It's like a Marvel Universe version of of the US government right now. Like you're like what? Why are we in this movie instead of in an actual real political world? We are speaking at a moment when the federal government has shut down over Congresses ability to even keep the government running. Where is Congress right now when some people say we need it most? I think Americans do genuinely believe that if Trump says it's in the Constitution, it is, and if it isn't, it isn't.
But the state is me, right? That is the kind of absurd political decay that we're in the midst of. Hello and welcome to Trump World. I'm Matt. I'm Anishka and the US government has shut down, but I have not of. Course you haven't. I wonder if you've noticed the shutdown where you are. I mean, lots and lots of people are. If you're trying to get into a National Park, you're going to notice the shutdown because it'll be closed, for instance. And we'll be talking about the
shutdown later. But we've got lots of stuff coming up, haven't we? Yeah, we're going to be talking to the most revered political historian of her time, Jill Lepore, about all of this. She's going to join us later, but first I think we do need to focus on what is happening here at the moment. Well, there's loads, right?
So there's the shutdown. And, and just to reflect briefly on the week that we've had already on Monday, President Trump announced his 20 point plan for peace in the Middle East, including Gaza. We'll talk about that on Tuesday. There was this extraordinary, unprecedented gathering of the top brass of the world's mightiest military in the history of military existence, summoning them to the Marine base in Quantico for World War Three. No, for a war against Flab.
We'll talk about that. But let's start with a shutdown. So what have you noticed? How does it feel? What? What are people saying around you in Washington about the shutdown? Well, I think it's worth saying first up that shutdowns are things that are threatened every year in the USI do think this one is different, and we'll talk about why. And there are lots of things that you don't notice.
In fact, even some of the museums mats are very much open because we've already been down trying to film where they're closed and it turns out they can stay open for a few more days. But look, in Washington, DC perhaps more than anywhere else, I think you do feel it because the biggest impact is for federal workers 750,000 expected to be furloughed. A lot of those federal workers live here in DC.
And, and the reason I think it feels different this time is the rhetoric we're getting from Donald Trump, the idea that he could go further, that he could use this as an excuse to not just furlough federal workers, but to sack a number of them. It's a, it's a, I've not been here for a shutdown before. It's a story that it obviously doesn't affect people in the UK hugely. So it it doesn't get hugely reported in the UK but it's totally dominant here across all
the media this morning. I think we should also explain just what it means if you say shutdown in America. Everyone knows what you're talking about. But essentially what it means for those who don't know, is that the the, the, the Congress, the Democrats and the Republicans in Congress cannot agree on what funds the functioning of the federal government going forward. And you know, this needs to have a proper majority in the Senate.
Crucially, it needs a majority of 60 votes, the so-called super majority. And you can only get that super majority if the Democrats or a certain number of Democrats vote with the Republicans. That was great. Matt, how often have you covered this? Well, I literally half a dozen times and, and the first time I covered it, it seemed like we were at the, you know, at the edge of an abyss, the end of the world. The federal government shuts down.
What are we going to do? Forget about parks and, you know, visiting museums in Washington? It was about, you know, checks being Social Security checks being issued by the government, which is very serious because lots of people rely on them. Millions upon millions of people rely on them. So that would have been delayed. I mean, obviously military expenditure and federal police expenditure and deployment is exempt from that.
But there's an awful lot of stuff that gets covered by the federal government, the biggest expenditure government on planet Earth, I'm, I'm assuming bigger even than China. And, and this stuff just doesn't get covered. And the last time we had a shutdown, which was seven years ago under Donald J Trump, it lasted for I think six weeks over the Christmas period. And you do notice things gradually, you know, changing, not happening. The wheels of government grind to a halt.
But crucially, Anderska, this time round, there is a very important sort of existential political calculation at play here. So if you remember, in March, just after Donald Trump was inaugurated, there was another threat of a shutdown. And it was averted because Chuck Schumer, who's the the Democrat, Senate Minority Leader in the Senate, together with nine other senators who were Democrats, decided to vote with the Republicans to keep government
going to prevent the shutdown. The firestorm that erupted in the Democratic Party against him for doing so was extraordinary. Schumer the traitor, Schumer the sellout. He's obviously had a a conversion on the road to the next shutdown, which has just happened because he's voted together with those other Democrats to shut the government
down. This is based on the calculation that it's going to be that that they will reap the rewards of shutting the government down and that Donald Trump will be blamed for it. But it's a massive risk because it's equally possible, and this is obviously Trump's calculation, that the Democrats will be blamed for it come the midterm elections. And he might also use this, by the way, as an excuse, as he has threatened to sack hundreds of thousands of federal workers. Yeah.
