← Deadline: White House
Deadline: White House
“Retribution is everything”
00:42:44
Nicolle Wallace covers the Trump administration’s pattern of relentlessly seeking retribution on his perceived enemies. Whether it be universities, members of the Department of Justice, James Comey, Letitia James, or journalists, the second Trump term is defined by the pursuit of revenge.
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- [00:00]
Host
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Mike Schmidt
He did not hate his opponents.
- [01:12]
Host
He wanted the best for them.
- [01:15]
Mike Schmidt
That's where I disagreed with Charlie.
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Host
I hate my opponent and I don't want the best for them. I'm sorry.
- [01:26]
Moderator
Hi again everyone. It's now five o'clock in New York. To call that hatred a quirk or a bug on the part of Donald Trump isn't remotely strong enough. His motivation that's still underselling it. It is the central feature. It is the governing philosophy. Much more than a mindset for Trump in his second term. That hatred, that retribution, is the whole enchilada, the be all, end all, the lifeblood, the rocket fuel, the mo in a very dark period of American history that he has ushered in. It has driven nearly every appointment, every underqualified selection to lead an agency, every policy choice, every decision. And it connects nearly every tragic consequence. You can almost trace it with a finger up and down. An extraordinary new compendium of reporting in the New York Times, cataloging what the New York Times describes as, quote, one relentless year. You can see that obsession with revenge and retribution in the way Donald Trump has targeted his perceived enemies, the way he trained the awesome powers of the United States Department of Justice on people who once sought to hold him accountable. Jim Comey and Letitia James are among them. You can see that obsession with revenge and retribution in the way he purged the federal government of decades, centuries of experience for from anyone that was involved in investigating an attempted coup that he incited that took place on live tv. You can see it right there on your Screen undeniable that it happened. You can see it in the way that Donald Trump targeted law firms at the very beginning of his presidencies, universities at the very beginning, and corporations who might dare to get in his way or criticize him. You could see it in the way he remade the highest echelons of the United States military, how he gutted the intelligence agencies in his image. You can see it in the way he's deployed the National Guard to the streets of American cities. You can see it in the way he has used Immigrations and Customs Enforcement to go about sweeping deportations that have not spared American citizens. Tragically, it goes on and on and on and on and on. And retribution isn't a bug. It isn't a feature or, as I said, a quirk of Donald Trump's second term as president. It is the whole ball game. And we have reason to believe that he's only just begun. It's where we start today with some of our favorite reporters and friends. Voting rights attorney, founder of Democracy docket, Mark Elias is back. Former acting Assistant Attorney General for National Security, the Department of Justice, Mary McCord is here as well. Also joining us, New York Times investigative reporter Mike Schmidt is here at the table. You contributed to this report, to this extraordinary piece with your own piece on really, capitulation. Talk about the piece more broadly and then your contribution to it.
- [04:21]
Mike Schmidt
So our bureau chief in Washington, Dick Stevenson, and our visuals investigation visuals editor, Sarah Frostensen, asked different reporters who had covered different issues, where was the sort of turning point for that issue that occurred in the first year of the Trump presidency and the Trump. The issue was, is that there was a relentless nature to everything that went on. And because of that, there was a lot that people forgot about. There was so much that happened that it was so hard. So what these editors were saying to us were saying, okay, can you give us an anecdote? Can you give us a story? Can you tell us when you realized that the issue you were covering was so important or when it was really coming to the forefront or what really told the larger story? And for, for the story of retribution, I picked when Brad Karp went to the Oval Office, Brad Karp was the head of Paul Weiss. And up until the point that he had gone to the Oval Office, he had been essentially the de facto leader of the legal resistance against Trump. He prided himself on trying to harness the law against Donald Trump to stop him, whether that was using Paul Weiss to sue the administration in the first term or trying to provide prosecutors to These investigations that looked at Trump, Brad Karp was really someone who made himself the face of the legal resistance. And when Paul Weiss gets hit with the executive order by Donald Trump, which it said these law firms essentially couldn't represent their clients, Brad Karp didn't decide to fight. Brad Karp decided to go to the Oval Office and make a deal with Donald Trump. And that moment, to me, in which someone who had so publicly identified and called himself out as someone who was going to stand up to Trump.
- [06:17]
Host
When.
