Michael Barbaro
Appearances
The Daily
What Warren Buffett Understood About Capitalism
From The New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily. A few days ago, the most successful investor in history, Warren Buffett, said he would retire as CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, the conglomerate that he built into a $1 trillion colossus. Today... My colleague, Andrew Ross Sorkin, on his front row view of the man who both personified and critiqued American capitalism.
The Daily
What Warren Buffett Understood About Capitalism
So most— You could spend your whole life trying to buy one share and not afford it.
The Daily
What Warren Buffett Understood About Capitalism
The other thing, Andrew, I think of when I think of Buffett's outspokenness and his criticism of our system is what he said about what you're supposed to do with money once you've made it. And here I'm thinking about what he said about taxes and about philanthropy. So just talk to us a little bit about that.
The Daily
What Warren Buffett Understood About Capitalism
Andrew, when we're thinking about all these critiques, I think a very natural, fair, and important question here is, how much did Warren Buffett actually live by the code
The Daily
What Warren Buffett Understood About Capitalism
What are examples of where people do point the finger?
The Daily
What Warren Buffett Understood About Capitalism
Well, what do you say to the fact that he operates as a critic of capitalism and But I can't think of anyone who did more to exploit the possibilities of capitalism to make so, so, so, so much money. I mean, so much money that at a certain point you're sort of like, why are you even making even more money?
The Daily
What Warren Buffett Understood About Capitalism
Do you think that in the end, Buffett made capitalism any better?
The Daily
What Warren Buffett Understood About Capitalism
Just explain that. I mean, why does that make the system better?
The Daily
What Warren Buffett Understood About Capitalism
I guess I want to end with the question, Andrew, that I think you're well-situated to answer after spending all these years covering Buffett, which is ultimately what do you think motivated him through all this time? I mean, he does not live large. He wants to give all his money away. I have a much better understanding in my mind of what motivated Jeff Bezos, right?
The Daily
What Warren Buffett Understood About Capitalism
He wanted to build the everything store. Or Elon Musk, who wants to save humanity and wants to get to Mars and wants to slash government down to size. I'm much less clear in my head about what animates Buffett. And I wonder if you've gotten a lot closer in your understanding.
The Daily
What Warren Buffett Understood About Capitalism
India has conducted strikes inside of Pakistan in a major escalation in the long-running tensions between the two nuclear-armed neighbors. The strikes were retaliation for a massacre by armed militants that killed more than two dozen Indian civilians in the disputed territory of Kashmir.
The Daily
What Warren Buffett Understood About Capitalism
Indian officials said they had struck multiple camps used by terrorists and took pains to say that no Pakistani military facilities had been targeted. But Pakistan claimed that the strikes had killed civilians and that they would not go unanswered. In a statement, the Pakistani government said, quote, "...the temporary pleasure of India will be replaced by enduring grief."
The Daily
What Warren Buffett Understood About Capitalism
Today's episode was produced by Sydney Harper and Caitlin O'Keefe, with help from Aastha Chaturvedi. It was edited by Mark George, Chris Haxell, and Paige Cowan. Contains original music by Marion Lozano, Dan Powell, and Diane Wong, and was engineered by Alyssa Moxley. Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Landsbrook of Wonderland. That's it for today. I'm Marco Barbaro. See you tomorrow.
The Daily
What Warren Buffett Understood About Capitalism
So there are going to be listeners who hear you describing this reaction.
The Daily
What Warren Buffett Understood About Capitalism
And think it's a little bit out there. And so I think we need to talk about how it is that a CEO could inspire the kind of decades-long devotion and, in this moment, emotion that occurred. It's totally singular. It's reserved for, you know, popes and musicians, the occasional actor. And I want to know what you make of it and also kind of how you wrap your head around it.
The Daily
What Warren Buffett Understood About Capitalism
I want to dissect that. phrase, conscience of capitalism. It's a pretty loaded phrase, and I want to have us talk about the two elements of it. The first, conscience, clearly, suggests a kind of corrective influence over capitalism. The other, capitalism, suggests, as you just got at, a pretty open embrace of free markets. So let's start with the easier of those two, which is the capitalism.
The Daily
What Warren Buffett Understood About Capitalism
Few people clearly have practiced capitalism as wildly successfully as Buffett. So just remind us how he does that, the model of capitalism that gives us this company, Berkshire Hathaway.
The Daily
What Warren Buffett Understood About Capitalism
You were actually in the room when Warren Buffett broke the news to the world that he was going to be retiring. Can you set that scene for us?
The Daily
What Warren Buffett Understood About Capitalism
Because it's indefensible to own a private plane.
The Daily
What Warren Buffett Understood About Capitalism
So, Andrew, talk about Warren Buffett's critiques of capitalism and the things he said that most CEOs leave unsaid and why those things ultimately mattered.
The Daily
What Warren Buffett Understood About Capitalism
Can you peel back the layers of that a little bit? I mean, what exactly is it about bankers? Sometimes they're probably right, right? I mean, bankers get it right.
The Daily
What Warren Buffett Understood About Capitalism
Can I just ask you a question? Is his critique of the bankers, the hedge funds, is it a moral one? Like what they're doing is fundamentally not right in his mind? Or is it that there are just better ways to make money than to do things the way that those folks do things?
The Daily
Partisan Taunts and Defiant Protests: Trump’s First Speech to Congress
From The New York Times, I'm Michael Bavaro. This is The Daily. In his first address to Congress on Tuesday night, President Trump took a highly partisan victory lap as Democratic lawmakers openly protested against him. Today, my colleague Maggie Haberman walks us through the speech and the reactions to it in the room. It's Wednesday, March 5th. So, Maggie, are you ready to begin? I am, Michael.
The Daily
Partisan Taunts and Defiant Protests: Trump’s First Speech to Congress
Even as he takes away their power.
The Daily
Partisan Taunts and Defiant Protests: Trump’s First Speech to Congress
Eventually, Trump turns from talking about domestic accomplishments to his vision for foreign policy, which is, as we've talked about with you on the show in the past, this unusual combination of America first and America the imperialist. Correct.
The Daily
Partisan Taunts and Defiant Protests: Trump’s First Speech to Congress
And from there, he pivots to what was essentially the biggest subject of the past week as it relates to him, which is Russia and Ukraine.
The Daily
Partisan Taunts and Defiant Protests: Trump’s First Speech to Congress
Right. To Ukraine from the U.S.
The Daily
Partisan Taunts and Defiant Protests: Trump’s First Speech to Congress
So what Trump does in this section of the speech you're saying is he's saying to both Zelensky and the world, see, my stick-based approach, my hammer Zelensky approach worked. And so now I will resume negotiations with him.
The Daily
Partisan Taunts and Defiant Protests: Trump’s First Speech to Congress
OK, so talk about how the speech eventually comes to an end.
The Daily
Partisan Taunts and Defiant Protests: Trump’s First Speech to Congress
Right. And usually both parties stand just out of respect for the office.
The Daily
Partisan Taunts and Defiant Protests: Trump’s First Speech to Congress
Which is a very different thing to say as a candidate than to say in a joint address to Congress because suddenly you have the president saying, I believe I was put here by God to save the country before members of Congress.
The Daily
Partisan Taunts and Defiant Protests: Trump’s First Speech to Congress
So, Maggie, when the speech was over, I'm curious what you were thinking. This is not your first Trump joint address to Congress. It's probably your fifth?
The Daily
Partisan Taunts and Defiant Protests: Trump’s First Speech to Congress
Well, Maggie, thank you very much.
The Daily
Partisan Taunts and Defiant Protests: Trump’s First Speech to Congress
On Tuesday night, in the Democratic response to Trump's speech, Senator Alyssa Slotkin of Michigan directly addressed demoralized members of her party.
The Daily
Partisan Taunts and Defiant Protests: Trump’s First Speech to Congress
and suggested that under Trump, democracy itself is now at risk.
The Daily
Partisan Taunts and Defiant Protests: Trump’s First Speech to Congress
We'll be right back. Here's what else you need to know today. The Times reports that as part of President Trump's sweeping campaign of cost cutting, the Internal Revenue Service is preparing to eliminate as much as 50% of its staff, Experts say that such a major reduction in staffing could jeopardize the ability of the IRS to complete its basic mission of collecting taxes.
The Daily
Partisan Taunts and Defiant Protests: Trump’s First Speech to Congress
And a Supreme Court ruling on Tuesday further restricted the ability of the Environmental Protection Agency to regulate pollution. The question before the court in the case was whether, under the Clean Water Act, the EPA could penalize the city of San Francisco for violating policies on the release of wastewater into the Pacific Ocean.
The Daily
Partisan Taunts and Defiant Protests: Trump’s First Speech to Congress
City officials argued that the EPA rules were so vague that it was impossible to know when the city had violated them, a claim that the Supreme Court justices endorsed as they struck down the EPA's rules. Today's episode was produced by Muj Zaydi, Asa Chaturvedi, Michael Simon-Johnson, and Eric Krupke.
The Daily
Partisan Taunts and Defiant Protests: Trump’s First Speech to Congress
It was edited by Rachel Quester, contains original music by Dan Powell, and was engineered by Alyssa Moxley. Our theme music is by Jim Grunberg and Ben Lansford of Wonderly. Special thanks to Nick Pittman. That's it for The Daily. I'm Michael Barbaro. See you tomorrow.
The Daily
Partisan Taunts and Defiant Protests: Trump’s First Speech to Congress
But he seemed to be doing that deliberately, as he has in the past, to suggest in this room before the entire country, in this live televised address, that he has a mandate.
The Daily
Partisan Taunts and Defiant Protests: Trump’s First Speech to Congress
And heckling is not as unusual as it once was for this kind of important speech. But Green seemed to go further than your average heckler.
The Daily
Partisan Taunts and Defiant Protests: Trump’s First Speech to Congress
I should add, Maggie, I was watching this on television as well. I noticed at this moment, not only that the Speaker is very frustrated, J.D. Vance stands up and signals with his thumb that it's time to eject Congressman Greene.
The Daily
Partisan Taunts and Defiant Protests: Trump’s First Speech to Congress
Which is exactly what ends up happening.
The Daily
Partisan Taunts and Defiant Protests: Trump’s First Speech to Congress
Okay. After this set of back and forth between the president and unhappy Democrats, we finally get to the meat of this speech.
The Daily
Partisan Taunts and Defiant Protests: Trump’s First Speech to Congress
And what are the examples of this woke version of America that he's sweeping away?
The Daily
Partisan Taunts and Defiant Protests: Trump’s First Speech to Congress
Okay. Well, thank you for joining us at 11.40 p.m.
The Daily
Partisan Taunts and Defiant Protests: Trump’s First Speech to Congress
Right, he's very pointedly mocking the federal government in a pretty unfamiliar way for this setting.
The Daily
Partisan Taunts and Defiant Protests: Trump’s First Speech to Congress
And then it felt like he was turning the page from what he inherited and dislikes and wants to sweep away, as you just put it, to this new vision for government that he's created.
The Daily
Partisan Taunts and Defiant Protests: Trump’s First Speech to Congress
Thank you for correcting my time stamping. It only feels appropriate. So, Maggie, describe the scene for us on the house floor as all of this gets underway on Tuesday night.
The Daily
Partisan Taunts and Defiant Protests: Trump’s First Speech to Congress
Right. These were tariffs he announced just hours before this speech.
The Daily
Partisan Taunts and Defiant Protests: Trump’s First Speech to Congress
Which may inevitably increase costs for U.S. consumers.
The Daily
Partisan Taunts and Defiant Protests: Trump’s First Speech to Congress
He's acknowledging these tariffs are going to hurt American farmers. That's not his normal mode to admit that tariffs might make someone miserable. But he's doing so because he knows this group of Americans voted for him in large numbers.
The Daily
Partisan Taunts and Defiant Protests: Trump’s First Speech to Congress
Right. He's saying, I am the reason border crossings went down. We didn't need anything to go through Congress. And the reason that felt significant is that one of the questions, I think, I'm going to suspect you agree, that hovered over this speech was,
The Daily
Partisan Taunts and Defiant Protests: Trump’s First Speech to Congress
before it even started, was how this group of lawmakers was going to relate to a president who since taking office has consistently circumvented them, right? He has been shutting down agencies that Congress funds. He's been freezing federal spending that Congress has appropriated.
The Daily
Partisan Taunts and Defiant Protests: Trump’s First Speech to Congress
And what struck me about this particular moment is you have the president saying to members of Congress, I didn't even need you or want you to get anything done on the border. I did it on my own. And they're cheering. So in a sense, they're cheering their own powerlessness. And that was striking.
The Daily
100 Days
Let us turn to an area where there hasn't quite been the same virtuous cycle for Trump like the one you were just describing before the break, Jonathan, and that, I think we can all agree, is trade. So when it comes to the president's tariffs, to the untrained eye, this does not appear to have been the execution of a careful plan. There have been reversals galore, exemptions galore,
The Daily
100 Days
My question to you three is, have you come to understand, based on your reporting, if it is really ad hoc or if there has been a plan all along for this program?
The Daily
100 Days
Well, so I want to raise something to the three of you, because one of the great, important, lasting lessons of our conversations during the campaign was that the president was going to surround himself with yes people who were not going to challenge him or get in his way. What you're describing is a series of advisors trying to stop him and get in his way and say... No mas.
The Daily
100 Days
And these are people who were ideologically aligned with him and primed to support this agenda. But they said it went too far.
The Daily
100 Days
Charlie, it has to be a failure if your goal was to put up high-tariff walls around the world in order to bring back domestic manufacturing, and you're literally tearing those walls down or puncturing holes and walking through them back and forth. That cannot be anything other than a failure.
The Daily
100 Days
All these trade policies have had another effect I want to talk through with you all, which is that they have really scrambled global alliances. And I think that brings us to our final big subject here, which is Trump's foreign policy in these first weeks. 100 days. And that seems to be the story of impatience.
The Daily
100 Days
And I wonder what that tells us about what the original plan was and how much he's sticking to it on areas ranging from Ukraine, Russia to the Middle East.
The Daily
100 Days
Can we talk about Putin for a minute? Because that seems to be a case where the president may have misunderstood or miscalculated his leverage. And I'm thinking about a quote he just gave to our colleagues over at The Atlantic magazine. He said what he relishes so much about these first hundred days of term two is that I run the country and I run the world.
The Daily
100 Days
But when it comes to someone like Vladimir Putin, He offered Putin almost everything Putin could have ever wanted in a peace deal with Ukraine. And Putin is still not giving Trump an inch, which has required Trump to then take to social media and say, Vladimir, stop brutally attacking civilians in Ukraine to no avail.
The Daily
100 Days
And so is that just a case of the president not understanding the superpower dynamics?
The Daily
100 Days
I mean, what you're clearly all getting at is that these first hundred days have been pretty monumental in ways that we're not going to fully understand for quite some time. It's going to take us years to understand all of the fallout and implications of it.
The Daily
100 Days
And that makes me want to ask you all whether you think the first 100 days are prelude to what the next 100 days and the next 100 days and up to the next 1,300 days in the end of this term are going to look like. Or if you think there are some lessons this administration has learned that means they're going to start to change course in a meaningful way.
The Daily
100 Days
Right. And that, of course, is for the next 100-Day episode. So, Charlie and Jonathan and Maggie, as ever, thank you very much.
The Daily
100 Days
On Tuesday, President Trump once again walked back some of his tariffs, this time on carmakers. The change would remove some tariffs that companies like Ford and General Motors complained amounted to them being tariffed twice in a way that hurt domestic manufacturing.
The Daily
100 Days
Trump's original tariffs forced some carmakers to pay 25% fees on imported cars and to pay additional tariffs on materials like aluminum and steel. A new executive order would offer temporary relief from the tariffs on those materials.
The Daily
100 Days
And in a sign of just how nervous the White House remains about the cost of its tariffs on consumers, President Trump called the founder of Amazon, Jeff Bezos, and asked him not to display the impact of tariffs on Amazon's websites. Amazon had considered posting that information on one of its sites, but the White House quickly denounced the idea as a, quote, hostile and political act.
The Daily
100 Days
So that was all prelude to me explaining why we are bringing this august trio back, I think for the third time on the show, which is that you were the group that that prepared us for the second Trump term in theory, before it actually became a reality, by doing a tremendous amount of reporting about what his plan was for 2.0.
The Daily
100 Days
Amazon now says that the idea was never formally approved and will not happen. Today's episode was produced by Rob Zipko, Aastha Chaturvedi, Carlos Prieto, and Mary Wilson. It was edited by Rachel Quester, Paige Cowan, and Lexi Diao. Contains original music by Mary Lozano, Dan Powell, and Pat McCusker. And was engineered by Alyssa Moxley.
The Daily
100 Days
Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Landsberg of Wonderland. That's it for The Daily. I'm Michael Barbaro. See you tomorrow.
The Daily
100 Days
And so now that Trump's agenda has been rolled out, we want to assess this administration on a few metrics. And let me just spell out a couple of those. Firstly, you had told us that much more than in the first term, the second Trump term would be more thought through. If there was going to be a master plan, it was going to be the second term.
The Daily
100 Days
So has this administration stuck to that plan, or have things veered off into something more haphazard? Secondly, have the administration's approaches, whether they've been planned well or not, succeeded or failed? Finally, what does this administration, based on your reporting, make of the public reaction to what it's done?
The Daily
100 Days
So far, as our colleague Nate Cohn told us a couple days ago, most Americans think this White House has gone too far, and they think things have been disorganized. three-part framework in mind, where do you think we should start?
The Daily
100 Days
Can I talk about the second part? Because I think we can all agree that sealing the border and bringing down crossings. They have achieved that. But let's talk about why the administration is pursuing this very controversial approach of deporting undocumented immigrants without due process, as you mentioned, Jonathan, because from everything our polling has been telling us, that is not popular.
The Daily
100 Days
From The New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily. On Tuesday, the second Trump presidency officially reached the 100-day mark. 100 days of transformation, tariffs, retribution, firings, and deportations, the likes of which America has never before seen. Today, I asked three of my colleagues, Maggie Haberman, Jonathan Swan, and Charlie Savage, to assess that record.
The Daily
100 Days
And I wonder why the White House thinks it's necessary. What is it accomplishing? And was it ever part of an original plan?
The Daily
100 Days
It's Wednesday, April 30th. Maggie, Jonathan, Charlie, welcome back. It's been a while.
The Daily
100 Days
Right. And I wonder, are we approaching with... some of these deportations, especially of children, something akin to the moment in term one That feels like child separation, something that is beyond the pale for many people in the public. And as I recall it, Trump eventually signs an executive order saying, oh, right, I'm going to ban those child separations. Those are not right.
The Daily
100 Days
He sort of acted like it was something out of his control and he wanted to end it.
The Daily
100 Days
Yeah. That's what you've got, Charlie? Yep. Charlie, welcome back. Thanks for having us back. We're talking to you all on Tuesday, which is, although there's been a little bit of dispute on our team, the 100th day of the Trump second term. And I want to start with a very basic question of why it is we talk so much about the first 100 days.
The Daily
100 Days
This is making me think about the other portrayed villains by this administration, and those would be elite universities, big law firms, and some individual enemies of the president who he has pursued with extraordinary alacrity in this second term. And I wonder, given how central that has become
The Daily
100 Days
To 2.0 Trump, how much that is according to plan or how much it has started to veer into something that is just a kind of a personal project of the president and not according to the original plan. And again, I want to cite the polling that suggests that a majority of Americans are not comfortable with his pursuit of his enemies.
The Daily
100 Days
Charlie, would you describe this campaign of retribution, which, as Maggie just said, ranges from institutional to personal, as a success? And I guess... If it is, what's the criteria for describing it as a success? Or if it's a failure, what's the criteria for describing it as a failure? Because it has definitely become a pillar of the second term.
The Daily
100 Days
Jonathan, it's hard to dispute the idea that that this campaign of retribution has successfully changed the culture of several major institutions. I'm thinking about the state of pro-Palestinian, anti-Israeli protests on college campuses, which have very much been quieted.
The Daily
100 Days
I'm thinking about how much DEI is on the way out of major companies and universities, and in a sense, values and practices and entire teams that had become deeply embedded at some of these institutions have now been forcibly excised at the insistence of one man, the President of the United States.
The Daily
100 Days
And Jonathan, you used the word extortion. I did. And I don't think that was an accident.
The Daily
100 Days
On that note, we're going to take a break. And when we come back, we're going to talk about Trump's ventures overseas. And by that, I mean tariffs and diplomacy. So we'll be right back. Welcome back, the three of you.
The Daily
Trump Freezes Trillions. Chaos Ensues.
So this feels like one of those moments in Washington where there is a real fundamental issue at stake, right? The question of the power of an executive to make a sweeping decision like this versus the power of Congress to essentially control and mandate that their laws are faithfully executed. In those moments when there are real clashes between executive and legislative power and
The Daily
Trump Freezes Trillions. Chaos Ensues.
tends to be where the federal court system really does engage. And they do engage typically in a quick way. So it's hard to predict 100% what will happen and how this will play out.
The Daily
Trump Freezes Trillions. Chaos Ensues.
But I think most people we've talked to believe that this will make its way pretty quickly to the Supreme Court and that the Supreme Court justices will likely take it up because it is in their interest to clarify and to rule on a pretty fundamental question of presidential power.
The Daily
Trump Freezes Trillions. Chaos Ensues.
Well, it's always hard to know, but I did talk to our colleague, Adam Liptak, who is our exceptional Supreme Court reporter.
The Daily
Trump Freezes Trillions. Chaos Ensues.
Adam is always cautious not to make too many predictions, but I think that he generally thinks that the presidents probably favor Congress in this fight and that the clarity with which Congress over the years has described that power probably means that the courts will rule against the president. But, you know, that's to be seen.
The Daily
Trump Freezes Trillions. Chaos Ensues.
Well, so I think that they are serious about pushing through changes to federal law when they can. I don't think they would have embarked on this effort if they thought that it was not possible that they could win. But they also recognize that if they don't ultimately win on a kind of legal basis and this happens,
The Daily
Trump Freezes Trillions. Chaos Ensues.
memo either has to be scaled back or changed, or maybe it never gets implemented at all. I think from their perspective, they still have sent a really strong message to the country, to especially President Trump's most ardent supporters, that he is trying, right? That he isn't somebody who's going to come in and tinker around the edges, that he really wants to fundamentally change the country.
The Daily
Trump Freezes Trillions. Chaos Ensues.
And that message, that political message, is almost as important as succeeding in the end for them. You know, he won't win all the time, and I think they know that, but that is sort of besides the point.
The Daily
Trump Freezes Trillions. Chaos Ensues.
And I'm just going to read directly from the memo, and it said, "...the use of federal resources to advance Marxist equity, transgenderism, and Green New Deal social engineering policies is a waste of taxpayer dollars that does not improve the day-to-day lives of those we serve."
The Daily
Trump Freezes Trillions. Chaos Ensues.
You know, it's actually, I was thinking about this today. Today was the first time that it really felt like the first Trump term, which I covered from the beginning. I recall covering the White House, the first Trump White House.
The Daily
Trump Freezes Trillions. Chaos Ensues.
at the end of the first week when President Trump signed the travel ban on several majority Muslim countries, the chaos there was very similar in the sense that people didn't understand what was happening. I remember talking to Trump administration officials late into the night asking them for details about what the executive order meant, how it would be implemented.
The Daily
Trump Freezes Trillions. Chaos Ensues.
They didn't have any of the answers. But I think what's a bit different here from the chaos of the first Trump term is that now Trump has a bit more of an intention, you know, not only to have kind of political power and to, you know, have a presidency for another four years, but it's to reshape this
The Daily
Trump Freezes Trillions. Chaos Ensues.
whole government that he sees as having been filled with woke ideology and liberal ideology, and to purge it of all of that and remake it in his image, in the, you know, make America great movement ideology. That's, you know, for him, President Trump is all about making sure that he leaves a legacy that the country has been, you know, and certainly the government has been remade in his image.
The Daily
Trump Freezes Trillions. Chaos Ensues.
It's always the question, right? question was asked the first time around during the first four years.
The Daily
Trump Freezes Trillions. Chaos Ensues.
And I think what we see in what's happened over the last eight or nine days, and especially what's happened from Monday night forward, is that President Trump is absolutely willing and determined to test the boundaries, to test the institutions of government and see how far he can get in his efforts to remake the government in his image.
The Daily
Trump Freezes Trillions. Chaos Ensues.
And he will continue to push and the institutions will continue to push back. And I think The American people will be watching the outcome of that for the days, weeks, months, and probably years to come.
The Daily
Trump Freezes Trillions. Chaos Ensues.
It said that all of the agencies had to pause the funds while they reviewed whether the programs in question, the loans and the grants, were, quote, consistent with the president's policies.
The Daily
Trump Freezes Trillions. Chaos Ensues.
That's right. And this is a lot of money, according to the administration's own figures, as much as $3 trillion. And the agenda that the memo says these programs must adhere to was really laid out by the president in a series of executive orders that we've all seen him announce over the course of the eight or nine days that he's been in office. And we know what those executive orders have been.
The Daily
Trump Freezes Trillions. Chaos Ensues.
tried to do, right, root out wokeness in the government, as the president would put it, and really align all of the government spending with this sort of MAGA agenda that seeks to kind of wipe out some of the efforts that have been made by previous administrations over the past several years.
The Daily
Trump Freezes Trillions. Chaos Ensues.
What the memo says is that over the course of the next two weeks, starting Tuesday at 5 p.m., all of these federal agencies are supposed to fill out a spreadsheet. The Apparently, what the Office of Management and Budget will do is essentially go through that spreadsheet. If they find programs that don't violate the orders that the president has done, those will be safe. The funding will continue.
The Daily
Trump Freezes Trillions. Chaos Ensues.
But that in some fashion, if they identify the programs that they think are funding things that President Trump would not want to fund or are blocked by these executive orders, that funding would be then at risk.
The Daily
Trump Freezes Trillions. Chaos Ensues.
Well, the memo is quite broad, and it's clear that it is intended to cover the vast sweep of most government programs. There's literally hundreds and hundreds of grant programs and federal loan programs that provide money to organizations, nonprofits, state agencies, state programs, local programs across the country.
The Daily
Trump Freezes Trillions. Chaos Ensues.
Just to give you a sense of how far ranging this could be, it's everything from Head Start programs for early childhood education, grants that cover renewable energy research and clean energy demonstrations. There are special education grants. All of those would have to be subject to this order. There are some exceptions.
The Daily
Trump Freezes Trillions. Chaos Ensues.
One exception, for example, says that nothing in this memo should be construed to impact Medicare or Social Security benefits. They go on to explain that any type of assistance that's directly received by individuals wouldn't be affected. So that leaves this sort of vast...
The Daily
Trump Freezes Trillions. Chaos Ensues.
other area where the money is provided not directly to people, but to organizations or states or other programs that provide benefits to Americans, but not in a direct way.
The Daily
Trump Freezes Trillions. Chaos Ensues.
Well, what happens next is kind of a freakout, right? Across the country, people begin to wonder what impact this is going to have. Who's on the list? That's the big question that's sort of ricocheting across Washington, but also across the country. And all of these programs that rely on the federal government for money, they wake up and are trying to figure out, is my program affected?
The Daily
Trump Freezes Trillions. Chaos Ensues.
You know, if so, how do I deal with that? And so by midday Tuesday, after all of the angst in the country, the White House decides it needs to respond.
The Daily
Trump Freezes Trillions. Chaos Ensues.
Carolyn Levitt, who is the new White House press secretary for Mr. Trump, has her first press briefing for the White House press corps, and she really tries to push back.
The Daily
Trump Freezes Trillions. Chaos Ensues.
You know, she really tries to explain that, no, there's a lot of these programs that are not going to be affected.
The Daily
Trump Freezes Trillions. Chaos Ensues.
It's essentially the White House trying to kind of reassure its own people that this big dramatic action by the president isn't going to sort of hit them in the pocketbooks directly. But the questions keep piling up.
The Daily
Trump Freezes Trillions. Chaos Ensues.
Medicaid. Is that affected? What about Medicaid, the health insurance program for low-income people? That's funded through money sent to the states by the federal government. Are you guaranteeing here that no individual now on Medicaid would see a cutoff because of the pause?
The Daily
Trump Freezes Trillions. Chaos Ensues.
The White House later says that Medicaid is not impacted by the memo. But the problem is that the reality is actually happening more quickly than their statements can keep up with.
The Daily
Trump Freezes Trillions. Chaos Ensues.
So you have the system by which state Medicaid offices log in to get their money from the federal government not only goes down, so all these states are locked out, but it goes down with a big red banner across the top that says, The system is down and we're delaying or canceling payments based on the president's executive orders.
The Daily
Trump Freezes Trillions. Chaos Ensues.
So it becomes very clear very quickly that this memo has actually begun to have real world implications.
The Daily
Trump Freezes Trillions. Chaos Ensues.
I'm not sure we know 100% the answer to that question. I mean, in some ways, it's kind of a feature, not a bug of the Trump presidency is that he embraces the chaos. He likes the sense that the American people feel like he's just out there, you know, fighting for them. And like a wrecking ball, essentially, right?
The Daily
Trump Freezes Trillions. Chaos Ensues.
Like from President Trump's perspective, from the perspective of his supporters, they want him to come in like a bull in a china shop and kind of disrupt everything. And so I think in some ways, the Trump administration isn't so concerned about not having the answers to all the questions.
The Daily
Trump Freezes Trillions. Chaos Ensues.
But I think that one of the repercussions of that is for the rest of the country, and especially in this case, the vast numbers of organizations that rely upon this funding and they need the money to pay rent, to pay salaries, to pay out benefits to people. All of that has to happen in an organized and methodical way. And this is anything but.
The Daily
Trump Freezes Trillions. Chaos Ensues.
Well, it's been a mixed bag. And, you know, our reporters have sort of reached out broadly across the spectrum. And some of them have not seen any direct impact yet, but they're essentially wringing their hands, right? They're worried that maybe their research grant is funded by the federal government and they're not sure whether that will continue.
The Daily
Trump Freezes Trillions. Chaos Ensues.
Or perhaps they have a program that provides benefits to migrants and they're not sure if that's going to pass muster. So there has been a lot of hand-wringing. And then there had been some examples of actual impact. One of my colleagues talked to a woman who runs Head Start programs in Michigan. She has something like 41 schools that have about 600 students that come every day.
The Daily
Trump Freezes Trillions. Chaos Ensues.
When all of this started going down on Tuesday, she decided to cancel class for Wednesday, essentially worried that if funding dried up from the federal government, it was unclear whether she could continue.
The Daily
Trump Freezes Trillions. Chaos Ensues.
And so there have been those kinds of examples where people have actually taken steps to stop what they're doing out of fear that continuing could sort of violate these executive orders or what President Trump wants to do.
The Daily
Trump Freezes Trillions. Chaos Ensues.
Yeah, chaos, confusion across the country. But at the same time, another thing is happening. A real effort to try to stop this whole thing from moving forward, both politically and legally.
The Daily
Trump Freezes Trillions. Chaos Ensues.
So the first fight that immediately happened was the political one. The scope of the damage that will be done is enormous. The Democrats on Capitol Hill immediately seized on this.
The Daily
Trump Freezes Trillions. Chaos Ensues.
Asserting in a really forceful way that what the president had done would affect Americans, would hurt Americans.
The Daily
Trump Freezes Trillions. Chaos Ensues.
It's unconstitutional. The idea on the part of the Democrats was that not only would this have a really terrible impact on people who rely on this federal money, but they also questioned whether it would even be constitutional.
The Daily
Trump Freezes Trillions. Chaos Ensues.
And on Tuesday, you had many Democratic state attorneys general coming together to file a lawsuit to try to block the president's order from going into effect and keep the money flowing. You had progressive groups who filed separate lawsuits trying to do the same. The goal for all of them to try to block President Trump from moving forward with his actions regarding all of this federal money.
The Daily
Trump Freezes Trillions. Chaos Ensues.
Well, essentially, the gist from all of the different lawsuits boiled down to a general argument that what the president had done with this memo essentially violates the heart of the Constitution, which gives Congress the power of the purse. It says Congress has the ability to decide—
The Daily
Trump Freezes Trillions. Chaos Ensues.
Right. It really was remarkable. Essentially, late in the day on Monday, President Trump's budget office, which is called the Office of Management and Budget, it reports directly to the president, they put out a memo, a really short memo. It was just two pages, but it essentially exploded in Washington the minute it went out.
The Daily
Trump Freezes Trillions. Chaos Ensues.
how much money is spent, where that money is spent, and that, you know, essentially the executive, in this case, President Trump and his administration, is required, and the language in the Constitution is to faithfully execute the laws that are passed, right? And that by essentially holding back this money, President Trump was violating that basic precept of constitutional law.
The Daily
Trump Freezes Trillions. Chaos Ensues.
That's right. And then another argument actually goes to a much more specific law, and that was the Impoundment Act of 1974. Okay, we're going to have to define that for people.
The Daily
Trump Freezes Trillions. Chaos Ensues.
Right. That was essentially part of the reform efforts after President Nixon had really pursued aggressively a kind of imperial presidency in which he would pick and choose the laws and the spending that he wanted to put into action after Congress had passed them. That
The Daily
Trump Freezes Trillions. Chaos Ensues.
essentially provided the impetus for Congress to reassert its authority and say, no, no, no, if you had any doubt that the Constitution actually mandates that the executive branch must put into effect the laws that we passed, we're going to pass a law that actually says that and makes that very clear.
The Daily
Trump Freezes Trillions. Chaos Ensues.
Essentially, they waved them aside. Carolyn Leavitt, the press secretary in her press briefing, essentially said, we disagree. Our lawyers think that what the president has done is perfunctory. perfectly legal. And part of their argument relies, I think, on the temporary nature of the pause.
The Daily
Trump Freezes Trillions. Chaos Ensues.
And, you know, whether they're right or the other folks are right, obviously, is up for argument, will be argued in courts. But essentially, the White House position was we don't put any stock in the legal arguments against this. We're very confident.
The Daily
Trump Freezes Trillions. Chaos Ensues.
And to underscore that point, Carolyn Leavitt said at the briefing today that the White House fully intends to defend what the president did all the way to the Supreme Court if necessary.
The Daily
Trump Freezes Trillions. Chaos Ensues.
Right. So we're really at the very, very beginning. But late Tuesday, a judge in the District of Columbia did rule, at least temporarily, on one of the cases brought by a progressive group, essentially putting a temporary stay on the president's order. That means that the White House, the administration, is unable to move forward in enforcing the order.
The Daily
Trump Freezes Trillions. Chaos Ensues.
The judge said that she would rule in a more permanent way on February 3rd. So essentially, for a number of days, the president's effort here is at least temporarily blocked.
The Daily
Trump Freezes Trillions. Chaos Ensues.
Because what it did was it said that every single federal program that involves the delivery of money in the form of a grant or in the form of a loan, to any organization, any entity across the country had to be paused.
The Daily
R.F.K. Jr. Sends a Message on Vaccines
From The New York Times, I'm Michael Bolvaro. This is The Daily. On Tuesday, the Trump administration bypassed the traditional system of vaccine guidance and abruptly ended the government's recommendation that two key groups of Americans get vaccinated against COVID. Today, My colleague, Apoorva Mandevili, on what could be a turning point moment in public health. It's Wednesday, May 28th.
The Daily
R.F.K. Jr. Sends a Message on Vaccines
The fact that RFK Jr. did this would seem to raise two possibilities. The first is that he and those around him decided that all of this was inevitable, that government recommendations for COVID vaccines were going to get less and less popular. strict over time, and that he just wants to circumvent the process to get it there.
The Daily
R.F.K. Jr. Sends a Message on Vaccines
The other possibility is that he kind of just hijacked the process and took it upon himself to issue recommendations that would normally go through a careful, considered process filled with medical expertise.
The Daily
R.F.K. Jr. Sends a Message on Vaccines
Well, let me challenge you on that. I mean, so far in this administration, is that so strange? It is a presidency where decision-making is extremely centralized in a small group of people who make decisions sometimes not based entirely on a formal process, sometimes on instinct, but with a fair amount of confidence in the rightness of what they're doing.
The Daily
R.F.K. Jr. Sends a Message on Vaccines
I'm curious if you think there's going to be meaningful opposition to these new recommendations, especially given the process that you just outlined and the process that was bypassed. Could this produce lawsuits? Could this produce medical establishments issuing contrary recommendations to the federal government, which in theory could create a whole lot of confusion?
The Daily
R.F.K. Jr. Sends a Message on Vaccines
Mm-hmm. Well, let's talk about that. Vaccine use in this country is way, way down. You've talked about that on the show before. I'm curious what you suspect is going to happen as a result of these recommendations with COVID vaccine uptake and, more broadly, vaccine uptake.
The Daily
R.F.K. Jr. Sends a Message on Vaccines
So in a world where COVID returns with a vengeance, which could happen, it might not happen, under this administration, the lack of government recommendations for vaccines... especially for healthy children, pregnant women, means more people are going to be vulnerable. And potentially, the lack of approval for the vaccines means fewer doses of vaccine at the ready. That's the situation.
The Daily
R.F.K. Jr. Sends a Message on Vaccines
Of course, time will tell whether COVID ever returns with real ferocity. And if it doesn't, this new recommendation might seem, to many, quite reasonable.
The Daily
R.F.K. Jr. Sends a Message on Vaccines
But at the end of the day, it feels like the meaning of what happened on Tuesday is that the Trump administration's overall approach to vaccines, putting less emphasis on them, questioning whether they have been too widely recommended, that is now official government policy. And I was struck, and I wonder if you were, Apoorva, by the very last line of the video that was put out on Tuesday.
The Daily
R.F.K. Jr. Sends a Message on Vaccines
And the quote was, that ending the existing recommendations for children, for pregnant women, brings the United States, quote, one step closer to realizing President Trump's promise to make America healthy again. And it felt notable that the government's health agencies were articulating this idea that not getting a vaccine was part of making America healthy again.
The Daily
R.F.K. Jr. Sends a Message on Vaccines
We'll be right back. Here's what else you need to know today. On Tuesday, a federal judge struck down President Trump's executive order seeking to punish the law firm WilmerHale by restricting its access to the federal government. It was the third time that a judge has ruled that Trump's actions against law firms, including Perkins Coie and Jenner & Block, were unconstitutional.
The Daily
R.F.K. Jr. Sends a Message on Vaccines
Those rulings have validated the strategy embraced by some law firms to fight Trump rather than strike deals with him, as many big law firms have done, including Paul Weiss and Skadden Arps. And...
The Daily
R.F.K. Jr. Sends a Message on Vaccines
Southwest Airlines, the only major carrier that still allowed passengers to check multiple bags for free, is ending that policy. As of today, Southwest will begin charging $35 for one checked bag and $45 for a second. Southwest was so proud of the original policy that it trademarked the perk and built a series of commercials around the tagline, Bags Fly Free.
The Daily
R.F.K. Jr. Sends a Message on Vaccines
But the airline's financial picture has soured, and as a result, it's now joining its competitors in charging for checked bags. Today's episode was produced by Eric Krupke and Aastha Chaturvedi. It was edited by Liz O. Bailey, contains original music by Pat McCusker, and was engineered by Alyssa Moxley. Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Landsberg of Wonderly. That's it for today.
The Daily
R.F.K. Jr. Sends a Message on Vaccines
Wow. All right. Well, we're going to get to all the ways in which this process was singular, exceptional, unusual. I think to put it all into context as a public health guideline, we should begin by understanding what has been the government's recommendation for COVID vaccines up until now, when obviously it just changed.
The Daily
R.F.K. Jr. Sends a Message on Vaccines
Got it. So this is the biggest by far change in the government's guidelines pretty much since the vaccine became widely available. Correct. And what does it mean for the U.S. government to stop recommending a vaccine for a particular group, practically speaking? Like, what actually changes?
The Daily
R.F.K. Jr. Sends a Message on Vaccines
Got it. Well, let's talk about these two categories of people who are now being told that they do not need this vaccine. And from everything you've just said, we'll now probably have a harder time getting it if they wanted it. And let's begin with healthy children and why the government is saying healthy children should not necessarily be getting the COVID vaccine any longer.
The Daily
R.F.K. Jr. Sends a Message on Vaccines
Let me just make sure I understand. The new guidelines... do not distinguish between a first-time vaccine and boosters, you're saying?
The Daily
R.F.K. Jr. Sends a Message on Vaccines
And why does that first vaccine matter? Relative to a booster, which I'm guessing matters potentially a little bit less.
The Daily
R.F.K. Jr. Sends a Message on Vaccines
Got it. And why would the CDC suddenly not recommend that first, I guess some people call it primary vaccination against COVID for a child? I know you're saying that they might later clarify, but if the thinking right now is that they're not recommending that, why wouldn't they recommend that?
The Daily
R.F.K. Jr. Sends a Message on Vaccines
Apurva, we just got some very big public health news here in the United States in the form of this video that came out on Tuesday.
The Daily
R.F.K. Jr. Sends a Message on Vaccines
And is there any risk to those very young kids from getting the vaccine that we have learned about since the vaccine was authorized that might lie behind this new recommendation?
The Daily
R.F.K. Jr. Sends a Message on Vaccines
So the argument would simply seem to be that it's not helping enough people to be worth children getting this vaccine, and the risk isn't high enough. So why do it? Correct. So what's going to happen to a parent who wants to give their kid a vaccine for all the reasons you just suggested?
The Daily
R.F.K. Jr. Sends a Message on Vaccines
They're going to go to their pediatrician, presumably, and say, I know that recommendation has changed, but I would still like my kid to get this vaccine. What is going to be the likely response?
The Daily
R.F.K. Jr. Sends a Message on Vaccines
Hard, not impossible, but hard. Let's turn to pregnant women. What do we understand motivated this change in recommendations?
The Daily
R.F.K. Jr. Sends a Message on Vaccines
You had suggested earlier that children under the age of six months who have never been eligible for a COVID vaccine have acquired immunity from their moms getting the vaccine, I suppose in utero, essentially, right? So what now do we think happens if that recommendation is gone to babies between the ages of birth and six months old?
The Daily
R.F.K. Jr. Sends a Message on Vaccines
What has been the reaction from the doctors who treat pregnant women?
The Daily
R.F.K. Jr. Sends a Message on Vaccines
We'll be right back. Apoorva, you started to hint at this at the beginning of our conversation, but I think we really need to understand how Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and the Trump administration went around the normal procedures for announcing a change like this, of this scale.
The Daily
R.F.K. Jr. Sends a Message on Vaccines
Right. A kind of a case is made, data is assembled, votes are taken kind of thing.
The Daily
Joni Mitchell Never Lies
Hey, it's Michael. For our last few episodes of 2024, we're bringing you something really special, a year of culture in review. We're going to begin with one of our all-time favorite guests talking about one of the year's most astonishing performances and the really improbable story of how it even happened.
The Daily
Joni Mitchell Never Lies
That's it for The Daily. I'm Michael Barbaro. Happy holidays, and see you tomorrow.
The Daily
Joni Mitchell Never Lies
Today, critic-at-large Wesley Morris on the comeback of the singer and songwriter Joni Mitchell. It's Christmas Day, Wednesday, December 25th.
The Daily
Trump Said Peace in Ukraine Would Come Easy. It Hasn’t.
Well, the U.S. continues to provide Ukraine with some assistance that was previously approved by Congress under the Biden administration. and continues to provide intelligence sharing to Ukraine, which is really, really important because we have such a sophisticated intelligence infrastructure.
The Daily
Trump Said Peace in Ukraine Would Come Easy. It Hasn’t.
So this means, among other things, our satellites, which can see Russian positions and other sources of intelligence we have on Russia's military plans and operations. Hugely important to Ukraine. The question is... What will happen a few weeks and months from now if Trump decides he wants to wash his hands of these negotiations? Would he cut off the intelligence assistance?
The Daily
Trump Said Peace in Ukraine Would Come Easy. It Hasn’t.
Will he, in his budget request to Congress, ask for more support for Ukraine, either military or economic? And if not, to what degree could Europe fill the gap? Most analysts say that Europe can do a fair amount, but not enough to prevent Ukraine's position from being severely weakened over time. And this, by the way, is exactly why
The Daily
Trump Said Peace in Ukraine Would Come Easy. It Hasn’t.
But in the weeks since then, the story has become a little more complicated. There's some tension in the relationship between Trump and Putin that we've not seen before. Ukraine is certainly not out of the woods yet.
The Daily
Trump Said Peace in Ukraine Would Come Easy. It Hasn’t.
Many people believe this is what Putin has wanted all along, for Trump to grow impatient, to give up, to walk away. And that gives Russia a major military advantage. And Putin can just take what he wants eventually.
