← Interesting Times with Ross Douthat
Interesting Times with Ross Douthat
Jamelle Bouie and I Debate Trump’s Failing Grade
00:40:05
President Trump’s aggressive return to the White House has been disruptive in ways that will continue to reshape American — and global — governance and politics for decades. At a live event with the Library Foundation of Los Angeles, I joined my colleague Jamelle Bouie and our boss, the Opinion editor, Kathleen Kingsbury, to break down the first year of Trump 2.0. This conversation originally aired as an episode of “The Opinions.”
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- [00:05]
A
Hey, listeners, I'm here with a special bonus episode for you. We're a year into the second Trump administration, only a year, even if it seems maybe a little bit longer than that. And I've been thinking a lot about Trump's very specific unilateralist style of executive power and whether it means that all the crazy seeming changes of the last year are really permanent and enduring, or whether they're actually fragile and temporary. So I was glad to sit down with my opinion colleague Jamelle Bouie and our boss, opinion editor Kathleen Kingsbury. This past week, at an event hosted by the Los Angeles Public Library, the three of us had a lively conversation about Trump 2.0 and how the country and the world have changed, or not changed as much as you might think since his second inauguration. I think we covered a lot of ground, but you can be the judge.
- [01:09]
B
Thank you all for being here tonight. I'm excited to be in Los Angeles for this live conversation with opinion columnists Jamelle Bouie and Ross Douthit. It has been an eventful year, to say the least, given what's happened even in recent weeks. I wanted to start this discussion with how President Trump is reshaping the world and the U.S. s role in it. Then we're going to get into changes on the domestic front, how he's changed the country, and finally, we'll touch on the upcoming midterm elections. But first, I want to start by asking you both for the most consequential decision President Trump has made in his first year back in office. Ross, you want to kick us off?
- [01:53]
A
I would be delighted. Thank you all for being here tonight. Hopefully, we'll put on a fairly entertaining show. I'm going to cheat a little in answering the question and not pick a single decision, but instead a broad. No cheating, no cheating, a broad strategic approach. I think the most consequential strategic choice the Trump administration has made has been to not just double down, but triple down and quadruple down on a kind of unilateralist style of executive governance, which has had two effects, and it's way too soon to tell which is the most important one. One effect is to both expand de facto presidential power, to discover new presidential power, to basically put Trump himself in a position of a certain kind of executive dominance that I don't think we've seen since Franklin Roosevelt. At the same time that coexists with a failure to instantiate changes through legislation, which was certainly something that FDR was pretty good at. Right. That makes it really, really hard to tell how enduring 80 to 90% of the concrete policy changes of this hyperactive Trump year will be. And I think this extends everywhere, from the budget cuts in Doge to the Trump administration struggles with the major universities. You can go on through the list. You can encompass immigration policy. There's been new spending on immigration enforcement, but there hasn't been some dramatic overhaul of the nation's immigration laws. And it's possible to imagine a world where Trump has just genuinely pioneered a new, more frankly, Caesarist, form of presidential governance in America that will endure among his successors. It's also possible to imagine a world where many of these sort of frenetic acts and actions, some of them could just sort of evaporate even over the next three years. Some of them could be wiped away very, very quickly by a Democratic president. And so in that balance is sort of the fundamental uncertainty about the core significance of a lot of what we've been watching.
- [04:14]
B
Jamel, what about you?
- [04:15]
C
I was expecting a shorter answer. Now I feel like I have to respond to something. No, first, thank you. Thank you all for coming. It's a real pleasure to be here. My answer actually plays off of Ross's answer. So to make my answer long as well.
- [04:39]
A
Lean into it.
- [04:40]
B
We've got a lot of material to.
