← To The Contrary with Charlie Sykes
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- [00:11]
Charlie Sykes
I'm Charlie Sykes. Welcome to another episode of to the Contrary podcast. Donald Trump is defying the Supreme Court. Harvard is defying Donald Trump. And Elon Musk is apparently trying to have so many babies, legions of babies that he can take with him to Mars. This is actually not a parody. This is real life. Meanwhile, we have a global trade war and the big law firms are just discovering now that if you lie down with Donald Trump, you wake up with more than just fleas. So joining me to hash out all of this, I've really been looking forward to this. Julian Zelizer, welcome to the podcast. Appreciate it very much.
- [00:47]
Julian Zelizer
Thanks. It's great to be with you.
- [00:49]
Charlie Sykes
Julian is a professor of history and public affairs at Princeton. He's a contributor to Foreign Policy and NPR and the author of 27 books and of course has his own substack, the Longview. So this is a man who. I question whether he sleeps at all. I mean, I. Honestly, I do. Yep. Okay. I am encouraged that there's so much to talk about. By the way, did you see that Wall Street Journal story about Elon Musk? I'm a little obsessed about it. That they did a 6,000 word piece about how Elon Musk is actually out there trying to impregnate as many women as possible to reach the Legion level because he wants to take all the babies to Mars or something. And it's like we can't come up with a simulation that is more bizarre than this. The co president of the United States, the leader of a party that's all into family values, is just basically trying to find as many baby mamas as possible. And I'm sorry, Julian, to start with this, but what the hell? We live in this world.
- [01:50]
Julian Zelizer
Well, I think, look, it says a lot who a president surrounds himself with. And this is not uncommon. I mean, these are the kinds of stories we hear on a daily basis. And look, they should be taken seriously in terms of what it says about the person. This is someone now dealing with dismantling the federal government. And these stories are the same person who's doing that. And I think that's a lot of what's causing concern is, is the person up top. And I mean, in this case, Elon Musk really cognizant of the effects of his project and his personal life, might say a little bit about where his mind is at this moment.
- [02:33]
Charlie Sykes
Yeah, I mean, who knew that having a sociopath in charge of dismantling the federal government might be problematic? We might have issues. So let's just start with some of these stories, because there's so many things going on. I want to talk about the piece you wrote about the imperial presidency, which is something that I've been thinking a lot about lately. We obviously have, you know, the tariffs. It's increasingly obvious that the Trump administration is just simply parroting Vladimir Putin's propaganda. But let's start off with some of the big stories of the day. And when I want to get. I want to get to Harvard in just a moment. But the biggest question, I guess I want to get your take. Do you think, is the Trump administration defying, openly defying the U.S. supreme Court? Because I see people trying to put a little bit of lipstick on all this. Supreme Court rules9.0 that he has to return the Maryland man. They have to facilitate it. And they staged that scene in the Oval Office where they're going, sure, we'll facilitate it. Wink, wink. If in fact, El Salvador releases him, which of course they're not going to do. So what is your take on the level of defiance that we're seeing from the Trump administration?
- [03:46]
Julian Zelizer
They are defying the courts and they're ratcheting up the level of defiance and playing rhetorical games about what they're doing and switching the terms of what they're doing, who they're doing it to, doesn't change the basic message and ruling that comes from the court. The Supreme Court, lower level courts have all kept saying the same thing. And I think it's very clear that this is one more institution that President Trump is willing to ignore, challenge, intimidate. And I don't think the Supreme Court is going to have an easy time upholding its decisions. At some level, what we learn is that the power of the Supreme Court derives from the respect that people have for the court, including the president of the United States. If that is not there, we are also learning there's a lot of room for an administration to simply ignore what the court says. And I think it's pretty clear that in these deportation cases, that's where this is going.
- [04:47]
Charlie Sykes
I mean, this is terrifying when you think about the possible implications of this particular constitutional crisis. What do you make of Trump's musing that next he wants to go to homegrown criminals, by which he's apparently referring to American citizens. And it sounds like they would be okay with taking an American citizen who may be a criminal, maybe a violent criminal, and shipping him off to El Salvador, and at that point, or some other country at that point, saying the courts have no jurisdiction, there is no writ of Habeas corpus, there is no appeal whatsoever. Is this one. We should take him literally. Seriously, is he just trolling us? What was your reaction to that?
