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The New Yorker Radio Hour
The Political Scene: Big Money and Trump’s New Cabinet
00:36:27
“Donald Trump is a master of picking appointees for very senior positions who never would have gotten those jobs under anyone else,” the staff writer Susan B. Glasser says.
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Madeline Barron
This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. You chose to hit play on this podcast today. Smart choice. Make another smart choice with Auto Quote Explorer to compare rates from multiple car insurance companies all at once. Try it@progressive.com, progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. Not available in all states or situations. Prices vary based on how you buy.
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WNYC Studios
The New Yorker Radio Hour is supported by FSG presenting A Life, a biography by Jonathan Eig with new research that affirms Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. S legacy as a deep thinker, strategist, and historical leader. A Life is now in paperback. Listener support.
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Jane Mayer
WNYC Studios.
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Susan Glasser
This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. Every week, our Washington correspondents, Jane Mayer, Susan Glasser, and Evan Osnos join our podcast the Political Scene. On Friday, they discussed the nomination hearings for the new cabinet and the dawn of Trump 2.0. What was the first inauguration that you guys went to?
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Jane Mayer
Oh, boy, do I remember mine.
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Susan Glasser
Yeah.
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Jane Mayer
Oh, my God. Yeah. Yeah. No, I came down to Washington. I'd hardly ever been to Washington before. I was here right when they were setting up the barricades for Reagan's inaugural. I think I was in school. And I'll never forget, it was just such a sea change about what was gonna happen. I mean, that was a gigantic change, a hinge moment in American history. And even I knew that then. I mean, it had a momentous feeling to it. And. Okay, since I know we're gonna talk about money and how many insane amount of money is going into ensenaul. There was a great term that was created at that point in the Washington Post, the term limo lock. And it was the limos were lining up locked in traffic for that inaugural.
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Susan Glasser
And all the fur coats, right, like.
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Jane Mayer
That was so much fur.
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Susan Glasser
This is supposed to be, I believe, the coldest inaugural since then, right this time of year.
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Evan Osnos
If there's ever been an administration that's gonna be pro fur, it's gonna be the Trump administration.
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Susan Glasser
Well, that could be the big trend story. You know, style editors like, you know, paging Vanessa Friedman.
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Evan Osnos
Yeah, get going on that.
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Susan Glasser
Welcome to the Political Scene, a weekly discussion about the big questions in politics. I'm Susan Glaser, and I'm joined by my colleagues Jane Mayer and Evan Osnos. Hi, Jane.
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Jane Mayer
Hey, Susan.
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Susan Glasser
Hey, Evan.
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Evan Osnos
Morning, guys.
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Susan Glasser
On Monday, President Joe Biden will watch as the man he swore to protect the country from, Donald Trump, becomes the next president of the United States. Eight years ago, we sat and watched as Donald Trump talked of American carnage. There was a sense of disbelief in Washington. It was a moment of resistance. But we've been hearing something very, very different since Donald Trump won reelection this time. A feeling of exhaustion, a sense from Republicans and even some Democrats that this time, somehow maybe we'll be different. A normal Donald Trump. Is that even a possibility? Well, look, Monday, I think, is a day when the fantasy dies once and for all. Donald Trump has already promised a shock and awe approach on day one of his administration. We'll talk about that. We'll talk about his new Cabinet, arguably the most extreme ever. A series of very revealing hearings this week on Cabinet nominations like that of Pete Hegseth. Already we're seeing that fealty to Donald Trump ranks above all else in Trump 2.0. And meanwhile, as Jane herself has reported this week, the dark money interests are showing their hand, coercing the Senate Republican majority to push through nominees, despite concerns about their ability to do the job. So here we are on the brink of Inauguration Day. How should we understand what we've learned in this purgatory period between the end of the Biden era and whatever awaits us next week? Sigh. Deep breath. Let's talk first about Joe Biden's farewell tour, such as it's been. Evan, you have been our premier Biden watcher, written an important book about him. Do you think Joe Biden has helped the case for his legacy over the last couple months, or heard it?
