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- [00:10]
Charlie Sykes
I'm Charlie Sykes. Welcome to the to the Contrary podcast. We're doing by our good friend Julian Zelizer, a professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University. I mean, what a day, Julian. I mean, you could say that, like, any day, right? So.
- [00:25]
Julian Zelizer
Well, that's part of the issue. I mean, every day seems dramatic. It is dramatic. Every day has so many stories that are shocking, unsettling. It's overwhelming. And today is no different, including stories like Elon Musk.
- [00:42]
Charlie Sykes
Yeah, no, listen, I really want to get to Elon Musk, but before we do, because I don't want to lose track of some other significant development. All of Donald Trump's friendships and alliances come with a, you know, past come with an expiration date. You know, earlier the week we talked about, you know, is the bromance with Elon ending is the bromance with put Bibi Netanyahu. But I have to say, I think it is extraordinary that he's breaking bad on the Federalist Society and its president, Leonard Leo. Now, to put this in some context, I think most listeners probably know this, but the Federalist Society has been immensely influential in the Trump presidency, actually, for the last 20 years in creating this vast infrastructure of conservative judges. In fact, in his first term, almost all of Trump's appointees were Federalist Society types, which I think, to his surprise, turned out not to be MAGA type judges. So on Friday morning, this is Politico. Trump leveled unusually pointed criticism of a prominent conservative legal activist and organization as he railed against a ruling that struck down his sweeping tariffs. The president, in a post on his social media platform, slammed Leonard Leo, the former chair of the Federalist Society, calling Leo a sleazebag who probably hates America. It was a striking characterization of Leo, who played a key role in working with Trump to shape the conservative Supreme Court. So your thoughts on this Breaking Bad with the one organization that he has relied upon right now? I mean, his sense of betrayal right now by the judiciary and the conservative judiciary on full display.
- [02:32]
Julian Zelizer
Yeah, I mean, it's not surprising. He would do it for two reasons. One is he is a purely transactional individual. His leadership rests not on relationships, but on deals that benefit him. And as soon as people turn, whether it's overseas leaders or domestic leaders, as vital as they might be, if they turn on him or seem to turn on him, he will cut with them. And there's been rumblings of that from him as more conservative judges are basically standing up for due process and basic constitutional law and order. And these are judges who are very conservative, and they come from a philosophy most Democrats oppose. But they've issued some decisions and such as Judge Wilkerson had offered a Reagan appointee had offered very sharp words about deportation. Now this. So he is. He's done with it. But what's unusual is, unlike a foreign leader, the Federalist Society has really been integrated and instrumental.
- [03:37]
Charlie Sykes
Very much so.
- [03:38]
Julian Zelizer
Conservative politics, not only his election.
- [03:41]
Charlie Sykes
Well, let me. This is, I think this is a big fucking deal because he's early in his term and he will have more appointees to the federal court. And so the question is, if he does not work with the Federalist Society, which has given some very highly qualified, actually conservative judges, where is he going to go? I mean, I think there's. The downstream effects of this are dramatic. We saw this last week when he appointed Emil bovey to the D.C. court of Appeals. Now, Bovey was his personal attorney. He's his personal sort of hatchet man. He was the guy in the Justice Department who was responsible for firing and pushing out all of those principled conservative lawyers from the Southern District of New York who objected to the corruption corrupt deal with the mayor of New York. So Bovey is kind of a hack and a thug. And to appoint him to the D.C. court of Appeals seems like a signal of the kinds of absolute Trumpian loyalists that he wants to appoint. It's interesting. You had a number of conservative legal activists who were saying this is a bright red line for Republicans in the Senate, whether they're going to go along with this, because it was one thing to vote to confirm Federalist Society conservatives with long traditions, long credentials. But he's appointing guys like Bovey. He appointed this right wing podcaster named Pauline Gracia to a position of special counsel. I mean, this strikes me as a potential real dividing line in Trump 2.0.
