Remembering Dianne Feinstein, and Biden Clashes With The Hard Right

Summary

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The Political Scene | The New Yorker

Episode: Remembering Dianne Feinstein, and Biden Clashes With The Hard Right

Date: September 29, 2023
Panel: Evan Osnos (host), Susan Glasser, Jane Mayer

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Overview

This episode opens with the breaking news of Senator Dianne Feinstein’s death, prompting reflections on her trailblazing career and the era she represents. The conversation then pivots to the mounting partisan crises in Washington, President Biden's positioning against the rightmost faction of the GOP, the significance of his recent Arizona speech, and his solidarity with striking auto workers. The panel also analyzes the looming government shutdown, the dysfunction in the House, and the deeper meanings of institutional strength vs. weakness in American democracy.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

I. The Legacy of Dianne Feinstein

(01:15 – 05:16)

• Significance of her passing: The panelists immediately acknowledge Dianne Feinstein’s death and the overshadowing of her significant career by the circumstances of her exit.

  • Jane Mayer: “She had an incredible run and was just a major figure and a breakthrough as a woman in the Senate... particularly [on] gun control [and] against torture." (01:22)

• Changing eras in politics:

  • Susan Glasser: “The age when senators were household names across the country is fading and we're in this different, much more contentious era of politics.” (02:03)

• Career-defining moments: Her leadership began during the traumatic 1978 assassination of San Francisco Mayor Moscone and Harvey Milk, and she later became a prominent voice on CIA torture.

  • Jane Mayer: Quoting Feinstein: “‘History will judge us by our commitment to a just society governed by law... and the willingness to face an ugly truth and say, never again.’” (03:14)
  • Jane Mayer: Recounts personal conversation with Feinstein on the risks of exposing CIA programs, underscoring her commitment to transparency despite difficulties.

• Age and the “gerontocracy” issue: The panel openly discusses whether Feinstein, and by extension others, may have stayed in office too long.

  • Jane Mayer: “The other issue… is this age issue... staying too long, maybe. And the gerontocracy issue, look, it's creating chaos.” (04:55)

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II. Biden’s Clash With the Hard Right & The Future of Democracy

(05:51 – 19:01)

Biden’s Arizona Speech: Framing the Threat

• Biden’s warning: Biden lays out the "MAGA threat" as existential for U.S. democracy.

  • President Biden (clip): “Seizing power, concentrating power, attempting to abuse power... weaponizing against the very soul of who we are as Americans. This MAGA threat is a threat to the brick and mortar of our democratic institutions…” (06:44)

• Glasser's Analysis: Biden’s warnings have intensified as the challenge Trump poses “to our system, to the democracy itself, has actually only escalated over the years rather than diminished.” (07:45) She notes a recent “normal politician” phase, attempting to highlight Bidenomics, has not resonated with Americans facing persistent economic insecurities.

• Media and Focus:

  • Jane Mayer: “I'm worried about one thing... He's not even on the front page with this speech. These issues are the most important issues in front of the country right now... yet it's really hard to frame it and hard to get people's attention for it.” (09:34)

• Can “defending democracy” win again?

  • Jane Mayer: “It worked for Biden last time... in the 2022 midterm elections... Most of those [MAGA-oriented] candidates lost. But whether this can save Biden in this election is really... a question.” (10:26)

The GOP’s Trumpification & Nostalgia

• Republican Party capture: Glasser points to the diminishing non-Trumpist segment within the party: “About... 20, 25% of the Republican Party primary electorate... is not Trumpist. And, you know, that's pretty small.” (12:59)

• Cindy McCain & Arizona: The symbolism of Biden in Arizona, standing with Cindy McCain, reflects a bygone era of mutual respect across party lines.

  • Jane Mayer: Recalls John McCain at a 2008 rally correcting a woman attacking Obama: “He’s a decent family man, citizen that I just happen to have disagreements with... And that's what this campaign is all about.” (14:08)
  • Arizona is a critical battleground where election denialism remains rife, emphasizing overriding themes of legitimacy and democracy.

• McCain vs. Trump party: The transition from McCain-style politics to Trumpism is underscored by references to past moments where Trump's provocations (such as disparaging POWs) were once thought to be political death sentences, but instead marked the rise of MAGA dominance.

  • Evan Osnos: “That was a moment... The assumption was this will drive Donald Trump out of politics... Not only did he survive, he... dominated the party. And I think that was the moment... when the whole sort of MAGA idea began to ascend..." (16:44)

• Ideology’s irrelevance: Instead of governing on principle or ideology, politics is now dominated by existential narratives and tribal loyalty.

  • Susan Glasser: “Ideology is dead... This incredible kind of almost existential threat came into American politics, and it sort of subverted what we might call the more normal differences of American politics.” (19:01)

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III. Labor, Biden & Populist Symbolism

(19:19 – 26:37)

• Biden’s UAW picket line appearance: First time ever for a sitting president—serving both practical (swing-state Michigan) and symbolic (pro-labor, populist) objectives.

  • Jane Mayer: “Yet another battleground state, Michigan is going to be key in the 2024 election and yet another very key constituency... Democratic Party has lost a lot of support in working class voters. And trying to win over labor... is really important.” (19:42)

• Contrast with Trump: Trump’s Michigan visit was to a non-union shop; supporters’ signage was staged and misrepresentative.

