“Warnings coming from inside the house”

Summary

Deadline: White House Episode: “Warnings coming from inside the house”
Release Date: August 11, 2025
Host: Nicolle Wallace, MSNBC

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Introduction

In this compelling episode of Deadline: White House, host Nicolle Wallace delves into the escalating concerns surrounding President Donald Trump's administration. Drawing insights from esteemed guests—Professor Justin Wolfers, New York Times opinion writer Mara Gay, Princeton University professor Eddie Glaude, and historian David Firestone—the discussion unpacks the intricate web of Trump's economic policies, centralization of power, and his administration's attempts to reshape American history and culture.

Trump’s Economic Policies and Their Impact

The conversation kicks off with an analysis of President Trump's economic strategies, particularly his use of tariffs and their repercussions on both the domestic and global economy.

Justin Wolfers criticizes the unpredictable nature of Trump's tariff policies:

"[...] it's the sort of thing that slows down economic growth over a generation, not over a day, a week or a year." ([06:08])

Mara Gay highlights the tangible effects of these tariffs on everyday Americans:

"Consumers face an overall average effective tariff rate of 18.6%, the highest since '19. This is significant for back-to-school shoppers right now." ([07:53])

Eddie Glaude emphasizes the strain on small businesses and the broader labor market:

"Higher costs and unpredictability are rippling through the labor market. I would hire two more today if I knew that I could afford to keep them." ([09:38])

Centralization of Power and Economic Control

The discussion shifts to the alarming centralization of power within the White House and its implications for capitalism and market dynamics.

Justin Wolfers articulates the dangers of crony capitalism under Trump's administration:

"A functioning capitalism is one in which the President's never talking to any individual CEO... This White House has made it absolutely clear [...] if you want to succeed in the market, you need the approval of the President." ([13:59])

Eddie Glaude warns of the long-term peril this poses to democratic institutions:

"This is a president who increasingly is making moves that don't make sense within the context of electoral politics and at the same time is pursuing a strategy to not only consolidate power, but to remove the ability of the American people to hold him and people in that movement accountable at the polls." ([18:14])

Public Sentiment and Political Fallout

The episode examines public dissatisfaction with Trump's policies, supported by polling data and expert analysis.

Mara Gay cites an AP poll revealing widespread disapproval:

"Only about 1/4 of US adults think his policies are helping them. Roughly half say his policies have done more to hurt them." ([05:00])

Justin Wolfers connects economic mismanagement to declining voter support:

"If you think about the far deeper things... you're going to see the effect in a couple of months time." ([06:08])

Cultural Revolution and Historical Revisionism

A significant portion of the episode addresses Trump's efforts to rewrite American history and influence cultural institutions.

David Firestone explains the administration's initiatives:

"They announced that they wanted to fire the head of the National Portrait Gallery... They are starting to collect examples of this kind of disparagement of history from all the National Park Service monuments." ([35:18])

Mara Gay queries the implications of altering historical narratives:

"What role does all this play, erasing our history?" ([37:09])

David Firestone elaborates on the dangers of historical erasure:

"They reject the idea of America as on the road to being a more perfect union. They reject more perfect union talk... it's part of Project 2025." ([39:46])

The Path Forward and Democratic Resilience

As the episode nears its conclusion, the panel discusses potential responses to these authoritarian tendencies and the importance of safeguarding democratic norms.

Eddie Glaude calls for collective action:

"It's time for everybody to stand up before no one will be able to say anything within a democratic context." ([18:14])

David Firestone reflects on historical parallels and the urgency of the moment:

"What we're seeing is very clear. The Trump administration and his minions, they reject the idea of America as on the road to being a more perfect union." ([39:46])

Conclusion

Nicolle Wallace wraps up the episode by underscoring the critical need for awareness and action among Americans to counteract the administration's destabilizing policies. The discussions illuminate the profound economic and cultural challenges facing the nation, urging listeners to remain informed and engaged in the democratic process.

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Notable Quotes with Timestamps:

• Justin Wolfers ([06:08]): "It's the sort of thing that slows down economic growth over a generation, not over a day, a week or a year."
• Mara Gay ([07:53]): "Consumers face an overall average effective tariff rate of 18.6%, the highest since '19."
• Eddie Glaude ([09:38]): "Higher costs and unpredictability are rippling through the labor market."
• Justin Wolfers ([13:59]): "This White House has made it absolutely clear... if you want to succeed in the market, you need the approval of the President."
• Eddie Glaude ([18:14]): "This is a president who increasingly is making moves that don't make sense within the context of electoral politics."
• David Firestone ([35:18]): "They are starting to collect examples of this kind of disparagement of history from all the National Park Service monuments."
• Eddie Glaude ([18:14]): "It's time for everybody to stand up before no one will be able to say anything within a democratic context."