- [05:14]
Julian Zelizer
Well, it certainly will be a test for Senate Republicans. And if you're a true conservative, this should not be something you're in favor of. Frankly, it is antithetical to the basic arguments that have been made. And so, yes, it's kind of extending the focus on loyalists and often inexperienced loyalists to these positions of power. And now it's going into the courts. The difference is, unlike agencies and cabinet positions, we do expect the courts to have some degree of independence. We've seen historically, Supreme Court justices often don't line up exactly as the presidents who appointed them have imagined because they ultimately focus on legal negotiations and legal interpretation. But this is not that cohort. This is essentially, you know, we're going to move to Justices Hegseth Musk, who knows who else will be in line. But it will erode yet another guardrail that we count on and it will erode a foundation of the constitutional system.
- [06:18]
Charlie Sykes
Well, it also could be a problem for the Trump administration. I'm looking at some of these posts from conservative legal analysts. Jonathan Adler writes, whether the White House wants to acknowledge it or not, the caliber of its early judicial nominations will affect the number of vacancies it gets to fill. And then Ed Whelan, who is a very well known conservative activist in the legal community, he then tweeted out, just yesterday, a very conservative appellate judge told me that he she would not take senior status because of concerns over who would be picked as successor. So this will have an effect on people going, no, I'm not going to retire now. And we'll see whether it affects the willingness of the Senate to go along with judges who've made it clear that they will do anything it takes to advance Trump's agenda. And I think just a reminder not to be too optimistic, they did draw the line at Ed Martin for the U.S. attorney in D.C. martin is now causing trouble in the Department of Justice. But so in any case, what I'm saying is if you think it can't get worse, it will get worse now that you've, you know, he's decided that the more and I know a lot of listeners are going, the federal society, this is the center of all evil, trust me, you'd much rather have them than the kinds of people that Trump is now going to be talking to.
- [07:48]
Julian Zelizer
And unlike tariffs, for example, the Senate still retains considerable power over this. And we've seen this again and again, to the frustration of presidents in both parties. They can not move forward with nominations. They can hold them up very easy for them to actually do this one. So this would take an act of will, like, beyond willingness to just give away this power if you have this level of concern, if it's genuinely there and they decide not to flex that muscle. But I do think in addition to splits within the party, this is one place where that institutional capacity to still remains intact if the majority wants to use it.
- [08:29]
Charlie Sykes
Yeah. And also you just never know what the psychology of the individual judges and justices are going to be. They on Friday, the court handed Trump a big victory by letting by stripping the protections from a half million migrants. But on the other hand, you know, a lot of these judges have close personal relationships with people like Leonard Leo and with the, with the Federalist Society. And they're going to feel the insult. Okay, so let's get to the main event, at least from last Friday. Elon freaking Musk. Okay, so Elon is leaving. Elon apparently was not able to make himself the master of Washington D.C. doge was a complete failure. But this New York Times report suggesting that his drug use and his erratic behavior was way worse than we had been told. My take on that was. I am shocked, shocked. I mean, if you've been watching Elon Musk, you know that the guy's got some really serious problems. But I want to get some sense from you. Up until five minutes ago, this guy was basically the co president. I mean, he had vast power and influence. And now we are finding out that basically he's just the world's richest junkie who, you know, richest junkie sperm donor who was engaging in the most erratic possible behavior. I mean, what the hell, Julian?
- [09:52]
Julian Zelizer
I mean, it's unbelievable. Shortest co presidency in American history, in addition to being the only one. But look, it had serious implications. I mean, he was responsible for serious cuts to the workforce, government programs being eliminated, setting a tenor for the whole administration. And if this story is accurate, it's pretty amazing. And it also reflects the choices of the President. Obviously, Elon Musk was invited to this position of power. And this just. It's. Again, it's the same story of someone who seemed loyal and useful because of the campaign. So the rest doesn't matter. There's no vetting. He was never put through a confirmation process. So it's that same looseness of who you give power to, that he might have been running around on drugs, high, making these huge decisions. And let's not even forget the other part of this. Accessing sensitive information throughout many branches of government, financial information and more. And we don't know what happened to it. But now that story takes on a whole other level. If he wasn't even kind of mentally, you know, stable in terms of drug use while he was doing this. So it really is not a reflection on Musk. It's a reflection on how this presidency is being run.
