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- [00:01]
Susan Glasser
Displacement is at its highest level since World War II, but more than $1.
- [00:06]
Jane Mayer
Billion in essential programs are being cut just as needs grow.
- [00:10]
Susan Glasser
Families forced to flee war are arriving in camps hungry, cold and exhausted. With your support, unhcr, the UN refugee agency, provides essentials for emergencies. Warm clothes, blankets, cooking sets and shelter materials help families survive the deadly winter ahead. Donate@unrefugees.org Scene. Welcome to the Political Scene from the New Yorker, a weekly discussion about the big questions in American politics. I'm Susan Glasser and I'm joined by my colleagues Evan Osnos and Jane Mayer. Hi, Evan.
- [00:51]
Evan Osnos
Good morning, guys.
- [00:52]
Susan Glasser
Hey, Jane.
- [00:53]
Jane Mayer
Hey, Susan.
- [00:53]
Susan Glasser
Great to be with you both. Well, here we are at the end of the year and Donald Trump is in pitch mode. This week in Pennsylvania, he went back out on the road for the first time in a long time to give the first in a series of what his advisors claim will be campaign style speeches meant to focus on affordability. But instead, and to almost no one's surprise, Trump went off script for 97 minutes. He went on and on and on. He insisted that Americans were doing better than you have ever done before, said in inflation, in fact was no longer a problem, and called, as he has before, affordability a Democratic hoax. He then went on to blame Joe Biden for the economy again, shocker there, ranted against immigrants and insisted that no child needs 37 dolls, raising the question of what exactly Christmas was like in the Trump family household. The point is, and we know what the point is, it's just what we've come to expect from Donald Trump ten years into this predictable chaos. But as we bring this first year of his second term to a close, I think a question is coming for all of us, which is what do we do in a world where we're constantly shocked and never surprised? From the outrageous rhetoric in his speeches to the basic disregard for the rule of law, the breaking of institutional norms, rules, traditions, Donald Trump still manages to shock us, it seems to me, but he so rarely surprises us now. We thought we'd try to do something different for this year end show, which is a prompt from Jane. Let's try to think about were there moments where we were actually both shocked and surprised? What did stun us in a world that that is just stunningly turned on its head overall? And let's sort of dig into our assumptions, our theory of the case about Donald Trump as we try to make sense of an almost unthinkable series of things, right? Like if we looked back at ourselves a year ago Would we have said we were prepared and yet still stunned every day? But what do you think?
- [03:17]
Jane Mayer
Absolutely. I was trying to think where did I personally misjudged things just in order to learn from it and take note. And for me, anyway, the overall framework of what I think I misjudged was I did not see that Trump 2.0 would be so much more radical and so much more sweeping and successful in achieving what it was aiming for than Trump 1.0. I didn't think he had the ability to get what he wanted and deliver the blows that they've delivered to, to American norms, American ideals and values. And to take apart so many achievements of previous decades in so little time, it's happened so fast. It is quite amazing that they were capable of this, I think. And so the second part of that is when I imagined that something like this would be attempted, I imagined there would be major pushback from the American public, from civil society, from all sectors. And it's not our culture to. To have an authoritarian kind of powerful strongman. At least in my years of my life, I hadn't seen it, and I've seen it abroad and didn't think it would take here. I've been really surprised at how quickly the places that I thought would resist folded instead. And we can get into this in greater length. But tops on my list of surprises were the law firms that instead of upholding the rule of law when they were faced with a lawless executive order saying they weren't going to be allowed to set foot on federal property, including in the courts, they paid a chunk of change to Trump so that they could just stay in business. And those famous litigators didn't fight. And the universities, also the Ivy League schools that I hold in huge esteem, several of them, as we know, just folded in both these sectors. And I'll move on here. But both of these sectors, which are so important, academia and the law, there were people who did fight back and have. And we can talk about that later. I think that matters a lot also.
