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Trump’s intimidation playbook and a presidential middle finger
00:36:09
Why the Trump administration’s latest probes are prompting First Amendment fears and pushback from Wall Street bigwigs. Plus — the significance of a presidential one-finger salute.
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- [00:01]
Colby Yakowicz
Dan, you actually are the only reporter who has spoken to the guy who yelled out, yes. How is he feeling being on the receiving end of a presidential middle finger?
- [00:11]
Dan Marika
Quite proud.
- [00:16]
Colby Yakowicz
From the newsroom of the Washington Post, this is Post Reports weekly Politics Roundtable. I'm Colby Yakowitz. It's Friday, January 16th. There were several examples this week that really showed how Trump and the Trump administration respond to critics and their perceived enemies. And so today we're going to talk about, first, the FBI raid of our colleague's home, and then we're going to talk about the prosecution of Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell. We'll also get into the continued fallout from the Minneapolis ICE shooting, how that probe has gone and why it led to six top prosecutors quitting their jobs. And finally, we'll talk about Trump in Detroit and how he gave the finger to a heckler. I'm thrilled to be back at the table with Dan Marika. He is the co anchor of our politics newsletter, the Early Brief. And we have Matt Visor, the Post White House Bureau chief. Guys, thanks for being here.
- [01:11]
Dan Marika
Happy to be here.
- [01:12]
Matt Visor
Good to be here.
- [01:17]
Colby Yakowicz
So I want to start with, you know, news that rattled our newsroom on Wednesday, obviously had all of us a little shook, and that's that the FBI was raided our colleague Hannah Natenson's home, and took her computers and her phone and her Garmin watch. And we covered on the show what happened, that this was related to a source that they're investigating for leaking, possibly leaking, classified documents. But I want to talk about this from the perspective of how this aggressive move against Hanna and the Washington Post fits into this broader question of how Trump deals with his perceived enemies. What do you think, Matt?
- [01:58]
Matt Visor
I mean, we've seen throughout his administration how he will pick individual instances or institutions and try to make an example out of them. We've seen it with foreign leaders, we've seen it with news organizations, aside from ours earlier, with lawsuits, and we've seen it with immigrants. And so this instance, you know, it does seem like there's an aspect of trying to intimidate, um, and it's sort of twofold. I mean, one is people who are providing news organizations with information is clearly a target of this investigation. And as a side effect, or perhaps a primary effect is, is a targeting of a news organization and going to extraordinary measures to show up in the early morning hours at a reporter's house and seizing their devices.
- [02:49]
Dan Marika
There's a chilling effect as well on both sides of that equation. You know, you want to. It seems that by Doing something like that, you want to chill government officials from sharing information with reporters. And we here at the Washington Post wrote a story yesterday about the impact it's having more broadly on journalism in Washington, D.C. and elsewhere, and how newsrooms across the country are concerned about, could they be next, could their reporters be next? What are they going to do when it comes to handling information, handling sources, and that certainly impacts the way reporters can do their job.
- [03:22]
Colby Yakowicz
Yeah. And, Dan, I was actually bylined on that story because I'm back to writing on our Democracy and Politics team after a long stint here as host of Post Reports. But I will still be doing this Politics roundtable with my colleagues. But I talked to a very seasoned reporter for that story who said that they were already receiving texts, worried texts from longtime sources, like, am I gonna. Are you gonna be next? After all of our years of working together, is this how. Is this how it ends? Right. And so they. They and reporters, we do a lot to protect our sources. We use encrypted data on our devices. We might not keep people's contacts in our phones, but still, it's very unnerving for someone who maybe wants to share information with a reporter but doesn't want the government to know who they are.
- [04:18]
Matt Visor
And I think we've known kind of about this potential threat to news gathering for a while, in theory, you know, at the start of the Trump administration, you know, he came in, he's called the news media the enemy of the people. You know, there's been an adversarial relationship from the start, and the way that he's handled the Justice Department this time around, compared to his first term, has been different. And so there's a weaponization of that that I think we've all intuitively been prepared for. In theory, it's different. I think yesterday morning, for a lot of us seeing it in practice and the lengths to which the Justice Department is going to go to, and this.