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Mike Schmidt
The bell called for him and he had to make a decision between standing up to Trump or his firm's profits, he decided to go with his firm's profits. And to me, that told the retribution story. That is the story of retribution, because the story of retribution is not just those who are targeted and fought back. It's how did those who were targeted decide to make deals? Why did they do what they did and how did they do that? And that was the anecdote that I used to try and tell my part that have cover of the Trump's first year in office.
- [06:50]
Moderator
I mean, Mark Elias, I know you have a lot of thoughts about the firms that decided not to fight, but we should say something about the firms that decided to fight. They're batting 1,000 in court. And I think it's Judge Beryl Howell who described what Mike's describing as these executive orders have put this in motion as, quote, chilling her to the bone. No judge has said that what Trump sought to do to the law firms was legal. So bradkarp took something that was on its face and rendered by now multiple federal judges illegal and capitulated. Anyway, why did that happen and why is it still happening?
- [07:24]
Host
So I think we need to distinguish two things. The first is, why did it happen in the moment with Brad Karp? And then, as you say, why is it continuing to happen? Because it happened in the moment for Brad Karp. Because big law has no moral compass. And as, as you know, as was said, this was someone who had built a business thinking that it would increase profits by seeming to stand up to Trump, who now saw that the way to build profits was to capitulate to Trump. And, you know, that's to Brad Karp's everlasting shame. He will be remembered by history as a coward. He has tarnished the name of one of the great law firms of the country. But what happens next, though, is really to me even more perplexing and shameful, which is a series of law firms that had never been targeted by Donald Trump. A series of law firms that had never been the subject of an executive order. They go in and they proactively make a deal. And that is where we go from what I call the capitulation phase to the collaboration phase. These are law firms that simply see a profit in making deals having never been targeted. And so much of the story of this year has been that it has been companies that have not been targeted by Donald Trump, but who have seen fit to up in the case of Tim Cook with a gold plated whatever and in the case of Swiss bankers, a gold bar and FIFA and a made up award. These are folks who have never been targeted. They are just saying we want in on the favoritism that comes with being on Team Trump.
- [09:04]
Moderator
I mean, Marco, I mentioned this in the last hour. Let me say it more bluntly with you. I am the only person in this conversation that's worked for a president at 35%. Here's what happens when you are at 35%. No one wants Air Force One to land in their congressional district ahead of the midterms because it has the stench of political unpopularity. You can't really get anything through Congress and you can't prevent, once you lose control of one of the two chambers, you can't prevent anything that you don't want from happening. Why is the corporate capitulation seem oblivious or detached from the political collapse of Donald Trump's approval rating with his own voters?
- [09:45]
Host
It's a great question and I think that it is because corporate America found it has found itself leaning towards an executive that is, that is expressing power beyond his own authority and is willing to use the bully pulpit to attack and go after his enemy. So it may be that Donald Trump is unpopular, but Donald Trump can still unleash the Department of Justice against you. He can still unleash various agencies against you. And so I think that's why the corporate community has, has gone the way that it has. But I want to make a prediction right here about big law firms. I bet you when we see the corporate, when we see the profits per partner come out from the American Lawyer which publishes them every year, next year you're going to see the law firms that stood up to Donald Trump doing just fine. You're not going to see a collapse in their profits. And you're going to see some of these big law firms, they'll do fine too. But I don't think they're going to do especially well. And that's because the what what clients expect from their lawyers is not just to manage the next quarter or the next business cycle, but to be voices that stand up for their clients through thick and thin. And if there's one thing that Paul Weiss and the others have shown is that they will not. They are not willing to stand up against. Against this administration. Let me give you one statistic that maybe will help frame the next, you know, if not hour, several. Several minutes. You know, the Department of justice has filed 22 lawsuits to seek the private voter information of every American in. In the country. My law firm, we have 60 lawyers. We've, we've intervened to fight against every one of them. Guess how many of those lawsuits? Any big law firm. Any big law firm, whether Paul Weiss or, you know, pick one. On who you think has stood up. How many have they been willing to intervene in? Zero. Not a single big law firm is fighting the Justice Department on behalf of any voter or any group anywhere in the country to prevent them from having access to the data. And that is a stark difference from where we were in 2021 and 2022, when big firms were tripping over themselves to fight for voting rights. They're all hiding right now.