- [05:29]
Julian Zelizer
The rule of thumb. My rule of thumb is when he says something, believe him, he is incredibly transparent. He just says what he's thinking. And often then that leads to action. And this isn't that far from where we are. That's the important thing. It's easy to imagine the administration doing this. It's easy to imagine the same dynamic playing out with the court. And, you know, what once seemed impossible and a total violation of what our Constitution is about now seems to be on the table. So I take it very seriously. I think him saying that is as much of a red flag as you get. It's clearly on his mind. And again, the question is, if this happens, what's going to be the response? And I don't really know, but what a threat. And it's not a red, blue threat. That is a constitutional threat. And Republicans. Yeah. And supporters should realize that the whole point of this is the threat is then just as great. To them, the point of a system is everyone is protected from rampant abuse of political power. But that's what this would be.
- [06:39]
Charlie Sykes
Well, and there has been very, very little pushback from Republicans for this, maybe because they don't think that he is serious about it. But it was disturbing listening to the laughter in the Oval Office when he made that point. You know, the way that they're going about this. And it is interesting reading some of the coverage because there are people saying, well, okay, he's not openly defying the court because, you know, technically they are saying that they will facilitate the release. Look, this is just, this doesn't even rise the level of gaslighting. It almost feels like sort of juvenile snark, like, you know, what are you going to do about it, sitting there in the Oval Office with the President of El Salvador? You know, every judge in America has to know that they're not just defying the court, they're insulting the intelligence of the judges. Because everybody knows that all Donald Trump has to do is to say to the president of El Salvador, send him back, and he would send him back. So this is a game that's being played in a very crude sort of way. So the question is, and you kind of reference this, though, now, this is a challenge to the Supreme Court. I mean, did Andrew, you're the historian. Did Andrew Jackson actually say, you know, the Justice Marshal has made his decision now let him enforce it. Did that actually happen, or is that apocryphal?
- [07:54]
Julian Zelizer
The saying has been repeated and it holds. But that's not the executive branch Andrew Jackson that we have today. It's an era where the presidency, when Jackson was in office as forceful as he was, was very weak. So that quote is with a very different, different backdrop than today where a president has a massive amount of power, authority and an executive apparatus that Andrew Jackson couldn't even imagine. So you see with something like deportation how easy it is for the administration to hit the trigger. So I think that's really a fundamental difference. Even when that quote is. And that quote by Jackson is exceptional, it's not meant to be that presidents always say this.
- [08:36]
Charlie Sykes
Right?
- [08:36]
Julian Zelizer
That's why we talk about that quote. So I think pointing to it is only suggesting how off what we're seeing is right now. And again, it's much more dangerous given the apparatus he has at his disposal.
- [08:51]
Charlie Sykes
So what is the court going to do? What can the court do? You mentioned this can be very difficult for the Supreme Court to do anything about it. One assumes that Justice Roberts wanted a nine to nothing decision because it would be so definitive. You go back to the Watergate era and you know, that was the message sent to Richard Nixon that it was a unanimous court. Unanimous court. And basically they're just scoffing at them. So what are the options that the Supreme Court and the other federal judges have at this point?
- [09:23]
Julian Zelizer
Well, you know, when the Supreme Court made the famous Nixon decision on the tapes and required him to turn the tapes over to a special prosecutor, people were worried, would Nixon do this? And so they did have that fear. And it wasn't clear to the court what would happen if he just said no. Because that lack of enforcement power that the Supreme Court has or weak enforcement power was always apparent in the end. Nixon did it because he had a certain amount of understanding of the process. You know, they can hold people in contempt. Obviously, you can go to lower level officials who are involved in this and the court can intimidate by saying you're going to be held for contempt of court and you could be subject to fines or prison. Problem is President Trump has the pardon power. Problem is federal marshals have to enforce it. They are under the control of the president. So it's unclear if they can deploy that, but they can. It's at least a step. And they can expose what the administration's doing doing. The second won't be what the court can do, be more what the voters can do. I mean, each moment like this requires more Institutional resistance and more citizen activism and protest like we're seeing in Iowa. We just saw Senator Grassley confronted on some of these issues. That's really going to be it. So what the court can do, I think, I mean, they do have that contempt of court power, but I think in the end is to continue to expose what is going on right now in the Oval Office and how far the White House is willing to go and at least force American voters to reckon with the reality of what's being done.
