Afleveringen
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President Donald Trump unleashed an angry rant Thursday about the U.S. Agency for International Development. He falsely claimed billions of dollars had been stolen there to fund pro-Democrat media. But only hours later, CNN posted video of Secretary of State Marco Rubio repeatedly praising USAID in the past and describing foreign aid as crucial to U.S. national interests. So what position will Rubio be put in if Trump and Elon Musk continue trying to destroy USAID? We talked to Jeremy Konyndyk, a former USAID official, who explains why Rubio will inevitably clash with Trump and Musk, their dark and unstated reasons for attacking USAID, and why the humanitarian consequences of all this are terrible to contemplate.
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Stephen Miller privately worried about imposing overly aggressive tariffs on Mexico, because it could imperil Mexico’s effort to apprehend migrants traveling north to our southern border, reports the Wall Street Journal. That revelation is more striking than you think. Understood correctly, it’s an acknowledgment that Mexico had already been cracking down on migration, due to an arrangement secured by President Biden. That badly undermines Trump’s scam that his threat of tariffs forced Mexico to do his bidding on the border. We talked to Adam Isacson, an expert on Latin America, who explains what Mexico has actually been doing on immigration, and why it undercuts Trump’s biggest claims about immigration, tariffs, Mexico, and more.
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Zijn er afleveringen die ontbreken?
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As Elon Musk’s government takeover continues, Representative Jamie Raskin has been sounding a particularly urgent alarm. And during a Twitter fight between the two, Raskin asked Musk a simple question: As someone who supposedly works for the government now, will he submit to basic financial disclosure and conflict-of-interest rules? This got us thinking: Why are we treating the idea that Musk should submit to these rules as a fool’s errand? Let’s demand it! We talked to election law expert Andy Craig, a fellow at the Institute for Humane Studies and author of a new piece for The Unpopulist on Musk’s power grabs. He explains how lawless Musk has gotten, why it’s so important for lawmakers like Raskin to speak out, and how public resistance might have a real impact.
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President Trump has empowered Elon Musk to undertake a gutting of the U.S. Agency for International Development that is pretty clearly illegal. And this week, on numerous fronts, this has suddenly become a much bigger scandal. First, Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency took over the agency and locked its workers out of internal systems. Then Musk confirmed that Trump had agreed with him that the agency must be shut down. On Monday, Democratic lawmakers denounced the illegality of these moves, showing up at USAID offices to protest. We talked to one of those Democrats, Representative Don Beyer, about why the Trump-Musk assault is illegal and how Democrats can resist it.
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After President Donald Trump announced 25 percent tariffs on most goods from Canada and Mexico and 10 percent tariffs on China, he unleashed some angry, ranting tweets about the move, with his ire at Canada growing particularly unsettling. This comes amid new indications that many Republicans are suffering high “anxiety” about Trump’s presidency. So what is the likelihood that Trump’s allies in the GOP and the corporate world will step up and challenge this madness? We talked to Cathy Young, a staff writer at The Bulwark who’s written on these issues, about why the very fact that Trump seems so unhinged and unshackled could lead them to muzzle themselves—and why that makes this moment more perilous.
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After a passenger jet collided with a military helicopter over Washington DC, leaving no survivors, President Donald Trump went before the cameras and blamed Democrats and DEI for the disaster. He then seethed at reporters who dared to ask tough questions about his claims. This is an early indication that he will fall back on far right obsessions at the most sensitive moments. We talked to Juliette Kayyem, a former senior Department of Homeland Security official who has a new piece for The Atlantic about what might have led to the crash. She explains what Trump got wrong—and why his anger at facing basic scrutiny is exactly what we don’t want in a president in situations like these.
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On Wednesday, Donald Trump’s administration rescinded the Office of Management and Budget memo that instituted his disastrous funding freeze, an apparent surrender amid a national outcry. Soon after, Trump pushed a bizarre lie about $50 million in U.S. dollars supposedly being spent on condoms for Hamas in Gaza. These kinds of things are often described as a “flood the zone” strategy, in which Trump throws so many lies and abuses of power at us that we can’t keep up. But what if this approach is more likely to backfire? We talked to The New Republic’s Timothy Noah, author of a good analysis of Trump’s chaos strategy, who explains why the hidden story here is that Trump is best seen as “a weak president.”