  • Jane Mayer: “Trump... posed as someone who was... representing the working man. But what does he do?... He goes to a non union shop at the invitation of the boss... When the Detroit News did a little poking... they were just carrying the signs.” (20:44)

• Dem party strategy: Biden aims to energize key blocs—unions (including Black labor households), young white progressives, and demonstrate on-the-ground commitment, especially after Clinton’s 2016 Michigan absence.

  • Susan Glasser: “Unions are extremely popular among the kind of young white progressives... he's in big trouble with those young voters... there's a ton of Black labor union households... trying to shore up core Democratic identity.” (21:15)

• Enduring effect of ‘fantasies’: The court ruling against Trump in New York is called a rare “form of accountability” but panelists aren’t sure the fantasy (and fear-based) politics he sells will lose their power.

  • Jane Mayer: “He's selling fear, as usual, and dividing people.” (25:45)
  • Evan Osnos: “He's also losing. He's lost in 2018, 2020, 2022.” (26:25)

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IV. Looming Government Shutdown & GOP Dysfunction

(27:31 – 34:51)

• Impact of a shutdown: The conversation stresses the immense, real-world effects on government workers, recipients of public services, and the disproportionate burden on vulnerable groups.

  • Susan Glasser: “It's real people... who not only won't go to work, but they won't get their paychecks... sending home... air traffic controllers... not being able to get checks... or go to national parks.” (27:43)
  • Echoing nihilism of the “toddler caucus,” a faction within the GOP driving the shutdown with no clear purpose except to sabotage government.

• Republican shutdown tactics doomed to fail: They interpret the shutdown threat as a historically losing strategy—ultimately rebounding against Republicans, yet repeatedly attempted.

  • Susan Glasser: “Republicans have tried this play over and over... backfired... including, of course, on Donald Trump... he didn't get a single one of the things... he went for... in the first place.” (29:06)

• Trump’s interests & the far right: The panel notes Trump's own legal cases as a personal motivator for obstructionist tactics.

  • Jane Mayer: “Of course, there's something he wants from a shutdown... to shut down the prosecutions that are coming after him.” (29:51)
  • But, Susan Glasser: “Not going to work. We should point out that's one thing that will continue is criminal prosecution.” (30:04)

• Who is most affected: Biden’s messaging spotlights the impact on Black women, children, and marginalized communities; the EPA’s inability to act in high-risk areas is also highlighted.

• Weakness as pathology: The recurring self-destructiveness of current institutions stems from deep institutional and moral weakness rather than outright strength, illustrated by Republican self-marginalization and Democratic unpopularity.

  • Susan Glasser: “A lot of this crisis... is a crisis of weakness, of institutions and individuals... trust in almost everything is down, even the military.” (33:46)

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V. Institutions, Individual Agency, & The Battle for Democracy

(34:51 – End)

• General Mark Milley & fragile institutional guardrails: As Milley retires from a “heroic tenure,” the story of the Trump years is framed as a near-miss, where institutions almost failed but were saved by the individual character of a few key figures, notably after the Lafayette Square incident.

  • Susan Glasser: “People very morally, in some ways, compromised... it's a story... about individual standing up to Trump because the institutions actually potentially could have gone the other way…” (37:06)
  • Milley’s letter: “It is my belief that you, Donald Trump, were doing great and irreparable harm to my country... I need to step aside and let someone else try it. Now, he didn't ultimately resign.” (37:53)

• The press assault on the military as an institution: Despite individual moments of resistance, the broader trend is the successfully orchestrated effort to undermine public trust in the military and other institutions.

• Comic relief & Melania Trump:

  • Jane Mayer: “Melania Trump is renegotiating her prenuptial agreement, which suggests she sees there might be trouble for Donald Trump’s finances ahead and wants to get her piece of the action. So maybe she thinks he’s…” (39:05)

• Final thoughts: The ultimate takeaway is that the individual moral choices of leaders are critical at moments of institutional crisis.

  • Evan Osnos: “The individual moral calculations and fiber of the people in power, matter, and institutions and individuals are in this constant contest.” (39:48)

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Notable Quotes

• Jane Mayer on Feinstein: “Her exit is overshadowing a tremendous career that she had. It won’t be like this forever, but right now… it turns to big political stakes about what’s going to happen with this seat and California.” (01:29)
• President Biden: “This MAGA threat is a threat to the brick and mortar of our democratic institutions, but it’s also a threat to the character of our nation.” (06:44)
• Jane Mayer on "defending democracy": “It worked for Biden last time... but whether this can save Biden in this election is really, I think, a question.” (10:26)
• Susan Glasser on the GOP: “A Republican Party that is captured…by this extreme... if you look at the polls…Donald Trump [has] well over half, really two thirds or more of the Republican Party…” (12:45)
• Evan Osnos on Trump’s appeal: “The fantasy of Donald Trump is the persistent, most durable fact about it.” (24:51)
• Jane Mayer on shutdown nihilists: “They're kind of like juvenile... juvenile delinquents. That's what they kind of remind me of. But this small group that's kind taken the House hostage, this far right group.” (31:04)
• Susan Glasser on institutions: “It's a crisis of weakness, of weakness of institutions and weakness of individuals. Donald Trump happens to be very gifted at playing on the weakness others…” (33:46)
• Susan Glasser (on Milley): “It's a story of a small number of individuals who made the right choice... but the institutions actually potentially could have gone the other way if there were different people. It is... about how close we came...” (37:06)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 01:15 — News of Dianne Feinstein’s death and reflection on her legacy
• 06:44 — Biden’s speech on the MAGA threat and defense of democracy
• 14:08 — Recalling John McCain’s 2008 defense of Obama
• 19:19 — Biden joins UAW picket line; labor, strategy and symbolism
• 27:31 — What a government shutdown will mean; GOP "toddler caucus"
• 34:51 — Mark Milley's departure, individual agency, and the thin margins that saved institutions

