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Charlie Sykes
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Charlie Sykes
Welcome back to the to the Contrary podcast. I am Charlie Sykes. The war drums are beating. By the time you hear this, we might actually be at with Iran. We're all preparing for the spittle inflected state of the union address of rage from Donald Trump. The Epstein file story continues. The former British ambassador of the United States is arrested the week after the former Prince Andrew was arrested. I mean, in fact, the royal family says, hey, we're not above the law. Kind of cast a certain shadow on the United States. Meanwhile, Trump continues to flail in the wake of a Supreme Court decision that slam dunks him on tariffs, although he appears to double down. We have a lot to talk about because the pattern is full. And joining me to make sense of all of this is Jamil Smith, who is a columnist for the Guardian US Edition and a faculty member, a lecturer at the University of California, Berkeley's Graduate School of Journalism. Jamil, thank you for joining us.
- [03:31]
Jamil Smith
Thank you very much, Charlie. Glad to be here.
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Charlie Sykes
You know what I'm still upset about? I really wanted to really get into the American victory in the Olympics on hockey. And yet I can't get that picture of Kash Patel being the fan from hell going into the locker room and, you know, somebody said to me, oh, Charlie, would you have gone into the locker room if you'd had a choice? Well, first of all, I've actually been in locker rooms and there's some times when you realize, you know what, I didn't score any goals. This is not my place. Right?
- [03:59]
Jamil Smith
Indeed.
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Charlie Sykes
And also, doesn't the FBI director have something more important to do?
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Jamil Smith
Yes, it certainly does. And if I were Savannah Guthrie and her family in particular this morning, I would be enraged. The FBI director does have a job, and it is not to fly to the Olympics to go to exhibitions of his favorite sport. Whether or not he, he understands his duties, I think it's still an open question despite all the things that he has had to attend.
- [04:28]
Charlie Sykes
Well, I think that's a settled question. Yeah, I think that's a settled question. I mean, he's more interested in the jet setting. I hate to dwell on this so many days afterwards, but the fact that they spent days denying reports from Kendallanian that he was jet setting on the taxpayer dime to hang out at the Olympics, and they trashed him over and over again and there he is. And it's not just the Savannah Guthrie story. I mean, you have this drug war down in Mexico. We might be attacking Iran, which might lead to attacks on the homeland. There was, you know, an attack on Mar A Lago with a guy with a shotgun and a can. You would think that he would have some sense of propriety, but he's cash effing Patel, so.
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Jamil Smith
Well, I think it's part and parcel of what we've seen throughout this administration. They are not taking these jobs, which are ostensibly public service positions. Right. They're not taking these jobs with the idea that they are going to conform to the. The balance of those jobs, as have been in previous administrations. They're going to tailor them to whatever makes them comfortable, whatever their limited, frankly, capabilities are. And for all this talk from the on the right about meritocracy, I mean, he is. He's appointed a podcast host as the head of the FBI. No shade on podcast hosts. You're one, I've been one. But I don't think either of us are qualified to have that position. And certainly Cash Patel keeps showing that time and time again.
- [05:52]
Charlie Sykes
All right, so tonight, the State of the Union address. President Trump goes before the nation with his disapproval rating at 60%. Days after the Supreme Court shoved him back into the constitutional box. He gets to face members of Congress and the justices face to face. So what should we expect? I might actually break tradition and watch this thing live. What are you gonna. What do you expect?
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Jamil Smith
I actually tend to watch them no matter who's the president, mainly because in my past work, I've had to because I've been covering them for either cable news or whatever publication I'm writing for. But in this case, there is a such thing as harm mitigation. If you want to sit this out, I certainly don't blame anyone for doing that. Read the summary later, watch a YouTube segment or compiling the most essential clips. And certainly given the fact that this president's main concern is ratings, don't give them to him. Yeah, that is a subtle way to resist. Now, as far as the people in the room, I know there's been some talk about Democrats boycotting this address. Again, I filed that under harm mitigation. But at the same time, I do think that silence speaks loudly. And no party is more tethered to the idea that the system should work than the Democrats.
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Charlie Sykes
Yeah.