I mean, we'll see that. That's the kind of most significant bit for me, what he actually does on that, whether he uses it in that way. But that same game has already completely erupted. I was actually, you know, walking around the Capitol building yesterday trying to speak to politicians who were involved in this. And they were saying things like, you know, it's not our fault. Democrats were saying because we have been waving our hands essentially for weeks to try and
have a negotiation about this. And the Republicans have said that they don't want to have a negotiation. The Republicans are now saying, just vote to pause this, then we can have the negotiation. And they're saying it's a bit late. I mean, the, the, the crux of it is that because of that super majority that's required, this is the one opportunity a year for a minority party to actually
exert some influence. The Democrats are particularly focused on cuts to Medicaid, which is medical care for some of the poorest people in America and other things around healthcare. And so they're holding out on signing off the entire budget because of that. Donald Trump's response is to say this is all about giving free healthcare to illegal aliens. I mean, the group that he's talking about don't actually qualify for some of the benefits that Democrats are trying to
hold. What 1 interesting person I bumped into was Senator Chris Murphy. Oh yes, very outspoken from Connecticut. He. We. Like Chris Murphy? Yeah. He had already stood up. He gives good copy.
He'd already stood up in the chamber and he'd made this argument that it was not his responsibility to vote for this kind of authoritarian crackdown on democracy that we were seeing from Donald Trump. I mean, when I when I bumped into him, he sort of gave a slightly more measured answer, which was what he was doing was exactly what you were talking about. The blame game that this is the Republicans fault whilst they're saying it's the Democrats fault.
It will be interesting to see what the public think of this and also when it starts to affect the public. If it goes on for some time, that will become more and more
acute. But also it goes to the deeper point, which we'll obviously put to Jill Lepore, our guest, in a minute, the deeper point of the nature of power and governance in the era of Donald Trump. So the suspicion, I think quite rightly, is that Donald Trump wants to bolster his executive powers as a president even more than any previous president has done, you know, by governing with these, you know, emergency declarations and decrees, these, you know, presidential missives
that are basically signed by a Sharpie pen. He's done an awful lot of that. We'll talk about that as well. But also sidelining Congress and and rightly, the Democrats and even some Republicans ever so quietly in the dead of night, are saying the Constitution is all about Congress making the laws and essentially running the country. But the chief executive, the president overseeing that running, making sure that Congress doesn't get out of hand, well, the exact opposite has happened.
And frankly, Congress has not really been there to provide the checks and balances it is supposed to provide for a president who is accused by the Democrats and suspected by some quiet Republicans of trying to rule more like a monarch than a Republican president with a small arm. And I think and so, so this gets to the very heart of, you know, of, of what who governs the Republic, who's got all the
power. And just briefly, I mean, Schumer back in March was saying, well, if we if we vote to shut down the the federal government, in other words, if we vote against this, this emergency budget measure, we will have no say in how Donald Trump uses his increasingly authoritarian powers in order to sack people, you know, or corral the federal agencies to his to his will. And at least by, you know, by allowing the thing to continue while Congress carries on with some kind of role.
But frankly, it's a it's a losing argument. And the Democrats are caught between their very angry base, their own party political foot soldiers are saying, hang on a minute, You've got to stand up to Donald Trump. Don't be such wusses. Don't roll over to Trump and the general electorate that might well blame them for what is about to happen. All of which has some echoes of the challenges facing the Labour Party right now. I was watching from here to see Keir Starmer try to walk that
thin line. And yeah, the Democrats seem to have a very similar and perhaps somewhat amplified, you know, calculation to do. Let's just, if you're happy to talk about Gaza for a bit because obviously we've had this situation this week. I was at the White House on Monday where we got the. Comprehensive, that was, that was quite a that was a big moment, wasn't it, on Monday?
And you would you would you watched it all in the Oval Office. I did not watch it in the Oval Office. You went in the Oval Office. I was, it was happening while we were on air, Matt. I had to be standing in the outside area of the White House talking down the barrel to Channel 4 News because it was happening as I actually had to decide whether to go into this press conference or not. And I was standing there, really wanted to go in to watch the moment, try and catch Donald
Trump's eyes with the question. And I was making that calculation that we often do. And I thought there's a chance that I then won't be able to be on air during Channel 4 News. He was looking for you, Anushka. They didn't take a single question, either him or Netanyahu. And look, I'll, I'll talk in a bit about what I think the reaction has been here, but just tell me, I mean, you've been following this for so long. What was the reaction in Israel
and Gaza? Whenever I hear something, you know, like Donald, someone like Donald Trump's here on a Monday as he did, this is a new plan. It's a 20 point plan and it, and it bats away some of the crazy ideas like there won't be annexation of the West Bank, there won't be annexation of the Gaza Strip. There'll be no new Israeli settlements inside the Gaza Strip. We're going to withdraw Israeli troops, etcetera, etcetera.
And this is a some sort of path towards Palestinian self determination, as the plan says, and Palestinian statehood, the inner optimist that is still just about got a pulse says yippee. Finally a bit of a breakthrough. Why not? You know, Donald Trump, he likes to throw spaghetti against the wall, but maybe this noodle has actually stuck. And then of course, and you know, and then you hear Netanyahu looked a little bit.
I would, I thought Ashen faced and and and improved the plan through gritted teeth because of course he's got to sell this stuff to his own cabinet as Motrich and Ben Gavir first and foremost. And then you look at the detail and you realise that although it's 20 points, there were literally dozens of points that are really fuzzy. And then I spoke to people in Israel.