The Daily
Trump Said Peace in Ukraine Would Come Easy. It Hasn’t.
Look, I think that every world leader is watching this process and trying to figure out how Trump operates. But I think that this Ukraine saga has reinforced some constants with Donald Trump that world leaders will be paying very close attention to. One of them is that what animates Trump possibly more than anything else is the desire to cut a deal.
The Daily
Trump Said Peace in Ukraine Would Come Easy. It Hasn’t.
And sometimes it may not even be a very real deal. It may be something that he's able to call a great deal that doesn't have a lot of substance to it. And so you've seen both Zelensky and Putin play to that. I also think that this shows that Trump can be a very intimidating person. bully, particularly on social media or in press conferences with reporters.
The Daily
Trump Said Peace in Ukraine Would Come Easy. It Hasn’t.
But what happened when he was face to face or on the phone with those guys? He didn't threaten them. He didn't bluster and bully by any account. And I think what that tells you is that Trump says a lot of things for public consumption. He likes to posture a lot and talk tough. But ultimately, and particularly if it's in the service of cutting a deal,
The Daily
Trump Said Peace in Ukraine Would Come Easy. It Hasn’t.
it doesn't mean that that's where his head is really at or that he's going to let those resentments get in the way of what he perceives to be his tactical interest at any given moment.
The Daily
Trump Said Peace in Ukraine Would Come Easy. It Hasn’t.
I think that's right. Now, I've heard people say that Trump came into this second term riding higher, feeling stronger and He had been around the block once before as president, and he may have thought he could come in and get things done really fast in a way that he couldn't do in his first term.
The Daily
Trump Said Peace in Ukraine Would Come Easy. It Hasn’t.
But the path to this phone call was much more winding and filled with surprises, I think, than anyone would have expected on that day when Trump essentially berated the president of Ukraine and acted as though he was finished doing business with him.
The Daily
Trump Said Peace in Ukraine Would Come Easy. It Hasn’t.
But the world is a really complicated, difficult place, and dealing with Vladimir Putin, any experienced diplomat will tell you, is one of the great challenges in foreign affairs today. And I'm sometimes reminded of a saying that is attributed to the Taliban in Afghanistan when the U.S. spent 20 years trying to outfight the Taliban and defeat them.
The Daily
Trump Said Peace in Ukraine Would Come Easy. It Hasn’t.
And the saying was, you have the watches, but we have the time. And the idea behind that was you may be more technologically sophisticated, more advanced, more powerful, but we can just wait you out. We're here and we're not going anywhere. And I think that, you know, that partly explains how Vladimir Putin sees this.
The Daily
Trump Said Peace in Ukraine Would Come Easy. It Hasn’t.
He's got to get through this sort of quaint little adventure of the American president who wants a nice deal. But he's playing a much longer game. And he may have calculated that Trump will get frustrated and storm off. And at the moment, it looks like that might be exactly what's happening.
The Daily
Trump Said Peace in Ukraine Would Come Easy. It Hasn’t.
Well, Ukrainians and their supporters in Europe and the United States were basically panicking after that meeting. You know, Trump declared that Ukraine was not ready for a peace deal, a deal he promised as a candidate that he could strike in as little as one day, and suspended U.S. military aid and intelligence sharing with Ukraine. His attitude was...
The Daily
Trump Said Peace in Ukraine Would Come Easy. It Hasn’t.
You, Zelensky, are not showing enough respect to the United States and not willing enough to cut a deal. And we're done with you. Good day and good luck.
The Daily
Trump Said Peace in Ukraine Would Come Easy. It Hasn’t.
And, you know, what was happening was not only was Trump castigating Zelensky and to many people blaming the victim of this Russian invasion, but accelerating his diplomacy with Moscow and talking about, you know, economic deals and potentially lifting sanctions and restoring normal diplomatic relations. and seeming to get very excited about this prospect that America and Russia would be friends.
The Daily
Trump Said Peace in Ukraine Would Come Easy. It Hasn’t.
You know, I think a couple of things happened. Number one, I think the Ukrainians changed their tone. Zelensky was much more careful about what he said about the U.S. and the Trump administration in public. At the same time, behind the scenes, you had some European leaders acting differently
The Daily
Trump Said Peace in Ukraine Would Come Easy. It Hasn’t.
as what one longtime Russia-Ukraine expert said to me, was acting as marriage counselors between President Trump and the Ukrainian government. And, you know, Trump has no great love for much of Western Europe in particular, but he will listen to the British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, Emmanuel Macron of France. And they did a lot of work behind the scenes to try to
The Daily
Trump Said Peace in Ukraine Would Come Easy. It Hasn’t.
reason with Trump and present the Ukrainian position to him. And also, I think, to talk to Zelensky and the Ukrainians about how to interface with the U.S. government in a way that was going to put them in better standing in the White House than Zelensky was on that painful day.
The Daily
Trump Said Peace in Ukraine Would Come Easy. It Hasn’t.
So one thing that happens is that Zelensky and Ukraine very cleverly shift their posture and They start showing a real openness to some sort of a deal with Russia. You know, this is something that they had rejected for years. But I think that they realize that what Trump wants more than anything is some deal, any deal where he can proclaim a victory.
The Daily
Trump Said Peace in Ukraine Would Come Easy. It Hasn’t.
So Ukraine agrees on March 11th to a U.S. proposal for a 30-day ceasefire with Russia. And the Trump administration rewards Ukraine for this agreement by lifting its suspension of military aid and intelligence sharing. Vladimir Putin will not agree to an unconditional ceasefire and accepts a very, very limited deal which falls apart quickly. And I think that's an early disappointment for Trump.
The Daily
Trump Said Peace in Ukraine Would Come Easy. It Hasn’t.
I think it starts to dawn on Trump in the following days and weeks that Putin is not looking for the grand deal that Trump has in mind and that Trump has been promising since he was a candidate for president.
The Daily
Trump Said Peace in Ukraine Would Come Easy. It Hasn’t.
No, it's exactly right. You might call it a kind of a pull the chair strategy. Putin has talked as though he is open to peace for a long time.
The Daily
Trump Said Peace in Ukraine Would Come Easy. It Hasn’t.
Trump along, he strung the world along for years. And, you know, something that Biden administration officials would always say is Putin is not serious about negotiating a peace deal. Putin wants victory. He wants huge gains that the Ukrainians can never accept.
The Daily
Trump Said Peace in Ukraine Would Come Easy. It Hasn’t.
But now, with the arrival of Trump, who is actually pressing this and very much wants to engineer a deal, he's finally called Putin's bluff in a way that no one else has. And Zelensky has very shrewdly created the dynamics for that to happen.
The Daily
Trump Said Peace in Ukraine Would Come Easy. It Hasn’t.
Well... By late March, you see some of the first signs of Trump's frustration with Putin. And in one interview, he says he's very angry and even pissed off at comments Putin has made about Zelensky, saying that they're not helping the peace process. And he talks about increasing sanctions on Russia. But Putin is undeterred.
The Daily
Trump Said Peace in Ukraine Would Come Easy. It Hasn’t.
As the weeks go by, he's bombing and striking Ukrainian cities, hitting civilian targets with drones and missiles. And, you know, there's worldwide outrage that finally even includes President Trump, who on April 24th posts on his Truth Social account, Vladimir, stop. Not necessary and very bad timing in response to a major Russian attack on Kyiv.
The Daily
Trump Said Peace in Ukraine Would Come Easy. It Hasn’t.
I don't think we have. Thanks for having me.
The Daily
Trump Said Peace in Ukraine Would Come Easy. It Hasn’t.
He says, let's get the peace deal done in all capital letters. So, you know, this is really a kind of a creed of core from Trump. You can really sense his frustration. You know, you're screwing up my deal here, Vladimir. What's going on? I thought we were friends.
The Daily
Trump Said Peace in Ukraine Would Come Easy. It Hasn’t.
You are. You are. And not only is it the strongest language, but it's such a departure from the way he has always talked about Putin, which is to make excuses for him or... You know, when he's asked about Putin assassinating political opponents, he says, well, lots of people do that.
The Daily
Trump Said Peace in Ukraine Would Come Easy. It Hasn’t.
So it's not only that he hasn't directly criticized Putin in this way before, it's that he's contorted himself to find ways to defend and excuse Putin. But what happens next in some ways is even more surprising. On April 26th, at the funeral for Pope Francis at the Vatican, Trump has his first meeting with Zelensky since the debacle in the Oval Office. And this is sort of an impromptu pull aside.
The Daily
Trump Said Peace in Ukraine Would Come Easy. It Hasn’t.
We don't know that much about it, but all the vibes, you might say, were very positive. And, you know, the kind of defining aspect of what we know about it is a photograph that was published showing just Trump and Zelensky one-on-one in some large marble hall somewhere in the Vatican building.
The Daily
Trump Said Peace in Ukraine Would Come Easy. It Hasn’t.
sitting in two chairs facing each other, almost with their knees touching, locked in a very intense conversation.
The Daily
Trump Said Peace in Ukraine Would Come Easy. It Hasn’t.
It was theatrical. And, you know, You don't want to read too much into one photograph, but this picture of the two of them said so much. There was no retinue of staffers around them. There was no media. And you could tell that they were having a serious conversation, and it was not angry. It looked intense, but not angry.
The Daily
Trump Said Peace in Ukraine Would Come Easy. It Hasn’t.
And so, you know, here Trump is willing to sit down with Zelensky one-on-one, grant him that legitimacy, and... You know, this is seen as a very encouraging sign for Ukraine supporters. But even more encouraging is the fact that just a few days later, on April 30th, the Trump administration inks a deal with Ukraine that gives America access to Ukraine's critical minerals.
The Daily
Trump Said Peace in Ukraine Would Come Easy. It Hasn’t.
And although some people worry that this is some effort by Trump to rip Ukraine off, the Ukrainians are actually supportive of this because they feel that this gives Trump an investment in the future of their country that he did not have before. So suddenly, Trump is doing deals with the Ukrainians, and where is Vladimir Putin?
The Daily
Trump Said Peace in Ukraine Would Come Easy. It Hasn’t.
He is still holding out, not making concessions, not doing significant deals, and Trump is losing more and more patience.
The Daily
Trump Said Peace in Ukraine Would Come Easy. It Hasn’t.
And something that's ominous for Vladimir Putin is on the same day he sees Zelensky at the Vatican, he again complains about Russian missile strikes into civilian areas of Ukraine and says that these attacks make him wonder whether Putin actually doesn't want to stop the war and that he's just, as Trump says it in kind of an odd terminology, just tapping me along.
The Daily
Trump Said Peace in Ukraine Would Come Easy. It Hasn’t.
And at this point, Trump decides he needs to talk to Putin. And he arranges a call with the Russian leader. And all these weeks of gamesmanship, maneuvering, and roiling frustration seems to be culminating in this one essential conversation. And to hear Trump tell it, this call with Vladimir Putin could determine whether he is willing to continue trying to mediate an end to this war.
The Daily
Trump Said Peace in Ukraine Would Come Easy. It Hasn’t.
So, 10 a.m. comes on Monday for this highly anticipated call, and the two leaders are treating it very differently. For Trump, there's been all this fanfare and buildup on social media and his comments to reporters and comments from other administration officials. And he does the call from the White House Putin does the call from a school on the Sochi coast. He's not even at the Kremlin.
The Daily
Trump Said Peace in Ukraine Would Come Easy. It Hasn’t.
He didn't announce it. And he seems to be kind of squeezing it into his schedule. For Putin, this is not the defining event of the week. And I think that symbolizes the mismatch in... expectations, or really a mismatch in substance. And you saw that in the way both men described this call after the fact.
The Daily
Trump Said Peace in Ukraine Would Come Easy. It Hasn’t.
Yeah, well, in some ways, we are at a point that no one could have predicted back in February when Zelensky was essentially thrown out of the White House by Trump. And, you know, it looked like Ukraine was cooked. Trump was very angry at Zelensky and very eager, by all indications, to please Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The Daily
Trump Said Peace in Ukraine Would Come Easy. It Hasn’t.
You know, Putin said it was informative and open, and that he told Trump he would work on what he called a memorandum for future peace talks. But He didn't agree to a ceasefire of any kind. He didn't make any new concessions. He certainly didn't present the call as some breakthrough or new stage of the process. Well, thank you very much, everybody.
The Daily
Trump Said Peace in Ukraine Would Come Easy. It Hasn’t.
Trump's version was a bit more upbeat, and he did tell journalists afterward that he is still hopeful for a deal.
The Daily
Trump Said Peace in Ukraine Would Come Easy. It Hasn’t.
But he clearly puts the onus on Putin.
The Daily
Trump Said Peace in Ukraine Would Come Easy. It Hasn’t.
It's a bloodbath. Trump was blaming Putin again for how long this has gone on. And, you know, he straight up asks Putin, when is this war going to end? He's clearly frustrated or maybe disappointed that Putin has not changed his position. It's not particularly angry or threatening.
The Daily
Trump Said Peace in Ukraine Would Come Easy. It Hasn’t.
It seems that he's reaching a point where he's ready to just wash his hands of both of them.
The Daily
Trump Said Peace in Ukraine Would Come Easy. It Hasn’t.
You know, he says that maybe others could help out, but that it just might not be worth it to try to make this deal.
The Daily
Trump Said Peace in Ukraine Would Come Easy. It Hasn’t.
Well, it's always hard to know with Trump. That would seem to be the implication. On the other hand, Trump has invested a lot of time and a fair amount of political capital into this process. And he's come up completely empty-handed. So, you know, is he really serious? Is he really ready to walk away? And even if he does, that raises an entirely new set of questions about where he goes from here.
The Daily
Inside the Trump Purge: Federal Workers Tell Their Stories
Now that Trump's plan has become a reality, we asked dozens of federal workers to explain in their own words what it's been like to actually live through it.
The Daily
Inside the Trump Purge: Federal Workers Tell Their Stories
So far, of the two million federal workers offered a buyout by the Trump administration, an estimated 75,000 have accepted the offer. In addition, the White House has ordered federal agencies to terminate another 200,000 probationary workers. Of those, about 11,000 have already been fired.
The Daily
Inside the Trump Purge: Federal Workers Tell Their Stories
Finally, the president has identified about 9,000 more workers that he wants to eliminate as he dismantles their agencies. The firings, which are still in their early stages, are expected to continue and to accelerate in the coming weeks.
The Daily
Inside the Trump Purge: Federal Workers Tell Their Stories
Less than a week after President Trump spoke by phone with Russian President Vladimir Putin, diplomats from both countries met in Saudi Arabia to begin a remarkable reset in the two countries' relationship. It was the latest chapter in a stunning about-face in U.S.
The Daily
Inside the Trump Purge: Federal Workers Tell Their Stories
policy toward Russia, which has sought over the past few years to isolate the country for invading Ukraine and killing thousands of its civilians.
The Daily
Inside the Trump Purge: Federal Workers Tell Their Stories
After the meeting, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that Russia had demonstrated what he saw as a genuine interest in ending its war on Ukraine. And he praised President Trump for pursuing normalized relations between the two countries.
The Daily
Inside the Trump Purge: Federal Workers Tell Their Stories
Today's episode was reported and produced by Claire Tennesketter, Stella Tan, Anna Foley, and Jessica Chung, with help from Sydney Harper. It was edited by Devin Taylor, contains original music by Dan Powell, Marion Lozano, Pat McCusker, and Sophia Landman, and was engineered by Chris Wood. Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Landverk of Wonderland.
The Daily
Inside the Trump Purge: Federal Workers Tell Their Stories
Special thanks to Neil Vigder, Tim Bull, and Lauren McCarthy. That's it for The Daily. I'm Michael Barbaro. See you tomorrow.
The Daily
Inside the Trump Purge: Federal Workers Tell Their Stories
From The New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily.
The Daily
Inside the Trump Purge: Federal Workers Tell Their Stories
On the campaign trail, Donald Trump and his allies left little doubt that if they returned to power, they would try to make working for the federal government as miserable an experience as possible.
The Daily
Inside the Trump Purge: Federal Workers Tell Their Stories
by treating career bureaucrats as the enemy and by driving them out through layoffs, buyouts and agency closures.
The Daily
France’s Horrifying Rape Trial Has a Feminist Hero
From The New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily. As soon as this week, after months of testimony, verdicts are expected in a rape trial that has both horrified and captivated the people of France. Today...
The Daily
France’s Horrifying Rape Trial Has a Feminist Hero
She says this out loud, which sounds a bit, to me, like the words of a civil rights figure, not a French grandmother.
The Daily
France’s Horrifying Rape Trial Has a Feminist Hero
So after lifting the veil of anonymity that so often surrounds the victim, she's now making sure that there is no anonymity whatsoever around the conduct of the accused men.
The Daily
France’s Horrifying Rape Trial Has a Feminist Hero
It's hard for me, Catherine, to fathom what kind of a defense can be put forward by the dozens of men, many of them in this courtroom, knowing what's on those videos, these audible sounds of her being asleep. So what are they saying or do we expect them to say in this trial in their own defense, if anything? Right.
The Daily
France’s Horrifying Rape Trial Has a Feminist Hero
And since we're talking about the defense of these men, what has her ex-husband said in his defense?
The Daily
France’s Horrifying Rape Trial Has a Feminist Hero
So he is in no way denying that the worst conceivable version of this is exactly what happened.
The Daily
France’s Horrifying Rape Trial Has a Feminist Hero
Hmm. You had said that Gisele Pelico wanted to change society with this approach to the trial, by letting herself be named, by opening it up to reporters like you. So the question is, has she accomplished that? And if she has, how exactly?
The Daily
France’s Horrifying Rape Trial Has a Feminist Hero
It feels like if this scene outside the courtroom is any indication that what Giselle Pelico wants to happen around shame and rape culture, it's actually already starting to happen. She is effectuating this change herself.
The Daily
France’s Horrifying Rape Trial Has a Feminist Hero
Well, to understand how the woman at the center of this case does this remarkable thing, let's start at the beginning of this case.
The Daily
France’s Horrifying Rape Trial Has a Feminist Hero
It strikes me that... the unintended consequence of these longtime practices that we use when it comes to rape, of shrouding a victim in anonymity, which makes so much sense.
The Daily
France’s Horrifying Rape Trial Has a Feminist Hero
for so many reasons, because of the shame you described, that they've had this unintentional consequence that we haven't really thought that much about, which is we end up focused so little on the women who have had this experience because they mostly remain anonymous. We end up spending so much of our time focused on the men. And what's changed here is that Gisele Pelico has said,
The Daily
France’s Horrifying Rape Trial Has a Feminist Hero
Not just that she's going to switch up the question of shame, but she's going to switch up the question of basic power.
The Daily
France’s Horrifying Rape Trial Has a Feminist Hero
Well, Catherine, thank you very much. We appreciate it.
The Daily
France’s Horrifying Rape Trial Has a Feminist Hero
Here's what else you need to know today. Ukraine says it has assassinated the general who led Russia's nuclear defense force The general, Igor Kurylov, was killed when an explosive device planted inside a scooter was detonated on Tuesday morning near the entryway to a residential building. It was one of Ukraine's most brazen assassinations since Russia invaded Ukraine nearly three years ago.
The Daily
France’s Horrifying Rape Trial Has a Feminist Hero
On Tuesday, New York City prosecutors charged Luigi Mangione with first-degree murder in the shooting death of UnitedHealthcare's CEO. The charges branded Mangione a terrorist and portrayed his alleged murder plot as a political act. Today's episode was produced by Shannon Lin and Eric Krupke, with help from Rob Zipko and Olivia Nadd.
The Daily
France’s Horrifying Rape Trial Has a Feminist Hero
It was edited by Lexi Diao and Michael Benoit, contains original music by Marion Lozano, Pat McCusker, and Sophia Landman, and was engineered by Chris Wood. Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Landferk of Wonderly. Special thanks to Zegolene Lestradek, That's it for The Daily. I'm Michael Barbaro. See you tomorrow.
The Daily
France’s Horrifying Rape Trial Has a Feminist Hero
So there is something very dark happening just under the surface of what looks like this very idyllic life.
The Daily
France’s Horrifying Rape Trial Has a Feminist Hero
My colleague, correspondent Catherine Porter, on the woman at the center of that trial and how, with a single decision, she has turned the power dynamics of the Me Too era on their head. It's Wednesday, December 18th. Catherine, it has been a really long time, and I am very glad to be speaking with you.
The Daily
France’s Horrifying Rape Trial Has a Feminist Hero
An unfathomable piece of information to absorb, I have to imagine, because in this moment, she is hearing that her whole life is not what she thought it was, and that the man she's married to is a monster.
The Daily
France’s Horrifying Rape Trial Has a Feminist Hero
Mm-hmm. And just to be very clear, because it almost seems impossible to wrap one's head around this, she, if I'm intuiting from you correctly, has no inkling of any of this.
The Daily
France’s Horrifying Rape Trial Has a Feminist Hero
And what do we learn about these men accused of this unbelievably horrible act?
The Daily
France’s Horrifying Rape Trial Has a Feminist Hero
It feels like this is normally the stage in a story like this, as we know from countless Me Too episodes of this show that we have made, where despite even the unique horrors of what you're describing here... The legal system kicks in in this kind of predictable way. And the media world starts to pay attention in a way that focuses very heavily on the perpetrators, on the men.
The Daily
France’s Horrifying Rape Trial Has a Feminist Hero
So we're going to be talking today about a case that, when it first began to reverberate outside of France, where you are, really shocked the world. And then, as even the most shocking things do, it kind of receded from our collective consciousness, but not from yours.
The Daily
France’s Horrifying Rape Trial Has a Feminist Hero
And the victim, the woman here, quite understandably, remains anonymous.
The Daily
France’s Horrifying Rape Trial Has a Feminist Hero
In other words, to use her husband's name.
The Daily
France’s Horrifying Rape Trial Has a Feminist Hero
We'll be right back. So, Catherine, take us inside the courtroom, into this trial, and walk us through how this remarkable decision ends up influencing how the case plays out.
The Daily
France’s Horrifying Rape Trial Has a Feminist Hero
From what you're saying, the scale, the enormity of the alleged crime here is just physically inescapable in the room.
The Daily
France’s Horrifying Rape Trial Has a Feminist Hero
And at the center of it all, quite literally, the scene is Giselle Pelico.
The Daily
Trump Trashed the Iran Nuclear Deal. Will His Be Any Better?
From The New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily. For years, President Trump has mocked the Obama administration for the nuclear deal that it reached with Iran.
The Daily
Trump Trashed the Iran Nuclear Deal. Will His Be Any Better?
So what the U.S. wants is not just a setback to Iran's nuclear program, but it's destruction. Is that plausible? It would seem that Iran would have very little reason to agree to that.
The Daily
Trump Trashed the Iran Nuclear Deal. Will His Be Any Better?
There are actual talks happening between Iran and the United States right now.
The Daily
Trump Trashed the Iran Nuclear Deal. Will His Be Any Better?
Okay, well, given how far apart the two sides are, Iran wants basically the original 2015 deal that freezes its nuclear program. The U.S. says we want a public demolition of your entire infrastructure. What do we know so far about the actual negotiations and how on earth they might somehow meet in the middle?
The Daily
Trump Trashed the Iran Nuclear Deal. Will His Be Any Better?
But in reality, he may be renegotiating the exact deal he tore up seven, correct my math, years ago and that allowed Iran to leap forward as much as it has toward a bomb. Yeah.
The Daily
Trump Trashed the Iran Nuclear Deal. Will His Be Any Better?
David, assuming that Trump can accept a deal that ultimately looks a lot like the deal he has railed against for years and years and years, Let's talk about Iran for just another moment. What would Iran get out of a deal that freezes all of its nuclear program, not destroy it, but just freezes it, that would make it worth its while?
The Daily
Trump Trashed the Iran Nuclear Deal. Will His Be Any Better?
So, David, at this point, recognizing that these talks are in very early stages, what are the chances in your mind that a deal gets reached?
The Daily
Trump Trashed the Iran Nuclear Deal. Will His Be Any Better?
But if there is no deal, based on everything you've said here— What would happen is that the United States and Israel would eventually need to undertake some sort of military operation to destroy Iran's nuclear facilities. And Iran is pretty powerless to stop it or to meaningfully retaliate against it. And so is that scenario all that important? problematic for the U.S.
The Daily
Trump Trashed the Iran Nuclear Deal. Will His Be Any Better?
Right. To say that there is no love between these two sides is a historic understatement.
The Daily
Trump Trashed the Iran Nuclear Deal. Will His Be Any Better?
Right. Iran is backed into a corner. One way or another, it's going to have to give up its nuclear program at the stage it's in right now.
The Daily
Trump Trashed the Iran Nuclear Deal. Will His Be Any Better?
That's a very big bet. You're suggesting that Iran might take to kind of play chicken with Donald Trump and those B-2 bombers and the very real possibility that we might attack it.
The Daily
Trump Trashed the Iran Nuclear Deal. Will His Be Any Better?
Well, David... Thank you very much. Appreciate it. Thank you, Michael. We'll be right back. Here's what else you need to know today. On Tuesday, President Trump escalated his standoff with Harvard University by threatening to remove its tax-exempt status after the school refused to comply with his demands for policy changes. Such a decision over time could cost Harvard billions of dollars.
The Daily
Trump Trashed the Iran Nuclear Deal. Will His Be Any Better?
It's unclear exactly how Trump could carry out the threat. Under federal law, a president is prohibited from directly ordering the IRS to conduct the kind of investigation that might result in Harvard losing its tax-exempt status.
The Daily
Trump Trashed the Iran Nuclear Deal. Will His Be Any Better?
In his first speech since leaving office, former President Joe Biden criticized the Trump White House for its drastic cuts to the government bureaucracy, focusing in particular on how many workers it has forced out of the Social Security Administration. That, Biden said, now threatens to break the program's sacred promise to the tens of millions of Americans who rely on Social Security.
The Daily
Trump Trashed the Iran Nuclear Deal. Will His Be Any Better?
Today's episode was produced by Rochelle Banja and Mary Wilson. It was edited by Patricia Willans, contains original music by Dan Powell and Pat McCusker, and was engineered by Chris Wood. Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Landsberg of Wonderly. That's it for The Daily. I'm Michael Bilboro. See you tomorrow.
The Daily
Trump Trashed the Iran Nuclear Deal. Will His Be Any Better?
Well, give us the context we need to understand both why Trump tore up the original nuclear deal and why he would now want to essentially redo it.
The Daily
Trump Trashed the Iran Nuclear Deal. Will His Be Any Better?
A plan he disliked so much that he revoked it. Now, as Trump embarks on talks with Iran to reach a nuclear deal of his own... We had a meeting with them on Saturday.
The Daily
Trump Trashed the Iran Nuclear Deal. Will His Be Any Better?
The question is whether he can achieve anything that's actually better.
The Daily
Trump Trashed the Iran Nuclear Deal. Will His Be Any Better?
But of course, he finds it objectionable enough that he does tear it up. So with all that history in mind, knowing that the original deal was imperfect, but was fundamentally working, and how much contempt there is between both sides of this, why suddenly, in April of 2025, all these years later, does Trump want to do it all over again?
The Daily
Trump Trashed the Iran Nuclear Deal. Will His Be Any Better?
Well, let's start with the U.S. and what basically has changed in Trump's view of this situation.
The Daily
Trump Trashed the Iran Nuclear Deal. Will His Be Any Better?
Today, my colleague David Sanger takes us inside the negotiations. It's Wednesday, April 16th. David, always a pleasure. Great to be back with you, Michael. Appreciate you making time for us. I think for a lot of people,
The Daily
Trump Trashed the Iran Nuclear Deal. Will His Be Any Better?
So they can go into the kitchen and here I'm being a little facetious and pretty quickly whip up the amount of enriched uranium to get a nuclear bomb.
The Daily
Trump Trashed the Iran Nuclear Deal. Will His Be Any Better?
Is it fair to say that Iran only got this far because Trump tore up the last nuclear deal?
The Daily
Trump Trashed the Iran Nuclear Deal. Will His Be Any Better?
perspective and level of anxiety about this has changed. What incentive, David, would Iran have to negotiate a new deal after, as you just said, making all this progress towards its long-held goal of having a nuclear bomb?
The Daily
Trump Trashed the Iran Nuclear Deal. Will His Be Any Better?
Right, kind of the shield that Iran had in the entire neighborhood around it.
The Daily
Trump Trashed the Iran Nuclear Deal. Will His Be Any Better?
So if you're Iran, you're thinking to yourself – We, because Trump tore up the last nuclear deal, are getting really close to a nuclear bomb, which might trigger Israel or, I guess, the United States to come after our nuclear facilities, attack them, try to destroy them,
The Daily
Trump Trashed the Iran Nuclear Deal. Will His Be Any Better?
The concept of President Trump suddenly wanting to negotiate a nuclear deal with Iran is genuinely surprising because it was just a few years ago during his first term as president that he tore up the last nuclear deal that the U.S. and Iran had reached very painstakingly and since then has made a point of portraying Iran as basically evil. And yet here we are.
The Daily
Trump Trashed the Iran Nuclear Deal. Will His Be Any Better?
And because of what you just said, they've never been less capable of defending against that attack or capable of mounting retaliation because like you just said, if they go attack Israel, we kind of know it will mostly be a dud.
The Daily
Trump Trashed the Iran Nuclear Deal. Will His Be Any Better?
Obvious meaning a military attack.
The Daily
Trump Trashed the Iran Nuclear Deal. Will His Be Any Better?
So, David, now that these negotiations are actually happening, what exactly do both sides want out of them? And what would represent a good deal to both of them, the U.S. and to Iran? And how far apart are those two visions?
The Daily
Drunkenness, Women and Wokeness: A Dramatic Confirmation Hearing for Pete Hegseth
From The New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily. On Tuesday, the confirmation process for Donald Trump's cabinet began with his most controversial choice, Pete Hegseth for Secretary of Defense. Today... my colleague, national security correspondent Eric Schmidt, on the contentious and dramatic hearing and the odds that Hegseth will soon be running the military.
The Daily
Drunkenness, Women and Wokeness: A Dramatic Confirmation Hearing for Pete Hegseth
And what exactly does he mean when he's using that word standards? It sounds like he is suggesting that... during a Democratic administration of Joe Biden, that those standards got lowered. But he doesn't quite come out and say it, but is that what he's implying?
The Daily
Drunkenness, Women and Wokeness: A Dramatic Confirmation Hearing for Pete Hegseth
Right, and she had seemed to be against his nomination in the beginning and then slowly began to express support for him after several meetings. And so where we meet her on Tuesday is that she seems to be in his camp. That's right.
The Daily
Drunkenness, Women and Wokeness: A Dramatic Confirmation Hearing for Pete Hegseth
Right. And that matters because she seems to be basically pushing back against these Democratic women senators and the case they're making.
The Daily
Drunkenness, Women and Wokeness: A Dramatic Confirmation Hearing for Pete Hegseth
Beyond these questions around gender and DEI, where else does this questioning go?
The Daily
Drunkenness, Women and Wokeness: A Dramatic Confirmation Hearing for Pete Hegseth
Right, and Hexeth answers them all like kind of rapid fire, and he seems to get the answers right.
The Daily
Drunkenness, Women and Wokeness: A Dramatic Confirmation Hearing for Pete Hegseth
Right. And by the end, it's very interesting. Democrats have basically been saying, you're not technically qualified to run the Department of Defense in the way that we think about previous secretaries of defense, and therefore the DOD under you will be a mess.
The Daily
Drunkenness, Women and Wokeness: A Dramatic Confirmation Hearing for Pete Hegseth
And Republicans are saying, no, actually, because he has the right kind of experience and because he's going to root out, you know, what they would describe as kind of woke DEI culture in the military... He's actually going to save the Department of Defense from the current mess, as they see it. They're both kind of talking right past each other, the Democrats and Republicans.
The Daily
Drunkenness, Women and Wokeness: A Dramatic Confirmation Hearing for Pete Hegseth
Eric, what was so surprising about that is that here you have a nominee to run the military saying that in his mind, there are moments where soldiers perhaps don't need to follow the chain of command, which is a weird message to send when you want to be the head of the military.
The Daily
Drunkenness, Women and Wokeness: A Dramatic Confirmation Hearing for Pete Hegseth
Eric, by the end of the hearing, it very much felt like every Democrat in that room was signaling that they will be opposing Hegseth. And my sense is that all the Republicans on that committee are going to be voting for Hegseth. And so he will be recommended by this committee.
The Daily
Drunkenness, Women and Wokeness: A Dramatic Confirmation Hearing for Pete Hegseth
And if we assume that the same scenario plays out in the full Senate, then Hegseth most likely becomes the next secretary of defense. And...
The Daily
Drunkenness, Women and Wokeness: A Dramatic Confirmation Hearing for Pete Hegseth
It would seem like there's some risk here, especially for the Democrats in the Senate, that whether they mean to or not, in their opposition to Hegseth, they're kind of reinforcing the message of the election itself, which is that Trump is the candidate of government disruption and Democrats are the party that guards the status quo. What do you make of that?
The Daily
Drunkenness, Women and Wokeness: A Dramatic Confirmation Hearing for Pete Hegseth
Well, Eric, thank you very much. We appreciate it.
The Daily
Drunkenness, Women and Wokeness: A Dramatic Confirmation Hearing for Pete Hegseth
On Tuesday night, Senator Joni Ernst of Iowa, whose vote is considered decisive for Hegseth's confirmation, said that she would support his nomination, all but assuring that he will become the next Secretary of Defense. We'll be right back. Here's what else you need to know today.
The Daily
Drunkenness, Women and Wokeness: A Dramatic Confirmation Hearing for Pete Hegseth
Officials in California now say it may take weeks or longer to fully extinguish the largest of the wildfires that have ravaged greater Los Angeles. On Tuesday, heavy winds ignited several new fires, but many of them were quickly brought under control. And US securities regulators have sued Elon Musk in federal court over his conduct in purchasing Twitter.
The Daily
Drunkenness, Women and Wokeness: A Dramatic Confirmation Hearing for Pete Hegseth
According to regulators, Musk violated securities laws in 2022 by amassing a large stake in the social media company without filing the required notification. But because of Musk's close relationship with President-elect Trump, it's likely that the incoming administration may seek to drop the lawsuit. Today's episode was produced by Rob Zipko, Rochelle Bonja, and Carlos Prieto.
The Daily
Drunkenness, Women and Wokeness: A Dramatic Confirmation Hearing for Pete Hegseth
It was edited by M.J. Davis-Lynn and Maria Byrne, contains original music by Dan Powell, and was engineered by Alyssa Moxley. Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Lansford of Wonderly. That's it for The Daily. I'm Michael Barbaro. See you tomorrow.
The Daily
Drunkenness, Women and Wokeness: A Dramatic Confirmation Hearing for Pete Hegseth
Right, the firebrand or the charmer. Right, or some combination. So given those three big questions going into this hearing, take us into the actual confirmation hearing itself as you tried to figure out which way it was going to go for each of those three constituencies, Republicans, Democrats, and Hegseth himself.
The Daily
Drunkenness, Women and Wokeness: A Dramatic Confirmation Hearing for Pete Hegseth
Right. And given that original question you posed, it now seems that Republicans will not be acknowledging any misgivings about Pete Hegseth that they had early on.
The Daily
Drunkenness, Women and Wokeness: A Dramatic Confirmation Hearing for Pete Hegseth
It's Wednesday, January 15th. Eric, from the moment that Pete Hegseth was nominated to run the Department of Defense, it, as you well know, created a storm of controversy on both sides of the aisle because of the reports of his personal misconduct, because of his views on issues like whether women should be in the military, and because of his lack of traditional management experience.
The Daily
Drunkenness, Women and Wokeness: A Dramatic Confirmation Hearing for Pete Hegseth
It's as thorough a public disqualification, a kind of dismissal, as I think I've ever seen in, I don't know, the 10 or 15 years I've ever watched a congressional hearing. It's a senior member of one of these committees basically saying, I don't even know why you are in front of me. It's a total takedown.
The Daily
Drunkenness, Women and Wokeness: A Dramatic Confirmation Hearing for Pete Hegseth
And, of course, Hegstead is sitting across from Senator Reid. At this point, his jaw looks really tense. And then suddenly, and I was watching this alongside of you, it's his turn to finally speak. What does he say?
The Daily
Drunkenness, Women and Wokeness: A Dramatic Confirmation Hearing for Pete Hegseth
Everything about him represented a major deviation from the norm of who the Secretary of Defense is, so much so that it looked like Donald Trump might dump him as his choice, but that hasn't happened. So heading into this confirmation hearing, what for you were the big questions about how this very highly anticipated day would unfold?
The Daily
Drunkenness, Women and Wokeness: A Dramatic Confirmation Hearing for Pete Hegseth
What, if anything, does Hegseth say in this opening statement about the questions that have come up around his resume?
The Daily
Drunkenness, Women and Wokeness: A Dramatic Confirmation Hearing for Pete Hegseth
The ranking Democrat is determined to try to disqualify him in the eyes of the public. And Hank Seth is proudly and pretty diplomatically and cleverly embracing the role of the change agent.
The Daily
Drunkenness, Women and Wokeness: A Dramatic Confirmation Hearing for Pete Hegseth
So, Eric, talk about the fireworks portion of this hearing, the questioning of Hegseth from senators of both parties.
The Daily
A Constitutional Crisis
From The New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily. Today, my colleague Adam Liptak wades through that debate. It's Wednesday, February 12th.
The Daily
A Constitutional Crisis
And I guess I'm curious, based on your legal analysis and your reporting over the past couple of weeks, where we think the Supreme Court may choose to weigh in and attempt to curtail the president's
The Daily
A Constitutional Crisis
And why would the court think that Trump could not, even if he wanted to, disobey that ruling?
The Daily
A Constitutional Crisis
I'm curious, Adam, what would be a case where the Supreme Court might fear that Trump would disobey them? A pretty staggering thing to contemplate, but from what you're saying, the court actively does fear that.
The Daily
A Constitutional Crisis
Adam, welcome back. Always a distinct pleasure. It's good to be here, Michael. The phrase du jour, Adam, right now in Washington is constitutional crisis. And we come to you as our resident scholar of the law and the courts to understand what a constitutional crisis actually is and how you know when you are in the middle of one.
The Daily
A Constitutional Crisis
Right. You're saying the court's authority is a norm and Trump likes to subvert norms. And you think the court would go out of its way to avoid rulings, even when they are correct on the legal merits, that Trump might seek to subvert, which is pretty fascinating.
The Daily
A Constitutional Crisis
So what we would seem to be looking at, Adam, based on everything you're saying, is a legislative branch that's not at all enthusiastic about curtailing the president's authority. We're looking at a judicial branch with the Supreme Court atop it that is disinclined to try to curtail the president's power out of fear that he may ultimately just ignore them.
The Daily
A Constitutional Crisis
And so it seems very possible that, as these legal scholars have told you, we may be in what they see as a constitutional crisis. I guess my question is, what happens if we are in a constitutional crisis and most Americans don't care? And I ask that because Trump was elected by tens of millions of people who... wanted him to shake up the system.
The Daily
A Constitutional Crisis
And early polling does very much suggest that many people are pleased at the pace at which he's fulfilling his promises. And part of that promise was a stronger executive who's just busting through any barrier in his way. And so is it a constitutional crisis if a lot of Americans don't see it as a crisis?
The Daily
A Constitutional Crisis
On Tuesday night, President Trump personally denounced the federal judges who have blocked his actions over the past few weeks, especially his attempts to shut down agencies like USAID and freeze their funds.
The Daily
A Constitutional Crisis
And he delivered what appeared to be a thinly veiled threat against the judges who stand in his way.
The Daily
A Constitutional Crisis
Sure. During an extraordinary 30-minute appearance in the Oval Office on Tuesday night, Elon Musk, joined by his four-year-old son, defended his plans to drastically shrink the size of the federal government.
The Daily
A Constitutional Crisis
But Musk made multiple unsubstantiated claims about government fraud, including the claim that officials at USAID have taken kickbacks. And he acknowledged that some of his most inflammatory public claims, for instance, that aid workers planned to send $50 million worth of condoms to Hamas, were wrong.
The Daily
A Constitutional Crisis
During a visit to the White House, King Abdullah of Jordan rejected President Trump's proposal that his country take in Palestinians living in Gaza. Nevertheless, Trump reiterated his plan for the United States to take over Gaza through unspecified means and for Jordan and Egypt to accept Palestinians who would be permanently displaced as the U.S. redevelops the territory.
The Daily
A Constitutional Crisis
Today's episode was produced by Will Reed, Carlos Prieto, and Mary Wilson. It was edited by Maria Byrne. Contains original music by Alishaba Etube, Alyssa Moxley, and Dan Powell. And was engineered by Alyssa Moxley. Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Lanfork of Wonder League. That's it for The Daily. I'm Michael Barbaro. See you tomorrow.
The Daily
A Constitutional Crisis
So given that loose definition that seems to acknowledge the fluidity of a constitutional crisis, how should we think about whether President Trump's actions over the past few weeks represent a constitutional crisis or perhaps something else, something less serious?
The Daily
A Constitutional Crisis
Well, Adam, walk us through some of the specific examples of how President Trump is muddling with our traditional notions of Article I, Article II, basically the separation of powers between the legislative and executive branch and how he is trying to expand the powers of the executive.
The Daily
A Constitutional Crisis
So, for example, what you just said would apply to the congressionally appropriated money for USAID, the foreign aid agency that the president has decided to shut down.
The Daily
A Constitutional Crisis
So what might deepen this sense that we are in a constitutional crisis is not just that the president is ignoring Congress's will, its actions, its appropriations, but he's not even engaging them on these questions in a way that he very much could.
The Daily
A Constitutional Crisis
Well, where else do his actions seem to potentially be creating a constitutional crisis?
The Daily
A Constitutional Crisis
And that list of actions that you just went through, it feels like they aren't all the same. So which ones, in your mind and in the mind of the legal scholars that you're speaking to, are just the president seeking to expand his authority, which we've always understood President Trump to want to do, even during the campaign?
The Daily
A Constitutional Crisis
And which ones seem like just frontal assaults on the Constitution and potentially the stuff of a constitutional crisis?
The Daily
A Constitutional Crisis
So now that we know that Congress does not seem inclined to act against this president, the Republican-controlled House and Senate, and given that the president doesn't seem all that interested in engaging this Congress, it very much does seem like we're at a point where if we are, as these scholars have told you, in a constitutional crisis of one form or another, that it will be the courts, the federal courts, that will play a major role in keeping the president in check.
The Daily
A Constitutional Crisis
We'll be right back. Adam, so far, it is not the Supreme Court, as you said, but the lower federal courts that have weighed in on President Trump's actions. And my sense is that so far, they have taken a very dim view of his efforts to expand his executive power and encroach on the powers of Congress.
The Daily
A Constitutional Crisis
Right. And of course, this has prompted some around the president to say, well, hold on a minute. The courts are overstepping their bounds in reining in our efforts to expand our bounds.
The Daily
A Constitutional Crisis
I just want to read what J.D. Vance wrote about this because he tried to put it into a larger legal context. And he seemed to write this right after the president had lost a series of rulings of the kind you just went through. And he wrote, if a judge tried to tell a general how to conduct a military operation, that would be illegal.
The Daily
A Constitutional Crisis
And he goes on to say, if a judge tried to command the attorney general in how to use her discretion as a prosecutor, that would be illegal. And then he goes on to apply this logic to the president. He says, judges aren't allowed to control the executive's legitimate power either. So what do we make of that argument?
The Daily
A Constitutional Crisis
In other words, it may be a narrower interpretation of when the president can ignore the courts than perhaps it seems.
The Daily
A Constitutional Crisis
Well, what Vance is writing here seems to presuppose that there's going to come a moment pretty soon when these lower court rulings get appealed all the way up to the Supreme Court and the Supreme Court issues a ruling against President Trump that attempts to rein in his power.
The Daily
Notre-Dame Rises From the Ashes
Right, and the question immediately became, what do you do after one of the world's great, important, essential, beloved buildings is this badly damaged?
The Daily
Notre-Dame Rises From the Ashes
That case got cracked wide open, all of which delayed this much-awaited debut of yours on the show. And today is the day. You, our chief architecture critic... finally here talking about something worthy of your biography, Notre Dame.
The Daily
Notre-Dame Rises From the Ashes
We'll be right back. So, Michael, tell us how France did this, how they pulled this on-time miracle off.
The Daily
Notre-Dame Rises From the Ashes
From The New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily.
The Daily
Notre-Dame Rises From the Ashes
Well, just to begin, do you remember the first time you stepped inside that cathedral?