- [05:35]
Evan Osnos
You know, I think, Jane, you've identified what is the crucial dynamic really, which is this idea that in a whole host of ways, this administration has kind of tumbled forward from one shocking thing to the next. And I think in the beginning there was a way that people said, oh, you know, part of the reason why this is happening so fast and why institutions aren't responding is because of the shock and awe effect that people just sort of never imagined. As you were saying, you just sort of didn't Imagine that the norms and the rules were as fragile as they proved to be. And let me just stipulate that there is some portion of our readers and listeners who will always say, and I think this is a bit of a pose, but saying, like, well, you shouldn't be surprised. Like, I always knew that these big institutions were villains. I always knew that the law was porous and fragile. And that's just like, frankly, you can't say that you're never surprised by any wrongdoing. That's not actually a sign of being urbane and sophisticated. That's like a kind of resignation and despair. So I actually think that surprise is important. It's important to be shocked. And I think it's. That's one of the reasons why, I think when you posed this idea, it was so I think seems like such a natural way to try to explain this this year to ourselves.
- [06:50]
Susan Glasser
I would call it the shock corollary rather than the surprise corollary, because I do think that for me is the thing that I've had to wrestle with. And I really like this exercise as part of that, because having spent all this time examining Trump's first term and interviewing him and people around him about what lessons they took, the thing that strikes me is that we actually did understand in a sort of on paper way what it was that the approach was going to be that Donald Trump took away from his first term, that he was surrounded by too many faithless establishment type retainers who were constraining him, and that he was going to prioritize loyalty, even to the extent of slavish loyalty on the part of his advisors, that as a result of that, he was going to be much more unhinged. I think that was a key part of the assumptions going into the second term. I think that it was also an important understanding that was certainly collectively held, that vengeance and vindication were going to be at the core of what he was all about. He told us so himself. He was clearly radicalized by the experience of having been indicted multiple times. He already was inclined toward the weaponization of the justice system. So we had sort of a sense of the basis on which Trump 2.0 was going to exist. But that's where I come back to this category of what I would call almost the failure of imagination that one might understand that Donald Trump was going to dedicate himself to revenge and retribution and blowing up the institutions of Washington. It's still a different thing than unleashing the world's richest man to destroy foreign aid for hundreds of thousands of poor people around the world. And so for me, I think there are different categories. One is like, where can we isolate things that we just were wrong about, that we kind of made predictions and they just didn't work out the way that we thought. Then there's this bucket of there's just a lot of holy shit. We never could have possibly dreamed of it. Iterations of what it means to unleash a shock and awe campaign on Washington. So, Jane, why don't we go back to this question of your list and what it was that really stunned you that if you were waking up on January 19th of this year, you would not have imagined was possible?
- [09:17]
Jane Mayer
Well, I certainly didn't think people would allow troops in the streets without more fight back here in Washington. It still shocks me to see troops in the street. I certainly didn't think the American public would be so quiet about the most epic level of corruption we've ever seen on the part of the Trump family and his allies. Been just stunning and barely a peep out of people about this subject. There's just kind of resignation, as Evan has been saying. I again was shocked that nine major law firms have agreed to fork over almost a billion dollars worth of free legal services to Trump and the White House in exchange for just being able to keep doing their business. It's such an extortion racket, yet they went along with it. And I've been very surprised that the universities have handed over some of their academic freedom. Columbia, for instance, has allowed the Trump administration to impose monitors and tell them what kind of faculty to hire.
- [10:27]
Susan Glasser
So the weakness of institutions is what I hear is a theme of what you're saying. In other words, it's about the resistance that didn't materialize for you. That in some ways is your biggest bucket of.
- [10:40]
Jane Mayer
It is. I mean, I am also surprised on some level. Others might debate this, but I think it's surprising, disappointing that the Republicans in Congress have completely given up on protecting their own separate branch of government. I didn't expect them to be courageous against Trump, but I would have thought that they would at least defend their own branch and their constitutional authority to be the branch that makes appropriations and. And has the power of the purse. The whole system of our government is designed to have matching ambition, as the founders said. And the branch is checking each other. And we've seen the congressional branch just completely bow down to the White House. And that's been an important part of how things have gotten this radical.
- [11:29]
Susan Glasser
Evan, I want to ask just what your Thoughts on Jane's list. In particular, this question about expectations around the pushback. I mean, for me, by the way, I do actually think that's where some of the real surprise comes in for me is that people, I think Democrats on some level, actually didn't take their own rhetoric about an existential threat to our institution seriously enough because they clearly weren't prepared for it when it happened. But I don't know. What do you think?