First of all had been that we had a former Brigadier General who was the commander of the Gaza battalion when they had one, a permanent one who was very close still to Netanyahu. And he said, hang on a minute, Matt Frey. This does not mean a Palestinian state. We did not sign up to that. This does not mean the withdrawal of Israeli troops. We did not from Gaza. We did not sign up to that. And and suddenly you think, well, hang on a minute, there's a fundamental disagreement here.
And then you talk to people in Gaza, as I did, or indeed to sort of senior Palestinians, including one who was a former chief, one of the chief Palestinian negotiators for the Oslo agreement. And he said, look, this is this is full of holes and there's no way they can agree to this stuff, although it's a kind of starting point. It's so watered down and wishy washy. It's kind of where we were years ago.
And it doesn't really solidify the one thing that needs to be solidified from a Palestinian point of view, which is a credible, viable pathway to self determination and statehood as recognized by the British government just last week that the Israelis were respect. It's there's nothing to guarantee any of that. So you're back to a kind of version of the Abraham Accords. And we know how that ended. Everyone in the Gulf was happy and the Israelis were happy, but
the Palestinians weren't. Yeah, I mean, it's worth saying that the exact phrase you've just said, you know, credible pathway to self determination and statehood was literally in the 20 points. Netanyahu stands up in the White House. He accepts this agreement, which we can both see .19 includes that pathway to statehood.
He, of course, doesn't take any questions, which a bit like when you were in Alaska with Putin and Trump, the first signs were there that this wasn't quite going to work, and we both knew it. Yeah, Matt, because both of us were in New York for the UN General Assembly. We listened to Netanyahu on the stage there. I mean, did that sound like a man who's open to the idea of a future statehood for the Palestinian people?
He said his argument was that it would be like giving Qaeda estate a mile from New York and he was talking about Palestinians at that point, not about Hamas specifically. So. So immediately you think, OK, there are problems here. Then on the other side there was, you know, the Arab country seemed happy with it, or so
Donald Trump said. But behind the scenes, reports here suggesting officials were absolutely furious because Netanyahu had managed over six hours on Sunday with Jared Kushner, Donald Trump's son-in-law, and Steve Witkoff, the Middle East envoy, to edit it and in particular to edit the timetable of a withdrawal from Israel. Of course, what Donald Trump will do is to blame Hamas if this doesn't work. But clearly there are lots of
problems in there. I had this fascinating chat before it actually happened with a guy called Aaron David Miller. He's a Middle East analyst. For many years, he was a negotiator on the Middle East for Republican and Democratic administrations. And I said to him, are you optimistic? And he was like, I just don't deal with optimism and pessimism in this, particularly as this war's grinding on into its third year.
He said there's not been a single consequence for either side imposed by either the Europeans, the Americans who could actually do it, or the Arab countries. And he basically said that the most hopeful he had ever been on Palestine and Israel was in 2000. And then the gap was the size of a Grand Canyon and it's only got wider sense. And he said every single comma, every single line is now going to be argued about. And so he he didn't, he didn't say pessimistic.
But I have to say, that was the tone I felt. I, I, I just would add one thing. I mean, for Trump to have gone as far to the mainstream on this because broadly speaking, these rough outlines of his 20 point plan have been around for a very, very long time. For Trump to get away from Mar a Lago on Sea, which is was his vision of Gaza when he first came to power.
For him to say very clearly to the Israelis, you can not annex the West Bank, which is what many Israeli cabinet members and quite a few members of the public were fantasizing about. That's quite important and shouldn't be underestimated. He's no longer on the wacky fringe of this. He's gone to the mainstream, although I'm sure he hates that
word. The the measure to which the measure to which this thing is unacceptable to the Palestinians will be seen by, if it's approved in the Israeli cabinet, by the extremists. If they can go along with this, even though Berkeley says you cannot annex the West Bank, then they will have to smell something very fishy. The final point is this. The bloke they had, you know, they had brought out of, you know, Middle Eastern retirement, as it were, who's dusted off occasionally for, for great
things. One Tony Blair, our former Prime Minister. Of course, on paper it looks good. What Blair who solved, you know, the, the Good Friday Agreement. Blair, who, you know, worked in the Middle East after he was Prime Minister, tried to, you know, cobble together some kind of follow up to the Oslo Accords. You know, Blair knows what he's talking about. He's respected by Palestinians and by Israelis and by the especially by the Gulf states.
Well, when I asked this senior Palestinian yesterday about Blair, his response was disastrous idea, let him stay at home. We don't want Blair. And that is an opinion that is echoed not just amongst Palestinians, a broad spectrum of them, but also in his own Labour Party, by Labour backbenchers. You know who asked about this at the Liverpool conference? So I don't know what you know, if if Blair is the key to this.
What we're basically talking about is a a broader version of the Abraham Accords. I mean, it's just with just on that. So the idea is Trump obviously as chair of the Board of Peace and then Blair as one of the committee members. And So what I did yesterday was just poured over polling. I've been talking to polling company Gallup about a number of things. And they've done polling both of Israeli and Palestinians and also of Americans on all of this.