- [04:56]
Dan Marika
Fits into the broader conversation, but it shows that this administration, this. This version of the Trump administration is different in some ways than the first administration, where he is. He is unencumbered on a whole host of issues, including the way he interacts with the media. I do think the one thing that the newsroom has said in one voice is like, how proud I think we all are to have Hannah as a colleague. And she's kind of an example of what it is to be a journalist right now. And I think she is the best of the Washington Post. And I think we should all say that.
- [05:29]
Colby Yakowicz
Yeah, yeah. Agreed. This conversation around the Trump administration, the Justice Department going after its critics, we also saw that play out with Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell this week. We also covered this story on post reports. But I want to get into again the Trump of it all, because for just like a quick context, prosecutors are investigating Powell over this Fed building, this renovation project that has gone over budget. And like a Congressional. Congressional testimony that Powell gave last summer, you know, Powell posted a video and said, this is politically motivated.
- [06:05]
Jerome Powell
This unprecedented action should be seen in the broader context of the administration's threats and ongoing pressure. This new threat is not about my testimony last June or about the renovation of the Federal Reserve buildings. It is not about Congress's oversight role. The Fed, through testimony and other public disclosures, made every effort to keep Congress informed about the renovation project. Those are pretexts. The threat of criminal charges is a consequence of the Federal Reserve setting interest rates based on our best assessment of what will serve the public, rather than following the preferences of the president.
- [06:43]
Colby Yakowicz
Is Powell right? Like, is this part of Trump's intimidation tactics?
- [06:48]
Dan Marika
Yeah, I mean, it certainly seems as much. Donald Trump said in the moments after Chairman Powell put out his video that he knew nothing about it. He told that to NBC. I do think that strains credulity a little bit, given how upfront he has been about wanting Powell to be investigated and about how closely he is linked with the Justice Department in a way that I would say few presidents ever have been linked with the Justice Department and how much they have carried out his own grievances and desires through the Justice Department. I do think it's interesting that Powell took to social media and posted a video hitting back at the president, and not indirectly. I mean, he said exactly what he thought about what motivated this. And I do think there's almost like a lesson to be taken, or it shows that people have taken a lesson from others in Trump's orbit about the way that you push back against an attack from President Donald Trump is by being forceful and not just letting it come at you, but also coming back at him. Because I'm not sure in a past cycle or past administration, you would see a Fed chair or someone who's largely anonymous to most Americans post a video online pushing back against something like that as forcefully as he did.
- [08:06]
Matt Visor
And it was also interesting the way that, I mean, he's withstood an immense amount of criticism from Donald Trump.
- [08:13]
Dan Marika
And it got to this point, and.
- [08:14]
Matt Visor
It got to this point where he. He ultimately did decide to do that.
- [08:19]
Dan Marika
Yeah.
- [08:19]
Matt Visor
And I think part of that is that there's, there's almost like a Vatican like aspect to the Fed and how they make decisions.
- [08:27]
Colby Yakowicz
Right.
- [08:27]
Matt Visor
And so I think Powell, when Trump is criticizing his policy decisions, I think Powell was reluctant to push back on that or explain it or to be very much of a public face of it. This was different. This is an investigation. This is something where he personally is targeted and so decided, you know, and also like his term is, is almost over, you know, so his term is coming to a conclusion fairly soon. So I think he felt a need to, to push back aggressively. One aspect that I'm interested in is how, how this investigation affects Trump's next Fed chairman. And there's some animosity, I think, growing on the Hill among Senate Republicans. And it was striking to hear some of them come and take speak out Thom Tillis and John Thune about this decision. And so what are the long term implications of Trump's decision?
- [09:22]
Colby Yakowicz
It's such a great point.