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This episode serves as a profound examination of the internal warnings within the administration, shedding light on the systemic shifts that may have long-lasting implications for America's economic stability and democratic integrity.

Transcript

[Nicole Wallace]

Deadline. White House is brought to you by Progressive, where drivers who save by switching save nearly $750 on average. Plus auto customers qualify for an average of 7 discounts. Quote [e-mail] to see if you could save Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates national average 12 month savings of $744 by new customers surveyed who save with Progressive between June 2022 and May 2023. Potential savings will vary. Discounts not available in all states and situations. Saturday, October 11th from New York City, it's MSNBC Live 25. Join your favorite MSNBC hosts Rachel Maddow, Joe Scarborough, Mika Brzezinski, Nicole Wallace, Ari Melber, Alicia Menendez, Simone Sanders Townsend, Michael Steele, Chris Haynes, jen Psaki, Lawrence O', Donnell, Stephanie Ruhle and more. Visit msnbc.comlive25 to buy your tickets. Today.

[Justin Wolfers]

We actually had a very good relationship, President Xi and myself. Somebody said, what kind of a man is he? He's a fierce person. He is. He's a very smart guy. I hate to say brilliant because every.

[Mara Gay]

Time I call him brilliant, the press.

[Justin Wolfers]

Is he, said the president, well, he is a brilliant guy, got 1.4 billion people. He rules it with an iron fist. And the press gets upset when I say he's a smart man.

[Mara Gay]

Hi again, everybody. It's five o' clock in the East. Now. It's not that we are clutching our pearls about the B word for brilliant. The reason the press reacts the way it does when Donald Trump fawns over China's President Xi is the iron fist part because China is a country without democracy, without free markets, without a free press, hallmarks of what has been America's government, America's society, America's identity. But this time around, there are warnings coming from inside the house, voices that are typically friendly to Trump or tolerant of Trump, that are warning of Trump's slide towards socialism and bribery and, dare I say, communism. The Wall Street Journal reports this, quote, a generation ago, conventional wisdom held that as China liberalized, its economy would come to resemble America's. Instead, capitalism in America is starting to look like China. The Journal is referring to what it describes as state capitalism, a hybrid between socialism and capitalism and in which the state guides the decisions of normally private enterprises, end quote. We're watching that happen in action in front of our eyes as news on Friday revealed that makers of AI chips, Nvidia and AMD have agreed to pay the US government 15% of their revenue from sales in China. Washington Post reports on how that's being received. Quote, in addition to the policy problems. The US Constitution flatly forbids export taxes, said Peter Harnell, the the White House senior director for international economics under the Biden administration. In a Sunday post on social media, Christopher Padilla, a top export control official in the George W. Bush administration, echoed those fears. Quote, export controls are in place to protect national security, not raise revenue for the government. Padilla said the arrangement seems like bribery or blackmail or both, end quote. So you got a Biden guy and a Bush guy who don't think it's a very good idea. But as Donald Trump extends more state power over markets and wreaks havoc on the global trade system with his tariffs and cuts taxes for the billionaires with his party's latest big beautiful bill, he's betraying his own voters. He's betraying his central campaign promise to make life more affordable in the United States of America. In a recent AP poll, only about 1/4 of US adults think his policies are helping them. That survey finds that roughly half say his policies have, quote, done more to hurt them. Annie Lowry at the Atlantic calls Trump a degrowther. She writes, quote, without admitting it, the White House is pursuing a multi pronged strategy to raise prices, suppress consumption, freeze production and lower productivity in the U.S. unlike typical de growthers with their focus on long term human flourishing and the conservation of the planetary ecosystem, Trump is engaged in financial nihilism. The President has at least once admitted that his policies will lead to Americans having less instead of more. Maybe the children will have two dolls instead of 30 dolls, you know, and maybe the two dolls will cost a couple of bucks more than they would normally, end quote, if only pricier dolls were the worst of it. Trump's broken promise of a strong economy and his ultimate betrayal of the MAGA voter is where we begin the hour with some of our favorite experts and friends. Professor of Economics and Public Policy at the University of Michigan Justin Wolfers is back. Also joining us, New York Times opinion writer MSNBC contributor Mara Gay is here and Princeton University professor MSNBC contributor Eddie Glad joins us. Justin, so much of what passed as passable or tolerable or what was laundered in Trump 1.0 on the op ed pages of the Wall Street Journal was the he's bad but part of Trumpism. He's bad for firing Comey, but the economy's hot. He's bad for norms, but he's good for the economy. He's bad for the rule of law. He's bad for Russia's ability to control the right wing MAGA conversations around Russia. But he's good for the economy. He's obliterated all the buts. He is destroying the US economy. He's going to hurt people who put their economic anxiety and hopes in him. Why? Why?