And I was trying to think what what will people make of Trump and Blair and, and approval ratings among Palestinians. And I have to say they can only poll at the moment people in the West Bank and E Jerusalem, they can't get into Gaza. But nevertheless, approval ratings for the American administration and leadership are at 7% at the moment. And then I was saying, well, how can I try and understand what
they might think of Blair? And what we did was we looked back at 2007 when Tony Blair was in his final year as UK Prime Minister, and disapproval for the UK leadership at the time was 81%. It was the highest it had been I think and has been ever since, which was when he was leader. So that but but just on one slightly just attached point to that is American attitudes have shifted on Israel quite heavily.
There is still more sympathy towards towards Israelis and Palestinians, but the numbers have closer than they have ever been before. And for the first time in Gallup's polling history, with this sympathy with the Israelis since October the 7th is below 50%. I think it's reached 33% for Palestinians. And Donald Trump is the one person in the world who has the power to influence Benjamin Netanyahu because for any Israeli Prime Minister, what the American, that relationship with
America is so important. At home. He was pretty angry, at least outwardly. I don't know whether he really knew or not about the Qatar strike. And as you say, he has stopped the annexation announcement of the West Bank. So, so it does still stand with Trump, but but chillingly, I thought on one day Donald Trump made absolutely clear, if Hamas don't agree to this, Benjamin, you've got my back to go as far as you want to go. And that was really scary.
They've already levelled the place, 80% of it is rubble. You know, they've already killed 67,000 people. I mean, there's not much else they can do when it comes to unleashing hell that they haven't done already.
Anushka, I don't know about you. The thing that really got me interested this week and raised a few eyebrows on my head in a few other heads, was this unprecedented gathering of the top brass, hundreds of them, or the world's mightiest military in Quantico, the Marine base South of Washington, DC. We all thought it might be some preparation for World War Three, but in fact, there was. Drum roll. What was it, Anoushka? Fat shaming military generals.
Yeah. So essentially they bring hundreds in, including military, you know, leaders from the Middle East at the moment. Were they talking about Israel, Gaza? They certainly were not. And then I, I tuned in. I mean, I have to say I did wonder if it was going to be a bit of a damp squib. I mean, there was some stuff in there which was interesting. Obviously the optics of it somewhat North Korean, although they probably want us to talk about that.
So let's not too much. But but Pete Hegseth, the secretary of War, as he is now called on stage. And then I was like, he suddenly starts talking about fat generals. So what are you going on about? His argument was basically like, if you're fat, you can't be the leader in a military setting. You need to be doing personal training every day. I do personal training every day. We're going to make sure that you do, I mean. Pretty ripped that Pete Hegseth.
He is pretty ripped. Amazing 6 pack Donald. Trump has. Donald Trump is not rich, wants. To be a bit more isolationist. Yeah. On the world. So when he changed his that, you know, his department to the Department of War. I I did think, oh, that's funny because he doesn't want to be involved in wars. But the sort of amazing bit is when he talked about that in the room and he was talking about not a war with other countries, but a war with the enemy within.
And he basically openly said, I want you lot to go into American cities, you know, where we're going to put in the National Guard and so forth. And that could be your training. And, and look, in weeks and weeks to come, I think we're going to discuss this a lot. But it is pretty chilling to hear a president say that The New York Times bestselling author of These truths. And now We the People, which focuses on the Constitution, is with us. Jill Lepore, thank you for joining us.
Thanks so much for having me, it's really fun to speak with you. You obviously right and I love this about the views of the women around some other men. Shockingly. More from the women, please, who drew up the Constitution, including Abigail Adams, the wife of John. Of course he doesn't need a surname. And she wrote this one line. Remember, all men would be tyrants if they could. Can I just start with that? Is that an idea to you that is borne out through American history?
And then and I'm we're going to get to this, of course, and then again today. Yeah, I mean, that's the idea on which the United States is founded, right? That's the, the, the, the notion that tyranny is inevitable without restraints on power. And that's why we have a written constitution, unlike England, that, you know, the idea that we should write down the rules and constrain the power of our newly erected federal government. The states did the same thing.
And Adams's point in writing to her husband was, well, we've you forgot one really important kind of power, which is private power. The, the, the, the tyranny of husbands over their wives and over their children in private life. And indeed, you know, just given the nature of 18th century political thought, women and children are left out of those protections. They don't have rights. They there is no remedy for the abuse of power within the domestic sphere.
And I think it's just important to remember people complained about that. Women complained about that at the time. That's not a, you know, an insight of feminists in the 1970s. That's an insight of women in the 1770s. Extraordinary and, and, and incredibly important. I mean, not just Abigail Adams. So many women who you talk
about. There's quite a bit of evidence that women were deeply concerned about the consequences of a new framing of the very premise of government which left women out, did not regard women as persons under the law. I mean, I lived in America for 11 years, and my kids went to American schools and they were all, you know, brought up to Revere the American Constitution. And, you know, we would hear the the Pledge of Allegiance. I think it was a Monday morning kind of echoing through our
streets. You know, you really worship these parchment papers on which, you know, the greatest Republican experiment in history is based. But I wondered if the Founding Fathers had ever reckoned with someone like Donald Trump, who may not have read the Constitution, maybe has, we don't know, but who doesn't seem to be respecting the niceties of it, to put it mildly.