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Jamil Smith
And their presence, though, although silent, they don't have to boo. They just. Just be there with their arms crossed and just sit there and. And hear it and let him bury himself. I expect we're going to hear a lot of bullying. I think he's going to continue his tirade against the justices and make it awkward for them to just sit there silently. This is a bully with a. Basically a free throw. No one's going to be stopping him. No one's going to be trying to block his shot. He's just gonna be out there saying whatever he wants. And frankly, it's up to us as the American people to have the discernment to think critically about what he's saying and not just simply say another, like, this is Trump being Trump.
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Charlie Sykes
Well, it will be Trump being Trump. Unfortunately, what I'm most interested in is when he goes off, whether he'll go off script with the teleprompter, because you know that, you know he's gonna tell the usual story, but then the most memorable moments are usually when he leans out and goes, you John Roberts, you dirty rat, or something. I mean, whatever he's gonna do, I think that's what's going to be interesting. So let's just talk for a moment about his reaction to this Supreme Court ruling. Let me just back up a little bit. On a scale of 1 to 100, how significant was that ruling that said that his emergent use of the emergency law to impose these tariffs was illegal? How big a deal was that for you?
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Jamil Smith
I find it to be an incredibly big deal. And I agree. Certainly, I never expected this court, given their past track record of enabling his abuses of power, I never expected this court to stand up to him, and I never expected the court to stand up for us. I do think, though, that a broken clock can be right twice a day. We should necessarily say the Supreme Court is fixed. They've come to their side senses. No, no. But I do think it's a shot across the bow because there are more important cases down the line for Trump. Obviously, he's found a loophole with tariffs. They seem to be prepared for that. But do they have a loophole for, say, birthright citizenship when the court rules against that? Which I would think is still fairly likely given that it's in hard, cold print in the Constitution what birthright citizenship is about.
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Charlie Sykes
Okay, I'm glad you brought that up, because in my newsletter yesterday, I posted his latest insult of the Supreme Court. I wanna come back to. You know how smart it is to pick a fight with justices of the Supreme Court. But he put out this tweet and I actually posted it without reading the whole thing. He starts off by saying that he's not gonna capitalize Supreme Court anymore. He's going to be using lowercase letters based on a complete lack of respect because the man has the mental maturity of an 8 year old. And apologize to 8 year olds about that. But as you go down into the twee, actually missed this the first time, he then goes after the issue of birthright citizenship. And I think it's important to understand that not Only was he insulting the justices. He tried to threaten them in advance, and he's doing it again. He said, then let me. Can I read this to you? Here we go. The next thing you know, they will rule in favor of China and others who are making an absolute fortune on birthright citizenship by saying the Fourth Amendment was not all in capsule written to take care of the, quote, babies of slaves, unquote, which it was, as proven by the all in caps. Exact timing of its construction, filing, and ratification, which perfectly coincided with the all in caps end of the Civil War. How much better can you do than that? So he's now basically saying 14th amendment only about babies of slaves. And if the court rules in favor of continued birthright citizenship, the they're ruling in favor of China. Wow.
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Jamil Smith
So this. Actually, let me start with a broader frame, because it's easy to just say, just point at something and be like, that is racist. But let's go a little bit deeper. Okay. To me, and I don't want people who are watching this online to mistake my smile for thinking that any of this is funny. The 14th Amendment is part of a long history of mechanisms that this country has built so that it can plug the holes in the boat. Democracy has a lot of holes in it, and the duties of a president and a government ostensibly should be to plug those holes as much as they possibly can. And the 14th amendment was designed to plug a pretty big one. It was designed to override the Dred Scott decision. It constitutionalized Birkenright citizenship. Courts have historically read it, broadly granted, but birthright citizenship was written into the Constitution in this way to prevent political actors from deciding who counts as American, who belongs here, who can wear that title, that history matters here, especially considering ISIS locking up not just undocumented immigrants, all right, Even ones who have been here for decades. They're locking up American citizens and even detaining indigenous Americans. Like, if you. If you follow the logic of that, it's really about Donald Trump trying to tell you that whoever belongs to this country, like, obviously, there's a certain color to that. And I do think that he's not subtle about it. Not subtle at all. Not subtle at all. And honestly, I mean, we just go back to the Toni Morrison definition of racism. Like, the. The very serious purpose of racism is distraction. It's, you know, and I would add to that, it's exhaustion. It's meant to make us tired, and the less tired we find ourselves in moments like this. I mean, obviously his actual comment is not really worthy of A serious response. But as far as where it tells us that he's going, he would love to just veto the citizenship of anyone who doesn't vote to keep him in power. Let's just be real about it.