- [11:57]
Moderator
I mean, Mary, to be really blunt, because on this second to last day of the first year of Trump's second term, if we can't be blunt now with Trump at 36% and plunging, when will the opportunity present itself? There are people that have disappeared from our airwaves. Right. And the most generous explanation is fear. The second is business interests. The third is the interests of the people for whom they work. But it is a reality. And I. I want to sort of own my piece of this. You know, we've covered Donald Trump's assault on the rule of law for nine years here with your help with Mike's reporting, and clearly it didn't resonate with the American people. Right. They sent him back to the White House for a second term, ostensibly because of their concerns about the economy and their faith in his ability to handle it better than his Democratic opponent. But this story about capitulation and obeying in advance crosses squarely into something totally different than just an attack on the rule of law. It is authoritarianism. It is oligarchy. It is these themes that Bernie Sanders and AOC and others have been rumbling about in our politics with increasing sort of resonance for years. And I wonder where you see the broader conversation about the rule of law as we head into his second year.
- [13:15]
Mark Elias
Yeah, there's so much there, right, to talk about. I mean, even just taking, you know, Mike's Reporting and the issue of the law firms capitulating. You know, one of the pillars of the rule of law is a fair system for adjudicating rights and responsibilities that involves independent, neutral, competent lawyers and judges. And when what the president tries to do is take half of the playing field off of the playing field, that half, meaning those who might actually sue him or oppose him, to take them off the playing field means you don't have a fair system of adjudicating because the. The courts rely on an adversarial system, right. Lawyers for each side arguing the facts and the law so that a judge has everything in front of the judge to make the right decision. When you put so much fear into law firms about their bottom line. Right. That they just capitulate, as we have seen, you're taking those lawyers off of that playing field. You're taking them out of court. And we've seen that. And Mark and I have talked about this before. It's not just those that capitulated who are not taking on so many cases against the government now. And there have been hundreds and hundreds and hundreds and many successful cases that have thwarted some of the most heinous excesses of this administration. But you are also chilling other law firms that haven't even been targeted. And he and I and many others know that there are people who were being represented, you know, pro bono by some of these other law firms who've been told, we can't represent you publicly anymore. And that has happened across a lot of areas. And there's the pressure on judges, too. You know, when we talk about retribution, don't forget him talking about judges like Judge Boasberg in Washington, D.C. who ordered the planes to be turned around, members of alleged members of Trend Aragua back to March. He called for his impeachment. So much so that the Supreme Court chief Justice had to sort of step in in a way he never does, and, and make a statement that that's not the proper response to a ruling that you don't like. But we've had and multiple, you know, statements like that from not only the president, but from his allies that suggest that they're really trying to intimidate judges into not issuing unfavorable rulings. So all of this, you know, is. Is a really stifling of First Amendment rights and other constitutional rights. And think about. You talked about similarly attacking journalists, pressuring pressure coming from the regulators. Right. The FCC against ABC for Jimmy Kimmel's, you know, comments after the President attacked him. So journalists in some cases are capitulating. We've seen big settlements for, you know, in cases of defamation brought by the president that I think were defensible cases we've seen. And I'm looking at my notes, I was making a little list, of course, retribution against Mr. Abrego Garcia, one of the men who was mistakenly deported to a terrorist training center. And why was he then criminally prosecuted? I mean, even a judge is having a hearing on a vintage vindictive prosecution motion because he wasn't prosecuted until after he successfully sued to end the U.S. supreme Court, said that administration had to facilitate his return. We're even seeing now remarkably retribution against blue states in terms of cutting off grants only to blue states. And the Department of Justice attorneys going into court last week or the week before admitting that it was one of the considerations in cutting off these grants only to blue states, the fact that they were states that voted primarily for Kamala Harris. I mean, this is just retribution through and through and through. And, you know, you overlay on top of that, things like renaming the Kennedy center, putting his name on the front of the Institute of Peace. You know, when are we going to have a big statute of Donald Trump in the middle of the National Mall? I mean, that's where I feel like we're headed. And that's a really scary thing.
- [17:20]
Moderator
I feel like if he's watching, someone will order the statue by the time we get off the air. I want to drill down with all of you how distinct that is from the first term, because retribution, you sort of had a question mark after it, Right? But it is Susie Wiles gives away the whole ball game. It is the operating principle. And it's all out in the open, as all of you have pointed out. So no one's going anywhere. We have much more to get to on this topic with our panel. Donald Trump's year of retribution, how some of the people who helped vault him to the presidency has since turned on him and said, ooh, I didn't think this is what I was signing up for, when in fact, it clearly was. Plus, 2025 has also been a year of rising resistance in surprising places, with millions of Americans taking to the streets for no Kings protest and many more taking the streets and standing up in support of a late night hope who Donald Trump tried to have canceled and fired. Also ahead, one of the most bizarre moments of the year, Donald Trump's absolute mushy slobbering love fest with mayor elects or Imam Downing here. There's new reporting today about just how much Donald Trump fancied the looks of New York City's mayor elect. What he said to him before the cameras started rolling on that extraordinary live event. We'll tell you about it later in the hour. Deadline White House continues after a quick break. Don't go anywhere.