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Tone & Style

True to the spirit of The New Yorker, the conversation is analytical, measured, and laced with historical perspective, notable wit, and frequent self- and media-awareness. The panelists combine first-hand reporting, personal anecdotes, and broad thematic context with lightly sardonic asides and collegial banter, which underscores the seriousness of the institutional moment without sliding into alarmism.

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This summary offers a comprehensive look at the episode’s substance, distilling the mood and key intellectual threads for listeners and non-listeners alike.

Transcript

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[Evan Osnos]

This is just happening right now. I think you guys probably saw this walking in. But Dianne Feinstein has passed away.

[Jane Mayer]

I know. I mean, really sad news. She had an incredible run and was just a major figure and a breakthrough as a woman in the Senate and as someone who had a powerful voice on many issues, particularly gun control against torture. She was fantastic. But, you know, I mean, we've talked about this on the show. I mean, the sad thing is that in some ways her exit is overshadowing a tremendous career that she had. It won't be like this forever, but right now, I mean, immediately it turns to big political stakes about what's gonna happen with this seat and California.

[Susan Glasser]

Well, I mean, look, this is also a reminder, isn't it, that kind of the age when senators were household names across the country is fading and we're in this different, much more contentious era of politics. You know, it's interesting because Dianne Feinstein was this liberal Democrat from San Francisco. She was literally the mayor of San Francisco at a time when national Republicans demonized the city. Doing that again now but nonetheless, it was a different era. Right. And I do think that. I don't know that there will be senators like this 20 years from now.

[Evan Osnos]

It is amazing. I mean, honestly, just thinking about the span of her career, you know, she, after all, took office in a moment that made people think about gun control in a way that really hadn't. She was obviously sort of. Her career kind of came out of the. This tragic murder in San Francisco.

[Jane Mayer]

Both Mayor Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk have been shot and killed.

[Evan Osnos]

And then, I mean, I think if you're. If you're thinking about the moments of her life, you have to think about the speech that she gave about torture.

[Jane Mayer]

History will judge us by our commitment to a just society governed by law and. And the willingness to face an ugly truth and say, never again.

[Evan Osnos]

I mean, that was a pretty bold moment for anybody. And for her to kind of stand up to the CIA.

[Susan Glasser]

Yeah, she really. She confronted powerful interests, I think, across the board in Washington. And that was something really remarkable. I remember the very first, quote, year of the woman, right. When Feinstein and others were just coming to Washington. It was seen as almost this unthinkable breakthrough that California would elect two women senators at the same time. Can you imagine that? Right. Like, it was no problem to elect two male senators from every single state forever. But it was big, big news when that happened.

[Jane Mayer]

Just on the torture issue, I know personally that she struggled with doing the right thing because she worried about what effect it would have on national security if she criticized the CIA's program of so called, you know, enhanced interrogation. And at one point, she actually called me up to have a lunch with her about it. W. We talked about it. And she said, well, what would you do if we let out these national security secrets and show pictures of what's happened to these detainees, and there are riots around the world that kill maybe Americans in embassies. Who's responsible? And we sort of went around and around at lunch over it, and I remember arguing that this is what makes America strong, this kind of transparency. And it's not because of me. But she went with it on her own instincts and then commissioned a study that laid out the guts of that program in a way that was incredible. I mean, and, you know, more power to her for doing that, you know. But, of course, the other issue that we're dealing with here is this age issue, though. I mean, staying too long, maybe. And the gerontocracy issue, look, it's creating chaos. This is gonna be a chaotic chapter now.

[Evan Osnos]

Yeah, well, it's hanging over the conversation we're gonna have today, but by any measure, it's the end of a giant career. Welcome to the Political Scene from the New Yorker, a weekly discussion about the big questions in American politics. I'm Evan Osnos, and I'm joined, as ever, by my colleagues Susan Glasser and Jane Mayer. Good morning to you both.

[Susan Glasser]

Thank you so much, Evan. Great to be here.

[Jane Mayer]

Hi, Evan.

[Evan Osnos]

We have a potential government shutdown on the horizon, and it feels like Washington was trying to fit in a month's worth of news into just the past few days. But at its core, this flurry of activity and chaos, let's call it what it is, marked an important threshold because it seemed like the first week, in effect, that the Biden presidency truly clashed with the MAGA wing of the gop. It's a fight that will have implications beyond what happens with the funding of the government. This is gonna hang over the months to. For the moment, the Biden administration is confident that any attempt to shut down the government or bring in impeachment is going to backfire against Republicans. But the White House is also not letting the larger meaning of this moment go, in effect, undescribed. And you had Biden just yesterday lay out the stakes as he sees them as really nothing less than the future of American democracy.