[Justin Wolfers]

I think none of us know there. You might need a psychiatrist, not an economist. But it's definitely occurring. And I think the thing that makes it all the harder is it's occurring in slow motion. For instance, all the hullabaloo about tariffs blew up in April, but they really only went into effect three days ago. And so we're finally going to see the effect in a couple of months time. If you think about the far deeper things, the things you were just talking about, which is the centralization of power in the White House, the movement away from markets towards a command and control, that's the sort of thing that slows down economic growth over a generation, not over a day, a week or a year. And so if I were forced to answer your why question, what we're seeing here is not an economic theory. What we're seeing is someone who loves power. The problem with centralizing power is we do have economic theories about that. That's a command and control economy. If Nvidia wants to do work, they have to call the White House. If Coke wants to figure out how much sugar to put in their beverage, they have to call the White House. If Harvard wants to know who to hire next, they have to call the White House. If intel wants to know who the next CEO is, they have to call the White House. And on and on and on it goes.

[Mara Gay]

Let me ask you to explain what it means now that we have, as you said, the tariff debacle is a slow motion car crash, I think we can call it. But this is where, according to the Yale Budget Lab, as of August 7, consumers face an overall average effective tariff rate of 18.6%, the highest since 19, which is obviously significant for folks who watch and warn about tariffs. What does that mean for shoppers and especially back to school shoppers who are really out there right now?

[Justin Wolfers]

Well, it means that as you go to the store, you're going to start to see, you're starting to see a little bit, but you'll see even more of these prices creeping up and up and up. And look, many of my friends on the right say, well, if you want to avoid paying tariffs by American, here's the problem with that. As soon as, for instance, Samsung raises their price on imported washing machines because they have to pay the tariffs, do you know what General Electric does The American made washes go up just as quickly and we're already seeing the same thing happening with cars and across the board. So this is something that's going to undermine a range of industries and not just foreign goods, because a lot of American made goods are made with imported raw materials, they're made with imported machinery and so on. The one thing I want to remind you of, and this is why it matters so much more than any previous inflation, when we had inflation during the pandemic, it's the form of inflation where prices go up, therefore the boss has got a bit more money. Therefore eventually they'll lead your wage to go up with tariffs. Costs are going up, the boss has got no more money. You will not get a wage rise to help you catch up for this increase in the cost of living.

[Mara Gay]

So, Mara, whether people are feeling that yet or understand all this yet or have sort of heard the message loud and clear or not isn't clear to me. But this is how people feel about grocery shopping. 86% of all Americans say grocery shopping is stressful for them. 53% say it's a major source of stress. 33% say it's a minor source of stress. Only 14% of all Americans say the cost of eggs and other groceries are not a source of stress for them. So it took him six months to completely betray almost 90% of all Americans.

[Eddie Glaude]

That's right. And I think one of the reasons that you're seeing that data come out is that Americans have actually, for an entire generation now, and certainly over the past decade and a half, have seen their wages relatively stagnant and the cost of housing soaring. And so you have two fundamental problems underlying the American economy to begin with, which then makes the price of eggs an even more sensitive issue that hit voters and Americans with less money first. But you're going to see that penetrate into all classes in the country. You're already feeling that. It's also true that we know that the employment numbers are not as strong as we would like them to see to be. Excuse me. And so that means it's harder for Americans to move around and try and increase their income because Americans aren't getting raises from one company anymore. You have to move around to increase your income. So all of that frustration is making them even more sensitive, I believe, to what we see now happening with the tariffs. And again, as you mentioned, Nicole, with back to school shopping, it's going to be hitting hard. And then of course, after that, it's, it's the Christmas shopping season. So this is a lot of pain that Americans are in for, and they're already struggling with the fundamental costs of housing.

[Mara Gay]

You know, Eddie, I, I missed that first term, but. Right. I thought Trump was an abomination because he was elected after saying after the country hur him say, brag about grabbing women between the legs, and he talked about Megyn Kelly bleeding from every orifice. And he called for Russia to release Hillary Clinton's emails. But it was better that people didn't suffer this economic pain. It is not good that 90% of Americans feel deep anxiety about grocery shopping, because when people feel anxiety, they feel angry. And when they're angry, they're. They're awful. Right. And part of the cycle of keeping Trump in power is keeping people aggrieved. And I wonder your thoughts on this economic destruction and this intentional infliction of economic insecurity on his own voters.

