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