- [11:18]
Charlie Sykes
No, I think that's exactly right. And by now I'm assuming that many of our listeners have heard or read this story, but just the details, the dazzling details of the Times report that said that the former Doge Lord's drug consumption went well beyond occasional use, which we kind of knew. But the details are here. He told people he was taking so much ketamine, a powerful anesthetic, that it was affecting his bladder. A known use of Chronic use. He took ecstasy and psychedelic mushrooms, apparently mixing them occasionally. And he traveled with a daily medication box that held about 20 pills, including. Including ones with the markings of the stimulant, Adderall, according to a photo of the box. So here you have a guy who is running around popping ketamine, ecstasy, psychedelic mushrooms, Adderall, who the hell knows what else. And the Times did point out that, you know, in position, in certain positions, you're supposed to take drug tests like SpaceX, but apparently. Drug tests or for little people. But this the rest of the report, he's a guy, he plays video games for hours on end. He struggles with binge eating, he takes weight loss medications, he posts day and night. And there, of course, the Nazi salutes, the messy personal relationships, you know, all of the children. And you think that here we are in 2025 and America has empowered this person and kept him in a position of power while he was like this. And it just, you know, again, what can you do except to sort of shake your head at the moment we're in right now?
- [12:54]
Julian Zelizer
Yeah, I mean, you can shake your head or if you're a Senate Republican, you can start holding him accountable, meaning the President for allowing. So there is something to do. It's a reflection. Look, there's like these two different elements of the presidency. One is a very strong arm, aggressive form of leadership, if you want to call it leadership that we're seeing from the president, Imperial presidency gone well beyond anything Nixon imagine, on the other hand, it's inexperience, chaos and anything goes kind of politics, which this will happen. There's reasons we have vetting processes put into place and processes in general. It's to avoid this happening. It's not perfect, but certainly they're useful. We didn't have any of that. And this is what you get. Imagine if you're a federal worker who had been on the job doing important things well, and you're now unemployed and you read this story about who did that to you.
- [13:56]
Charlie Sykes
Yeah. And once again, this sounds like another high profile story. All of this was taking place in broad daylight. The evidence was right there in front of our eyes. I think it was David Frum who said, you know, you know, who was surprised to find out about all of this craziness. Someone who had never followed Elon Musk on social media. I mean, if you, if you were paying any attention whatsoever, you knew there was a problem, everybody knew there was a problem, and yet there were no consequences for it. You know, I was thinking about Elon Musk, what his reputation was, say, two years ago, you know, on the COVID of Time magazine, these adoring biographies, he was the master of the universe. And, you know, in terms of. In the annals, the historical annals of people whose reputations have taken dramatic dumps, you know, it's hard to compete with, say, Rudy Giuliani. What's happened to Rudy Giuliani's reputation? But Elon Musk, the insidification of his reputation is going to be one for the books. But it began before his association with Trump. You go back and you read what was going on with him when he took over Twitter and things like that. But it certainly accelerated when the pressure in the spotlight and the power was all focused on him.
- [15:13]
Julian Zelizer
Yeah, I mean, it's beyond a political figure who falls from power and grace, like Giuliani, who I also thought of. I mean, this is someone who years ago was being seen as really revolutionary in terms of automobiles and manufacturing and the environment. Someone who had a vision that was work actually effective making the car people needed to drive. And I think you're right. You can go back to when he purchased Twitter, and all of this was there. I mean, it was quite clear what he was pumping out, what he was saying. And the more we learned about him, the more we saw he was a little different. And the only one who didn't seem to mind that at some level was the President of the United States, who brought him along in part because of what he offered the President during his campaign.