[Joe Biden]

Seizing power, concentrating power, attempting to abuse power. Purging and packing key institutions. Spewing conspiracy theories, spreading lies for profit and power to divide America in every way. Inciting violence against those who risk their lives to keep America safe. Weaponizing against the very soul of who we are as Americans. This MAGA threat is a threat to the brick and mortar of our democratic institutions, but it's also a threat to the character of our nation.

[Evan Osnos]

And I want to start right there with Biden's remarks in Arizona on Thursday. Susan, Obviously, we've heard a number of these kinds of phrases from him before for good reason, over the last few years. But clearly he saw that this was a moment to draw a finer point on it. What do you think is the message that he is seeking to convey in a speech like that right now?

[Susan Glasser]

Yeah. No. That's a hell of a list, isn't it? It's a hell of a list. And that's the thing about Donald Trump, is that the challenge that he poses to our system, to the democracy itself, has actually only escalated over the years rather than diminished and blowing past the barriers and the guardrails in our system. Of course, as long as people go with him, that has given him and fueled this power. So throughout Biden's presidency, he's been challenged, he's taken different tacks. He's attacked Trump and Trumpism at times, as he did in launching his 2020 campaign. But then he's tried to revert to being what we might say is a normal politician. And, you know, the last few months, while he's been struggling in the polls, Biden has reverted to what you might call normal politician. He has been making a series of speeches around country trying to brand the economy as Bidenomics, which has turned out to be a really questionable decision at a moment when Americans there are objective signs of an economic recovery and strengths, very low unemployment, job creation, all those things. And yet this enormous sense of insecurity, post pandemic hangover, inflation that continues to hit people every time they go to the supermarket. So normal politician moment seems to be at least temporarily on hold. Biden is in. Is in a real crisis right now as well. And I think that's part of the context.

[Evan Osnos]

Jane, I don't think I've ever heard a president feel the need to say in the course of a speech, I stand for the peaceful transfer of power, but that's actually what's required at the moment. I mean, it was pretty fascinating. What did you make of it?

[Jane Mayer]

Well, I'm worried about one thing looking at the papers this morning, at least the papers that arrived at our house. He's not even on the front page with this speech. This is the. As I see it, partly is these issues are the most important issues in front of the country right now. The future of democracy and whether this country can fight off this autocratic threat from Trump. Yet it's really hard to frame it and hard to get people's attention for it. It's such a big subject. And take a look at the debate.

[Susan Glasser]

By the way, I love that you were like the papers that have arrived at our house because Jane, like me, is a physicist, physical, newspaper, household.

[Jane Mayer]

I was thinking we three, I think this is.

[Evan Osnos]

We get two.

[Jane Mayer]

The entire.

[Evan Osnos]

It was wet this morning from the rain.

[Susan Glasser]

We get three, I think.

[Evan Osnos]

All right, well, now we're showing off.

[Jane Mayer]

So, you know, it worked for Biden last time that framing it as a choice about defending democracy in America and real the tradition of government in America. And it's what got him elected. In part, it worked in the 2022 midterm elections where people were fighting against Maga candidates who were basically saying that the election was stolen or whatever else. Most of those candidates lost.

[Evan Osnos]

Yeah.

[Jane Mayer]

But whether this can save Biden in this election is really, I think, a question.

[Evan Osnos]

And this actually, to that point, Jane and Susan, there is a really interesting detail of what he's trying to do. And you heard him say in the speech that most Republicans don't, as he said, adhere to the extremist MAGA ideology.

[Joe Biden]

But there's no question today's Republican Party is driven and intimidated by MAGA Republican extremists. Their extreme agenda, if carried out, would fundamentally alter the institutions of American democracy as we know it.

[Susan Glasser]

Look, one of the biggest points here is where is he making this speech? And he's flown out to Arizona to announce and to be alongside Cindy McCain, the wife of the late Republican senator from Arizona, John McCain. McCain ran against Joe Biden on the national ticket in 2008. Right. Joe Biden was the vice presidential nominee against McCain. Yet they maintained this friendship. This is what American politics used to be. And it's interesting because I think there's a great danger in nostalgizing American politics. The good old days weren't necessarily so good. But it is also true that a sign of our present crisis is the inability to have a politics that works. And a politics that works in a divided country is a politics in which people of differing points of view from differing parts of the country can work together on that which they agree on, not on that which they disagree about. And I think that that's the point that Biden is making with this as well. And yet what we've seen is a Republican Party that is captured, as he pointed out, by this extreme. By the way, it's not an extreme minority, the Republican Party anymore. It may be in the House of Representatives. Maybe it is. But more broadly speaking, if you look at the polls right now of the Republican primary, ra Donald Trump running away with it, well over half, really two thirds or more of the Republican Party are now, I think, and can be said to be adherents to the cult of Donald Trump. That is the only conclusion after. Now, this is the third presidential election in which Donald Trump is running to be the Republican candidate. And the bottom line is we're looking at about maybe 20, 25% of the Republican Party primary electorate. That is not Trumpist. And, you know, that's pretty small.