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- [20:16]
Moderator
So of course, while Donald Trump's campaign of retribution is very real and very much ongoing, there is something else to consider. And it's the reality that it's not very popular. And many people who might have associated themselves with Donald Trump even this time last year are already having some second thoughts and saying so publicly. It's easy to see in the so called manosphere. Remember a guy named Theo Vaughn? He's a comedian and podcaster. He interviewed Donald Trump ahead of the election before then attending his inauguration. Well, in September, he asked the Department of Homeland Security to take down a video of immigration authorities making an arrest, one that included A clip of Theo Vaughan without his permission. And he isn't the only manosphere personality to, shall we say, evolve in his views about Donald Trump. Watch.
- [21:04]
Mike Schmidt
Mad go.
- [21:06]
Host
Nail pause coming off.
- [21:07]
Mike Schmidt
Al got like three more weeks of nail polish.
- [21:10]
Mark Elias
Trump's America.
- [21:11]
Mike Schmidt
Nail polish is done.
- [21:12]
Host
What are the new pronouns?
- [21:14]
Mike Schmidt
Akash, tell them the new pronouns.
- [21:15]
Mary McCord
Ma, ga, matt, guh. That one is all. That word is back.
- [21:21]
Mike Schmidt
Everything's back to that point. There'll be people that like, they'll DM me and be like, you see what, you see what your boy's doing? You voted for this. I'm like, I voted for none of this. He's doing the exact opposite of everything I voted for. I want him to stop the wars, he's funding them. I want him to shrink spending, reduce the. But he's increasing it. It's like everything that he said he's going to do except sending immigrants back and now he's even flip flopped on that, which I kind of like.
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Host
Everybody's watched presidents especially age radically, dramatically, and everyone but Trump.
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Moderator
Trump is kind of amazing.
- [21:56]
Host
Yeah, the foot dude just didn't age. It's so strange. It's like it barely affected him. She needs like a right hand man go, sir. I think they just let me just. I understand the motive well. He's also losing it too. You can tell. Well, I think everybody does when you.
- [22:11]
Moderator
Get to a certain age.
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Host
Yeah, right. Yeah, of course. I mean, the guy's about to be 80.
- [22:13]
Moderator
Right, right.
- [22:14]
Host
Let's just talk about the, the immigration thing.
- [22:16]
Mike Schmidt
The way it looks is horrific. It looks like it when you're just arresting people in front of their kids.
- [22:22]
Host
And just normal, regular people that have been here for 20 years that everybody who has a heart can't get along with.
- [22:30]
Moderator
That this is going to be the.
- [22:31]
Host
Most important election in the history of our country. I believe, I believe that too.
- [22:36]
Mike Schmidt
And I wish you the best of luck.
- [22:38]
Host
Thank you very much. I'm glad I'm here. Thank you so much.
- [22:41]
Moderator
Thank you.
- [22:42]
Host
Looking back, I don't, I don't, I don't, I don't. We didn't really have much of option here, but I mean, so we thought. But.
- [22:54]
Mike Schmidt
Nothing I voted for happened.
- [22:58]
Moderator
Marco Lias. I want to issue a disclaimer not playing those clips because any of those men are heroic. I'm playing those clips because all three of them contributed to Donald Trump's victory in an important way, in a way that maybe people like me didn't appreciate. But they were three very influential people in the podcast space. Joe Rogan has the biggest podcast in the country, maybe in the world. And to go from, I mean, I hope he cringes as much as I did. And I've never even met him that he ever said, quote, he didn't age at all. I mean, the first term, he might not have aged because he didn't work very hard, but to listen to him talk, he doesn't connect nouns and verbs inside sentences when he's talking about striking other countries. The idea that these guys sucked up to him and helped him win and have now, again, I don't know their purposes. I only see what his public facing can't get far enough away from. The stench of his political failures is stunning.