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Evan Osnos
Well, I was really interested in what he was gonna say in that final speech, partly because I thought there's a high risk that he's gonna do exactly as you were just implying in your question, which is that he really did not do himself a lot of favors in these final interviews where he said things like, I could have beaten Trump, which I don't think you're gonna find many pollsters who agree with that. But what's interesting to me is that presidents, when they're walking out the door, sometimes use a phrase or they drop in a bit of language that can characterize their era. You know, Ronald Reagan, remember, invoked the shining city on the Hill. Whatever we think about his politics, that was how he wanted to characterize. And of course, the one I was thinking about actually was Eisenhower talking about the rise of the military industrial complex. And Biden adapted that concept to the present by describing what he called the tech industrial complex.
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Susan Glasser
Today, an oligarchy is taking shape in America of extreme wealth, power, and influence that literally threatens our entire democracy, our basic rights and freedoms.
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Evan Osnos
And I think that is not just a description of this very immediate set of events which we're gonna be talking about with these tech bros kind of surging to Washington embrace Trump. But it really describes a defining fact of this period that I think was under described until now. I've been writing in the magazine over the last few years about the rise of the ultra rich and the ways in which they ripple through our lives. And I believe that that is as political a story every time you write about that, that is as political as writing about swing voters in Philadelphia. And I'm sort of glad to see that these two things are now fusing in the public consciousness in a more explicit way. A lot of people will say, I wish that Joe Biden had done more on that matter earlier presidency. But I think as he walks out the door, naming it is useful.
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Susan Glasser
Dane, what were your thoughts on hearing Biden say this the other night?
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Jane Mayer
Well, I too thought it's bracing to hear an American president actually use the word oligarchy. And I think what's interesting, as Evan's pointing out, is that he didn't talk about this earlier. And why is that? And I think the reason is we've just passed the 15th anniversary of Citizens United on January 10th. The reason is that both parties, because of the way the system is now set up, are so dependent on big money and it's only when they're walking out the door that they tell the truth about it.
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Susan Glasser
Yeah. Well, I mean, to that point, a lot of people pointed out that the timing was pretty off when President Biden had just given medals in the Oval Office to billionaires like George Soros and David Rubenstein. So let me ask this then. Probably naming, framing and attacking the problem of the tech industrial complex is not going to be what Joe Biden is remembered for in terms of what he actually did and represented in his four years in office. His predecessor, Barack Obama, was famous for talking about how you essentially get your one paragraph in history.
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Evan Osnos
I think that was a Bill Clinton coinage originally. Yeah.
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Susan Glasser
But it was Barack Obama who meditated on it. Right. And who talked with our editor David Remnick about what he would be remembered for. Obama had always the sense of history sitting on his shoulder. And I have to say, what's remarkable to me is that Joe Biden, Obama's vice president, didn't seem to absorb that from Obama. In many ways, I feel like Biden has been almost reckless or careless with his own record of what's to come. And now, very belatedly, only in this sort of final round is he talking about, well, I did all this great stuff, but it's just not going to come to fruition for the American people until much later. Too bad about that. Or I should have focused on that more. Give me a stab at what you both think is going to be in Joe Biden's paragraph.
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Evan Osnos
Well, I'll tell you what I think is the most interesting period to understand if you want to know where things went, in a sense went pear shaped for him. I had this great moment this past week when I got a chance to listen to some of these focus groups from 2020 and 2021 that our friend Sarah Longwell has been conducting. And they are an amazing window. You see prophecy now when you see what they were talking about then because what you hear heard voters saying in 2020 when they voted for Joe Biden was we want somebody who's not Trump. We want somebody who is a transition, who is, as he said at the time, a bridge to a new generation. That really was the dominant message in one form another over and over they said that. And then something big changed in the period between Election Day and the first quarter of Biden's presidency. And what happened was partly January 6th, which I think in a way had a somewhat toxic effect on Biden's understanding of his own mandate, of his own presidency. He came to see it as a mom, a sort of galvanizing need for a giant presidency, somebody like fdr. He put these portraits on the wall that turns out to be, in its way, a tell. I was talking to a friend yesterday that had he along with portraits of Roosevelt and of these other presidents. I kind of wish he'd had a group shot of Americans, you know, a Norman Rockwell picture to remind himself, to remind himself, it's not about you. It's not about you, the president. And I think that in a way it was a misunderstanding of what people wanted from him. And in the end, the president's relationship with the public is a kind of unspoken compact. And if you violate that compact, people will punish you for it. And in a way, his decision to run for a second term was he broke that faith with people. And as he, you know, he always said keep the faith. And he didn't in a way keep the faith that people expected of him.