- [04:41]
C
Get to, a lot of material. I look at the presidency. When you break the presidency down to what the actual job is, is it's personnel management and then crisis management, and really it's personnel management. Much of what the president actually does is figure out who is gonna handle things that come to him, such that the only things he really handles are things that are very important and very urgent. And there's some art involved in a president figuring out what items goes in what category. I think Trump's most consequential decision is to kind of abdicate that and instead delegate so much of his authority to various deputies. At the moment, it appears that Stephen Miller appears to be the driving deputy, but at the beginning of his term, it was Russ Vogt and Elon Musk as sort of the chief deputies when it comes to foreign policy, especially the issues in Latin America, very clearly Marco Rubio has sort of the driving force, and it's this delegation of policy and political decisions to these deputies that I think shapes much of the administration, and it's responsible for much of the administration's political difficulties. Because the thing about being president is that although you don't have any particular expertise, generally speaking, you can. You can count the number of presidents with real subject matter expertise. On one hand, and funny enough, they're not necessarily good presidents. As a result, presidents are political experts. That's sort of inherent to the job. And abdicating, delegating your authority, including political decision making, down to other people robs you of the ability to respond quickly and effectively to changes in the political.
- [06:29]
B
Wind, I would argue, and we can get into this a little bit, one of Trump's strengths is his political expertise. So it's interesting and plenty of things to go deeper on, but I want to start first with the question of foreign policy. For most of the past century, the United States has been counted on to help repel foreign aggression. Now the president seems ready to be the aggressor in Greenland. Ross, you closely track the thinking inside this administration between your reporting and your podcast. Interesting times. What's your best understanding of what's motivating the president here?
- [07:15]
A
My best understanding of what's motivating the president is that he has always had an interest in acquiring Greenland. This came up in his first term. It was a subject of sport and jest, like a number of things that happened in his first term, but that has always existed. There is also a small but meaningful faction in the online right that is interested in the idea of territorial expansion as a kind of signifier of a revived American spirit. So that's sort of floating around out there. But basically what I think has happened is that Trump always had an idea that he wanted to add some territory to the U.S. i think if you were going to pick a place to add to the US I could make a case that Greenland makes a certain kind of sense. A sparsely populated island that's very important to our national security, that's in the Western Hemisphere. Like, it's not a crazy zone of interest. And the Venezuela raid went so well from Trump's perspective, that he got very excited and decided that now was the moment to make the Greenland push. This is not based on deep or profound reporting, so don't take that to the bank. But that is my best guess of why we're dealing with this right now. That it's a preexisting thing in Trump's mind has some marginal support in his coalition. And suddenly the idea was turbocharged by the Dunro Doctrine. I don't know how we even pronounce that. The Donroe Doctrine, you know, Venezuela, and it's like, you know, well, if we can do that, why can't we? Why can't we just get Greenland, too?
- [09:01]
B
But how does the president's position on Greenland Square With America first philosophy.
- [09:06]
A
Oh, well, I mean, how does it not? That's easy, right? I mean, America first means, you know, good, good parts of the world should become part of America. Right? Greenland tomorrow, Alberta the next day, Cuba the day after that. I don't think that's hard. I think when we talked about this event and I was thinking about foreign policy questions days or weeks ago before Greenland became an issue, I was prepared to make an argument that there's been more fundamental continuity amid all the chaos in Trump's foreign policy than a lot of people think. I think if you look at sort of the overall arc of Middle east policy, Russia, Ukraine policy, like, you know, the Trump administration, for instance, has not in fact ended the war in Ukraine by surrendering to Vladimir Putin. It continues to arm Ukraine. You know, it's pushed Europe to do much more. It's tried to negotiate with Putin, but it hasn't like overthrown the entirety of US Foreign policy. Trump administration pursued a ceasefire in the Middle east in a way that was in some ways probably more aggressively than a Biden administration might have. I could go on from there. I could make a sort of pre Greenland case for the relative stability and moderate success of Trump's foreign policy. The Greenland gambit is, as far as I can tell, indefensible and destructive and quite different if followed through than how Trump has handled the Middle east or even how he's handled Russia, Ukraine.
- [10:42]
B
I mean, Jamel, I think it's worth discussing what this is doing with our alliances with Europe and our relationships there. But I also feel like as one of our in house history experts, I'd love to hear. He is clearly using the Monroe Doctrine as his model here. Can you tell us what the Monroe Doctrine meant back in the early 1800s and what does it mean under Trump?
- [11:08]
A
Sure.
