Anand Giridharadas

These stories are developing.

And I really want to stress this.

They're not just failing to vet someone properly.

They're befriending him or sustaining friendships with him.

They're allowing him to give to their university.

They're allowing him into these worlds.

Enabled future predation.

This was not only about what had happened before that.

And so what a lot of them who had kind of prestige to spare, these universities that take money from dodgy people and then they give them the glow of the university, they were kind of selling him these reputation laundering services that weren't just about getting the reputational stink off of him.

Getting the reputational stink off allowed him, made it easier for him to move through the world and do it again and do it more.

And I think that this was not about an earlier phase of criminality and then some reputational cleansing after.

The reputational cleanse allowed this to keep going.

I think maybe if I had to think about what I have most learned from now 13 months of the second Trump term, most learned about this country and the character of this country and the way this country functions right now, perhaps the biggest surprise for me is about the distribution or the paucity of bravery.

This country is full of people today, and I'm speaking specifically of leaders and elites with opportunities to form some sort of resistance to the loss of democracy in this country.

Our elite, including some of the people we've talked about today, is full of people whose grandfathers stormed Normandy and who are lionized in those families.

and who don't have the bravery as the grandchildren of those people to put out a statement at their law firm.

There has been... I mean, it's in the song, right?

Land of the free, home of the brave.

I think it's a really important part of American self-conception.

Bravery.