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Jane Mayer
Wow. I agree. But I think also that who writes this paragraph about what his presidency is is going to matter as much as anything else. And that right now I think the conventional wisdom, not Evan, who actually truly knows what he's talking about, but there's sort of a feeling of like, oh, well, he was too liberal. He went too Big, all that kind of thing. I totally agree that he overinterpreted the mandate for himself and stayed too long. But I think the other thing that I would take away, really, is that it's impossible to be President of the United States if you can't communicate. And just seeing his farewell address where he said very important things, I think, but I felt his delivery was abysmal. He can barely speak a sentence without stumbling. And the job, as much as anything else, is communicating. And, you know, you can't do it if you can't communicate. And his communication skills were never great and they diminished tremendously during the presidency. And so I think that's really been a big problem as much as anything.
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Susan Glasser
Yeah. And, you know, I absolutely agree with what both of you have said. And, you know, it's not just hubris, though, that Biden will be remembered for, but I think almost a level of bad luck that's dogged him throughout his life and his career that reaches sort of Greek tragedy proportions. The man who warned us about Donald Trump is cursed by history to be bookended by him. The man who said he would end this period of dysfunction and chaos and uncertainty in our national life becomes the one who failed to put us back together. He promised normalcy and couldn't deliver. He started his political career in tragedy. And you look at the bad luck that he got of coming to office, determined to, here's this miraculous vaccine and he's going to bring competence back to Washington. And I think he made an unfulfillable promise to us and then suffered when he couldn't fulfill it. Right.
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Evan Osnos
You know, I will say, though, the thing that attracted me to Joe Biden as a literary subject way back in 2014, when I first started writing about him, was not that he was a winner. In fact, at the time, he was this fascinating figure precisely because his life was this oscillation between tragedy and resilience. That's the interesting thing. It was over and over again. It would be, you know, he would mishandle the Anita Hill, Clarence Thomas hearings, and then he would build his reputation back by helping Barack Obama returned to office. I do think, and I think we owe history, a mention of the fact that he's not wrong when he says that the seeds have been planted for things that may, in the long run prove to have been durable elements of his legacy. Things like the biggest investment in climate change, reducing drug prices. I wanna say that three times reducing drug prices. Reducing drug prices is something that's already having an impact on people's lives and we don't talk about it in Washington. Cuz it's not that sexy. And it is a huge deal if it matters to you. So I'll take on this. I'll sort of, my last word on it will be it's kind of the Truman, the Truman route. It may be that over time his approval ratings begin to warm in memory as some of the achievements as Jimmy.
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Jane Mayer
Carter's we just saw did. Again, it's who writes the history. And we've seen that in a way, he was unable to sell his own legacy while he was in office. And that's for many reasons. It's not just his failure to communicate, but the whole communication system, as he said in his way out the door has changed.
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Susan Glasser
Well, I think I totally, I agree with all of that, with the caveat here that in the last couple months and over the course, you could say of his last year in office, some of the flaws in Biden's character really came to stand out. And it's not just every losing presidential campaign, losing Senate campaign in history. Right. It's a failure to communicate. It's not anything that the candidate did. But in this case, I think what I'm struck by is that I've seen even many Democratic supporters of Biden or of that policy agenda that Evan's talking about really sour on the man himself for reasons that are very manifest and manifold. It's a painful moment to recognize that he chose personal aggrandizement at the expense arguably of something really important, putting the country in a position where Donald Trump could come back to power. It's never going to be washed away by history that Biden lied to the country and said that he wouldn't pardon his son and then did that. And you know, I just, I don't think that.
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Jane Mayer
Well, and there were policy failures as well. I mean, I think people are going.
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Susan Glasser
To, people can forgive policy failures is what I'm saying. But the character flaws are the ones that unfortunately have come much more to the fore over the last year.
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Evan Osnos
And to that point, one of the great durable observations about the presidency is the presidency doesn't change you. It doesn't make you. It reveals you. It reveals you. And I think this is a pretty pure expression of that.
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Susan Glasser
The political scene from the New Yorker will be back in just a moment and we will talk about what will be revealed next week.
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Susan Glasser
Donate your used car.