Because if it's because at the end of the day, it is a kind of agreement amongst, for want of a better term, gentleman farmers, you know, at the end of the 18th century to, you know, to divide power, to get away from the British monarchy as much as possible. And 250 years almost after you celebrated your departure from our great monarchy, you've got a president who wants to behave like 1.
It is one of the darker ironies of the course of American history that the very form of executive power that the US Constitution was devised to constrain, restrain, prevent is now shadowed by it. Did they anticipate that? Absolutely. And, and mostly because they were students not only of British politics, they weren't actually that concerned about the king. They were really concerned about Parliament, but they were
students of history. And it is a moment in time that I think we've almost forgotten that when Statesman and I used the term advisedly, it was crucial to study history, ancient and modern history, in order to understand how power works, what rights are, what to expect of, you know, what would they would have called human nature. They also had this, I think, kind of wonderfully Newtonian
understanding of politics. They thought that they were applying what Alexander Hamilton called the science of politics to modern political questions. That, yes, the ancients had, you know, back to Plato, you know, had had brilliant understandings of the nature of power and how systems of rule would naturally decay into forms of tyranny without any check against them. And they, they appreciated that wisdom and they valued it.
But they lived in a highly scientific age in which, you know, after Newton's optics and Newton's discovery of the laws of gravity, they believed that all of not just the physical world, but all of human experience could be deduced
according to natural laws. That then so that they could devise a constitution that would be an intricate, perfect machine like the the with the perfect balancings of the gears, gears and movements of a watch or a clock that would act to constrain that natural tendency of power to corrupt, of power to
become tyrannical. And so they thought they were writing a Constitution where someone like Trump could never gain the kind of power that Trump has now gained, because they had devised the thing so perfectly to to to break that kind of acquisition of power. The rules respect the norms. And if you, a guy like Trump comes along and doesn't respect it, you know, then all those finely devised, you know, mechanisms really for naughty. I don't know that I would go so
far As for not. I mean, there is a reason that Americans really cherish our Constitution and the stability that it is provided. A lot of Americans believe the US Constitution is responsible for American prosperity. American. There are a lot of commitments to veneration of the Constitution from many quarters. I think they tend to overlook the many ways in which the Constitution has failed, not least if obviously was not able to avert a civil war over how to end slavery.
And I think Americans tend not to really pay attention to just how significant the amendments of the Constitution have been to realizing its initial promise. But exactly as you say, like I'm not going to dispute like it does, it does depend on people's belief in constitutionalism. You know, Madison always said, you know, there these even a Bill of Rights, these things would be mere parchment barriers.
If someone wants to ignore the Constitution and they have the power to do so and they have an army behind them, well, you know that that is that is the fragility of constitutionalism. So the question, you know, in the United States today, exactly as you suggest is, is the Constitution still operating? So, So what is it do you think that has allowed this to happen right now? What what, what is it around the institution? What did they fail perhaps to do
to not entirely close the gaps? And I just also want to ask you about this thing that I find really interesting as someone I'm really new to the US. I've just moved here to do the job that Matt did for many years before. You know, I watch this debate over free speech at the moment. Those on the right, they argue as if they believe in the Constitution above all else, right?
They that's what they say. And then they use those same arguments to attack, you know, absolutely core parts of that Constitution. Yeah, maybe the framers just weren't cynical enough. You sometimes sort of look around, well, people, this is the, the degree of hypocrisy on all sides is really extraordinary. I mean, there, there were some structural deformities from the beginning. And I think we see the long term
consequences of those now. One of which is that if you're going to write a constitution down, you know, which was an innovation, right, So that it could be transparent, people could refer to it. Well, you have to have a mechanism to change it because things are going to change and you, you actually need to be able to change it in an orderly way, in a peaceful and democratic way. And that mechanism here is, is the formal amendment process, which turns out to not really work very well.
So almost immediately there's a kind of corruption, like a, a weakness in those, that balance that's, that's supposed to be in the Constitution whereby, well, then the Supreme Court steps in and it says, OK, the Constitution needs to change. We'll change it. We'll just read it a little bit differently. So for most of American history, the Constitution is not really amendable by formal amendment. Instead, the court gains more and more power and we.
It is a really unusual. I think people outside the United States have a hard time understanding why it is that, you know, in my lifetime, nominations to the Supreme Court are just this huge political controversy. Every time they come around, you know, they'll be, you know, back to the 1980s when a Yale Law School scholar named Robert Bork was nominated by Ronald Reagan to the court. There was this huge campaign, television ads against him.
The hearings were televised. People really obsessed with it. Or, you know, your listeners might remember the Clarence Thomas nomination controversy in the 90s where Anita Hill came forward with allegations of sexual harassment or more recently, Brett Kavanaugh. We're living in a world here where there have been death threats, like credible death threats against Supreme Court justices and at least one seemingly attempted assassination. Our Supreme Court justices go on speaking tours.