[David Firestone]

You know, first of all, it's always great to see you, Nicole. It's hard to wrap my mind around and disentangle it from emotions. We have to interrogate that. But, you know, he did this, but at least he's this guy. I mean, we have to begin to see what exactly voters maga voters were actually desiring, what they were trying to hold off and why they would believe in so many ways this carnival barker, that Donald Trump, how he behaves in the political sphere. So I think, you know, the pain that people will feel, the difficulty that they're going to feel around the kitchen table will have an impact politically. I'm not sure what that will look like, but I do remember this, Nicole, just going back to how you opened up. I remember being on Morning Joe, and Alan Greenspan, the former chair of the Fed, was on, and we were talking about China. And I remember asking him, I said, china's trying to make a case that capitalism does not require liberalism to work. And he turned to me and he looked me dead in my eye and he said, china will lose. And what's fascinating, I don't see what Donald Trump is doing as a kind of mirror of what China did. But it's certainly the case, right, that his effort to centralize power, that his effort to dismantle democracy holds, you know, proceeds on the assumption that capitalism and markets can work without liberal commitments and norms and principles. And so when I combine that with the reality of the economic impact, we are in deep, deep peril as a country, it seems to me.

[Mara Gay]

Yeah, I mean, Justin, I am constantly trying to deepen my understanding of why the most powerful people in Our economy. Stay on the sidelines of this question of democracy versus autocracy. Do you have any working theories?

[Justin Wolfers]

I think this one's quite easy to see, and it's inextricably linked. Another word for what we're in the midst of is crony capitalism, which is if you want anything approved, you need the say so of the President. It used to be that we believe that the President sets the rules, he's the referee, and then you let people fight it out on the economic marketplace. A good referee doesn't need to know anyone's name. You just blow the whistle when they break the rules. That's not what he does. He's always talking about which CEO he's talking to and why. A functioning capitalism is one in which the President's never talking to any individual CEO, and every CEO wakes up maybe calling their lawyers to find out what the law is, but never thinking about what the President's thinking, what the White House is thinking. This White House has made it absolutely clear from month two that if you want to succeed in the market, you need the approval of the President, and therefore it's incredibly risky for any CEO to speak out.

[Mara Gay]

You know, Mara, I went a few rounds with someone about what I perceived as capitulation to the White House, and this person seemed to defend his moves and his institution's moves as well. Half the country voted for this. I mean, that's. That's not really true. Half the country rejected the Democratic choice and voted for the Republican column. But Trump didn't really run on all of this, and he has run so quickly to do all the things that Justin's articulating that it hasn't really seeped into, I think, the public consciousness in ways that people can understand why it might matter to them. I mean, I don't know what podcast people listen to, but the grabs and into the media ecosystem Trump's made clear, eventually he'll come for everyone. I mean, right now he may be celebrating what he sees as the demise of Stephen Colbert, but there are sort of close alliances in this world that may come for someone you perceive to be on your side next. What is your sense of all the complicity and all the silence?

[Eddie Glaude]

Well, I think it's a short term solution that is going to put all of us in peril in the long term, including people who think they might be able to make money on the next deal or to keep their job for a little while longer by appeasing this President. I think that is short term thinking. My deepest fear here is that we're sitting here talking about what Trump voters and American people voted for. And I just hope that the sense of awareness of what is actually happening in terms of the consolidation of power that this president has been pursuing since day one, that we have an awareness of that deep within the populace before, it really doesn't matter what we want anymore. Because what we're seeing is that this is a president who increasingly is making moves that don't make sense within the context of electoral politics and at the same time is pursuing a strategy to not only consolidate power, but to remove the ability of the American people to hold him and people in that movement accountable at the polls, whether that's gerrymandering or intimidation of the markets or intimidation of the leadership of key institutions within the country. And I think because we have such a sense of deep exceptionalism in America, and some of that comes from a pride, and some of that comes from not reckoning with our own history, as it were, there is a sense that these institutions will function in service of democracy on their own. And that is not true. It is not true that Wall street or capitalism itself or public universities or private companies will just function automatically in service of democracy or political parties. These are decisions made by individual people. It's time for everybody to stand up before no one will be able to say anything within a democratic context.

[Mara Gay]

Yeah, I mean, look, I love that. And Eddie Glad, I love that you called BS on my butt. You know, I'll take all these bad things, but at least I'll, you know, my retirement savings will go up. Was a cop out. It was a form of what Mara is describing. It was a way to put it off, to leave it for other people, to solve the threats to democracy, the threats to pluralism, the threats to the progress. And that's why we're back here again, right? The buts are the very essence of how we got here. The greed and the tolerance of flagrantly racist and misogynistic, not just grunts and utterings, but policies this time around. I think it's all connected now, though, because why do you tolerate a 33% approval rating on inflation and a 35% approval rating on tariffs? You do it if you think it isn't going to matter politically. And that gets you right back to the points that Mara's making about eroding democratic norms and elections.