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We'll turn your old car into to the news and conversation that we've been serving to the community for over 100 years. Many listeners have already donated their cars to WNYC. It's an easy way to support the station and you'll get a tax deduction.
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Susan Glasser
Learn more@wnyc.org car so before we get into the nitty gritty of what we've learned in this purgatory period, as we called it, Donald Trump has made a lot of promises. He's talked about a lot of things he's planning to do on day one and in the days that follow. What is the biggest thing that you are bracing for? Jane, why don't you start?
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Jane Mayer
I am most worried that the brakes are completely off, what looks like a kind of concentration of power in a single individual that we've not seen before. I'm worried about nobody standing up to Donald Trump if he uses the government for personal revenge and personal gain.
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Evan Osnos
For me, it's the potential for gross incompetence. I think just take it at face value. The people who are now supporting Trump, some of these CEOs who are kind of surging towards him, one of the things they'll often say is we're sick of the politics. We just want people who can get things done right. So what we saw this week in people like Pete Hegseth is I don't think anybody would hire Pete Hegseth to be the assistant regional manager of a paper distribution company. To borrow one example. I mean, if somebody came to you and described his record, his resume, his knowledge of the relevant portfolio, you'd say, thanks Pete, but no thanks. So that worries me, cuz incompetence at high altitude can cause tremendous harm.
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Jane Mayer
Susan, what about you on day one? What's keeping you up at night?
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Susan Glasser
What isn't right? No to Evan's point, actually, the fact that you mention this idea of incompetence, ironically, I've heard many Democrats say to me that they view incompetence as the saving grace of the Trump administration. No, seriously. I mean, I've had senators say this to me. And the reason is that they believe that that may cause aspects of Trump's really radical agenda to fail. And so, you know, let's just put competence aside, as, you know, possibly in the positive column, possibly in the negative column.
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Evan Osnos
My rebuttal is one word, Covid.
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Jane Mayer
Well, people have said this specifically about Pete Hegseth. There are people who've joked that maybe if he continues the kind of drinking that he's alleged to have done in the past, he'll do less harm.
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Susan Glasser
I think that the real risk of Trump 2.0 is the irreversible course change the country. We've now learned, and Joe Biden has reinforced, that we can't go back to the status quo ante. 2015 is firmly in the rear view mirror. But making changes that are not easily undone via executive order or quick fix in four years from now, if the country flips back to democratic control, those are the things that really matter. And of course, that's where I look at some of the decisions he's talking about making around the world. The consequences of selling out Ukraine are durable, lasting, and potentially extremely threatening. Alienating our neighbors and friends. What does it mean that the very first targets of Donald Trump's new presidency are Mexico and Canada? Once again, we've been blessed by our geography, by history. We have some of the best neighbors in the world. When our second largest city is the victim of a catastrophic fire, who's showing up in their planes to save Los Angeles? It's our friends and neighbors. These are the kinds of things that actually do really worry me because I think you can't go back. You can't go back on certain ruptures. And I'm very worried about that. And I'm very worried that people are not prepared for Donald Trump, even if incompetently, to follow through on some of these pledges. Mass deportation. Now, is America really ready starting next week, for doors being kicked down across the country and people being sent away with no. What does that mean for our country and for our national identity in terms.
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Jane Mayer
Of the things that are going to be hard to get back? I would just add the climate. What we're seeing is Trump appears to be turning environmental policy over to the fossil fuel industry, who he's putting in power in every direction. And you are not going to be able to get this climate back anytime soon. The damage that we're seeing in LA is just a tiny little glimpse at what lies ahead if they, they don't work on this.
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Evan Osnos
Jane, Susan mentioned that you were at the hearings for Pete Hagseth, and I have to say you've been writing really intensively and productively about his candidacy for Secretary of Defense. And there was something that really leapt out in your reporting, not just the fact that, I mean, one thing that got some attention was that he is alleged to have had three gin and tonics at a weekday breakfast meeting not too long ago, which is a mind sticker. And he didn't respond to requests for comment from the New Yorker, I should add, on the alleged three gin and tonics at breakfast. But there was something else that really speaks to the institutional conditions that Trump is coming into and the ways in which parts of the government can begin to fold themselves around him. And that's the fact that the FBI's background check on Hegseth is said to have been very slight, and that in a way, the FBI regards its client in this case, as you put it, as the president himself. That's an astonishing thing to realize that if the president says, give this guy a light once over, then that's all he gets. How much do you see the risk of a broader reflection of that instinct to say, well, what the man at the top wants is what the man at the top gets?