- [12:00]
Evan Osnos
What's noticeable to me is that what Jane has so well described is a failure of a whole host of elite institutions in one domain or another to have a forceful, organized response. And that's an interesting juxtaposition from what is a bit of good news here that we need to. And I think people deserve some, which is that what you actually see is on the street level, people are gathering their response. You see it, for instance, in the ways that Democrats performed in elections that we had this fall. You've seen it in the form of the no Kings Day protest. And look, we can poo poo these things and say they're not meaningful. They are meaningful. And they're one of the ways that individuals out in the country are expressing their rage and their hostility and their fury at what's happening. And I think one of the things that draws my attention is I was shocked to return to our core idea today by the images of ICE pulling people out of cars, dragging people away, masked officers. I mean, it's hard to imagine a more un American image than the one we've seen over and over again this year. And it's been striking that one of the responses at a time when major institutions have failed to curb that, you see people in New York, in Chicago, in neighborhoods, organizing these volunteer patrols with whistles where they are signaling to people when ICE is in the area, they're signaling when there is somebody being arrested. And I think, yeah, those are not turning the tide of this. But as long as we're writing the first drafts of history, I think it's worth recognizing where individual citizens have stood up and institutions have not.
- [13:52]
Jane Mayer
I just want to say one thing, which is I was thinking about when you say individual have stood up, and they have, and certain. You know, there are four law firms that are fighting back. Harvard did go to court and win against the Trump administration. But I think the signal failure that I hadn't recognized in our culture is that we are a culture of individualism. We have individuals who are doing acts of defiance, but we're not a collectivist culture. So we don't have the universities. I think the lesson I take is they should have worked together. The journalism profession should have stood together. And it finally learned that lesson a bit when everybody walked out of the Pentagon press corps and said, we're not going to bow to these rules. But I think that muscle is very weak in this country, Jane.
- [14:43]
Susan Glasser
I think that is really a key point, because when I've talked with people in other countries that have experienced democratic rollbacks, that's the thing that they tell us. For example, in Poland, which had a decade of far right rule before essentially civil society came together. And that was the key, was that people had to work across communities and outside of their individual silos. And it actually took a very long time for that to mobilize, even in Poland, a much smaller and more sort of homogenous society than the vast, you know, canvas upon which this one is operating. So I feel like that's a really important point on, you know, just to get specific, on the journalists. Great example, right? Is that Trump comes in and does something which, from my perspective, actually was kind of predictable. They moved to take more control over the White House press corps. They do it very quickly, although, again, the specific pretext, totally crazy and shocking, right? They say, we're gonna kick the Associated Press out of the White House press pool and take over the White House press pool because you won't call the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of Mexico. It's literally, this is a example to me of like, yes, I was shocked by this. Was I shocked or surprised that Trump sought to take more control over the White House press? No, absolutely not. But again, the journalists and their institutions, most importantly, were not prepared. What did they do? They did nothing. And I can tell you that was much to the real dismay of the Associated Press, which is, again, the backbone of independent, nonpartisan journalism across this country. It's in newspapers big and small, radio stations. You're exposed to the neutral news gathering of the Associated Press wherever you are, basically in this country and increasingly around the world, and their colleagues basically did nothing. I remember showing up to this court hearing in federal court because the White House Correspondents association had asked people to turn out on behalf of the Associated Press, and there was basically almost no one there. All those familiar faces you see in the White House, they weren't there for their colleagues. And, you know, that fight, by the way, continues in federal court. But essentially, it's very likely or quite possible that Trump White House will win the idea that they can control who the presidencies. And the result is we have people like Marjorie Taylor Greene's boyfriend in the press room saying, sir, how great were you today, sir? Did you expect to be such a peacemaker?
- [17:10]
Evan Osnos
Well, did you see, interestingly, that breaking news, he's now heading back to Georgia with Marjorie Taylor Greene, the liberal icon. That right there has to be. That has to be on your list. Oh, it is high on the list.