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On Tuesday, press secretary Karoline Leavitt gave her first media briefing in the White House. Leavitt unleashed a sleazy, gratuitous attack on Joe Biden’s age, dodged responsibility for the rise in egg prices on Trump’s watch, and even defended Trump’s executive order ending birthright citizenship. The attack on Biden is worth dwelling on: It shows that a certain type of ugly, abusive MAGA trolling ethic is now fully installed inside the White House. We talked to Salon writer Amanda Marcotte, a skillful interpreter of MAGA politics, about what really lies behind Leavitt’s performance—and what it signals about the ugliness to come.
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Already, Donald Trump is “disappointed” about the pace of deportations under his presidency, The Washington Post reports. Trump officials have instructed ICE to aggressively ramp up the daily arrests to assuage his anger, even setting quotas and threatening discipline on officials who fail to meet them. But that’s not all: The pressure to meet those quotas also makes it more likely that ICE officials will sweep in noncriminal undocumented immigrants. We talked to Deborah Fleischacker, a former senior Homeland Security official, about why Trump’s obsession with removal numbers could divert the focus from serious criminals—and what all this says about the absurdity of White House/MAGA cult propaganda extolling Trump’s “strength” in combating the migrant “invasion.”
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On Friday night, President Donald Trump fired 15 independent inspectors general in a late night massacre that appears to have been illegal. Yet since then, that story has only gotten worse. First, Trump defended the purge by calling it “very standard,” attempting to normalize his lawlessness. Second, some Republicans quickly signaled that they will be just fine with this, confirming again that he’ll he’s be largely unbound in his second term. We chatted with Jennifer Rubin, co-founder of The Contrarian, who explains why this is illegal and poses a profound threat to good governance, how Trump’s absurd defense of it compounds the problem, and how Democrats and others can fight back. Listen to this episode here.
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Donald Trump suffered his first legal setback Thursday when a federal judge temporarily blocked Trump’s executive order ending birthright citizenship. The judge delivered quite a smackdown, saying the move “boggles my mind.” This comes as Trump’s Justice Department is now threatening to prosecute local officials who don’t comply with his immigration agenda. But that, too, appears to lack real legal basis. The quality of his arguments so far suggests resistance from the states may have some success. We talked to California Attorney General Rob Bonta, who outlines the lawlessness he anticipates from Trump, what his state’s resistance will look like, and why there’s a real shot at hindering his ugliest intentions.
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With Republicans struggling to spin Donald Trump’s pardon of 1,500 rioters who attacked the Capitol, CNN anchor Jim Acosta had a remarkable exchange with GOP Rep. Tim Burchett over the insurrection. Acosta refused to let the MAGA lawmaker evade how horrific Jan. 6 really was, and pinned him down on whether Trump was justified in pardoning people who savagely attacked cops. Why isn’t there more media questioning of Republicans like this? Would it make a difference if there were? We chatted with Matt Gertz of Media Matters about why the right wing media propaganda apparatus may be winning the Long War over Jan. 6, and how the media’s failure to meet the moment is helping to make it happen.
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In an extraordinary moment on Tuesday, Donald Trump was treated to a sermon in Washington by Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde, who urged him to show mercy toward the likely victims of his policies, especially undocumented immigrants. Trump reacted angrily and dismissively. Which raises a question: What are the prospects for appeals to decency and humanity, such as this one, to combat the rising cruelty and authoritarianism that Trump is set to unleash? We talked to Vanessa Cardenas, the executive director of the advocacy group America’s Voice. She reflects on the difficulties of speaking to people’s higher values in this supercharged environment, and urges Democrats to seize the moment and capture for themselves the power of this sermon’s message.