[David Firestone]

Absolutely. Absolutely. And part of the difficulty is trying to keep all of these balls, all these parts in view at the same time. From chronic capitalism to. To the imperial presidency, to you know, to the very ways in which the cultural wars are being executed. In certain ways, I call this moment the great Capitulation. There's one thing that the MAGA folk are doing, but, you know, but these other folk who enable this, who are thinking they're engaged in a kind of pragmatic transactionalism, and this, they are, they are in so many ways complicit in the moment. And so, you know, I think we should all be doing what Bartleby the scrivener did in Melville's short story. And that is saying, I prefer not to. But instead, what we're seeing over and over again, as you rightly note, are people kind of bending to Trump's will, universities bending to his will. Not really questioning the basic premise, not really questioning the lies. And the last time this happened, Nicole, historically, is the very ways in which the country bid its will to the South. And so what we saw after the collapse of Reconstruction up until 1954 was in so many ways a racial dark ages. And here we are on the precipice of another dark age for the country, it seems to me.

[Mara Gay]

All right, I need all of you to stick around. We have much more on how Trump's economic choices, the things he is doing on purpose, is hurting all Americans and putting him in a terrible political position. A political, political inferno potentially ahead of the midterms. Also ahead for us, how Trump's cultural revolution is really just getting started. He is systematically dismantling everything that doesn't match his worldview. Museums, universities, arts, culture, music, history. And he shows no signs of slowing. We'll talk about the whitewashing of American history and culture under Donald Trump later in the hour. Deadline White House continues after a quick break. Don't go anywhere.

[Nicole Wallace]

MSNBC presents the chart topping original podcast, the Best People with Nicole Wallace. This week, she sits down with legal scholar Melissa Murray.

[Mara Gay]

If you're a person who's ambitious or you're a person who thinks there's something in the world to be solved, it's really hard to dial it down and sit it out.

[Nicole Wallace]

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[Mara Gay]

The second Trump administration has gone to unprecedented lengths to radically transform America.

[Nicole Wallace]

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[Mara Gay]

We'Re back with Justin Mara and Eddie. Justin, I wonder if you can help me make sense of some of these charts. They're from the Financial Times. The S and P and the dollar in Trump's first six months. S& P drops massively in April, is now back up. Over 6,000 US dollar index overall falling, but with small little upticks every so often. Effective tariff rate on countries shows very steady tariff rates for Canada, Mexico, EU, UK until 2025. And then they shoot up. Estimated net effect on the deficit from the big beautiful bill, the unemployment claims by federal employees. It's bleak and it's, it's, it's jarring. How are we to make sense of and how long are we to trust our eyes and the data?

[Justin Wolfers]

Nicole, did you just say, could you explain to me everything that's happening in every part of the global economy right now?

[Mara Gay]

Yeah, but with a bigger, but with a bigger frame, like how long do we trust the data? Because I feel like once any of them indicate bad news for Trump, he'll get rid of the data collectors.

[Justin Wolfers]

Okay, I'm going to start with one where he doesn't control the data, which is the stock market. Now, there's two things that to bear in mind with the stock market. Well, actually, three, I'm going to start with the old claim, the stock market is not the economy. But you hear a lot of optimism about the stock market because after Trump crashed it, he then Taco backed off from the worst of his tariff instincts and then it rose back up. So two things are true about the stock market. The first is every time Trump has leaned into the sorts of policies you're describing, whether it's greater tariffs, whether it's sacking the Federal Reserve Board chair, whether it's removing the independence of the federal statisticians that track the unemployment rate, on and on it goes. Every time that that's happened, stocks have fallen. That's what each of those downward ticks are. And every time he's backed off from his Trumpian instincts, stocks have risen. So markets very clearly are at the view that American business is worth more when Trump backs off from his instincts than when he leans into them. Now, the second thing that's true is markets as a whole are not down. But this is a story of two economies. One economy is we're in the midst of an AI boom. I happen to think AI is an extraordinary tool. It's going to launch us into an amazing future. Other people are more cynical, but people who are betting on Wall street are betting on the boom. That's what's pushing stocks up. But America has a big chunk of that. And not only that, those companies are the ones that are traded on the stock market. Then there's the rest of the economy. There's my local dry cleaner. There's all sorts of small businesses. They're not traded on the stock market, and they're the ones that are struggling right now.