- [23:59]
Host
Yeah. And I think it connects with the first question you put to me about, you know, what is it about a politician at a 36% approval rating that has power over anyone?
- [24:09]
Mike Schmidt
Right.
- [24:10]
Host
I mean, in some respects, what these podcast hosts or video hosts are reflecting is that they are in the business of communicating and selling products and commanding attention to an audience. And if the audience doesn't like Donald Trump, I'm not saying that they are slavish to their audience, but they're influenced by it. So it's no surprise that you see a little bit of call and response between his lack of approval or his low ratings and, And. And the turning of people who were enthusiastic for him before the election. The question, though, to get back to what you originally asked is how come that is disconnected from the actions of the elites? And the elites are the law firms, the corporate leaders, the CEOs, the people trying to get mergers and acquisitions, the people trying to get high positions in government. You know, why is it that there is this disconnect where, you know, at the grassroots level, he is wildly unpopular, and that's showing itself out through culture. But yet you continue to see this, this obsequious and, you know, this collaborative behavior among the elites. And I think, honestly, it goes to show the level of corruption and lack of morality that has infected the upper echelons of our society.
- [25:37]
Moderator
Mike, you've covered the law firms that capitulated, and you've covered the work that they're now on the hook to do for this Trump administration with plunging approval ratings. But you've also covered universities that have done deals, basically paid bribes to the Trump administration, among them reporting that Harvard is still negotiating with them. Why is that?
- [25:55]
Mike Schmidt
Look, from Harvard's perspective, they would say that they have been hit so hard by the Trump administration that there's nothing that they can do besides Make a deal to get out from underneath that. Now people will say, well, Harvard, you have the largest endowment out of any university in the country. You have an extremely deep well of alumni, students and faculty that you can rely on in an array of different ways. Why would you want to make this deal? And what has happened is that Harvard had more pressure points than maybe any other institution outside the government. And the fact that it touches the federal government in ways, whether it's on visas for students, whether it's on research funding, which is the lifeblood of a university and which I didn't even appreciate until I started covering it, is that how much of Harvard is a public institution in the sense of how much of its money for research comes from the federal government, and that in academia especially, that research money is so important to them, and it's sort of like the profits at a law firm that they are willing to negotiate with Donald Trump to do that. Harvard has faced a whole of government approach from the Trump Justice Department, all but a criminal investigation into them. There's all these different wide ranging civil investigations into them in which they're using everything from the Justice Department to the Commerce Department to go after it. I'm still surprised in some ways that Harvard is open to doing a deal and wants a deal so badly. But I think that speaks to the enormous amount of leverage that the administration and Trump have over Harvard because of the exposure Harvard had, because of the fact that Harvard was so reliant on the federal government, much more so than the average American corporation or even a law firm. And that is why I think you've seen so many different universities fall into place. Like maybe you could say the University of Virginia. These institutions were afraid of receiving the Harvard treatment. They were afraid of receiving this whole of government approach where Trump was going to use all the different departments that he could to civilly investigate them.
- [28:11]
Moderator
Are they worried, though, that people won't want to go to Harvard if they pay a bribe to Trump?
- [28:16]
Mike Schmidt
Are they worried they want to go.
- [28:19]
Moderator
But I think they could always round up.
- [28:23]
Mike Schmidt
I don't know. I think that the calculation of doing a deal with Trump today, I think is different than it was earlier this year. I think that when Trump came out, like when they started, yeah, when Trump came out of the gate, I think that it really scared a lot of different people in a lot of different ways because it was unlike anything we had seen before, getting back to the idea of this relentless year. And I think that because of that, you saw a type of behavior from institutions and individuals that we had never seen before. And I think the climate is a little different today.
- [28:56]
Moderator
Yeah, it's slowed, it's not abated. All right, everyone sticks around when we come back. As we're inching toward the resistance, how that rose up with force that a lot of people didn't see coming exactly when it did against the President with clearly autocratic impulses from the Jimmy Kimmel firing to the no King protests. Where the resistance goes from here, that's next.
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Moderator
Wait maybe what time again?