- [11:09]
C
Before I do though, I wanna say that I think the Greenland thing is at least 50%. Trump doesn't understand that on a Mercator projection, Greenland looks really big.
- [11:21]
A
Now wait, it's still a really big island, Jamel.
- [11:26]
C
Under any projection, it's still quite large. Right? It's big.
- [11:31]
A
And the number of UFOs allegedly under.
- [11:34]
C
The ice, but I happen to think that it's big on a map. And so the President, our big boy, the president wants it. So Monroe Doctrine, we obviously discussed these questions, so I wrote down the relevant part of the Monroe Doctrine issued by President James Monroe, written by future president at the time, Secretary of State John Quincy Adams. So the quote, I'm going to just read the relevant portion. The occasion has been judged proper for asserting as a principle in which the rights and interests of the US Are involved, that the American continents, by free and independent condition, which they have assumed and maintain, are henceforth not to be considered as subjects for future colonization by any European powers. Now, the context for this is that Napoleon has been defeated in Europe. The monarchical powers in Europe are reasserting themselves and they're looking abroad to what is now Latin America and seeing that there are these revolutions happening. The Bourbons in particular are looking at Spanish possessions in Latin America and saying, what's happening over there? And so the Monroe administration responds to this by saying, and kind of taking a somewhat paternalistic, we are the premier republic of this hemisphere, saying, stay out, stay out. Like, leave these people alone. If anyone's gonna mess around down there, it's gonna be us. And you should stay out of the Western hemisphere. It's also worth saying that when a European power really wanted to intervene in the Western hemisphere, they just did it. But like, the concept of the Monroe Doctrine was a kind of anti colonialist stance for which there would be continuity throughout. Of course, Americans sort of embraced the imperial fever in the late 19th century, and that's actually where I think a lot of Trump's inspiration comes from. But after the Second World War, or during the Second World War and afterwards, there was real influence of Roosevelt's own kind of distaste for European colonialism. And that is part of American foreign policymaking in the Second World War and afterwards. I think all of that's necessary as a background first, because Katie gave me an excuse to do it. And if I can talk to you about 19th century American history, I will. But the second thing is that it puts the Don Row doctrine, at least it's alliterative, the Don Row doctrine into, you know, provides a stark contrast. Right? Because the Don Row doctrine is not about defending, even if it's sort of like with your fingers crossed behind your back, defending independent nations in the Western hemisphere from European colonization. The Don Row doctrine is we gotta be European colonizers. And that is the difference.
- [14:39]
A
Well, in fairness, I mean, I think it is a more explicitly self interested doctrine. But the core of the arguments made around the Venezuelan intervention is the fact that Venezuela had been a strong zone of interest for non western hemispheric powers that happened to be our biggest rivals. Right. Russia and China and the claims being made around Greenland similarly are, as far as I can tell, not so much about the pernicious influence of the Danish royal family, but is also about Russia And China. Right now, obviously there is. I agree that Trump's attitude towards Venezuelan oil resources is very much a kind of late 19th century colonial mindset. But there is clearly a way in which there are critics of Trump who will say he wants to divide the world up and give Xi his sphere of influence and Putin his sphere of influence and leave us the Western Hemisphere. I don't think that's right. I think Trump, to the extent that he thinks this stuff through, just wants. He does want the Western hemisphere to be an exclusively American zone of interest, but then he also wants to have interests in Asia and Eastern Europe and so on. But I think there is some continuity with. It's a more cynical variant of the Monroe Doctrine, but I don't know if.
- [16:04]
C
I would call that continuity. Right. Like, if part of the basis of the Monroe Doctrine is not simply no outside intervention, but a recognition that these countries are independent. Right. They're independent republics whose autonomy as independent republics ought to be respected than any kind of active colonial style management of what are self governing countries, then that's like a meaningful break, right? Like, that's not really in cognitive with the Monroe Doctrine.
- [16:37]
A
All right. I think we are.
- [16:38]
B
We're gonna leave it there and move to the home front. So obviously, just a few days after the capture of Maduro and the invasion of Venezuela, an ICE shot and killed Renee Nicole Goode in Minnesota. The agency has obviously come under harsh criticism in the weeks following it, but it's also about to get a huge influx of cash. The budget reconciliation Bill has dedicated $75 billion to ICE. Yeah, Jamel, talk to us about what all that money will mean for President Trump's immigration agenda in the years to come.