The Daily
Notre-Dame Rises From the Ashes
So this is not exactly living inside the cathedral as you had originally thought, but you have this chance. So tell us about this one day you get to go inside.
The Daily
Notre-Dame Rises From the Ashes
There are many times when I could have left and I haven't left here.
The Daily
Notre-Dame Rises From the Ashes
I'm trying to envision people going out into the forests of France, looking at trees and saying, ah, that one is worthy of that beam. You'll remember Francois and the rafters up there. Cut down that tree.
The Daily
Notre-Dame Rises From the Ashes
So your memory of it is vague, but the impression I'm getting is that whatever it did to you, it did something.
The Daily
Notre-Dame Rises From the Ashes
Devotional to the original workers and the original mission and meaning of this entire cathedral.
The Daily
Notre-Dame Rises From the Ashes
I'm curious, once you get down from the roof and you are witnessing this exceptionally faithful devotional effort to bring the roof back to what it looked like a thousand years ago, what you saw on the interior, probably the best known portions of Notre Dame.
The Daily
Notre-Dame Rises From the Ashes
So let's fast forward a good deal to several years ago. Where were you when you first heard that Notre Dame was burning?
The Daily
Notre-Dame Rises From the Ashes
Well, that makes me wonder, as an architecture critic, did you have, by the end of this tour, by the end of this coveted day that you got, some kind of final assessment of... the experience of this restored cathedral.
The Daily
Notre-Dame Rises From the Ashes
Basically, you should prepare yourself for going inside a 1,000-year-old building that has been power washed.
The Daily
Notre-Dame Rises From the Ashes
Well, you're getting at the question I've been waiting to ask you this entire conversation, which is if architecture, as you have laid out here, tells us something about us, what did this renovation, this project, tell us about ourselves right now?
The Daily
Notre-Dame Rises From the Ashes
And now it's in the best shape that it's ever been in probably a thousand years.
The Daily
Notre-Dame Rises From the Ashes
Well, Michael, on that really beautiful note, thank you very, very much.
The Daily
Notre-Dame Rises From the Ashes
Here's what else you need to know today. On Tuesday, Israel said it had destroyed Syria's navy during a series of airstrikes in what it described as defensive measures designed to protect itself against Syria's new government.
The Daily
Notre-Dame Rises From the Ashes
But the attacks have defied warnings from Western governments, who fear they may ignite a new conflict in the region, and fear that Israel is using the fall of Syria's government as an opportunity to take offensive actions.
The Daily
Notre-Dame Rises From the Ashes
As the Assad government fell over the weekend, Israeli ground forces advanced beyond the demilitarized zone on the Israeli-Syria border, marking Israel's first overt entry into Syrian territory in more than 50 years. Today's episode was produced by Carlos Prieto and Jessica Chung.
The Daily
Notre-Dame Rises From the Ashes
It was edited by Michael Benoit, contains original music by Dan Powell, Pat McCusker, Marion Lozano, and Diane Wong, and was engineered by Chris Wood. Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Lanferk of Wonderly. Special thanks to Aurelien Breeden, Ségolène Lestradec, Catherine Porter, and Brian Katz. That's it for The Daily. I'm Michael Barbaro. See you tomorrow.
The Daily
Notre-Dame Rises From the Ashes
the Cathedral of Notre Dame reopened to the public. Today, chief architecture critic Michael Kimmelman with the story of the miracle on the Seine. It's Wednesday, December 11th. Michael, welcome to The Daily.
The Daily
Notre-Dame Rises From the Ashes
Well, I'm curious, when this inquiry is moving along and you're making phone calls and you're researching the history of Notre Dame and trying to understand why the feelings about its burning are so widespread and so deep, what do you find?
The Daily
Notre-Dame Rises From the Ashes
Well, tell us a little bit about that history. And I suspect through that, we will understand what it has meant to us during that entire period.
The Daily
Notre-Dame Rises From the Ashes
In other words, all French roads quite literally lead to this cathedral.
The Daily
Notre-Dame Rises From the Ashes
It's fascinating because what could better embody the idea of a single building's importance to a place than it becomes a central target of an effort to overturn the entire system?
The Daily
Notre-Dame Rises From the Ashes
I don't think we can miss an opportunity, since you brought it with you, to read from the hunchback of Notre Dame.
The Daily
Notre-Dame Rises From the Ashes
I'm just going to acknowledge that we have been trying to get you on the show for seven years. And then two days more, because over the past couple of days, there's been a tremendous amount of very serious news. The government in Syria fell a closely watched manhunt for the suspected murderer of the CEO of a major healthcare company.
The Daily
Notre-Dame Rises From the Ashes
It reminds me of what you said at the beginning of this conversation about architecture, is that this is not some abstract piece of architecture. It's living, it's breathing, it tells us something essential about who we are at any given moment. And Hugo, as you said, he's not saying that through an especially religious lens. He's seeing this more as a secular temple.
The Daily
Notre-Dame Rises From the Ashes
Well, since you just brought it up, remind us, How severe this fire ends up being.
The Daily
Notre-Dame Rises From the Ashes
Right. You were wrong when you were on the bike telling your editor it couldn't burn. There's a lot of wood in that cathedral.
The Daily
How Trump Wiped Out $10 Trillion in Wealth in 3 Days
From The New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily.
The Daily
How Trump Wiped Out $10 Trillion in Wealth in 3 Days
What you're describing would seem to be an incentive structure for the president to create certainty. And that certainty would seem to be... I'm determined to keep these tariffs in place. And I did notice today, we're talking on Monday, that when there was a brief moment where someone posited that there might be a pause, these might be, they shut it down. They said, no, this is for real.
The Daily
How Trump Wiped Out $10 Trillion in Wealth in 3 Days
Yeah. Well, when things go really haywire in the markets, We like to bring you in. We reserve you for the— For the crises. Yeah, for the crises. And I think we should start by talking about really the scale of the stock market sell-offs that we have witnessed over the past few days. Just put that into some perspective.
The Daily
How Trump Wiped Out $10 Trillion in Wealth in 3 Days
After the break, White House correspondent Jonathan Swan on how President Trump himself is seeing this moment.
The Daily
How Trump Wiped Out $10 Trillion in Wealth in 3 Days
Jonathan, our colleague Andrew Ross Sorkin, who has been on the phone day in, day out with the country's CEOs, just finished explaining how privately they all blame Trump for the crash of the stock market over the past few days.
The Daily
How Trump Wiped Out $10 Trillion in Wealth in 3 Days
And in their minds, this whole program of universal tariffs doesn't really make any sense and is not incentivizing them to do the thing that Trump wants them to do, which is invest long-term in domestic manufacturing, because they're not certain these tariffs are going to last. And meanwhile, their stock prices are down so much that they don't want to do much of anything.
The Daily
How Trump Wiped Out $10 Trillion in Wealth in 3 Days
How is the president viewing this growing perception of him as basically the steward of what the business community sees as something of an economic catastrophe?
The Daily
How Trump Wiped Out $10 Trillion in Wealth in 3 Days
Can you explain why the stock market does not operate any longer as a check against the president because it's very hard to imagine a businessman who prides himself in having achieved the confidence of so many business leaders just shrugging off trillions of dollars being lost in just a handful of days in the stock market because of something he did and only because of something he did.
The Daily
How Trump Wiped Out $10 Trillion in Wealth in 3 Days
Monday was yet another dark day on Wall Street, as global stocks whipsawed over President Trump's universal tariffs. A bear market briefly became official in the U.S., and tit-for-tat retaliation with China intensified.
The Daily
How Trump Wiped Out $10 Trillion in Wealth in 3 Days
Well, let's talk about what it might look like in the coming weeks and months for him to keep telling what he sees as all the smarty pants that they're wrong and become deeply entrenched in his commitment to these tariffs. Because we're starting to see some evidence, and admittedly it's small, but it's pretty meaningful given—
The Daily
How Trump Wiped Out $10 Trillion in Wealth in 3 Days
the track record so far in this presidency, of elements of his coalition starting to crack a little bit over tariffs. And it began in the business community. We just talked to Andrew Ross Sorkin about this with Bill Ackman coming out and saying, these tariffs are a big mistake. As Andrew said, Bill Ackman then kind of rolled it back. And Elon Musk coming out and saying, I don't know.
The Daily
How Trump Wiped Out $10 Trillion in Wealth in 3 Days
about these tariffs. I think we should be living in a world of zero tariffs. That does seem meaningful, right? That those people are saying this is a problem out loud.
The Daily
How Trump Wiped Out $10 Trillion in Wealth in 3 Days
Right, and that's just worth pausing on. One-fifth the value of certain entire stock indexes. That's just a tremendous amount of wealth.
The Daily
How Trump Wiped Out $10 Trillion in Wealth in 3 Days
The possibility of a business community revolt against this so far remains pretty low. But there's growing evidence of something approaching a mini rebellion of congressional Republicans against these tariffs. And I wonder if you can just talk briefly about that and where you think it might be headed.
The Daily
How Trump Wiped Out $10 Trillion in Wealth in 3 Days
It feels connected to that polling you just described about how uneasy many Americans are about these tariffs. Yeah.
The Daily
How Trump Wiped Out $10 Trillion in Wealth in 3 Days
Seven or eight of them have agreed to co-sponsor such legislation, right? Okay.
The Daily
How Trump Wiped Out $10 Trillion in Wealth in 3 Days
Mm-hmm. Well, help me understand the thinking of the Trump administration when it comes to this seemingly entrenched position they're in, that they can inflict a lot of pain on the stock market and on people's 401ks. And... not have it come full circle in the form of voters calling members of Congress and saying, I don't like this, do something about it, and them responding.
The Daily
How Trump Wiped Out $10 Trillion in Wealth in 3 Days
The only way I've been able to make sense of it so far is... In what the Treasury Secretary Scott Besson said a couple of days ago.
The Daily
How Trump Wiped Out $10 Trillion in Wealth in 3 Days
He talked about how, in his mind, the consequences of these tariffs so far are really only on the investor class. The argument that Besson seems to be making is that Trump's working class supporters are insulated from the initial pain of these tariffs. Is that the thinking so far?
The Daily
How Trump Wiped Out $10 Trillion in Wealth in 3 Days
But the problem— That's an important phrase you use, though, off-ramp. That's what Andrew Sorkin said everyone in corporate America is looking for. But if they get that off-ramp, it means that Trump was never serious about the tariffs being a solution— to reestablishing domestic manufacturing.
The Daily
How Trump Wiped Out $10 Trillion in Wealth in 3 Days
So to add to what Andrew said, the business world wants an off-ramp. Now, you say many of Trump's advisors, even his economic advisors, wish there were an off-ramp. There just seems to be one problem, which is that Trump himself may not want an off-ramp. He may be deeply committed to this as a long-term economic vision for the country.
The Daily
How Trump Wiped Out $10 Trillion in Wealth in 3 Days
Well, Jonathan, thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you.
The Daily
How Trump Wiped Out $10 Trillion in Wealth in 3 Days
On Monday, President Trump said that the United States would hold negotiations with Iran beginning this weekend in a last-ditch attempt to stop Iran's nuclear program. The talks are a turnaround for Trump, who pulled out of the last nuclear deal with Iran in 2018.
The Daily
How Trump Wiped Out $10 Trillion in Wealth in 3 Days
But Iran is moving closer than ever to a workable nuclear weapon, a prospect that neither the United States nor Israel say they can tolerate and might take military action to avoid.
The Daily
How Trump Wiped Out $10 Trillion in Wealth in 3 Days
Right. Donald Trump's decision to impose what are being described as universal tariffs have essentially crashed global stock markets. There's no other way to put it. So explain exactly why Trump tariffs equals the stock price of some of the most admired and financially seemingly well put together companies in the country.
The Daily
How Trump Wiped Out $10 Trillion in Wealth in 3 Days
I just want to restate this because I think it's worth putting a really fine point on how this gets back to the stock market. Apple products now hit with these tariffs in a country where it makes this phone. If they raise the price to make up for that tariff, then consumer demand goes down. Therefore, shareholders might think this company is not worth as much. I'm going to start to sell the stock.
The Daily
How Trump Wiped Out $10 Trillion in Wealth in 3 Days
If they eat the cost of it rather than passing it on to the consumer, then their corporate profits are hurt. Therefore, I might sell the stock because I don't think the company's worth as much as I did before these tariffs.
The Daily
How Trump Wiped Out $10 Trillion in Wealth in 3 Days
Now, as trillions of dollars in corporate value evaporates, Trump's support in the business world is cracking. And even Republican members of Congress are debating whether to take away Trump's power to wage a trade war.
The Daily
How Trump Wiped Out $10 Trillion in Wealth in 3 Days
And then you're adding to that, Andrew, the reality that the trauma that has just been inflicted on Apple stock is going to filter through the rest of corporate America to all the companies Apple touches or doesn't touch as much as it used to and their profits and their shareholder sense of that company's worth. I'm making this up, but I was thinking about this as you were talking about Apple.
The Daily
How Trump Wiped Out $10 Trillion in Wealth in 3 Days
Apple does a lot of advertising with social media companies like Instagram, I have to imagine, with Meta, and therefore that stock might fall.
The Daily
How Trump Wiped Out $10 Trillion in Wealth in 3 Days
Got it. So all of this magnified by the scale of the stock market itself helps you understand how Trump's tariffs equal trillions of dollars in lost corporate value over the past few days.
The Daily
How Trump Wiped Out $10 Trillion in Wealth in 3 Days
Even the kind of commodity-style, low-cost product of a McDonald's cheeseburger and a Starbucks medium cappuccino?
The Daily
How Trump Wiped Out $10 Trillion in Wealth in 3 Days
How many business leaders that you talk to are calling up the president and saying, hey, this is not sustainable. This is really a problem for us. Look at our stock price. This is a really, really big deal.
The Daily
How Trump Wiped Out $10 Trillion in Wealth in 3 Days
Or have they accepted that the president is deeply committed to a long-term project of tariffs no matter the economic suffering short-term, especially to corporations, out of his long-held belief that this is going to improve domestic manufacturing?
The Daily
How Trump Wiped Out $10 Trillion in Wealth in 3 Days
Well, there are two exceptions to what you just said over the past few days. One of them involves a billionaire investor named Bill Ackman, who throughout the presidential campaign vocally supported Donald Trump. And he, over the past 48 hours or so, comes out and says what many in his world do not. These tariffs are a big mistake.
The Daily
How Trump Wiped Out $10 Trillion in Wealth in 3 Days
Fascinating. That billionaires get spooked, but they do, by this president.
The Daily
How Trump Wiped Out $10 Trillion in Wealth in 3 Days
Today, Andrew Ross Sorkin with the view from the stock market and Jonathan Swan with the view from the White House. It's Tuesday, April 8th. Andrew, thank you for coming in the studio.
The Daily
How Trump Wiped Out $10 Trillion in Wealth in 3 Days
Let's talk about the second exception, which was Elon Musk. He says over the past few days – and we should establish, not that it needs saying, that his Trump-loyal bona fides are pretty much unquestioned at this point. He says, I think that we should be living in a world of zero tariffs between the United States and the European Union. specifically.
The Daily
How Trump Wiped Out $10 Trillion in Wealth in 3 Days
It's a pretty subtle but clear way of saying that this Trump universal tariff program, this is not good.
The Daily
How Trump Wiped Out $10 Trillion in Wealth in 3 Days
I'm glad you brought that up because I think this is an essential question. When you talk to business leaders, do they believe that what we are now in the middle of is a long-term reorienting of the American economy around high tariffs, protectionism, and a project of reestablishing domestic manufacturing? Or are they of the belief that the pain that they're currently experiencing is...
The Daily
How Trump Wiped Out $10 Trillion in Wealth in 3 Days
going to be a short-term one as the president negotiates tariff deal, tariff deal, tariff deal with the EU, with China, with Thailand, etc. Today, we saw that literally they're negotiating with Japan.
The Daily
How Trump Wiped Out $10 Trillion in Wealth in 3 Days
Right. And so what you're really saying is as all these business leaders stew over their lost stock prices and privately negotiate with the president, They're not really interested in giving him what he wants and what he would need for these tariffs to do the very thing they're supposed to do, which is to bring more manufacturing back to the U.S.
The Daily
How Trump Wiped Out $10 Trillion in Wealth in 3 Days
That's a pretty messy reality of this dynamic right now.
The Daily
Republicans Take Control of Congress — and Harris Certifies Her Own Loss
From The New York Times, I'm Michael Bavaro. This is The Daily. Today. During its first few days in power, the Republican-controlled House and Senate have vowed to put aside their furious intra-party battles to make Donald Trump's sweeping agenda the law of the land. I spoke with my colleague Katie Edmondson about how likely that actually is. It's Tuesday, January 7th.
The Daily
Republicans Take Control of Congress — and Harris Certifies Her Own Loss
Or else, right? I mean, that's the fundamental message here. If he doesn't deliver for especially these conservative fiscal house Republicans, they may decide one day to wake up and toss him out.
The Daily
Republicans Take Control of Congress — and Harris Certifies Her Own Loss
We'll be right back. So, Katie, describe the dynamic now at play over in the Senate side of the U.S. Capitol under Republican control.
The Daily
Republicans Take Control of Congress — and Harris Certifies Her Own Loss
And what's the story of his selection, his rather undramatic selection, compared to Mike Johnson's as Senate Majority Leader?
The Daily
Republicans Take Control of Congress — and Harris Certifies Her Own Loss
And we should think of Rick Scott as being that MAGA-style candidate.
The Daily
Republicans Take Control of Congress — and Harris Certifies Her Own Loss
Worth pointing out, as I think you're essentially doing, that the secret ballot means that a senator never really has to tell anybody, including potentially angry MAGA-supporting constituents, what they did in that vote.
The Daily
Republicans Take Control of Congress — and Harris Certifies Her Own Loss
Well, just to explain that, how should we think of Thune and what is his relationship to Donald Trump? You've made it clear that he was not the MAGA candidate. What is he exactly?
The Daily
Republicans Take Control of Congress — and Harris Certifies Her Own Loss
Where has it evolved from and what is it evolving into?
The Daily
Republicans Take Control of Congress — and Harris Certifies Her Own Loss
And what earned him that moniker, that slur, rhino, from Trump?
The Daily
Republicans Take Control of Congress — and Harris Certifies Her Own Loss
Right. I guess the question is, just how much or just how little?
The Daily
Republicans Take Control of Congress — and Harris Certifies Her Own Loss
So, Katie, let's bring all of this together now as we consider how this Congress is likely to operate over the next few weeks, next few months, next basically two years until there's a midterm election and things might change.
The Daily
Republicans Take Control of Congress — and Harris Certifies Her Own Loss
What underlies the drama in the House, as you explained, is the fact that they have a very small, razor-thin majority that allows these fiscal conservatives to exert a lot of power when they want to. They can simply withhold their support for either Johnson or any Republican bill. The reality is that the same situation basically holds true in the Senate, right?
The Daily
Republicans Take Control of Congress — and Harris Certifies Her Own Loss
There are just a few Senate Republicans who could block anything, whether it's a confirmation or a spending bill or an immigration bill. So is this a Republican-controlled House and Senate that's actually practically capable of getting Trump's agenda passed?
The Daily
Republicans Take Control of Congress — and Harris Certifies Her Own Loss
Right. Democrats did this with the Inflation Reduction Act.
The Daily
Republicans Take Control of Congress — and Harris Certifies Her Own Loss
Right. Getting a bill of this scale and this many different goals and competing interests passed in essentially three months.
The Daily
Republicans Take Control of Congress — and Harris Certifies Her Own Loss
It feels, Katie, that we should end where we began with the certification of the election and the reality that four years ago, we couldn't have had this kind of conversation. In fact, we didn't have this conversation because the Capitol... had just been overrun by rioters who believed Donald Trump's false claim that the election had been stolen. And it was chaos, and it was trauma.
The Daily
Republicans Take Control of Congress — and Harris Certifies Her Own Loss
And now, four years later, his victory to a second presidential term has been very peacefully certified, as you recounted, in a way that does give us the space to talk about his agenda and what his relationship with Congress will look like. And it's very ironic that he's now been on both ends of this day.
The Daily
Republicans Take Control of Congress — and Harris Certifies Her Own Loss
Well, Katie, thank you very much.
The Daily
Republicans Take Control of Congress — and Harris Certifies Her Own Loss
We'll be right back. Here's what else you need to know today. On Monday, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said that he would resign after almost a decade in power. His resignation follows months of calls by members of his own party that he step aside as both prime minister and leader of his party before major elections later this year. And a legal battle is brewing over the future of U.S.
The Daily
Republicans Take Control of Congress — and Harris Certifies Her Own Loss
steel. On Monday, three days after President Biden blocked the merger of Japan's Nippon Steel with U.S. Steel, both companies have sued to keep the $14 billion merger on track. In blocking the merger, Biden said that it risked U.S. national security, a claim that both companies have rejected. Today's episode was produced by Claire Tenesketter, Aastha Chaturvedi, and Rochelle Banja.
The Daily
Republicans Take Control of Congress — and Harris Certifies Her Own Loss
It was edited by Rachel Quester and Liz O'Balin. Contains original music by Dan Powell, Pat McCusker, Marian Lozano, and Alisha Ba'itub, and was engineered by Alyssa Moxley. Our theme music is by Jim Runberg and Ben Landverk of Wonderland. That's it for The Daily. I'm Michael Barbaro. See you tomorrow.
The Daily
Republicans Take Control of Congress — and Harris Certifies Her Own Loss
Right. It's all very respectful and it's the peaceful transfer of power in action. To your point earlier, a restoration of what is supposed to be a routine.
The Daily
Republicans Take Control of Congress — and Harris Certifies Her Own Loss
Well, talk us through that. What exactly happened last Friday?
The Daily
Republicans Take Control of Congress — and Harris Certifies Her Own Loss
And why exactly did they choose to fight this speaker's re-election given, and Katie, I think it was you who said this to me in one of those many conversations about this group of hard right fiscal conservatives, Johnson was for a long time considered a kind of kindred spirit to these House conservative Republicans and someone whose strong relationship with them would insulate him from this kind of rebellion.
The Daily
Republicans Take Control of Congress — and Harris Certifies Her Own Loss
For all the fiscal reasons we've been discussing.
The Daily
Republicans Take Control of Congress — and Harris Certifies Her Own Loss
Hmm. Silence. Silence.
The Daily
Republicans Take Control of Congress — and Harris Certifies Her Own Loss
So, Katie, take us, if you would, inside the House chamber on Monday afternoon for this pretty momentous ceremony.
The Daily
Republicans Take Control of Congress — and Harris Certifies Her Own Loss
Right, because at this moment, he has lost re-election, or he's not won it.
The Daily
Republicans Take Control of Congress — and Harris Certifies Her Own Loss
OK, so where does that math leave Mike Johnson?
The Daily
Republicans Take Control of Congress — and Harris Certifies Her Own Loss
we voted for you, but we don't really trust you, and we did it for Trump.
The Daily
Republicans Take Control of Congress — and Harris Certifies Her Own Loss
Katie, how do you understand what played out here? These House Republicans basically saying they're going to do this for Trump when Trump himself is somebody who has, when he was president, raised the national debt by trillions and trillions of dollars, which very much seems at odds with what these House fiscal conservatives say they care about. It almost feels like they're holding...
The Daily
Republicans Take Control of Congress — and Harris Certifies Her Own Loss
a lot of what's happened in the last few years against Johnson rather than Trump when, on top of all that, Trump is pledging to do things as president that would further increase the national debt.
The Daily
Republicans Take Control of Congress — and Harris Certifies Her Own Loss
So ultimately, they take out their frustration at Mike Johnson, at the speaker, because he's ultimately responsible for federal spending. So it makes a certain sense.
The Daily
Republicans Take Control of Congress — and Harris Certifies Her Own Loss
So what does all of this add up to when we think about how Republican control of the House is going to work with Donald Trump as president and Mike Johnson as speaker?
The Daily
North America Averted a Trade War — for Now
From The New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily. On Monday, North America came within hours of a multi-billion dollar trade war that was poised to hobble the economies of Mexico and Canada. Today... My colleagues, Anna Swanson, Matina Stevis-Gridneff, and Simone Romero, on the last-minute negotiations that headed off the crisis for now. It's Tuesday, February 4th.
The Daily
North America Averted a Trade War — for Now
That's fascinating. So given that, Ana, how should we think about this? Is this Mexico capitulating to Trump or Trump capitulating to Mexico? Should we see this as a genuine victory for U.S. national security or mostly symbolic? Because the reporting that Simone is describing suggests there's not exactly a migrant crisis of the scale we're used to thinking of at that border.
The Daily
North America Averted a Trade War — for Now
And then, of course, Smetana leaves Canada, kind of flapping in the wind here. What happens there as Mexico's leader seems to adeptly navigate this dynamic with Trump and sidesteps, temporarily at least, these tariffs? What happens with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau?
The Daily
North America Averted a Trade War — for Now
Right, and can we just say what an astonishing thing that is? is that in between two phone calls with Prime Minister Trudeau, what he's basically saying from the Oval Office is the easiest way to avoid tariffs is to become a United States state. I mean, just kind of deeply unusual.
The Daily
North America Averted a Trade War — for Now
And then, of course, we actually get this second call between Trudeau and Trump. But just tell us what happens.
The Daily
North America Averted a Trade War — for Now
Okay, and let's put China aside for just a moment, since it has felt like this was primarily about our neighbors to the north and south, Canada and Mexico. I want to put the impact of 25% tariffs into perspective for both countries, as conceived of over the past few days by Trump. What would it do to each of them and, in turn, China? I guess, to U.S. consumers. Martina, let me start with you.
The Daily
North America Averted a Trade War — for Now
Hmm. Are these feeling like meaningful concessions from Canada?
The Daily
North America Averted a Trade War — for Now
Okay, this is the question I have for all of you, and in no particular order. Was the juice worth the squeeze here? Was what Trump seemed to get from these two trading partners and neighbors to the North and South worth the market turmoil, the fear that it instilled in the governments of Mexico and in Canada, as well as among corporate leaders in the United States?
The Daily
North America Averted a Trade War — for Now
I don't know how to answer that question, but I'm hoping you do.
The Daily
North America Averted a Trade War — for Now
Sounds like the wounds will be deeper for Canada than for Mexico. And Ana, I want to know what you think from Trump's perspective and from those around him. Was it worth all of the drama? I'm going to guess the answer is yes.
The Daily
North America Averted a Trade War — for Now
Is it a stretch to say that America's foreign policy right now, given the way Trump is using tariffs, is basically about pain and what our trading partners' threshold for pain is?
The Daily
North America Averted a Trade War — for Now
Right. It's not useful to him if it's an unshot gun sitting on a table. At some point, he may need to fire it. Well, I want to thank you three, Matina, Simone, and Ana. We really appreciate it. Thank you.
The Daily
North America Averted a Trade War — for Now
Unlike his tariffs against Canada and Mexico, Trump's new 10% tariff on Chinese imports to the United States went into effect as planned this morning. On Monday, Trump said that those tariffs would not be his last against China, calling them, quote, an opening salvo.
The Daily
North America Averted a Trade War — for Now
It now appears that despite a polarizing record and a history of unorthodox views, former Democratic Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard has enough support to become the next director of national intelligence. Gabbard's support for Russia, her meeting with Syria's former leader, and her refusal to call Edward Snowden a traitor have alarmed Senate Republicans.
The Daily
North America Averted a Trade War — for Now
But on Monday, Gabbard won the support of moderate Republican Senator Susan Collins of Maine, who, along with Republican Senator James Lankford of Oklahoma, had previously expressed skepticism of Gabbard. With both senators now expected to back her, Gabbard's confirmation is all but assured. And Secretary of State Marco Rubio has unveiled plans to restructure and potentially abolish the U.S.
The Daily
North America Averted a Trade War — for Now
Agency for International Development, the lead U.S. agency for humanitarian assistance, which has become a target of Elon Musk's sweeping campaign of cost-cutting. Over the past few days, the White House has suspended several of USAID's senior leaders, and the agency's workers were told not to come to the office on Monday. As of now, Rubio said that he was the agency's acting director.
The Daily
North America Averted a Trade War — for Now
Musk's plans for the agency and his aggressive tactics across the federal government will be the subject of tomorrow's show. Today's episode was produced by Carlos Prieto and Rob Zipko. It was edited by Maria Byrne and Lisa Chow. Contains original music by Diane Wong and Pat McCusker and was engineered by Alyssa Moxley. Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Lansford of Wonderland.
The Daily
North America Averted a Trade War — for Now
That's it for The Daily. I'm Michael Barbaro. See you tomorrow.
The Daily
North America Averted a Trade War — for Now
And, Simon, putting aside the developments of Monday for just a moment, in theory, what would 25 percent tariffs mean for Mexico if slapped on it from the United States?
The Daily
North America Averted a Trade War — for Now
Right, and I can see why. We're talking about two recessions here, one in Canada, one in Mexico, if these tariffs were to go and affect his plan. And Ana, what was the stated rationale from President Trump for these tariffs against Canada and Mexico?
The Daily
North America Averted a Trade War — for Now
Right. And those are, of course, claims that we tend to associate with Mexico, not so much with Canada. So just from a fact-checking perspective, Matina, how real an issue are migrant border crossings and fentanyl entering the United States from Canada?
The Daily
North America Averted a Trade War — for Now
Got it. So that's a helpful perspective. I want to talk about the reaction from both Canada and Mexico, especially over the weekend when President Trump made clear in his telling, this was not going to be a bluff, that these tariffs were going to begin Tuesday morning, 1201. Matina, I know we just heard from you, but I want to begin with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
The Daily
North America Averted a Trade War — for Now
He sounded, interestingly, both kind of rueful and quite forceful at the same time.
The Daily
North America Averted a Trade War — for Now
What's an example of one of the products that he would tariff in a retaliatory manner at 25%? It might be kind of interesting to name it.
The Daily
North America Averted a Trade War — for Now
Meant to hit, it sounds like, Americans at different geographies and it seems like income levels.
The Daily
North America Averted a Trade War — for Now
Bourbon, of course, Kentucky, Senator Mitch McConnell, Republican. Simone, what's the reaction from Mexico's leader when Trump lays this out and says, it's going to happen, it's going to happen fast, it's going to happen big?
The Daily
North America Averted a Trade War — for Now
So, friends, welcome. Ana, you are joining us from Washington, D.C., Matina from Toronto, Canada, and Simone from Mexico City. Thank you all for being here on very short notice. We appreciate it. Thanks. Thank you. Good to be here. Thanks for having us.
The Daily
North America Averted a Trade War — for Now
Right. I mean, her point was, I'm willing to negotiate, but you should know that your drug and violence problem is your drug and violence problem, not necessarily our making. And I want to ask you something. As both of these neighboring countries are essentially saying to President Trump a version of this feels like a manufactured standoff and crisis.
The Daily
North America Averted a Trade War — for Now
I think those of us who have studied Trump's relationship to tariffs for some time and remember especially how he campaigned on them originally in 2016, we tend to think about the purpose of tariffs to Trump and to the entire MAGA movement as weapons that induce corruption. Not border security, but a restoration of domestic manufacturing.
The Daily
North America Averted a Trade War — for Now
But that's not what Trump seems to be up to here, and that's not how the leaders of Canada and Mexico see him operating right now.
The Daily
North America Averted a Trade War — for Now
And the reason we wanted you to be here is because we want to make sense of a very fast-moving story playing out in all three of the countries where you are based, involving the leaders from each of those countries that brought us to the verge of... a historic and very consequential trade war between them. Ana, I want to start with you.
The Daily
North America Averted a Trade War — for Now
Right. And of course, that leaves a message to everybody involved in this standoff that he's very open to negotiation because it's not a long-term economic strategy the way we have thought about it. Okay, so Monday morning dawns, and Simone, the U.S. stock market does not like these impending tariffs. And the question is, will Trump actually go through with it?
The Daily
North America Averted a Trade War — for Now
Okay, we're going to take a break. And when we come back, we're going to talk about that deal. We'll be right back. So, Simon, what are the terms of this deal with Mexico that was reached when everyone didn't even know the two of them were on the phone and all of Mexico was waiting to hear from its president?
The Daily
North America Averted a Trade War — for Now
Okay, the recent historian in me wants to point out that President Biden had persuaded Mexico, I believe in 2021, to add 10,000 troops to the U.S.-Mexico border to enforce the border. Is this going to be in addition to those? Is it bringing them back? Should we doubt the meaning of adding 10,000 troops when it happened four years ago without a major standoff over tariffs?
The Daily
North America Averted a Trade War — for Now
What had been President Trump's original plan for what this morning would look like, the plan before the plan changed?
The Daily
The Year in Wisdom
Hey, it's Michael. For our final episode of 2024, guest host Melissa Kirsch is back, talking with some of our Times colleagues about the year's best advice for living well. I think this one's really special. Take a listen.
The Daily
The New Co-Hosts of 'The Daily'
I mean, she wasn't just talking with the survivors. She also talked to the guerrilla fighters who were part of the conflict. She talked to the ex-army commanders who were involved in some of these massacres. And so I was going in and out of these often tense conversations and just getting all sides of this very complicated story.
The Daily
The New Co-Hosts of 'The Daily'
And I took that with me right out of college when I was looking for a job. I realized you could get paid to do this. And it's basically what I've done ever since. And what about you, Rachel? I have to follow that? God, I'm sorry.
The Daily
The New Co-Hosts of 'The Daily'
Well, and you. It's the three of us. Yeah. The three of us, yep.
The Daily
The New Co-Hosts of 'The Daily'
Come on in. I'm going to sit in the middle. Okay, I'm taking the flank.
The Daily
The New Co-Hosts of 'The Daily'
I think really the most recent stories that I did are the clearest example of how those lessons I learned early on began to apply. Because I spent, as you know, because we talked about on the show, several months investigating the Sinaloa cartel as a way of understanding the fentanyl crisis that was killing, you know, tens of thousands of Americans.
The Daily
The New Co-Hosts of 'The Daily'
We really tried to get inside the cartel by going to Sinaloa, visiting a fentanyl lab where they were cooking and producing the drug, talking to chemists. We talked to people who were tested on by the cartels as they were looking to perfect their formulas for these drugs.
The Daily
The New Co-Hosts of 'The Daily'
It was risky, it was dangerous, but it was the only way that I knew to try to understand how this billion-dollar business worked. behind this incredibly lethal drug actually worked. And yeah, I was reminded of all of those hours in a car, going up to the mountains, sitting and just listening with my mom.
The Daily
The New Co-Hosts of 'The Daily'
I mean, I love The Daily. I remember when the show first started and it oriented me. As a reporter covering this world, I needed to listen to what was on The Daily because it helped me think about coverage. And then I got to be a guest on the show, as we said. I worked with some of the very same editors. Mm-hmm. and producers who are still running this show.
The Daily
The New Co-Hosts of 'The Daily'
So it feels like it's been a home away from home for me for a long time now. And so I'm excited to make it permanent. And you, Rachel?
The Daily
The New Co-Hosts of 'The Daily'
Yes, we have so many questions. But the basic one, how do you think about this job, about hosting the show?
The Daily
The New Co-Hosts of 'The Daily'
No, can I? I'm going to do the honors. Please. Is that okay? Okay. Michael, Rachel, thank you so much. You're very welcome. You're welcome. Okay, Rachel, you want to?
The Daily
The New Co-Hosts of 'The Daily'
Thank you. You're welcome. You're welcome. All right, now my turn.
The Daily
The New Co-Hosts of 'The Daily'
I think that I got to give my mom credit on this one. She is a professor of Latin American politics. She was always, from when I was really young, doing research in Guatemala. And when I turned 12, she started taking me there. And her research was doing interviews with victims and survivors of the genocide in Guatemala. And I would go and do these interviews with her.
The Daily
The Housing Market Has New Rules. Realtors Are Evading Them.
From The New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily Watch. Last year, a historic legal settlement created sweeping new reforms that were supposed to lower the price of buying and selling a home across the country. But those reforms would cost realtors money. And so those realtors, it turns out, have found ways to evade the new reforms.
The Daily
The Housing Market Has New Rules. Realtors Are Evading Them.
Because like you said, this house is ready to sell. It's pristine. So in his mind, it doesn't need the kind of attention, the kind of love, the kind of investment that a seller's agent can bring when a house is in rougher shape, when it needs work. Yes.
The Daily
The Housing Market Has New Rules. Realtors Are Evading Them.
Okay. And what happens once Mike decides to go it on his own based on all these frustrations with realtors in Boulder?
The Daily
The Housing Market Has New Rules. Realtors Are Evading Them.
I'm just going to slow this down to make sure I understand. Sure. He knows he's going to have to offer some percentage commission to the buyer's agent. He himself is his own agent, so he's the seller's agent. That's taken care of.
The Daily
The Housing Market Has New Rules. Realtors Are Evading Them.
So he's already winning in a sense because the commission he's paying is probably going to be, what, around half of what he would normally pay if he had to pay both the buyer and the seller's agent.
The Daily
The Housing Market Has New Rules. Realtors Are Evading Them.
So the agents strike back again.
The Daily
The Housing Market Has New Rules. Realtors Are Evading Them.
So agents who might represent potential buyers who would love to have a $2.7 million turnkey house in Boulder are saying, we are not going to take our potential buyers to this house. We're going to boycott it.
The Daily
The Housing Market Has New Rules. Realtors Are Evading Them.
And what would be the explanation that these agents would have for steering people away from Mike's house?
The Daily
The Housing Market Has New Rules. Realtors Are Evading Them.
So what ends up happening to Mike and to his house?
The Daily
The Housing Market Has New Rules. Realtors Are Evading Them.
Right, because everything you found and he found is that one way or another, agents are still operating to a real degree in the shadows as they try to ensure that the commission structure that is supposed to be negotiable is actually not all that negotiable.
The Daily
The Housing Market Has New Rules. Realtors Are Evading Them.
So surely the government regulators know what you know. Maybe that's asking too much. Well, they read us. They do. Right. They know what you know based on your reporting, and they would seem to have a real interest in enforcing the original settlement in as broad a way as possible, right? So is that happening?
The Daily
The Housing Market Has New Rules. Realtors Are Evading Them.
Is there an effort underway to clarify some of this confusion that you are still seeing out there?
The Daily
The Housing Market Has New Rules. Realtors Are Evading Them.
Right, it wasn't a government lawsuit.
The Daily
The Housing Market Has New Rules. Realtors Are Evading Them.
Understood. I think it makes sense to end here with a little bit of news that you can use, which isn't exactly the space we normally occupy, but I'm just going to assume that somewhere in the universe of daily listeners are –
The Daily
The Housing Market Has New Rules. Realtors Are Evading Them.
Right. You described them as so powerful that they've trademarked the word real estate agent.
The Daily
The Housing Market Has New Rules. Realtors Are Evading Them.
folks who are thinking of buying or selling their home or perhaps are in the process of buying or selling a home and could benefit from the journalistic wisdom that you have accumulated over the past year or so reporting on this.
The Daily
The Housing Market Has New Rules. Realtors Are Evading Them.
So what would you say to people who are trying to figure this out, perhaps aren't willing to do what Mike did, which is actually take charge of the whole process themselves, but they just want to be able to navigate the current dynamic in the best way possible?
The Daily
The Housing Market Has New Rules. Realtors Are Evading Them.
You, a real estate reporter, didn't ask about the commission.
The Daily
The Housing Market Has New Rules. Realtors Are Evading Them.
It's my understanding, based on everything I have read, that this legal settlement has only officially been in place, I think, for a little bit less than a year.
The Daily
The Housing Market Has New Rules. Realtors Are Evading Them.
Exactly. So I wonder if there's a case to be made that as successful as all these workarounds have been, that it's still very early days, and that over time, the system could change to better benefit the consumer as they become more aware of guidance like what you're talking about here and of the new realities and rules that are now in place.
The Daily
The Housing Market Has New Rules. Realtors Are Evading Them.
Or if you think that the more time goes by, the more power that realtors and the realty industry will accumulate.
The Daily
The Housing Market Has New Rules. Realtors Are Evading Them.
Right. VHS didn't just go the way of the dodo overnight. It probably took, what, 10, 15, 20 years?
The Daily
The Housing Market Has New Rules. Realtors Are Evading Them.
We'll be right back. Here's what else you need to know today. Canadians have chosen Mark Carney as their next prime minister after a campaign in which he vowed to fight back against President Trump's tariffs and his threats of annexation.
The Daily
The Housing Market Has New Rules. Realtors Are Evading Them.
It was a major comeback for Carney and his Liberal Party, which just a few months ago seemed destined for a historic defeat to the Conservative Party and its candidate. But as Trump's attacks on Canada have intensified, Canadians were increasingly drawn to Carney's promise to stand up to the American leader.
The Daily
The Housing Market Has New Rules. Realtors Are Evading Them.
And on Monday, Spain and Portugal were hit by a major power outage that disabled traffic lights, trains, subways and airline flights. Officials have not said what caused the outage, which affected tens of millions of people, but they said it did not appear to be an act of deliberate sabotage like a cyber attack.
The Daily
The Housing Market Has New Rules. Realtors Are Evading Them.
Today's episode was produced by Muj Sadi, Rochelle Banja, Olivia Nat, and Diana Nguyen. It was edited by Liz O. Balin, contains original music by Pat McCusker, Diane Wong, and Dan Powell, and was engineered by Alyssa Moxley. Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Lansford of Wonderly. Special thanks to Nick Pittman. That's it for The Daily. I'm Michael Barbaro. See you tomorrow.
The Daily
The Housing Market Has New Rules. Realtors Are Evading Them.
Right. And I remember from our first conversation that that price-fixing claim really revolves around the amount of money that you owe the agents— that comes out of selling a house.
The Daily
The Housing Market Has New Rules. Realtors Are Evading Them.
No longer were they simply tablets handed down from gone on the mountain. In the real estate industry, they were subject potentially to negotiation, conversation, and potentially they could go way, way down, maybe even go away.
The Daily
The Housing Market Has New Rules. Realtors Are Evading Them.
been anti-competitive it's blocked competition now it's changed now home sellers can say i want to pay x i want to pay y it's up to you how much commission you want to pay right and that brings us back to our superlatives because if suddenly a six percent commission on a home sale might not be six percent but might be five or four or three or whatever then suddenly home prices might change might go down
The Daily
The Housing Market Has New Rules. Realtors Are Evading Them.
So let's talk about the big and then moment in this story of why all this promised superlative change has not come to pass.
The Daily
The Housing Market Has New Rules. Realtors Are Evading Them.
Right. These are online portals used by real estate agents to basically list house.
The Daily
The Housing Market Has New Rules. Realtors Are Evading Them.
My colleague, Deborah Kamen, explains how they did it. It's Tuesday, April 29th. Michael. Welcome back to The Daily.
The Daily
The Housing Market Has New Rules. Realtors Are Evading Them.
This is probably the place where we need to remind everyone that commissions tend to be split, right, between the agent for the buyer and the agent for the seller.
The Daily
The Housing Market Has New Rules. Realtors Are Evading Them.
Even though it comes out of the seller's pocket.
The Daily
The Housing Market Has New Rules. Realtors Are Evading Them.
So where exactly do these conversations move to once the premier trade group of the realtor world says to them, go be creative and find a new place to have these conversations?
The Daily
The Housing Market Has New Rules. Realtors Are Evading Them.
During a showing of the house.
The Daily
The Housing Market Has New Rules. Realtors Are Evading Them.
Oh my gosh. A real kind of open winking of defiance.
The Daily
The Housing Market Has New Rules. Realtors Are Evading Them.
It's really nice to see your face. In the flesh. In the flesh. So a year ago, as many listeners I hope will remember, you came on The Daily to describe this really bombshell legal settlement that was supposed to transform how homes are sold in the United States.
The Daily
The Housing Market Has New Rules. Realtors Are Evading Them.
So this is pretty open and creative and perhaps legal flouting of this ruling and settlement. How much, Deborah, do you think that this represents real estate agents thinking to themselves, look, this is how we get paid? Our work is important to the process. We are essential.
The Daily
The Housing Market Has New Rules. Realtors Are Evading Them.
And many people will tell you that they're, especially on the seller side broker, work their tush off, increase the value of their home. Maybe not everyone.
The Daily
The Housing Market Has New Rules. Realtors Are Evading Them.
So isn't this the equivalent of agents creatively fighting to keep The equivalent of a waiter's 15% tip. It's like, it's what they need to live.
The Daily
The Housing Market Has New Rules. Realtors Are Evading Them.
Right. So how effective have the great workarounds that you're describing here been in preventing the reforms and reductions in price that we thought this settlement was going to usher in?