- [17:23]
Jane Mayer
Unexpected was Marjorie Taylor Greene becomes the, you know, warriorette of.
- [17:30]
Susan Glasser
Oh, my goodness, no, that was not on my playbook. We're going to take a quick break. When we come back, more surprises from 2025. The political scene will be back in just a moment. If you've been enjoying the show, please leave us a rating and review on the podcast platform of your choice. And while you're there, don't forget to hit the follow button so you never miss an episode. Thank you so much for listening. It's one of Britain's most notorious crimes, the killing of a wealthy family at White House Farm. But I got a tip that the story of this famous case might be all wrong.
- [18:16]
Evan Osnos
I know there's going to be a.
- [18:17]
Jane Mayer
Twist one day, a massive twist at every level of the criminal justice system. There's been a cover up in this case.
- [18:23]
Susan Glasser
I'm Heidi Blake. Blood Relatives is a new series from in the Dark and the New Yorker. Find it now in the in the Dark podcast feed.
- [18:41]
Evan Osnos
Susan, here we are. At the end of the first year, Trump's approval rating is in the pits. He is being particularly punished by people for his handling of the economy. I have to imagine this has come as a bit of a surprise to you now.
- [18:56]
Susan Glasser
Yeah, I think you're right, Evan, that this one is the facts always get in the way of a narrative. And the question is, can we pivot the narrative quickly enough to incorporate the data points? The facts? And the facts here are really interesting because for Donald Trump in his first term, the economy was always the strength, even when he was such a polarizing, divisive personality then and now. That's been pretty consistent how polarizing Trump has been and how low, generally speaking, his approval ratings are. But he always had this economy floating him. Right? And it was never the greatest economy in the history of the world in the way that he used to say over and over and over again in the first term that it was. But basically people, even independents, who were maybe reluctant for other reasons to support Trump. That's the reason you could argue that he got back into office in 2024. He said, I'm the economy guy and I'm Gonna deal with the Biden inflation. Well, here we are a year later. Inflation that he said was the worst inflation in the history of the world under Joe Biden at 3% is now the same, more or less 3%. And he says it doesn't even exist. And what are you talking about? And his poll numbers. Just this week, the Associated Press found a survey, his lowest ever number on that only 31% of Americans supporting Trump on the economy. That is even worse than the 36% approval rating he has right now. Gallup has found that he has 60% disapproval rating. Now, normally, a president like that would be perceived to be in deep, absolute political trouble. You'd see members of his party on Capitol Hill running away from him, bucking him on every kind of a vote. That's not happening yet. Signs of the weakening of this hold between Trump and his party. But nonetheless, it's fascinating to me that he has such bad numbers and yet he's still the model of the party has shifted to be this basically personalist cult.
- [20:51]
Evan Osnos
To that point, actually. I mean, this is something that. I wonder if we can try to square the circle on something. Jane, you mentioned before that it's been shocking that people are not more outraged, vocal about his personal corruption. I mean, it's easy to forget these moments now, but remember the time that they auctioned off dinner with the president at one of his golf clubs to, like, crypto people. And yet at the same time, we're seeing this deep agitation about affordability, which is a euphemism for inequality in my mind. How is it that people can be, on the one hand, incredibly frustrated by their inability to participate in this economy and its country as fully as they want, and at the same time just kind of shrug at the fact that this guy is, by one measure, you know, Trump Organization's gone from whatever it was, $50 million to more than $800 million.
- [21:37]
Jane Mayer
I mean, I think one reason is that no one in the opposition has turned it into an issue where there would be consequences for Trump. I think maybe this is what he's really worried about. If they lose the House, there's no call to investigate it, to impeach him, to. I mean, there actually is the House. People are beginning to talk about impeachment, but it's not a serious thing.
- [22:01]
Susan Glasser
But you raised impeachment, though, and it is important to point out that one of the big lessons of Trump 1.0 after two impeachments was essentially that that constitutional tool of accountability for president is a dead letter right now. In our politics. And then number two, you have a Trump appointed majority on the Supreme Court that has given Donald Trump immunity. The president can literally do basically any terrible thing you could imagine and not face consequences for it. And so you have the one, two punch of both the courts and the Congress not operating in full as the separate branches that they're imagined.