- [17:18]
C
Yeah, I've been thinking about this because I'm not sure I have a firm answer. There's like a movie, it's not good for kids called Blank Check, and it's about like a 10 year old who gets a literal blank check, but it's signed and he puts like a million dollars on it. Like 10 year old mind, a million bucks is all the money in the world. And then goes on to sort of like, have an insane spending spree. And it's all right. It's like, I want a McDonald's in my mansion, that kind of stuff. The point is that he had so much money and like, his imagination couldn't meet the amount of money he had. And I kind of feel that's gonna end up being the situation with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, in part because they struggle right. Even before this big Influx of funding. They really struggled to get people to hire people to do the job. They can use some of this money, of course, for building detention facilities. They can try to hire more people. But I have this feeling that they are not going to know what to do with the money. And certainly it'll mean they'll have money to give out bonuses. Certainly it'll mean that efforts to, say, defund or rescind funding through things like a budget showdown are going to be limited because it's already there. Like, there's no, you can't. It's already in law and it's not part of a continuing resolution of funding. But in terms of like actual, what does this mean on the ground? I'm not sure. And I'm not sure that they're sure, given that this is just like a huge amount of money to give to any agency.
- [18:54]
B
Yeah, of course. We've actually already seen these issues with labor that you're describing in terms of hiring new agents and officers. And they've doubled the number of officers in the past year, but they've cut their training time in half for those officers. And I think we're seeing a little bit of that on display right now.
- [19:11]
C
And they've had the lower standard, I was reading not long ago, that they had to, they were turning away people because part of the physical standards. Standards. So you have to run like a mile and a half in 14 minutes and then do like 20 sit ups and 20 push ups. And they couldn't find people to do it, which I'll say I saw that and I of course, laughed about it. And then I said, well, could I do it? And then went to the gym this morning. That morning. And then did it, like promptly did it.
- [19:38]
A
So RFK Jr. Is proud of you. There's a, you know, the Maha agenda in action.
- [19:45]
C
My ice, my ICE bonus check, I hope, I hope will be in the mail.
- [19:49]
B
$50,000 headed your way. Roth, what do you, what do you make of all of this? And, you know, obviously immigration and the border became hugely political deficits for Biden. Do you like, see any risk of, for this administration in terms of a backlash from voters?
- [20:07]
A
Yeah, I mean, I think there's a substantial risk of a backlash. I think the money, all that we can say for certain about the money is that ICE will be able to practically sustain the level of operations that they've had for this year into the future. The question then becomes, is that scale of operations politically sustainable given the way the polls have shifted against Trump's immigration policy? Probably mostly, I think, just because of the shooting of Reneg. Like, I think those of us who follow the news really closely tend to assume that it's, you know, well, it's this video and it's that video and so on. But my perception is that it's really the shooting that particularly broke through, as, you know, as it should, as is understandable as a new story, and then in turn sort of fed further coverage of an attention to Minneapolis in particular. It's a complicated political thing because, you know, you'll see polls now where voters will say, I don't approve of Trump's immigration policy, maybe I even support defunding ice. But then you're asked, who do you trust more in immigration, Republicans or Democrats? And they still say Republicans. Right. But I think the basic challenge for the Trump administration is they see themselves, I think, reasonably as having been elected on a promise to conduct mass deportations. I think you can make a case, and I would make a case that with better training and different hiring practices and so on, you could reduce abuses and reduce some of the things that show up in everybody's social media feed right now. At the same time, there is a way in which ICE has always done raids in immigrant neighborhoods that arrest sympathetic seeming people or pick up people, people who don't have infractions, while going after someone who does have infractions. What we're seeing right now is just what ICE normally does, but times three, or times four or times five. And a lot of Americans are uncomfortable with it, but it's not clear to me that there's some other way that the Trump administration can say to themselves, we're pursuing this policy that would be vastly more popular, maybe somewhat more popular, actually. You think?