They write memoirs. They're celebrities. This is a complete deformity of what a justice system is meant to do, right? The Supreme Court is meant to be completely outside and immune to public opinion and the popular will. But if you think about the forces that drove Donald Trump to power and also really buttressed the rise of Barack Obama, the 90s kind of in the US, the sort of lifestyles of the rich and famous, everyone becomes a celebrity. The only source of political
power is fame. And then the way that is worsened by social media in the 2000s, we sort of live in a world where we have yielded the idea that the people can expect their leaders to abide by the Constitution to a popular culture world in which our leaders are celebrities. They're celebrity buffoons. We, you know, we know the names of their wives and their children.
The, the idea that anyone is in good faith, acting responsibly with regard to Constitution, constitutionalism in the rule of law is something I don't think most Americans even believe anymore. You know, even though I would say, like, I, I do believe that people in the federal judiciary are acting in good faith and, and I may disagree with their decisions, but it's just a, it's a weird, it's like a Marvel Universe version of of the US government right now.
Like you're like, what? Why are we in this movie instead of in an actual real political world? Because we have a president who's a, you know, ATV producer. Now that that's a facile answer, I want to ask you, Jill, whether you is, is the reason why so many things that are really important to the way Americans live their lives. And Roe V. Wade, which is overturned by the Supreme Court as a prime example, you know, the right to
have an abortion. Because in in most other democracies, that kind of important stuff is decided not by a Supreme Court, but by parliament or by Congress. Has the Supreme Court stepped in where Congress was unable to act or to decide or to legislate? And and where is Congress right now? Where when some people say we need it most? Well, part of the problem of the deformity of our constitutional system and the separation of powers is that Congress is effectively useless.
It can do nothing. I mean, we are speaking at a moment when the federal government has shut down over Congress's ability to even keep the government running, which does seem like the season finale of a really bad TV show. Except it happens every 7. Years it happened, it keeps
happening. I don't mean to belabor it, but like really you're not wrong to say it's like it's ATV produced set of crises that we're in the midst of you know I I the way our system of laws works is that fundamental rights are guaranteed in the Constitution and they can't be overturned by Congress and they can't be violated by the states. We have the system of federalism.
So in 1965 when the Supreme Court considered it the argument that bans on birth control in the state of Connecticut were unconstitutional, it it agreed with the with that claim and said there is in the Constitution a right to privacy. The the words right to privacy is not in the Constitution, but famously the Supreme Court said you could find them in the kind of shadow between the letters of other words, like in the penumbra of the Constitution, you could locate a right to
privacy. And it's on that basis that reproductive rights became constitutional rights, including the right to an abortion in 1973 in Roe V Wade. So the reason for the for rights seekers to go to the court is because Congress was not going to pass such a law. And that is always a tenuous decision, right? Anything that the Supreme Court does, what the Supreme Court giveth, the Supreme Court can taketh away.
So, you know, another route would be to go for a constitutional amendment, which the Supreme Court cannot overturn. But historically in the 20th century, people on the left have gone to the court instead, cause the court has been liberal. The court is conservative now, and so the court is undoing. So in 2022, the court overturned the Roe V. Wade decision and said, oh, we were wrong. There is no right to privacy in the Constitution. They didn't go that far.
But essentially there is no right to an abortion in the Constitution. They didn't overturn the birth control decision, although they may well yet do that. So you see the consequences of not having sought out a constitutional amendment to constitutionalized that right. And you're absolutely right. In other countries, it doesn't.
It doesn't work this way and but what we're kind of stuck with that at the moment because we also don't we've ceded so much of any notion that the people or through their Congress have a right to change the Constitution, cause Congress has to pass a constitutional amendment and then it goes to the states. And hasn't for decades. And hasn't for decades. And what where we're at now is, is, is one step significantly worse than that.
It's not just that we've ceded that power exclusively to the Supreme Court. In fact, I think Americans do genuinely believe that if Trump says it's in the Constitution, it is. And if it isn't, it isn't that, that somehow the president has the power to decide what the Constitution that he's not obeying or not obeying, that he just, he is the Constitution, right? The state is me, right? That that is the kind of absurd political decay that we're in the midstep.
And can I, can I just ask you about that from a broader historical perspective? I mean, we're seeing this retribution politics at the moment. We're seeing Trump, you know, gloat about going after his enemies in the courts where, you know, as you, you will have experienced yourself. We're seeing that huge fight with, say, Harvard. We're seeing, you know, his attempt to sack somebody from the Federal Reserve Board.
Like how unique or different is this in a historical perspective and, and given everything you've studied, where does it end? How do we come out the other side? Yeah, I don't know. I don't know how it ends. I don't have good enough writing skills for that. I, you know, people would point to and say the power of the presidency in this country has been expanding ever since FDR,
the 1930s. FDR was confronting the Great Depression, war in Europe, the decline of democracy around the world, unbelievable suffering and unemployment in the United States, and passed a series of laws that he dubbed the New Deal. The Supreme Court declared began declaring those laws unconstitutional. FDR considered trying to constitutionalized those by way of a set of constitutional amendments. And it's like, there's not enough time.