- [13:19]
Charlie Sykes
Well, yeah, I thought it was interesting, though, that he's trying. He floated that weird kind of conspiracy theory that the court had been influenced by foreign actors when they ruled on the tariff issue, and everybody's going, what are you actually talking about? Well, now he's basically saying, you guys are gonna be in the pockets of China if you do this. So, I mean, talk to me a little bit about his reaction, because we've had presidents before who have been critical of Supreme Court rulings. We have never had anything like what we saw on Friday and Saturday from the President of the United States, with the personal attacks, bringing in their families, how their families should be ashamed of them, the lack of respect for the court. This strikes me as dangerous substantively for Trump because his presidency may ultimately be in their hands. It strikes me as dumb politically, because something like 80% of Americans think the president needs to follow Supreme Court rulings. But give me your sense. I agree with you. I'm not gonna use the word turning point. And this doesn't necessarily make up for the presidential immunity decision, a decision that will live in infamy. But clearly, this is a court that kind of had the sense that they know what time it is, they know exactly what the threat is, and they are reasserting fundamental constitutional guardrails that Donald Trump is absolutely intent on breaking. So give me your thoughts on his really vicious, petulant, personal attacks on the justices who ruled against him.
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Jamil Smith
Listen, any one of us, I would say, knows what a bully looks like and sounds like, and this is a person who's a bully, and this a bully does what he does because it works, but only for certain people and only to a certain extent. And listen, I agree that this, the ruling itself, institutionalism, only works at political actors, except losing sometimes.
- [15:15]
Charlie Sykes
Right, Right, exactly.
- [15:17]
Jamil Smith
I agree that this ruling reflects conservative constitutionalism, separation of powers, congressional authority, the whole knot. The question is whether that principle holds when it becomes politically inconvenient. And for him, anything that he doesn't want, and frankly, that makes his job easier, because, honestly, I don't believe he actually really wanted the job of the presidency. He wants to have the power of the presidency. He doesn't want to actually do the work. And so anything that makes that work easier, including getting rid of the ruling that enables the government to take action against climate Change. He doesn't want anything to get in the way of him enjoying the fruits of whatever the job is without any of the responsibility.
- [16:05]
Charlie Sykes
And also, I mean this is another reflection of something it feels like old to say arrogance and hubris that he actually has had so many in his mind successes, so many of the guardrails have fallen down. He seems, by the way, genuinely not to understand the concept of constitutionalism at all. He thinks that if I appointed you, you are personally loyal to me, not to the Constitution. I think we were reminded that even conservative justices are not necessarily maga. But once again, you know, Donald Trump, so much of what Donald Trump is doing now feels self inflicted.
- [16:44]
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Charlie Sykes
And I want to go back to the sort of the State of the Union and where we're at 60% disapproval rating. Okay, so the man is elected president again despite everything, which we don't need to relitigate, all of that. But right now, according to that Washington Post poll, he's going to go in front of a country where only 39% approve, 60% and he's losing on the issues that he won on. Immigration, affordability, all of these things. Give me some sense of what's happening. Why public opinion? Because you know, I'm thinking that on immigration, if he just would have closed the border, if he just would have like been like even a quasi normal president, he would be far in a far stronger position. And yet because of the hubris and the extremism and the incompetence and all of this stuff, people are looking at it and going, that's not what we voted for. What do you think? What's driving this shift in public opinion?
- [18:09]
Jamil Smith
I think, I think, I mean, listen, I mean we know Trump became a politician in part because he was a TV star. And I do think that it's for a lot of Americans, they're really tired of the Trump show and they want to change the channel. And unfortunately I think they had an opportunity to do that in 2024. And too many folks decided that they couldn't support having someone who looked like Kamala Harris and someone who is Kamala Harris as president. So here we are. And I think that I wrote recently about a caller from New Mexico, a self professed lifelong Republican who called into C SPAN and told the host that he voted for the President and supported him. But he really wants to now apologize and I'm here for John from New Mexico. I, I think that he was expressing a genuine regret given how conspicuous, at least to him it had finally become, that this person is incapable and unqualified to leave the country.