The Daily
The Housing Market Has New Rules. Realtors Are Evading Them.
And I want to start by having you remind us what that settlement was all about and why it was we felt wrongly, as it turns out, that this was going to be such a watershed moment.
The Daily
The Housing Market Has New Rules. Realtors Are Evading Them.
Right, the ones interacting most directly with the commissioners.
The Daily
The Housing Market Has New Rules. Realtors Are Evading Them.
We'll be right back. So, Deborah, tell us about some of the sellers who tried to go it alone because they're so frustrated with the world of realtors, with the commissions and the status quo, and about the resistance that, as you said just before the break, they encounter when they try to do that.
The Daily
Nixon Dreamed of Breaking the Media. Trump Is Doing It.
From The New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily. As President Trump set out to systematically eliminate or intimidate those who stand in his way, from inspectors general to judges to law firms, the news media loomed as one of his most stubborn obstacles. Or so it seemed. Today,
The Daily
Nixon Dreamed of Breaking the Media. Trump Is Doing It.
Right. Just to say, Jim, by my informal math, if you take X and you add in Joe Rogan alone, you are looking at... An audience of, what, 70, 80 million?
The Daily
Nixon Dreamed of Breaking the Media. Trump Is Doing It.
But most importantly, her. Right. That we will potentially... Recruit someone to run against you in a Republican primary in Iowa and make sure that you are no longer a member of the United States Senate. This will cost you your seat.
The Daily
Nixon Dreamed of Breaking the Media. Trump Is Doing It.
In other words, Kirk has effectuated the change in vote that Hegseth needs from Joni Ernst to become the next Secretary of Defense. And what you're describing is a very new form of not just cheerleading and not just supporting, but active... media coordination with enforcement of the president's agenda. Exactly.
The Daily
Nixon Dreamed of Breaking the Media. Trump Is Doing It.
So to go back to Nixon for just a moment, what he wanted, by your account, most, was to somehow get around journalists like Walter Cronkite, who he was so frustrated with, and so frustrated that he couldn't get around. With Trump... That dynamic has been kind of inverted, right? Trump doesn't have to go around the mainstream media.
The Daily
Nixon Dreamed of Breaking the Media. Trump Is Doing It.
This new Trumposphere in the media is already working with him and for him. And in that sense, Trump doesn't even need the mainstream media.
The Daily
Nixon Dreamed of Breaking the Media. Trump Is Doing It.
And importantly, they can back that claim up with their numbers, with their audience.
The Daily
Nixon Dreamed of Breaking the Media. Trump Is Doing It.
We'll be right back. Jim, as we turn to Trump's efforts to try to break the back of the traditional mainstream media, I think we have to ask the very simple question of why this remains a priority of his if he has the enormous influence in this new Trump adjacent media you just described. He doesn't, in some sense, need, it would seem, the mainstream media.
The Daily
Nixon Dreamed of Breaking the Media. Trump Is Doing It.
The mainstream media has significant economic problems we've talked about for years on this show with you. And trust in the mainstream media, I believe, is at an all-time low. So why is Trump so determined to try to cripple it? Right.
The Daily
Nixon Dreamed of Breaking the Media. Trump Is Doing It.
Just the way Cronkite was to Nixon. Exactly. So with that in mind, how is the president in this second run at being president attempting to go after and maybe even destroy the mainstream media?
The Daily
Nixon Dreamed of Breaking the Media. Trump Is Doing It.
Over this edit of this interview with Kamala Harris.
The Daily
Nixon Dreamed of Breaking the Media. Trump Is Doing It.
Right. And we should say, I think it's during this process of CBS participating in this FCC investigation that we all finally get a look at the original transcript and the editing. And basically, we all learn simultaneously that there's nothing to see here. This is a very natural editing process. There was no effort to protect Kamala Harris.
The Daily
Nixon Dreamed of Breaking the Media. Trump Is Doing It.
Right. And the reason this would seem to matter, back to this question of how is Trump trying to break the back of the news media, is that he seems to be— pretty effectively transforming the regulatory body that oversees especially TV news and turning it into this pretty invasive weapon that can be wielded against the major news outlets and presumably have a chilling effect. If you're CBS's
The Daily
Nixon Dreamed of Breaking the Media. Trump Is Doing It.
60 Minutes or anything else inside CBS or if you're any of the shows at NBC, you're thinking to yourselves, we have to be really careful about how we cover Donald Trump because if we get crosswise with him, then the FCC might come after us.
The Daily
Nixon Dreamed of Breaking the Media. Trump Is Doing It.
Right, and even if he's only musing at this point, this once again adds to the chilling effect we've seen in TV news, but also I think we should add in print, where we've seen the owners of the LA Times and the Washington Post block their editorial boards from endorsing Kamala Harris as both plan to.
The Daily
Nixon Dreamed of Breaking the Media. Trump Is Doing It.
It's been widely noted in the case of the Washington Post that its owner, Jeff Bezos, has a lot of government contracts before Trump And Trump has threatened his government contracts in the past. So we have a clear sense now of how Trump is using both the courts and the power of the federal government against the media.
The Daily
Nixon Dreamed of Breaking the Media. Trump Is Doing It.
Excluded, basically, from access to things like an Oval Office meeting between Trump and the leader of a foreign country.
The Daily
Nixon Dreamed of Breaking the Media. Trump Is Doing It.
A pretty vivid example of what a new pool looks and sounds like, it kind of looks like Thank you.
The Daily
Nixon Dreamed of Breaking the Media. Trump Is Doing It.
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you
The Daily
Nixon Dreamed of Breaking the Media. Trump Is Doing It.
So in the end, Richard Nixon's relationship with the media is he's furious with it, wants to weaken it, wants to stop it, can't, and the media quite literally conquers him.
The Daily
Nixon Dreamed of Breaking the Media. Trump Is Doing It.
my colleague Jim Rutenberg, on how Trump is both circumventing and undermining the fourth estate in a way no president before him ever has. It's Tuesday, March 25th. Jim, we are talking today about the state of the news media under President Trump in his second term.
The Daily
Nixon Dreamed of Breaking the Media. Trump Is Doing It.
So talk to us about the mechanics of how Trump is Doing what Nixon couldn't. Realizing Nixon's fantasy of a relationship with the media. Starting with Trump's ability, as you just said, to go around this monolithic media.
The Daily
Nixon Dreamed of Breaking the Media. Trump Is Doing It.
I think it's worth just describing this. If you open up X, what used to be Twitter, under Elon Musk, and now in the era of Donald Trump, you experience... something very different than what you did a couple of years ago.
The Daily
Nixon Dreamed of Breaking the Media. Trump Is Doing It.
I mean, I could open mine and show you this, but essentially, whether it's Elon Musk himself coming on to praise President Trump or a bunch of conservative accounts I had never followed suddenly are very prominent on my feed. I used to just follow a bunch of journalists and use it for informational purposes. But very much it now feels like a daily megaphone for Trump and the entire MAGA movement.
The Daily
Nixon Dreamed of Breaking the Media. Trump Is Doing It.
In my experience, radically the same for you.
The Daily
Nixon Dreamed of Breaking the Media. Trump Is Doing It.
Right. And it just seems important to note that suddenly one of the most important, widely used social media platforms in the country, if not the world, is is being managed for the president.
The Daily
Nixon Dreamed of Breaking the Media. Trump Is Doing It.
And when we brought this subject to you, a student of the media for— Many—I'm not going to say how many— We don't talk in decades in my household. We don't talk in decades. Many years. Yep. Former media columnist here at The Times. You're writing a book about the news media. When we brought this subject to you, you kept pointing us to Richard Nixon. I did. Former President Nixon. Why?
The Daily
How a Skeptical Critic Came to Love Bad Christmas Movies
That's you and the Hallmark holiday movie?
The Daily
How a Skeptical Critic Came to Love Bad Christmas Movies
Just explain that. How have they gotten a little bit more arch? Because from everything you're saying, the formula is faithful and not arch.
The Daily
How a Skeptical Critic Came to Love Bad Christmas Movies
Which has been emblazoned across my Netflix homepage.
The Daily
How a Skeptical Critic Came to Love Bad Christmas Movies
Of course they do. A little spice on the old Hallmark formula.
The Daily
How a Skeptical Critic Came to Love Bad Christmas Movies
Okay, first of all, my shirt was dry.
The Daily
How a Skeptical Critic Came to Love Bad Christmas Movies
So, Amanda, when you finished this exercise of immersing yourself in the world of these holiday movies this fall and now into this winter, you ended up writing about it in an essay that ran in The Times entitled How I Aged into the Bad Christmas Movie. What was the response to that essay?
The Daily
How a Skeptical Critic Came to Love Bad Christmas Movies
Which is to say, as a formulaic escape, as a predictable way of navigating a challenging time.
The Daily
How a Skeptical Critic Came to Love Bad Christmas Movies
Is there one of these emails that stands out to you?
The Daily
How a Skeptical Critic Came to Love Bad Christmas Movies
She's describing this as a kind of inheritance.
The Daily
How a Skeptical Critic Came to Love Bad Christmas Movies
That is literally the mirror image of what happened to you.
The Daily
How a Skeptical Critic Came to Love Bad Christmas Movies
Yeah. You're more universal than you maybe give yourself credit for.
The Daily
How a Skeptical Critic Came to Love Bad Christmas Movies
In listening to you read those emails and assuming that there's dozens more like them in your inbox... It occurs to me that the phenomenon you're experiencing here is not that complicated, right? And maybe in the beginning, you overcomplicated the whole thing with your view of these movies. And you should have never doubted their value.
The Daily
How a Skeptical Critic Came to Love Bad Christmas Movies
Well, before we get to how you became this person who watches these movies, I want you to describe, especially for the unacquainted, this entire universe of made for TV movies. Just give us a little bit of background about it.
The Daily
How a Skeptical Critic Came to Love Bad Christmas Movies
I mean, we do at The New York Times tend to fetishize complexity, right? Right. In arts and in culture. But complex doesn't always make for a comforting ritual because life is pretty complicated as it is. So maybe the movies don't have to be.
The Daily
How a Skeptical Critic Came to Love Bad Christmas Movies
So what is the future here between you and this brand of movie? Is this like a forever thing?
The Daily
How a Skeptical Critic Came to Love Bad Christmas Movies
Yeah. I mean, to put this very simply, they've got you.
The Daily
How a Skeptical Critic Came to Love Bad Christmas Movies
You didn't want to be gotten, but you got.
The Daily
How a Skeptical Critic Came to Love Bad Christmas Movies
Well, Amanda, thank you very much for being here. As it happens, this is the last episode that we are going to be running of The Daily before Christmas Day. So, Merry Christmas to you.
The Daily
How a Skeptical Critic Came to Love Bad Christmas Movies
We'll be right back. Here's what else you need to know today. On Monday, President Biden commuted the sentences of nearly all prisoners on federal death row, meaning that they will instead serve life sentences without parole. The decision prevents President-elect Trump from ordering the prisoners executions as he has promised to do.
The Daily
How a Skeptical Critic Came to Love Bad Christmas Movies
Biden campaigned on ending the federal death penalty and ordered that such executions be stopped during his presidency. Still, he did not commute the sentences of three notorious death row prisoners who were convicted of hate-motivated mass murder and terrorism, including the Boston Marathon bomber.
The Daily
How a Skeptical Critic Came to Love Bad Christmas Movies
And a highly anticipated report by the House Ethics Committee found that Matt Gaetz, the former Republican congressman from Florida, regularly paid for sex, had sexual relations with an underage girl, and used illegal drugs.
The Daily
How a Skeptical Critic Came to Love Bad Christmas Movies
Gaetz, who resigned from Congress last month, was Trump's pick to run the Department of Justice before he withdrew over accusations that were largely confirmed by the House Ethics Report. Gaetz, for his part, denies any wrongdoing. Today's episode was produced by Rob Zipko, Alex Stern, and Michael Simon-Johnson. It was edited by Rachel Quester, with help from Lexi Diao.
The Daily
How a Skeptical Critic Came to Love Bad Christmas Movies
Contains original music by Alishaba Etube and Diane Wong, and was engineered by Alyssa Moxley. Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Lansford of Wonderly. That's it for The Daily. I'm Michael Bilboro. See you tomorrow.
The Daily
How a Skeptical Critic Came to Love Bad Christmas Movies
One fake snowstorm per film. What are the names of some of these movies, just so we know what we're talking about here?
The Daily
How a Skeptical Critic Came to Love Bad Christmas Movies
There's not a lot of variation in this titling.
The Daily
How a Skeptical Critic Came to Love Bad Christmas Movies
So I want to now dive into this journey that you have been on with these movies. What had been your relationship to them up until quite recently?
The Daily
How a Skeptical Critic Came to Love Bad Christmas Movies
But then, as the narrator of a movie might say, one fateful day, things changed for you. So tell us that story.
The Daily
How a Skeptical Critic Came to Love Bad Christmas Movies
Well, just explain that. I mean, unpack for us why these movies were such a balm for you in this vulnerable moment.
The Daily
How a Skeptical Critic Came to Love Bad Christmas Movies
From The New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily. Today, the story of how a big city culture critic, Amanda Hess, found love where she least expected it. In the monotony of Hallmark's Christmas movies. It's Tuesday, December 24th. You write about culture for The Times. You're a critic.
The Daily
How a Skeptical Critic Came to Love Bad Christmas Movies
And that is how Grandin Falls got her nickname, Christmastown.
The Daily
How a Skeptical Critic Came to Love Bad Christmas Movies
This, of course, is a moment of physicality and a blossoming love.
The Daily
How a Skeptical Critic Came to Love Bad Christmas Movies
And you're here today to talk about a subject that, I'll be honest, I don't think I or many of us on the show ever imagined might be an episode of today. The Daily, you are going to be providing an exploration, a meditation, whatever you want to call it, a kind of study of the made-for-TV Christmas movie, which you contend has not quite gotten the critical attention that it deserves.
The Daily
How a Skeptical Critic Came to Love Bad Christmas Movies
I mean, these are pretty cliched plot lines. So what was it about this formula that you just described that serves you so well back in November when you start watching this?
The Daily
How a Skeptical Critic Came to Love Bad Christmas Movies
You didn't want much to be demanded of you.
The Daily
How a Skeptical Critic Came to Love Bad Christmas Movies
I'm thinking back to what you said at the beginning of this conversation, which is that when you were not as familiar with these films, and when you were not in an acute phase of being very open to them because of this medical situation happening around you, you found them to be anti-feminist. And if I'm reading the room correctly, you thought you were a little bit better than these movies.
The Daily
How a Skeptical Critic Came to Love Bad Christmas Movies
And yet, you go through this phase where you're very open to them, they are this solution to something, and you've warmed to them a lot. So what does that tell us, not just about these movies and their formula, but about you? What did you learn about yourself?
The Daily
How a Skeptical Critic Came to Love Bad Christmas Movies
Right. And she's finding a different kind of fulfillment than the big city media kind of world. Right. Just to name an example. So I guess in your affection for these movies, you learn that you have changed, and in the ways that you have changed, you identify more with these larger questions and perhaps even critiques of modern ambition and quote-unquote success.
The Daily
How a Skeptical Critic Came to Love Bad Christmas Movies
And specifically, you're going to be talking to us here about that most familiar brand of made-for-TV Christmas movie, the Hallmark Channel Christmas movie. That is our...
The Daily
How a Skeptical Critic Came to Love Bad Christmas Movies
What does the critic in you make of this journey that you have been on? From skeptic and maybe even slightly disdainful skeptic to maybe not even all that grudging a fan.
The Daily
How Pope Francis Changed the Catholic Church
We'll be right back. Jason, talk about this backlash that you just mentioned, which I think means talking through what changes Pope Francis brings to the day-to-day operations and teachings of the church itself, not just the things he's saying to the outside world.
The Daily
How Pope Francis Changed the Catholic Church
This is looking like a real kind of traditionalist housecleaning.
The Daily
How Pope Francis Changed the Catholic Church
So, Jason, as this revolt, as you're describing it, is playing out among the conservative wings of the church, I'm curious how the progressive side of the ledger is seeing Pope Francis, because the things you're describing, the personnel changes that he's making, I'm guessing that they don't satisfy...
The Daily
How Pope Francis Changed the Catholic Church
the appetite for change among progressives who want big sweeping changes around issues like who can be a priest and who can take communion.
The Daily
How Pope Francis Changed the Catholic Church
Well, why do you think that he wasn't willing to use this extraordinary authority he has to to make these kinds of changes? I mean, if he's willing to say to the U.S. conservative wing of the Catholic Church, you know, I'm sorry you don't like it. If you need to break off, break off.
The Daily
How Pope Francis Changed the Catholic Church
If he's willing to do that, why not make some of the changes that it felt like in his heart he might have wanted to make? Or is that a misreading of it? Is it the case that he actually didn't want to see these changes? Or was he worried that he might take the church someplace it wasn't ready to go?
The Daily
How Pope Francis Changed the Catholic Church
Well, that's, I think, what we really want to talk to you about. The legacy and meaning of this papacy, which... turned out to be in some ways more divisive than I think those of us watching from the very beginning might have imagined that it might be. And I think actually you came to Rome pretty much around the same time that Francis became Pope.
The Daily
How Pope Francis Changed the Catholic Church
Jason, listening to you talk, I'm thinking of that phrase you used at the beginning of our conversation about the dividing line over Francis. And in hearing you talk about what Francis was willing to let upset conservatives and liberals—
The Daily
How Pope Francis Changed the Catholic Church
The through line seems to be a desire to make sure that the largest number of Catholics possible in the fastest growing places in the world end up seeing the church as relevant. And if something doesn't do that, he doesn't really want to be a part of it. And if someone stands in his way, of something that might do that, he would dismiss them. Am I getting that right?
The Daily
How Pope Francis Changed the Catholic Church
Well, Jason, the really complex portrait you were presenting here is of a pope who inspires both the progressive and conservative wings of the Catholic Church to think things that don't really come to pass. The progressive wing thinks that Francis is going to be this revolutionary figure who delivers decades' worth of changes in a short period, and he doesn't, on all kinds of fronts.
The Daily
How Pope Francis Changed the Catholic Church
And then the conservative wing is suspicious of him in this profound way, thinks he's going to tear the church apart and break all its traditions. And he doesn't do that either. So in a sense, he lets down both sides. I mean, in that sense, what exactly is his legacy when we think about that concept you brought up at the very beginning of this dividing line and where he sits on it?
The Daily
How Pope Francis Changed the Catholic Church
So I want you to just talk a little bit about the ultimate legacy of Francis.
The Daily
How Pope Francis Changed the Catholic Church
I mean, what you're describing is a kind of great seeding of future change by a pope who didn't necessarily make the big changes himself.
The Daily
How Pope Francis Changed the Catholic Church
Jason, thank you very much. We appreciate it.
The Daily
How Pope Francis Changed the Catholic Church
On Monday night, my colleague Emma Bobola spoke to some of those who had come to St. Peter's Square in order to honor and mourn Pope Francis.
The Daily
How Pope Francis Changed the Catholic Church
The Vatican says that unlike many of his predecessors, Pope Francis has chosen not to be buried inside the Vatican. Instead, he will be laid to rest at a church in Rome in an undecorated tomb bearing a single word, Franciscus, Latin for Francis.
The Daily
How Pope Francis Changed the Catholic Church
Shortly thereafter, cardinals from across the world will meet inside the Sistine Chapel and vote by secret ballot on who should succeed Francis as the next pope. We'll be right back. Here's what else you need to know today.
The Daily
How Pope Francis Changed the Catholic Church
On Monday, Harvard sued the Trump administration, arguing that the White House had violated its First Amendment rights by seeking to control what the university can teach and who it can hire.
The Daily
How Pope Francis Changed the Catholic Church
The White House froze billions of dollars in funds to Harvard after the university refused to comply with an array of demands, including audits of professors for plagiarism and the appointment of an outsider to ensure that Harvard's academic programs teach diverse viewpoints. Those demands, Harvard said, now threaten its academic independence.
The Daily
How Pope Francis Changed the Catholic Church
And the stock market nosedived again on Monday because of Trump's tariffs and his ongoing attacks on the chairman of the Federal Reserve, Jerome Powell. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell a staggering 972 points and is now on pace for its worst April since 1932.
The Daily
How Pope Francis Changed the Catholic Church
The sell-off intensified as Trump called Powell a, quote, major loser, demanded that Powell cut interest rates, and suggested that an economic slowdown would be Powell's fault and not his. Today's episode was produced by Rochelle Banja, Carlos Prieto, Shannon Lin, and Michael Simon-Johnson. It was edited by Maria Byrne. Fact Check by Susan Lee.
The Daily
How Pope Francis Changed the Catholic Church
Contains original music by Alishaba Etube, Dan Powell, and Diane Wong. And was engineered by Chris Wood. Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Lansford of Wonderly. Special thanks to Emma Bobola. That's it for The Daily. I'm Michael Bolboro. See you tomorrow.
The Daily
How Pope Francis Changed the Catholic Church
Well, I think to understand how Francis became a dividing line, even if he himself never saw himself that way, we need to talk about his background and how that background made so many people... on the left and right, see him as a change agent. So tell us the story of how he came to be that dividing line.
The Daily
How Pope Francis Changed the Catholic Church
So what draws him to the church, which is, of course, about helping people, but is very hierarchical and perhaps not so in keeping with this bottom-up approach that he's becoming fixated on?
The Daily
How Pope Francis Changed the Catholic Church
Today, I speak with my colleague, Rome Bureau Chief Jason Horowitz, about the Pope's push to change the Church, his bitter clashes with traditionalists, and what his papacy ultimately means to the world's 1.4 billion Catholics. It's Tuesday, April 22nd. Jason, good evening. We know it's late there and that it's been a long day for you. So thank you.
The Daily
How Pope Francis Changed the Catholic Church
So the way that he married these influences of his childhood, his love of neighborhood, perhaps some of that bottom-up teaching, with actually being a high-ranking church member, was to do something as simple as taking the bus, making sure that his commute... from home to the church, is done on public transportation.
The Daily
How Pope Francis Changed the Catholic Church
So how does he become not just this quirky master of the gesture cardinal, but actually the pope?
The Daily
How Pope Francis Changed the Catholic Church
And so the way it works is before the conclave begins... And conclave, we should just say, is the kind of election ritual of the Catholic Church.
The Daily
How Pope Francis Changed the Catholic Church
Were you there in Vatican City when he was named pope? I was. I was in St.
The Daily
How Pope Francis Changed the Catholic Church
I remember watching this all, hearing those details you were just describing, and starting to think, oh, something interesting is going on here inside the Catholic Church. But— I assume this was the case with many people, reserving judgment because this is an incredibly traditional rule-bound institution.
The Daily
How Pope Francis Changed the Catholic Church
And the answer is, for the past many centuries, you're exactly the person to judge.
The Daily
How Pope Francis Changed the Catholic Church
Right. Maybe a revolution is genuinely afoot in this most unrevolutionary institution.
The Daily
How Pope Francis Changed the Catholic Church
From The New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily. On Monday, church bells rang out across the world. From Mexico City... to Paris... to Kurdistan... to mark the death of Pope Francis at the age of 88.
The Daily
How Pope Francis Changed the Catholic Church
I know from the messages we've been exchanging today in preparation for this conversation that you spent some time in St. Peter's Square where mourners are now gathered.
The Daily
Pardons and Populism: Trump’s First Day Back in the White House
After the break, Jonathan Swan on what Trump actually did on day one. We'll be right back. Jonathan, I want you to pick up with the second half of Donald Trump's day, when he's suddenly endowed with the full powers of the presidency. What does he do with that power?
The Daily
Pardons and Populism: Trump’s First Day Back in the White House
So talk us through some of the specific orders that really stand out.
The Daily
Pardons and Populism: Trump’s First Day Back in the White House
Now he's taking it out. Reversing the reversal.
The Daily
Pardons and Populism: Trump’s First Day Back in the White House
The president is basically ordering every executive agency to go dig up potentially incriminating evidence that could be used against the outgoing administration and its personnel.
The Daily
Pardons and Populism: Trump’s First Day Back in the White House
On Monday, in the culmination of an extraordinary political comeback.
The Daily
Pardons and Populism: Trump’s First Day Back in the White House
Right, because it could become a tool of that retribution. Pretty blatantly, yes. I think we have to end, and end quite meaningfully, with something that wasn't an executive order per se, but flowed from the executive pen, which was President Trump's pardons.
The Daily
Pardons and Populism: Trump’s First Day Back in the White House
I, Donald John Trump, do solemnly swear. Donald Trump was officially sworn in as President of the United States for a second time. Just four years after being voted out of office and being impeached and later criminally charged for trying to overturn that result.
The Daily
Pardons and Populism: Trump’s First Day Back in the White House
It's quite possible that the history books will look back on this mass pardoning as the defining act of this first day of Trump's presidency. And I think it arguably speaks to something that our colleague Peter Baker told us when we asked him to analyze Trump's inaugural speech.
The Daily
Pardons and Populism: Trump’s First Day Back in the White House
And he talked about just how much Trump is, at this moment, telling the story of America in relation to himself and kind of fusing man and country in the way he talks. And now he's pardoning people who the justice system charged, in many cases found guilty of serious, some cases violent crimes. He would argue because a weaponized justice system mistreated them.
The Daily
Pardons and Populism: Trump’s First Day Back in the White House
But by many people's lights, what he's really saying is their crimes don't matter. And this brings me back to what Peter said. Their crimes don't matter because they were done in his name.
The Daily
Pardons and Populism: Trump’s First Day Back in the White House
On Monday evening, the families and friends of January 6th rioters celebrated Trump's pardons outside a jail in Washington, where several convicted rioters remain imprisoned.
The Daily
Pardons and Populism: Trump’s First Day Back in the White House
In some cases, Trump's pardons resulted in the immediate release of rioters. A spokesperson for Enrique Tarrio, a former leader of the Proud Boys who was sentenced to 22 years in prison for his role in the assault on the Capitol, said that Tarrio had walked out of a federal prison in Louisiana on Monday afternoon as a free man. We'll be right back. Here's what else you need to know today.
The Daily
Pardons and Populism: Trump’s First Day Back in the White House
In his final act as president, Joe Biden issued a wave of preemptive pardons to those who fear that President Trump will prosecute them over the next four years. The pardons were given to members of Biden's own family, including his brothers. Every member of the congressional committee that investigated January 6th, including its vice chairwoman, Liz Cheney,
The Daily
Pardons and Populism: Trump’s First Day Back in the White House
and the government's lead scientist during the COVID pandemic, Dr. Anthony Fauci. In a statement, Biden said that while he believes in the justice system, quote, these are exceptional circumstances. Following Trump's swearing-in ceremony, Biden boarded a military plane bound for California, where he was expected to begin a vacation as a private citizen and a former president.
The Daily
Pardons and Populism: Trump’s First Day Back in the White House
My colleague, Peter Baker, on the message Trump sent in his inaugural address. And Jonathan Swan on the actions Trump took during his first hours in office. It's Tuesday, January 21st. Peter, thank you for coming in the studio. It's nice to be here with you in person. I don't think I've ever done this in person with you. I don't think I've ever done this in person with you either.
The Daily
Pardons and Populism: Trump’s First Day Back in the White House
Today's episode was produced by Claire Tennesketter, Aastha Chaturvedi, and Will Reed. It was edited by Rachel Quester and Mark George, contains original music by Dan Powell, Mary Lozano, and Sophia Landman, and was engineered by Chris Wood. Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Lansford of Wonderly. Special thanks to Afim Shapiro. That's it for The Daily. I'm Michael Barbaro.
The Daily
Pardons and Populism: Trump’s First Day Back in the White House
Aren't you glad you're here? Yes. You're here for a day of history. It is.
The Daily
Pardons and Populism: Trump’s First Day Back in the White House
Exactly. Because I got to talk to you in person. Peter, set the scene for us inside the Capitol Rotunda as Donald Trump prepares to deliver this inaugural speech.
The Daily
Pardons and Populism: Trump’s First Day Back in the White House
So describe the speech itself once Trump begins to deliver it.
The Daily
Pardons and Populism: Trump’s First Day Back in the White House
Just explain that for those who may not remember the reference to the first inaugural.
The Daily
Pardons and Populism: Trump’s First Day Back in the White House
Double socked, thermal underweared, two hats, because we're going to spend a lot of this day outside. There it is. Yeah, oh, that's a beautiful view. We're standing about a football field and a half away from the US Capitol. I am staring at the dome. And because it is so bone-chillingly cold, the inauguration, which is normally held outside, facing the National Mall,
The Daily
Pardons and Populism: Trump’s First Day Back in the White House
What this speech did not contain was an overture to those who didn't support him. We think of inaugural speeches as almost dutifully containing language that says, to those who didn't vote for me, I offer you this message. Exactly. That was not in this speech.
The Daily
Pardons and Populism: Trump’s First Day Back in the White House
Which is, of course, rolling back a very specific President Biden policy. Exactly.
The Daily
Pardons and Populism: Trump’s First Day Back in the White House
Within that list, Peter, of things that Trump says he wants to do that made this feel State of the Union-ish, as you said, what struck me was how much it strayed from Trump's traditional isolationism, right? It was expansionist, right?
The Daily
Pardons and Populism: Trump’s First Day Back in the White House
This has been moved inside the Capitol, in the rotunda, which we're looking at. And at this very moment, President-elect Trump and President Biden are at the White House. They're having tea. They're going to come in a motorcade together to the Capitol. And we're looking at what we think is the exact spot they're going to arrive. And it's very, very heavily fortified.
The Daily
Pardons and Populism: Trump’s First Day Back in the White House
The implication being perhaps by force.
The Daily
Pardons and Populism: Trump’s First Day Back in the White House
He's going to plant a U.S. flag, he claimed, on Mars, which is about as ambitious an expansion vision as I think any president has ever had.
The Daily
Pardons and Populism: Trump’s First Day Back in the White House
So taken all together, how do you think we should understand this speech as a whole and
The Daily
Pardons and Populism: Trump’s First Day Back in the White House
In that sense, this did not feel... simply like a speech articulating a restoration, because that would suggest I'm back just like I was before. What it sounds like he's saying is, I am back, I am better prepared, and I am capable now of transcending what my first presidency was. And as you said earlier, Peter, it is about me. And this term will be big and ambitious because I am.
The Daily
Pardons and Populism: Trump’s First Day Back in the White House
And the country in his telling is kind of him, and he is the country. And they are so fused in this speech that it's hard to imagine him tolerating the country not meeting his expectations because he and his expectations of the country, they're all so bound up.
The Daily
Pardons and Populism: Trump’s First Day Back in the White House
We're surrounded by these tall metal gates. There are dozens of police officers.
The Daily
Pardons and Populism: Trump’s First Day Back in the White House
So it is around 9.30 a.m. on Inauguration Day, and we are headed to the Capitol. And as you can perhaps hear through the microphone... Hopefully not if I do my job well. It is really, really windy and very cold, so we are layered to the hilt. like five layers.
The Daily
Pardons and Populism: Trump’s First Day Back in the White House
So now that Donald Trump has been sworn in and delivered his inaugural address, we wanted to head out into the streets of downtown Washington where thousands of his supporters are milling around to understand how they are feeling now that it is official that he is president again.
The Daily
Pardons and Populism: Trump’s First Day Back in the White House
Where did you guys come from?
The Daily
Pardons and Populism: Trump’s First Day Back in the White House
And how are you feeling right now, like in a word, now that it's official that he's president again?
The Daily
Pardons and Populism: Trump’s First Day Back in the White House
What's the most important thing you want to see him get done? Maybe in the next few hours through executive orders, but definitely like in the next couple of days or weeks.
The Daily
Pardons and Populism: Trump’s First Day Back in the White House
This is the motorcade. It's the longest motorcade I've ever seen. Dozens and dozens of vehicles. And it is working its way to the eastern gate of the Capitol to deposit the two presidents inside the building for the inauguration. And Donald Trump is going to be sworn in as the 47th president of the United States. From The New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily.
The Daily
A Reckoning Over Joe Biden’s Health
From The New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily.
The Daily
A Reckoning Over Joe Biden’s Health
Well, we're going to go to break. And when we come back, we're going to talk about, Lisa, what you just started to mention, which is the manner in which the Trump administration decided to try to put its thumb on the scale of this moment and all the questions around Biden's decision to run for a second term and his legacy, which is the audio that was leaked in the past couple of days.
The Daily
A Reckoning Over Joe Biden’s Health
Biden and his family are now reviewing his treatment options.
The Daily
A Reckoning Over Joe Biden’s Health
We'll do that right after the break. Lisa, Reid, Tyler, welcome back. We had understood for quite some time that when President Biden sat down with the special counsel investigating his handling of classified documents after he left his role as vice president, that the interview did not go all that well.
The Daily
A Reckoning Over Joe Biden’s Health
Today, we try to make sense of all of that and what it means for the future of the Democratic Party with three of my colleagues, Tyler Pager, Lisa Lair, and Reid Epstein. It's Tuesday, May 20th. Let us get started. Tyler, Lisa, and Reid, thank you for making time for us. Appreciate it.
The Daily
A Reckoning Over Joe Biden’s Health
We knew that because the special counsel wrote a report in which he said it did not go very well for Joe Biden. But Tyler, I want you to explain why we just heard this audio at all.
The Daily
A Reckoning Over Joe Biden’s Health
Is it clear that the Trump administration recognized that this was a moment that was fertile because of the books and the debate and the entire reexamination going on within the Democratic Party? Is that what happened here?
The Daily
A Reckoning Over Joe Biden’s Health
And Lisa, you've actually listened, I believe, to the entire five hours of this recording. And I'm curious what your experience of it was.
The Daily
A Reckoning Over Joe Biden’s Health
I want to just talk about how the Herr saga ends because I think it speaks to what you're all suggesting. Robert Herr finishes this interview and then writes a report in which he says, I believe that charges against Biden for the way he handled classified documents are in order, but that a jury wouldn't ever be willing to convict him because he seems like someone who's Not entirely with it.
The Daily
A Reckoning Over Joe Biden’s Health
I mean, that was the essence of what he concluded. And after that report came out, those around Biden attacked her. They said, you are a partisan. Some suggested he was basically a hack, that he bore ill will towards Biden.
The Daily
A Reckoning Over Joe Biden’s Health
And today, all these months later, it seems like that could in theory be part of an effort to hide something, to attack the messenger rather than grapple with the realities of what was happening in that room. But I hear you all saying that those who were doing that attacking against her might have believed that. that this was normal for Biden and that there was sort of nothing to see here.
The Daily
A Reckoning Over Joe Biden’s Health
Long-time fan, first-time participant. I'm thrilled to be here. As we're hinting at, Lisa and Reid are veterans of this format, and Tyler, you are the new face in The Daily Universe, and in particular, the Roundtable format. You came to us very recently from The Washington Post, where we all read your work with admiration and at times with deep envy. So welcome aboard.
The Daily
A Reckoning Over Joe Biden’s Health
Is that what I hear you saying? Or should we think of what those allies of Biden attempted to do to her as something approaching an effort at a cover-up?
The Daily
A Reckoning Over Joe Biden’s Health
But that's a reality they had created with the pretty stingy way in which they parceled him out to the public.
The Daily
A Reckoning Over Joe Biden’s Health
And of course, this is the conversation, including and especially in the last couple of days about this audio that has been made public of that interview that precedes the news that Biden has cancer. And I'm curious, what is the reaction from Democrats given this larger context that we've been discussing?
The Daily
A Reckoning Over Joe Biden’s Health
The PSA. Just to make clear what you're saying, he did not have the traditional PSA test earlier that might have caught this.
The Daily
A Reckoning Over Joe Biden’s Health
So totally, I suspect we're going to be radically changing gears here. And that's because of the very serious news that we got within the last 48 hours or so about former President Biden. I wonder what all three of you were thinking when you learned that he has cancer and a very aggressive and serious form of it.
The Daily
A Reckoning Over Joe Biden’s Health
You're suggesting, Lisa, that there are people who worked on the 2024 campaign who are wondering when did he learn he had cancer and was it earlier than perhaps he said? We should say we have no evidence that he learned this any earlier than just a couple days ago. Yeah, that's exactly right. So do the three of you think that Biden having this diagnosis...
The Daily
A Reckoning Over Joe Biden’s Health
now makes it harder, perhaps even impossible, for the party, which is having all these trust issues and was in the middle of reexamining it very openly, to continue to have that candid or increasingly candid conversation about what happened here and what went wrong and how to make sure it never happens again within the Democratic Party.
The Daily
A Reckoning Over Joe Biden’s Health
You all heard David Axelrod, the well-known advisor to Barack Obama, say on television a couple of mornings ago that he thinks Biden's diagnosis means that that larger debate should be set aside for now. But should it and will it?
The Daily
A Reckoning Over Joe Biden’s Health
Well, let's say that this debate doesn't get muted, doesn't get set aside. Reid, you're suggesting there's just not really a version where that happens. And it continues and maybe even intensifies. Where do you think it leads? And in what world does it lead to something really constructive?
The Daily
A Reckoning Over Joe Biden’s Health
The challenge, of course, is that right now everyone wants the debate that's still very much unfolding to be a debate about Biden. And on so many levels, that makes some sense. But clearly the entire party made a set of decisions that led to him being the nominee until almost the end.
The Daily
A Reckoning Over Joe Biden’s Health
And in some cases, those decisions were decisions to do nothing, even when polls showed very clearly that voters did not want Biden to run again. I believe, as you said, Lisa, earlier, a majority of Democrats didn't think he should do it. And so whether generational change comes or not, a question for the Democratic Party would seem to be, is it ready to listen to voters?
The Daily
A Reckoning Over Joe Biden’s Health
Well, Lisa, Reid, Tyler, thank you very much. We appreciate it. Thanks for having us.
The Daily
A Reckoning Over Joe Biden’s Health
On Monday, President Trump held a two-hour phone call with Russian leader Vladimir Putin in his latest attempt to bring the war in Ukraine to an end.
The Daily
A Reckoning Over Joe Biden’s Health
But the call yielded no real breakthrough. Instead, Trump backed away from his previous demand that Russia agree to an immediate ceasefire and suggested that the United States may soon abandon the negotiations, which have made little progress since Trump's election.
The Daily
A Reckoning Over Joe Biden’s Health
And the Trump administration is criminally charging a sitting member of Congress, Democrat LaMonica McIver of New Jersey, for allegedly assaulting federal agents during a protest. The protest occurred earlier this month outside a New Jersey immigration detention center and featured a scuffle between lawmakers and police.
The Daily
A Reckoning Over Joe Biden’s Health
But McIver insists she did nothing wrong and accused the White House of trying to criminalize what she called routine oversight by members of Congress. Today's episode was produced by Carlos Prieto and Olivia Nat. It was edited by Rachel Quester and Liz O'Balin. Contains original music by Marion Lozano, Pat McCusker, and Dan Powell. And was engineered by Chris Wood.
The Daily
A Reckoning Over Joe Biden’s Health
Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Landsberg of Wonderland. That's it for The Daily. I'm Michael Barbaro. See you tomorrow.
The Daily
A Reckoning Over Joe Biden’s Health
Right. I mean, traditionally, this kind of information would sit outside of a political context or a debate. A former president being diagnosed with metastatic cancer, a really serious, aggressive form of cancer. But...
The Daily
A Reckoning Over Joe Biden’s Health
That wasn't really the case here because this information came at a moment when the entire Democratic Party has been openly discussing how much blame Biden and those around him deserve for the party losing the White House and how the Democratic Party can repair a very damaged reputation that they think Biden helped inflict on it.
The Daily
A Reckoning Over Joe Biden’s Health
And that's a conversation that, as we all know, started back in the fall when Trump won. But it has been turbocharged in the past week or so by the emergence of two books. Tyler, you're the co-author of one of them. And I want to just explain the context into which this diagnosis came.
The Daily
A Reckoning Over Joe Biden’s Health
And Tyler, I want you to talk about some of the revelations that have come out in the past week or two that, as you said, Lisa, seem to, for many, confirm some of the worst fears about Biden's fitness for a second term. And as I said, Tyler, you helped write and report one of the books that brought forth some of these revelations. So you're now tasked with beginning to summarize them.
The Daily
A Reckoning Over Joe Biden’s Health
Democrats began to undertake a painful reexamination of what went wrong with Joe Biden's presidency and his campaign for reelection.
The Daily
A Reckoning Over Joe Biden’s Health
Right. And a lot of ways, these two books are coloring in a portrait that we had already started to see with our own eyes and ears as journalists and members of the public watching this president at the end of his term. But there's now a tremendous amount of new detail. I mean, I was struck by something that you wrote, Reid, in a summary of one of the books in which
The Daily
A Reckoning Over Joe Biden’s Health
allies of the president worried that he might soon need a wheelchair if he were elected to a second term. There's reporting about cabinet gatherings that became scripted for Biden even when no one from the public could see them so that he could stay on message.
The Daily
A Reckoning Over Joe Biden’s Health
And the Trump White House eagerly added fuel to the fire by releasing embarrassing audio of Biden being interviewed by a government lawyer.
The Daily
A Reckoning Over Joe Biden’s Health
You're getting at something that I now want to turn to, which is a phrase that's in the title of one of these books by Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson, which is the word cover-up. The implication being that Biden's decline was intentionally hidden from the public until it became impossible not to see and discuss it. during the first debate he had with Trump. I mean, what do we make of that word?
The Daily
A Reckoning Over Joe Biden’s Health
Does it feel like the right word? If it's not the right word, then what is the right word for what essentially was going on here?
The Daily
A Reckoning Over Joe Biden’s Health
Reid, whether or not this is a cover-up or strong-arming or some form of very willful ignorance, it's all the revelations and details we're talking about here, coming out over the past week or so, that lead several high-profile Democrats to start to talk more openly, largely because they're being asked by reporters, but they start to talk more openly about...
The Daily
A Reckoning Over Joe Biden’s Health
You know, we saw Pete Buttigieg made his return to sort of the political sphere. He did a town hall event in Iowa, of all places. And he did a town hall event in Iowa, of all places.
The Daily
A Reckoning Over Joe Biden’s Health
Amid that reckoning, Biden himself has disclosed that he's been diagnosed with an aggressive form of cancer.
The Daily
A Reckoning Over Joe Biden’s Health
Before you go any further, why does it matter to the degree that it does that leading Democrats, and you use the word ambitious, and perhaps these are folks who see themselves as the next party leader president, why is it important or is it that they are saying this at all, even if they're saying it rather late?
The Daily
How Trump Is Scaring Big Law Firms Into Submission
From The New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily. After engaging in a campaign of retribution against his enemies within the federal government, President Trump is now turning to those outside of it. Today. my colleague Mike Schmidt, on what that retribution has looked like for a single law firm and the impact that it's had on the entire legal profession. It's Tuesday, March 18th.
The Daily
How Trump Is Scaring Big Law Firms Into Submission
And she issues a temporary restraining order, essentially barring major portions of the executive order from being enforced.
The Daily
How Trump Is Scaring Big Law Firms Into Submission
Basically, she hands Perkins Coie a victory against President Trump.
The Daily
How Trump Is Scaring Big Law Firms Into Submission
Correct, in the judicial sense. But the damage has probably already been done to Perkins Coie. If you're one of Perkins Coie's clients, you know that this firm has a target on its back. Even if the Supreme Court someday says, no, Donald Trump, you did not have the power to do that to Perkins Coie, will it still have its clients? Will the clients still have hung around for this? Right.
The Daily
How Trump Is Scaring Big Law Firms Into Submission
You were right. Frame it. Yeah, look, I was concentrated on how he was going to use the criminal powers of the Justice Department to go after his enemies. But he has actually been more creative and audacious and faster, frankly, than I ever thought he'd be.
The Daily
How Trump Is Scaring Big Law Firms Into Submission
By the time the courts sort this all out, Perkins Coie may effectively be gone. And that's kind of the point for Trump and what is so ultimately powerful about what he has done here. Yes, he's achieved an extraordinary level of retribution against this one firm. But by making an example out of Perkins Coie, he's done much more than that because he has told the entire world
The Daily
How Trump Is Scaring Big Law Firms Into Submission
community of big law firms in the country that what happened to Perkins Coie is exactly what awaits them if they cross him or if they upset him. And what awaits them, if they take that risk, is destruction.
The Daily
How Trump Is Scaring Big Law Firms Into Submission
And that is an attack on the American justice system. Because in our country, the way that the legal system has taken hold over the past two and a half centuries is the idea that everyone is entitled to a vigorous defense. to a lawyer who is going to do everything in their power within the law and ethical guidelines to defend them.