- [09:23]
Dan Marika
That's the irony here, right? Donald Trump has been calling for an investigation into Jerome Powell for months now. And by doing so, he may have sunk any chance he had at replacing Jerome Powell with someone he could more easily control. It is widely reported that Donald Trump's top pick for the Fed chair is a guy named Kevin Hassett. He is a White House official adviser, is often on TV talking for the administration. Natalie Allison, our colleague here at the Post on the White House team, got some great reporting after this incident with Powell and the video went up. And that people inside the administration, including the Treasury Secretary who is a big proponent of Hassett, believe that the fact that the Justice Department is investigating Powell may mean that Hassett's chances of becoming Fed chair have been totally sunk. Because as Matt referenced, Thom Tillis, who was on the Senate Banking Committee, North Carolina Republican, North Carolina Republican who is retiring, has said he will not approve any nominee to the Fed Board until this investigation is over. And that matters because the Senate Banking committee is divided 13 to 11. So if Thom Tillis does not vote with Republicans, it deadlocks 12 to 12 and no one can get through to the Senate floor. There are other Republicans who have expressed concerns as well. And so there's a belief that Donald Trump was hoping to nominate someone he can more easily control to the Fed board because he wants interest rates lowered. But by having the Department of Justice investigate Powell, he may have sunk any chance that he has to see that goal out.
- [10:58]
Colby Yakowicz
Why is this rattling Hill Republicans so much like this specifically because we talk all the time and how Republicans don't push back on what Trump does, even when the things that he does are outside stretches the bounds of norm, normalcy. But this seems to have. Is this, like, gone too far?
- [11:17]
Matt Visor
It feels. I mean, you're not only seeing it from some of the Senate Republicans, but from also a number of people on Wall street, including Jamie Dimon, the head of JPMorgan Chase, who've been very concerned about this intrusion into the Fed. And so I think that Senate Republicans are also responding to it from people like him. It's not like an uproar from constituents. It's an uproar from, you know, donors and people, you know, on Wall street who are concerned about, you know, this, this sort of red line that has kind of existed between monetary policy and a White House administration where they're supposed to be independent. And so I think that that is creating more angst, potentially, from, from some of the, some of the Senate Republicans.
- [12:05]
Colby Yakowicz
Yeah. So from there, let's turn back to Minneapolis. We covered this on the show last week as well. But the fallout from the ICE shooting of Renee Nicole Goode continues. And then we saw a handful of top prosecutors actually quit their jobs this week. And our reporting shows it's because they felt pressured to investigate Goode's widow as part of the probe into what happened there. This feels like another example of, of kind of a weaponization of our law enforcement, at least our federal law enforcement. What do we make of this story?
- [12:40]
Matt Visor
I mean, I think it's, you know, again, we've seen Trump throughout his term, whether it's like the clashes between his administration and states, states that he, with governors and with people that he disagrees with, sending in National Guard troops. And this is an example, I think, of the federal government trying to take over and not even not cooperating with local law enforcement, not cooperating, you know, on the investigation. And so I think in, in this instance, you know, it seems like the Minnesota wider law enforcement community had, you know, in the past worked together. So in some cases, you have people who are used to working together who are no longer able to. And, you know, it is kind of extraordinary that, you know, five or six of those, you know, prosecutors decide to resign over the course of this investigation. And some of the demands coming from on high@main DOJ.
- [13:41]
Colby Yakowicz
Yeah.
- [13:42]
Dan Marika
And these aren't just like random prosecutors as well. I mean, one of the prosecutors who resigned was, I think, the point person on investigating the fraud that was happening, allegedly happening in Minnesota around the Somali American community. Yeah. Our reporting indicates that they decided to resign because the DOJ also wanted these prosecutors to look into the widow, Good's widow, who had been protesting ICE as well. I was struck by the way that Attorney General Pam Bondi came out on Wednesday and basically said good riddance to these prosecutors, bragged almost about the fact that they were leaving. And it does. It is. I'm going back to this again. But it does show the way the Trump administration and Trump himself are largely unencumbered when it comes to the way they push back against people who criticize them. There have been past administrations where there's disagreement in the Department of Justice about how to go about investigation, who to investigate, who to target, and you rarely see those spill out in the way that we've seen them spill out so regularly in this administration. This is not an isolated incident. You've had these kind of departures from the Department of Justice in the past, in the past year. And so it really isn't. This isn't an island. I mean, the Department of Justice has experienced this over and over again since Pam Bondi and Donald Trump took control of the Department of Justice. And so it is a significant moment just because of the focus on Minnesota, but it also is significant because this is continuing to happen inside the department.