- [16:03]
Charlie Sykes
So speaking of the President of the United States, he had the rather bumpy week with the courts and of course, the humiliation of being called the, you know, being told about the taco trade. Trump always chickens out, which, you know, obviously he. He hates. But just to the substance of what happened legally, you had this international trade court rule that the President had grow, grossly exceeded his. His constitutional power, the power that had been granted to him by Congress, which raises, and this is kind of the bigger question the whole week sort of highlighted again something you touched on. The complete abdication of Congress as a legislative body, as a co. Equal branch of government, is really extraordinary. And I know we've talked about this, the rise of the imperial presidency, but I was listening to an analyst the other day talking about how Congress really doesn't even legislate anymore. I mean, they not only don't do the oversight, but they don't pass bills, they don't pass legislation, they don't have. They don't do any of the normal functions that you'd expect from Congress. And I guess you look at those sweep of history. So how did Congress get to be so impotent? How did Congress turn itself into a potted plant? And why?
- [17:22]
Julian Zelizer
I mean, the story is certainly more complicated than we can get into here. Some of this is about intense hyperpolarization, rendering negotiation and compromise almost impossible, to the point they give up. And the president uses executive power. Of it is post 911 kind of renewed delegation of power to the executive branch, which ultimately just extended into.
- [17:49]
Charlie Sykes
They gave a lot of their power away. They just gave it away.
- [17:52]
Julian Zelizer
Part of it's a Republican story right now. I mean, I think we have to call it what it is. The Republicans have power, and they are granting someone who's far different than other presidents we have seen in both parties in the 2000s in terms of the muscle he is trying to flex, and they're going along with it. It's not simply doing nothing. It's saying, do it. And so part of this is a story of Republican politics and how far they are willing to go in this moment of history to achieve the power they want. And that includes giving free reign to the person in the Oval Office. They still have the institutional. It's not as if they literally gave it all away. They don't want to flex it, they don't want to use it. And I think we have to remember that.
- [18:37]
Charlie Sykes
So the other big story of last week was, you know, Donald Trump once again escalating his war with Harvard. Courts have blocked him from being able to eliminate all the international students. But this has gone beyond just a Trumpian vendetta. He, you know, and again, you and I have talked about this before. I think there's a lot of ways in which higher education can be reformed and could be fixed, including Harvard. This is not about reform anymore, is it? This is about destruction. Why do you think Donald Trump is so fixated on destroying Harvard?
- [19:13]
Julian Zelizer
I mean, there are people in the administration or in his orbit who do have this mission of really dismantling higher education as it is and replacing it with something that is more politically conservative, more control than eliminates areas of research like climate issues. Part of it, I think, is now pure vendetta. He doesn't like when people say no to him. And he will go very far. And I think he's ultimately someone who doesn't respect the institutions enough or what they do, that it will contain the level of aggression he's willing to inflict. And I think you said it right. He doesn't want to reform. Harvard University and he doesn't want to reform. He wants to really crush it. At this point, I don't think it's actually going to work. And I think there's a big fight unfolding. But I think that it's a combination of the two, but it's extraordinarily dangerous. And it's not simply about Harvard. I mean, the whole point, Harvard's point is they're going to stand up because they have the capacity to do it. If he can defeat Harvard at any level, will go against other universities. And when you hit a state university with limited funding or a small private institution, imagine how quickly it will be to get them to accept all sorts of kind of concessions that would destroy what they're even doing.
- [20:41]
Charlie Sykes
So I think this is a tremendously important point that why Harvard cannot cave in. Because if Harvard can't push back against us, if Harvard can't stand up for the higher education, if it can't stand up for academic freedom, if it can't stand up for the independence of private institutions, who can? They have a, what, a $70 billion endowment or some just. I mean, it's the richest. It is. It's huge. Now, you. But, but, you know, you. They may not get away with all of this, but also they are. They're launching a real campaign to target international students and, you know, Marco Rubio, target Chinese students. And this. They may not get away with it, but it's clearly a chilling effect. And they basically decided that the international students, and they're making them. Well, obviously they're spreading fear. When I say that there's a chilling effect, you know, are international students more likely to come here or they're likely to go someplace else? What's happening with science? You made. I want to sort of get into a bigger picture because you, you made a really interesting point the other day that really, for decades now, the federal government has made an investment in higher education because it was in the national interest, this massive investment into building up the intellectual capacity of the country, our competitiveness, our security. And that investment has really paid off, particularly when it comes to the sciences. So talk to me a little bit about that.