The Daily
How Trump Is Scaring Big Law Firms Into Submission
So what happens when, if you're a lawyer, you're afraid to represent different parties that are potentially on the other side of the government, that the government is going after? And what does that mean for those people who are potential targets of the government?
The Daily
How Trump Is Scaring Big Law Firms Into Submission
whether they work at USAID and they've been fired, whether they are an inspector general who was just let go without Congress's approval, theoretically in violation of the Constitution, whether you're a billion-dollar grant being held up by this president even though it's been approved by Congress.
The Daily
How Trump Is Scaring Big Law Firms Into Submission
All those people, all those entities, in theory, are out there looking for lawyers to sue the Trump administration. Sure.
The Daily
How Trump Is Scaring Big Law Firms Into Submission
Or if you're one of the people that we've talked about on the show who Trump would like to have criminally prosecuted, if you're Liz Cheney or James Comey or Adam Schiff, what does that mean to them when the government comes for them and they need to find lawyers? And beyond all of that, the reason I think this really matters is
The Daily
How Trump Is Scaring Big Law Firms Into Submission
A cabinet full of people who were appointed because they have no desire to stop him. So that leaves the courts. But for the courts to hold Trump accountable, to stop Trump, they need for people to bring lawsuits and matters before them. And the people best equipped to do that are the big law firms in Washington. But if those firms are afraid to
The Daily
How Trump Is Scaring Big Law Firms Into Submission
that if they enter that fight, they could lose all of their business. Trump is then essentially taking one of his biggest adversaries off the playing field.
The Daily
How Trump Is Scaring Big Law Firms Into Submission
Right, essentially intimidating one of the last, maybe the last check and balance against his power in this moment.
The Daily
How Trump Is Scaring Big Law Firms Into Submission
At retribution. Correct. And what in your mind is the best example of this unexpected, inventive retribution?
The Daily
How Trump Is Scaring Big Law Firms Into Submission
There are other lawyers who can bring these matters and that are skilled, but the ones with the most horsepower are potentially being sidelined. I've been reporting on this for the past week and a half, and I've learned that the leaders of these law firms have gone back and forth with each other about what to do. Should they file a friend of the court brief? Should they put out a joint statement?
The Daily
How Trump Is Scaring Big Law Firms Into Submission
And despite all of those discussions, they are yet to take any collective action.
The Daily
How Trump Is Scaring Big Law Firms Into Submission
Suggesting to some real degree that they are intimidated, that they are scared that what he's doing is working.
The Daily
How Trump Is Scaring Big Law Firms Into Submission
Privately, they will all tell me how horrific they think this is. But publicly, they're saying very little.
The Daily
How Trump Is Scaring Big Law Firms Into Submission
Oh, Mike, thank you very much. Thanks for having me. Thank you. Over the past few days, President Trump expanded his attack on the legal industry by issuing a new executive order that bars another major law firm, Paul Weiss, from interacting with the federal government.
The Daily
How Trump Is Scaring Big Law Firms Into Submission
In the order, Trump singled out a former Paul Weiss lawyer who had worked on a criminal case against him, calling the lawyer, quote, unethical. Like Perkins Coie, Paul Weiss is expected to sue the administration to block the order. We'll be right back.
The Daily
How Trump Is Scaring Big Law Firms Into Submission
The way that he has targeted in the past week or so a law firm called Perkins Coie. With the stroke of his pen, he was able to essentially cripple the firm's ability to represent its clients. and create an existential threat for it that could put it out of business. But in doing that, Trump has done something even bigger and greater. He has fundamentally undermined the American legal system.
The Daily
How Trump Is Scaring Big Law Firms Into Submission
Israeli forces have launched large-scale aerial attacks across the Gaza Strip. The first major strikes on the territory since Israel's ceasefire with Hamas began roughly two months ago. Gaza's health ministry said that more than 400 people had been killed in the strikes, which raised the prospect of a return to all-out war.
The Daily
How Trump Is Scaring Big Law Firms Into Submission
And flight data reviewed by The New York Times suggests that the Trump administration ignored a ruling from a federal judge to turn around planes carrying 200 migrants to El Salvador and return them to U.S. soil.
The Daily
How Trump Is Scaring Big Law Firms Into Submission
The flight data showed that none of the planes in question landed in El Salvador before the judge's order, and that one of them did not even leave American soil until after the judge's written order was posted online.
The Daily
How Trump Is Scaring Big Law Firms Into Submission
During a court hearing on Monday, a lawyer for the Trump administration denied that the White House had violated the judge's ruling, stonewalled when the judge asked for detailed information about the flights and their timing, and said that the administration was not bound by the judge's oral directive to turn the planes around. In response, the judge called that claim, quote, a heck of a stretch.
The Daily
How Trump Is Scaring Big Law Firms Into Submission
A very bold statement. So let's tell the story of what happened to this law firm from the beginning. Tell us about Perkins Coie and how it arrives at this existential crisis at the hands of the president.
The Daily
How Trump Is Scaring Big Law Firms Into Submission
In 2016, Hillary Clinton's campaign hired Perkins Coie to be its chief outside law firm. In many ways, this made sense because Perkins Coie had one of the biggest, most robust practices that focused on representing Democrats.
The Daily
How Trump Is Scaring Big Law Firms Into Submission
Right. And we should say in Washington, that's kind of how things work. There are law firms known for doing work for Republicans. There are law firms known for doing work for Democrats.
The Daily
How Trump Is Scaring Big Law Firms Into Submission
Correct. So what happens is, during the campaign, the law firm took over paying for the work of a former British spy who was compiling a dossier on Trump's potential ties to Russia.
The Daily
How Trump Is Scaring Big Law Firms Into Submission
And by dossier, of course, you mean the dossier on Donald Trump that becomes a big factor in how we all think in that moment about Trump and Russia. Yeah.
The Daily
How Trump Is Scaring Big Law Firms Into Submission
Correct. The salacious compilation of unverified intelligence reports that laid out potential ties between Trump, his associates, and Russia. And the chief boogeyman in his eyes was a lawyer for Perkins Cooley, who was the top lawyer on the Clinton campaign, a guy named Mark Elias.
The Daily
How Trump Is Scaring Big Law Firms Into Submission
who had not only established himself as the top lawyer for Democrats, but had played a role in helping to fund the dossier and represent the campaign.
The Daily
How Trump Is Scaring Big Law Firms Into Submission
This is all unsubstantiated. And let's be clear for a second just about the dossier. Many of the allegations in it eventually are debunked. But for Trump, Perkins Coie's involvement in the dossier was just unforgivable. Because as he comes into office, he quickly faces this sprawling Justice Department special counsel investigation into potential ties between his campaign and Russia. Right.
The Daily
How Trump Is Scaring Big Law Firms Into Submission
And the dossier had nothing to do with why that investigation was opened. But Trump is able to conflate all of this and blames the dossier, and by extension, Mark Elias and Perkins Coie, for the investigation. Got it.
The Daily
How Trump Is Scaring Big Law Firms Into Submission
He sees this, or at least he makes it out to be. I call it the Russian hoax. All part of a larger deep state conspiracy.
The Daily
How Trump Is Scaring Big Law Firms Into Submission
He says big law, Democrats and the media have come together to unfairly tarnish him and delegitimize his election victory and by extension, his presidency.
The Daily
How Trump Is Scaring Big Law Firms Into Submission
Eventually, Trump does get the Justice Department to investigate whether there was this conspiracy. And a range of different things are looked at, including Perkins Coie's role. And ultimately, that investigation results in a Perkins Coie partner being indicted for misleading the FBI during the 2016 campaign about Trump's potential ties to Russia. And that partner goes on trial, but is acquitted.
The Daily
How Trump Is Scaring Big Law Firms Into Submission
So the efforts to use the criminal powers of the Justice Department to go after Perkins Coie ultimately fall flat.
The Daily
How Trump Is Scaring Big Law Firms Into Submission
So Trump is able to put this firm under some pretty intense legal scrutiny, but it doesn't deliver for him the victory over Perkins Coie that he clearly craves.
The Daily
How Trump Is Scaring Big Law Firms Into Submission
Correct. But his tangling and fighting with Perkins Coie is not over. He loses the 2020 election and he's going around the country trying to overturn the results. Right. And at many of the important junctures where Trump's lawyers go into court to try to have the results thrown out, those lawyers find themselves on the other side of Mark Elias. Oh, wow.
The Daily
How Trump Is Scaring Big Law Firms Into Submission
And Mark Elias and his practice at Perkins Coie just kicked Trump's butt. They win pretty much all of these court battles. They are celebrated by Democrats as a bulwark against Trump.
The Daily
How Trump Is Scaring Big Law Firms Into Submission
Mike, welcome back to the studio. Thank you for being here. It's good to be back. I want to give a little bit of context for this conversation Before Trump was elected, The Daily ran a series of episodes about what a second Trump term might look like on a range of fronts.
The Daily
How Trump Is Scaring Big Law Firms Into Submission
And by this point, Elias is all over the place as one of Trump's loudest critics.
The Daily
How Trump Is Scaring Big Law Firms Into Submission
He essentially becomes synonymous with the Democratic resistance to Trump.
The Daily
How Trump Is Scaring Big Law Firms Into Submission
And so for Trump, there's no bigger foe or offender in terms of lawyers or law firms than Mark Elias and Perkins Coie.
The Daily
How Trump Is Scaring Big Law Firms Into Submission
Well, when he's out of office, Trump tries to sue Perkins Coie. And his lawyers try to make the argument, again, that Perkins Coie was somehow responsible for the investigation into the ties between his campaign and Russia.
The Daily
How Trump Is Scaring Big Law Firms Into Submission
Correct. And the lawsuit falls apart and is thrown out.
The Daily
How Trump Is Scaring Big Law Firms Into Submission
So once again, Trump cannot knock this firm down. Not for want of trying. He just keeps failing.
The Daily
How Trump Is Scaring Big Law Firms Into Submission
Correct. And look, for Perkins Coie, this certainly was not a fun endeavor to be the target of Trump's ire. But they appear to breathe a sigh of relief. And then it gets even sort of better for them. Mark Elias actually leaves Perkins Coie. Hmm. So if you're Perkins Coie, you have survived the scrutiny and you've gotten rid of the lawyer who Trump hates the most. But then Trump wins reelection.
The Daily
How Trump Is Scaring Big Law Firms Into Submission
And it doesn't matter to Trump that Mark Elias is gone. He still wants revenge and just weeks into office, Trump goes after Perkins Coie in a way that I did not think he was capable of.
The Daily
How Trump Is Scaring Big Law Firms Into Submission
So, Mike, once Trump returns to the White House, how does he go after Perkins Coie in a way that, as you just said, seemed unfathomable to you until he did it?
The Daily
How Trump Is Scaring Big Law Firms Into Submission
I told you that Perkins Coie did a lot of work for Democrats. But a major portion of the firm's day-to-day work is representing companies and contractors that have business or problems with the federal government. That's kind of their bread and butter way of making money. Got it. And to do that, and I know this may sound a little basic, you have to interact with the federal government.
The Daily
How Trump Is Scaring Big Law Firms Into Submission
And you guided us through how Trump might use the powers of the federal government to turn his threats of retribution into action. And your big finding was that we didn't have to look far to try to understand what retribution might look like in practice because Trump had already done it in his first term more than we had actually realized. And you documented that.
The Daily
How Trump Is Scaring Big Law Firms Into Submission
You have to talk to the federal government. You have to go into the federal government to represent your client. Right.
The Daily
How Trump Is Scaring Big Law Firms Into Submission
Keeping that in mind, Trump, less than two weeks ago, in the Oval Office.
The Daily
How Trump Is Scaring Big Law Firms Into Submission
that essentially bars Perkins Coie, specifically the firm itself, and its lawyers, from entering federal buildings and essentially interacting or dealing with the federal government.
The Daily
How Trump Is Scaring Big Law Firms Into Submission
Making it impossible to do the most basic function of their job.
The Daily
How Trump Is Scaring Big Law Firms Into Submission
Which is represent their clients before the federal government.
The Daily
How Trump Is Scaring Big Law Firms Into Submission
And on top of that, the executive order basically says that if you're a contractor and you have business with the government and you are represented or tied to Perkins Coie, you could lose your work with the government as well.
The Daily
How Trump Is Scaring Big Law Firms Into Submission
Wow. Basically, Trump, in this executive order, is putting Perkins Coie on a blacklist.
The Daily
How Trump Is Scaring Big Law Firms Into Submission
Correct. Simply, your tie to Perkins Coie means that your work for the government is majorly in question. So what happens is, is that almost immediately... The firm starts to hemorrhage clients, clients that they've had for decades. They start losing clients every single day in the aftermath of Trump signing this. And this is an existential threat for this law firm.
The Daily
How Trump Is Scaring Big Law Firms Into Submission
So Perkins Coie itself has to go out and find a law firm so it can now fight this in court.
The Daily
How Trump Is Scaring Big Law Firms Into Submission
Can you just explain that? Because I think most people listening will assume that a law firm full of lawyers can fight its own fight.
The Daily
How Trump Is Scaring Big Law Firms Into Submission
Sure, Perkins Coie could have gone to court and fought this themselves. But because it was existential, they needed to walk in the door with the best representation they could get. Because if they fail to stop this, the firm will be toast. Right. But what happens is, in an example of how powerful this action from Trump was, not every law firm is jumping up to represent Perkins Coie.
The Daily
How Trump Is Scaring Big Law Firms Into Submission
Because if they take on Perkins Coie, they could be the target of the next Trump executive order crippling them. Right. But then something sort of remarkable happens. In Washington is a law firm called Williams & Connolly. They are known as the toughest, nastiest, fiercest litigators in Washington. They almost take pride in fighting the government.
The Daily
How Trump Is Scaring Big Law Firms Into Submission
And amid all of these questions about whether anyone is going to step up and come to the defense of Perkins Coie, Williams and Connolly comes off the bench and says, we'll do it. We'll take the risk. Correct. So as quickly as they can, Williams and Connolly file suit against the Trump administration, asking a federal judge to jump in and stop the executive order.
The Daily
How Trump Is Scaring Big Law Firms Into Submission
And you said that it would only escalate if he were given a second term. And I think it's fair to say, so far, that you were right. Michael telling me I'm right.
The Daily
How Trump Is Scaring Big Law Firms Into Submission
And there's a hearing before a judge in which Williams and Connolly faces off against the Justice Department. A Williamson Connolly lawyer lays out how what Trump has done is unconstitutional, unfair, and will destroy Perkins Coie.
The Daily
How Trump Is Scaring Big Law Firms Into Submission
The Justice Department argues that the president of the United States has great leeway to do whatever he wants in this area and sees Perkins Coie as a potential national security threat.
The Daily
How Trump Is Scaring Big Law Firms Into Submission
That this firm, because of its role in the 2016 campaign and creating this unfair cloud around Trump's ties to Russia, is a threat to the country. That this law firm is dangerous. Correct. Got it. And cannot be trusted to do business with the federal government. And how does the judge roll? She says it sends a chill down her spine. It is chilling to the legal profession.
The Daily
The Secret Power of Siblings
Where does Devin end up going to college? Which, of course, makes me want to know what happens to all four of the Chen siblings in terms of their career.
The Daily
The Secret Power of Siblings
Oh my God, what are you thinking when that question comes across the table? I loved it.
The Daily
The Secret Power of Siblings
I mean, that's a remarkably beautiful story. I wonder if spillover effects on siblings are always as constructive and positive as they were with the Chens. Yeah.
The Daily
The Secret Power of Siblings
Is it safe to say that was not the dinner table dynamic at your house?
The Daily
The Secret Power of Siblings
I'm not trying to be facetious, but this almost sounds biblical. If the eldest child is invested in properly and the spillover effect happens, that seems quite important. Yeah. and potentially achievable.
The Daily
The Secret Power of Siblings
And does that mean that younger siblings can spill over to older siblings? Yes, that is what that means. Hmm. So now that we've talked through these two distinct factors, but seemingly related forces of the spillover effect and differentiation between siblings. I wonder what you have found in your reporting on how controllable any of this is.
The Daily
The Secret Power of Siblings
Parents like to think, and you hinted at this earlier, that they exert some level of influence over this kind of thing. Can they? Do they? Or is it ultimately out of their control?
The Daily
The Secret Power of Siblings
I don't think we can end this conversation without asking you about your own siblings and your relationship to them, with them. Is it a story of spillover? Is it a story of differentiation? Is it a story of something else entirely?
The Daily
The Secret Power of Siblings
And of course, there's something kind of poetic about this. If your oldest sibling hadn't pushed you to create that newspaper and become a journalist, you would never go on to write a book about siblings.
The Daily
The Secret Power of Siblings
We'll be right back. Here's what else you need to know today. On Monday, the stock market soared and thousands of American businesses celebrated as the United States and China agreed to drastically reduce their tariffs against one another for the next three months. Starting tomorrow, the U.S. will reduce its tariffs on Chinese imports from 145% to 30%.
The Daily
The Secret Power of Siblings
China, in turn, will lower its tariffs on American goods from 125% to just 10%. Negotiators from both countries will now seek to reach a permanent trade deal, but few believe that either country will ever return to the sky-high tariffs of the past month.
The Daily
The Secret Power of Siblings
As a result, the S&P 500 rose 3.3%, the Dow Jones Industrial Average surged nearly 2.8%, and the Nasdaq climbed nearly 4.4%, officially entering a bull market. Today's episode was produced by Asta Chaturvedi and Ricky Nevetsky, with help from Claire Tenesketu. It was edited by Michael Benoit and Mark George, contains original music by Marion Lozano and Dan Powell, and was engineered by Chris Wood.
The Daily
The Secret Power of Siblings
Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Landsberg of Wonderly. That's it for The Daily. I'm Michael Barbaro. See you tomorrow.
The Daily
The Secret Power of Siblings
So tell us what you end up concluding about the sibling effect from your book, The Family Dynamic, which ends up very much being a study of the dynamics of siblings.
The Daily
The Secret Power of Siblings
I wonder if you can illustrate how it actually works that siblings influence the direction of that arrow.
The Daily
The Secret Power of Siblings
And then what do you come to understand about how, and this seems important, consciously or unconsciously, the Groff siblings... exerted a differentiating force on each other? Because that seems like it would be not something you would necessarily ever consciously intend to do.
The Daily
The Secret Power of Siblings
Just explain that because everyone listening is going to want to understand why that is.
The Daily
The Secret Power of Siblings
That's fascinating. And clearly that seems to be what happened with the youngest of the Groff siblings. What about the middle Groff child? What was her experience, Lauren?
The Daily
The Secret Power of Siblings
So what's important about the graphs, it would seem, is that you have this academically strong and much more than he would seem to know emotionally towering figure. And the two younger siblings respond in these complicated ways that it sounds like they're conscious of. They seem to know it's happening. And as a result, they end up in very high achieving but extremely different lines of work.
The Daily
The Secret Power of Siblings
It is really nice to see you. It's so nice to see you, too. I want to jump in, and I want to have you tell the story of how it is you became so interested in the subject of siblings.
The Daily
The Secret Power of Siblings
Well, what about the Groff's parents? In your understanding of the family, how did they launch that, to use your phrase, arrow of ambition that the sibling, especially Adam, the older brother, ultimately influences the course of?
The Daily
The Secret Power of Siblings
Do these ceilings get along? I mean, does differentiation mean ultimately difficulty?
The Daily
The Secret Power of Siblings
So the Groffs are a family with a fair amount of resources, right? So how much do your findings, especially around differentiation, apply to families without those resources? Does that mean that there is inherently less competition, less enrichment, less differentiation?
The Daily
The Secret Power of Siblings
We'll be right back. So Sue, tell us about the Chen family and the dynamic between the siblings in that family that was at play.
The Daily
The Secret Power of Siblings
And what does the spillover effect look like? How does it operate within the Chen family?
The Daily
The Secret Power of Siblings
And it sounds like in this collaboration you're describing, the Chen siblings are building off one another, each one hoping that the next will do at least as well, if not better, than they did, either academically or athletically. That, you're saying, is the spillover effect. And it really does feel quite different than the more competitive, tinged idea of differentiation.
The Daily
The Demise of U.S.A.I.D. — and American Soft Power
From The New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro.
The Daily
The Demise of U.S.A.I.D. — and American Soft Power
Well, I think that brings us to the moment we're in, right, where President Trump is inaugurated, looks at this agency, and sees a lot of problems. I mean, is he right to think that there is some real cost-cutting to be done at USAID, putting aside the extent of it for just the moment?
The Daily
The Demise of U.S.A.I.D. — and American Soft Power
A total dismantling and in a very real sense of shutting down of USAID.
The Daily
The Demise of U.S.A.I.D. — and American Soft Power
We'll be right back. Stephanie, I want you to talk about what it has looked like for this agency to be dissolved, to use your word, and specifically what that has looked like within the healthcare programs that you have spent all these years covering and that were designed to benefit the United States.
The Daily
The Demise of U.S.A.I.D. — and American Soft Power
The United States was doing so much of this kind of foreign aid work on this scale to begin with. So what is that backstory?
The Daily
The Demise of U.S.A.I.D. — and American Soft Power
And this testing, it sounds like it's funded by USAID.
The Daily
The Demise of U.S.A.I.D. — and American Soft Power
Huh. That's how thoroughly the Trump administration wants this all to just come to a halt.
The Daily
The Demise of U.S.A.I.D. — and American Soft Power
Well, USAID was founded by President John F. Kennedy, who created it with an executive order in 1961. And he did that. not out of some pure sense of charity, not out of a sense that there was famine in the world and America had a responsibility to address it.
The Daily
The Demise of U.S.A.I.D. — and American Soft Power
So the speed and the manner in which the Trump administration is dismantling USAID means that this medical work in South Africa that has been intended to strengthen ties between the U.S. and the people of South Africa— is now dissolved into the situation where they are probably angry and distrustful and fearful, this would seem to be the very opposite of the mission of USAID.
The Daily
The Demise of U.S.A.I.D. — and American Soft Power
So, Michael, if, as Stephanie Nolan just explained very clearly, USAID's work, generally speaking, advances America's interest overseas with a full awareness of its potential for bloatedness and wastefulness, but if it generally delivers still on Kennedy's vision of soft power, why, if you are Donald Trump and those around him, eliminate it?
The Daily
The Demise of U.S.A.I.D. — and American Soft Power
Well, Michael, Trump and the people around him have never had much interest in the use of soft power. Trump is a hard power kind of guy. He's not about winning friends and influencing people through favors, charity, sweet talk. He likes to apply muscle, pressure, threats. Some people say bullying. So this isn't really part of his playbook.
The Daily
The Demise of U.S.A.I.D. — and American Soft Power
And a lot of this work is done in parts of the world about which he's spoken derisively, including Africa, where a huge amount of USAID work happens.
The Daily
The Demise of U.S.A.I.D. — and American Soft Power
Right. Those were the countries that famously in his first term he referred to as shithole countries.
The Daily
The Demise of U.S.A.I.D. — and American Soft Power
That's right. So that's one thing. You know, another is that USAID was an easy target. Explain that. One of Trump's highest priorities, clearly, is really trying to break the bureaucracy, trying to purge federal workers, trying to dramatically shrink the size of the American government. And, you know, Americans, generally speaking, are very skeptical of foreign aid.
The Daily
The Demise of U.S.A.I.D. — and American Soft Power
So I think USAID has almost become a test case or a trial run for Trump's larger plans to smash apart the existing bureaucracy, purge thousands of federal workers and shrink the size of the federal government.
The Daily
The Demise of U.S.A.I.D. — and American Soft Power
What's interesting about the way you're framing this is that it's tempting to see what Trump is doing as first and foremost attacking, dismantling the idea of soft power. You're saying that may be incidental to dismantling the federal bureaucracy and that you can't really disentangle the two missions. But I'm still curious why...
The Daily
The Demise of U.S.A.I.D. — and American Soft Power
based on your reporting, the president wants to dismantle USAID so quickly, so haphazardly, in a way that, frankly, pisses so many people across the world off.
The Daily
The Demise of U.S.A.I.D. — and American Soft Power
Well, it's a little bit of a mystery, Michael, and I think that we've seen clues to what the answer might be. Look at comments that people around Trump have made for years, suggesting that you have to attack the bureaucracy almost mercilessly. You have to smash it, knock it down, and keep it down before it has a chance to get back up.
The Daily
The Demise of U.S.A.I.D. — and American Soft Power
To people around Trump, the bureaucracy is almost like a movie monster that keeps getting back up. You can't kill it. And I think that there's a sense that you have to deal a knockout blow quickly before the courts, members of Congress, the unions, all these other factors can come in and start fighting back. Now that doesn't mean that USAID has no defenses, The courts are already involved.
The Daily
The Demise of U.S.A.I.D. — and American Soft Power
We'll see what happens. But the strategy, I think, is speed kills.
The Daily
The Demise of U.S.A.I.D. — and American Soft Power
The critique of this, I guess the critique of Trump's critique, is that this dismantling of this particular agency, this test case... has real impacts. And the impacts are that it may cede a huge amount of ground to our rivals in the world of soft power, especially China, which has shown enormous enthusiasm for soft power. And we've done so many episodes about this.
The Daily
The Demise of U.S.A.I.D. — and American Soft Power
He was reacting to the Cold War competition with the Soviet Union that was underway at the time.
The Daily
The Demise of U.S.A.I.D. — and American Soft Power
China wants to build your new highway. China wants to put solar panels on the streetlights so that they work at night in a country with not much electricity. China wants to do almost anything it can to deepen its ties to all these countries where USAID has been doing work.
The Daily
The Demise of U.S.A.I.D. — and American Soft Power
That's right. It's going to create a vacuum. And the risk here is that we have circled back to the context that led President Kennedy to create USAID in the early 1960s. John F. Kennedy believed that America was in a global competition for influence with another great power and that USAID was a way to win friends and influence people.
The Daily
The Demise of U.S.A.I.D. — and American Soft Power
We are now back at a time where even President Trump and his advisors say the defining national security threat for America is a global competition for power and influence with another great power. In this case, it's China.
The Daily
The Demise of U.S.A.I.D. — and American Soft Power
Right, and to really bring it back to Kennedy, based on everything you're saying, Michael, We're not just, at this moment, getting rid of USAID and the concept of soft power through Trump's actions. We are replacing it, it would seem, with what you described as Trump's approach to hard power, tariffs, and threats. And that makes me wonder if we are resuming in that full circle way to
The Daily
The Demise of U.S.A.I.D. — and American Soft Power
the version of American foreign policy that existed right before Kennedy created USAID. It's the ugly American approach to foreign policy, perhaps. And what is that going to mean for the US and the world?
The Daily
The Demise of U.S.A.I.D. — and American Soft Power
Well, that's exactly the concern, Michael. And no one is really providing good answers People in the Trump administration just kind of dismiss the idea that China or Russia are going to benefit from this. And their critics say they're taking a huge risk and we can't know how it's going to play out. But I think you're exactly right.
The Daily
The Demise of U.S.A.I.D. — and American Soft Power
I think the concern is that the ugly American will make a comeback and that will work to the benefit of our adversaries around the world.
The Daily
The Demise of U.S.A.I.D. — and American Soft Power
And which he saw as a real threat to America's primacy and security. And, you know, the Soviet Union was presenting itself as the champion, particularly in the developing world, of countries that had been under colonialism for decades or more and, you know, felt that they had been treated badly by the West.
The Daily
The Demise of U.S.A.I.D. — and American Soft Power
Well, Michael, thank you very much. We appreciate it. Thanks for having me on. Among the findings was that nearly half a billion dollars worth of emergency food assistance, much of it supplied by U.S. farmers, is now at risk of spoiling inside ports and warehouses across the world. We'll be right back. Here's what else you need to know today.
The Daily
The Demise of U.S.A.I.D. — and American Soft Power
On Monday, the Trump administration told federal prosecutors to drop sweeping corruption charges against New York City Mayor Eric Adams, who has made repeated attempts to curry favor with the new president since his inauguration. Adams was indicted for allegedly abusing his power to obtain free travel and for accepting illegal campaign contributions.
The Daily
The Demise of U.S.A.I.D. — and American Soft Power
The order to drop those charges raises new questions about the independence of federal prosecutors under Trump and whether those close to the president will be given preferential treatment by his Department of Justice. And in his latest trade maneuver, Trump has imposed 25% tariffs on steel and aluminum imported from every U.S. trading partner,
The Daily
The Demise of U.S.A.I.D. — and American Soft Power
The tariffs are likely to please domestic metalmakers, but significantly increase costs for U.S. companies that make items like cars, planes, and food packaging. And it could spark trade wars that may bring a variety of retaliatory tariffs against the U.S. Today's episode was produced by Nina Feldman and Rochelle Banja. It was edited by Mark George.
The Daily
The Demise of U.S.A.I.D. — and American Soft Power
Contains original music by Pat McCusker, Marion Lozano, and Diane Wong. And was engineered by Alyssa Moxley. Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Mel Lansberg of Wonderly. That's it for The Daily. I'm Michael Barbaro. See you tomorrow.
The Daily
The Demise of U.S.A.I.D. — and American Soft Power
As President Trump demolishes the government's biggest provider of foreign aid, the United States Agency for International Development, which he calls wasteful and misguided.
The Daily
The Demise of U.S.A.I.D. — and American Soft Power
And Kennedy felt like America had to show that we are not exploiting the world around us.
The Daily
The Demise of U.S.A.I.D. — and American Soft Power
And ultimately, this is the most important part, choose us and not the Soviet Union.
The Daily
The Demise of U.S.A.I.D. — and American Soft Power
Right. Choose democracy and capitalism, not communism.
The Daily
The Demise of U.S.A.I.D. — and American Soft Power
That's right. And in Kennedy's mind, the United States had a real problem. The United States was at risk of losing this competition with the Soviet Union. Why? Well, one thing that motivated Kennedy, and it's such an interesting footnote to all of this, was a popular bestselling book at the time called The Ugly American. And
The Daily
The Demise of U.S.A.I.D. — and American Soft Power
The ugly American essentially told the story that American diplomats in Asia were out of touch with the places where they were working. They didn't understand the local culture. They seemed like they had parachuted in from another world. And in some cases... Made more enemies than friends. And this was a big problem for the United States, that Americans were seen as ugly.
The Daily
The Demise of U.S.A.I.D. — and American Soft Power
And Kennedy actually recommended that his associates and members of Congress read this book to understand this problem. And he felt like America had to stop presenting the ugly face and had to present a more benevolent, helpful face.
The Daily
The Demise of U.S.A.I.D. — and American Soft Power
Fascinating. So USAID, in Kennedy's mind, is the antidote to the perception of the ugly American. It is the generous American, the altruistic American who shows up strategically. with humanitarian aid and makes your life, if you're overseas, skeptical of America, materially better.
The Daily
The Demise of U.S.A.I.D. — and American Soft Power
That's exactly right. USAID is building schools, building hospitals, providing people with clean drinking water, life-saving medicines, helping them find employment, developing local infrastructure, all kinds of things that help people in a fundamental day-to-day way have better lives in these countries. But part of what's happening as USAID does this work is you're gaining influence.
The Daily
The Demise of U.S.A.I.D. — and American Soft Power
You're getting to know government officials. You're getting to know people in the local population. So this kind of becomes the basis of what we know as soft power, which is distinct from hard power. That's military power. Soft power is influence and relationships. And a bipartisan consensus forms around the value of soft power as an instrument of American foreign policy going forward for decades.
The Daily
The Demise of U.S.A.I.D. — and American Soft Power
And so Kennedy launches USAID, but year after year, presidents of both parties accept USAID as a central part of American foreign policy.
The Daily
The Demise of U.S.A.I.D. — and American Soft Power
I have to imagine, however, that when the U.S. wins the Cold War by the end of the 1980s, the early 1990s, that this poses something of a challenge to USAID's purpose.
The Daily
The Demise of U.S.A.I.D. — and American Soft Power
He's ending a 60-year bipartisan consensus about the best way to keep America safe from its enemies. Today, my colleagues, State Department reporter Michael Crowley and health reporter Stephanie Nolan, on the rise and fall of USAID and American soft power. It's Tuesday, February 11th. Michael, as we speak to you, USAID has basically been dismantled.
The Daily
The Demise of U.S.A.I.D. — and American Soft Power
It does. But at the same time, some pretty good new rationales emerge for the continuation of a robust USAID. Why? Because after 9-11, America realized that the Soviet communist ideology that threatened us had been replaced by a new ideology. It was a terrorist ideology. It was a radical fundamentalism that was emerging from parts of the world where USAID did a lot of work. And that terrorism
The Daily
The Demise of U.S.A.I.D. — and American Soft Power
really flourished in countries where there was instability, weak civil society. When a state collapses entirely, that becomes a breeding ground for radicalism. And so there was a new value placed on American aid programs in countries that could maintain stability, try to help find jobs for people who might otherwise turn to radicalism,
The Daily
The Demise of U.S.A.I.D. — and American Soft Power
All kinds of programs that were perceived as being part of the mission of combating worldwide terrorism. Right. But it's also during that period that we see some of USAID's real limitations and, frankly, some of the most wasteful projects that it's ever undertaken.
The Daily
The Demise of U.S.A.I.D. — and American Soft Power
Well, there was one project in Afghanistan known as Promote that was meant to empower women in the country, give them workplace experience. It was originally budgeted at $280 million, and it was supposed to help 75,000 women get jobs, promotions, apprenticeships, internships. But an inspector general report that came out a few years ago found that only 55 women had been promoted to better jobs.
The Daily
The Demise of U.S.A.I.D. — and American Soft Power
That was the original goal. And the inspector general essentially said the whole thing had been a complete waste.
The Daily
The Demise of U.S.A.I.D. — and American Soft Power
So basically, a nearly $300 million program funded by us, the taxpayer, turned out to have been a boondoggle.
The Daily
The Demise of U.S.A.I.D. — and American Soft Power
Yeah, basically down the tubes. So, look, you might cut them some slack for having been in a war zone. A lot of projects were tried by a lot of different parts of the U.S. government in Iraq and Afghanistan that just flopped. Even granting that, USAID has maintained strong bipartisan support for years and years. And the view of both parties is that
The Daily
The Demise of U.S.A.I.D. — and American Soft Power
not every project is gonna work perfectly, not every dollar is going to give you an ideal return, but that at the end of the day, relative to the national budget, USAID does not spend that much money, and actually, overall, you get a good return on your dollar, and you're getting real value for American interests, and that USAID is important to continue and support, that it's really good for the United States of America.
The Daily
The Demise of U.S.A.I.D. — and American Soft Power
Perhaps the clearest example of how USAID exerts American soft power is through the work it's done in public health. And to understand that, I spoke with my colleague, global health reporter Stephanie Nolan. Stephanie, how big a part of USAID's budget and work is healthcare, the subject you have spent so much of your career covering?
The Daily
The Demise of U.S.A.I.D. — and American Soft Power
Wow. So it's a really meaningful part of what this agency does around the world.
The Daily
The Demise of U.S.A.I.D. — and American Soft Power
And in your global travels, which are many and varied, how frequently do you encounter a USAID program of one kind or another?
The Daily
The Demise of U.S.A.I.D. — and American Soft Power
So let me be dense for just a moment, deliberately so. How do those two programs, which are clearly saving hundreds of thousands, in the case of the HIV program, millions of lives in places like Africa, how in the minds of USAID and the U.S. government do those, beyond the indisputable altruism that you're describing, advance American interest, as this program has always been envisioned?
The Daily
The Demise of U.S.A.I.D. — and American Soft Power
Right. This is essentially President Kennedy's vision of USAID from the beginning, which we just talked about with Michael Crowley. This is the opposite of the imperialistic, ugly American image that Kennedy was trying to fight.
The Daily
The Demise of U.S.A.I.D. — and American Soft Power
A judge has paused elements of that dismantling, but the writing is very much on the wall. It's a shell of itself, so much so that its name has literally been removed from its headquarters in Washington. And I think a lot of us have the sense that this elimination of this agency is a very big deal, even if we don't entirely understand exactly how USAID worked and why it
The Daily
The Demise of U.S.A.I.D. — and American Soft Power
That might sound kind of very pragmatic, but you're saying the reality is that when the United States does right by the people of Zambia by giving them HIV drugs and saving their lives, they happen to ensure the country's economic health persists in a way that way downstream benefits Americans and the American economy, which really does feel like the ultimate win-win version of foreign aid.
The Daily
The Demise of U.S.A.I.D. — and American Soft Power
And you're suggesting that that journey from being dependent on foreign aid to becoming a potential U.S. trading partner, that journey seems unimaginable if these countries can't surmount their overwhelming HIV and malaria problems to begin with, which is what the American assistance allowed them to do.
The Daily
The Manhunt, the Manifesto and the Murder Charge
From The New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily. Today, the five-day manhunt for the killer of a healthcare CEO, what we know about the suspect now in custody, and what the case has revealed about many Americans' contempt for insurance companies. It's Tuesday, December 10th.
The Daily
The Manhunt, the Manifesto and the Murder Charge
And, of course, it's a cold-blooded murder, right? And yet it's also become this referendum, it would seem, on a broken healthcare system and populist rage over that. So how are you kind of making sense of all of that as this case now moves into this next phase of the actual criminal justice system?
The Daily
The Manhunt, the Manifesto and the Murder Charge
And just as shocking was how effortlessly Thompson's killer got away.
The Daily
The Manhunt, the Manifesto and the Murder Charge
Maria, thank you very much. We appreciate it.
The Daily
The Manhunt, the Manifesto and the Murder Charge
After we spoke with Maria, Mangione was charged with five crimes in Pennsylvania, including carrying a gun without a license, forgery, and falsely identifying himself to the authorities. A few hours later, prosecutors in Manhattan charged him with murder. On social media, an ex-account belonging to Mangione gained more than 200,000 followers after his arrest
The Daily
The Manhunt, the Manifesto and the Murder Charge
And the hashtag FreeLuigi was trending across the platform.
The Daily
The Manhunt, the Manifesto and the Murder Charge
The Times reports that in a major legal defeat, Rupert Murdoch has lost his effort to change his family's trust in a way that would lock in the right-wing editorial slant of his media empire, which includes Fox News and The Wall Street Journal.
The Daily
The Manhunt, the Manifesto and the Murder Charge
Murdoch, whose family trust originally gave all four of his children equal control of the empire, had sought to rewrite it to give almost all that power to his eldest son, Lachlan, who is far more conservative than his siblings. But a Nevada court resoundingly rejected that effort, saying that it had been undertaken in bad faith.
The Daily
The Manhunt, the Manifesto and the Murder Charge
By the end of the day, a massive citywide manhunt was underway. Cops literally fan out across Central Park. Hotel rooms are being searched. Drones are put in the air.
The Daily
The Manhunt, the Manifesto and the Murder Charge
And in a closely watched trial, Daniel Penny, a former Marine who choked a fellow New York City subway rider last year, was acquitted on a charge of criminally negligent homicide. The case came to exemplify New York City's post-pandemic struggles. Prosecutors alleged that Penny's actions killed Jordan Neely, who was homeless and had a history of mental illness.
The Daily
The Manhunt, the Manifesto and the Murder Charge
Their encounter began after Neely, who is black, began yelling at and frightening fellow subway passengers, prompting Penny, who is white, to put him in a chokehold. Today's episode was produced by Stella Tan, Alex Stern, Lindsay Garrison, and Nina Feldman, with help from Luke Vanderplug.
The Daily
The Manhunt, the Manifesto and the Murder Charge
It was edited by Paige Cowett and Maria Byrne, contains original music by Diane Wong, Alisha Ba'itub, Pat McCusker, and Sophia Landman, and was engineered by Chris Wood. Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Lansford of Wonderly. Special thanks to Nick Pittman. That's it for The Daily. I'm Michael Barbaro. See you tomorrow.
The Daily
The Manhunt, the Manifesto and the Murder Charge
Eventually, small pieces of evidence emerge.
The Daily
The Manhunt, the Manifesto and the Murder Charge
And as speculation begins about why exactly this CEO was targeted, the question naturally arises. Was this about healthcare? And the police reveal a single piece of evidence that suggests perhaps it was.
The Daily
The Manhunt, the Manifesto and the Murder Charge
Suddenly, it looks like this murder and this missing suspect have tapped into something much bigger.
The Daily
The Manhunt, the Manifesto and the Murder Charge
I spoke with my colleague, Dionne Searcy, who writes about wealth and power in New York.
The Daily
The Manhunt, the Manifesto and the Murder Charge
So plenty of people are not celebrating what happened here. They're just seeing it as a chance to... Event? Yeah, to fume about it.
The Daily
The Manhunt, the Manifesto and the Murder Charge
On Wednesday morning of last week, the chief executive of UnitedHealthcare, Brian Thompson, left his hotel in midtown Manhattan for his company's investor conference a few blocks away.
The Daily
The Manhunt, the Manifesto and the Murder Charge
And then on Monday morning, five days into this manhunt and this growing expression of fury at the U.S. healthcare system, there's a major development in the story.
The Daily
The Manhunt, the Manifesto and the Murder Charge
So I called my colleague, police reporter Maria Kramer, who works out of a small press room inside the NYPD called The Shack.
The Daily
The Manhunt, the Manifesto and the Murder Charge
After the break, everything we now know about the suspect.
The Daily
The Manhunt, the Manifesto and the Murder Charge
It's 5.45 or so on Monday night. And I want you to tell us, based on what you know now, how this suspect was caught and how this manhunt came to what looks like its end. And then we'll get to what we're learning about who the suspect is and what truly motivated him. But let's just start with how he gets caught.
The Daily
The Manhunt, the Manifesto and the Murder Charge
It was 6.45 in the morning, still mostly dark out, and as Thompson neared his destination, a hooded and masked gunman emerged from behind a parked car, took out a gun with a silencer, and began to fire at him over and over in what's clearly a targeted attack.
The Daily
The Manhunt, the Manifesto and the Murder Charge
Pretty distinct pieces of evidence, especially the gun and the silencer, that suggest this is most likely their guy.
The Daily
The Manhunt, the Manifesto and the Murder Charge
What, Maria, do we begin to learn about this suspect, about who he is, about his biography?
The Daily
The Manhunt, the Manifesto and the Murder Charge
So what are we learning about how... He goes from having no criminal record and having this fairly normal existence to allegedly committing murder. What are the police uncovering about any motivations?
The Daily
The Manhunt, the Manifesto and the Murder Charge
And what is in that manifesto as best we know?
The Daily
The Manhunt, the Manifesto and the Murder Charge
Wow. Do we know if he himself personally had a bad experience with UnitedHealthcare?
The Daily
The Manhunt, the Manifesto and the Murder Charge
Surveillance videos of all of this, which emerged a few hours later, shocked the city.
The Daily
The Manhunt, the Manifesto and the Murder Charge
To some degree, in the name of stopping corporations from hurting the world. Exactly.
The Daily
The Manhunt, the Manifesto and the Murder Charge
So the working theory here would seem to be that Mangione, over some period of time, since he left college, became somebody who identified with these efforts to take on corporate America, perhaps specifically the healthcare industry, out of some belief, allegedly, that like the Unabomber, he could single-handedly hold them to account.
The Daily
The Manhunt, the Manifesto and the Murder Charge
What awaits Mangione now in the legal system, assuming that police in New York line all this evidence up and decide that he is their suspect in the murder of Brian Thompson?
The Daily
The Manhunt, the Manifesto and the Murder Charge
So, Maria, stepping back just a little bit. I'm curious, at this point, how you're thinking about this overall case and the meanings that it's taken on. We spoke earlier today with our colleague, Dion Cersei, about just how much this case, before there was a named person of interest, before there was an arrest... has become about America's healthcare system and people's frustration with it.
The Daily
Is Elon Musk Buying Today’s Election in Wisconsin?
From The New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily. On paper, today's election in Wisconsin is about whether Democrats or Republicans should control the state's highest court. In reality, it's become a referendum on Elon Musk, his agenda in Washington, and his willingness to flood American politics with his money.
The Daily
Is Elon Musk Buying Today’s Election in Wisconsin?
And it's a temperature-taking exercise. And we've had a few of them, even though this presidency is just a couple months old.
The Daily
Is Elon Musk Buying Today’s Election in Wisconsin?
So, Reid, how are the Democrats in Wisconsin responding to this onslaught? Because from what you have said here, it very much seems like this could potentially tip the race in the direction of shimmel, despite whatever organic Democratic anger is out there. It just seems like a whole lot to counter.
The Daily
Is Elon Musk Buying Today’s Election in Wisconsin?
Mm-hmm. Reid, it seems like no matter which candidate wins this race today in Wisconsin, this is going to be a template for the next chapter of American politics, right? It's hard to imagine a world where Elon Musk doesn't apply these kinds of tactics to the midterm elections across the country in House and Senate races to try to preserve Republican majorities and defend Trump and Trumpism.