- [19:10]
Charlie Sykes
What was it? What was the trigger?
- [19:12]
Jamil Smith
I mean the trigger for him was the post about the Obamas making them look like apes. It's some guttural, guttural racism that we known to help White House to deploy on occasion to get us talking about that as opposed to the things that he's going to have to address in the State of the Union. Why can't people find jobs? Why is there an article in the New York Times today talking about cash strapped Americans and how basic living has become a burden? Why is it that you have all these reports about people struggling to meet their very basic needs in an economy that he says is booming? You know that that is a question he's going to have to reckon with eventually. I don't expect that he's going to do that because I think that to a large extent he's allergic to accountability and inherent in the racism that he practices and the bigotry that he practices throughout his, throughout his politics is about blaming someone else. I'm looking forward to seeing how he blames undocumented immigrants for the state of his economy or he blames however he wants to characterize us black folks. There's many choices given his past or his past record. However he wants to characterize us as criminals or ne' er do wells or lazy. I mean these are frankly all projections. I mean what he said about the injustices being in the influence of China, I mean like you know that's a really, that's kind of on the nose for a lot of the things he's been alleged to have had his, had his affair has been influenced by let's just be kind. So the point is he's now at a, it's going to be his worst nightmare because there's normally no one else talking. There's no one else for him to yell at or to combat on a debate stage. There's no press corps for him to, to scream at and to blame. It's going to be him on an island having to defend his really, really shoddy record over the past year. And he'll say the same things that most presidents say. He'll say that everything's great, hunky dory, the state of the Union is strong. And there'll be applause from the Republicans who are just all in line for this. So my hope is that people learn where he's at about his mindset not by actually listening to what he says, but how he says it.
- [21:36]
Charlie Sykes
Yeah, I want to come back to the video because you asked a really interesting question in your Guardian column, like, sort of basically like what took soul long for people to recognize this. So I want to come back to that in a moment. But in terms of the shift in public opinion, we have been talking about this now for 10 years. What will it take to do it? And I think one of the reasons he won in 2024, which of course I was appalled by, was that, and I think this was Bill Clinton's formula. He said if the voters have a choice between strength and weakness, they're always going to choose strength. So. But I think that for a lot of Americans, voting for something that is strong is not the same as voting for something that is brutal and cruel. And what we've seen over the last year has been that brutality and that cruelty on screens everywhere. And the secret weapon of our democracy turns out to be the fact of average citizens, every one of which has a phone and a camera and they're recording everything. And I think a lot of us thought that this new era still has a lot of downsides in terms of disinfecting information and AI and stuff like that. But the fallout from Minnesota would not have happened if citizens had not been there. And this really empowers the average person in a way, because I don't know about you, but my social media feed is absolutely jammed with one image after another of just jaw dropping cruelty and arrogance and brutality by masked agents of the federal government. Scenes I never would have thought would have happened in America. But millions of Americans are seeing that and going, damn, that is not what I signed up for. What do you think?
- [23:21]
Jamil Smith
Okay, so I take a deep breath because I have to check myself on this to a certain extent. I will say that one of the things that is one of my primary frustrations in politics right now is the lack of voter responsibility. We live in an age in which there is more information available to most human beings, at least those of us in who have technology, there's more information available to us than at any time in the history of the human race. So I don't want to hear that you didn't know about Donald Trump's racism. I don't want to hear that you didn't know about his cruelty. I want to hear that you didn't know about his sexism. I wrote a column 10 years ago about how the Central park ad that he published in May of 1989 condemning these five innocent, not even charged yet, teenagers of the rape and brutal beating of each other in Central Park. He published an ad calling for their deaths, calling for the state to kill them. And he's never apologized, but he's never, not only never apologized, but he's accused them of still being guilty of it, even after the city and, you know, produced a multimillion dollar settlement. Long story short with that is that we learned everything we need to know about Donald Trump from that period. This is the time when he and his father were subject to a DOJ inquiry regarding their racist treatment of tenants. I mean, this is. This is who this guy has always been. And now in his second term, freed from the constraints of the occasional HR McMasters or folks who might have tried to talk some sense into him or limit his power, he's now surrounded by a bunch of acolytes, a bunch of enablers. And what I've been writing about lately, whether it's what he's doing in climate policy, his racism and political discourse, his abuses of institutional power, really comes down to the same through line, which is accountability to reality. And that is not simply Donald Trump's duty. It is our duty as citizens and as voters, as consumers, and frankly, especially as journalists, to be accountable to reality in a moment in which empirical reality is treated as negotiable. Right. Depending upon someone's political needs. So when I look at what the Supreme Court tariff ruling or. Or anything that he's kind of whined and complained about, I don't see, like, some isolated trade dispute that's caught up in inside baseball. I see it as part of a broader stress test for a democracy. I agree. The institution still function, confronted with a political movement that rejects constraint upon its power. And now he is really. It's like the Raptors in Jurassic Park. He's just testing the fences to see where there's a weakness. And rather than plug in the holes in the boat, he's making them wider. And he, you know, he's frankly threatening to sink us all.