[Mara Gay]

Let me, I mean, to that point, Justin, let me read you about some of their struggles. This is from the New York Times. The clamshell containers for single serve pieces of cake come from an American company. In January, A box of 500 was $55. Now it's $69. A five pound bag of coffee beans from a local roaster in Augusta is up 60, $63, up from $55. And with a new 50% tariff on Brazil, one of the largest coffee exporters, Katrina golden, owner of Lil Mama Sweets and Treats, expects prices to rise even further. Higher costs and unpredictability are rippling through the labor market. I would hire two more today if I knew that I could afford to keep them, said golden, who currently employs four people. But with whipsaw policy changes, how do you plan? Can you plan?

[Justin Wolfers]

No. And that's the problem. If you listen on corporate earnings calls, the number of times they say the word Trump. If you walk into any boardroom, the number of times they say the word Trump. If you've got a friend who runs a local small business, they're talking about Trump. This must be wonderful for the man's ego. But this is not how capitalism's meant to work. Look, the metaphor I like to give is compare Tim Apple, Tim Cook, that is, to Steve Jobs. What is Tim Cook's most important job? He spends all his time trying to appease the president. He's flying to Mar a Lago. He's getting 24 karat gold gifts to prepare. And I bet there was a subcommittee formed to figure out exactly what form that particular gift should should take. He's doing that. What did Steve Jobs do? Steve Jobs was a visionary. He was a perfectionist. He designed the most beautiful iPhone in the history, most beautiful mobile phone in the history of the world. And so what we have is our executives figuring out, how can I win the battle in Mar A Lago, not the battle in the market. And so what we're going to end up with is not a better mousetrap, but the mousetrap that happens to have spent more time at Mar A Lago. That's going to be a pretty dirty mousetrap. And that's the sense in which we're all going to suffer from this.

[Mara Gay]

Mara. It's amazing to me how stuck in the moment, everybody is like, I understand all the reasons why Tim Cook went to Mar A Lago. I guess I saw Kara Swisher explaining that he's super responsive to shareholders. And so he was there with this gold form to keep Apple in good standing. And that is a rationalization, it is a defense for doing something that, you know, isn't the right thing. It's not the right thing for innovation, it is not the right thing for capitalism. It is not the right thing for democracy to be having gold, you know, statuettes made for Donald Trump, you know.

[Eddie Glaude]

It just evokes one of the most disappointing and I think, you know, in a way, gross. One of the grossest things so far about the capitulation that Eddie is talking about, which is that it is the Americans who have the most, who stand to suffer the least, who are capitulating first. And I don't know how to explain it. You see it when it's the partners of law firms striking deals with the Trump administration, while associates who aren't even 30 yet put their name and career on the line to say and do the right thing. And in this case, you have small businesses who are just struggling to make it, and you have some of the wealthiest men, and it's mostly men, though not entirely in America, who are the quickest to go to Mar a Lago, as though they can't withstand or their shareholders can't withstand really doing the right thing. And I just see that as a short term strategy. They still have to live in this country. You think many of them have children? Don't they want their children to, if not grow up in a democracy, at least have a country where income inequality isn't so stark, that the American people can share in the wealth that they're creating? I think it actually hints at something that is really gone rotten at the Core of capitalism. You don't have to be a socialist actually to say, you know, there is greed is out of control and it's not just coming from the White House. There is something rotten about the inability of some of the most powerful people in America to use their voice and stand up for what's right and what's going to help them and their families in the long run.

[Mara Gay]

Well, and the misnomer, Eddie, is that it will protect them. See that's where everyone, that's where Paul Weiss and Columbia University and everyone else who's made a capitulating deal with the Trump White House is wrong. I mean they didn't have contracts negotiated by lawyers signed and co signed with a notary in there to stamp them. They let a guy who sat in the meeting craft some post for Truth Social. That's how binding it is. I mean when you rent a car in a foreign country, you have a more legally binding document than what any of these capitulators have. At the Trump White House, he could get mad at a CEO's kids post about his physique playing golf on Instagram and the retribution would be right back on again. I mean, what do you think explains the madness and the lack of rational thinking not just in the capitulation but in the ostensible deals being made with the Trump White House?

[David Firestone]

You know, I've been trying to wrap my mind around it Nicole, to be honest with you, and it ranges from, you know, they're making a bad bet to perhaps they agree with what he's doing to they are revealing that they don't have an underlying commitment to democracy itself. You know, I know we talk about politics every single day on this network, but there's a moral crisis here that Mara is trying to get us to pay attention to. For over 50 plus years we have been living in a society that says that we aren't really in community with each other. We're just simply self interested persons in competition and rivalry with each other. And so this moral rot, right, drives the kind of decision making that places us in these, that has placed us in this terrible position. How we get out of it, I'm not sure.