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Jane Mayer
Oh, I think that's indicative of what we've seen. The FBI's failure to do a thorough background research report into Hagseth and not speaking to the people who worked with him, who prepared a whistleblower report when they tried to sort of raise the alarm about his behavior, not speak to the woman who accused him of raping her, who he paid off later, secretly. I should mention that he has denied the rape allegation and said that the sex was consensual. Not speaking to those people suggests that they are just folding to the will of Trump and the transition team. And very much that is indicative of what we saw on the Hill this week, which was the Senate Republicans going along. People who had previously raised questions about these nominees are falling in line, giving into intimidation and fear. Anyone who went to grade school in this country knows there were supposed to be checks and balances in the role of advise and consent from the Senate. It is an important check. So far, other than Matt Gaetz, it's not working.
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Susan Glasser
Yeah, well, I mean, we talked at the beginning about the sort of illusions or the fantasies that are pretty quickly going to come to an end. And one persistent fantasy, and we all heard it from lots of people, not just hardcore partisan Republicans, was this idea that, oh, everything's going to be okay because those Senate Republicans are going to provide a check on this extreme cabinet that Donald Trump is putting. Now here we are talking in January and it's. But the current view is that basically all of Trump's nominees, with the possible exception of Tulsi Gabbard, look at the moment as though they're gonna get confirmed. Do you agree with that, Evan? Is there anyone else you think might actually be in trouble? And what do you make of what we've learned so far?
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Evan Osnos
I'll avoid predictions just cuz these days new information comes to light all the time. But I do get the strong sense, particularly watching the Pam Bondi hearing she's up for Attorney General, there were some really astonishing little moments. One in particular that speak to the way in which I see a culture forming. And Susan, this will be familiar to you from having lived in authoritarian countries, as I have, that there were a couple things that she did that were just on point with those habits of mine. One is that when she was asked whether Joe Biden is a legitimate president, she would not answer the question to say clearly, yes. What she would say is President Biden is the President of the United States. He was duly sworn in. That's almost a sort of theological refusal to say certain words, to acknowledge reality. That's a real feature of authoritarian political culture. The other thing is that she of course, dismissed out of hand the idea that there would ever be a political prosecution of an opponent, an investigation of a political opponent, which is another feature of. I remember living in Egypt at the time and they would say, oh, there are no political prisoners because of course nobody is ever prosecuted for politics. They're prosecuted for some other goofy. So there was a kind of bluff confidence in the way in which she has fully absorbed the mannerisms of authoritarian fealty that I found to be quite striking.
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Susan Glasser
Yeah, and the thing is that it's a personalist regime that we're looking to set up here, which means that even wild veering around in terms of your ideology is to be expected because you're following whatever the dictates and the ideology of the leader. Donald Trump famously not fixed to a set of hardcore traditional Republican principles. And so that's why you had many of these nominees and that included not just Pam Bondi, but Pete Hegseth and others. Absolutely. Just forswearing aspects of their deeply held beliefs that they've written about, talked about for years, just because it's either no longer politically convenient because Donald Trump doesn't agree with it, because it's not on message at the moment. And what was remarkable for me is having those senators just sit there and say, look like, oh, yeah, sure, that's totally plausible. It reminded me, frankly, of all those Supreme Court nomination hearings where they were like, what's your view on Roe versus Wade? Oh, Senator, I don't have a fixed view of Roe versus Wade. And then what do they do? They get sworn in and immediately vote to throw out Roe versus Wade.
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Evan Osnos
Do you think there comes a point when the pantomime, the ridiculous rituals of obfuscation, of refusal to provide honest answers, that people just finally sort of, that the public just finally says this is ridiculous?
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Jane Mayer
No, in fact, the opposite. What I think happens in Washington as people admire the ability of these nominees and whoever else you're talking about to just really navigate. They think, oh, they are so politically slick. And what have we seen? Okay, so take a look. It's remarkable. If you take a look at the Hagseth hearings, he flubbed some of the most basic questions about the. Just the.
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Susan Glasser
Okay, let's play that.