- [11:05]
Charlie Sykes
Well, your substack is called the long view. So let's take a long view on all of this. This seems to me as if it is the constitutional crisis that we have been waiting for. Have we ever had a constitutional crisis like this before? What other constitutional crises have we had and how were they resolved?
- [11:25]
Julian Zelizer
Well, I'll point to them, but it shouldn't make anyone feel better. Meaning we obviously had the Civil War, which is a total constitutional breakdown, not just a crisis. It's resolved through war and fighting and a lot of death. We have certainly the Nixon administration, which at the time was seen as a constitutional crisis. The October massacre of 1973 is when Nixon fires the special prosecutor, Archibald Cox. He has him fired, who is investigating him. And that whole era was a bit of a crisis. Not just Watergate, but the President was impounding funds and Congress had to reclaim that power. He was conducting secret operations in Cambodia. Congress had to try to reclaim that power. So we had Nixon, too. That's resolved with Nixon leaving, being pressured by his own party, not just Democrats out of office, including Senator Goldwater, Barry Goldwater. It also ends with the 70s reforms that do attempt to restore some balance of power, like the budget act of 74, the War Powers act of 73.
- [12:32]
Charlie Sykes
This.
- [12:33]
Julian Zelizer
I think we're in this territory at this point. And what the President has, that Nixon certainly didn't have, was total partisan support at this point. That seems unbreakable. It seems unbreakable. And also it's the inner Trump that I think makes it different. I do think Nixon, for many things he did bad, still was operating in a world where he understood he was within the constitutional system, where there was shame and embarrassment. And I don't think any of that applies to the President. And so that makes him more willing to take immense risks and to just really strain how this entire process works. You saw it last thing with the tariff weak, because he was willing to throw not only our market, but the global market in total chaos, because that was his preference of the moment.
- [13:26]
Charlie Sykes
You know, I thought about this a lot, and I agree with you completely. And this, this is not reassuring because, you know, as you think back on Watergate, of course, it was a series of crimes and scandals, but it was also, it was the stress test for our institutions, and they passed that test. And I think that, that, that led to a generation of a little bit of complacency, the belief that the institutions would hold, that there were guardrails, that a lawless president could be reined in. That's what the story of Watergate seemed to be. And now that seems like a past era, because none of those things apply. And I remember in Trump's first term, I actually had a conversation with John Dean, of all people, and I said, do you think that Nixon would have survived if he had the media ecosystem that Donald Trump has now? That's before all of this stuff has happened. And Dean didn't hesitate. He said, no, I think Trump would have. I think Nixon would have gotten away with it. So this was a preexisting condition that he'd already established this base of support in the Republican Party, this media ecosystem that was going to support him. I mean, Nixon had what he had a rabbi and a couple of, you know, random congressman who would, you know, chauffeur him and everything. But things are completely different. And really, none of those things that you described exist any longer, including the internalized sense of shame. So I'm really struck by the way the administration is doubling down on this illegal mistaken rendition of the Maryland man. Part of me thought that. That they might go along with the court because they want to talk about, in political terms. They want to talk about, you know, Ms. 13 gang members. Right? They want to talk about criminals by doing what they're doing. Now they are. They're off message because now they're talking about defying the court. And I understand they want this debate. I understand they love talking about all of this, but they are not focusing on, I think, where the sweet spot in American public opinion is, and here's the dog that didn't bark, is if the admin and the administration continues to describe this man, Abrego, Abrego Garcia, as a criminal, they refer to him as a terrorist. And yet if they had the evidence of that, wouldn't they have presented it? Wouldn't that be the ultimate card for them to play, that in fact, he is a gang member, he is a terrorist, he is a thug. And yet they keep saying it, but there's no evidence, and they haven't presented any evidence that seems to me, rather crucial, what we're not hearing from them, of course.