[Mara Gay]

We'll keep working on it. Justin Wolfers Margay, thank you so much for having this conversation. Eddie. We need you to stick around a little bit longer. When we come back, how Donald Trump is trying to rewrite and whitewash America's history inside the cultural revolution he has launched against the arts, culture and the museums where they are showcased and why we should all assume he's just getting started. That Conversation's next.

[Nicole Wallace]

Saturday, October 11th. From New York City, it's MSNBC Live 25. Join your favorite MSNBC hosts Rachel Maddow, Joe Scarborough, Mika Bruszinski, Nicole Wallace, Ari Melber, Alicia Menendez, Simone Sanders Townsend, Michael Steele, Chris Haynes, jen Psaki, Lawrence O', Donnell, Stephanie Rule and more. Visit msnbc.comlive25 to buy your tickets today.

[Mara Gay]

After removing Donald Trump, the only United States president to have been impeached two times from its entire exhibit about impeachment, the Smithsonian museum now has an updated display in that section, which changes, according to the New York Times, to its previous description of Trump's first impeachment, now adding the word alleged to a line about Trump's solicitation of foreign influence. It also removes specific details about the Capitol insurrection incitement charge Trump faced during his second impeachment. But amid Trump's daily intimidation campaign and efforts at the Smithsonian and all American cultural institutions, David Firestone warns us that this is just the beginning of Donald Trump's efforts to rewrite his own history and the history of the United States of America. He writes this in the New York Times quote in this new narrative, there can be no arguments about oppression by race or gender or ethnicity or sexuality or economic class, the administration implies, because no such oppression will be acknowledged in the official history, which can only be uplifting for Mr. Trump. Denying entire chapters of American history is as easy as denying last month's job numbers, and it is no less dangerous to the nation's understanding of itself. Joining our conversation is New York Times columnist David Firestone, whose piece we just read from Eddie Glad is still here. David, it stopped me in my tracks, and I've read it three times now, and every time I read your piece, I get a little more alarmed at what we're living through. I want to read it, even if our viewers have heard it already. I want to read a little bit more from it. A display about Dorothy's ruby slippers from the wizard of Oz mentioned the Great Depression and the coming world War. A label on two Star wars droids noted the nation needed new hope after the Vietnam War and Watergate. Another on Mickey Mouse noted his original blackface appearance. That was all apparently triggering for the White House. Nothing painful will be depicted, described or taught. No human suffering will be acknowledged. No heroes will be reduced in their grandeur by moral failings. It would no doubt impress the Soviet commissars who imposed socialist realism on generations of artists. First, take me through what you've observed happening, and then pull the thread that you pull on where this is leading.

[F]

This was one of the first things that Trump and his people announced that they were going to do, in part because the Heritage foundation had been pushing this for quite a long time. It's part of Project 2025. And almost immediately, they Trump issued an executive order saying that they weren't going to tolerate anything at the Smithsonian or anything else that they have some degree of control over that in any way disparaged the history of the United States that did anything but elevate the history of our country. And they haven't really fully moved yet on this, but they're going to. They're clearly beginning to exert control. They announced that they wanted to fire the head of the National Portrait Gallery, part of the Smithsonian. They didn't really have the power to fire her, but she stepped down, presumably under some pressure from the Smithsonian board because of her earlier support for diversity, equity and inclusion. They are starting to collect examples of this kind of disparagement of history from all the National Park Service monuments all over the country, includes the Liberty Bell. That includes all kinds of natural landscapes where there might have been signage about climate change damaging the future of what you're seeing in front of you. Certainly anything relating to Native Americans, relating to race and slavery. All that is now under scrutiny and is presumably going to be rewritten or perhaps just erased entirely.

[Mara Gay]

And, David, what is the, you're right, it's in Project 2025, and we should have paid more attention to it on the front end. But what is the, what role does all this play, erasing our history?

[F]

In part, it's a reaction to Black Lives Matter and all the, you know, woke phrases that Trump has always campaigned on. But that really is just a pretext for what's going on here. A lot of this started long the Black Lives Matter protests. And what Trump is doing is of a piece with a long history of opposition. For example, it was Jesse Helms for decades opposed the creation of the African American History Museum, which is now on the National Mall. And for many of the same reasons that the Trump White House and the Heritage foundation have complained about it, because ultimately they knew it would tell the truth about what happened in the south, what happened to this country. Helms knew it would tell the truth about what happened in his home state of North Carolina. They don't really want that truth discussed. And the African American History Museum is a kind of physical embodiment of a truth that is very difficult for the Trump administration to acknowledge. I don't know what's going to happen to the future of that amazing and magnificent institution because virtually every exhibit on its lower two or three floors is, as I said in the piece, kind of a repudiation of the concept of American exceptionalism. It shows how incredibly painful our early history was, how oppressive it was for so many people, how many people benefited greatly from, from slavery and from slave dealing. And that is absolutely not what so many people want to see in the, in the corridors of the National Mall of Washington, D.C.