- [22:33]
B
I would argue that the difference in what we're seeing now, as a person who believes strongly that we need to have a strong immigration policy in this country, is the cruelty behind what they're doing, which seems to be just endemic to the process of ICE today.
- [22:48]
C
Yeah, I mean, I sort of. I don't know how. If there is a feasible way to do, like mass deportations that are somehow. I think the project of mass removals is necessarily both, just in terms of if everyone is being as humane as possible, being as decent as possible, I think it's necessarily going to entail the kind of disruption that makes people very uncomfortable and will produce the kinds of sympathetic stories that we're seeing now. I think that in practice, the kinds of people who would want to sign up for that job are going to be the kinds of people inclined to inflict cruelty, and I'm not sure what you can do about that. I will say, just in terms of the politics of all of this, that Americans, when you ask them about immigration, the existing immigration system, what they imagine is a very orderly system where there are lines that people get in and then there's a process, and then you become a citizen. And part of the anger and discontent with Biden immigration policy was a sense that Biden was allowing lots of people to cut this imaginary line. Of course, actual immigration policy does not work like that. That the process for entering this country and becoming a permanent resident, becoming a citizen, is convoluted and very difficult. And part of me thinks that if, like someone just said to the American public, we're going to get tough on immigration and then describe, like, an orderly system, that would be a major reform that would be quite popular. I think that for the Trump administration, there is a world in which they do prioritize the removal of people in jails, right? Removal of people convicted of crimes. This would not be mass deportation, but I think it would be more in line with what your, you know, say your marginal Trump voter, like the person who tipped the state, expected. And so I think a engaged president might say, this is not working politically. Let's scale this back. Let's actually focus on people in jails and so on and so forth, and see if we can't do something that is still in line in the direction of the things I promised, but, like, much less politically unsustainable. But since it's just Miller, he's like, you know, let's go full hog.
- [25:08]
A
But it's not just Miller, right? I think Miller has a particular power and a particular focus and fixation on this issue. But there is a larger sense among conservatives, basically, that the Biden era was a kind of revelation of what liberals and Democrats, or at least the progressive wing of the Democratic Party, really wants to do, right? That for a long time you had liberals who were favorably disposed to immigration, but always said, well, of course we're not for open borders. But finally they got the chance, and it effectively was open borders for two or three years, and then they sort of felt like they needed to tight. I mean, you can say it's not open borders. We can have. Have this debate. But in fact, if you just look at a chart of the sheer number of people who came in in the first three years of the Biden administration, it was an unprecedented wave of immigration unlike any, basically, in. In my lifetime. You don't have to call it open borders, but I mean, I just, I.
- [26:11]
C
Personally wouldn't call it open borders.
- [26:12]
A
I'm just saying imagine yourself as a conservative skeptic of immigration, watching this happen, and then you basically decide that if you, when your party is in power, can't conduct substantial deportation, then you're in a kind of sucker's game where the Democrats are in power, they let 5 million people in, the Republicans take power, they secure the borders for a while, don't do anything about immigration, then the Democrats come into power and do it all over again. So behind Stephen Miller is this sense that we can't let the Democrats get away with that. And again, the fact that Republicans still are slightly more trusted than Democrats suggests that this is not just a kind of hard right concern. And the other thing to note is that it is in fact true what the Department of Homeland Security keeps saying, that a policy that's focused just on deporting people in jails and people with criminal records does yield some kind of conflict with sanctuary city laws and rules in liberal jurisdictions. Like, they're not making that up, they're exaggerating it for effect while they go after other people as well. But that even that more limited policy would still create clashes with states like California, states like Minnesota.
- [27:28]
B
Okay, let's talk about Congress. Jamel, over the last year, you have written a lot about lawmakers response to President Trump's second term. How would you rate Congress's performance so far? What grade would you give them?