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Evan Osnos
Yeah, we gotta play that. Tammy Duckman for the children, for posterity. They need to hear it.
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Susan Glasser
Speaking of a basic question here, this is going to rank up in the all time great ones. This is Senator Tammy Duckworth, herself a veteran, asking Pete Hegseth which countries were in the important defense group being asean.
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Jane Mayer
And how many nations are in asean, by the way, I couldn't tell you the exact number of nations in that.
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Evan Osnos
But I know we have allies in.
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Susan Glasser
South Korea and Japan and in Aukus.
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Jane Mayer
With Australia trying to work on submarines with them. None of those countries are in. None of those three countries that you've mentioned are in asean. I suggest you do a little.
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Evan Osnos
I do think that the Hegseth hearing and his pratfall on the subject of ASEAN is an important milestone in the stupefication of America. Because I ran into a conservative commentator and I mentioned this Hegsest thing and the guy says, oh, that's nothing. I mean, I'm sure he just thought that Tammy Duckworth meant Asian, like Asian. And I said, but that is not allowed. Why is it that you think that that is an okay thing for Secretary? Score one for the stupid caucus.
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Susan Glasser
Well, and the stupefication of America, this also, Evan, is a facet of authoritarian regimes. Donald Trump is a master of picking appointees for very senior positions who never would have gotten those jobs under anyone else. It enhances the personal loyalty to the leader. Even in Trump 1.0, there was a lot of appointing of people who were manifestly unqualified, who didn't have the background and also who are sort of broken people. It's the island of broken toys. And again, that enhances it. When Donald Trump and his organization, the Trump organization, plucked the doorman and made him the well paid security chief, that was somebody who was loyal to him forever. And I think it's part of creating not just a government of laws and rules, but a government built around the principle of personal loyalty to one man.
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Jane Mayer
I mean, and the thing is, so then you take a look at how did the Washington press corps describe this hearing? They admired his ability not to be rattled. It could have been that he was described as flunking the basics, but instead he didn't even flinch as he went through this. And the Republicans continued to try to, you know, fix his image from question to question as they backed him and talked about how wonderful it is, you know, that he's a redemption story and has given his life to, as he called it, his Lord Jesus. And that's why he was chosen. Let's also be clear that Trump chose him because he's a very able talking head. And as Fox anchors go, he has been the most pro Trump of any of them. That's saying quite a lot at Fox.
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Susan Glasser
The political scene from the New Yorker will be back in just a moment.
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WNYC Studios
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- [34:35]
Jason Adam Katzenstein
Hi, I'm Jason Adam Katzenstein and I'm a cartoonist with a New Yorker. Something that I like to do is to stay home because home is where you can wear sweatpants and watch movies. Another benefit of home is that you don't have to be perceived by other people. But I do like feeling healthy and having endorphins and also I know need my muscles to be huge so that I can draw those cartoons. And this, dear listeners, is what I love about the hydro rowing machine because now I can have the workout of an outdoorsman while being an indoorsman and you get to do the workout equivalent of staying in and watching a movie. But in this case you have that little TV hooked up to the hydro and you get workouts that are led by Olympians and world class athletes. Also, the hydro is low impact, which means minimal risk of injury. And that is great news for me personally because I am very injury prone. Kick off the new year with a full body workout. All from the comfort of home with Hydro. Head over to hydro.com and use code New Yorker to save up to $475 off your Hydro Pro Rower. That's H Y-R-O-W.com code New Yorker to save up to 475 dollars hydro.com code.
- [35:42]
WNYC Studios
New Yorker WNYC Studios is supported by Babel Are you holding back on foreign travel plans this year because you are afraid of the language gap? Well, no need to mind the gap if you have Babbel this year. Speak like a whole new you with Babbel, the language learning app that gets you talking. Babbel's quick 10 minute lessons, handcrafted by over 200 language experts, get you to begin speaking your new language in three weeks or whatever pace you choose. And because conversing is the key to really understanding each other in new languages, Babbel is designed using practical real world conversations. Let's get more of you talking in a new language. Babbel is gifting our listeners 60% off subscriptions@babbel.com WNYC get up to 60% off@babbel.com Wnyc spelled B-A-B-B-E-L.com Wnyc Babbel.com Wnyc rules and restrictions may apply.