- [22:16]
Julian Zelizer
It's been one of our biggest success stories since World War II, that this was not a gift. It was never meant to be a gift to universities and colleges. And it was also, let me add, always done through extensive vetting process, competitive processes where you apply for all this money. But the point was the government was going to invest in institutions that could produce technological and scientific research of a broad scale, often risky, that private companies are simply not either going to be able to do or be willing to do because it's too threatening to the bottom line. And it's brought us everything from the Internet to the technology we're using as we're speaking right now, to all sorts of medical breakthroughs, penicillin, the vaccines that have got us out of COVID and much more. I mean, the list is immense. And it's also been an incredible tool overseas, frankly, in the fight against fascism, communism, autocracy. Students come here, these institutions are seen as incredibly successful, attractive, and they bring that knowledge back wherever they go. And we know how powerful this has been in terms of soft diplomacy and the role of the US Overseas. And finally, it's less tangible than science and technology. But I do think kind of the knowledge we have given students the critical abilities and skills to think has been very important to what the government wanted. It was a mechanism to instill strong skills in our citizens, and I think it's paid off. The GI Bill of Rights in 1944 built around that premise. And this is the first time in many decades that that investment is no longer being taken seriously by an administration.
- [24:12]
Charlie Sykes
Well, in terms of also the consequences of this, you know, we remember what happened when you had, you know, many Jewish physicists and scholars who were pushed out of Europe during World war in the 30s and 40s, and they came here, and as a result of that, you know, we had the benefit of their scientific knowledge, which I don't think you can, you can possibly overstate the impact of all of this. By the way, I have very mixed feelings about this small little anecdote that I was at a seminar at the Hoover Institution and had lunch at the table with Edward Teller, who was describing how all of the Hungarian Jews, all the Hungarians had left in common. He was talking about all of his friends and everything in his Hungarian accent and how he built the H bomb and everything. But the reality is this entire community was driven out, came here, we benefited. And there's a possibility that one of the legacies of the Trump era may be this massive brain drain. And I wanted to get your thoughts on this. This brain drain crisis is happening in real time. And one of the reasons, I mean, obviously, if, if, if scientists go elsewhere, which there's an indication that other countries are opening the doors or attracting them, if there is that outflow of brains. But also one of the dark and dirty secrets about American education is that we do not have enough Americans in the pipeline in math and science and many of these technical fields to fill the gaps. And one of the things that's happened over the last 50 years is that, you know, as American tests of the test scores of American students have declined in math and science, we've kind of filled the gap with international students. We've kind of puttied over some of these, you know, so you go to, you know, lead institutions of higher education, go into the graduate departments, and there are a lot of foreign students there because they're the ones who have the background to do it. So what I'm basically saying is if they disappear suddenly, we're not going to replace them. We will be pushing out a massive resource out of this country, which is going to have a tremendous impact on our competitiveness, our national security, and on our prosperity, not to mention just the intellectual life of the state. And something like this can happen in just a short number of years. Four or five years might be enough to tip the balance. What do you think?
- [26:42]
Julian Zelizer
Very easily. I mean, look, if you're a student overseas, you're going to calculate risks and you're not going to want to invest four or five years to get a doctoral degree in computer science. If you don't know if you're going to be able to stay after two years and say, a university in another country, you're not worried you'll go there. And so, yes, we are in a moment. I mean, President Trump can talk all he wants about restoring the 1940s economy and the 1950s. It's not happening. I mean, the, the places where even those factories are going to need expertise are going to come from this university business nexus. And so if you're scaring away, but just go, you can Google kind of business leaders and entrepreneurs and innovators who came the country. It comes up instantly. And, and if, if we lose them, it hurts the economy, it's going to hurt us nationally. And that can happen, I think, quickly. And I think that post World War II period is. Or the World War II, post World War II period of European scientists is a very good example of how we benefited, but also how other countries drain themselves. It's not just the brain drain, it's draining the nation of economic and intellectual strength.