[Jane Mayer]

That's pretty small. I think of two things about Arizona and McCain here. One is one of the best moments, at least from my standpoint, about McCain, was during the 2008 presidential election when a woman, he was in a rally, said that Obama was not an American. Yeah. And that maybe he was Muslim. And foreign. And McCain stood up to her and said, no ma', am, no ma'.

[Evan Osnos]

Am.

[Joe Biden]

He's a decent family man, citizen that I just happen to have disagreements with on fundamental issues. And that's what this campaign is all about.

[Jane Mayer]

Looking at the opposition as legitimate, knocking down lies and disinformation and hate and ignorance. That was the John McCain that I think was at his best and it really means something. And the other thing to say about Arizona, of course, is it's in play. You know, we're talking about 2024 and it's going to come down to what, five or six battleground states. And Arizona is a state that Biden won by 11,000 votes, you know, incredibly close. And the election deniers have been denying the legitimacy of that win ever since in Arizona. So it's a hotbed, although it just kind of MAGA lying.

[Susan Glasser]

Doug Ducey, who was the Republican governor of Arizona at the time, did not. And as in Georgia, what you had is a Republican governor and you know, other Republican state officials who stood up and said, I should say the former Republican governor, cuz there's been an election, but who stood up and said, no, this is not true, it's not been the case. And in fact, he has testified on this point to federal officials and he hasi noticed that he even co sponsored a fundraiser for Chris Christie who is running in the Republican primary as Luke, literally the sort of lone, truly anti Trump candidate in the Republican primary.

[Jane Mayer]

Meanwhile, you've got like Kari Lake and Andy Biggs and some of the people who lost. Right. I mean, Biggs who's so.

[Susan Glasser]

And I do think that Georgia and Arizona are examples of what Biden is trying to encourage, which is this notion that it's possible to fight back within the Republican Party against maga. And if anyone would have done it, of course, John McCain in the final years of his life was essentially the leading Republican opponent to Donald Trump. And that was something that since he died tragically in Trump's presidency, you haven't seen anyone else emerge really to take up the banner. In fact, remember the great running subplot tragedy of the Trump years was that John McCain's Republican wingman Lindsey Graham turned into this incredible sycophant. In a way, they are the story of the Republican Party over this last few years. Right. You had the McCain Prize and Lindsey Graham.

[Jane Mayer]

It's a great conversion, symbolically, that is, McCain was the last of the Republicans who would stand up to Trump. In some ways though, I mean, unless you count Romney.

[Evan Osnos]

There was a moment in this speech, in this vein of sort of thinking about the values of the party, and when did the MAGA wing kind of begin to emerge and take dominance. Biden talked about the idea that. That Trump has called people who served in the armed forces suckers and losers. Remember, this was a famous moment in which he talked about people who were buried at the World War I cemetery in France. But he was also talking about McCain, because in some ways, when I look back on this whole period, I think of that moment when Donald Trump, the candidate, said of John McCain, who of course, had been a POW, that he preferred people who hadn't been captured. That was a moment. It was a real sort of a parting of the paths, because the assumption was this will drive Donald Trump out of politics. It's so grotesque, what he just said. It's so abhorrent to how we think of ourselves as a political society that he can't survive. And not only did he survive, he then went on to dominate the party. And I think that was the moment, in some ways, when the whole sort of MAGA idea began to ascend to where we ultimately have ended up crossing.

[Susan Glasser]

What we perceive to be the guardrails and the barriers in American politics, and surviving becomes your superpower. And that is what, you know, that was a template that we've now seen used again and again by Trump. But interestingly, about this question of ideology, I do think it's worth noting that perhaps John McCain, the senator, John McCain, the conservative Republican politician from a different era. I'm not sure how he would have felt about Joe Biden flying out to Arizona and saying, I'm gonna take more than $80 million in leftover Covid money, in taxpayer funds, essentially an earmark, and put that towards the building of a new John McCain Library. John McCain, before he had to be a crusader for democracy against Donald Trump, was a crusader against things like earmarks in American politics because he thought that was corrupt.

[Jane Mayer]

I don't know, Susan. I think there's a little asterisk on the conservatives against government spending that says, except for my presidential library.

[Susan Glasser]

But, James, the point I'm making is that ideology is dead. And that, in fact, what's happened is that this incredible kind of almost existential threat came into American politics, and it sort of subverted what we might call the more normal differences of American politics.

[Evan Osnos]

It was another moment this week that I think would be easy to get lost in the shuffle. But I want to make sure that we acknowledge the significance of this, that Biden joined a United Auto Workers picket line in Michigan. That's fascinating. First time a president's ever done it. Jane, what do you think sort of prompted that trip? How do you think that fits into his campaign strategy?

[Jane Mayer]

Okay, well, we have, I mean, it's very parallel in a lot of ways. Yet another battleground state, Michigan is going to be key in the 2024 election and yet another very key constituenc of voters that he's got to win. If you look at Arizona as trying to win over moderate Republicans to the extent that they exist, pull them out of the MAGA wing, you could look at Michigan and the Democratic Party has lost a lot of support in working class voters. And trying to win over labor, people who belong to unions and people who are in manufacturing on the line is really important. So, I mean, this was a, a move of Joe Biden trying to show where his heart is and where he hopes his votes are coming from. Also, I think in a way, one of the things that was most interesting was to see the contrast with Trump here because, you know, Trump has posed as someone who was a populist and representing the working man. But what does he do when he goes to Michigan? He goes to a non union shop at the invitation of the boss. There are people at that event carrying signs saying, I'm, you know, an autoworker and I'm a union auto worker. They were neither. When the Detroit News did a little poking into it, it turned out they were just carrying the signs. And Trump, if you look at his record, it was really anti labor in terms of the National Labor Relations Board people that he put on and look at the record of the Supreme Court justices that he chose.