- [26:10]
Charlie Sykes
No. And I think that's The. That is the issue. And you're right. I mean, Donald Trump is who he has always been, but he feels more empowered to say it out loud. I mean, I remember when he came to down the golden escalator back in 2015 and he started talking about Mexican rapists. Remember what the reaction was back then? You had civil society recoiled from that. It seems almost mild now compared to the racist rhetoric engages now, but all these companies cut ties with him and everything. And there was that sort of sense, like, okay, you've gone too far. You are disqualified. But what's happened has been that Donald Trump over the years, has moved the window of acceptance, acceptable racism, dramatically. I'm not saying that he created it, but he has given permission for the kinds of things to be said that would have been disqualifying. And this is the thing about this video, and you and I are speaking in late February, the video that he put out about the Obamas was so crudely, unambiguously racist that it would have been disqualifying for any politician anytime in the last 30 years, would have gotten you fired from almost any corporation or university in America. So Donald Trump does it. Doesn't back off on it, really. They deleted it, but he's now saying it was very, very strong. And yet tomorrow every Republican's gonna stand up and applaud him. And so it's like we've kind of moved on. He has comments about Somalians or listening to J.D. vance and the Haitians eating dogs and cats. And you look at this, you go, wait, this is the kind of thing that you might have been able to get away with in Arkansas in 1957, but he's doing it now. And Americans are either accepting it or are indifferent to it. So the effect on culture, I think it's one thing to focus on Trump. It's another thing to focus on what people are willing to accept and the pressure that people like him and Stephen Miller saying, if you've accepted this, let's accept this kind of demonization. Well, demonization is just not strong enough of a word. Dehumanization.
- [28:19]
Jamil Smith
It's appropriate. It's an appropriate word. I mean, listen, there is no bigger hole in the boat as far as the American project. There's no hole that's bigger than racism, I would argue. And that's tied in with all the other assorted bigotries that Donald Trump and his movement have practiced. But what concerns me now is seeing those holes treated as opportunities for exploitation rather than problems to solve. And he sees he rightfully recognizes that racism is probably one of our. It's a kryptonite for American democracy. And if he wants to weaken American democracy so that he can then claim power beyond, say, a second term, beyond the limits of established law, then it's a good tool to use. I have to be blithe about it, but it really is. I mean, if. If you were recommending to someone how to destroy America, racism would be right in the toolbox, you know, and.
- [29:17]
Charlie Sykes
Well, it's very much in the toolbox.
- [29:18]
Jamil Smith
Yeah, but the. Again, racism inherently is about questioning reality. You know, it's about interpreting reality in a way that favors power for one particular group. Right. And so if it's up to us as the people who have to hear this message, at least for potentially for the next three years, to understand exactly what he's doing and not simply, it's fine to be outraged. I'm mad about all of it. It makes me mad. It makes me tired. It accomplishes its goal in that regard.
- [29:52]
Charlie Sykes
But he wants to make you tired.
- [29:54]
Jamil Smith
He wants. Oh, yeah, he wants to make us tired so that we're not looking at the kleptocracy and the cake restocracy that's happening in this government. I mean, just from a. Just from the standpoint of actually doing an effective job of governance, they're failing. So he's going answer for that.