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- [31:13]
Moderator
So while Donald Trump's wildly and increasingly unpopular brand of governing and rising authoritarianism took hold and took shape, 2025 was also the year that the resistance emerged very clearly from unexpected places, from the people. The people stood up. People became the resistance against everything we've been talking about, everything that has gone wrong. And it's become a major pillar of our politics right now. The people are exactly what has gone right. And the people are the reason that any of us can feel hopeful about what's going to happen next. What looked like to be thousands of protests for months leading up to a single day in which 7 million people took to the streets in more than 2,000 cities in every corner of our country. It also looked like Republican majority legislatures in Indiana, for example, refusing Donald Trump's very public pressure campaign to redraw their districts, their maps, to get rid of Democratic leaning districts there. Judges and grand juries who've refused sometimes more than once, to go along with the political prosecutions of Donald Trump's perceived political enemies without any credible evidence. There's also the very public defiance from late night hosts across the networks before and even after Stephen Colbert's cancellation. And the millions of viewers at home who went online and figured out how to cancel their Disney Hulu streaming subscriptions in protest of Jimmy Kimmel's suspension. It culminated in Kimmel's first monologue back on the air. 18 minutes of gratitude and sympathy and rebellious defense of the right to free speech. We're back with Mark, Mary and Mike. Mary, I feel like I've been asking you for nine years, where is everybody? Where is Jack Smith? Where is Robert Miller? Where are all the people who know the details and the ins and outs of all the crimes Donald Trump allegedly committed and so far have been unable for a variety of reasons to hold him accountable? It feels like the public internalized that and said, well, if not Robert Mueller, if not Jack Smith, then we'll do it. And the fact that more Americans right now identify as part of the no Kings movement than MAGA is extraordinary.
- [33:29]
Mark Elias
Yeah. And, you know, you left out one who also didn't do it, which was Congress. Right. Congress had its opportunity twice, a couple proceedings. And so I think you're right. I think a couple things are happening. The reasons that people voted for Donald Trump, which are still in many ways unfathomable to me. But those reasons, as your earlier segment showed, haven't necessarily panned out. A lot of it, I think, was supposedly economic. And of course, there are people that are suffering as much or worse now, economically and financially than they were in previous administrations. Farmers are really seeing that they don't have the manpower to do the farming that they need to do. And tariffs are just Devastating them. Small businesses being devastated by tariffs and also by the lack of manpower because of this mass deportation plan. So I think people are starting to realize that Donald Trump was not the, you know, the economic savior they thought he would be. And maybe they're starting to see some of these other things. This with all of the excesses, with all of the overreach and no constraints, Congress being unwilling. The courts, lower courts for sure, have been constraining, but in oftentimes, their rulings constraining the president have been stagnant. Aid by the Supreme Court, not so a week ago. With respect to the National Guard deployments, I will say that was a, you know, a good bright light there. Where there is a. There is a limit on what he can do. But I think people, you know, I don't think people want to live under someone who can do whatever he wants and have no constraints. And I think we're starting to see that come out. And what do the people have. They do have the right to vote. They know this is a midterm year. Coming up won't mean that, you know, a president is on the ballot, but they have power there to say, we want something else from Congress. We want something else for the policies that apply to all of us. And, you know, we want to exercise these rights. And so for all of what we've been talking about, about retribution, intimidation and threats, that definitely do have an impact on people's comfort in exercising their constitutional rights. There are also. There's also been the buildup of resistance by those who said, you will not silence me. You will not silence me.
- [35:47]
Moderator
Yeah. I mean, Margaret, I think we share a belief that the Kimmel story was really important. I think it made clear what people were for and there were for free speech. Let me show you Kimmel and Colbert having some of that conversation.
- [36:02]
Mike Schmidt
He was somehow able to squeeze is.
- [36:08]
Host
Colbert out of cbs. Then he turned his sights on me.
- [36:12]
Mike Schmidt
And now he's openly rooting for NBC.
- [36:14]
Host
To fire Jimmy Fallon and Seth Meyers and the hundreds of Americans who work for their shows who don't make millions of dollars. And I hope that if that happens or if there's even any hint of that happening, you will be 10 times as loud as you were this week.
- [36:31]
Mark Elias
Did you ever think the President of.
- [36:33]
Host
The United States would be celebrating your unemployment? I mean, that son of a bitch, you know, is really unbelievable. Mr.
- [36:44]
Mike Schmidt
Son of a bitch.
- [36:45]
Moderator
I mean.
- [36:45]
Mike Schmidt
I mean, mister.
- [36:46]
Host
Mr. Son of a bitch. His royal. Yes.
- [36:49]
Mike Schmidt
No.