- [27:43]
A
A. A, Like.
- [27:48]
C
I mean, the thing about a grade is it's sort of like, what is my criteria for me from my perspective. Right. I look at the Republican majorities in the House and the Senate allowing DOGE to just do its thing. I look at that and I say, that's you abdicating your Article 1 authority over spending. Right. I look at the administration, it wasn't necessarily an applause line, but thank you. I look at the administration, the impoundment of congressionally authorized funds, and Congress sort of like looking at that and being like, doesn't look like anything to me. And I see a Congress really abdicating its Article 1 authority to the point that it's like rendering itself a nullity. But from the perspective of Republicans in Congress. Right. Who are opposed to the size and scope of the federal bureaucracy, who want, and I've talked for many years about making these kinds of cuts from their perspective. Yeah. Letting the White House just do it and not really putting up a fight. They're like, well, that's the best of all worlds, because we don't have to take a vote on it, right? We don't have to actually vote for massive cuts to cancer research to have actually vote for massive cuts to the CDC or any of these things. And we get it anyway. So from their perspective, this is the best of all worlds. If you take a longer view, I think that the central dysfunction of American government is the receding influence of Congress across all fields, and that it's very hard to push back on and come back from huge expansions of presidential authority and so from just the institutional health of Congress and to looking at the broader health of the American constitutional order. Like, I would grade Congress with an F because F plus, just because it's hard for me to envision a world post Trump where we see any meaningful push back on this kind of use of executive power.
- [30:04]
A
I think from a Republican perspective, maybe not an F plus, but I think even from a Republican perspective, Congress would get quite a low grade in part because even the sort of Doge cuts, apart from some areas like usaid, where there's sort of a semi permanent dismantling, even a lot of those cuts, now that Congress is getting around to voting on omnibus legislation like that money's coming back. Like, in the end, they don't, you know, when it comes time to vote, they aren't like, all right, I'll just vote for the Doge cut. Like, National Endowment for Democracy is still getting funded. A bunch of basic science funding is coming back. So if even if you love Doge as a Republican, you would still say, guess what, Congress, you know, they wanted to let Elon do it, and then they still don't have the guts to make cuts themselves. But generally, as I said at the outset, like, the fact that there's no congressional agenda for the Trump administration beyond the initial tax cuts, Big, beautiful bill thing is just a really striking thing. And if you were like a populist conservative rooting for Trump to be an amazingly successful politician again, you would not grade Congress highly. There's been no, like, the tariffs have not led to a wave of new industrial policy legislation. Like, there's no entitlement reform. There's no regulatory reform. Like, there's just. There's just nothing.
- [31:30]
B
Okay, I want to turn to the midterms. We're obviously coming up on the midterm elections in November. I'd love for both of you to take the temperature of both parties, maybe talk a little bit, Jamel, and your answer in terms of how you see the Democratic response so far and what you wish they would change and do going forward, but also just, you know, how do you think the parties are feeling going into this election season? And maybe, Ross, let's start with you.
- [32:01]
A
I mean, I think, you know, midterms are always, not always, but almost always bad for the incumbent party. My sense is that in a way, again, this, this connects to Jamel's point about Trump sort of abdicating a certain kind of political role. But the Trump coalition got quite big in the 2024 election. It added a lot of voters who had not voted for Trump in the past, who had not usually voted for Republicans. And very little that the administration has done has been geared towards locking those voters in catering to them, whether they're sort of an anti woke suburbanite or a immigration skeptical Latino in working class, Latino in Texas or whatever demographic group you want to pick. Trump hasn't been focused on them, the administration hasn't been focused on them. And I think a lot of those voters are still leery of Democrats, but they're not going to be held by the Republicans in this midterm. And so then it just becomes a question of what happens in a few choice Senate seats.