- [30:12]
Charlie Sykes
Okay? So, I mean, this is the problem, is that it's happening and it's such a cartoonish way where you have this kleptocracy where he's engaging in corruption on this global industrial scale. You know, billions of dollars changing hand. And, you know, as people begin to focus on it, they are almost literally, wait, look, there's a Somalian over there who's engaging in fraud. Look at the Somalian. Wait, wait, wait. There's this Mexican over there, and it is working. Okay, let me bounce something off of you. Okay. Because I really do wrestle with this, because so I used to be on the other side of the fence, and I remember intimately, you know, 2015 and 2016, where I was on conservative radio host in Wisconsin and Donald Trump was the most unambiguous, unambiguously racist candidate that I'd seen since David Duke. It was not subtle at all. And yet when you would say, wait, what Donald Trump is saying is racism. We have been struggling for 20 years to get past that sort of thing. This is clearly disqualifying. The feedback that I got and that other conservative never Trumpers got from conservatives was, oh, Come on, now, roll their eyes. Because you know what? We have been hearing this crying wolf for decades. Every one of us have been called racist. They called Mitt Romney a racist. They called George Bush a racist. They have called, if you're in favor of lower taxes, you're a racist. If you're in favor of this, you're a racist. And after a while, what I heard was people felt that it had lost its currency. So when the real thing walked in the door, people were like, okay, been there, done that. You call John McCain a racist, you're calling Donald Trump a racist, whatever. So I would like just to bounce your. You know, because it feels as if it was so hard and it was so frustrating to realize the resistance. And I think you still see that among the voters who are going along with Donald Trump when he's putting out, you know, you know, the videos we were talking about.
- [32:09]
Jamil Smith
Okay? So I like to sort of, I guess you could say, keep at the center of my work. And this is something I've told my students that it's not about who someone is. It's about what they do. It's about the effect. Okay? It's not about the intent. It's not about what you brand them as. That's why I tend to generally not call Donald Trump a racist only because it doesn't matter what he feels in his heart. It doesn't matter whether deep down in his bones, as my man Jay Smooth said in a video that is 17 years old, I hope that people, if you're watching on YouTube after this, go look it up. Ill doctrine. He lays it all out. He said, listen, it's you. Once you start talking about what they are, you sabotage the. The entire conversation. And you enable people who actually. May actually be racist or deep in their bones, you enable them to get away with it. Because my thought is, if you talk about the disproportionately racist outcomes, I guess you could call it, of a particular policy, that's the conversation to have. I'm not mad at Donald Trump because I think he was a racist back in 1989 when he put that ad out. I'm mad because it had an effect. What is the effect of his actions? I'm mad that, yes, and let's be frank. In most policies, when the deleterious effects of those policy changes are going to hit black and brown folks first, poor people first. All right. Unionized people first. So let's not pretend that it's about what he actually believes. This is all a means to an end for this movement. And frankly, that's part of what angers me is seeing the Obama video in particular used as sort of this method of distraction, like this thing that's deeply hurtful to black folks throughout this country, throughout the world, being used as a political distraction. Meanwhile, of course, there's tens of thousands of folks in Africa dying because of the USAID cups. So it's like, yeah, but what's more racist? It doesn't, it's not a contest. They're both.
- [34:38]
Charlie Sykes
This, this is a great segue into your most recent column. And I have not really addressed all of this in terms of, like, really huge consequential decisions. Setting aside the video, as you pointed out, the Trump administration's decision to repeal the endangerment finding, which basically eliminates the federal government's ability to regulate greenhouse gases. I mean, in terms of, like, long term consequences, this is one of those breathtaking things the administration has done, flooding the zone with all of this, you know, you know, they've been saying, you know, this is all a scam, a giant scam. And so I think this is what you wrote was this was the legal keystone of modern US Climate regulation, the scientific administrative determination that enabled the federal government to regulate greenhouse gas emissions. As a result of this, we are one of the very few countries in the world that has no regulation of this. So talk about that. As you point out, that this has a disproportionate effect on poor people and black populations that live in polluted areas. And quite frankly, I'm guessing that if you ask people what was the biggest thing that happened the last two weeks, that they might not even rate this in the top 10. What do you think?