- [36:49]
Host
I never imagined that we'd ever have a president like this, and I hope we don't ever have another president like this again.
- [36:58]
Mike Schmidt
I mean, I never imagined, I never.
- [37:01]
Host
Even imagined there would ever be a.
- [37:02]
Mike Schmidt
Situation in which the president of our country was celebrating hundreds of Americans losing their jobs. Somebody who took pleasure in that.
- [37:11]
Host
That to me, is the absolute opposite.
- [37:14]
Mike Schmidt
Of what a leader of this country is supposed to be.
- [37:19]
Moderator
And just to underscore what a moment this was in the resistance mark, 3 million Americans canceled Disney in September from a three month average of 1.2 million. Disney owned Hulu had 4.1 million cancellations in the United States, more than double that they'd had before that. And regardless of what any of us think about those numbers, Bob Iger saw those numbers in reverse. Course.
- [37:45]
Host
Yeah, you know, I began the year talking to you about how I thought what we needed was a new opposition movement. And we talked a lot about that throughout the year. And by the end of the year, what I realized is that new movement is defined more than anything else by dignity. You know, dignity is something that can only be surrendered. It can't be taken away from you. You know, the government could take your money, the government can prevent you from murdering, the government can put pressure on your law firm or your university, but it can't take away your dignity. Only you can surrender your dignity. And what we saw this year was that there was kind of an inverse relationship between the value people put on dignity with how wealthy and powerful they are. So the, the people who own, you know, ABC and settled nonsense lawsuit and then came down on Jimmy Kimmel. They may have a lot of money, but they were willing to sacrifice their dignity. Let's be honest, CBS News seems to be in the perpetual dignity forfeiting business, you know, through their various ownerships and ways of going after 60 Minutes. And you're right, the average Americans that we saw turn out at no Kings protests and who canceled their subscript to streaming services and who stood in line, you know, to make sure that their witness was being born in courthouses and videotaped and blew whistles. When people were in their communities, those people showed remarkable dignity and they were not willing to forfeit it. So as we head towards 2026, I think that, you know, we need to recognize not just who was strong and who was weak and who stood tall and who bent a knee, but really that is a reflection of the self worth that people put on themselves and the lack of self worth that so many in positions of great power don't put on themselves or on or on the American public.
- [39:46]
Moderator
That's a really profound way of looking at it. Thank you all so much for having this conversation. Marc Elias, Mary McCord, Mike Schmidt. Thank you. When we come back, just when you thought the love fest between Donald Trump and New York Mayor elect Soram Donnie couldn't get it any stranger, what Donald Trump told the mayor elect in the Oval Office before the cameras were rolling takes the cake. We'll tell you about it next. At exactly midnight Thursday, January 1, 2026, Oran Mamdani will be sworn in as the new mayor of New York City. For the ceremony, Mamdani chose the underground old City hall subway station that he says serves as an historic symbol of the promise for the lives of working people in the city. It's not exactly surprising. Mamdani built his entire campaign around the plight of working class New Yorkers and working families, making 2025 the year that a populist on the left with affordability as his number one. Two in three campaign issues not only charmed New Yorkers and prevailed, but also turned or publicly charmed the resistant and once harsh critic Donald Trump. Now, New York magazine is reporting this about their memorable meeting last month in the Oval Office. Quote, when Mamdani walked into the Oval Office, Donald Trump remarked, quote, wow, you are even better looking in person than you are on tv, end quote. The tone never changed from there, with Trump seeming legitimately impressed by Mamdani that we all witnessed as soon as the cameras arrived and started rolling. Watch.
- [41:25]
Host
He really ran an incredible race against.
- [41:27]
Mike Schmidt
You know, a lot of smart people.
- [41:29]
Host
Starting with the early primaries against some.
- [41:31]
Mike Schmidt
Very tough people, very smart people. And he beat them.
- [41:34]
Host
And he beat them easily.
- [41:35]
Mike Schmidt
Would you feel comfortable living in New.
- [41:37]
Host
York City under a Madani administration?
- [41:39]
Mike Schmidt
Yeah, I would. I really would.
- [41:40]
Host
Especially after the meeting.
- [41:42]
Mike Schmidt
Absolutely.
- [41:43]
Host
What makes you comfortable? We agree on a lot more than.
- [41:46]
Mike Schmidt
I would have thought.
- [41:47]
Moderator
Are you affirming that you think President Trump is a fascist?
- [41:51]
Mary McCord
I've spoken about.
