D (3:27)

You know, Tim, I am just oftentimes reminded that rarely what Donald Trump does, what his administration is doing is original, that he is. They kind of like, comb through history's greatest hits, whether we're talking about history's dictatorship, dictators, or things that they've seen in America previously. And what is happening right now with his attempted, well, not even attempted, these military deployments, the president literally turning on American citizens, calling them the enemies within. It reminds me of during the Wilson administration, during World War I, where dissent was criminalized, where it wasn't violence. That was the concern from the Wilson administration. It was people who were speaking out against the president during that time. Journalists were jailed, newspapers were threatened and shut down. Activists who were speaking out against the war were put into jail for long periods of time. One gentleman served 10 years. And the whole thing was about looking for the enemies within this country. It sounds very similar to what the President of the United States not just says he wants to do, but is attempting to. To operationalize. And I just. I want to shake people, Tim, because it's like, oh, baby, it might not be. It might not be maybe about to happen. We are living it. And so folks have to be aware. But am I just Am I being dramatic?

B (4:52)

Well, I mean, we're not there yet. You're not being dramatic to warn about it at all. And I think that it's a legitimate thing to be concerned about. I look at, you know, their testing ground a lot of times is with immigrants. Right. Look at what they're doing at the border, you know, with folks that are coming in on visas right now. And Marco Rubio just says this, this isn't, this is out in the open. That basically if you're coming into this country on a visa, they're going to look at your phone and see if you've posted anything nasty about the state of Israel or Charlie Kirk or Donald Trump. Like, honestly. And if so, they're not going to let you in. That is not how America has worked. We have to worry about that stuff at the border. And I just went to Canada for a Bulwark show and our lawyers are like, you should turn your phone off so they can't look through social media at the border. That's insane that that's where we are in this country right now. And so is that going to come to domestic Americans? I don't know. We'll see. Is it going to come to US Citizens? I don't know. We'll see. I think it's good to warn about just one really quick thing. When you mentioned history, though, I also think it's important to talk about, like there has not been an example of the president going into a state over the objection of the state's governors and local politicians with National Guard troops since the civil rights era. Came back. In the civil rights era, it made sense, right? This is, you know, we're going into Alabama, you know, because the protest.

D (6:06)

To enforce the civil rights law.

B (6:07)

Yeah, yeah, to enforce civil rights laws. That was the last time it happened. It hasn't happened since then. And now Donald Trump is doing this over the objections of the local officials in Illinois, Oregon and California. Like, premised on what? Based on what? Like an imaginary emergency, rather than just doing what they could do, which is if they really did care about violence in the streets of those cities, they could just pass a bill right now through Congress. They control everything that funds more police officers and go get well trained people and put them into those. Like they could do that if they wanted to. There have been cops acts before, but they are doing this and they're using that precedent, which is, which is not. And like you said, it's happened before in history. But to do it such as this with no actual emergency is really without precedent.

D (6:50)

This is Doge by another name. And if you really think about it, remember, Doge was unpopular. The reason, the reason Elon Musk even had the unmitigated gall to tell us that President Trump was in the Epstein files was because he was excommunicated from the inter circle, from polite society of this Trump administration White House because he became untenable and what he was doing was unpopular. That's why he's out. And so I do think here that people have to remember that like Russ Bolt, this is actually the same guy that. Remember when he shut down that Medicaid portal early on in the administration and Republicans and Democrats were calling up the White House saying, you gotta get this back online. I'm hearing from the folks in my state, Russ Vote thought he was on solid ground then, but because the people pushed back, because the members also raised their voices, within hours the decision was reversed. And so I do think here that there is a chance here that Mr. Vodt is not on solid ground and that just like the President turned on Elon Musk, he will turn on him as well.

B (7:56)

Well, I'm not sure about what the President's relationship with Russ Vote is and how that's going. I do agree with the point that just like Doge, this is what they want to do. Like they want to dismantle the phrase that Steve Bannon always uses, dismantle the administrative state. That's what they're there to do. That's what Doge was, and that's what Russell Vote is there to do. And I think the only difference this time is that they're trying to blame the Democrats for it to do what they already wanted. You know, I'm not as good a reporter as Vaughn, so I didn't write the quote down, but Caroline Levitt this morning was out there and essentially said something to the effect of, like, the pain is gonna continue until the Democrats have an agreement with you.

C (8:31)

Do you wanna listen to the sound? Cause they got it for Caroline Levitt. Look, it's likely going to be in the thousands. It's a very good question. And that's something that the Office of Management and Budget and the entire team at the White House here again is unfortunately having to work on today. These discussions and these conversations, these meetings would not be happening if the Democrats had voted to keep the government open.

B (8:52)

Yeah. And she goes on from that. The point with that quote is it's crazy that they're just basically like, look, there's going to be pain. We're happy about the pain kind of. And it's the Democrats fault. If they want to stop the pain, they have to go into the table. They're just admitting that, like the White House just admitting people are suffering because of this, but they don't care. I guess you got to give them credit for the brazenness and for the, you know, for being candid. But like, that's their position right now on the shutdown. They want to cut these jobs and they don't really care if people are going to be harmed by it.

E (9:22)

The headline that sort of encapsulates everything we've been talking about and especially the last point there, they've got it all. The White House, the Congress, the Senate. They've capped the Judiciary. You know, they've said, the court has said, hey, you can do whatever you want. The headline that strikes, strikes me on all of this right now is the one that reads, the White House uses shutdown to maximize pain and political punishment.

B (9:49)

Yeah.

E (9:49)

Because at the end of the day, that has been the end game. It is the retribution model. It is the pain part is we're going to blame that on the Democrats. I'm getting what I want. The party is, as I said before, they are concerned until they aren't, and they largely aren't.

B (10:08)

They're unapologetic about it. And that's it. It is retribution. Like right now they're trying to blame the Democrats, but I mean, it's kind of silly. It's an evidence. It's really just a fig leaf. Right. They are thrilled to cut funding right here in New York for the transportation. They're thrilled to cut funding to these environmental projects. Even if it's working. Americans that are working on that. Some people have voted for Donald Trump. You know, we covered that at the Bulwark. That's what they want to do. That's their agenda and we'll see if it pans out for them. They think that it's a winner.

E (10:36)

Well, we'll see because right now the American people are losing.

A (10:39)

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