- [27:58]
Charlie Sykes
Yeah. And I mean, just to keep emphasizing this point, I was looking at a social media post today, you know, that, you know, among the people that came here from other countries, international migrants, the most important rocket scientist in the Apollo program, the head of NASA's Launch Operations center, the guy who invented the moon rover, were all immigrants or here's just another way of looking at it. Since 1901, researchers based in America have won 55% of academic Nobel Prizes. And more than a third of these scientists were foreign born. Immigrant inventors produce an outsized share of patents. The Paulson Institute reckons that in 2022, almost two. Two thirds. I'm sorry, that in 2022, almost two thirds of top tier AI researchers working in America hailed from overseas. Losing even some of those would be a blow to American innovation. I mean, I don't think this can be overstated. So here' you mentioned the sort of the nexus with business. Where are all the Silicon Valley tech bros who've been sucking up to the Trump administration? Up until recently, they've been the ones pushing for the H1B visas. Is that it? Did I have it right? The visas for foreign workers? Because they know they need those engineers. So where are they right now? Because they're gonna be the ones who really gonna suffer.
- [29:19]
Julian Zelizer
Yeah. I mean they are not doing anything and they are the ones with clout. I mean they do have financial clout. They clout maybe not in the White House, but certainly on Capitol Hill and elsewhere. Those are the voices who have to many of them, as you're saying, they are immigrants. And we're not talking about undocumented persons here illegally. This is a process. It's a legally vetted process that we depend on. They need to step up. They are scared, they are intimidated. They're allowing the fear of President Trump extracting retribution on anyone who says anything. So they're being silent, but they themselves know it's not sustainable. So it's like some of these other questions. Even the federalists say do different voices, not the progressive left, but other voices, business. Even Republicans start to see we're entering a danger zone. Not politically, nationally, if these kinds of policies actually are allowed to continue. But you are right. Those are the people who can do a lot more than an average citizen who can yell and scream and maybe call their members, which isn't unimportant, but they can do it on a whole other scale. Their businesses depend on it. Their industry depends on it. The future of those sectors depends on this not being legitimate or legitimate.
- [30:43]
Charlie Sykes
Yeah. Now, I suppose you could make a case, which I'm not making here, but you could make a case that we could launch a Sputnik era, you know, educational initiative to, you know, increase the performance of Americans in science and math as we did back in the 1950s. There's no indication that the Trump regime has any interest in doing that sort of thing. So, you know, while we're losing, while we're having this brain drain, there's no indication that we are rising to the occasion. I think we made that point. Obviously, the big irony that we need to mention is Elon Musk is also a migrant. And yet somehow, in their minds, they're like, you know, I'm the right kind of migrant, as opposed to the wrong kind of migrant. There's the other irony, by the way. Remember when Trump first came down the Golden Escalator, you know, and he's talking about the Mexican rapists? He said, they're not sending their best. This was his big thing, right? They're not sending their best. Well, this whole international student thing is these are the best they're sending. That. That's why they're at Harvard and Yale and Caltech and Princeton. These are the best. And what are they doing? We're rejecting them, which is right. Okay, so give me your sense of. Give me your sense of the other story. And again, this is one of those stories that I think is outrageous, but there's nothing you can do about it. So maybe people get frustrated. Trump has rediscovered his pardon power. I'm not saying he ever forgot it. I mean, here's a guy that came in and first day in office, he, you know, pardons all the January 6th rioters and seditionists, and now he's handing out these get out of jail free cards like Skittles to MAGA loyalists. There's no subtlety about it. You know, it's, you know, big donors, supporters. They're saying that, you know, these people are going to support the president's agenda. But it does strike me, and I was reading Andrew Sullivan's piece, you know, his use of the pardon power is one of the most fundamental attacks on liberal constitutional democracy. And it strikes me as one of the real flaws in the U.S. constitution. And as a result, because it's in the Constitution, there's not much we can do about it. But just give me some sense historically, because there was a debate during the Constitutional Convention, there were people saying this would be abused. And I think it was James Madison who reassured everybody, no, don't worry about it. You know, there would be impeachment processes, but they never envisioned that it would become this out of control, did they?