- [41:52]
Mike Schmidt
That's okay.
- [41:52]
Host
You can just say yes.
- [41:53]
Mike Schmidt
Okay.
- [41:54]
Host
It's easier. It's easier than explaining it. I don't mind.
- [42:00]
Moderator
I want to bring in New York Times opinion writer, political analyst Margay Mar. This remains to me one of the most extraordinary live events I've ever covered, proving that one, Donald Trump doesn't believe anything he says. He said some of the most racist and horrible things about Sora, Mom, Dani that he said about anyone over the last year. And that's hard to do. And he was so completely disarmed and charmed. Basically told me he was hot, better looking than he thought and that he was a winner and that it was okay to call him a fascist. What explains that to you and what does it say about what we're about to see as New Yorkers?
- [42:39]
Mary McCord
Yeah, that was a high wire act, for sure, that both men engaged in still making sense of and processing that meeting. I mean, first of all, it's definitely true that Donald Trump can be very charming, just as Zoramdani can be when the cameras are off. So from that perspective, you're right. I mean, we're seeing somebody who, I don't think this is a budding bromance, but it may have been on that day they charmed one another. Mamdani charmed him. As a black American, I can tell you that it's much easier for people to spew racist hate when they're not standing in front of you. And so what is actually in Donald Trump's heart? It's only for him and God to know. But I think when the mayor elect was in front of him, he was clearly disarmed really by that charm offensive that Mamdani played out not only in the Oval Office, but throughout New York City, throughout the Democratic Party. He's a highly skilled, highly talented operator. The other thing behind the scenes, of course, is that Donald Trump, I think, really, we know, recognizes strength. And so Mamdani has been projecting somebody who's willing to stand up to him, who's willing to stand up to a bully, in this case, to a fascist, in his view and in mine as well. And I think that, you know, that's something that Trump respects. Also. Donald Trump is, of course, in a moment, a vulnerability with his own base and coalition. And I think one of the interesting aspects of Mamdani, I don't know that this is translating nationally, but the coalition that he put together here in New York is far more ideologically and racially diverse than anything we've seen in the city, at least in a long time. And it really has a roadmap for the rest of the Democratic Party. And these are voters that actually Donald Trump needs to keep in his base, that he's weak with, with the Epstein files, with affordability. I mean, this is somebody who certainly, I think the President, United States sees as could, someone who could be useful. And then there's just the element of New York. Donald Trump loves New York City. Even when he, you know, hurts New York City, he still kind of has his mind in the New York city of the 80s. And I think that the two of them behind the scenes did talk a lot about real estate development in New York, about the subways, about the city, things that brought Donald Trump back to a place that's comfortable for him. And on top of this, I really wouldn't discount the fact that as Donald Trump did tell the mayor elect, you know, you're good looking in person. I mean, game recognizes game, as we've been saying, count for some time.
- [45:26]
Moderator
What's amazing though is that, and maybe I consumed too much right wing media, he deprived Fox News of a major peg pillar of their programming by falling in love publicly with our new mayor.
- [45:40]
Mary McCord
Well, that's true. I mean, it also shows you that Donald Trump is able to have a long leash with his base because he made them. And so this was a decision that knocked not only liberals and the media off kilter, but it knocked Donald Trump's own kind of, you know, the media apparatus that helped make him president off kilter. Fox News didn't quite know what to do. Conservative columnists didn't know, know quite what to make of this. And the funny thing is, you know, we have seen that play out. People come out of meetings with the mayor elect from the real estate industry.
- [46:14]
Moderator
From business, from Wall Street.
- [46:16]
Mary McCord
They say, actually, gosh, he was making a lot of sense. It doesn't always happen. Not everyone has been charmed by him and he's got a lot to prove. He's got to prove he can govern. But so much of the focus has been on, I think, really silly questions. So that the hard questions, the real test is whether he can actually achieve any of these huge promises that he has made to New Yorkers. Free buses, freezing the rent, you know, bringing down the cost of living and of course, childcare.
- [46:48]
Moderator
Margaret, we're going to turn to you to stay on top of all those important issues. Thank you so much for joining us today. One more break, we'll be right back. Thank you so much for letting us into your homes today. We are grateful. Hey, Riley herbst here with 2311 racing, waiting for the bus, staring at traffic crawl hard pass.
- [47:09]
Mike Schmidt
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Moderator
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Mike Schmidt
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