- [36:45]
Hydro
The New Yorker Radio Hour is supported by Rocket Money. The start of a new year is the perfect time to get organized, set goals, and prioritize what matters most. One common top priority for many of us is financial wellness. Thanks to Rocket Money, financial goals can feel achievable. They show you all of your subscriptions right in one place and pull together spending across different accounts to track spending. How Rocket Money's dashboard also gives you a clear view of your expenses across all of your accounts and can help you easily create a personalized budget with custom categories to help keep your spending on track. Whether your goal is to pay off credit card debt, put away money for a house, or just build your savings, Rocket Money makes it easy. Rocket Money has over 5 million users and has saved users a total of $500 million in cancelled subscriptions. Cancel your unwanted subscriptions and reach your financial goals faster with Rocket Money. Just go to rocketmoney.com nyrh today that's rocketmoney.com nyrh on Radiolab a weird little.
- [37:50]
Susan Glasser
Forest where photons go to die. We follow a mystery into a space.
- [37:54]
Evan Osnos
I mean, it's as dark as anywhere you can get on the planet where creatures shapeshift. You really feel like you're looking through them into space to an abyss, things behave strangely.
- [38:04]
Jane Mayer
It's like, good Lord.
- [38:05]
WNYC Studios
I mean, that's just nuts and darkness rules.
- [38:08]
Susan Glasser
Yeah. You feel like it's asking you something.
- [38:10]
WNYC Studios
Listen to the darkest dark on Radiolab. Wherever you get podcasts.
- [38:24]
Susan Glasser
I just want to close on this idea of. Of winning as its own virtue for Donald Trump. Why is it that his approval ratings as he's about to be sworn in are higher essentially, than they've ever been before? Pretty close to dead even between those who approve of Donald Trump and those who disapprove of Donald Trump? A reminder, not a single day in his first presidency when he ever had a net positive approval rating. We don't know if that'll be the case in the second term. Speaking of loving Trump the winner, you also see the pile on effect of America's big money men and all the billionaires who are gonna be on that platform, many of them previously Democratic big givers. Mark Zuckerberg, just one example. Jeff Bezos is gonna be there. Jane, help us understand what the caving of the big money men means for America in the next Trump years.
- [39:23]
Jane Mayer
Well, I mean, inaugurations have always been something of a sh. To tell you the truth. The money comes in, it's almost like it's a protection racket. These businessmen are saying, you know, please treat my business kindly and maybe throw a contract in my direction. It's so much more money this time than in the past, though. I mean, the estimates I've read say that just the inaugural fund is raising somewhere between $200 million and $500 million. That'll be just sort of at Trump's disposal in some way or another. Like, what is it? I mean, it's a combination of fear and investment business that stood up to him to some extent in the past and is all falling in line. It suggests that they're paying fealty to where the power is and to some extent, hoping for some goodies back. There's a report, I think it was, in the Wall Street Journal, about one of the crypto companies, Ripple, where they have literally donated $10 million, okay, in two different forms, to Trump at this point. That is an investment in give me a policy that we want.
- [40:28]
Evan Osnos
And I think to your point, I mean, things that's different from the traditional shakedown is that you have, as the Journal reported, companies that have not given to inaugural funds in the last decade that are now giving money to Trump's inaugural, like McDonald's, Delta, Johnson, and Johnson. That is worth noting. I have to Say this to me, to your point, Susan, about suddenly everybody is sort of gravitating to his power. This is one of the big themes of this period that I find most distressing. Is this essentially the attraction, an amoral conception of. Of victory, of winning. I remember years ago when I was interviewing Mark Zuckerberg and he was fascinated by Augustus, the Roman emperor. And one of the things that was kind of the most telling pieces of that conversation was I said, but what about the downsides of Augustus? He was said to be a brutal and unforgiving and duplicitous leader. And he sort of took that in stride and said, yeah, but think about the impact on history. I'm paraphrasing here.
- [41:30]
Susan Glasser
In hindsight, not a reassuring precedent if your tech gazillionaire is researching Roman emperors.
- [41:37]
Jane Mayer
Evan, does this explain the strange hairdo?
- [41:40]
Evan Osnos
Yes, it does.
- [41:40]
Jane Mayer
The Augustus look?