- [16:14]
Julian Zelizer
And I mean, there's a reason we have due process. And the point isn't whether you assume someone's bad or good or done something wrong. There's a process to discover this, and if there's no evidence, you can't then take action. And so the first part was eliminating that due process and just shipping someone to an overseas prison. And then the second part is what you're saying to make claims without evidence after this has happened and they have not exposed it. And I do think politically, I mean, look, there are vulnerabilities. Trump had a lot of trouble in that first term. He lost the election. He lost in the midterms. He didn't do well, the Republicans in 2018. And I think in this case, you have put your finger on one of his weaknesses, is he can easily move from a position of strength to weakness as quickly as he can do the opposite. And I think with this, he has now turned it into the confrontation with the courts, rather than what you're saying focusing on gangs and danger and violence and crime, which is something that helps him very much. I think a second issue I'm looking at, and probably you are as well, is, is what is the reaction from the public, not only with deportation, but when a lot of these policies start to sink in, you're seeing a response in the state and local level, not just from institutional leaders, but from citizens at town halls and at rallies the other weekend. And I think that will only intensify as this goes on. So there are ways in which his kind of chaos can easily backfire. And I think in this case, you're seeing that very clearly.
- [17:59]
Charlie Sykes
Yeah, I am reluctant to talk about polls and how polls work on this because, quite frankly, I actually don't care what the polls tell us about the illegal rendition. It's wrong. I mean, I don't care if majority of Americans want to do away with due process. But it is interesting, as you're pointing out, public opinion is shifting. He is underwater. He's lost tremendous. He's lost tremendous numbers, including on the economy, which is deadly. The one area that he is still above water is immigration, at least has been. This is his strong point, which again, is why the pundits tell us he wants to talk about this. But if people begin to see this as him being lawless or dangerous, he could lose the one issue that's working for him. Okay, so since we've been doing the Nixon thing here, you know, Nixon's Also remembered for having an enemies list, which now seems rather benign compared to the enemies list that Donald Trump has, because Donald Trump has an enemy list and he's doing something about it. He is targeting them, he is ordering investigations, he is punishing them, he is slashing funds. It really is remarkable. You know, if Richard Nixon had done any of the things that Donald Trump has done basically on any news cycle, like on the Chris Krebs thing, it would have been an absolute firestorm back then. But we are seeing the, you know, the pure retribution, which we could focus on. But I want to talk about what's going on. But I also want to talk about. I mean, we've seen people cave in, we've seen the law firms cave in, but Harvard pushed back. Let's talk about. Let's talk about that. Because the record in higher education is really, really mixed. A lot of the universities seem to want to keep their heads down or go along with them. I talked with, on this podcast with Michael Roth, who's the president of Wesleyan University. He was one of the few university presidents who was out there early saying, guys, you have to resist this. You have to push back. So talk to me about why Harvard has decided to draw this line, and how do you think that's going to play out? I mean, what's going on?
- [20:07]
Julian Zelizer
Well, I mean, I don't know internally how the president thinks or what's going on, but the demands are. It's not just excessive, they're not legitimate or sustainable. You can't have the executive branch control universities. The whole point of universities is to give room for education, for basic research. And you'd think a conservative, someone from the Republican Party, which he is, would appreciate that value. And I think he ratcheted up what he wanted to do in terms of having a hand on almost everything that was going on, that I don't think the university had any choice. I think more university leaders, you're hearing a little more now from them. I think you're going to hear others. There's a lot of letters of support for Harvard from the presidents of these other institutions. And it was what you said. I mean, they demanded all these concessions from Columbia. Columbia initially was agreeing to it, and then they asked for more. That's how this works. So it's better, I think, and I think Harvard realizes it, is to stand your ground and to force the fight now, rather than to giving in so much, which then becomes the dynamic everyone follows. And you can't run a university in the way one of the great universities of the world producing all sorts of research and leaders. Here is the executive branch going after it. And I think that was probably all in the mind of the leadership at this point. And so they decided to say no. It's a huge risk, it's going to be a huge fight. Federal money is powerful, but I think it's a fight that they think is worth having and I think many other leaders do as well.