- [15:12]
Colby Yakowicz
And it makes you wonder, is it even possible for the DOJ to conduct independent investigations without partisan pressure at this point?
- [15:22]
Matt Visor
I don't think that's the aim of the Trump administration. You know, I mean, I think Trump likes having control. And, you know, there's some reporting this week a little bit of some tensions with Pam Bondi in some instances where, like. But I think Trump wants control over. Over.
- [15:37]
Colby Yakowicz
Are those tensions because he doesn't think she's doing enough to go after his.
- [15:41]
Matt Visor
Yeah, right. And so. And that could be reflected in Bondi's responses this week to this particular investigation where hit Trump is sort of encouraging a culture of you going after, you know, some of these things and being quite aggressive. But I think that's. That's by design from Trump. And he feels like part of the election mandate was to do things like this. And so he's taking it to kind of extraordinary measures, given the history and sort of what we've expected of, of lines and having an independent Department of Justice. I don't think that's the goal of the Trump administration.
- [16:16]
Dan Marika
And Matt is right. You often see this kind of play out in the Trump administration where there's some reporting that he's upset at one of his Cabinet secretaries, Pam Bondi, Kristi Noem, Pete Hesith whoever you want to pick. And then that person comes out and goes on Fox News and kind of ratchets up the temperature, largely because of an audience of one hoping that the president sees that moment and sees them kind of fighting for him or does something that signals that they're willing to fight. This is something that has happened throughout this administration.
- [16:49]
Colby Yakowicz
Yeah. We should also note as it relates to Minneapolis, that Trump took to Truth Social on Thursday morning and threatened the Insurrection act, which would of course allow him to send in federal troops to Minnesota. And that is also kind of part of this narrative that he is trying to build, that there are all of these agitators, that Renee Nicole Goode and her widow were agitators against ice, and that the protests in the aftermath of her death is requiring troops on the ground.
- [17:22]
Dan Marika
Yeah.
- [17:23]
Colby Yakowicz
Talk about that.
- [17:24]
Dan Marika
I mean, Donald Trump has threatened to use the Insurrection act before. It is significant that he's saying as much about Minnesota, given everything that has played out in Minnesota this week. I am struck by just how much what happened to Good and the shooting has broken through. I think we operate in this world where we are constantly, you know, engaging with the media. We are on Twitter, we're watching cable news. Most Americans are not like that.
- [17:52]
Colby Yakowicz
Yeah.
- [17:53]
Dan Marika
And most Americans don't see kind of the minute by minute, day to day machinations of the Trump administration. But polling has shown since the shooting video was posted that some 80% of respondents to a certain poll said they had seen the video. And that has led polling to also show that there was a CNN poll this week that 56% of respondents said ICE's use of force in that video was inappropriate compared to only around, I think, 25% that said it was appropriate. And then if you take that a step further, other polls have shown, I mean, you saw in the wake of the shooting, Trump administration officials accusing Good of being a domestic terrorist.
- [18:35]
Colby Yakowicz
Right.
- [18:35]
Dan Marika
Very few Americans are getting on board with that kind of language towards her. And I think all of this speaks to the view inside the Trump administration is not the view that most Americans have of what happened. And we've known for a long time that the President's ICE enforcement has not been popular, despite him running on doing most of what he has done. And that's going to be significant as he and Republicans face voters in the midterms. He's not a popular president right now. His approval rating is pretty low. And that will be something to continue to watch as this year plays on.
- [19:12]
Matt Visor
I think Dane's point is interesting about the idea that There are a few moments, I think, in our modern culture where everybody is watching the same thing. I mean, everybody's choosing different news sources these days and different, you know, TV shows. Like, we rarely have moments where everybody's together watching the same thing. And this was one of those moments where I think everybody saw the same footage. What's interesting is people had dramatically different conclusions off of the same video. And so I think that shows, like, kind of where people's perspectives are not aligned and, you know, but you. But as a country, I think most people did see this. And so it resonated in a different way and has triggered a response in Minneapolis that I think Trump is trying to quash and trying to, like, you know, quell the protests, the dissent, in part so that in his view that ICE can continue their jobs and do what they're sent there to do, but also to. To illustrate that, you know, he, he's not going to put up with protests.