The Daily
Is Elon Musk Buying Today’s Election in Wisconsin?
And it's hard to imagine Democrats not trying to make these races about Musk and the oligarchy and the idea that a very small number of people really Elon Musk, have just outsized power over everything. The government, who is fired in that government, what agencies live or die, and how elections are conducted.
The Daily
Is Elon Musk Buying Today’s Election in Wisconsin?
Reid, you could make the argument that all of this may end up being very clarifying for Democrats, despite all the branding problems the party has. Which is, if they end up running over and over again against a billionaire who's bankrolling the other side...
The Daily
Is Elon Musk Buying Today’s Election in Wisconsin?
that the Democrats will have the makings of their own populist campaign message that the 99% of Americans who aren't billionaires need a voice against the 1% or so who are, and that there could be real long-term potency.
The Daily
Is Elon Musk Buying Today’s Election in Wisconsin?
And Musk may be decisive in that decision making.
The Daily
Is Elon Musk Buying Today’s Election in Wisconsin?
Here's what else you need to know today. The stock market keeps rejecting President Trump's tariffs. On Monday, two of America's most closely watched stock indexes, the S&P 500 and Nasdaq, ended the first quarter of the year with their worst declines in nearly three years.
The Daily
Is Elon Musk Buying Today’s Election in Wisconsin?
Economists say much of the blame lies with Trump's haphazard rollout of tariffs against many major trading partners and the threat of even more tariffs in the days to come. And Marine Le Pen, the current front-runner to become France's next leader, was found guilty of embezzlement on Monday and barred from running for office for the next five years.
The Daily
Is Elon Musk Buying Today’s Election in Wisconsin?
The verdict effectively blocks Le Pen, an anti-immigrant nationalist politician, from seeking the presidency in 2027 when French President Emmanuel Macron leaves office because of term limits At the moment, polls show Le Pen leads her nearest rival by about 10 points. Le Pen has vowed to appeal the ruling. Today's episode was produced by Muj Zaydi, Michael Simon Johnson, and Mary Wilson.
The Daily
Is Elon Musk Buying Today’s Election in Wisconsin?
It was edited by Michael Benoit and Liz O'Balin. Contains original music by Diane Wong, Dan Powell, and Rowan Emisto. And was engineered by Alyssa Moxley. Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Lanford of Wonder Week. That's it for The Daily. I'm Michael Barbaro. See you tomorrow.
The Daily
Is Elon Musk Buying Today’s Election in Wisconsin?
Right, because what you're describing are not swing seats, which could go either way, but what sound like pretty reliable Republican red seats. So Democrats flipping them, even in the context of a special election, which, as you said, is somewhat unusual by definition, seems meaningful.
The Daily
Is Elon Musk Buying Today’s Election in Wisconsin?
So even more evidence of what a galvanizing moment this is for Democrats, so much so that the president has asked a member of Congress who's supposed to be in his cabinet to stay in Congress for fear that one or both of these Republican-held House seats in Florida might, might fall to Democrats.
The Daily
Is Elon Musk Buying Today’s Election in Wisconsin?
So tell us more about that race and why it is that you have become so focused on it.
The Daily
Is Elon Musk Buying Today’s Election in Wisconsin?
Today, my colleague Reed Epstein on the local election that everyone is watching. It's Tuesday, April 1st.
The Daily
Is Elon Musk Buying Today’s Election in Wisconsin?
Right. It punches above its weight as far as state Supreme Courts go in the United States.
The Daily
Is Elon Musk Buying Today’s Election in Wisconsin?
So tell us about the candidates for this race today, for that judgeship.
The Daily
Is Elon Musk Buying Today’s Election in Wisconsin?
Right. Not particularly nonpartisan, this race, it seems.
The Daily
Is Elon Musk Buying Today’s Election in Wisconsin?
So, Reid, why did Elon Musk, the richest man in the world, choose this race of all races to pour his money into right now? Well, Michael, there's a lot of theories.
The Daily
Is Elon Musk Buying Today’s Election in Wisconsin?
Perfect. Reid, as we know, after every presidential election, the political cognoscenti... Is that how you say that word? I think that's how you say it. I think that's an only in journalism word. Okay.
The Daily
Is Elon Musk Buying Today’s Election in Wisconsin?
Is the thinking that this lawsuit would eventually go to the Wisconsin Supreme Court?
The Daily
Is Elon Musk Buying Today’s Election in Wisconsin?
And so far, what has Musk's money gone toward exactly? in Wisconsin for this race.
The Daily
Is Elon Musk Buying Today’s Election in Wisconsin?
The political class, the political world turns its attention to the first batch of special elections, these off-season races that happen when somebody retires or gets chosen to be in the president's cabinet and they leave a vacant seat. And we study these, as you know, for signs of how the voting public feels about the new president, direction of the country, and both parties.
The Daily
Is Elon Musk Buying Today’s Election in Wisconsin?
Wait, wait, I just want to slow you down here. He's giving voters who sign a petition, not about this race, but about the generic idea that some judges go too far.
The Daily
Is Elon Musk Buying Today’s Election in Wisconsin?
Hmm. It's kind of a backdoor, I mean, I'm going to use this word carefully, a backdoor bribe to a voter? I mean, how else to think about that?
The Daily
How Tariffs Are Shaking Up the War on Fentanyl
From The New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily. For years, even as fentanyl killed Americans at an astonishing rate, Mexico has claimed that it was doing everything it could to crack down on its production. This week, President Trump began using punishing new tariffs to test that claim.
The Daily
How Tariffs Are Shaking Up the War on Fentanyl
It very much looks like Trump has shocked the Mexican law enforcement system into action, and in so doing, seemed to expose that the Mexican government was capable of doing a lot more than it had been.
The Daily
How Tariffs Are Shaking Up the War on Fentanyl
Of all the things Trump did, I'm curious which, in your reporting, stands out as ultimately being the most effective as we think about just how aggressive Mexico's government has been. I'm going to guess it's the threat of tariffs, but I'm curious what you found.
The Daily
How Tariffs Are Shaking Up the War on Fentanyl
I mean, what's fascinating about what you're saying is that it seems to confirm to a degree that. the Donald Trump thesis, which we've talked about a fair amount on this show with some of our colleagues, that tariffs are a kind of everything, every issue tool, potentially. But what's tricky is the question of whether they're stronger as a threat or as a reality.
The Daily
How Tariffs Are Shaking Up the War on Fentanyl
And as we're talking to you, the United States has made the threat of tariffs against Mexico a reality. We don't know how long it's going to last, but the U.S. has put into place tariffs on Mexico and They could be rolled back in the coming hours or days.
The Daily
How Tariffs Are Shaking Up the War on Fentanyl
But that makes me wonder if Trump is happy with what Mexico has done so far or thinks they can go a lot further when it comes to cracking down on fentanyl. How do you see it and how do the leaders in Mexico see it?
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How Tariffs Are Shaking Up the War on Fentanyl
Right. So in theory, Trump's approach, as it gets more and more punitive, it may keep exposing all the things that Mexico hasn't done, could have done, arguably should have done for years to crack down on fentanyl, but hasn't, or it could end up exposing the limits of what Mexico can do about fentanyl
The Daily
How Tariffs Are Shaking Up the War on Fentanyl
and the damage that the United States is willing to do to Mexico's economy in the pursuit of finding out just how much it can do about fentanyl.
The Daily
How Tariffs Are Shaking Up the War on Fentanyl
Right, but of course the challenge is getting inside, I assume, the kind of places in Mexico that make fentanyl don't offer tours. So how did you even begin to try to get in one?
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How Tariffs Are Shaking Up the War on Fentanyl
Right. Has the incentive for Mexico to pursue this crackdown gone away?
The Daily
How Tariffs Are Shaking Up the War on Fentanyl
Mm-hmm. But no matter what happens, it does feel like the clear lesson from your reporting here, and it's a surprising one. And like you said, you were skeptical of it. I'll confess I was a little skeptical of it myself, is that tariffs as a tool of forcing a government like Mexico to crack down on a very deadly drug is effective.
The Daily
How Tariffs Are Shaking Up the War on Fentanyl
Well, Natalie, thank you very much. Appreciate it. Thank you. Late on Thursday morning, President Trump said he was suspending tariffs on most imports from Mexico for the next month. After a call with Mexico's president, Trump said, quote, we are working hard together on the border, both in terms of stopping illegal aliens from entering the United States and likewise stopping fentanyl.
The Daily
How Tariffs Are Shaking Up the War on Fentanyl
We'll be right back. Here's what else you need to know today. On Wednesday, the Supreme Court rejected President Trump's effort to freeze $2 billion in foreign aid owed to government contractors. It was a major blow to Trump's efforts to circumvent Congress in his pursuit of cost-cutting.
The Daily
How Tariffs Are Shaking Up the War on Fentanyl
The 5-4 rule, in which Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Amy Coney Barrett sided with the court's liberal justices, suggested that Trump's plans to remake the federal government will face skepticism from the high court.
The Daily
How Tariffs Are Shaking Up the War on Fentanyl
During a contentious hearing, House Republicans accused the Democratic mayors of New York, Denver, Boston, and Chicago of making their cities less safe by harboring criminal immigrants... and refusing to fully cooperate with the president's efforts to crack down on illegal immigration.
The Daily
How Tariffs Are Shaking Up the War on Fentanyl
In response, the mayors defended their policies, said that they were following federal immigration law, and told House Republicans that Congress itself had the power to make their cities safer, but so far had failed to do so.
The Daily
How Tariffs Are Shaking Up the War on Fentanyl
Today's episode was produced by Caitlin O'Keefe, Claire Tenesketter, and Carlos Prieto, with help from Nina Feldman. It was edited by Lisa Chow and Lexi Diao, contains original music by Dan Powell and Pat McCusker, and was engineered by Alyssa Moxley. Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Landsberg of Wonderland. That's it for The Daily. I'm Michael Barbaro. See you tomorrow.
The Daily
How Tariffs Are Shaking Up the War on Fentanyl
Should you even try to make it into one of them? A separate question.
The Daily
How Tariffs Are Shaking Up the War on Fentanyl
Today, my colleague, Mexico City Bureau Chief Natalie Kitchoeff, on the surprising result of Trump's strategy. It's Thursday, March 6th.
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How Tariffs Are Shaking Up the War on Fentanyl
So when you leave this lab, what are you thinking? What has this unlocked for you in your understanding of Mexico as this hub, as you said earlier, of fentanyl production?
The Daily
How Tariffs Are Shaking Up the War on Fentanyl
Now, I guess what you're saying about the ease of production makes me wonder why it has to be done in Mexico. Why can't this same process occur in Texas or Brooklyn, for that matter?
The Daily
How Tariffs Are Shaking Up the War on Fentanyl
Um, I don't know how to address you. It's so weird.
The Daily
How Tariffs Are Shaking Up the War on Fentanyl
So a key ingredient here that explains why Mexico is the Mexican government's inability slash unwillingness to truly take on and crack down on these cartels.
The Daily
How Tariffs Are Shaking Up the War on Fentanyl
How about we just do it normal-like? Okay. Yeah. Hey, Natalie. Hi, Michael. Natalie, tell us the story, the kind of improbable story, of how you ended up inside an illegal fentanyl lab in Mexico.
The Daily
How Tariffs Are Shaking Up the War on Fentanyl
Right. Trump's argument throughout the campaign and once he's elected is basically Mexico chooses this situation and it can do a heck of a lot more.
The Daily
How Tariffs Are Shaking Up the War on Fentanyl
And I wonder, based on this lab you saw and based on all the reporting you have done, what you made of Trump's actions as they were unfurling, and if you thought it stood any real chance of changing the fentanyl realities on the ground in Mexico.
The Daily
How Tariffs Are Shaking Up the War on Fentanyl
So Natalie, when you went back to Sinaloa to try to assess whether anything had changed post Trump's inauguration, what did you find?
The Daily
Where Are the Democrats?
Then... There's a contrasting view articulated by Democratic Senator Chris Murphy from Connecticut who says, right now, you have to swing at every pitch. He said, Trump floods the zone every hour of every day. We have to do the same thing. So those seem like the two contrasting arguments on tactics.
The Daily
Where Are the Democrats?
And I want you all to help me understand the basis for both of those and also which one seems to be prevailing in the first two weeks or so of the Trump presidency.
The Daily
Where Are the Democrats?
And you're watching that debate play out in Congress, which you cover really closely and where it would seem Democrats have one of their major levers of power, which is the bully pulpit of Congress opposing cabinet nominees from the president. if they want to, or deciding that the right move in this moment is to work with Trump on issues like immigration. So what are you seeing?
The Daily
Where Are the Democrats?
Yes, you can. That was great. And Shane. Hello. Yep, sorry, Reid.
The Daily
Where Are the Democrats?
Oh, yes. Well, Shane, thank you for being here with me in the New York studio. All three of you have been very closely covering the story of the Democratic Party in this moment. And you know this well. Whenever a party loses a presidential election, we speak of it wandering through the wilderness.
The Daily
Where Are the Democrats?
I want to talk for just a moment about the message that these Democrats, now determined to swing at more pitches, are articulating. This week, we saw them try to pick their first real foil. And as you're starting to hint at, folks here, it wasn't as much Trump as it was Elon Musk.
The Daily
Where Are the Democrats?
And in some of the protests that Democratic lawmakers held across Washington over the past few days, they decided to train their fury at him. Let me just play a clip from somebody whose name has come up in this conversation, Senator Chris Murphy.
The Daily
Where Are the Democrats?
Why approach this torrent of activity from the White House through the person of Elon Musk, Shane? And does that seem effective?
The Daily
Where Are the Democrats?
Right. You mentioned USAID. Reid, when I think of USAID and Democratic lawmakers standing in front of it and saying that something is wrong when the Trump administration cuts spending to the United States Agency for International Development, it makes me wonder if...
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Where Are the Democrats?
the Democrats do need to resolve that debate over what went wrong in this last election because foreign aid, which is what USAID is most known for, is not a top priority for voters. And so it looked to some like the party was doing what it did over the past few years and not in a good way. It was speaking to its progressive base, defending the status quo on foreign aid.
The Daily
Where Are the Democrats?
When a party loses a presidential race and both chambers of Congress, we speak of that party as being in an especially dark wilderness. And when you lose the presidency and both chambers of Congress and the new president of the opposing party takes 300 executive actions that undo everything your party has ever stood for, I don't really know that there is a phrase for it. Do you have one in mind?
The Daily
Where Are the Democrats?
That is perhaps how you get the... activists left motivated, but those images circulate across the country, and do they not do the party any favors?
The Daily
Where Are the Democrats?
Mm-hmm. I want to now turn to something that was happening in Washington that I believe one of you raised a little bit earlier in this conversation that seems extremely well-timed. The Democratic National Committee met just outside Washington to make what feels like one of the most important big decisions about the party's identity since the election.
The Daily
Where Are the Democrats?
And it feels like that would be very informed by the conversation we're having here. It was going to choose its next chairperson. My question to you, Reid and Shane, because I know you were both there, was did it reveal anything about these debates we've been discussing here about nature of the problem, nature of the solution for Democrats? The short answer is no, it did not.
The Daily
Where Are the Democrats?
It feels like the question of the party's identity so clearly not being resolved in this moment in a major way is likely to be resolved most clearly when the party begins to coalesce around a future leader. I wonder how much we're getting a feel for who the party's next avatar might be in the crucible of this Trump blitzkrieg moment.
The Daily
Where Are the Democrats?
Annie, what are you seeing? Because it seems like the loudest voices are in Congress right now, even if the next Democratic nominee might not be someone in Congress.
The Daily
Where Are the Democrats?
I have one final question. Does the future of the Democratic Party at this moment mean or even require former Vice President Kamala Harris standing up and saying, it's not me?
The Daily
Where Are the Democrats?
All right. Well, with that incredible, obscure, helpful bit of historical context, I'd like to thank the three of you, Annie, Reed, Shane. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
The Daily
Where Are the Democrats?
President Trump signed an executive order seeking to ban transgender women and girls from participating in women's sports by denying federal funding to any schools that allow it.
The Daily
Where Are the Democrats?
And... The White House walked back Trump's surprise proposal to seize control of Gaza and permanently relocate the two million Palestinians who live there after it was forcefully rejected by the Arab world.
The Daily
Where Are the Democrats?
Instead, White House officials, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, reframed Trump's offer as a plan for the U.S. to merely oversee Gaza's reconstruction and insisted that he would not commit U.S. troops to the territory, as his original plan seemed to require.
The Daily
Where Are the Democrats?
Even more effed than the previous effed. OK, so I want to start by talking about the kind of soul searching that the Democratic Party is doing and whether that soul searching has started to arrive at any kind of consensus about what exactly the party's problems are. are and how systemic and deep those problems are. From a distance, it doesn't look like there's a consensus.
The Daily
Where Are the Democrats?
At the White House, the president showed up for the swearing-in ceremony of his new attorney general, Pam Bondi, and suggested that in her role as the nation's top law enforcement official and leader of the Justice Department, traditionally a nonpartisan job, Bondi would take a dim view of Democrats.
The Daily
Where Are the Democrats?
Today's episode was produced by Rob Zipko, Anna Foley, Diana Nguyen, and Olivia Nat. It was edited by Patricia Willans and Lexi Diao, contains original music by Diane Wong, Marian Lozano, and Roe Nymisto, and was engineered by Chris Wood. Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Landsverk of Wonderly. That's it for The Daily. I'm Michael Barbaro. See you tomorrow.
The Daily
Where Are the Democrats?
And it sounds like Shane's describing a split between those who think, look, the math, look at the House. It's tactical. Our message couldn't have been that bad if we almost retained control of the House of Representatives.
The Daily
Where Are the Democrats?
But I also think it's important to note that we're not completely in the wilderness, right? This was not some election where Trump won by 20 points. It was a close election.
The Daily
Where Are the Democrats?
Reid, I want to put something to you since both Shane and Annie have been giving voice to the let's not freak out Democratic point of view in this moment. I want you to contemplate the case for a freak out, okay? This was something written by one of the three of you, and here's what it says. Democrats who share the bleak outlook— for their future.
The Daily
Where Are the Democrats?
See statistical signs of the party's decline everywhere. Blue states are ceding population to red states. Voter registration figures are mostly headed in the wrong direction for the Democrats. More Americans are identifying with the GOP than with Democrats. And Democrats lost ground in this last election among core constituencies including lower income, Latino, and younger voters.
The Daily
Where Are the Democrats?
as President Trump swept every battleground state. That's the case for freaking out. And Shane, that was your sentence, your paragraph. It seems like a pretty strong case for freaking out if you're the Democratic Party.
The Daily
Where Are the Democrats?
I mean, let's talk about that point you're raising, the origins of the Democrats' problems. If you're inclined to think that this is an existential crisis moment for the party, it makes sense to ask the question, what exactly went wrong? Reid, you're pointing to
The Daily
Where Are the Democrats?
the observation that Biden's weaknesses as a candidate and party leaders' decision to not ask him to step aside earlier might be a factor. But when we ask the question of what went wrong, it seems like that might be a very narrow reading of things. And Shane, I want to ask you about something that Congressman Pat Ryan from upstate New York says about the Democratic Party.
The Daily
Where Are the Democrats?
He's not talking about whether Joe Biden stayed in the race too long and Democrats, you know, weren't eyes wide open about his health and his various problems. He says that the Democratic brand, overall, is so weak at this point that the only way Democrats like him can win is by running against the Democratic brand, which, of course, is not a great strategy if you're a Democrat.
The Daily
Where Are the Democrats?
So I want to broaden the conversation to what someone like a Congressman Pat Ryan says are deeper problems with the party's identity, ideology, and its relationship to the voters.
The Daily
Where Are the Democrats?
From The New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily. today, how the Democratic Party is navigating the dominance of President Trump, and reckoning with the reality that more and more voters are souring on its message. I spoke with three of my colleagues, politics reporters Shane Goldmacher and Reid Epstein, and congressional correspondent Annie Carney. It's Thursday, February 6th.
The Daily
Where Are the Democrats?
And Shane, I want to bring that up with you because I think one of the questions that a proper soul-searching exercise might lead to among Democrats is the idea that the Democratic Party – and I want your feedback on this based on your reporting – has allowed its coalition, the many fragments of it, activists especially, to push the entire party and its brand toward a less recognizable place than the Democratic Party of 15 or 20 years ago.
The Daily
Where Are the Democrats?
A party that, for example, speaks – of undocumented immigrants as not requiring any level of criminal punishment or justice if they cross the border illegally, which Kamala Harris said in 2020 as a Democratic candidate, talks about diversity as a vital goal, sometimes in ways that...
The Daily
Where Are the Democrats?
talks about diversity and DEI as hugely important to the identity of the party in the country, endorses things like medical interventions for trans youth. I'm generalizing here, but a party that talks about those things in that ways, is it overly beholden not to a broad cross-section of the electorate, but to the loudest voices in its coalition?
The Daily
Where Are the Democrats?
What you're pointing to read is what I think explains why the party can't quite make up its mind as it does this soul-searching and thinking about the nature of its problems about whether this is a moment for revolution or caution because it looks at what happened in those congressional races and says, we didn't do horribly.
The Daily
Where Are the Democrats?
And it looks at these issues sometimes in isolation and says they stand up okay on their own. So maybe we're not a party in crisis. And so that debate has not been resolved. And we're going to go take a break.
The Daily
Where Are the Democrats?
And when we come back, we're going to talk about the next important debate that flows very naturally from this one, which is what should the party's tactics be in this moment, especially if it hasn't made up its mind about its soul-searching. So we'll be right back. Okay, welcome back. Annie, Reid, Shane.
The Daily
Where Are the Democrats?
Where we left off was with a Democratic Party that has not firmly established the nature of the problem, which in theory makes it pretty hard to come up with a set of tactics for how to conduct itself. But the president and his blitz of activity has required the party to make a set of decisions about how to respond. So I want to talk about that. It feels like the party is having a—
The Daily
Where Are the Democrats?
split personality on the question of whether to be a party of protest in this moment or a party of waiting and seeing what the country's reaction to Trump will be. So I want to first play a clip from Congressman Hakeem Jeffries, the minority leader in the House, who is taking the don't overreact approach. Let me just play that for you guys.
The Daily
Where Are the Democrats?
So, friends, welcome to The Roundtable. Reid and Annie, thank you for making the trek over to the Washington studio. Good to have you. Hi, Michael.
The Daily
The Supreme Court Takes On Transgender Care for Minors
From The New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily. Today, in history-making arguments on Wednesday, the Supreme Court heard a major case on the rights of transgender children that could help uphold or dismantle dozens of laws across the country. My colleague Adam Liptak listened in and explains how it played out and how the justices are likely to rule. It's Thursday, December 5th.
The Daily
The Supreme Court Takes On Transgender Care for Minors
Thank you, counsel. So, Adam, when the two lawyers arguing against this Tennessee law are done and about to hand it over to the folks defending this law, what are you thinking?
The Daily
The Supreme Court Takes On Transgender Care for Minors
So, Adam, tell us about the second half of these arguments when the lawyer for Tennessee argues his side of this case.
The Daily
The Supreme Court Takes On Transgender Care for Minors
He's saying this law, if it discriminates against anyone, does so based on the purpose of this medical treatment. If the purpose is to transition a minor, we're not for it. If it's for something else, we are. He's saying as a result, it cannot be construed as discriminatory based on sex.
The Daily
The Supreme Court Takes On Transgender Care for Minors
And what do the justices say to that?
The Daily
The Supreme Court Takes On Transgender Care for Minors
And in that moment, Adam, and I don't know if you felt the same way, it did feel like these three liberal justices were cutting this lawyer down to size. I mean, they were landing their points in this sustained prosecutorial style.
The Daily
The Supreme Court Takes On Transgender Care for Minors
And can you just explain that argument started by these families and, as you said, picked up by the Biden administration about why this is an equal protection 14th Amendment case?
The Daily
The Supreme Court Takes On Transgender Care for Minors
So even though abortion is predominantly a question for women... The Dobbs opinion makes the case that it cannot be construed as being fundamentally discriminatory to women. And now the lawyer for the Tennessee law is saying the same principle applies here.
The Daily
The Supreme Court Takes On Transgender Care for Minors
Hmm. And helpfully for the Tennessee lawyer, he is speaking to a court whose majority just wrote and issued the Dobbs opinion. So presumably he thinks he's going to get a pretty sympathetic ear on that point.
The Daily
The Supreme Court Takes On Transgender Care for Minors
So, Adam, once both sides are done here, what are you thinking about how these justices, based on their questions, based on their tone, are likely to rule in this biggest case of the term?
The Daily
The Supreme Court Takes On Transgender Care for Minors
And what would such a ruling mean for the 20-some state-level bans that seem very much related to this law in Tennessee?
The Daily
The Supreme Court Takes On Transgender Care for Minors
Right. And the parental rights argument was hinted at in this case. Parental rights is and has been for years a tenant of American conservatism. And the case being made here would be that bans like this take a crucial decision away from parents when it comes to their children.
The Daily
The Supreme Court Takes On Transgender Care for Minors
Of course, we do not expect the incoming Trump administration to bring such a parental rights case before the Supreme Court, right?
The Daily
The Supreme Court Takes On Transgender Care for Minors
And in putting that aside and assuming that this case does get decided in due course and assuming, as you suggested, that the justices, a majority of them, side with the Tennessee law, then it looks like we're in a scenario where youth trans medicine is on a similar path to abortion in this country. It becomes the province of state lawmakers. And as a result, we get this patchwork.
The Daily
The Supreme Court Takes On Transgender Care for Minors
We get two systems in the country – And that means there are going to be states where this gender-affirming care for young people is allowed and where it's not allowed, just as we have states where abortion is now allowed and it's not allowed.
The Daily
The Supreme Court Takes On Transgender Care for Minors
Right. And in that sense, these laws, especially if upheld by the Supreme Court, may end up feeling like the final word on this for a long time.
The Daily
The Supreme Court Takes On Transgender Care for Minors
Well, Adam, as always, thank you very much.
The Daily
The Supreme Court Takes On Transgender Care for Minors
Here's what else you need to know today. On Wednesday, Pete Hegseth and his allies tried to salvage his potential nomination for Secretary of Defense amid growing allegations about his public drunkenness, his sexual pursuit of subordinates, and his financial mismanagement of two nonprofit groups.
The Daily
The Supreme Court Takes On Transgender Care for Minors
In an interview with Megyn Kelly of Sirius XM Radio, Hegseth dismissed the allegations against him as a fiction created by enemies of Donald Trump.
The Daily
The Supreme Court Takes On Transgender Care for Minors
But The Times reports that the president-elect is already considering alternatives to run the Defense Department, including Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. And on Wednesday, the CEO of UnitedHealthcare, one of the nation's largest health insurers, was gunned down in midtown Manhattan in what police are calling a brazen and targeted attack.
The Daily
The Supreme Court Takes On Transgender Care for Minors
Police said that the gunman was waiting outside of the hotel where the CEO, Brian Thompson, was scheduled to speak at the company's annual meeting of investors. As Thompson prepared to enter the hotel, the gunman opened fire, shooting him repeatedly before fleeing into Central Park. Thompson was declared dead shortly after.
The Daily
The Supreme Court Takes On Transgender Care for Minors
Today's episode was produced by Diana Nguyen, Sydney Harper, and Will Reed. It was edited by Devin Taylor, contains original music by Marion Lozano and Dan Powell, and was engineered by Alyssa Moxley. Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Landsberg of Wonderland. That's it for The Daily. I'm Michael Barbaro. See you tomorrow.
The Daily
The Supreme Court Takes On Transgender Care for Minors
So under the Tennessee law, the same medicines and procedures are available or not available depending on whether you are a transgender boy or girl or not. And therefore, the claim being made is it's discriminating against trans boys and trans girls. That's the claim under the 14th Amendment.
The Daily
The Supreme Court Takes On Transgender Care for Minors
And just to be very clear, because I think this might escape people's understanding, the government's legal argument here is not about whether this Tennessee law, and I guess laws like it, violate the rights of trans people as trans people, but instead about whether this law is a form of sex discrimination, which is different.
The Daily
The Supreme Court Takes On Transgender Care for Minors
Okay, got it. So, Adam, take us into the courtroom for these arguments from the federal government and the state of Tennessee.
The Daily
The Supreme Court Takes On Transgender Care for Minors
And so what strikes you as the justices inevitably begin their questioning?
The Daily
The Supreme Court Takes On Transgender Care for Minors
Adam, this case that we're going to talk about today has that feeling of bigness that comes when the Supreme Court takes up a defining social issue of our time at the precise moment when that issue is completely front and center.
The Daily
The Supreme Court Takes On Transgender Care for Minors
And how does the government's top lawyer, the Solicitor General, respond to that?
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The Supreme Court Takes On Transgender Care for Minors
Right. But as narrow as she wants to keep this set of oral arguments, and I was watching them alongside you, Adam, the justices keep finding ways to go bigger and bigger in their questions, right?
The Daily
The Supreme Court Takes On Transgender Care for Minors
Right. She's sort of like, people, focus. We have a job here.
The Daily
The Supreme Court Takes On Transgender Care for Minors
Right. And not just the presidential campaign, but school boards across the country and sports leagues across the country. So tell us about this case and, Adam, how it fits into all of that.
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Harvard Is Trying to Resist Trump. It Might Not Be Working.
To do that work, Harvard has come to rely on grants and funding from the federal government that accounts for about half of their research budget.
The Daily
Harvard Is Trying to Resist Trump. It Might Not Be Working.
Billions and billions of dollars.
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Harvard Is Trying to Resist Trump. It Might Not Be Working.
They can go out and raise hundreds of millions of dollars, but to come up with the whole from the federal government may even be too big for Harvard. Because while they do have all of that money in the endowment, The endowment is not a slush fund or a rainy day fund or something they can easily tap into.
The Daily
Harvard Is Trying to Resist Trump. It Might Not Be Working.
It's a more complicated thing than like, oh, wow, Harvard's got the biggest piggy bank in the country. Why don't they just go break into it? It's more complicated than that.
The Daily
Harvard Is Trying to Resist Trump. It Might Not Be Working.
Yeah and we've heard about how other universities are trying to appeal to these researchers to say look we don't have these major questions over us. We've even heard of foreign countries like China trying to recruit some of these researchers because.
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Harvard Is Trying to Resist Trump. It Might Not Be Working.
While Harvard is held up as the most prestigious institution in the country, there are a lot of other universities in the country that can and do similar work and could facilitate that.
The Daily
Harvard Is Trying to Resist Trump. It Might Not Be Working.
As far as we know, the corporation, that board that oversees Harvard, has not authorized its lawyers to go back to the table to negotiate.
The Daily
Harvard Is Trying to Resist Trump. It Might Not Be Working.
Because there's a feeling that how can you make a deal with Donald Trump?
The Daily
Harvard Is Trying to Resist Trump. It Might Not Be Working.
Donald Trump has shown through the deals he made with the law firms that there's Donald Trump's understanding of the deals and there's the law firm's understanding of the deals. There's a gap between those two.
The Daily
Harvard Is Trying to Resist Trump. It Might Not Be Working.
Yeah, in the case of the law firms, they thought to head off these executive orders from Trump, they were committing tens of millions of dollars in pro bono legal work to uncontroversial causes like helping veterans.
The Daily
Harvard Is Trying to Resist Trump. It Might Not Be Working.
And then in the weeks after the deal, Trump started talking publicly about how, oh, these lawyers could go and do trade negotiations for the government, and oh, these lawyers could go and help the coal industry, and that's not what the firms thought that they agreed to.
The Daily
Harvard Is Trying to Resist Trump. It Might Not Be Working.
There's this feeling of like, how can we go to the negotiating table with someone like that who could easily move the goalposts on us? And Harvard is also being lavished with praise. Harvard has not always been an institution that is looked favorably upon. They themselves are coming out of scandal.
The Daily
Harvard Is Trying to Resist Trump. It Might Not Be Working.
And the corporation, that board, was lambasted for giving in to the far right on that. And in this instance, the corporation, which has some pretty prominent Democrats on it, is being held up as a central player of the second term resistance. And they know the criticisms that the law firms have received for making deals with Trump.
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Harvard Is Trying to Resist Trump. It Might Not Be Working.
So they know if they go back to the table that that's a pretty big step for them and something that they could really face a lot of blowback for.
The Daily
Harvard Is Trying to Resist Trump. It Might Not Be Working.
Correct. And that was the sort of thing that I found most fascinating about the Harvard story, which was that as they were being praised for fighting back and as everyone said, oh, they've got this great legal case and they've got these great lawyers, that they were really in an increasingly difficult position and that there weren't great ways out for itself.
The Daily
Harvard Is Trying to Resist Trump. It Might Not Be Working.
And in the midst of that, they have continued to be pelted by the administration. In the weeks since the funding was first taken away, the administration has doubled down on its funding cuts. It's found new and different ways to strip Harvard of federal money. It has made other threats and brought into question whether Harvard is going to be able to keep its tax-exempt status with the IRS.
The Daily
Harvard Is Trying to Resist Trump. It Might Not Be Working.
There's additional measures potentially in place to tax their endowment in a more severe way. Harvard is also getting buried in requests and paperwork from a range of different Justice Department investigations, investigations by the Department of Education, Health and Human Services.
The Daily
Harvard Is Trying to Resist Trump. It Might Not Be Working.
And there's this fear atop Harvard that with all these different investigations, which for now are civil, that they'll turn into full-blown criminal investigations. And on top of that, in perhaps one of the most severe things that we've seen... The administration demanded all of the information the school had on international students.
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Harvard Is Trying to Resist Trump. It Might Not Be Working.
And when Harvard didn't give the administration what it wanted, it said, we're taking away the visas for all of your international students, which is a potentially huge deal because international students make up a quarter of the student population at Harvard.
The Daily
Harvard Is Trying to Resist Trump. It Might Not Be Working.
Correct. And Harvard did quickly sue. They went to court over this and got a judge to temporarily halt it. So it's been paused for now. But now if you're an international student, you have to be checking the federal docket to see if there's an injunction in place that allows you to continue to go to school.
The Daily
Harvard Is Trying to Resist Trump. It Might Not Be Working.
Correct. Like, think about that, that the government, in one what appears to be fairly quick action, was able to raise a question, of whether a quarter of a student body was going to be able to attend school in the fall, even if a judge steps in and says it's no good. Like, that's a major use of the government's power.
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Harvard Is Trying to Resist Trump. It Might Not Be Working.
Before Trump came back to office, I spent a lot of time trying to understand what retribution was like in his first term and how he may use his power to his political ends when he came back to office. The thing about Trump's attempts to use power in his first term is that while he does have some success, it's really success through blunt force.
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Harvard Is Trying to Resist Trump. It Might Not Be Working.
He basically jumps up and down until his rivals are investigated. And the government doesn't always do what he wants, even when he demands it. And I often said to myself, I've never seen Trump do a three-point turn. Everything he does is sort of through blunt force. But in the second term... particularly through the law firms and through Harvard.
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Harvard Is Trying to Resist Trump. It Might Not Be Working.
We've seen a sophistication to his retribution that goes beyond certainly what I thought he was capable of. Someone somewhere in the administration has found the different pressure points that they can hit on Harvard.
The Daily
Harvard Is Trying to Resist Trump. It Might Not Be Working.
Even if you have the best lawyers and the law on your side and a significant portion of the country behind you, it doesn't necessarily mean you're going to have success when you're fighting back against an administration that is audaciously using its power. And if there is a victory for Harvard, it will not be a clean, clear-cut thing that is resolved in court.
The Daily
Harvard Is Trying to Resist Trump. It Might Not Be Working.
It will be something that will have to play out over many years, over many different court cases, and will force Harvard to come up with money or cut back on its ambitions in ways that it didn't think it would ever have to.
The Daily
Harvard Is Trying to Resist Trump. It Might Not Be Working.
We are seeing an administration that is using all different types of powers that the federal government has to hit the pressure points of Harvard and to do it in a way that they certainly aren't doing to any other school or institution in the country. It has been a relentless attack in a way that certainly I didn't think an administration was capable of pulling off.
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Harvard Is Trying to Resist Trump. It Might Not Be Working.
And as someone who has covered retribution and Trump's use of his power against institutions and individuals, I've found it pretty remarkable.
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Harvard Is Trying to Resist Trump. It Might Not Be Working.
So it all may have happened because of an accident. Let me try and explain.
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Harvard Is Trying to Resist Trump. It Might Not Be Working.
What happens is, is that after the Trump administration comes in, they start quietly in March having discussions with Harvard about ways that the administration would like Harvard to change how it operates, particularly around the issue of anti-Semitism.
The Daily
Harvard Is Trying to Resist Trump. It Might Not Be Working.
There has been a range of reporting about how Jewish students at Harvard were subject to harassment on campus by protesters in the aftermath of the October 7th attacks. And this was an issue that the far right and Trump supporters and Trump himself have talked about at length. So Harvard had been widely criticized for allowing anti-Semitism on campus.
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Harvard Is Trying to Resist Trump. It Might Not Be Working.
The Trump administration had taken a position that the far right had taken on Harvard for a proceeding with DEI policies and using and considering issues like race in a range of different matters on campus.
The Daily
Harvard Is Trying to Resist Trump. It Might Not Be Working.
Perfectly said. So they're having this very constructive back and forth. Harvard doesn't like us to call them negotiations. They like to call them... Because they didn't want to be seen as sort of capitulating. So they're engaging this back and forth about what the administration would want Harvard to do. And...
The Daily
Harvard Is Trying to Resist Trump. It Might Not Be Working.
In the midst of this back and forth, Harvard's lawyers say to the administration, like, OK, we have some idea of what you want, but give us some specifics. Tell us what you actually want us to change.
The Daily
Harvard Is Trying to Resist Trump. It Might Not Be Working.
Yeah. So we can go back to the top officials at Harvard and say, look, here's what the administration wants. How can we make a deal to satisfy this? Yeah. Give us a letter that tells us exactly what you're looking for. And these lawyers for the administration say, OK, we'll send you that letter on Friday. So Harvard is waiting for this letter from the administration.
The Daily
Harvard Is Trying to Resist Trump. It Might Not Be Working.
And that Friday comes and it goes and no letter comes. And then in the middle of the night, Harvard receives a letter from the administration.
The Daily
Harvard Is Trying to Resist Trump. It Might Not Be Working.
The letter is not just what the administration wants Harvard to do, but it's a series of demands about how Harvard would operate that someone on the Harvard side told me essentially amounts to appointing Stephen Miller the chancellor of Harvard.
The Daily
Harvard Is Trying to Resist Trump. It Might Not Be Working.
It means that Harvard would have to give up an enormous amount of power to the Trump administration to allow it to see into its admissions, its hiring, what it teaches, the types of people who teach it. The demands are extraordinary.
The Daily
Harvard Is Trying to Resist Trump. It Might Not Be Working.
It would do more than just fly in the face of academic freedom. It would have given the federal government an arm in Harvard's day-to-day operations that go far beyond anything we've seen at a private education university like Harvard.
The Daily
Harvard Is Trying to Resist Trump. It Might Not Be Working.
So Harvard makes an extraordinary decision. Over that weekend, they decide that the demands from the Trump administration are so great that they have no choice but to publicly rebuff this and take on Trump and stand up for themselves.
The Daily
Harvard Is Trying to Resist Trump. It Might Not Be Working.
And it's vastly different than a series of top law firms in the country who were also going in to the Oval Office to make deals with Trump to head off executive orders against them. So that Monday, without going back to the administration, Harvard puts out a letter that essentially says there is no way we are going along with any of this.
The Daily
Harvard Is Trying to Resist Trump. It Might Not Be Working.
We are putting our foot down and we are going to do whatever we need to do to protect our independence. Along with putting out their letter and a statement from Harvard's president, Harvard puts out a copy of the letter that the administration had sent them that Friday night.
The Daily
Harvard Is Trying to Resist Trump. It Might Not Be Working.
They want the world to see, look at how crazy these demands are. Look at this letter and you can see why we decided we had no choice but to fight. And almost immediately after Harvard puts all of this out, Harvard's lawyers receive a frantic call from a lawyer in the Trump administration who they had been negotiating with.
The Daily
Harvard Is Trying to Resist Trump. It Might Not Be Working.
He says, that letter that you guys got on Friday, that now is like the center of the whole issue for why Harvard has decided to take on the Trump administration, that letter wasn't supposed to be sent out.
The Daily
Harvard Is Trying to Resist Trump. It Might Not Be Working.
It's one of the great mysteries of the Harvard story. Did they mean to send the letter? Was the wrong letter sent? Was it sent at the wrong time? Or did the administration overplay their hand? Did they send a letter that they thought was negotiation? but was just so extreme and so beyond the pale that Harvard thought they had no choice but to fight.
The Daily
Harvard Is Trying to Resist Trump. It Might Not Be Working.
Correct. It's like it would be like if you and I were negotiating and you said to me, Mike, I'll give you 25 cents. And I said, what about 75 cents? And we're going back and forth in good faith. And then all of a sudden I walk in and I'm like, Give me $20. And you're like, what the heck, Mike? You know I only have, like, maybe 50 cents, 75 cents. Like, there's no way I could give you $20.
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Harvard Is Trying to Resist Trump. It Might Not Be Working.
Sorry, there's no way I can make a deal with you if that's what you want. And that's sort of what happened here.
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Harvard Is Trying to Resist Trump. It Might Not Be Working.
Correct. But at that point, the war had already begun. Harvard had already declared that it was going to rebuff Trump. And by the end of that day, the White House announces that Harvard will start to lose major portions of federal funding that it receives for research the school does.
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Harvard Is Trying to Resist Trump. It Might Not Be Working.
And just days later, Harvard goes to court and sues the administration to get back the money Trump has stripped away from them for their refusal to go along with what he wants.
The Daily
Harvard Is Trying to Resist Trump. It Might Not Be Working.
Well, Harvard goes to court with two of the top conservative lawyers in the country at the head of their legal team. They had Robert Herr, who had been the special counsel who investigated whether Joe Biden had mishandled classified documents.
The Daily
Harvard Is Trying to Resist Trump. It Might Not Be Working.
Correct. And then they had Bill Burke, who is a well-known lawyer in Trump's orbit, who even at the time was the outside ethics advisor to the Trump Organization.
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Harvard Is Trying to Resist Trump. It Might Not Be Working.
People who could bridge the gap between what the administration wants and those that are targeted by it who could potentially make a deal.
The Daily
Harvard Is Trying to Resist Trump. It Might Not Be Working.
What Harvard's essentially saying is that you have unfairly taken away our money without any process, without even investigating us. And you've done it in a way that actually violates our First Amendment rights because you're trying to infringe here on what happens inside of our classrooms.
The Daily
Harvard Is Trying to Resist Trump. It Might Not Be Working.
And Harvard's also saying, look, if you're saying this about how antisemitism is on campus, what does funding for cancer research have to do with antisemitism? And as this court case is proceeding, Harvard looks like it really has the wind at its back. Legal experts are saying that they have a very valid case and could quickly win in court and get their money back.
The Daily
Harvard Is Trying to Resist Trump. It Might Not Be Working.
Harvard is also being widely praised for its willingness to fight back. There's a feeling that not only is Harvard taking a stand, but like Harvard has to take a stand because they are uniquely positioned to fight back. They have an enormous amount of resources and abilities. And if they're not going to fight back, then who is?
The Daily
Harvard Is Trying to Resist Trump. It Might Not Be Working.
But at the same time, as it appears like all the momentum is heading in Harvard's way, I start to hear from folks that I'm talking to that Harvard's problems may be much bigger than just winning this legal case.
The Daily
Harvard Is Trying to Resist Trump. It Might Not Be Working.
What I was coming to understand was that the court case only related to funding that the Trump administration had already frozen and that even if Harvard was to prevail in court, they would still need to get funding in the years that followed. And if they remain persona non grata with the administration, how are they going to get future federal grants for their research?
The Daily
Harvard Is Trying to Resist Trump. It Might Not Be Working.
So it showed that while the court case was important, there were other consequences to being in such public opposition to the administration, which had the lever or the spigot of research money that was critical to the work that was going on at Harvard.
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Harvard Is Trying to Resist Trump. It Might Not Be Working.
So understanding Harvard's finances is probably like a Harvard class in and of itself.
The Daily
Harvard Is Trying to Resist Trump. It Might Not Be Working.
Basically, Harvard has, along with becoming a place that teaches and educates, has become a big research institution. It does work on cancer. It does work on things related to aerospace that I don't even know how to describe. It does stuff on physics and math and all the important things that we think that academia does or is supposed to do to be at the cutting edge of making our society better.