- [33:23]
Julian Zelizer
No. I mean, look, it depended on the mechanisms of the balance of power working. It depended on some level of leaders accepting limitations to how they would use the power. There is a history. It's always been a problematic area. There's famous pardons, certainly President Clinton pardoning Mark Rich was very controversial. A donor. President Ford's pardon of Nixon historically has been one of the most controversial. But it's like everything. He takes things that are problematic and things that have not always been used to the best and just takes them and uses it without any sense of limitation and exploits them in that way. And that's what he's doing with the pardon. And I don't think the founders imagine someone who would go this far. He doesn't even hide it. I mean, that is really essential to getting a sense of where he is in terms of norms. And we learn once again there are problems in the mechanisms of a Constitution. There always will be. You can't design a perfect Constitution. Constitution. So we really depend at some level on the norms a president and our leaders, elected officials on the Hill accept and subscribe to. And if you have a president who doesn't have those norms, who says, I'll do whatever I want, and you have Republicans on the Hill who are saying, I will let that president do what they want, then all the visions of the founders fall away. And then you're in a territory where that separation and balance of power will not work.
- [35:01]
Charlie Sykes
Well, I mean, you have the upstream and the downstream. So Donald Trump is being Donald Trump and very clearly you can just tell that. I mean, he's all out of fucks to give. He's doing all of this. He feels there'll be no consequences to any of this stuff. They've really decided that in terms of like the corruption, in terms of the grift and the graft, it's like, screw it, who's going to do anything about it? You know, we might as well, we might as well, you know, get, have the weather going is good. But as you point out, this is happening because Congressional Republicans let it happen. And they are letting it happen because their voters would punish them if they actually did not. So where does the responsibility really rest? Does it rest with, you know, obviously in the Oval Office, it rests there. But basically all this comes down to the fact that the American political system has decided it's okay with this. And it's not just like corrupt crooked members of Congress. Right. I mean, it's like they know that if they stand up and say, have you no shame? They're going to be primaried and they're going to lose their job because 80% of Republican voters like this stuff and demand loyalty. I mean, this does come down to the American electorate and to the political culture. Of the country, doesn't it?
- [36:15]
Julian Zelizer
It does. And so, I mean, there is a way to think about the norms of the people you elect. That's voters who pay attention, they listen and watch the people they're electing. And that's why elections are so important. I think people don't take them as seriously as they should. Meaning there's a kind of ease of who you're going to vote for where we don't always think through, or not everyone thinks through, what will this person do with the keys of power? And there still is that mechanism. We talk about Congress not using its power, Republicans not using the power of the majority. We talk about the courts having limits in terms of how much they can implement the decisions that they put into place, but voters still have that power. And you can worry about the election. And those are serious worries. But right now the election process is working. And so we do need to remember, come a year and a half, it's going to be a moment where voters still have that constitutional promise to change the balance of power. And that's very serious. And so I think you're right. I think this ultimately depends on the electorate.
- [37:24]
Charlie Sykes
So one last question. A week ago, Donald Trump was venting his frustration and his anger at Vladimir Putin, who has been defying him and humiliating him by continuing to wage his genocidal war in Ukraine. And so there was this. You remember the, you know, he's Vladimir, Vladimir's gone crazy. What's happened to Vladimir? I am skeptical that that bromance will not rekindle. But it was an interesting moment because Donald Trump has criticized virtually everyone in, in world politics with the exception of Vladimir Putin. So what's your sense of that relationship going on? Especially as it becomes increasingly evident that Vladimir Putin is not gonna do Donald Trump a solid. He is not gonna give him a win, he is not going to agree to any sort of a ceasefire. That's not a complete surrender.
- [38:22]
Julian Zelizer
Yeah, I mean, I'm with you. I still suspect it can be rekindled. And in part it's not, cuz he loves him so much, he admires him. I do think there's something about President Trump that he admires, that very strong arm form of leadership and that has not disputed, disappeared. So even as kind of Putin doesn't listen to him, there's something attractive about what he's doing as a model of leadership. But it gets back to this issue of a transactional person. He is willing to break with someone and I think probably the president, he wants this to go away. He just doesn't want it on his plate. He doesn't want it as an issue. So that tension rises and it's serious because we're dealing with a real time war, dealing with death and destruction. And so it's, again, there's no plan. That's the problem. There's no foreign policy plan. There's no sense of steps 1 through 10 of where the administration wants to try to go in bringing this crisis to an end, in cutting back Russia's influence. But for the moment, yes, it's like many of his relationships, Leonard, Leo and others, if you don't do what he wants, he will break it. But this one probably has a better odds of being brought back to life again because of this being a model of politics that the President has brought into the United States and into the White House.