- [20:18]
Colby Yakowicz
And that might be why the way that DOJ seems to be conducting this investigation seems to be in an attempt to prove their side right, because right now they don't have public opinion on their side.
- [20:31]
Matt Visor
I mean, it's. It was striking just given the comments, the quick conclusions from many in the Trump admin. What happened? Yeah, you know, and then the idea that there was going to be an independent investigation kind of strained credulity a little bit, but just because they, they'd already decided, you know, sort of what happened based on their views of the, of the video. So, you know, I don't know. It'll be interesting to see how some of this continues to play out.
- [20:55]
Colby Yakowicz
Yeah. Well, let's take a quick pause there, guys, and when we come back, hell. President Trump's tour of a Ford plant in Detroit this week showed just how crudely he's willing to respond to his critics. We'll be right back.
- [21:17]
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- [23:42]
Colby Yakowicz
So over the course of Trump's decade in political life, I think he has done and said a lot of things that people might not deem presidential. And we saw another example of that this week in Detroit. He was touring an auto factory and he mouthed a curse word and gave the middle finger to a guy who heckled him. Dan, you actually are the only reporter who has spoken to the guy who yelled out yes. How is he feeling being on the receiving end of a presidential middle finger?
- [24:18]
Dan Marika
He's quite proud. So to set the scene, he is a line worker, union worker UAW member at the Ford plant in Michigan. He was working during when Trump was taking a tour. He is very animated around the way that the Trump administration and Donald Trump himself have handled the allegations around and the investigation into Jeffrey Epstein, the disgraced financier. We've, we've talked about a lot. And he yelled at the president. He called him a pedophile protector. And in the video, you see Donald Trump turn and look at him. Donald Trump's kind of on a elevated space. TJ Cebulla is the man who the line worker estimated he was about 60ft away, but told me that the president could very, very clearly hear him. You can hear him in the video as well. TJ Described himself as like a large man with a loud voice. Donald Trump mouth something twice directed at TJ That I can't say on this podcast. A colorful language, a curse word. A curse word to criticize or attack him. And then as he's walking away, flips him the middle finger. It is shocking video from a president, but I do think it's more than just kind of a salacious moment. I do think it speaks very clearly on a few things about the president, his headspace, when it comes to critics. This is a president who largely operates in a world that he is the hero. He goes to events where he's not often criticized. He's surrounded by people in the White House and his administration and in Congress who hold him in incredibly high regard and are willing to do a lot to make him happy. And he is not often faced with criticism so directly. I also think it shows, as I've said throughout the show, how unencumbered he is when it comes to pushing the bounds of what is acceptable for a president. If you had told me in 2016, when we were covering Trump's campaign, that he would be 10 years later flipping the middle finger to a white working class union worker at an auto factory in the key state of Michigan. I would have thought you were probably ingesting substances that just altered your mind because that really was his political base. That was the magic that helped elect him in 2016. The Clinton campaign, Hillary Clinton campaign back then thought that they were going to win Michigan going away. And what was shown in that election is that Donald Trump had this unique hold on, particularly union voters, white union voters in Michigan, and that really, they really helped deliver him the presidency in his first term. And we've seen him kind of build on that coalition throughout the last decade. So in a way, TJ Kind of fits with the Trump supporter. The Trump demographic. The base of Trump supporter.
- [27:20]
Colby Yakowicz
Was TJ Ever a Trump supporter?
- [27:21]
Dan Marika
So I talked to TJ about politics. We've been talking the last couple days. He identifies as independent. He has never voted for Donald Trump, but he has voted for other Republicans. And to get back to your original question is he is incredibly proud in this moment. He told me, I think very eloquently that there are very few times in your life when you know, kind of this moment reaches you and you have a chance to do something that you think is impactful and that you want to do. And he is very glad that he took that chance. He said he has no regrets whatsoever. It is worth noting that he has been suspended pending an investigation by Ford uaw. His union has said that they will fully protect and stand up for him and offer him everything that is protected under his bargaining agreement. It is also worth noting that the response to TJ and what he did has been overwhelming from the left. Two GoFundMes have been established and he has raised over the last, I guess, 48 the last couple days almost. I think it's over at this point. $800,000.