[Susan Glasser]

Right. But the problem is, Jane, that nobody looks at his record and the problem is that people don't. Unfortunately, Trump's appeal is not based on an objective assessment of here's my plans for the country and here's my ideology. He has, in a way that is familiar, going all the way back, say to Ronald Reagan, where he had two terms, very conservative policies that were not supported by the majority of Americans, and yet they loved Ronald Reagan. And now you have a situation where it's not actually a question of Donald Trump trying to win the working class white voters who are. He already has them. But the message that Biden is sending is to key parts of the Democratic constituency. He has to have come out. And I think that actually the Michigan Democratic Party is sort of the template for what Biden hopes to do in a lot of places around the country in 2024, which is to appeal to sort of more targeted slices. First of all, unions are extremely popular among the kind of young white progressives that he needs to get a lot more enthusiastic. So he's in big trouble with those young voters. Right. And of course, they are a key part of the Democratic constituency. So that's one. Number two, there's a ton of black labor union households and working Americans. Again, Biden's numbers aren't as strong with those voters who have been absolutely core to the identity of the modern Democratic Party, to the voting constituency. I think that this trip was a lot about that. Number three, you have just showing up and Scranton Joe, union Joe, he is a big believer in that kind of politics. And remember that back in 2016, there were three states essentially that gave Donald Trump the presidency and Michigan was one of them. And I have talked, as I'm sure you have, to many Democrats in Michigan who believe it was political malpractice. And Hillary Clinton literally did not show up in Michigan in the immediate run up to the election. She lost only by a few thousand votes. A few thousand votes that possibly a big rally and a real presence there in the final days could have made a difference.

[Jane Mayer]

What do you think, Evan? You talk to the Bidenites a lot. I mean, what do you. Do you think it was a hard choice for him to make about whether to show up there on the picket line?

[Evan Osnos]

No, I don't, actually. I think this is something that is more core to his identity than people generally appreciate, is that he calls himself and the labor movement tends to agree that he's the most pro union president that we've had in modern times. It's a significant piece of his identity and his politics. I mean, I have to say that at the same time that we're considering whether the Republican base is going to acknowledge the difference and the reality of who is actually standing up for workers. Look, we have to recognize that American voters, as we all know, are responsive to economic conditions. And if we're going to say that they're going to be affected by the hangover of inflation, we have to acknowledge that some number of these workers are paying enough attention to this to recognize that one of these two candidates, Donald Trump, is getting up there and saying not only is he appearing at a non union shop, he's also saying, by the way, you're all gonna be out of work because of batteries eventually. So he's. The sort of degree of contempt that he has for actual workers is profound. And I think that is, you know, let's remind Ourselves, the pundit class got a whole lot wrong in 2022 in the Midter about what people did and did not believe. And I think we should be prepared for the idea that people are actually beneath the surface of their frustrations about Joe Biden and the sort of continued polling support for Donald Trump that actually people are ready for. Moving on from the. To use the word of the week on Donald Trump, the fantasies associated with his politics. It's a word that came up in this court ruling in New York City about the fraudulence in his business. The fantasy of Donald Trump is the persistent, most durable fact about it.

[Susan Glasser]

You know, Donald Trump has been selling the fantasy ever since he entered public Life in the 1980s. So this is not a new phenomenon. What's amazing is the durability and power of it. And that judge's decision. I highly recommend reading it. It really was a unique document in American politics.

[Jane Mayer]

It's finally. It's so satisfying because it finally is a form of a cement wall. He's hit. You know, you talk about the guardrails, he's gone through all the guardrails, but, wow, wham. He hit the wall on that one, and we'll see whether it holds. But it really was a form of accountability. I gotta say, the other thing that he's selling in this fantasy is it's not a happy fantasy. It's fear. What he's telling these workers is, you're gonna lose your job. China's gonna take it. They're gonna make electric vehicles. You're out of a job. You know, stick with me. I'm the only hope you've got. He's selling fear, as usual, and dividing people.

[Evan Osnos]

And I have to tell you, let's rem. He's selling it. He's the id. He's all these things. He's also losing. He's lost in 2018, 20, 20, 2022. Let's keep that in the front of our minds.

[Jane Mayer]

Right?

[Evan Osnos]

Let's take a break. When we come back, we're going to look at the politics of a potential government shutdown and the mounting divisions inside the gop. America is changing, and so is the world. But what's happening in America isn't just a cause of global upheaval.

[Jane Mayer]

It's also a symptom of disruption that's happening everywhere.

[Evan Osnos]

I'm Asma Khalid in Washington, D.C. i'm.

[Jane Mayer]

Tristan Redman in London, and this is the Global Story.

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Every weekday, we'll bring you a story.

[Evan Osnos]

From this intersection where the world and America meet.