We're in the middle of a depression and he basically bullied the court into constitutionalizing the New Deal. You can think of what Trump is doing and quite self consciously trying to take the United States back in time to before the New Deal, dismantling every agency of the federal government, every ability of the federal government to regulate the economy, enact and enable social and economic legislation, guarantee rights.
Trump like even repealing the 16th amendment essentially, which was passed in 1913, which allows for a graduated federal income tax. That's why Trump likes tariffs better, right? He wants he likes the 1890s and the 19 aughts. He is trying to dismantle what FD Rs coalition began to put into place.
That said, you know, FDR was dealing with an actual crisis and a set of emergencies and yet worked collaboratively with Congress. Trump, you know, in his first 100 days, you know, passed, declared all these emergencies, took on all these emergency powers, issued all these emergency declarations. Congress passed no laws to do that really was all executive, all executive authority.
And although, you know, the notional commitment is we're dismantling the administrative state, this is not at all what they're doing, right? They're they're, they're mantling an executive, a unitary executive authority. Can I just ask you, Jill, to what extent the challenge exists? Because we know that Trump has signed more executive orders in his first nine months than he did in the, the, his entire first administration.
And actually, the record for, for executive orders is still held by FDR, who I think signed something like 3900. And he would say that's because we were in the middle of World War 2 and the Depression and so on. But those executive orders that Trump has signed are challenged, aren't they, by the lower courts? And then they end up in the Supreme Court. And as far as I can tell, the Supreme Court in these so-called shadow dockets has voted in Trump's favor every single time.
Explain that process to us please. Well, normally an administration, if it wanted to do something, whether it's by executive order or urging Congress to pass a law, would run it past lawyers, I'd say, do we have the authority to do this? Is this constitutional? Is this legal? Is this going to be struck down? And to some degree, Trump did that in his first term. Not always. I mean there was the the and, and sometimes they're like, you can't do that. And so he didn't do it.
But the decision this time around is no, I mean, and it's a very self-conscious strategy. Let's just do it all and get as far with doing it as we can. They could maybe they'll be injunctions in the lower courts. Things will be stayed. We'll wait for it to work to this way to the upper courts. The the, the, the, the Supreme Court has, as you suggest, has generally removed the lifted the injunctions and said, well, we don't know yet if they can do it, where one day we'll figure
that out. But meanwhile they can do it. That's basically been the the game plan. Meanwhile, they can do it and and meanwhile it means right. People are being laid off, losing their jobs. Children have no aid. There's you know, health insurance benefits are declining at the moment.
We don't really have anyone controlling where the planes are flying When the next flood comes, no one's gonna go to rescue children in their attic bedrooms like we like in meanwhile, that is a big meanwhile there's those are all caps can. They be undone. Yeah, I mean, I, I, I, I remain hopeful that the Supreme Court is going to ultimately strike down more of this stuff than is expected. Waving it along. What, Because I'm an optimist. I have no other.
I have no credible. That's a solid scientific basis. Isn't it? That's what I have. I just, I kind of have to and I do believe some of this stuff will be, will be reversed. And so the, some of the lower court decisions have been magnificent just in terms of the clarity of arguing against these abuses of power. But you know, there's no, there's, there's, there's a little bit of a question like what is going to be the thing? What would it take for the Supreme Court to say no?
Like what would the thing be? I think a lot of people are think maybe that's going to be the birthright citizenship issue. It's, it's hard to say. And I kind of as a public commitment, I feel like it's important to say it's, it's entirely possible that they'll be a significant judicial push back. And I wish I could say more than that's an act of hope. What about the midterm elections?
The question I keep getting from people on this side of the Atlantic is, you know, especially from pessimists, surely the midterm question, the midterm elections will be cancelled. He'll find some kind of excuse. He'll stay in, you know, he'll try and get re elected for a third term in office. I mean, all that is really hard to achieve if you want to stick to the constitution. But could he achieve it and how? There's no way to run for a
third term constitutionally. That said, he could do it and wait for the Supreme Court to, to, he's waited out. I don't think he will. I think he's physically failing. Honestly, I think there's some significant signs that he's really on the decline in terms of the midterms. I don't know. I'm, I will say like I'm not a big poll watcher. I, I, I would have said just impressionistically, why would he bother canceling the
midterms? I I don't think the Democrats have really staged a significant opposition. I don't. I would like to think that there's going to be some seats shifting in the midterms, but are. You disappointed by that? Where is the fight back? It's really weird. There's just not even, you know, I teach at Harvard, as you say, and there's a lot obviously the administration has been attempting to do to destroy our university.
And you think about the, the scale of student protest over Gaza, you know, 2-3 years ago, encampments, protests, meetings, constant meetings and heartfelt but, but, and, and, you know, a, a terrible tragedy in Gaza. And, but I would say for many students, this place they'd never heard of before and their knowledge of it came from social media. And there are not students out in the campus quad right now protesting what the Trump administration is doing.