- [35:54]
Jamil Smith
Yeah, and that's disturbing to me. The Clean Air act, of course, was enacted in 1970, shortly after. Listen, I'm a native born and raised in Cleveland, Ohio, and it was enacted shortly after our river caught on fire. So I guess that is one of my city's wonderful contributions to the world because it, frankly helped save lives at the end of the day. And the endangerment finding underpins the US Climate regulation under that act. And it's not just a policy shift away from saying that, like, yes, climate change is a giant scam, as Trump put it. It's a refusal to acknowledge scientific and legal reality and arguably for capitalistic reasons. You're undermining public health so people can make money. You're undermining legal authority so people can get richer. You sabotaging environmental justice so that you can refuse to take responsibility for any harm that's done, any of the real human impacts of climate change. He wants to make that not his job. Ineloquently put, all right, he wants to make that to me was not just a statement about where he stands with regards to the climate and the environment, but about how he views the presidency. You know, it's not my job. This isn't my job. And there's a whole lot of things that we've seen throughout his two terms that he's basically kind of just said, what me worry or. It's not on me, it's on the states. It's on the states to do this. It's on the states to do. Hey, at some point the federal government kind of has a responsibility to fulfill its duties to the people who elected them or didn't.
- [37:36]
Charlie Sykes
You know, I was thinking about this and I don't know the answer to this question, but for the last 10 years, even the fossil fuel companies have gone out of their way to say we're in favor of clean energy and all of this. And I mean, obviously there was a little bit of hypocrisy, but what have we heard from Exxon and all of these other companies in the wake of this? Because there was once a time when even the private sector would have spoken out, like, wait, we've invested a lot of money in this, but I haven't heard anything. I mean, this is like one of the, you know, I mean, this is a centuries worth, you know, consequential decision and I feel like there's crickets in the reaction to it. Where's the environmental community? Why is there not more outcry about this? I don't get it.
- [38:26]
Jamil Smith
I think that there, within the environment, you know, the people who actually want to combat climate change. I think there's plenty of outcry, unfortunately. I think we fall victim within our media environment to folk, what people actually pay attention to. And you know, I remember being, when I was in my production days, MSNBC, more than 10, 15 years ago, we were told often that segments that center around climate change don't rate highly. That like people, they'll, they'll be watching for all the political outrage, but they won't be watching. They'll turn the channel once we start talking about the planet dying.
- [39:02]
Charlie Sykes
That hasn't changed.
- [39:04]
Jamil Smith
So it is, it is, it really is. And frankly, I'm not just looking for, to hear something from the fossil fuel industries, although of course they are the major contributor to, you know, to climate change. But I'm looking to hear from the meat industry. We talk, we don't talk enough about how much the meat industry contributes to climate change. We don't talk enough. I mean frankly, I think it's, it's getting some press, but we don't talk enough about how AI in tech can contribute to obviously, I mean the amount of water that they use, kind of staggering. We, we just are not holding these folks accountable, frankly, because we don't have the mechanisms to do that. And one of the unfortunate symptoms of this Trump era has been a regression of how much shame people feel for these kinds of things.
- [39:50]
Charlie Sykes
You know, that's really a good point. And regression of shame.
- [39:53]
Jamil Smith
Yeah. They don't realist. We're being, for being, having these positions. They feel like they can just drop a black square on Instagram and that'll mitigate their, they'll signify solidarity or they'll drop an MLK post and think that that doesn't, that mitigates the racist consequences of their actions. I would, I would like to advise them that, that it does not and, and ask them to do better.
- [40:18]
Charlie Sykes
All right, let me ask you a more cosmic question. I spent the weekend in D.C. at a really wonderful conference called Principles first, which is sort of Woodstock for centrists. And there was a clear division of opinion on one major question which was has the worst passed? Have we turned the corner? Basically, we've taken the best shot, the worst shot. And now based on the polls, based on the midterm elections, we can see light at the end of the tunnel. There were some people who said that. Now maybe they were motivated to say that because, you know, opium can be monetized. There were others who said no, no. And in fact, the weaker Trump gets, the more dangerous he gets. And it would be incredibly naive to think that the, the worst is passed. Where do you come down on that?
- [41:08]
Jamil Smith
I side with the latter. So do I. I think that, I mean, as long as he has access to the kind of power that he currently holds, and I don't mean just simply government power, I mean financial power. Yes to, let's just be frank, I mean cover up the misdeeds that are outlined in these Epstein files. Let's just use that as an example. If you have the power to do that, if you have the power to say to Jack Smith, no, we're not going to have your, your findings released because a Trump appointed judge decides that that's not, that's never Eileen Cannon. I mean that is dangerous. The danger is still present. This like, that's the reason why I don't. I handle. If you see some victories, you know, I don't know if you saw any. You've seen some big victories in sports. Right. The coach just remains taciturn as his players are going all over the court.