- [22:37]
Jane Mayer
To me, absolutely. I mean, immunity leads to impunity. And you've got, you sound like one.
- [22:45]
Susan Glasser
Of those, you know, I don't know, maybe you should run for Senate. That's a pretty good.
- [22:50]
Jane Mayer
What I was thinking of before was just that the theory of what the country is feeling is the Tony Soprano theory, which is, what are you gonna do? What are you gonna do about this? I mean, it's just like people don't know what they can do. They need to be shown a course of action, I think. But the courts are really, I gather from what you're saying, among the surprises for you, Susan, and I'm curious if it's true of Evan too, is how the Supreme Court has failed to check Trump, is that right?
- [23:19]
Susan Glasser
Well, you know, it's interesting, Jane, that is on my list actually, and you know the subject much better than I do. And I sort of kicking myself certainly after that immunity decision, which wasn't this year, it was last year. But I feel like for me, one of the kind of things that was genuinely surprising as well as stunning is the Supreme Court and in particular John Roberts, who maybe it was always wrong, maybe it's changed, but there certainly was a view that he was at heart kind of an establishment guy, that certainly he projects a sort of calm rationality. He's not a Scalia, he's not a fire breathing movement, blow it up conservative. And yet I think his record, I think about this all the time, to be honest, that he clearly has a sort of visceral dislike for the populist maga, Trump, blow it up approach to politics. But I imagine him looking in the mirror in the morning and being like, I'm the guy who gave us Donald Trump. I don't know. Evan, what do you think?
- [24:25]
Evan Osnos
One of the themes that comes through is that, to use your good word, Susan, what can bring accountability or what can contain Trump? And the answer is the voter. That's what we're discovering. It's not the courts that are gonna be able to do it. It's clearly not the Supreme Court. And in a curious way, we just got this little indication in the last couple of days of this Indiana state legislature, of all places, basically said no to Trump's effort to try to force them into this redistricting plan, which would have advantaged Republicans. And so here you had Republicans in Indiana. You know, they'd been subjected to the same usual pressure things, you know, people calling in death threats and ordering pizzas to their houses. All of the stuff that we think of as the very standard Trump 2.0 playbook. And it was Republicans who said, no, we're not gonna do that. We don't think that this is right for us and right for our state. So that perhaps, in its own little way, a little indicator of how the weakened Trump that we see now here at the end of 2025 faces a different political terrain than he did when he took office in January.
- [25:36]
Susan Glasser
All right, well, we're gonna take a quick break, and when we come back, a little bit more lightning round of our list of real stunners of Trump's return to office. The political scene will be back in just a moment.
- [25:55]
Katie Drummond
What the hell is going on right now? And why is it happening like this? At Wired, we're obsessed with getting to the bottom of those questions on a daily basis, and maybe you are, too. I'm Katie Drummond, the global editorial Director of Wired, and I'm hosting our new podcast series, the Big Interview. Each week, I'll sit down with some of the most interesting, provocative, and influential people who are shaping our right now. Big Interview conversations are fun.
- [26:22]
Evan Osnos
I want a shark that.
- [26:24]
Katie Drummond
That eats the Internet, that turns it all off, unfiltered and unafraid.
- [26:28]
Evan Osnos
So in a lot of ways, I try to be an antidote to the unimaginable faucet of reactionary content that you see online. To the best of my ability, every.
- [26:37]
Katie Drummond
Week, we're going to offer you the the ultimate luxury of our times. Meaning and context. True or false. You, Brian Johnson, the man sitting across from me, one day, at some point, as of yet undefined in the future, you will die. False.
- [26:54]
Jane Mayer
Tell me more.
- [26:56]
Katie Drummond
Listen to the Big Interview right now in the same place you find Wired's Uncanny Valley podcast. Subscribe or follow wherever you get your podcasts.
- [27:13]
Susan Glasser
Okay, Evan, I want to stick with you. We got to go through our list here because there's a lot of crazy stuff. Am I allowed to say, yes, there's a lot of crazy shit. In the immortal words of George W. Bush, at Donald Trump's first term inauguration, there's a lot of weird shit here. So I want to know what else is on your list of stunners, actual stunners.