Does that surprise you? Does it disappoint? You it does. There's not. There's not organized civil unrest, civil disobedience. Like in the 60s. Yeah, and you might say, well, you know, then I can't protest Harvard. Harvard's like like protesting on the campus again, you know, with regard to Gaza is to protest Harvard, you know, kind of call for divestment. What are they going to be? They're not protesting the university, but you can still like. Why?
Why not? Why are they not doing that? This is my this is this. It really puzzles me or think about, you know, even just smaller I you know, you can understand why people are not able to protest ICE. The kind of crackdown, like the consequences of those kinds of protests are, would be would be borne by the most vulnerable people. The lack of the fight back is really striking. It's really striking that there's not street action. There's not just not just like
non violent. Especially compared to. Just in the streets. Can I, can I just ask you one final one from me. You know a lot you are fascinated by Elon Musk, aren't you, and his origin story. I know you've got a podcast on that. Just just like what is going on right now with him, do you think? And does he have any influence there? He was in the news recently because at the memorial following the brutal assassination of Charlie Kirk, he and Trump apparently had a
little chat. And so there was so much like twittering about, are they, are they making up? I think at the moment, you know, he has been rewarded with untold gazillions by Tesla for making I think a little bit more of a commitment to stay out of the limelight and do more for the
company. You know, I think Musk is a good representative of of the kind of political buffoonery, high celebrity, social media driven extremism that characterizes much of our political system and our political discourse right now. He is a creature of this. You know, I think people sort of forget that Musk became the modern version of Musk immediately following the insurrection on January 6th, 2021 when Trump was banned from social media. Remember, Trump had a huge
Twitter following. He was the loudest voice on Twitter. And then essentially the day he was banned, Musk kind of stepped in and he became the loudest voice on Twitter. And it's like not long after that that he decided he wanted to buy Twitter. I think they had, they have, they are, they are kind of peas in a pod in an interesting way. And I think both are are truly enthralled to the idea of their own power and their unique
importance. So I it was unsurprising to me that they broke up. I mean, we have not seen the last of Elon Musk's attempts to interfere with national and international political arrangements for sure. But but they both similarly have no real concern for basic constraints on power that might allow for a more just world. Just on that point, on my, my final question to you would be
this. You know, there's a real seriousness to how Americans view their own Republic, you know, whether it's in the courts or in the newspapers, you know, or in conversations, you know, in the schoolyard and so on. And Trump seems to be riding roughshod over so much of that. And of course, half the country is applauding it and the other half is appalled by it. Where do you see the push back to what many people regard as an existential battle for the
future of the Republic coming? Where is it coming from and will it succeed? This book came out a few weeks ago and I've been doing in between classes, you know, jumping on planes and going around the country and talking to audiences about the Constitution. And it's a self select. It's a book reading audience. You know, it's like a very unusual group of people that come to these events, but it's usually a large number of people. And we spent a lot of time in
Q&A. And I was in Seattle the other day. And the final question was essentially your question. Some guy said, geez, you know, I don't know. At this point, I don't think we even really have a constitution. And I don't know how we defend what we have when no one else is, you know, when when our elected leaders aren't abiding by it and the courts seem to be unconcerned about it. And we're not gathering in civil meetings to deliberate over it anymore.
Maybe we just need to, you know, take a completely different tactics to give up on the Constitution and come up with a different way of thinking about the future of this country. And I said, you know, that's I really appreciate the question is really good question. And so I thought, but with this, you know, 600 of us in this room, let's have have a vote.
So I called for, like, a voice vote of, like, do you think we should fight for the Constitution that we have and repairing it and seeking means by which our elected officials honor it, or do you think we should start again, whatever. And it wasn't just a resounding eye to the first question, like, people wanted to uphold the Constitution.
So there is, you know, among people that are going to go out of an evening to go here and talk about the Constitution, a kind of commitment to it that that I was really struck by. I thought there would be much more of like, oh, just we basically need some fresh start. So I don't, I, I wish I had a prediction for you. I don't.
I think there is a broad middle political middle in the United States that's often called the exhausted majority that just can't even participate in politics anymore because politics has become such a hideous playground. It's the worst system apart from all the others, as Church said about democracy. There we go. Jill Lepaul, thank you very much indeed for joining us. That was thank you. Fascinating. Thank you both. That was great from Jill Lepaul.
Really fascinating insights. That's it for this edition. Next week I will be on a Roman holiday, and I mean literally on holiday in Rome. So Anushka, the show is yours next week. Yeah, because I don't take holidays, Matt. I work hard apart from, as you are surely going to point out, the one I've kept coming up. Listen, I need you to help me out. Do get in touch with any questions you've got.
You can e-mail us on Trumpworld at channel4.com or leave us a comment on YouTube or Spotify. And if I can't answer the questions, I'll I'll just text you. Matt on holiday you don't mind of. Course, of course you will and and maybe my phone will just have to malfunction for a bit. Anyway, I'll see you soon. Thanks to all of you for listening and taking part. That's it from Anushka and me. That's it from Trump. World for another week. See you next Wednesday.