- [42:02]
Charlie Sykes
Right.
- [42:02]
Jamil Smith
Coach is like, yeah, this is great. We got a game Tuesday, you know, And I really advise the American people to kind of take that mindset. Yes. The Supreme Court decision that we just witnessed. Good. I'm glad. Like, that's the bare minimum. This is like saying that, like, I take care of my kids, you know, like, you're supposed to take care of your kids. The Supreme Court's supposed to stand up to abuses like this. Right. Let's not hand out cookies just yet. Let's not have the party just yet. We have to, frankly, become even more vigilant as he gets weaker. We have to become more conscious.
- [42:36]
Charlie Sykes
I totally agree with what is going
- [42:37]
Jamil Smith
on in this world. And that means you have to address your media diet, everybody. Like, we need to make sure that you're getting. You have to make sure that you're getting good information every day and getting not just a diversity of thought, but a diversity of intellectually honest thought. You need to be thinking critically even more with every day that passes about what's going on in this world. And I understand that is a lot to bear. Like, we are in this business, and we. It's a lot on us. The weight is a lot. Sometimes you just need to take a break and put on Bridgerton and cool out. I get it. But there is. This is a moment where we, frankly, we're being asked to answer the same call that our ancestors answered. Okay. We are being asked to answer a call that John Lewis and Jesse Jackson answered. Okay? It is not as conspicuous, I guess, as Jim Crow, as Whites Only fountains, but the effect is the same. And we need to really help people understand that this battle is not over yet. And signifying solidarity, performing it is not necessarily actually doing it or committing to it. And so that is something I just, you know, I don't say that to scare people. I say it because this country has been through this kind of thing before. We have seen fascism in this country before, and it was called Jim Crow. Okay? We have seen this before, and we have defeated it before, and we're called upon to do it again.
- [44:13]
Charlie Sykes
No, I agree with you. And I'm sort of gearing up for making that case. If the midterms turn out the way people think, I think there might be a sense that, okay, now we've solved the problem. People are going to need to run through that tape and it is not solved. You can win in 2026, but unless you win in 2028, you have not won anything. And I'll be a little bit darker than you here. The reality is, is that Donald Trump, as it becomes more desperate, becomes more dangerous, as he is cornered. The possibility of political violence, I think, rises exponentially as he stokes the flames, as it becomes clear that he might actually lose power. His willingness to deploy the military has not gone. And I was actually speaking to a former military figure who was walking through and he said, do you understand what it means to deploy the US Military if he invokes the Insurrection Act? Do you understand what the history of that is? And I nodded like I did, but I didn't. And he said, I just want to remind you that in 1863, there were these anti draft riots during the Civil War, anti draft riots in New York City. And the Union army dispatched troops that had fought at Gettysburg and they deployed them to the streets of the city of New York with cannons and guns. And he said, do you know what happened there? And I said, I have a vague idea. He says, they killed 1900 people. 1900. Now, this is a part of American history that has been dropped down to footnotes. And by the way, we haven't even gotten into Donald Trump's literal whitewashing of history, his willingness to do it. But there is a history of that, and the danger should be palpable what happens. And Donald Trump, this is not theoretical. Donald Trump has already incited a mob to attack the Capitol to overturn an election. So we know what he's capable of doing. So I think people need to be more vigilant. Take the wins, pocket them, enjoy them for the day, but don't mistake those wins for ultimately solving the problem. So we are in radical agreement on that particular issue.
- [46:17]
Jamil Smith
Yes. Yes, indeed.
- [46:18]
Charlie Sykes
Neil, thank you. Thank you so much for your time and your patience and your insight. I appreciate it very much.
- [46:24]
Jamil Smith
My pleasure, Charlie. Thank you.
- [46:26]
Charlie Sykes
And thank you all for listening to this episode of to the Contrary podcast. I'm Charlie Sykes. You know why we do this way, we will continue to do this. Why I need to constantly remind all of us that we are not the crazy ones. Thank you.
- [46:55]
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Jamil Smith
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Jamil Smith
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