[Jane Mayer]

Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Evan Osnos]

All right, folks, so what actually does a government shutdown look like in D.C. and in the rest of the country? Who, let's put this at the very, very front of this discussion. Who is affected most by this?

[Susan Glasser]

Yeah, look, it's real people, first of all, it's not only the hundreds of thousands of workers in the federal government who not only won't go to work, but they won't get their paychecks, but it's also people who are affected by things like sending home hundreds and hundreds of air traffic controllers around the country or not being able to get checks that they rely on, or not being able to access government services or go to national parks. And I'm so struck. There's a quote by a Republican congressman, part of this, as I called it, the nihilist faction or the toddler caucus on Capitol Hill, who are pushing forward with this shutdown for no real apparent reason. And he said, and it was so remarkable, this conversation, he said, you know, nobody cares about these people. Nobody cares about the government anyways. It's a good thing that we're doing because the government doesn't do anything good. And I thought, what an ignorant, remarkable statement. And you would think, right, if the definition of madness is doing the same thing over and over again and trying to get and imagining that you'll get different results. Well, Republicans have tried this play over and over and over again ever since, you know, Newt Gingrich sort of inaugurated the modern era of the government shutdown back in the 1990s. It failed for him politically and backfired on him. It's backfired again and again, including, of course, on Donald Trump, who, when he was president in late 2018 and early 2019, presided over the longest shutdown in American history, nearly 35 days. And at the end of that period of time, he didn't get a single one of the things that had caused him to go for the shutdown in the first place. And yet here we've had Donald Trump to connect the dots on our two conversations. He's the loudest public cheerleader for this government shutdown. He is egging on this group of nihilists in the House of Representatives. He is saying, shut it down. If you don't get everything you want, shut it down.

[Jane Mayer]

Of course, there's something he wants from a shutdown which he would like to shut down the prosecutions that are coming after him. So there's a little bit of self interest in that. And he's Actually, by the way, it's.

[Susan Glasser]

Not going to work. We should point out that's one thing that will continue is criminal prosecution.

[Jane Mayer]

I think there are other aspects of the court system, as I understand it, that are hanging in the balance. Maybe not the criminal cases, but certainly other ones. And just, you know, countless, countless ways this hurts ordinary people all over the country. You know, the congressman you mentioned, I think it must be Bob Good from Virginia who was saying that you kind of wonder, okay, you hate government, why did you go into it then? You know, but it's, you know, this is what you reap from a 40 years worth of far right conservative libertarian movement funded by billionaires that has demonized the idea of government and made it seem like something other than our self government, which is, you know, what it really is. I mean, I have to wonder. I mean, Trump, interestingly, is arguing that a shutdown will hurt Biden. He says in his tweets or whatever you want to call them, his exes, that they always blame the president in charge. And, you know, I think, you know, we'll see if that's so. I mean, it seems like I think the Democrats have done a pretty good job of putting the blame on this, what Susan calls the toddler caucus. They're kind of like juvenile. They may have grown up to become juvenile delinquents. That's what they kind of remind me of. But this small group that's kind taken the House hostage, this far right group.

[Evan Osnos]

It was interesting to hear how Biden talked about the shutdown a couple days ago. It was actually quite notable, his comments, because the very first thing he mentioned is that this will have disproportionate effects on the black community, as he said, particularly black women and children who receive nutritional assistance. Seven million people. And then on top of it, in communities that are affected by, disproportionately affected by environmental risk of industrial production and things like that, frontline communities. The EPA is gonna be shut down in this period. So there are ways in which this is visited upon precisely the people that somebody like Congressman Good from Virginia is not thinking about. And I think that's at the core of how the White House is trying to focus attention. I have to tell you, just on a personal basis, it was 10 years ago, almost to the day that I started work in Washington, and the very first day I started work in Washington, the government shut down. And it was, Ted Cruz is shut down. Let's not allow him to go unmentioned in the history of this stuff. And what was a Fascinating. And I have to say, a bleak measure in my memory of it was that really nobody benefited from that experience except Ted Cruz. He ended up writing, believe it or Not, a children's book about shutting down the government. And for a while, it was the single most popular children's book on Amazon.

[Susan Glasser]

By the way, we should refer to him now as Podcaster Ted Cruz. Although he remains in the Senate, his leading identity is that he's created this podcast that speaks to a large audience of his conservative followers. And to your point, this is a Republican Party that has lost seven of the last eight presidential elections in the popular vote. Seven of the last eight. That's an extraordinary. In the sweep of American history, that's one of the longest losing streaks that we've had going. Has that caused Republicans to abandon extremism, to seek to find a majority of Americans who wanna vote for their candidates? No. In fact, they've gone in the other direction, which is appealing more and more to an extreme whose views are such anathema to a majority of Democratic and independent voters that in fact, it's less likely and less likely that they will achieve a majority of the popular vote. I think a lot of this crisis that we're seeing is a crisis of weakness, of weakness of institutions and weakness of individuals. Donald Trump happens to be very gifted at playing on the weakness others, but certainly that's the story in the House of Representatives, the incredible weakness of House Speaker Kevin McCarthy. It's, in a way, the story of a president like Biden who not only has the inherent kind of weaknesses of being constrained by divided government, but also it's a real weakness in American politics. When two thirds of the country doesn't want you to run for reelection, it is a weakness. You don't have the strong hand that a really popular president supported by a large majority, the country has the weakness of the unpopularity of our institutions, the media, certainly the political parties trust in almost everything is down, even the military. We can talk about that. Even things that were once the pillars of our society, people don't trust them. It's weakness.