- [39:49]
Charlie Sykes
So in terms of, you know, exits, you could certainly imagine that a rational president might take the, the lifeline thrown to him by the federal courts and get out of this. Lose, lose trade war. That's not going to happen. Obviously, anyone who thinks that Donald Trump is gonna roll over, he's not going to do that. But the trade war has become, if anything, more chaotic. We move from an economy of whim to an economy of absolute whiplash, back and back and forth. Where does Donald Trump go if the courts tell him, you know, strip away his Liberation Day powers, and we, of course, don't know whether that's ultimately going to be the result? Where does that leave Donald Trump? Does he dodge a bullet? Does he claim a victory? Does he look weak? How does that, what does it feel like?
- [40:43]
Julian Zelizer
Yeah, I mean, the courts are offering him a way out. The trade, the tariff policy, politically, not just economically, has clearly been disastrous for him. I mean, we talk about the withdrawal from Afghanistan as being the moment where Biden could never recover because it undermined his promise of being able to govern, especially overseas, in a way others could not. This certainly stripped away President Trump's claim, at least, which he had polling that supported him as being better on the economy and able to do that. And, and it's hard for him to get out of something. It's hard for him to just say, okay, there's a better path. This was not the best, and it's not a skill that he has, but I don't think he will take this road. Like, for that reason, he won't take the path. So I don't know. I mean, we have to see how the court decisions unfold. It is possible he throws his hands up and says, I was right, but the courts have forced my hand and, and that would actually get him out of a problem, ironically enough. But he will look weak. I don't think he can undo the weakness he's shown on tariffs. Both the decision itself, which many conservatives and liberals agree was just bad economic policy, and then the way he's handled it back and forth. One day you have tariffs, the next day they're gone. There's no way to escape that as looking at as a sign of weakness.
- [42:14]
Charlie Sykes
And especially because the rest of the world has to see that. I mean, that's the thing is the rest of the world has to see that he caves very easily. But also that if you're President Xi and you're looking at all this going, so you may not even have the power to do all of this. So the thing about if you are the world beast riding bully, it works for you. Only until people realize that it's a bluff. Right? Only or switching analogy, the wizard of Oz thing, when somebody pulls back the curtain and realize, well, wait, you actually don't have the ability to do or the willingness to do everything you're claiming that you do. You know, once people realize you're bluffing and you're faking, kind of the act falls apart, doesn't it?
- [42:56]
Julian Zelizer
And he shouldn't have the power. I mean, that gets back to the Constitution. We don't have a system where we have a president who can bully that way. And even the great presidents in actual military moments of military tension in fdr, for example, were not able to act that way. FDR had to gradually persuade Congress out of isolationism. He didn't just force them out of isolationism. And he had to build a coalition overseas with England and others to defeat fascism. That's the nature of our system. It's actually worked because you then get something that's more durable, it's more entrenched in both the electorate and in other alliances, rather than something effective, ephemeral and transitory, which has very weak legs. That's what President Trump has done in terms of trade and economic tension. I just don't think put aside what you think of him or the policies in terms of a leadership style. It's antithetical to our constitutional system and it just doesn't work very well and I think will kind of blow up in his face.
- [44:02]
Charlie Sykes
Julian Zeller there, thank you so much for joining me on the podcast again. Thank you so much. I appreciate it.
- [44:07]
Julian Zelizer
Thanks for having me, as always.
- [44:10]
Charlie Sykes
And thank you all for listening to this episode of to the contrary podcast. We do this. You know why? Because now more than ever, it is crucial that we remind ourselves that we are not the crazy ones. Thanks.