- [41:42]
Evan Osnos
Basically it does. I mean, at one point they went on their honeymoon, he and his wife in Rome, and they had so many photos with statues of Augustus that his wife joked that it felt like it was the three of them on their honeymoon.
- [41:58]
Jane Mayer
Oh, boy.
- [41:59]
Susan Glasser
Okay, this is getting into absolutely weird territory. I'm sure Donald Trump can weaponize this in some way to gain evil even more power over Mark Zuckerberg. It's not going to be like any inauguration. I think that of the recent past, four years ago, only Donald Trump had sicced a mob of his followers on the Capitol. He refused even to show up at the Capitol. This time, all of the former presidents are coming, although Michelle Obama has perhaps wisely opted out. I did read, Evan, that Barack Obama, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, unlike trio of buddies, but buddies nonetheless are not going to be attending the traditional post inauguration luncheon at the Capitol. What do you think?
- [42:50]
Evan Osnos
I think that they're. Look, as long as Donald Trump gets to, quote, be a norm breaker and chuck out the rule book, I don't see a whole lot of reason for some of these guys to go through some of the abject rituals of pretending as if Trump honors them.
- [43:08]
Jane Mayer
I'm worried, though, that being awol, it certainly sends a message, but it's not the same as resistance or actually being in opposition. It's one way to express something, but it's not the most effective.
- [43:21]
Susan Glasser
Well, of course, it was eight years ago that George W. Bush, sitting next to Hillary Clinton at Trump's first inaugural, turned to her after he heard the American Carnage inaugural address and said, that was some weird shit. I have confirmed that, by the way, with both of the principals, it was.
- [43:40]
Jane Mayer
One of the more famous things that he said. Can I just add one thing to add back to the money thing, which is, I think it's also worth saying that something else that's different this year is Elon Musk is going to be not just on that platform as the richest man in the world next to Trump. He's going to have an office in the Old Executive Office Building next to the White House. These people, this money, these people who are called oligarchs by outgoing President Biden are moving into power.
- [44:15]
Susan Glasser
All right, deep breath. Ready or not, here we go. This has been the political scene from the New Yorker. I'm Susan Glaser. We had research assistance today from Alex Dalia. Our producer is Julia Nutter, mixing by Mike Kutchman. Steven Valentino is our executive producer, and Chris Bannon is Conde Nast's head of Global Audio. Our theme music is by Alison Layton Brown. Thank you for listening.
- [44:50]
WNYC Studios
WNYC Studios is supported by Carnegie hall, which presents pianist Bruce Liu in recital performing works by Tchaikovsky, Mendelssohn, Scriabin and Prokofiev's Piano Sonata no. 7, January 24. Tickets and information@carnegiehall.org.
- [45:08]
Madeline Barron
My name is Madeline Barron. I'm a journalist for the New Yorker. I focus on stories where powerful people or institutions are doing something that's harming people or harming someone or something in some way. And so my job is to report that so exhaustively that we can reveal what's actually going and present it to the public. You know, for us at in the Dark, we're paying equal attention to the reporting and the storytelling, and we felt a real kinship with the New Yorker, like the combination of the deeply reported stories that the New Yorker is known for, but also the quality of those stories, the attention to narrative. If I could give you only one reason to subscribe to the New Yorker, it would be, maybe this is not the answer you're looking for, but I just don't think that there is any other magazine in America that combines so many different types of things into a single issue. As a New Yorker, you know, like, you have poetry, you have theater reviews, you have restaurant recommendations, which for some reason I read, even though I don't live in New York City. And all of those things are great, but I haven't even mentioned, like, the other half of the magazine, which is deeply reported stories that honestly are the first things that I read. You know, I'm a big fan of gymnastics. And people will say, oh, we were so lucky to live in the era of Simone Biles, which I agree. We're also so lucky to live in the era of Lawrence Wright, Jane Mayer, Ronan Farrow, Patrick Radden, Keefe. And so to me, it's like, I can't imagine not reading these writers.
- [46:49]
Jane Mayer
You can have all the journalism, the.
- [46:52]
Evan Osnos
Fiction, the film, book and TV reviews.
- [46:54]
Jason Adam Katzenstein
All the cartoons just by going right now to newyorker.com dark plus, there's an incredible archive, a century's worth of award winning work just waiting for you. That's newyorker.com dark and thanks.