- [28:29]
Colby Yakowicz
Wow.
- [28:30]
Dan Marika
It's a lot of money. I was messaging him throughout the entire process as the money just kept going up and up. To say that he was shocked was somewhat of an understatement. And I think it kind of, it does highlight how at this moment, these interactions with the president are so unique that when someone gets a chance to in some ways embody what the left and what protesters would like to say directly to the president when they get that chance, and it plays out like it did, those people are held up in quite high regard by the left. And that's why you see, I mean, if you look at the GoFundMes, you have people donating $3, $5. Yes, there are some $5,000 anonymous donations. But it really is kind of an outpouring to him as he is suspended. And it's worth noting with pay during this process.
- [29:20]
Colby Yakowicz
Matt, you've covered White Houses, you've covered presidential campaigns for a very long time. How surprised were you this week when you saw the president, United States give some of the middle finger on an official presidential visit?
- [29:38]
Matt Visor
I mean, there's a couple reactions. I mean, given that it's Trump, I mean, not as surprised just because of the coarseness with which he usually conducts himself. What was surprising to me, I think, was the anger that he in his face. I mean, I think Trump can sometimes have angry rhetoric, but you rarely see him just visibly angry.
- [30:04]
Colby Yakowicz
Yeah.
- [30:04]
Matt Visor
And I think you saw that in that clip of him looking at that guy, you know, and it was almost, you know, Trump in, in Queens, you know, like looking at somebody on the other side of the street, you know, like, brawler way. And I think you don't often see that from Trump, and you did in this, this instance. And I think other presidents, you know, like being with. With Biden as people are chanting, let's go, Brandon, which is sort of shorthand for expletives at.
- [30:35]
Dan Marika
At him.
- [30:36]
Matt Visor
And, you know, he doesn't visibly react. You know, Obama giving a State of the Union and, you know, Joe Wilson standing up saying, you lie. You know, like, there are instances where presidents are in these hostile environments where they are being challenged and they don't react the same way that Donald Trump did. And I think going back to our earlier discussion about how people can see the same video and come to dramatically different conclusions, Trump supporters saw this and, you know, that's my president. I love, you know, they love that. They love that reaction from Trump because he's pushing back against somebody who they view is out of line. And Democrats see that video and they're like, finally, you know, they have this union worker, they have somebody confronting him. And, you know, how unpresidential. And why can't Trump handle criticism in a more dignified manner? You know, so you saw these different reactions play out to the same video footage.
- [31:32]
Dan Marika
I think it's often pretty easy because Trump is so unique and so out of the bounds and norms of what we've seen for past presidents. It is easy to often kind of raise this question of like, can you imagine if insert any past president had done this? I mean, beyond politics, beyond like, partisan divides, if George W. Bush, when he had been heckled by anti Iraq war protesters, had used this colorful gesture, if Barack Obama, in response to, let's say, like DACA or anti deportation protests, protesters, had done the same, I mean, you would have had such an outpouring from the opposite side of the political aisle. You would have had an outpouring from their own party if a past president had done this. And it does highlight how much the kind of what is tolerated in politics has shifted over the last decade, largely kind of in the image of Donald Trump himself, who has, throughout his career, said things that would otherwise have sunk past presidents, done things that would have sunk past presidents. But it has shifted what is acceptable in politics in a really dramatic way. And I think the question here is, does that continue when Donald Trump leaves the scene? Are there Republicans who are going to try and kind of get back to the previous norms. Are there Democrats who are going to want to continue this and use the fire that Donald Trump has uniquely used to attack Republicans who for the last decade have been using that fire on them?
- [33:04]
Colby Yakowicz
Yeah. So guys, I wanna end before the new year. We had started this new thing where Dan would ask readers of his newsletter to send in questions that we could answer here on the podcast. And I'd love to pose this one to both of you. This one comes from Carlos Cano. He's from Boynton Beach, Florida. And he asked this why do politicians in general seek elected office to represent their constituents, yet later become more interested in self serving motives and in remaining in power at all costs, regardless of moral, economic or political considerations?