The Daily
J.F.K., the C.I.A. and the Original ‘Deep State’
From The New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily. For the past three decades, when the U.S. government has released documents related to the assassination of John F. Kennedy, an overriding goal has been to dispel conspiracy theories. But as my colleague Julian Barnes explains, President Trump's motivation for releasing the latest batch is far more complicated.
The Daily
J.F.K., the C.I.A. and the Original ‘Deep State’
What else do we learn from these unredacted documents about the CIA?
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J.F.K., the C.I.A. and the Original ‘Deep State’
So what these removed redactions are really showing us is is just a deeper version of what we had already understood, which is just how out of control the CIA was in this period, rather than these documents telling us anything really new or revelatory related to the conspiracy theories around Kennedy's death.
The Daily
J.F.K., the C.I.A. and the Original ‘Deep State’
So in theory, a revelation like the one you just described of the CIA reaching into the phone lines of journalists in the 1960s could further fuel that unsubstantiated theory that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. subscribes to, that the CIA is trying to control journalists.
The Daily
J.F.K., the C.I.A. and the Original ‘Deep State’
So those putting out these docs now... They are not interested in dispelling them as their forefathers in disclosures like this have. They're putting them up because they're believers in conspiracy theories. Do you think it's fair to put President Trump in that category?
The Daily
J.F.K., the C.I.A. and the Original ‘Deep State’
Well, that gets to a question that I think is going to be on a lot of people's minds as they get to this point in the conversation, which is, are all the revelations that we have just been discussing, especially around the CIA, in any way strengthening the one conspiracy theory that Trump subscribes to the most still about a deep state?
The Daily
J.F.K., the C.I.A. and the Original ‘Deep State’
Or is the reality that what's in these documents is so old that it's quite irrelevant to today's debate over government and the deep state that Trump talks about? Now, how should we think about that?
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J.F.K., the C.I.A. and the Original ‘Deep State’
So in that sense, the foundational conspiracy theory that the intelligence community played a role in Kennedy's death and that the government spends all this time releasing documents to dispel ends up seeding newer, different conspiracy theories, all of which seems to tell us that transparency or efforts at transparency when it comes to something like the Kennedy assassination, it didn't really exist.
The Daily
J.F.K., the C.I.A. and the Original ‘Deep State’
solve conspiracy theories, it helped them, I think the word you used was blossom, which isn't necessarily the best case for transparency. Does that mean we just have to accept that the more you release, the more conspiracy theories there will be? That's just the reality of it?
The Daily
J.F.K., the C.I.A. and the Original ‘Deep State’
Well, Julian, thank you very much. Thank you, Michael. We'll be right back.
The Daily
J.F.K., the C.I.A. and the Original ‘Deep State’
On Wednesday, a growing number of congressional Democrats called on Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to resign or be fired after it emerged that texts he inadvertently shared with a journalist over a commercial messaging platform contained detailed information about an upcoming U.S. military attack.
The Daily
J.F.K., the C.I.A. and the Original ‘Deep State’
The texts from Hegseth, which were released by the journalists who received them, cast doubt on claims by the officials involved in the text chain that nothing in their messages was classified.
The Daily
J.F.K., the C.I.A. and the Original ‘Deep State’
Asked about Hegseth's future during a news conference at the White House, President Trump defended him and called the growing political furor over the texts another coordinated attack against his administration. And President Trump said he would impose a 25% tariff on all cars and certain car parts that are imported into the United States starting next week.
The Daily
J.F.K., the C.I.A. and the Original ‘Deep State’
In doing so, Trump would make good on a promise long feared by automakers across the world. The tariffs could encourage carmakers to open up more U.S. factories but will disrupt supply chains and most likely result in significantly higher car prices for American consumers. Today's episode was produced by Olivia Nat, Mary Wilson, and Sydney Harper.
The Daily
J.F.K., the C.I.A. and the Original ‘Deep State’
Suffice it to say, young Julian Barnes and now modern-day Julian Barnes sounds very primed for the moment just a few days ago when the United States government, at the direction of President Trump, releases thousands and thousands of pages of these super-secret documents related to the JFK assassination. So what...
The Daily
J.F.K., the C.I.A. and the Original ‘Deep State’
given that history, was your first impression when you finally had a chance to really make sense of them?
The Daily
J.F.K., the C.I.A. and the Original ‘Deep State’
Well, we're going to get to that and get to how the documents that were just released may or may not reinforce that concept. But just to start, can you tell us the backstory behind this document release? As you've hinted at, There have been releases of JFK documents throughout the last half century or so. So where did these specific documents come from? What's that story?
The Daily
J.F.K., the C.I.A. and the Original ‘Deep State’
Today, what we learned from those new documents and why they may actually fuel even more conspiratorial thinking. It's Thursday, March 27th. Julian, you're the intelligence reporter for The Times. So I'm curious what your relationship has been to arguably the biggest and most enduring conspiracy theory about the agency you cover.
The Daily
J.F.K., the C.I.A. and the Original ‘Deep State’
So just explain how we get from the Trump who is compliant with the CIA and agreeing to all the redactions... to the Trump of this past week or so, who oversees the release of this final batch with no redactions? And I'm guessing part of the answer is the extraordinary souring of Trump's relationship with the intelligence community since his first term.
The Daily
J.F.K., the C.I.A. and the Original ‘Deep State’
And, of course, he's kind of pushing on an open door in Trump, given his relationship with the intel community.
The Daily
J.F.K., the C.I.A. and the Original ‘Deep State’
So, Julian, tell us what we learn when these redacted boxes are wiped away and everything that had been previously hidden in these JFK documents suddenly is revealed.
The Daily
J.F.K., the C.I.A. and the Original ‘Deep State’
Huh. Who had worked on previous investigations?
The Daily
J.F.K., the C.I.A. and the Original ‘Deep State’
So... When it comes to the central question we have been exploring here of what new information is in these formally redacted spaces and these documents, beyond Social Security numbers, what did you find?
The Daily
J.F.K., the C.I.A. and the Original ‘Deep State’
So people you would think are working for the State Department in a diplomatic capacity are actually just spies for the CIA. Yeah.
The Daily
J.F.K., the C.I.A. and the Original ‘Deep State’
What seems fascinating about this, not only is that it reveals the reach of the CIA within what we think of as the civilian corners of our government, like the State Department, but it reminds me of what you had said earlier in our conversation about the tension between Kennedy and the CIA.
The Daily
J.F.K., the C.I.A. and the Original ‘Deep State’
That would seem to fuel the idea that in this period, there is a conflict between the spy agency and the president.
The Daily
He Was America’s Highest-Ranking Military Officer. Then Came the War on D.E.I.
From The New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily. During his decades-long path to becoming America's highest-ranking military officer, General Charles Q. Brown won the crucial support of President Trump. Until that was, Brown publicly talked about the one subject that is now taboo in Trump's government —
The Daily
He Was America’s Highest-Ranking Military Officer. Then Came the War on D.E.I.
Right. And so in their mind, what could better encapsulate the military going woke than having the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, after George Floyd's death, having recorded a video talking about race?
The Daily
He Was America’s Highest-Ranking Military Officer. Then Came the War on D.E.I.
So, Helene, once Donald Trump wins the presidency back, and once Pete Hegseth, his nominee for Secretary of Defense, is confirmed, is the thinking, given everything you have just laid out here, that C.Q. Brown now has a target on his back?
The Daily
He Was America’s Highest-Ranking Military Officer. Then Came the War on D.E.I.
So I think that brings us up pretty much to the present and to this Friday Night Massacre that ends with C.Q. Brown being terminated as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. I'm curious what the official explanation becomes here. for why the president is getting rid of him in this role?
The Daily
He Was America’s Highest-Ranking Military Officer. Then Came the War on D.E.I.
I'm curious who President Trump puts forward to replace Brown and how, in the president's mind and in the mind of the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, that person's on the right side of all of this if it turns out C.Q. Brown is on the wrong side.
The Daily
He Was America’s Highest-Ranking Military Officer. Then Came the War on D.E.I.
Got it. So he basically denies that this happened. Yes. So this is important. After firing C.Q. Brown for being somebody who, to the president, we understand, represents a woke figure. And it seems in Hegseth's telling, maybe someone who was elevated more for his race than merit. There's no evidence of that, but that appears to be the perception from Hegseth.
The Daily
He Was America’s Highest-Ranking Military Officer. Then Came the War on D.E.I.
Trump and Hegseth have replaced him with somebody who has a lower rank and less achievement within the military, but whose chief virtue seems to be, in Trump's telling, unquestioning explicit loyalty and fondness for Trump. That would be correct. And that, of course, raises a lot of questions. I mean, the first is whether loyalty is now being prized over merit.
The Daily
He Was America’s Highest-Ranking Military Officer. Then Came the War on D.E.I.
And to the degree that that's the case, we now have two of the most powerful people in the military chain of command, Hegseth, who has no traditional credentials to run the Defense Department, but Trump has asked him to do so. Now we have Kaine, who has many of the credentials, but not the credentials of the last person to be chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
The Daily
He Was America’s Highest-Ranking Military Officer. Then Came the War on D.E.I.
What they have in common is a very strong, in Trump's mind, loyalty to the president. What does that start to tell us about the state of our armed forces and their relationship to the president?
The Daily
He Was America’s Highest-Ranking Military Officer. Then Came the War on D.E.I.
So what explained that, as you have just described it, highly unusual decision to fire Brown?
The Daily
He Was America’s Highest-Ranking Military Officer. Then Came the War on D.E.I.
And of course, the other very pointed, I think, but essential question that this whole episode raises is what kind of a black leader is allowed in the senior levels of Trump's government? I mean, what can be your relationship to race, to George Floyd, to questions of diversity if you want to be somebody who succeeds in Trump's administration?
The Daily
He Was America’s Highest-Ranking Military Officer. Then Came the War on D.E.I.
I mean, what have we learned from the experience of C.Q. Brown?
The Daily
He Was America’s Highest-Ranking Military Officer. Then Came the War on D.E.I.
During a confirmation hearing on Wednesday, three of President Trump's choices to help run the Justice Department clashed with Democratic senators about whether the White House can simply ignore some court orders, a possibility that many legal scholars see as the start of a constitutional crisis.
The Daily
He Was America’s Highest-Ranking Military Officer. Then Came the War on D.E.I.
Under questioning, the lawyers, including Aaron Reiter, Trump's choice to run the Justice Department's Office of Legal Policy, suggested that Trump could, in fact, ignore the court's rulings.
The Daily
He Was America’s Highest-Ranking Military Officer. Then Came the War on D.E.I.
The issue has taken on growing urgency as Trump attempts to expand his power and federal courts repeatedly rule that his actions are illegal. Today's episode was produced by Shannon Lin and Stella Tan. It was edited by Liz O'Balin with help from Paige Cowan. Contains original music by Marion Lozano, Dan Powell, Pat McCusker, and Diane Wong. And was engineered by Chris Wood.
The Daily
He Was America’s Highest-Ranking Military Officer. Then Came the War on D.E.I.
Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Lansford of Wonderland. That's it for The Daily. I'm Michael Barbaro. See you tomorrow.
The Daily
He Was America’s Highest-Ranking Military Officer. Then Came the War on D.E.I.
Hmm. So in some sense, this is a story you're saying about loyalty and race. Yeah. Well, tell us that story of who C.Q. Brown is is in the kind of span of his career and how he and Trump's mind mishandles the question of race in a way that feels to Trump somehow disloyal.
The Daily
He Was America’s Highest-Ranking Military Officer. Then Came the War on D.E.I.
Today, Pentagon correspondent Helene Cooper on what got Brown fired and why it has so thoroughly rocked the military. It's Thursday, February 27th. Well, Helene, thank you for coming into the studio and thank you for making time for us.
The Daily
He Was America’s Highest-Ranking Military Officer. Then Came the War on D.E.I.
And just explain what that means and why it's a promotion.
The Daily
He Was America’s Highest-Ranking Military Officer. Then Came the War on D.E.I.
So Trump very much facilitates C.Q. Brown's rise to pretty much the heights of the U.S. military.
The Daily
He Was America’s Highest-Ranking Military Officer. Then Came the War on D.E.I.
Aline, can you tell us about what is being described as the Friday night massacre inside the Pentagon that unfolded a few days ago? And why, even in the context of President Trump firing so many people across so many federal agencies, this felt different and important and worth singling out, which is, of course, what we're doing here in our conversation with you today.
The Daily
He Was America’s Highest-Ranking Military Officer. Then Came the War on D.E.I.
And what is the reaction to this video within the military?
The Daily
He Was America’s Highest-Ranking Military Officer. Then Came the War on D.E.I.
Well, what's the answer? How does then President Trump react to this?
The Daily
He Was America’s Highest-Ranking Military Officer. Then Came the War on D.E.I.
We'll be right back. Helene, just before the break, you suggested that C.Q. Brown, whether he intended to or not, ends up seeming in alliance with Trump's enemies within the military. But of course, at this moment in our chronology, Trump is on his way to an electoral loss to Joe Biden. And so he's going to leave the picture for several years. So pick the story up here for C.Q. Brown.
The Daily
He Was America’s Highest-Ranking Military Officer. Then Came the War on D.E.I.
What happens when Joe Biden becomes president?
The Daily
He Was America’s Highest-Ranking Military Officer. Then Came the War on D.E.I.
Like literally ready to fight a war this evening.
The Daily
He Was America’s Highest-Ranking Military Officer. Then Came the War on D.E.I.
And it seems worth noting, and I don't know whether this has to do with the fact that Joe Biden is now the president, that C.Q. Brown is finding a way to talk pretty openly, and it sounds like creatively, about diversity and about ensuring that it is celebrated within the military.
The Daily
What an Iowa Farmer Fears About the Trade War
We'll be right back. Let's talk about today. After spending all these years cultivating the relationships that you have so successfully cultivated and that has been beneficial to both sides, China getting the soybeans, farmers like you selling so much to China. I want to... I don't know. What is the state of the relationship right now between the U.S.?
The Daily
What an Iowa Farmer Fears About the Trade War
What is the state of the trade relationship?
The Daily
What an Iowa Farmer Fears About the Trade War
Well, since you raised it, did you vote for this?
The Daily
What an Iowa Farmer Fears About the Trade War
soybeans in China about what the sky-high tariffs instigated by President Trump now means for her and tens of thousands of American farmers. It's Thursday, April 24th.
The Daily
What an Iowa Farmer Fears About the Trade War
I'm curious if since this all began over the past month or so, if you've been in touch with any of your contacts over in China, that secretary group.
The Daily
What an Iowa Farmer Fears About the Trade War
Well... Let's talk about the American soybean farmer, you. I mean, and whether you dig in and how you dig in. I mean, what would it mean for you for tariffs on the scale that are in place and the retaliatory tariffs that are in place? What would it mean for you for those to remain in place for any meaningful stretch of time?
The Daily
What an Iowa Farmer Fears About the Trade War
And when you say inputs, you mean the things you need to do your farming?
The Daily
What an Iowa Farmer Fears About the Trade War
A few days ago, Daily producer Jessica Chung traveled to Iowa to meet with a farmer.
The Daily
What an Iowa Farmer Fears About the Trade War
And do the tariffs affect the prices of those?
The Daily
What an Iowa Farmer Fears About the Trade War
What would it mean if China stopped buying American soybeans?
The Daily
What an Iowa Farmer Fears About the Trade War
I mean, the reason I asked that question about what it would mean if China stopped buying American soybeans is that we don't know that it's entirely theoretical, right? I mean, our own newspaper has reported that China is working on plans to replace U.S. farmers in this moment. Now, maybe that's just talk. Maybe that's a scare tactic. They've been saying that for years, by the way.
The Daily
What an Iowa Farmer Fears About the Trade War
They talk about Brazil. They talk about Argentina. And is that a real risk?
The Daily
What an Iowa Farmer Fears About the Trade War
When you think about the amount of work that you and fellow farmers put into developing the relationship between the United States and China, all the trips, all the pitches, all the meals and the translators and the tractor rides, I mean, do you think that the president of the United States understands how much all that and how quickly something like this trade war can kind of undermine it?
The Daily
What an Iowa Farmer Fears About the Trade War
I'm hearing you say that on some level, perhaps the one that doesn't acknowledge how you voted, and I respect that, you understand... his protectionist instincts when it comes to trade. And you understand what he's up to. U.S. first. But you're in a unique position. You may appreciate what he's up to. You may even on some level support it, but you know... personally, the cost of it.
The Daily
What an Iowa Farmer Fears About the Trade War
What do you want the White House, the president, to understand right now, given where the trade war is and given the unique perspective you have about what it took to get to this place and how much this relationship between the U.S. and China means to soybean farmers?
The Daily
What an Iowa Farmer Fears About the Trade War
Sounds like a farmer did help it along already.
The Daily
What an Iowa Farmer Fears About the Trade War
Well, April, I can't thank you enough for your time. Thank you very much.
The Daily
What an Iowa Farmer Fears About the Trade War
Speaking of backgrounds, are you in your kitchen?
The Daily
What an Iowa Farmer Fears About the Trade War
Here's what else you need to know today. In their latest clash, President Trump on Wednesday demanded that Ukraine's leader, Volodymyr Zelensky, immediately accept a peace plan that heavily favors Russia, a demand that Zelensky flatly rejected.
The Daily
What an Iowa Farmer Fears About the Trade War
The Trump-backed plan would give Russia nearly 20% of Ukraine's territory, prohibit Ukraine from joining the NATO Defense Alliance, and would recognize Crimea, which Russia illegally invaded in 2014, as part of Russia. U.S.
The Daily
What an Iowa Farmer Fears About the Trade War
officials have warned Zelensky that the White House may abandon the peace talks in the coming days unless a deal is quickly reached and appear ready to blame Ukraine if the talks break down.
The Daily
What an Iowa Farmer Fears About the Trade War
I think we have a deal with Russia. We have to get a deal with Zelensky. And I hope that Zelensky, I thought it might be easier to deal with Zelensky. So far, it's been harder.
The Daily
What an Iowa Farmer Fears About the Trade War
Today's episode was produced by Jessica Chung, Olivia Nat, Rob Zipko, and Alexandra Lee Young. It was edited by Maria Byrne, contains research help from Susan Lee, original music by Marion Lozano, Alishaba Etube, and Dan Powell, and was engineered by Chris Wood. Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Lansford of Wonderly. That's it for The Daily. I'm Michael Bilboro. See you tomorrow.
The Daily
What an Iowa Farmer Fears About the Trade War
Well, are you feeling ready for this conversation? Let's rock and roll. Can I just start, for the benefit of our listeners, by asking you to tell us your name, with your permission, your age, and what you do on the farm.
The Daily
What an Iowa Farmer Fears About the Trade War
And how much of your crop ends up being shipped to China right now?
The Daily
What an Iowa Farmer Fears About the Trade War
Got it. The reason we wanted to talk to you about all of this is because you, April, occupy a really interesting and kind of pivotal place in the story of how that relationship between Iowa farmers and China came to be. And we want you to tell that story. And I think that it would be helpful to begin with the past.
The Daily
What an Iowa Farmer Fears About the Trade War
basically what the world looked like before farmers like you and those around you sent so much of your crop to China. So can we start by having you paint a picture for us of what it was like in the before? I don't know where you would start that, but I'm going to guess it's a few decades ago.
The Daily
What an Iowa Farmer Fears About the Trade War
Am I right, April, in remembering from some civics book I read many, many years ago that a factor in the farm crisis was that there was simply too much crop?
The Daily
What an Iowa Farmer Fears About the Trade War
Why was that market seen as a potential answer to the farm crisis?
The Daily
What an Iowa Farmer Fears About the Trade War
You just hinted at how this is a relationship that needs to be worked on. It doesn't happen on its own. So how do you, April, go from being a farmer who may be benefiting from this new Chinese market to somebody personally involved in working on and even expanding the relationship between farmers in places like Iowa and China? How does that happen? Right.
The Daily
What an Iowa Farmer Fears About the Trade War
So you're noticing some real limitations in how China farms.
The Daily
What an Iowa Farmer Fears About the Trade War
So what happens after that initial market tour trip?
The Daily
What an Iowa Farmer Fears About the Trade War
And just for those who may not understand, what is his role in the Chinese economy and government?
The Daily
What an Iowa Farmer Fears About the Trade War
Guys, so you're kind of talking to the big cheese when it comes to soybeans.
The Daily
What an Iowa Farmer Fears About the Trade War
So in this burgeoning kind of personal set of relationships between you and the Chinese government and their economic community, do they end up sending their folks over to you?
The Daily
What an Iowa Farmer Fears About the Trade War
From the New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily. In the increasingly bitter trade war between the United States and China, perhaps nobody has more at stake than America's soybean farmers, whose crop has become the country's single biggest export to China today. I speak with an Iowa farmer who helped build the $13 billion market for U.S.
The Daily
What an Iowa Farmer Fears About the Trade War
Tell me in your mind why this kind of interaction matters. You talking to this Chinese economic official, this Chinese economic official talking to you. Like, fundamentally, what is the value of this?
The Daily
What an Iowa Farmer Fears About the Trade War
Overall, how many times do you end up going to China?
The Daily
What an Iowa Farmer Fears About the Trade War
Wow. During this period, as you're making all these trips and as these relationships are clearly growing, how much is the actual trade relationship growing between Iowa farmers, soybean farmers especially, and China? Like if there's a graph, a chart that shows what's happening during this period.
The Daily
A Conversation With Vice President Vance
From The New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily. A few days ago in Rome, Vice President J.D. Vance met with the new Pope. And then he sat down with my colleague, Ross Douthat, a Times opinion columnist and host of a new podcast called Interesting Times, for an interview about faith, immigration, the law, and the partisan temptation to go too far.
The Daily
A Conversation With Vice President Vance
Okay, Ross, before the break, you told us that the administration's options for speeding up the pace of deportations is first, rewrite the law. Second, get the Supreme Court to reinterpret the law or to use a third option. So talk about what Vance says that third option is.
The Daily
A Conversation With Vice President Vance
I have to imagine that's a pretty tempting offer for any journalist, period. But for a religious Catholic like yourself, an especially tempting offer.
The Daily
A Conversation With Vice President Vance
Ross, when the vice president refers to communities that are, in his characterization, riddled with crime from illegal immigrants, which communities do you think he's talking about?
The Daily
A Conversation With Vice President Vance
Right. The Maryland man in the United States illegally who was by the admission of the Trump administration mistakenly deported without due process to this prison in El Salvador.
The Daily
A Conversation With Vice President Vance
And just to explain, Ross, we're going to be playing large segments of your conversation with Vance in this episode because it really helps you understand how Vance thinks. But just to understand what you're doing in this interview, what, once it's beginning, is your real overriding goal for the conversation?
The Daily
A Conversation With Vice President Vance
Listening to Vance here, I was struck by how much issue he takes with those who question this approach. And really, he takes issue with the fact that those who don't recognize the problem as he sees it don't really have much ground to stand on. in criticizing these edge cases, as he calls them.
The Daily
A Conversation With Vice President Vance
Basically, he seems to see left-leaning critics as unworthy of much engagement around this issue, which just struck me.
The Daily
A Conversation With Vice President Vance
By the time you're all done talking about this administration's approach to immigration and how Vance thinks about it, I wonder what you've concluded about the relationship between this Catholic vice president who's in Rome and clearly thinking about some of the disapproval emanating from the Vatican and this pretty aggressive policy that Vance is a part of inside the Trump administration when it comes to immigration.
The Daily
A Conversation With Vice President Vance
Ross, you end this interview by asking the vice president how policies like these expedited deportations are playing out with a very specific kind of voter.
The Daily
A Conversation With Vice President Vance
And you asked the vice president. What he would say to that constituency.
The Daily
A Conversation With Vice President Vance
And briefly, what exactly is the Pope and the Catholic Church's view on immigration, in particular on how the United States should be thinking about immigration?
The Daily
A Conversation With Vice President Vance
I'm curious what you made of the vice president's answer and what that tells us about what the next three and a half years and maybe even the future of the MAGA movement over a longer time horizon might look like.
The Daily
A Conversation With Vice President Vance
To hear Ross's entire interview with Vice President Vance, including their conversation about trade and artificial intelligence, listen to the latest episode of Ross's show, Interesting Times. You can find it wherever you listen to podcasts.
The Daily
A Conversation With Vice President Vance
Here's what else you need to know today. Late last night, a gunman shot and killed two staff members of the Israeli embassy in Washington, D.C., outside an event at a Jewish museum. The suspected gunman later chanted, "'Free Palestine,' while in police custody." In response, Israel's ambassador to the United Nations called the shooting a, quote, And
The Daily
A Conversation With Vice President Vance
On Wednesday, what started off as a polite Oval Office meeting between President Trump and the leader of South Africa became unexpectedly contentious when Trump paused the conversation to play a video of what he said was evidence of racial persecution of white South Africans.
The Daily
A Conversation With Vice President Vance
The video, a compilation of cliffs, many of them years old, showed South African officials calling for the forceful seizure of land and violence against white farmers.
The Daily
A Conversation With Vice President Vance
Once the video was over, South Africa's president tried to correct Trump.
The Daily
A Conversation With Vice President Vance
But Trump pressed on with his inaccurate claims that South Africa allows black residents to take land from white farmers known as Afrikaners and even to kill them with impunity.
The Daily
A Conversation With Vice President Vance
Today's episode was produced by Caitlin O'Keefe and Stella Tan. It was edited by Lisa Chow, contains original music by Dan Powell and Marian Lozano, and was engineered by Chris Wood and Pat McCusker. Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Landsberg of Wonderly.
The Daily
A Conversation With Vice President Vance
Special thanks to Annie Rose Strasser, Jordana Hochman, Catherine Sullivan, Andrea Batanzos, Sofia Alvarez-Boyd, Elissa Gutierrez, Kate Sinclair, Mary Marge Locker, Jonah Kessel, Marina King, and Shannon Busta. That's it for The Daily. I'm Michael Barbaro. See you tomorrow.
The Daily
A Conversation With Vice President Vance
Today, Ross talks us through their conversation. It's Thursday, May 22nd. Ross, thank you for being here. I know that you've had a very long couple of days, sleepless couple of days, and we appreciate you making time.
The Daily
A Conversation With Vice President Vance
And at that point, Ross, you ask the vice president how it is he measures whether or not the administration's immigration policies are actually working. And Vance says that they've secured the border, but that when it comes to large-scale deportations, it's been more challenging. And he specifically points to two obstacles.
The Daily
A Conversation With Vice President Vance
a lack of resources for enforcement, and then what he interprets as interference from the courts.
The Daily
A Conversation With Vice President Vance
Well, just to start, tell us how this interview, which required you to leave the country and lose a lot of sleep, how it came about.
The Daily
A Conversation With Vice President Vance
And here, Vance brings up his frustration, shared no doubt by the president, with the level of due process that immigrants in the country illegally are still entitled to.
The Daily
A Conversation With Vice President Vance
Ross, the vice president here seems to be arguing for a judiciary that is more responsive to the will of the people when it comes to immigration, which is not traditionally how we have seen the role of the courts. I mean, the whole point of having lifetime appointments — I'm not telling you anything you don't know — is that judges are insulated from public whims.
The Daily
A Conversation With Vice President Vance
Their job is to interpret the Constitution, interpret longstanding precedent, regardless of what the public thinks. But you get the sense that what Vance really wants is for judges to get out of the way and get to a yes to the Trump administration, regardless of what previous interpretations of a law might be, because that's what he says the American voters want.
The Daily
Were the Covid Lockdowns Worth It?
From The New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily. Five years ago, at the urging of federal officials, much of the United States locked down to stop the spread of COVID, a decision that over time polarized the country and changed the relationship between many Americans and their government.
The Daily
Were the Covid Lockdowns Worth It?
Francis, do you think that the reality is that in the face of what felt terrifyingly like an existential threat to so much of our population, U.S. government officials, as aware as they must have been of all this skepticism you two have found, that they just didn't trust Americans enough to kind of really level with them from the start and say something like, look...
The Daily
Were the Covid Lockdowns Worth It?
these interventions, they are our best guess about what's going to slow this down and save as many lives as possible and get us through this pandemic in the best shape that we possibly can. And to say, essentially, this is a large-scale experiment. And we have to be honest, it's going to involve all these trade-offs, economic, social, academic, psychological.
The Daily
Were the Covid Lockdowns Worth It?
It may hurt a lot of people in the name of saving an unknown number of people, but we think it's going to be worth it. So join us. I mean, that is admittedly a hard message to ask people to join you.
The Daily
Were the Covid Lockdowns Worth It?
Is there any case to be made? that with a new and deadly virus that everyone was learning about in real time, that if government leaders thought that any of these measures had any chance of working or even just buying time until a vaccine was available, that as a result, it was worth a try. I mean, I guess to distill my question, is a deep singular focus on saving lives okay?
The Daily
Were the Covid Lockdowns Worth It?
Why not? Just explain that. Because I think there will be some people listening who say that's the only indice that matters in a pandemic.
The Daily
Were the Covid Lockdowns Worth It?
Steve, you spent a lot of your career researching democracy. Francis, your work is focused on policymaking, your big deals in your fields. And so to start, I want to talk about why you undertook this project of examining the U.S. response to COVID in a really rigorous way.
The Daily
Were the Covid Lockdowns Worth It?
Let's talk about what happens as the pandemic progresses and the impacts and the costs of these shutdowns, these quarantines, these stay-at-home orders that the government told us we needed, they begin to grow. You, too, posit that even as those costs are rising— the country's public health officials show very little tolerance for an open debate about whether this approach should change.
The Daily
Were the Covid Lockdowns Worth It?
And for you, this is encapsulated by what happens to three well-known scientists who decide to write what becomes known as the Great Barrington Declaration. which arrives in the fall of 2020, so about seven months into the pandemic. Can you lay out what that declaration was and how the conversation in response to it unfolded?
The Daily
Were the Covid Lockdowns Worth It?
Right. Death rates among the elderly were orders of magnitude larger than the general population.
The Daily
Were the Covid Lockdowns Worth It?
Francis, was there something to the backlash kind of on principle? Because I recall that there was a response from the scientific and public health community that basically amounted to this alternative vision, the Great Parenting Declaration, is just not practical. You know, how do you separate vulnerable people from the rest of society? Think about your immunocompromised grandmother.
The Daily
Were the Covid Lockdowns Worth It?
She lives on the third floor of a multigenerational household. How is she supposed to be protected when everybody else is suddenly liberated from their stay-at-home orders and bringing that virus home to then infect her, who is very, very vulnerable?
The Daily
Were the Covid Lockdowns Worth It?
Mm-hmm. So the question of what the approach should be to COVID, of course, ends up in the hands of states and governors. And as all our listeners will remember, states take very divergent approaches. So talk to us about what you find in your research about that breakdown across the 50 states, especially on the metric of saving lives.
The Daily
Were the Covid Lockdowns Worth It?
Can I ask you to linger on this period before the vaccines? Because from what you're saying, Francis, before the vaccines were introduced, states that had more and longer restrictive measures had the same more or less number of deaths as states that had less and shorter restrictive measures.
The Daily
Were the Covid Lockdowns Worth It?
Is there any evidence, Steve, that these restrictions slowed the spread of COVID across the states?
The Daily
Were the Covid Lockdowns Worth It?
Francis, how is it possible? I just want to make sure we can wrap our heads around how it might be the case that longer, deeper restrictions didn't end up meaningfully changing outcomes. I'm just imagining someone hearing that and thinking, I stayed home. I didn't get sick. And so why, in your estimation, by your analysis, didn't this save more lives?
The Daily
Were the Covid Lockdowns Worth It?
And ultimately, it's really the vaccine that starts to make the difference when it comes to death rates.
The Daily
Were the Covid Lockdowns Worth It?
And so if we go back to where we started this conversation about tradeoffs, before the pandemic, you thoroughly described this scientific view that these kinds of interventions we've been talking about the whole time, the lockdown approach. was difficult to implement and would come with heavy costs and uncertain benefits.
The Daily
Were the Covid Lockdowns Worth It?
And yet the United States and dozens of other countries plowed ahead with the shutdown and lockdown approaches anyway, focusing on their theoretical life-saving benefits. Five years later, what your findings show is that the state-by-state data within the U.S. hasn't definitively established those life-saving benefits. But what we do know is a lot about the costs.
The Daily
Were the Covid Lockdowns Worth It?
So talk about what you found when it comes to those costs.
The Daily
Were the Covid Lockdowns Worth It?
So if we're putting this all together and summarizing what you found here about the lack of evidence of a life-saving benefit and the real clear evidence of extraordinary cost, from what you're saying, Francis, we're not able to say that at this point, that these extraordinary historic interventions, that they were ultimately worth it?
The Daily
Were the Covid Lockdowns Worth It?
I'm curious about something. In the end... You're clearly saying that there needs to be a different kind of conversation about the measures that were taken. But are you saying that we shouldn't have done the things we did during COVID? Because those are two very distinct ways of thinking about this.
The Daily
Were the Covid Lockdowns Worth It?
I mean, the risk of any kind of reckoning like this is that it results in people having even less faith in the government and taking bits and pieces of what you find and weaponizing them. Do you worry that conspiracy theories will be fueled by what you're asking people to do here?
The Daily
Were the Covid Lockdowns Worth It?
So a final question, and you're starting to hint at it here, Since we can't go back and redo our response to COVID to the degree we can try to get it right next time, if there's a next time, what is your prescription for that, knowing what you now know and knowing how polarized this country remains over what happened?
The Daily
Were the Covid Lockdowns Worth It?
Well, Steve and Francis, thank you both very much for your time. We really appreciate it.
The Daily
Were the Covid Lockdowns Worth It?
On Wednesday, the Federal Reserve predicted that inflation would rise this year to 2.7 percent from 2.5 percent and suggested that President Trump's tariffs on imported goods likely accounted for much of that increase.
The Daily
Were the Covid Lockdowns Worth It?
Still, the Fed said that it would neither raise nor cut the interest rate, its most powerful tool for influencing inflation, as it waits to see how Trump's policies affect the economy. And Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has agreed to accept Russia's offer of a mutual pause in attacks on energy targets as a step toward a broader ceasefire.
The Daily
Were the Covid Lockdowns Worth It?
The agreement came during a call between Zelensky and President Trump, their first conversation since a dramatic Oval Office confrontation last month. Today's episode was produced by Aastha Chaturvedi and Caitlin O'Keefe. It was edited by Larissa Anderson and Lisa Chow. Fact-checked by Susan Lee. Contains original music by Dan Powell, Marion Lozano, and Pat McCusker.
The Daily
Were the Covid Lockdowns Worth It?
And was engineered by Chris Wood. Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Landsberg of Wonderly. Special thanks to David Leonhardt, Paula Schumann, Nick Pittman, Celia Duggar, Michael Mason, Paige Cowett, and Jim Yardley. That's it for The Daily. I'm Michael Barbaro. See you tomorrow.
The Daily
Were the Covid Lockdowns Worth It?
And Stephen, what was your experience of this pandemic like and how did that in any way contribute to your desire to excavate the entire thing?
The Daily
Were the Covid Lockdowns Worth It?
Now, two prominent political scientists are making the case that there's no clear evidence that those lockdowns saved lives, and that it's time for a national reckoning about the decision-making that led to those lockdowns in the first place.
The Daily
Were the Covid Lockdowns Worth It?
In your reconstruction event, I found myself thinking, wow, I thought I knew the pandemic really well because I lived through it, but I didn't know it as well as I thought I did. And I think the biggest way many people experience the pandemic was through the mandates, right, the restrictions.
The Daily
Were the Covid Lockdowns Worth It?
One of the things that surprised me in your research, in your book, was that heading into the pandemic, you found that there was not a consensus that these restrictions, these mandates around things like school closures, lockdowns, stay-at-home orders, quarantining, masking— that they were the right way to try to fight a respiratory viral pandemic.
The Daily
Were the Covid Lockdowns Worth It?
That instead, there was some real uncertainty about whether that made sense or that it could work at a large scale as public policy, and actually that there were a lot of doubts that it ever could.
The Daily
Were the Covid Lockdowns Worth It?
Let's just zero in on that word because we're going to use it a lot, I think. Non-pharmaceutical interventions. Yes. Just define that.
The Daily
Were the Covid Lockdowns Worth It?
The big things we associate with the government's response to the pandemic.
The Daily
Were the Covid Lockdowns Worth It?
And what made them controversial and just how controversial were they?
The Daily
Were the Covid Lockdowns Worth It?
Today, my conversation with Stephen Macedo and Frances Lee about their new book, In COVID's Wake, and what they say will be required for a better outcome when the next pandemic strikes. It's Thursday, March 20th. It's Thursday, March 20th. Just to start, can I call you by your first names? Should I call you by your professional title? Is it okay to call you Steve and Francis? Yes.
The Daily
Were the Covid Lockdowns Worth It?
Effectiveness in terms of actually stopping containing the spread of the virus.
The Daily
Were the Covid Lockdowns Worth It?
Right. And prompted by you two and what you wrote, I went in and looked at this study. What it says is that while there is, like you just said, low evidence, that it was plausible that these kinds of interventions could help mitigate the spread of the virus. What do you make of that word plausible?
The Daily
Were the Covid Lockdowns Worth It?
You're citing this WHO study, but how widespread, how dominant would you say this skepticism of these kinds of interventions as effective, as worth the cost, as practical and scalable, how widely would you say that view was held before the pandemic?
The Daily
Were the Covid Lockdowns Worth It?
So given... this skepticism in the world of public health toward these non-pharmaceutical interventions, or Steve, as you said, basically writ large, the lockdown approach before the pandemic. How and why did the U.S. shift gears and end up recommending pretty much all the things that you're saying everybody previously thought wasn't such a good idea?
The Daily
Were the Covid Lockdowns Worth It?
Can I just pause you? Because China's response, as I recall... was pretty heavily criticized at the very beginning as harsh.
The Daily
Were the Covid Lockdowns Worth It?
So how does China's response to COVID, that lockdown approach that was so total, at least according to these recommendations, how did it become so persuasive, especially given that's a very unique system of government, totally authoritarian with a big surveillance apparatus and a much more compliant citizenry than most of the world?
The Daily
Were the Covid Lockdowns Worth It?
Of course, now that I've called you by those names, I've pressured you into the informality. Not at all. We're actually not a show that often speaks to academics, if you listen to The Daily, and that's nothing against academics. We usually talk to our colleagues, but you have produced a body of work here that feels important, and it feels... You're both tenured professors at Princeton University.
The Daily
The Sordid Saga of President Trump and Mayor Adams
From The New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily. Today, the mayor, the president, and the alleged quid pro quo that has plunged the Justice Department and now New York's political world into chaos. My colleague, Nick Fandos, walks us through the saga. It's Thursday, February 20th. Nick, nice to have you in the studio. Thank you for coming. It's always good to be back.
The Daily
The Sordid Saga of President Trump and Mayor Adams
Just explain that power, how it would work, and whether there's any possibility that New York's governor would even entertain this idea.
The Daily
The Sordid Saga of President Trump and Mayor Adams
I mean, we should just observe the enormity of what it would mean for the governor of New York to essentially take out the mayor of New York City, as she herself puts it, without an election, in some sense undermining what voters did when they elected Eric Adams.
The Daily
The Sordid Saga of President Trump and Mayor Adams
Right, and that's more or less where things stand at the time we're now taping with you. On Wednesday, the governor is still weighing this. She's indicated serious interest in possibly pursuing this, but ultimately she may decide to just leave this in the hands of the voters. And take no action.
The Daily
The Sordid Saga of President Trump and Mayor Adams
And so I want to just put this all together now and ask what you think are the larger lessons of these two crises now that they very much have kind of conjoined.
The Daily
The Sordid Saga of President Trump and Mayor Adams
Right. And just to make very clear what you're saying, because it sounds very important, and I haven't thought about it this way. Once the president decides that the threat of prosecution or taking prosecution away becomes a policymaking tool, then there's no reason not to expect that it's going to be deployed all over the place.
The Daily
The Sordid Saga of President Trump and Mayor Adams
On all kinds of issues, the Justice Department may now see the idea of justice as a way of getting policy done. Exactly, Michael.
The Daily
The Sordid Saga of President Trump and Mayor Adams
On Wednesday evening, Emile Beauvais, the Justice Department official who ordered that charges against Mayor Adams be dropped, issued a stark warning to the department's remaining prosecutors. In a statement, Beauvais told them that they could either work with him to advance Trump's agenda on issues like immigration, or they could resign. We'll be right back.
The Daily
The Sordid Saga of President Trump and Mayor Adams
Here's what else you need to know today. In a series of barbed back and forths, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky accused President Trump of buying into Russian disinformation. And Trump accused Zelensky of being a dictator.
The Daily
The Sordid Saga of President Trump and Mayor Adams
The war of words demonstrated just how quickly the alliance between the US and Ukraine is deteriorating because of Trump's decision to embrace Russia and cut Zelensky out of talks to end the war between Russia and Ukraine. And...
The Daily
The Sordid Saga of President Trump and Mayor Adams
The Trump administration says that it plans to revoke federal approval for New York City's new congestion pricing system, which tolls drivers who enter Manhattan's busiest streets in order to lower traffic and fund mass transit. The White House said it wants to end the program to save working-class drivers the toll's $9 fee. But it's unclear whether the president has the authority to shut it down.
The Daily
The Sordid Saga of President Trump and Mayor Adams
New York officials said they would fight to preserve the tolls, which so far appear to be succeeding in reducing traffic. Today's episode was produced by Olivia Nat, Will Reed, and Diana Wynn. It was edited by Lexi Diao, contains original music by Dan Powell and Alishaba Etube, and was engineered by Chris Wood. Our theme music is by Jim Rundberg and Ben Landfunk of Wonderland.
The Daily
The Sordid Saga of President Trump and Mayor Adams
I think we should take these crises one at a time, starting with the crisis that this has triggered inside the Department of Justice, where, as you said, the story has been resignation. So take us in that crisis and why this has felt like a crisis to folks inside the Department of Justice.
The Daily
The Sordid Saga of President Trump and Mayor Adams
That's it for The Daily. I'm Michael Bavaro. See you tomorrow.
The Daily
The Sordid Saga of President Trump and Mayor Adams
And suggests that they are kindred spirits in their journey with the justice system.
The Daily
The Sordid Saga of President Trump and Mayor Adams
Basically, the mothership of the Justice Department is saying to the New York City wing of the Justice Department, this is over. Drop the case.
The Daily
The Sordid Saga of President Trump and Mayor Adams
So he, just assuming his phone is going to soon ring, writes that letter of resignation saying, I refuse to even be in this seat where I might be asked because I'm so disgusted by what you're undertaking here.
The Daily
The Sordid Saga of President Trump and Mayor Adams
You come to know the famous phrase from Cindy Adams, the legendary tabloid columnist, only in New York, kids, only in New York. And that seems to apply to the events of the past week or so when our Democratic mayor, indicted on sweeping federal corruption charges that would seem to spell the end of his career, suddenly wins a reprieve from the Republican president of the United States,
The Daily
The Sordid Saga of President Trump and Mayor Adams
So he decides to sign it not because he agrees with it, but because the bloodletting, the resignations have to stop.
The Daily
The Sordid Saga of President Trump and Mayor Adams
And he's now armed with a lot— of new and very pointed information.
The Daily
The Sordid Saga of President Trump and Mayor Adams
Especially when both of the constituencies in the courtroom want a case dismissed.
The Daily
The Sordid Saga of President Trump and Mayor Adams
We'll be right back. So, Nick, what has this second crisis, this political crisis inside the New York Democratic world, looked like over the past week or so?
The Daily
The Sordid Saga of President Trump and Mayor Adams
But then, as the terms of this reprieve become public, it creates this extraordinary blowback that extends far beyond our fair city. That's where you pick up.
The Daily
The Sordid Saga of President Trump and Mayor Adams
And what evidence, just to play devil's advocate, do these Democrats have that that's actually the situation?
The Daily
The Sordid Saga of President Trump and Mayor Adams
That's an actual quote. So exactly at the moment where the mayor is being accused of becoming a bedfellow of the president on issues of immigration as part of this deal to have the charges dropped, the mayor goes on TV with the president's border czar and seems to allow him to say, you now answer to me.
The Daily
The Sordid Saga of President Trump and Mayor Adams
However, my sense is that Adams tells all these Democrats politely, I'm not resigning.
The Daily
The Sordid Saga of President Trump and Mayor Adams
And of course, this immediately makes you think back to the resignations over at the Department of Justice. And so these two crises are now seeming to kind of collide.