- [21:56]
Charlie Sykes
Well, you know, I mean, as you know, I've been a long time very vocal critic of higher education. I think there are a lot of reforms that, that, that needed to take place. But, but this is not about free speech, about wokeism, about undergraduate teaching, about any of those things. They are now targeting scientific research into things like Lou Gehrig's disease, major diseases out there, heart disease, vaccines, et cetera. There is a real concerted attack on the scientific infrastructure of the country that has nothing to do with, with the culture war issues that they claim to be waging.
- [22:37]
Julian Zelizer
Correct. And if you talk at any of these universities, it's the scientists who are feeling the biggest burden. I mean, a lot of these other disciplines don't rely as much on this kind of money. But it's not simply that they're stopping and they're going to start again. If you talk to most of these scientists, this is an endpoint for the research because they can't just start it up. This has been going on for years. They have trials going on. And so it's devastating. And this isn't about elite places of academia. This is research that affects everyone, whether you're living in the reddest part of the country to the bluest part. The medicines, the health care and the technology. We haven't even talked about that that comes out of this kind of research. Silicon Valley was born on the foundation of federal money, defense money that went to that region. All of this is going to be either vanishing or severely weakened. And I don't know what to say other than there is no scientist disputing that's what's going on in the universities right now. So it's really not just a war on the universities. He's conducting a war on science. And that should be clear to people what they're supporting as he does this.
- [23:51]
Charlie Sykes
No. And be interesting to see how that plays out. Now, one caveat here. Bob Bauer, a well known lawyer, has a substack post and he has a little cautionary note that Harvard has left itself a little bit of wiggle room to negotiate a settlement with the Trump administration and the Lawyers they have hired to defend them are very close to Trump world. And so there are people who have lines of communication open. So his suggestion is that what, as you pointed out, the Trump administration's demands were literally impossible for Harvard. Harvard wanted to make some sort of deal, but the Trump administration went so maximalist that they could not possibly do it. But they've hired some kind of Trumpy lawyers. The guy that represented Eric Adams, somebody who advises Trump's organization on ethics. I mean, not, not, not the, not the resistance attack dog. So we'll see how that plays out. But you also hope that Harvard's stand will be contagious, that, you know, courage is contagious. And the statement that you referenced from 60 university presidents, I think was significant. Speaking of lack of courage, I continue to be just blown away by all these fat cat law firms that think that they can get into bed with Donald Trump, that they can make a deal with him, that rather than challenge orders that are clearly, and I'm not a lawyer, but clearly unconstitutional, that they would lose if they were challenged. One big law firm after another agreed to this deal, which they will provide hundreds of millions of dollars in pro bono work. And there's a piece in the New York Times with lots of different bylines saying that law firms are now kind of discovering that, that, you know, since they've agreed to be part of this gigantic Trump slush fund, that Trump is going to make lots of demands on them, the Trump is going to use them, and they're in a position right now, having cut off parts of their souls, that they can't defy him if he says, I want you to defend my pillow guy, I want you to defend Dinesh D'Souza. I want you to litigate some completely bullshit thing that I'm doing as president. They, they either have to go along with it or they're back where they started from. So what a surprise, these law firms now having a little bit of buyer's regret, or ought to have buyer's regret when they find out how much Trump is going to ask of them, which I think is totally predictable.
- [26:24]
Julian Zelizer
I mean, look, they're going to have regret for that. This pro bono work also is a bit of a zero sum game in that they're not doing other kinds of work, which is part of the administration's hope. They won't take cases that will be a problem for the administration. I do think there are law firms that are now also saying, no, there was just a major court case where the courts ruled clearly in favor of the law firms. And I think that also will make the law firms, like Paul Weiss, that was one of the first to do this, not only regret that the deal isn't an endpoint, it's just the beginning, I'm sure, for the administration, but it also just, it sullies their legacy. Some of these great firms that have done amazing things for the law now will be remembered the leadership for this. And as other law firms say, no, that highlights the mistake and path that some of these others are taking. So I think it's a big mistake. And these are firms with a lot of money, a lot of clout, a lot of clientele. I just spoke with a lawyer who I know from one of the firms that said no and was in the case that won. And I remember I asked him about this and he said, no, we're not going to. We're not settling with this. This is not legitimate. It's not constitutional. No, no, no, no. And so the question is, like with universities, as more firms do that, rather than the Paul Weiss path, does it empower, embolden other law firms to do the same? I think it's essential. And I think the deals that are being offered are not real deals. All it is effort to intimidate and then open the door for much more. So I think if they don't say no now, they're only going to lose much more. They're not actually going to stop this.
