silver
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