- [33:40]
Dan Marika
This is why I love our readers. It is an interesting question. It requires a little bit of psychoanalysis of the political mind. The one thing I will say is that power is often kind of, it's intoxicating in a way. You saw this around Joe Biden's decision to run, not run, what happened. Joe Biden had been in public life his entire life. And I think there's a dynamic at play that even if take the money, take everything out of it, that there's a belief both on the side of the politician but also the people around him, that there's one person who can do this job and it's ex politician. So handing over power is a very difficult thing to do when you have that belief that you're the only person who can do the job in the way that you think it should be done.
- [34:27]
Matt Visor
It is interesting. I mean, it does the psychology, I mean, I think of politics, but also just of people at the pinnacle of any field. I mean, I also think of athletes who don't want to retire, you know, and like maybe stay longer than they should. And I think politicians also kind of get used to power. They get used to the trappings of the office and they're reluctant to give it up. And sometimes they don't remember why they ran in the first place. And I think that's some of what the question seems to get at is maybe motivations are more pure when you run the first time, but then the office sort of changes you and the way in which you need to morph into different things and raise money and who you listen to, you know, it'll be interesting to see, like, I don't know, I'm always fascinated by people who come up in sort of a unexpected grassroots support and sort of unexpected expected Elections.
- [35:28]
Dan Marika
Yeah.
- [35:28]
Matt Visor
Like Zoran Mandami, the new mayor of New York City who kind of came out of nowhere, or Representative Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, who came out of nowhere a couple of years earlier in her win to Congress. And sort of how they, they, these new politicians either continue to, to have that tether to, to average voters or lose it as they, you know, assume power and how that changes their own.
- [35:54]
Colby Yakowicz
Motivations and the deal making that's required, especially if we're talking about people that are up on Capitol Hill, like there's a certain, like you have to bend a little bit. There's less of that these days. But like within, even within your own party in order to get anything done or to rise up the ranks to get a committee chairmanship.
- [36:10]
Dan Marika
Yeah.
- [36:11]
Colby Yakowicz
And you know, I want to say to Carlos that this is a question that I have thought about for a long time myself and it's one I've even posed to politicians from time to time because I think I imagine what Carlos is thinking, and Carlos, you can tell us if I'm wrong, is that there's a lot of Republicans in general in Congress who have kind of given up their, maybe some of their morals, some of even their ideology in order to support President Trump and to stay in office, to avoid a challenge in a primary, to avoid just his wrath on truth social and are now in office not doing what they originally got into office to do.
- [36:52]
Dan Marika
I think it also, I think you're absolutely right with the way that the Republican Party has changed over the last decade. I also think it's a huge issue for the Democrats as well. I mean, the gerontocracy of the Democratic Party has been an issue that they have unsuccessfully, I would argue, had to confront over the last decade. You've had politicians who have hung on for a long time who believed that they were the only people who were suited for leadership. And it's somewhat of a self fulfilling prophecy. And I think that's what Carlos is getting at, is that power in some degree changes people. And that is a universal truth, I would say, in politics.
- [37:32]
Colby Yakowicz
Well, guys, that's it for today's episode. Was thrilled to have you both on Dan. Matt, thank you.
- [37:37]
Matt Visor
Thank you.
- [37:37]
Dan Marika
Thanks for having us.
- [37:41]
Colby Yakowicz
Dan Marika is co anchor of our politics newsletter the Early Brief. Matt Visor is our White House bureau chief here at the Post. You can also watch this episode. We filmed it and you can find that on our Washington Post podcast channel on YouTube. We'll add a link in our show notes. Today's episode was produced by Josh Carroll and Thomas Lu. It was edited by Martine Powers. Our mix engineer is Shawn Carter. Thanks also to our politics editors. Our team also includes Ted Muldoon, Alana Gordon, Emma Talkoff, Ariel Plotnick, Dennis Funk, Rennie Siernofsky, Sabi Robinson, Laura Benchoff, Elahi Ezadi and Rena Flores. I'm Colbyakowicz. Have a great weekend.
- [38:34]
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