- [28:14]
Charlie Sykes
You know, I know that's become kind of a cliche, you know, that, you know, people need to imagine, you know, when they're sitting around with their grandchildren and they say, you know, what did you do during this period? But I'm actually imagining conversations that are taking place right now between the children of some of these senior lawyers saying, dad or mom, why are you doing this? Look at what Trump is doing at this particular moment. We're not making a deal with Dwight Eisenhower. This is not Harry Truman. This is not Bill Clinton. This is Donald Trump, who is doing xyz. We could make the entire list. And that conversation has got to be pretty intense because they're going to have to explain that not just to their partners and to their clients, but, but I think to people in their lives who are thinking, your whole life, you claim to be a person of rule of law and of principle, and you've done so well and all of this. But again, one of the lessons that we've learned, which I suppose we should have known, is that we were under the illusion that the rich and the powerful would be the most able to resist or willing to resist an authoritarian president. And Donald Trump's instinct was, though, that if you're rich and you're powerful, that means you have more to lose. And so we've seen this collapse of the rich and the powerful who have the fuck you money, but apparently not willing to say fuck you. Right?
- [29:41]
Julian Zelizer
Yes. And I mean, what they can lose actually pales in comparison what regular people lose. If a lot of this goes in into effect, which it is going into effect. And that's really a kind of sad statement on wealthier people who are not standing their ground. Again, it's not even a liberal conservative argument we're having. This isn't, you know, Reagan versus the Democrats versus Mondale. This is not about that. This is about institutions and about the health of the system. And this is where people with climate clout have to risk some of the money they have and some of the, you know, resources they have to fight this fight. Because I think the question you're saying young people, we hope are asking is the question of the moment. I mean, when you're in the middle of a battle this severe, it's going to take not just having the right tool to fight back. It's going to have to be the right courage to do this. And understanding there are moments in history where people are judged based on where they stand on the issues of the day. And, you know, I remember at the inauguration when you saw those high tech people sitting right there, you know, lining up because the financial interest pushed them in the wrong direction. That was a moment where people were making the wrong decision. There's still time and you're seeing some movement, but this is the period in the next few weeks where you're really going to need to see more people making that kind of decision.
- [31:16]
Charlie Sykes
No, I think you're right. And I think we need to remind ourselves that, you know, this is. We're still in the first 80 days of this presidency and history is on fast forward. I mean, you're the historian, but I mean, the pace of change is so great and there's always a lag time between, you know, when something happens and the reaction to it. Because I think a lot of people are still in denial. I think they engage in delusions. I cannot tell you the number of conservatives who said, oh, Charlie, you suffer from derangement syndrome. It's not going to be that bad. Bad. Stop talking about a threat to democracy. And many of them, well, they haven't called me or anything, but, but you can see that they're going, oh, my God, we should have known. But we didn't. And this is horrible. And the business community, of course, is coming to grips with their deep belief that, that the, the tariff threat was to simply the loaded gun on the table that was never actually going to be fired. Right. So let's talk about tariffs for a moment and what that says. You made the point a couple of days ago. I believe that this is just one more issue that reminds us that expertise actually matters, that actually knowing what you're doing is not irrelevant. So talk to me about that in the context of this trade war we're in.