- [27:33]
Evan Osnos
I have to say, I Don't think that there were all that many people who predicted that he would actually pardon the 1500 rioters who tried to overturn the election and that they would actually go ahead with pardons for these people. But I'm going to go with the fact that I have to confess I will make a heartfelt admission of guilt. I did not predict Venezuela. That was not one that, you know, our friends in the foreign policy and national security establishment had gamed out. What did you think, Susan? Was that something you were prepared for?
- [28:11]
Susan Glasser
No, you know, actually I'm, I'm totally agreeing with you on Venezuela in particular, by the way, because actually he had these kind of regime change Venezuela people on his staff the first term and he didn't agree with them. John Bolton would have been delighted back in the first term when he was the national security adviser and he and Mike Pompeo and others actually were pushing various regime change scenarios on Trump in the first term. And Trump really just, it wasn't something that engaged him very much. He wasn't that into it. And it certainly had odds with himself and his branding in the second term as the President of peace. So yeah, that's a really good one on the list for me. Evan, we woke up one morning here in Washington and all of a sudden the East Wing of the White House was gone. He literally blew it. If you told me that Donald Trump was going to put a lot of tacky gold all over the White House, obviously not surprised or stunned by that.
- [29:09]
Evan Osnos
I actually, I will say though, I'm still surprised every time I see an image and it's kind of dripping like with gold oobleck all over it. It's just bizarre. And look, as long as we're talking about the raising of things, I mean the destruction of USAID and what that has meant for vulnerable people around the world is so profound. And I think for anybody who hasn't seen it, there really was a brilliant short documentary made by our colleague Atul Gawande about what that has meant in Africa. And I really recommend that to people because sometimes we look at what's happening right under our noses in Washington. But capturing the full blast radius of this around the world has been one of the hardest and I think most vital tasks.
- [29:53]
Susan Glasser
It's true.
- [29:54]
Jane Mayer
But it's not surprising to me given the anti pluralism, anti globalism and really face it kind of white nationalism strain of the Trump administration. It seems in keeping with it when you think about it, it's shocking cuz it's such a change in American values. In some ways, I find even more shocking is the attack domestically on our own science, which is an area of American achievement that has kept us at the lead of the world.
- [30:27]
Susan Glasser
Yeah, I was just wrong. I would say on that one in particular, if you told yourself a year ago that Republicans were against foreign aid, you would say, okay, yeah. Now where I would disagree is that I actually still think it's shocking that he unleashed the world's richest man to basically run amok and shut things down without any process, without any rule of law, without any official powers and defying Congress's spending powers. So I actually, I was both stunned and shocked by the Elon Musk as the agent of this retribution. But I agree with you, Jane, that sort of on paper, Republicans going after a symbolic target like foreign aid, not that stunning science, the war on science, and particularly using the excuse of we're against DEI to cut off cancer research and other forms of advanced scientific research. This actually blows my mind. It is actually, I don't think it's. Anyone could have possibly predicted, even if they could say, well, as a general matter, the right wing is against academia, liberal universities, but the idea that it would cut into America's legendary R and D, scientific and technological prowess is something that I never saw mentioned. And the fact that they're doing it in the guise of eliminating dei, I mean, I don't know, Evan, you're nodding your head there.
- [31:53]
Evan Osnos
Yeah, Look, I think that this kind of contradiction is worth calling out very clearly, which is what you're describing is so important, which is that because there is a view that you hear in Silicon Valley that this is a very tech forward administration, this is science focused. They want to, you know, seize the commanding heights of the future of technology with AI. Well, if that was really true, then they wouldn't be undermining these citadels of American comparative advantage around the world, which universities and scientific organizations have been. And to point out one other complete contradiction and hypocrisy, you know, if we are in fact so serious, if this administration is motivated by the desire to address drug trafficking, then why is it at same time letting out of prison, giving pardons to some people who have been convicted as major drug traffickers, like, you know, the former president of Honduras, the guy who ran Silk Road. I mean, these are in a way the pieces of evidence that undermine some of the flimsiest rhetoric.