[Mara Gay]

There is so much to say. I'm going to sneak in a quick break and then I'll let Eddie say it on the other side. We are back with David Firestone and Eddie Glad. Eddie, we have been on the air together through book bans and attempts at erasing history largely from curriculum, but never a wide scale government backed, government projected show of force and the erasure of American history at institutions like the Portrait Gallery and the Smithsonian. Take me through your thoughts today.

[David Firestone]

So first of all, I have been blessed to take that journey with you and I'm working on a book on this right now entitled America usa. And what we're seeing, Nicole, is very clear. The Trump administration and his minions, they reject the idea of America as on the road to being a more perfect union. They reject more perfect union talk. Why? Because the MAGA evangelical vision of American civil religion presupposes that the victory was won in the Founding. All we need to do is remember, restore and conserve. We don't need to tell the story about how we faltered with regards to slavery. We don't need to tell the story about Jim Crow. We don't need to tell the story about women, Native Americans. We don't need to tell the story about where we fell short. Because if we do, as the executive order around restoring truth in American history said, it amounts to a disparaging amount, past and living. So history disappears and heritage stands in. And all of this is happening in the 250th year of the country and it goes beyond Jesse Helms. We can trace it all the way back to 1926. We can go back to 1876, that is the 150th and the centennial, where the country, in so many ways, in order to imagine its future, had to in some ways turn, turn its back, pluck out its eyes with regards to its own contradictions. Calvin Coolidge made this point. The American Revolution was the only revolution that was needed. All we need to do is to embrace the enduring principles that informed It. So part of what we see Trump doing, my dear friend, right. Is telling a story that justifies the fact that he believes that we are a white republic. That's what he's doing. And in so many ways, the white republic blurs into him. We're right back where we started.

[Mara Gay]

I mean, David, let me ask you this. What is this a solution for? I mean, Trump wins the Republican nomination, running away three times in the presidency twice. What is he fixing?

[F]

Well, I think he's trying to restore, as Eddie suggested, this false notion of a brilliant American past. But there's also some kind of weird aesthetic notion in Trump's mind that he wants to impose on the country. This is a guy who wants to put up this garden of American heroes. Remember, 250 statues, which is, of course, physically impossible to do in his term. And they can't be in the modernist style, for example. They can't be abstract. He's already announced that all buildings built in Washington have to be classicist. And he just has this notion of what the country should look like. And that obviously includes who should actually speak for the country, who should be represented in its museums. And so when the portrait gallery, part of the Smithsonian announces, puts on labels on some of its portraits, how many early Americans had slaves and what they actually did, it's a revelation for many viewers. But it's also a slap in the face to this vision of what the country should be that Eddie was talking about. We're starting to see it all over the place, and I think this is only the beginning. We're only at the. At the beginning of what they're attempting to do to virtually every cultural institution that they can control. And I don't know how far they're going to try and take this, but if there's any federal funding that goes to any of these places, just like we've seen at universities around the country, they're going to use that as leverage to try and get the art that they want and remove the art that they dislike.

[Mara Gay]

Well, we'll see how culture and the American people respond. David Firestone and Eddie Glaude, thank you for having this important conversation with us. When we come back, we'll share some of this week's brand new episode of the Best People podcast with Melissa Murray with you. Don't go anywhere. Telling the states that they're the ones to police gerrymandering is literally like asking a burglar to police the burglary. Like they're the ones doing it. Like they have no incentives to fix this and they're not. And it's Texas will just be the first domino to fall. Like, if this succeeds, we're going to see it in every other red state and some of the purple states. It's going to be a profound race to the bottom, and it's going to be terrible for democracy because gerrymandering at bottom is a distortion of the people's voices. Like, it's this is how you don't get hurt. Legal superstar and all around phenomenal human being, Melissa Murray is my guest on this week's episode of the Best People. She's this triple threat, a podcasting veteran who had a few things to teach me, a legal genius and a super mom. Our conversation goes in all those directions. It's available right now. Wherever you get your podcast, just scan the QR code on your screen. I hope you'll listen to this one and write me on bluesky or Instagram and let me know what you think. Quick break for us. We'll be right back. Thank you so much for letting us into your homes. We are grateful.