- [32:32]
Julian Zelizer
Yeah, look, we have all this skepticism about experts. It's not just a conservative skepticism. A lot of liberals have it. But you see in these moments, expertise that has been a big part of American politics certainly since World War II. We've brought in economists, we've brought in scientists. They're not perfect, they make mistakes, they're not the decision makers. But boy, is it important to have them around the table, independent analysis, so that when a president says, I'm going to do X, you have people in the room who say that might be bad, that might not have a good effect. It will do X, Y and Z. And to have a president at least consider that as part of the deliberation, part of the decision making process has really been essential to our great moments, scientific moments, military moments, economic moments. The president doesn't believe in that. He doesn't have that around the table. I think most of the experts and economists he has around him are people who are there because they are known to be loyal. They're not independent, they're not providing that objective analysis. And I thought the trade, the trade week, whatever you want to call that, week of liberation day, wealth. Yeah, Imprisonment day in terms of a lot of wealth being lost, revealed that when you have a president acting by the gut, by instinct, and not listening to what every economist almost was saying would probably happen, this is what happens. And so it's really essential that this can't be the pattern for the future.
- [34:08]
Charlie Sykes
Well, it is the pattern for the future of this administration, I think. I mean, if the only grownup in the room is Secretary Besant, and apparently he had gone around everyone and said, oh, don't worry about this. He's the guy that came up with the it's a gun, but nobody will ever fire it because it would be too crazy. And so maybe he talked Trump sort of off the ledge. But the thing about Trump is that I think he's a Terrible negotiator. I think that that's a myth. But he is a bully, and he does have that instinct of figuring out people's weakness. But the problem is what happens when the bully comes up against another bully or somebody who is even tougher. And it's not clear to me that in this game of chicken with China that China is going to blink. And so what does Trump do then?
- [34:54]
Julian Zelizer
It's not simply the tariff back and forth with a tougher partner. All the other issues we have been talking about are going to have terrible effects on our economic competitiveness. With China, where China is investing in all of this, they are investing in science, they're investing in technology. Tom Friedman's been talking and writing about this a lot. And so the actual heart of the economy is that. And so not only is he doing the tariff war, he's gutting what we need to actually have an advantage. But I think with China, he has a very formidable opponent. They clearly don't feel the need to budge very easily, and they can wield their own power over the United States. And I don't know what he does. I mean, one path is he backs down. It calms him because he realizes he can't.
- [35:44]
Charlie Sykes
But he'll claim victory. Right? I mean, you need to understand, always claim victory.
- [35:48]
Julian Zelizer
That would be a better path. The other path is he intensifies and accelerates again, just convinced by his own rhetoric that he can win. And in the process, it's not about him, it's about the United States and the country that he weakens us and he undermines our economic strength and growth for this dispute that is being handled in the way he wants to handle it. You know, those are the two paths that I see right now. But I do think he's facing with the Chinese leadership, someone that will not be easily moved.
- [36:24]
Charlie Sykes
Well, I thought it was revealing over the weekend when we had those reports that he was going to exempt computers and smartphones, and then they kind of backed off and said that was temporary, just complete confusion. But he understands the pain, the political pain that it would cause for him if in fact, prices of popular items went up. I mean, obviously high profile, the iPhone, you know, the computer. But there are a lot of other things as well. It's interesting to me, I come from, from Wisconsin, that he's already talking about a bailout for farmers. We did this before. So not only do we do we impose a tariff that makes food more expensive, we get to pay twice when we pay our taxes to bail the farmers out. He did it before. That's an indication that he understands that there's going to be some damage.
- [37:13]
Julian Zelizer
Yeah. And in doing all this, he's undermining, at least in theory, what the tariffs are meant to achieve because he puts them on, he's tough and firm, then he backs away, then he's creating exemptions, both here, then we're paying on top of it, subsidies to make up for the damage that is clearly happening. That's a mess. That's not economic policy. It's a mess. And I think he already, within whatever it's been a week, a week plus, has really not only exposed the dangers of this cherry built tariff system that he put into place, but he's also shown certainly to China, his own limitations and his own vulnerabilities from the bond market to constituents in red states who are going to feel the pain of these tariffs in some ways more than anyone. China knows exactly now what buttons to press if he continues with this. And so if this is the art of the deal, I'm not sure it's a kind of model they want to teach at the business schools because it doesn't seem to me to be a particularly effective path.