- [33:09]
C
I think, Yeah, I mean, my sense is that Democrats are feeling very confident about the House. Right. That they're quite confident that the House is going to flip. It's already quite a narrow Republican majority. And if they're, you know, last year's elections in Virginia and New Jersey suggest at least something like the rumblings of another blue wave. And if it's anything like that, I think there's a broad expectation that the Democrats will win the House with no particular issue. The question is the Senate. And there, I think Ross is right to note that the administration's, I would say, almost like disinterest in trying to consolidate its electoral wins is really gonna hurt it. Right. There's already been substantial erosion with the young men who flipped over to Trump, kind of catastrophic erosion with Hispanic voters in the wake of the past six or seven months of activity. And I mean, the other thing is you kind of have to ask yourself the question, what can Trump do between now and then to make himself more popular? And if he doesn't really do anything to accomplish that, and if Democrats can, and I think they've gotten pretty much all the recruits they've wanted for the major Senate races, like Roy Cooper is in North Carolina, Mary Patolta in Alaska, Sherrod Brown is running in Ohio. They're getting the recruits they want. If the President's political standing continues to decline, then you're looking at a real chance of Democrats being able to, if not substantially narrow that Republican Senate advantage, then get to 50 Senate seats, which would be, I would say, catastrophic for the Trump administration because that means no confirmations for. That means no judicial confirmations to the very least. It becomes Very difficult.
- [34:59]
A
51. They need to get to 51.
- [35:00]
C
Yeah. 51. Yeah. It becomes very difficult for the next two years. The thing is, I'm not even sure that Trump cares all that much. I mean, this, to me has always been the problem from the perspective of Republicans of hanging everything with Trump, is that you are putting your fate in the hands of a guy who, on some level, doesn't give a shit about the Republican Party, inasmuch as it's like an independent and separate thing who is. Well, I mean, so you can't impeach lawmakers. It's impeachment for executive officers.
- [35:44]
A
Not in the Newsom administration. Baby, he's got big plans.
- [35:49]
C
The point is just that, like, if I were like, Trump doesn't really care about the health of the Republican Party, and that is like a real problem for dealing with the prospect of an upcoming midterm election.
- [36:02]
A
Right. Trump. Trump is this incredibly transformative, historically significant figure who has no. He is. He absolutely is. And we have. I'm not going to say you have all. I have come to accept that and internalize it without letting go of all of my many reasonable critiques of the man. He is an incredibly important figure. He is also someone who is incapable of achieving the kind of consolidation that we associate with presidents of similar importance.
- [36:35]
B
Okay, so I want to ask a lighter question to wrap up. I know you both love movies. You love to watch them and to review them. So I want to end by asking you each for a movie recommendation, a film that's helped you make sense of the political moment that we're in right now. Jamel, you want to kick us off?
- [37:00]
C
Sure. You know, I don't really watch movies for political edification.
- [37:08]
B
Just pretend for questions.
- [37:09]
C
I know. I'm just pretending. I'm just pretending. I recently rewatched Citizen Kane, a film about a vain, power hungry man who's ultimately not able to build anything lasting or sustaining in his life. And that, to me, feels very appropriate for thinking about Donald Trump. Those Citizen Kane also stars noted Virginia actor Joseph Cotton. I always pay attention to who's from Virginia.
- [37:39]
A
I only watch movies for political edification. So this is. So I. I will do something similar. I just watched how many people have seen Marty Supreme? Yep. Okay. How many people like the main character in that movie? No. Yes. Okay. So I was hoping for more people saying that they liked the main character. If you didn't, then this won't land as well. But Marty supreme is one. It's a movie that I used to find Timothy Chalamet annoying, but now I have incredible respect for him as a man who is single handedly willing the movies back to life in the face of cultural decadence. So props to him here in Hollywood. If you're listening, Timothy, call me. We'll do lunch. But Marty supreme is a movie about, like, Citizen Kane, a, you know, obnoxious, arrogant, incredibly ambitious guy who's constantly committing adultery and trying to lift money from other people in the service of his own ambitions and defrauding people and doing a bunch of terrible things. And I think maybe I'm alone in this, but I think the nature of the movie is that it makes you root for him to succeed because he's pursuing a particular, very American kind of personal ambition, a quest for greatness, all of these things. And I think that if you watch it and have that feeling, even as you, as I think many people here tonight do loathe and despise Donald Trump, it should give you some appreciation for why some Americans like him as a kind of peculiar representative, like Charles Foster Kane, like Marty Mauser, fictional characters, both of our, God help us, national character.
- [39:30]
B
Well, thank you, Jamel and Ross, and thank you all for coming out tonight. The New York Times and the Library foundation of Los Angeles are grateful that you made us part of your day. Thank you so much.
- [39:50]
A
Thank you.