[Evan Osnos]

But, you know, at the same time, I actually. No, I think you have to also acknowledge the strength, because, look, we are talking on the very week that Mark Miller is leaving at the end of what has, by any measure, been an extraordinarily challenging and heroic tenure. That's just the only word you can use to describe it. I mean, the Atlantic has an important piece, I think, that captures the fact that this is the guy who stood up to what Donald Trump was trying to do in subverting the election. And I think it's worth noting strength where we see it. And I would say at the same time, look, yes, you're right. Biden is facing two thirds of the country who doesn't approve of what he's doing, and yet he's also standing up against, against what Vladimir Putin is doing in Ukraine. Look, I'm not making the case for him, except to say that I think we make a choice as a culture about whether we focus on the ways in which it is about weakness or the ways in which we also see strength out there. And I think it's frankly sort of part of our responsibility to say, no, let's actually point out when people are doing the good right thing.

[Susan Glasser]

You mentioned Mark Milley, and I have to say, having spent a lot of time and written a book about this, I don't think the takeaway from this story about Donald Trump and his assault on the independence of the military is a story about strength. It's a story as is the story of 2020 and Trump at large. It's a story of something that Milley and the other generals, according to our reporting, said to each other, which is it was a very close run thing. And that was the famous phrase that when Wellington, after the Battle of Waterloo, when he wrote to a friend and he was being congratulated on this historic victory, the defeat of Napoleon, and he said, no, actually it was a very, very near run thing. The story of Trump and his effort to overturn the 2020 election is a story of a small number of individuals who made the right choice, people very morally, in some ways compromised people like Vice President Mike Pence, like some of the Republican appointees at the Justice Department, the acting attorney general and some of his advisers. It's a story about Mark Milley, who was Trump's own appointee, by the way, as the chairman of the Joint Chiefs. And it's about individual standing up to Trump because the institutions actually potentially could have gone the other way if there were different people. It is a story in many ways about how close we came and how we were just one vice president, one attorney general, one chairman of the Joint Chiefs away. But I thought to close on this point, right? So Milley makes this incredible decision after the very embarrassing humiliation of Lafayette Square, when he is sort of co opted into wearing his uniform and marching across in Donald Trump's photo op amid the Black Lives Matter protests. And he thinks about resigning. And he wrote this letter that we obtained and he said it is my belief that you, Donald Trump, were doing great and irreparable harm to my country. I believe that you have made a concerted effort over time to politicize the US Military. I thought I could change that. I've come to the realization that I cannot and I need to step aside and let someone else try it. Now, he didn't ultimately resign.

[Evan Osnos]

Lucky for us, he did not exactly.

[Susan Glasser]

But the politicization of the military, the campaign against the quote unquote woke military, a fiction created in the minds of Fox News producers and Donald Trump's Twitter feed four years later. Millions more Americans believe that now than did in 2020. There's been a campaign and an assault on the integrity and the credibility of our institutions, because that is the goal of this movement. It is to tear down any possible guardrails that could stop essentially an authoritarian minority from coming to power.

[Jane Mayer]

Well, okay, this is all very terrifying, but I would like to bring up one counter indicator that I take as an optimistic point that was written about by the New York Post, which is that Melania Trump is renegotiating her prenuptial agreement, which suggests she sees there might be trouble for Donald Trump's finances ahead and she wants to get her piece of the action. So I just, maybe she thinks he's.

[Susan Glasser]

Going to win again, though, and she doesn't. You know, she's going to have to be first lady again. Jessica, somebody always benefits. Jane, that's not a counterintuitive. It's an example of people always.

[Jane Mayer]

It suggests she knows there's trouble in paradise.

[Evan Osnos]

Well, I think the through line from the very beginning of this conversation to the end is that the individual moral calculations and fiber of the people in power, matter and institutions and individuals are in this constant contest. And it is a hard week, but I am so grateful for the chance to be able to talk about it with you. A little bit of therapy for the three of us. Thank you, Jane. And thank you, sister.

[Jane Mayer]

Thank you, Evan. Thank you, Susan.

[Susan Glasser]

Ah, well, here we go.

[Evan Osnos]

This has been the Political Scene from the New Yorker. I'm Evan Osnos. We had production assistance today from Alex d', Elia, Dan Richards, and Gianna Palmer. Stephen Valentino is our executive producer. Our theme music is by Alison Leighton Brown. We'll be back next week. Thank you very much for listening. Listening.

[Jane Mayer]

Right now, we are living through some of the most tumultuous political times our country has ever known. I'm David Remnick, and each week on the New Yorker Radio Hour, I'll try to make sense of what's happening alongside politicians and thinkers like Cory Booker, Nancy Pelosi, Liz Cheney, Tim Waltz, Ketanji Brown Jackson, Newt Gingrich, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. Charlemagne, the God, and so many more. That's all in the New Yorker Radio Hour, wherever you listen to podcasts.

[Susan Glasser]

From PRX.