- [38:24]
Charlie Sykes
Well, and also let the note the potential for corruption here. I think the singular, one of the singular aspects of the Trump administration is the raw, in broad daylight, corruption. But historically, this is what free marketers have been warning about for more than a century, the potential of picking winners and losers. And by the way, conservatives used to hate the idea of the federal government picking winners and losers. Well, now it's not just the federal government, it's one man who can rule by fear and favor that I'm going to give you an exemption. I'm not going to give you an exemption if you play ball with me. Grover Cleveland himself called this the communism of pelf, which I thought was a great we need to bring the word pelf back. But Griff, and you know that he's going to maximize the use of that. Which leads me to something you wrote about earlier this week that I've thought about over the years in a cynical way. Arthur Schlesinger Jr. Wrote a book called the Imperial Presidency back in the 1970s, I think inspired mainly by Richard Nixon. But there was that, it feels like there was a brief moment for like five minutes when people said, you know, this presidency thing's getting out of hand. We have imbued the presidency with too many powers. So talk to me about what, what, what you think about looking back at Arthur Schlesinger Did Democrats just lose interest in that whole issue when they became, when, when they, when they, they won the. And that's the way it seems. The Republicans are concerned about it when there's a Democrat in the White House. Democrats are concerned about it when there's a Republican in the White House. But here we are, what, 50 years after that book, and the presidency is more imperial than ever, I think.
- [40:16]
Julian Zelizer
Look, I think it was a serious moment. So he publishes that in 73. He had worked for Kennedy as a speechwriter and advisor. And the book is not just about Nixon, it's also about Lyndon Johnson. It's about essentially how war power had really led to expansion, which Schlesinger admits he himself did not recognize how dangerous this could be. And you do have a period in the 1970s where I think it's taken seriously and both parties. You have Nixon resigning. You have the War Powers act, you have the budget reform of 74 which takes power back to Congress. You have the CIA reforms, which is actually part of this era. You have an independent council which becomes controversial, but it is created as part of the effort to rein in the President. Jimmy Carter, he's kind of an anti president president. He does everything possibly to be powerless. But over time it did erode. I mean, the attraction of the presidency in an age of big government and international obligations is very strong. It's easier than a messy Congress. Polarization in Congress made things harder to achieve. So presidents tried this route. And then we've had national security crises like 9, 11, which led to a restoration of executive fire. So lots of things, it was more than five minutes, but lots of things eroded that. But the lesson of that book, the lesson of that decade are very pertinent right now. And we've just added a layer where even the critics and the people who feared the imperial presidency assumed that even the most imperial president would have a respect at some level for the Constitution, would have some level of shame if things were exposed. And now we have a situation where that doesn't exist. So I think that's kind of a short history of how we move from Schlesinger's book to where we are today. But it's worth reading the book because it's kind of one of those amazing texts that outline what we are facing. One last thing on this is that the end of his book, he offers this incredible warnings, lessons where he says it's not simply about the President, what really matters. He has a paragraph is do the other institutions respond? He says they are not gone. The courts Congress, the media, universities. He actually lists all of these. He says the real question is, in moments when presidents are doing this, do they stand up? Do they do something? They have the capacity to, but do they have the will to do it? And I think that message is also extremely important right now. We're not going to dismantle the presidency and presidential power in the next year or two. But all these other institutions, in some ways, right now, it's on them, it's on all of us to defend again, not red versus blue, blue versus red, but the health of a constitution and democracy versus those who are eroding it.
- [43:18]
Charlie Sykes
It's going to be hard to pick up those pieces, though. That's. That's part of the problem. You know, thinking that this erosion of these norms, it's like going bankrupt. You do it gradually, gradually, and then all at once, and all of those assumptions are gone. And it's difficult to see what the road back is if you have one political party that no longer supports it. And quite frankly, if power is shifted, we just don't even know what people's expectations are. Julian Zelizer, this has been a real pleasure. Thank you so much for joining me. People can find your work over at the Longview on Substack. You're on all the time because you do not sleep. I don't believe. I don't believe that. So thank you, Julian, thank you so much.
- [44:00]
Julian Zelizer
Thanks so much for having me on. It was real pleasure.
- [44:03]
Charlie Sykes
And thank you all for listening to this episode of to the Contrary podcast. We do this every week because now more than ever, important to remember that we are not the crazy ones. Thank you.