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Donald Trump insists he has a massive “mandate.” But The New York Times reports that his allies worry that big initiatives like mass deportations might not prove as popular as he thinks. They’re arguing over pardons of insurrectionists, which also might prove unpopular, and fear his hubris might backfire. Politico reports similar worries. In short, they’re admitting he might not have a huge mandate, after all. This raises a question: If Trump’s presidency is seen as modestly successful, could it normalize Trumpian politics? Or is overreach and the discrediting of MAGA more likely? We talked to political theorist Alan Elrod, author of a new piece for MSNBC arguing that the former is very possible. He lays out why so much is riding on public rejection of his second term.
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This week, Donald Trump ranted that no one with ties to certain Republicans who have criticized him will get jobs in the new government. The inclusion of Nikki Haley among them got attention, because after her primary against Trump, she bent the knee and obsequiously endorsed him. It didn’t help her much: Her reward is Trump’s thorough humiliation of her. We think this is really a warning to future GOP critics: Cross Trump and you risk being on the outs, with no way back in. We talked to Casey Michel, a reporter who covers lobbying and influence peddling, and he explains how Trump’s rewarding of friends and punishment of enemies are central to a bigger story: His creation of a new Trump kleptocracy that will now dominate us.
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At her confirmation hearing Wednesday, Donald Trump’s pick for attorney general, Pam Bondi, sought in some ways to project an apolitical aura. But Bondi also refused to answer direct questions about Trump’s threats to prosecute enemies, and dissembled about similar threats from Kash Patel, Trump’s pick to head the FBI. All this accidentally revealed something important. Bondi could not say straight out that she wouldn’t carry out Trump’s corrupt designs, because saying that could disqualify her in his eyes—which is itself the problem here. We talked to former prosecutor Mimi Rocah, who explains how Bondi exposed herself as an unreliable defender of the rule of law—and what that telegraphs about the coming hellscape of 2025.
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After Jack Smith released his final report on Donald Trump’s insurrection, Trump erupted, gloating over the failure to prosecute him. Meanwhile, Trump’s pick for Defense Secretary, MAGA hero Pete Hegseth, had some alarming moments at his confirmation hearing, and the MAGA cheerleading for him hints at ugly times ahead. Take this all together and Trump and MAGA look invincible right now. So we talked to historian Julian Zelizer, author of a good piece in The New Republic that reminds us that George W. Bush looked formidable in 2004, only to see the tide turn dramatically two years later. Zelizer discusses his new book, In Defense of Partisanship, and explains why Trump-MAGA’s grip on power may prove fragile, especially if Democrats fight them effectively.
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Donald Trump recently declared that the U.S. is a “disaster” and a “laughingstock all over the world.” In reality, by many metrics, the economy is quite good, and our recovery from covid has been an international success story. But Paul Krugman recently noticed something interesting: This could create problems for Trump. As Krugman asked on his excellent new Substack, how will he justify radical, across-the-board tariffs and mass deportations if things are going well? We talked to Krugman, who explains how Trump is likely to resort to gale-force levels of propaganda, how he’s threatening havoc with the economy, and how his voters are getting “brutally scammed” in the process.
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Over the weekend, Steve Bannon’s fury at Elon Musk truly went off the rails. Bannon, who has been feuding with Musk over immigration, vowed that he will run Musk out of the MAGA movement by Inauguration Day, suggesting this battle will continue once Donald Trump is in office. This battle exposes major divisions in the MAGA movement—yet Democrats aren’t really trying to exploit them. Why not? We talked to Mona Charen of The Bulwark, who has a good new piece arguing that Democrats need to find their footing as a loyal opposition. She explains what the feud says about Trump, the MAGA movement, and the rise of global authoritarianism and fascism—and how Democrats can rise to the moment.
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This week, we learned that Supreme Court justice Samuel Alito spoke privately with Donald Trump to recommend a former clerk for a job. Jamie Raskin just tore into this news, urging Alito to recuse himself from Trump-related matters. This comes as Trump asked the high court to block a New York judge from sentencing him for his hush money conviction. What Raskin got right is to zero in on the corruption embedded in Trump’s relationship with the Supreme Court. After all, between this and Judge Aileen Cannon ordering Special Counsel Jack Smith not to release his report on the evidence he’s collected against Trump, the courts face a legitimacy crisis. We talked to Politico’s Kyle Cheney, who untangles all these stories and explains what’s coming next. Listen to this episode here.
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