- [32:53]
Jane Mayer
In a way, though, I mean, I think it's that Trump's flaunting of his power to be inconsistent and do whatever he Wants, pardon whomever he wants is part of the show of a strong man. I can do what I want. And in a way, I was thinking when Susan was talking about the inanity of the fight that they picked with the ap, the Associated Press, over the naming of the Gulf of Mexico, it's almost the inanity of it. That is the show of power. You know, when the bully is sitting on you and saying, you know, say uncle, it's nonsense, but what he's really saying is, I have total control over you. And when the president, who's blowing up supposed narco terrorists on one hand and letting out of prison a gigantic narco thief on the other hand, he's saying, I get to decide, you know, you have no say in this. There's no reason here. It's power. Okay, I'm gonna give you a couple quick surprises. To me, things on the positive side.
- [33:59]
Evan Osnos
Yeah.
- [33:59]
Jane Mayer
Surprisingly, I am surprised with all of the major corporate media companies that are folding and bending a knee to Donald Trump, that the one that said, oh, really? See me in court, and took him on is the Wall Street Journal, which is owned by Rupert Murdoch, who saw that on their bingo court. I did not see that on mine. And I'm gonna tell you one other thing that I think I never imagined would be a show of resistance in a form that I never sort of imagined, which is whoever thought that grand juries were going to refuse to indict? Who? The prosecutors, you know, are the criminals. As we all know, the old saying, grand juries will, you know, indict a ham sandwich. Well, not anymore. Including.
- [34:48]
Susan Glasser
It's just. They won't indict James Comey, but they will indict a ham sandwich.
- [34:52]
Jane Mayer
Or Letitia James, for that matter, or the sandwich. I mean, they are rebelling from the jury room, which is unheard of, unheard of.
- [35:00]
Evan Osnos
So they'll indict a ham sandwich, but not the thrower of a ham sandwich.
- [35:04]
Jane Mayer
Evidently, that's.
- [35:05]
Susan Glasser
Evan, the last word is for you.
- [35:08]
Evan Osnos
You know, I am looking ahead to the next year, and I think that what we're hearing through all of this conversation is that there is this tug of war going on about what kind of country we will be at the end of this process. And it's not just about how the big institutions will behave. It's also about how regular people behave every day when they see things that are unbearable that really do violence to our image of ourselves. That's what I'm watching for this next year. I think we've grieved a bit on this show, this, this hour about what hasn't happened. And I think it's also worth noting that we've recognized people who are standing up in the face of things they disagree with.
- [35:53]
Susan Glasser
Deep breath. That is a wrap for us, at least as far as 2025 is concerned. I want to thank all of our listeners for spending time with us. You know, we have individually and collectively heard from so many of you over the course of this last year. And it's really moving, I think, to us and it really is valuable to us that you are not only tuning in but spending your time with us and as we're sort of helping to think this all through together because it is a really disruptive and unsettling time. And for me, the community of being able to together each week with great colleagues like Jane and Evan and also to build a community of listeners has been really meaningful in 2025.
- [36:42]
Evan Osnos
I totally agree. It's been, you know, I have to say I'm grateful every time we meet somebody who listens to the show and we're doing events and things like that. But I'm also grateful to be with you guys every week. Having a chance to, you know, to work this through makes. Makes a big difference in somehow trying to make some sense of it.
- [36:59]
Jane Mayer
Okay, here's to the checkout person at Trader Joe's who said to Susan, I recog your voice from something. Thank you. Thank you all.
- [37:09]
Susan Glasser
Thank you all. Well, this has been the political scene from the New Yorker. Thank you so much for listening. And this is it for us for the holidays. We'll be back on January 9th. In the meantime, do tune in for great episodes from our colleagues Tyler Foggatt and David Remnick. We had research assistants today from from Alex Dalia. Our producer is Nora Richie. Mixing by Mike Kutchman. Steven Valentino is our executive producer and our theme music is by Alison Leighton Brown. When it's time to scale your business, it's time for Shopify. Get everything you need to grow the way you want, like all the way. Stack more sales with the best converting checkout on the planet. Track your cha chings from every channel right in one spot and turn real time reporting into big time opportunities. Take your business to a whole new level. Switch to Shopify. Start your free trial today from prx.