The Daily
Elbows Up: Canada’s Response to Trump’s Trade War
This is Daily producer Michael Simon-Johnson. I am in downtown Toronto because things are getting real here in Canada.
The Daily
Elbows Up: Canada’s Response to Trump’s Trade War
It feels like the vibe is changing and I am here to do a vibe check.
The Daily
A U-Turn on Tariffs
The genius out-of-the-deal strategy to isolate China and, you know, negotiate with the rest of the world.
The Daily
A U-Turn on Tariffs
Yeah, that's not true. Behind the scenes, what actually happened, and we're still getting more detail now, you know, my colleagues Maggie Haberman and myself and others on our team have been reporting this out, but... Right, it's only five o'clock.
The Daily
A U-Turn on Tariffs
But based on the conversations I've had in the last two hours, I can say with confidence that this was a decision driven by fear of a full-blown financial panic and crisis. It is true that Scott Besant, the Treasury Secretary, and others in Trump's orbit have been, for several days now...
The Daily
A U-Turn on Tariffs
trying to talk him towards a more tailored tariff strategy, one that would not punish allies as harshly as America's worst trade adversaries, and one that would potentially isolate China while putting a freeze on other countries to negotiate, which is where they ended up. But as has become clear in conversations I've had in the last couple of hours,
The Daily
A U-Turn on Tariffs
The entity that deserves most credit for today's decision is the bond markets and fear among Trump's team that this could spiral out into a full-blown financial panic. So just explain the meltdown, Jonathan, in the bond market. Well, you've got the worst person you can possibly ask to explain the meltdown in the bond market. You actually need someone who knows what they're talking about.
The Daily
A U-Turn on Tariffs
I kind of got it before, but not in a way that was going to be very useful to your listeners. I'm glad you got Peter on.
The Daily
A U-Turn on Tariffs
Well, I don't want to pretend omniscience here. It's very hard to kind of get inside Trump's head. As I said to you in the last time we talked, the only thing you could really go by is what he's saying privately and what he's saying publicly.
The Daily
A U-Turn on Tariffs
And the two things were pretty much the same, which was these tariffs are great, they're bringing in money, everyone's coming and begging to me and kissing my ass. But I think things pretty clearly started to shift differently. Sunday night, Monday morning, in the direction of being open to negotiations.
The Daily
A U-Turn on Tariffs
My colleague, Maggie Haberman, has some reporting that Scott Besson, the Treasury Secretary, flew with Trump to Washington from Palm Beach on Sunday night and had a really important conversation with him on the plane, steering him more in this direction. J.D. Vance, actually the Vice President, was supportive of this idea of being more structured with the tariffs, focusing more on China.
The Daily
A U-Turn on Tariffs
So these conversations were happening, but when we last spoke, which was Monday, I didn't have any sense and neither, this is the more important part, neither did Trump's most senior advisors that he was going to back off these tariffs.
The Daily
A U-Turn on Tariffs
Right, but this just goes to show how quickly this all came together and how much it was driven by pressure, external pressure and anxiety rather than something that was preordained, you know, the plan all along. I mean, give me a break.
The Daily
A U-Turn on Tariffs
For sure. And what we did today was we located his pain threshold. He actually withstood way more pain.
The Daily
A U-Turn on Tariffs
Yes. This was not term one Trump until now. It required genuine fear of some of his top officials that this really could spiral out of control. This could bring about a recession on his watch. Trump has privately, certainly in the last two years, he's been talking about I don't want to be Herbert Hoover.
The Daily
A U-Turn on Tariffs
He talks about 1929 a lot privately, this idea that some catastrophic Great Depression-type event could happen on his watch. He really fears that. And up until now, what he had seen in the markets obviously did not lead him to the conclusion that he could be Herbert Hoover. And I think the signals that they were seeing today tipped him over the edge.
The Daily
A U-Turn on Tariffs
Well, I don't want to speculate because I haven't talked to any foreign leaders since the pause, and I'd like to talk to a few before I give you any commentary on that. But what I will say is even before this decision today, you had a crisis of credibility in which allies, foreign governments –
The Daily
A U-Turn on Tariffs
did not know whether they could trust the president's word, whether his negotiators actually spoke on his behalf. I have spoken to a number of foreign officials who really struggle negotiating with this White House because they don't know if their interlocutors are going to have the rug pulled out from under them from the president. any minute.
The Daily
A U-Turn on Tariffs
So Scott Besson, the Treasury Secretary, talked today about more than 75 countries have reached out for negotiations. They're going to be, quote unquote, bespoke. Each one is individual, blah, blah, blah. Well, that's fine.
The Daily
A U-Turn on Tariffs
But I think that it's not going to be so easy to negotiate necessarily with all these different countries because they don't necessarily know that they can rely on the word of the And I think that's actually going to be the real challenge.
The Daily
A U-Turn on Tariffs
Well, I'm not going to make a speculation about what Trump might do, but I think the markets already have. I think the market reaction to this, as exuberant as it was, suggests that people think that the idea of Trump launching a global trade war against allies and adversaries alike has... Passed. Yes, and that this is more likely to be
The Daily
A U-Turn on Tariffs
an America versus China trade war with a baseline tariff of 10%, which is much more tolerable for not just foreign governments, but the markets.
The Daily
A U-Turn on Tariffs
My sense is quite far, and he won't want to be the one to back down first. But he can't be happy about this, having to blink and having to put the pause on all of this. So China will assume even more importance for him, quote unquote, winning that trade war.
The Daily
A U-Turn on Tariffs
And remember, Trump is not someone who views international trade as win-win, as cooperation, coming to an agreement where both sides come out happy. He sees it as zero-sum with a clear winner and a clear loser. And he will not want to be the first person to back down and quote-unquote lose this trade war against China.
The Daily
A U-Turn on Tariffs
So depending on what China does, I think is the real question about where this ends up because I don't see Trump wanting to back down first.
The Daily
The Crypto President
Hey, it's Michael. Before we start today's show, I have a request. For an upcoming episode, we want to hear from you about this very uncertain moment in the economy. Specifically, we want your questions about it. So send us those questions about President Trump's tariffs, the global trade war, the wobbly stock market, and what all of it means for you. No question is too big or too small.
The Daily
The Crypto President
Record a voice memo with the question, include your name, age, and where you're from, and email it to thedailyatnytimes.com, and make sure in the subject line to put the word economy. Okay, here's today's show.
The Daily
From DealBook: Alex Cooper on Building a Media Brand
Hey, it's Michael. I'm here to let you know that this weekend, we're bringing you something a little bit different from our colleagues here at The Times. It's a conversation with Alex Cooper. If you don't know, she is the host of the hit podcast, Call Her Daddy.
The Daily
From DealBook: Alex Cooper on Building a Media Brand
Okay, here's Andrew Ross Sorkin in conversation with Alex Cooper.
The Daily
From DealBook: Alex Cooper on Building a Media Brand
Recently, our friends over at the Dealbook Summit held a series of conversations between our colleague Andrew Ross Sorkin and a huge, varied, and prominent group of people. They do this every year. But this year's guests included former President Bill Clinton, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, the chair of the Federal Reserve Jerome Powell, and the tennis legend Serena Williams.
The Daily
From DealBook: Alex Cooper on Building a Media Brand
It was a fascinating lineup. All the conversations were important, but here at The Daily, we were especially struck by Alex Cooper and her insights into media, culture, and how power really works in 2024. If you don't know a lot about Alex Cooper, here's a couple of key facts.
The Daily
From DealBook: Alex Cooper on Building a Media Brand
A couple years ago, she landed a deal for her podcast worth $125 million, and Time magazine has called her, quote, arguably the most successful woman in podcasting. Rolling Stone, meanwhile, has dubbed her Gen Z's Barbara Walters. And right before the election, she quite memorably interviewed Vice President Kamala Harris on her podcast.
The Daily
From DealBook: Alex Cooper on Building a Media Brand
Cooper sat down with Andrew Ross Sorkin to talk about her unlikely rise from hosting a pretty raunchy dating show to becoming what she is now, one of the biggest and most important voices in all of podcasting. So, if you want to listen to any of the other dealbook conversations I just mentioned, you can listen on our NYT audio app, or you can search for Dealbook Summit wherever you listen.
The Daily
‘Modern Love’: Why Boys and Men Are Floundering, According to Therapist Terry Real
Hey, it's Michael. A quick reminder, as we said last weekend, we're going to be changing some things up here on Sundays to bring you something a little bit different, but something we think you're going to appreciate. And that is modern love. Every Sunday for the next few weeks, you're going to hear episodes from our phenomenal colleagues who make that show.
The Daily
‘Modern Love’: Why Boys and Men Are Floundering, According to Therapist Terry Real
If you don't know the show, every week, host Anna Martin and that team explores the world of our relationships. How we fall in love, how we fall out of love, sex, betrayal. the trouble spots in relationships. They're stories inspired by the long-running NYT column called Modern Love, and we think it helps make sense of this other essential part of our lives.
The Daily
‘Modern Love’: Why Boys and Men Are Floundering, According to Therapist Terry Real
So we hope you'll spend time with these episodes. They are great. And as always, we'll see you right back here on Monday morning for The Daily. Take a listen.
The Daily
‘Modern Love’: How to Fall (and Stay) in Love
Hey, it's Michael. As you clearly know, here at The Daily, we cover the news, and there's a lot of it. But life is big, and we know that you look for meaning in all parts of your lives, not just the news, which is why for the next couple months, we're going to be sharing the work of some of our colleagues over at Modern Love.
The Daily
‘Modern Love’: How to Fall (and Stay) in Love
If you don't know that show, every week host Anna Martin and that team explores the world of our relationships, how we fall in love, how we fall out of love, how we care for each other, how we contend with the moment when relationships hit rough patches.
The Daily
‘Modern Love’: How to Fall (and Stay) in Love
They're stories inspired by the long-running NYT column called Modern Love, and we think it helps make sense of this other essential part of our lives. So, for the next few weeks, we hope you'll spend some time with these episodes on Sunday. They are great. And then we'll see you right back here on Monday morning for The Daily. Take a listen.
The Daily
‘I Felt Ashamed.’ Why One Lawyer Resigned When His Firm Caved to Trump
From The New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily. This is an absolute honor to sign.
The Daily
‘I Felt Ashamed.’ Why One Lawyer Resigned When His Firm Caved to Trump
They have done a deal.
The Daily
‘I Felt Ashamed.’ Why One Lawyer Resigned When His Firm Caved to Trump
It promises to provide $100 million in pro bono legal services from Skadden to causes that both President Trump and the law firm both support. It calls for hiring what are known as Skadden Fellows. Those fellows are, at least some of them, supposed to be focused on Trump-friendly issues, and some of them have to be conservative in their ideological outlook.
The Daily
‘I Felt Ashamed.’ Why One Lawyer Resigned When His Firm Caved to Trump
And then there's a part of the agreement that vows that Skadden will not engage in quote-unquote illegal DEI hiring practices. Broadly, this is the deal that every major law firm that has come to an agreement has reached with the president. So what is your reaction to this deal when you finally digest it?
The Daily
‘I Felt Ashamed.’ Why One Lawyer Resigned When His Firm Caved to Trump
Can you explain why? I mean, is it the fact that the firm agreed to this? Is it the specifics around pro bono work, which I know is so important to you? What precisely is making you feel the shame?
The Daily
‘I Felt Ashamed.’ Why One Lawyer Resigned When His Firm Caved to Trump
Right, but that's what's happening right now.
The Daily
‘I Felt Ashamed.’ Why One Lawyer Resigned When His Firm Caved to Trump
So what did you do?
The Daily
‘I Felt Ashamed.’ Why One Lawyer Resigned When His Firm Caved to Trump
Good. Thomas, welcome to The Daily. Thanks for having me. I'm getting the small sense that this is a nerve-wracking experience for you even before it started. I'm just seeing it on your face. Yeah, it definitely is.
The Daily
‘I Felt Ashamed.’ Why One Lawyer Resigned When His Firm Caved to Trump
You're kind of writing to your bosses.
The Daily
‘I Felt Ashamed.’ Why One Lawyer Resigned When His Firm Caved to Trump
Not necessarily what you set out to do.
The Daily
‘I Felt Ashamed.’ Why One Lawyer Resigned When His Firm Caved to Trump
Can I ask you to, to read from parts of the letter?
The Daily
‘I Felt Ashamed.’ Why One Lawyer Resigned When His Firm Caved to Trump
We have been trying here at The Daily for a few weeks to understand what it's like to work at one of the law firms that's now at the center of President Trump's campaign of retribution. And to have watched from within those firms as one by one by one, these very big and powerful firms have capitulated to the president's campaign. Pretty unusual demands.
The Daily
‘I Felt Ashamed.’ Why One Lawyer Resigned When His Firm Caved to Trump
What they've done is just terrible. It's weaponization. Over the past few weeks, Donald Trump has used executive orders to wage war on law firm after law firm.
The Daily
‘I Felt Ashamed.’ Why One Lawyer Resigned When His Firm Caved to Trump
What did it feel like to hit send? I mean, listen to your breathing right now. It's like you're reliving it. What was it like to send that email?
The Daily
‘I Felt Ashamed.’ Why One Lawyer Resigned When His Firm Caved to Trump
There have been... I mean, you didn't, we should say, mean for this letter to become... As public as it did. It kind of just happened.
The Daily
‘I Felt Ashamed.’ Why One Lawyer Resigned When His Firm Caved to Trump
I'm sure you're aware that many people who have spoken out against President Trump and his policies have experienced, at times, ferocious blowback. It can be a life-altering event. Is that something you're worried about now?
The Daily
‘I Felt Ashamed.’ Why One Lawyer Resigned When His Firm Caved to Trump
That's the question my mother would ask me.
The Daily
‘I Felt Ashamed.’ Why One Lawyer Resigned When His Firm Caved to Trump
Many of your colleagues are not leaving their jobs. And there's a spectrum of reasons that you've started to hint at about why they're not leaving. They may feel the way you feel and have two kids they have to put through college. They might not feel the way you feel. I'm thinking about reporting my colleagues did inside the upper echelons of Paul Weiss when that law firm did a deal with Trump.
The Daily
‘I Felt Ashamed.’ Why One Lawyer Resigned When His Firm Caved to Trump
And it became clear that the majority of the people who run the firm, lots of them, felt that the best thing to do was to make a deal. And the reason that they articulated they felt that way is that, in their minds, they had to protect the thousands of people who work at these firms. They may have hated the deal. Some of them no doubt hate the deal.
The Daily
‘I Felt Ashamed.’ Why One Lawyer Resigned When His Firm Caved to Trump
But they felt their job was to make sure that these firms survives, lives through this period of time. And that at the end of the day, what they're giving up is small compared to that survival. And the bosses at all these firms that end up capitulating to Trump say some version of, we are the same law firm after we did these deals as we were before.
The Daily
‘I Felt Ashamed.’ Why One Lawyer Resigned When His Firm Caved to Trump
And it may not shock you to learn this, but attorneys at these firms are pretty reluctant to talk about that. And you are the rare exception. So thank you for being the exception.
The Daily
‘I Felt Ashamed.’ Why One Lawyer Resigned When His Firm Caved to Trump
In fact, in a company-wide email, your former boss says just that, quote, this agreement does not change who we are. What do you make of that?
The Daily
‘I Felt Ashamed.’ Why One Lawyer Resigned When His Firm Caved to Trump
It does change who the firm is.
The Daily
‘I Felt Ashamed.’ Why One Lawyer Resigned When His Firm Caved to Trump
You very clearly said, have a lot of faith in the US. That's just been evident throughout this entire conversation. And your decision to quit seems to be grounded in a sense of what is the best version of what the US can be in your mind.
The Daily
‘I Felt Ashamed.’ Why One Lawyer Resigned When His Firm Caved to Trump
But at this point, how confident are you, given everything you've just been through, that the version of the United States that seems to be at the center of everything you've done here is now the version of the United States?
The Daily
‘I Felt Ashamed.’ Why One Lawyer Resigned When His Firm Caved to Trump
I want to start. By asking you to explain, Thomas, how it is that you came to be a lawyer in the first place and ended up at this very prestigious firm where you worked until just a few days ago, Skadden Arps. What's that story?
The Daily
‘I Felt Ashamed.’ Why One Lawyer Resigned When His Firm Caved to Trump
But are you a little bit worried that you're making the wrong bet and that maybe the law firms, as much as it might pain you to think about it this way, are making the sound bet in this moment?
The Daily
‘I Felt Ashamed.’ Why One Lawyer Resigned When His Firm Caved to Trump
I wonder if this experience made you question going into law. I mean, law is one thing in theory, and then it's another thing in practice, especially at these big law firms. These are not nonprofits.
The Daily
‘I Felt Ashamed.’ Why One Lawyer Resigned When His Firm Caved to Trump
Well, Thomas, thank you for coming in here and for telling us this story. We really appreciate it.
The Daily
‘I Felt Ashamed.’ Why One Lawyer Resigned When His Firm Caved to Trump
On Friday, hundreds of firms threw their support behind the first firm to be attacked by President Trump, Perkins Coie, which has sued the administration to stop Trump's executive order against the firm.
The Daily
‘I Felt Ashamed.’ Why One Lawyer Resigned When His Firm Caved to Trump
In a legal filing, the hundreds of firms wrote that Trump's crackdown on Perkins Coie and the entire industry, quote, poses a grave threat to our system of constitutional governance and to the rule of law itself. But many of the country's biggest and most profitable firms refused to sign the briefing, including Thomas' former firm, Skadden Arps. We'll be right back.
The Daily
‘I Felt Ashamed.’ Why One Lawyer Resigned When His Firm Caved to Trump
Here's what else you need to know today. A federal judge has ordered the Trump administration to bring back a migrant it mistakenly deported to a notorious prison in El Salvador by tonight, something the White House said in response that it has little power to do.
The Daily
‘I Felt Ashamed.’ Why One Lawyer Resigned When His Firm Caved to Trump
That prompted the judge to declare that the administration's conduct, quote, But instead of trying to fix its error, the White House has instead punished a government lawyer who acknowledged the deportation was done by mistake by placing him on administrative leave over the weekend. And...
The Daily
‘I Felt Ashamed.’ Why One Lawyer Resigned When His Firm Caved to Trump
Large-scale protests against President Trump and his agenda were held in cities and towns across the United States over the weekend, attracting hundreds of thousands of demonstrators.
The Daily
‘I Felt Ashamed.’ Why One Lawyer Resigned When His Firm Caved to Trump
Participants said they were marching to oppose Trump's policies toward federal workers, public education, immigration, tariffs, and public health, and to fight back against Elon Musk's Department of Government efficiency. Speakers at the rallies, including Congressman Eric Swalwell, said that Trump has become a disaster for the country and its finances.
The Daily
‘I Felt Ashamed.’ Why One Lawyer Resigned When His Firm Caved to Trump
Today's episode was produced by Olivia Nett, Shannon Lin, and Muj Sadie. It was edited by Patricia Willans and Michael Benoit, contains original music by Dan Powell and Marion Lozano, and was engineered by Alyssa Moxley. Our theme music is by Jim Rundberg and Ben Landsberg of Wonderly. Special thanks to Jessica Silver-Greenberg. That's it for The Daily. I'm Michael Bobar. See you tomorrow.
The Daily
‘I Felt Ashamed.’ Why One Lawyer Resigned When His Firm Caved to Trump
Can you just explain that?
The Daily
‘I Felt Ashamed.’ Why One Lawyer Resigned When His Firm Caved to Trump
What was the first real injustice you can remember as an immigrant, not really knowing English, navigating this new world?
The Daily
‘I Felt Ashamed.’ Why One Lawyer Resigned When His Firm Caved to Trump
So at the precise moment that you are struggling with your identity and recognizing that you are different from other people, and it sounds like feeling at times a lot of shame around that, you're seeing the United States elect Barack Obama, right?
The Daily
‘I Felt Ashamed.’ Why One Lawyer Resigned When His Firm Caved to Trump
like you, the product of a biracial marriage, and somebody who, in that campaign you're describing, invites the whole country to have this really honest conversation about identity and about race.
The Daily
‘I Felt Ashamed.’ Why One Lawyer Resigned When His Firm Caved to Trump
specifically targeting those whose current or former lawyers have investigated him, sued him, or represented his enemies in court. But rather than fighting Trump, many of those firms have buckled.
The Daily
‘I Felt Ashamed.’ Why One Lawyer Resigned When His Firm Caved to Trump
And when you say this project, what do you mean?
The Daily
‘I Felt Ashamed.’ Why One Lawyer Resigned When His Firm Caved to Trump
Yeah, I'm getting from you a real sense of idealism and a real pure admiration for what the United States represents.
The Daily
‘I Felt Ashamed.’ Why One Lawyer Resigned When His Firm Caved to Trump
So talk about how this all translates into your decision to become a lawyer, to enter this industry.
The Daily
‘I Felt Ashamed.’ Why One Lawyer Resigned When His Firm Caved to Trump
I'm just going to explain to people.
The Daily
‘I Felt Ashamed.’ Why One Lawyer Resigned When His Firm Caved to Trump
By Skadden, you mean Skadden Arps? Skadden Arps, yes. Big, big law firm has an office here in New York, has offices, I think, all over the world. It's one of the firms that we think of when we think of this concept of big law, law firms that do a huge amount of work in corporate America.
The Daily
‘I Felt Ashamed.’ Why One Lawyer Resigned When His Firm Caved to Trump
Right, and if I know my law firm culture well, what that means is that charitable legal work that this firm does
The Daily
‘I Felt Ashamed.’ Why One Lawyer Resigned When His Firm Caved to Trump
counts against you being a successful lawyer there, which probably means to a young, idealistic lawyer like you, it means that, yes, while you're going to work at a big, hard-charging corporate law firm, that that law firm is putting pro bono work, work for people who can't afford lawyers, at the center of its culture.
The Daily
‘I Felt Ashamed.’ Why One Lawyer Resigned When His Firm Caved to Trump
Did you win any of those cases? Did you win all those cases? I can't say. But the smile on your face makes me think that you might have prevailed on behalf of some of those clients. When we were texting today because I needed you to get here on time, you mentioned that you live essentially next door to the law firm, and that doesn't seem like an accident.
The Daily
‘I Felt Ashamed.’ Why One Lawyer Resigned When His Firm Caved to Trump
Negotiating deals that give Trump much of what he wants and forcing thousands of the lawyers who work at those firms to make a choice. Remain at firms that have capitulated or quit in protest. Most have chosen to stay. Thomas Sipp chose to quit. Today, I asked him to explain why. It's Monday, April 7th. Yeah, come on in. Put on these headphones. These. I think, yes, those. Okay. Comfy? Yeah.
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‘I Felt Ashamed.’ Why One Lawyer Resigned When His Firm Caved to Trump
So you could just be there all the time?
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‘I Felt Ashamed.’ Why One Lawyer Resigned When His Firm Caved to Trump
So when did you start to understand, Thomas, over the past many weeks that Skadden had entered the president's crosshairs?
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‘I Felt Ashamed.’ Why One Lawyer Resigned When His Firm Caved to Trump
Right. I believe the claim was that these law firms may have practiced discrimination through the application of diversity, equity, and inclusion practices.
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‘I Felt Ashamed.’ Why One Lawyer Resigned When His Firm Caved to Trump
Right, that D'Souza had made.
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‘I Felt Ashamed.’ Why One Lawyer Resigned When His Firm Caved to Trump
Right. And these executive orders, I think it's worth reminding listeners, they can feel to the law firms that are being hit with them like death sentences because they explicitly prevent these firms like Perkins Coie from interacting with the federal government. And so – and we talked about this on the show –
The Daily
‘I Felt Ashamed.’ Why One Lawyer Resigned When His Firm Caved to Trump
If these firms represent any corporation or entity that needs the federal government, and many big companies do, suddenly they can't really effectively represent them. And in that sense, the people who work at these firms fear that they may go out of business.
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‘I Felt Ashamed.’ Why One Lawyer Resigned When His Firm Caved to Trump
So what are you and the people you work with thinking as you're watching this?
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‘I Felt Ashamed.’ Why One Lawyer Resigned When His Firm Caved to Trump
The executive orders.
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‘I Felt Ashamed.’ Why One Lawyer Resigned When His Firm Caved to Trump
You want to communicate that to your bosses.
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‘I Felt Ashamed.’ Why One Lawyer Resigned When His Firm Caved to Trump
So what happens next?
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You Have Questions About the Economy. We Have Answers.
We heard from folks who are in the unique position of having saved up a good amount of money for their children's higher education in something like a 529 educational savings account, and discovered that this is the moment they need it. And that because of the trade war, the stock market has gone down.
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You Have Questions About the Economy. We Have Answers.
But that just looking at the raw data, nothing much has changed since we last spoke with you maybe a couple weeks ago. But everyone we know is feeling something very acute in their financial lives. And it felt like we needed to listen to that.
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You Have Questions About the Economy. We Have Answers.
Ben, despite how worried so many of our listeners are about what tariffs are going to mean for cost, product availability, car purchasing, home purchasing, job market, a fair number of folks asked us what it would be like for the tariffs to accomplish what the president has said that he thinks they could, which is to bring back domestic manufacturing. Now here, I know you,
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You Have Questions About the Economy. We Have Answers.
You're about to tell me that mainstream economists of all political stripes have a lot of doubts that tariffs can bring back domestic manufacturing. But I think what listeners are trying to understand is what would be the impacts of a renewed U.S. manufacturing base?
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You Have Questions About the Economy. We Have Answers.
Because they've actually made the cost of bringing manufacturing back so high. You've said that to us in the past. Business folks are basically telling you the current tariff scheme introduced by Trump is an impediment to bringing manufacturing back.
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You Have Questions About the Economy. We Have Answers.
And we thought, what if we hand our microphone to our listeners and just acknowledge how many people have questions and anxieties, worries, concerns that they want to address.
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You Have Questions About the Economy. We Have Answers.
Ben, as we come to the end of the conversation, I want to acknowledge that a big thread running through a lot of the questions we got was an even deeper worry about what might happen. And a lot of people named it the R word. Let me play you some of those questions.
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You Have Questions About the Economy. We Have Answers.
So how likely is a recession? to be at this moment? And how likely is something potentially even worse than just a recession?
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You Have Questions About the Economy. We Have Answers.
A deal could be reached with China.
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You Have Questions About the Economy. We Have Answers.
Okay, you can't use the word disastrous without telling me what you mean.
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You Have Questions About the Economy. We Have Answers.
Exactly. So we put a call out to our listeners for their questions and they showed up in force.
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You Have Questions About the Economy. We Have Answers.
On the other hand... One of the realities of an unpredictable moment and an unpredictable administration is that we could also be looking at a scenario in which the tariffs get peeled back. the stock market starts to inch up, gets back to where it was when Trump took office, and confidence in the U.S. financial system remains relatively high and ultimately unblemished.
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You Have Questions About the Economy. We Have Answers.
On Friday afternoon, U.S. stocks led by the S&P 500 erased the deep losses that they suffered in the days after President Trump ruled out his tariffs on April 2nd. But the increase in stock prices comes despite warnings that the tariffs could spark a recession. And it's unclear what the next few days and weeks of trading will ultimately bring. We'll be right back.
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You Have Questions About the Economy. We Have Answers.
At a time of enormous economic upheaval and uncertainty triggered by President Trump's trade war, we asked you, our listeners, what you want to understand about this financial moment.
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You Have Questions About the Economy. We Have Answers.
Here's what else you need to know today.
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You Have Questions About the Economy. We Have Answers.
It seems—it might say that, but— In an interview with NBC broadcast on Sunday, President Trump questioned whether every person on American soil was entitled to due process, something the Fifth Amendment guarantees— and said that he did not know whether it was his job as president to uphold the Constitution.
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You Have Questions About the Economy. We Have Answers.
Hundreds and hundreds of questions. From Indianapolis, Indiana. From New Orleans, Louisiana. From Olympia, Washington. Came our way in the form of voice memos. It's not going to surprise you to hear that a lot of those questions revolve around tariffs.
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You Have Questions About the Economy. We Have Answers.
and its decision to ignore a Supreme Court ruling to facilitate the return of a migrant living in Maryland who was mistakenly sent to a prison in El Salvador without due process. And a forthcoming book reports that before President Joe Biden was forced to quit his campaign for reelection, his aides debated having him undergo a cognitive test to prove his fitness for a second term.
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You Have Questions About the Economy. We Have Answers.
But those aides ultimately decided against the idea. The account highlights the degree to which Biden's own aides worried about his age and mental acuity, even as they publicly supported Biden's decision to seek a second term. Today's episode was produced by Diana Nguyen, Olivia Nat, Sydney Harper, and Will Reed. It was edited by Mark George, Chris Haxell, and Patricia Willans.
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You Have Questions About the Economy. We Have Answers.
Contains original music by Alishaba Itu, Dan Powell, and Rowan Emisto. And was engineered by Alyssa Moxley. Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Landsberg of Wonderly. That's it for The Daily. I'm Michael Bavaro. See you tomorrow.
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You Have Questions About the Economy. We Have Answers.
Okay. Caveat accepted. I want to start with a question that I think really encapsulates listeners' curiosities around the tariffs.
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You Have Questions About the Economy. We Have Answers.
What do you have to say besides Mazel Tov?
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You Have Questions About the Economy. We Have Answers.
I think a reasonable question, and it's implied in Sarah's question, is, is it okay to kind of panic by now? We all know what happens when lots and lots of people decide to do that collectively at the same time. That's what happened during the pandemic. It can actually be pretty counterproductive and yet entirely, in this case, understandable.
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You Have Questions About the Economy. We Have Answers.
What can actually be done to bring down the cost of goods?
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You Have Questions About the Economy. We Have Answers.
How likely are empty shelves? I believe that both Walmart and Target have found a way to warn the White House that that could be a thing. Not totally empty shelves, but not really full shelves either if the tariffs against China remain in place.
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You Have Questions About the Economy. We Have Answers.
All right, let's turn to a set of questions we got about housing.
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You Have Questions About the Economy. We Have Answers.
A lot of our listeners, and I frankly didn't expect this, asked questions about what the trade war and all that economic disruption means for buying a home. And I think people are intuiting that tariffs could increase inflation, and they know from you, Ben, and your many appearances on this show, that when inflation gets higher and higher...
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You Have Questions About the Economy. We Have Answers.
the tool that the government uses to bring it down is that they raise interest rates, which raises the cost of that 30-year mortgage. And therefore, the question really becomes, do tariffs of the kind that are now in place almost ensure a costlier housing market down the line?
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You Have Questions About the Economy. We Have Answers.
Today, my colleague, chief economics correspondent Ben Castleman, tries to answer those questions.
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You Have Questions About the Economy. We Have Answers.
From The New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily. I had a quick question about Trump's tariff policies.
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You Have Questions About the Economy. We Have Answers.
We've been talking about big purchasing decisions. For a lot of people, the tariffs have raised this bigger existential question about whether they're going to have a job and what all of this means for the job market. And I want to play some of those questions.
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You Have Questions About the Economy. We Have Answers.
What can you tell us about the job market? And I really want to make sure we acknowledge that final question about folks just coming into the market.
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You Have Questions About the Economy. We Have Answers.
It's Monday, May 5th. Ben, always a pleasure.
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You Have Questions About the Economy. We Have Answers.
If the tariffs were to settle into a more permanent seeming dynamic, would that uncertainty start to dissolve and could hiring start to go up? Or is the reality that a settled tariff situation is probably going to lead to higher costs for businesses and therefore that won't be the case?
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You Have Questions About the Economy. We Have Answers.
Okay, on that note, Ben, we're going to take a break. And when we come back, we're going to answer a bunch of questions we got about what all of this means for the stock market, for people's retirement accounts, their college savings accounts, and their general sense of financial well-being.
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You Have Questions About the Economy. We Have Answers.
You know, we're going to do something a little bit different here.
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You Have Questions About the Economy. We Have Answers.
No, not just us. And I think a little backstory is in order. We came to you, as we do with some, I suspect, annoying frequency, to ask you how to think about the economy. And when we talked to you last week, you said, sure, there's a ton going on in the economy because of everything that President Trump has done to the economy.
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You Have Questions About the Economy. We Have Answers.
Ben, first of all, those are great questions. And I think a lot of them are touching on the theme of volatility in the stock market in this moment. Now, whenever we talk about the stock market, I feel like I have to repeat what they say in all the ads. Trading stocks involves a significant risk of loss. It's not suitable for everyone. Past success is not an indicator of future performance.
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You Have Questions About the Economy. We Have Answers.
And we are not, of course, Ben, asking you to give financial advice about the stock market. But how, broadly speaking, do you think about the choice facing some of these listeners about whether to try to potentially profit from the market's swings right now? Or... sitting tight and waiting out these swings in the market.
The Daily
The Life and Legacy of Jimmy Carter
From The New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily. Today. For many, the presidency of Jimmy Carter, who died yesterday at the age of 100, has become synonymous with failure. But as my colleague Peter Baker explains... The very qualities that hurt Carter as president were the foundation of a post-presidency that has both redeemed and rewritten his legacy. It's Monday, December 30th.
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The Life and Legacy of Jimmy Carter
But, of course, there's another moment, a final chapter of this presidency that's just as defining as the Camp David Accords and that is remembered for generations to come. So tell us about that.
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The Life and Legacy of Jimmy Carter
What is your understanding of why President Carter would make this hostage crisis, which, of course, looks terrible for any president. It's a hostage crisis. Why does he decide to make it so central to his presidency in this moment? Why? not basically put it in the background.
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The Life and Legacy of Jimmy Carter
So what does Carter do to try to free these hostages and turn this test into a success?
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The Life and Legacy of Jimmy Carter
Right, and because he is so fixated on this, and as a result, the media is so fixated on this, that failure becomes a kind of political disaster.
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The Life and Legacy of Jimmy Carter
And of course, unfortunately for Carter, he is up for re-election that same year.
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The Life and Legacy of Jimmy Carter
Peter, it's almost as if the Iranians, having already contributed to Carter's re-election loss, want to further humiliate him even after that defeat.
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The Life and Legacy of Jimmy Carter
It feels complicated though, right, Peter? Because as you explained a little bit earlier, the idea of Jimmy Carter in 1976, when he's first running as an outsider, after all these excesses, Watergate and Vietnam, was indisputably... alluring, the kind of smaller version of The Office. But then it seems the reality of Jimmy Carter turned out to be less appealing.
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The Life and Legacy of Jimmy Carter
Well, just explain that. What about his post-presidency shows us that this is who Carter was?
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The Life and Legacy of Jimmy Carter
Over the next week, the body of former President Carter is expected to be taken by motorcade from his home in Plains, Georgia to Atlanta, where he will lie in repose at the Carter Center. After that, he will be flown to Washington, where he will lie in state at the U.S. Capitol, before a formal funeral at the National Cathedral.
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The Life and Legacy of Jimmy Carter
Per Carter's wishes, he will be interred back in Georgia at a simple family plot. We'll be right back.
The Daily
The Life and Legacy of Jimmy Carter
Investigators are trying to determine what caused a South Korean passenger plane to skid across a runway on Sunday morning and crash into a barrier, killing nearly all 181 people on board. It was one of the deadliest aviation disasters in years. Shortly before the crash, the control tower at the airport warned of a possible bird strike, and soon after, the plane's pilots issued a mayday.
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The Life and Legacy of Jimmy Carter
Today's episode was produced by Carlos Prieto and Sydney Harper, with help from Alexandra Lee Young and Will Reed. It was edited by Lisa Chow and Devin Taylor, fact-checked by Susan Lee, contains original music by Marion Lozano, Dan Powell, Rowan Emisto, and Sophia Landman, and was engineered by Alyssa Moxley. Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Landsberg of Wonderly.
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The Life and Legacy of Jimmy Carter
That's it for The Daily. I'm Michael Barbaro. See you tomorrow.
The Daily
The Life and Legacy of Jimmy Carter
Right, a kind of president who in some ways is... unpresidential, like a president who, despite holding the most powerful office in the country, is constantly projecting humility.
The Daily
The Life and Legacy of Jimmy Carter
Peter, you are a White House reporter who has covered the last five presidents. You're also a historian of the presidency itself. And in those roles, I'm curious how you've been thinking about the life and now the death of Jimmy Carter.
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The Life and Legacy of Jimmy Carter
Right, I really can't. I mean, but it very much seems to reflect that campaign promise, Peter, that Jimmy Carter would never lie to the American people. In some ways, this is a rather extraordinary dose of truth.
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The Life and Legacy of Jimmy Carter
So this reset that Jimmy Carter has attempted to undertake with those meetings at Camp David, with this speech, with this theoretical cleansing of his cabinet, it is all very much seeming to backfire.
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The Life and Legacy of Jimmy Carter
Well, talk about that. This unusual man and his unusual presidency. And what, in your mind, is the first chapter of that story that we should understand? Right.
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The Life and Legacy of Jimmy Carter
Right. And the reason it's called the malaise speech is not just because it was about American malaise, because it seemed to embody Jimmy Carter's malaise as president, right?
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The Life and Legacy of Jimmy Carter
Peter, after all these domestic stumbles, tell us about this success that Carter has overseas.
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The Fallout From Zelensky and Trump’s Oval Office Meltdown
From The New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily. Today, the fallout from the extraordinary televised Oval Office shouting match between Donald Trump, J.D. Vance and Volodymyr Zelenskyy. my colleague, Chief White House Correspondent Peter Baker, walks us through the clash and its consequences. It's Monday, March 3rd.
The Daily
The Fallout From Zelensky and Trump’s Oval Office Meltdown
We'll be right back. Peter, pick the story up where you just left it off. What ends up happening behind the scenes, based on your reporting, that ultimately ends with this day becoming totally unsalvageable?
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The Fallout From Zelensky and Trump’s Oval Office Meltdown
Peter, the reactions to this encounter are all over the place, as you might expect. You've got Republicans... Some of them now saying it's time for Zelensky to resign. And they are repeating the charge from Trump and Vance that Zelensky wasn't sufficiently respectful and that Ukraine should send the United States a leader who can show the president of the United States more respect.
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The Fallout From Zelensky and Trump’s Oval Office Meltdown
Then you've got congressional Democrats who are aghast that the president would berate the leader of a country that is an American ally, and furious that we seem to be giving a boost to Russia by humiliating the leader of Ukraine. And so I'm curious what you're making of those two drastically different responses to this same encounter.
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The Fallout From Zelensky and Trump’s Oval Office Meltdown
And not just for the spectacle of it, but for its actual consequentialness.
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The Fallout From Zelensky and Trump’s Oval Office Meltdown
Right, so that's the domestic political response, Peter. But the responses that most intrigued me were from people who said, basically, wasn't this a moment of unvarnished truth-telling from President Trump? Ukraine does not have a good hand. It is deeply reliant on American military aid. It's struggling to recruit soldiers. It cannot win a war of attrition against Russia.
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The Fallout From Zelensky and Trump’s Oval Office Meltdown
And it's not really a priority for the Trump administration. So in a way, Trump was being very clear and very direct about all of that in this confrontation.
The Daily
The Fallout From Zelensky and Trump’s Oval Office Meltdown
Right. Which is a slightly different question and one that is important, which is, was this done poorly, impolitely, shockingly so to some. But I think it feels like Trump's goal here is to focus, like you just said, on Russia and China, and that in the end, Ukraine stands in the way of that. Trump wants to be sitting down across from Putin or Xi Jinping.
The Daily
The Fallout From Zelensky and Trump’s Oval Office Meltdown
He does not want to have to be worrying about a war in Ukraine.
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The Fallout From Zelensky and Trump’s Oval Office Meltdown
Well, a related question to this, Peter, is, is Europe going to pick up the slack if the U.S., if Trump, is going to walk away from this to focus on Russia and China and, to use your words, potentially leave Ukraine as roadkill? in the pursuit of that goal, is Europe going to step in and protect Ukraine?
The Daily
The Fallout From Zelensky and Trump’s Oval Office Meltdown
And it was striking how much in the hours after Zelensky was kicked out of the White House, European leaders lionized him and posed the question of what their role needed to be if the U.S. walks away. I mean, the prime minister of France wrote, by refusing to bend in Washington, Volodymyr Zelensky was the honor of Europe.
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The Fallout From Zelensky and Trump’s Oval Office Meltdown
But then he goes on to write, now it is upon us Europeans to decide what we want to be and whether we want to be. And I took that to mean her saying, Europe, are we going to step up and solve the problems for Ukraine that the U.S. has until now, but seems to be walking away from?
The Daily
The Fallout From Zelensky and Trump’s Oval Office Meltdown
Right. And for all those reasons, I suspect, history will keep turning over this encounter for a very long time, as will we in this conversation in a few moments. But I think it's worth setting up a bit what led to this blow up and talk through the kind of dynamics into which both men entered the Oval Office on Friday. Yeah.
The Daily
The Fallout From Zelensky and Trump’s Oval Office Meltdown
Right. And it seems worth noting that UK's prime minister, even as he announced more money for Ukraine, said, we've got to be honest, we still need a backstop from the US. There's nothing approaching a true guarantee of Ukraine's safety unless the US is involved.
The Daily
The Fallout From Zelensky and Trump’s Oval Office Meltdown
Right. Peter, my final question for you is about Zelensky and what, based on your reporting, you think he is going to do now. He's been issued this offer via President Trump to return to the White House, but only as a man of peace. And from everything you're saying here, what that really means is that the president wants him to return as a person willing to capitulate and recognize that the U.S.
The Daily
The Fallout From Zelensky and Trump’s Oval Office Meltdown
doesn't really care as much as it once did about protecting Ukraine and that he has to live and die by Trump's hope that Putin would keep a deal that Trump makes. And that means giving up a lot. And so I'm curious, do you think Zelensky will return to the White House and On the terms that Trump wants? Or does he not return?
The Daily
The Fallout From Zelensky and Trump’s Oval Office Meltdown
And does he instead focus on Europe as a replacement and savior for Ukraine as potentially insufficient as that might be?
The Daily
The Fallout From Zelensky and Trump’s Oval Office Meltdown
Well, Peter, thank you very much. We appreciate it. Thanks for having me. Great to talk with you. On Sunday night, a spokesman for Russian President Vladimir Putin said that the Trump administration's new policies towards countries like Ukraine, encapsulated by the Oval Office confrontation between Trump and Zelensky, had brought the United States much closer to Russia's own approach.
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The Fallout From Zelensky and Trump’s Oval Office Meltdown
The spokesman said, quote, the new administration is rapidly changing all foreign policy configurations. This, he added, largely aligns with our vision.
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The Fallout From Zelensky and Trump’s Oval Office Meltdown
On Sunday, Israel disrupted its existing and agreed-upon framework for ending its war with Hamas by saying it would immediately end the flow of all goods and humanitarian assistance into Gaza. The decision is an attempt by Israel to temporarily extend its ceasefire deal with Hamas without advancing to the next more delicate stage of negotiations.
The Daily
The Fallout From Zelensky and Trump’s Oval Office Meltdown
That stage would have required Israel to withdraw troops from Gaza and to commit to a permanent ceasefire in return for the release of the remaining Israeli hostages inside Gaza. Hamas immediately denounced Israel's decision. But it was clear that the Trump administration supports Israel's new plan. And over the weekend, U.S.
The Daily
The Fallout From Zelensky and Trump’s Oval Office Meltdown
Secretary of State Marco Rubio invoked emergency powers to bypass Congress and send $4 billion in weapons to Israel. Today's episode was produced by Will Reed and Muj Zaydi. It was edited by Liz O'Balin, contains original music by Dan Powell, and was engineered by Alyssa Moxley. Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Lansford of Wonderly. That's it for The Daily. I'm Michael Barbaro.
The Daily
The Fallout From Zelensky and Trump’s Oval Office Meltdown
Right. Two men have never had such awkward history, perhaps, as world leaders.
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The Fallout From Zelensky and Trump’s Oval Office Meltdown
Right. So Zelensky, as you've clearly just laid out here, has no affection for Trump, but will agree to come to Washington to sign this minerals deal, mostly to protect whatever existing frayed, attenuated relationship the U.S. still has with Ukraine as a supporter of its defense.
The Daily
The Fallout From Zelensky and Trump’s Oval Office Meltdown
Peter, thank you for making time for us on a Sunday afternoon, no less. We appreciate it.
The Daily
The Fallout From Zelensky and Trump’s Oval Office Meltdown
I'm curious, Peter, where in the pantheon of moments that you have witnessed at the White House over the past 30 years to date you, does what happened in the Oval Office on Friday fit, would you say?
The Daily
The Fallout From Zelensky and Trump’s Oval Office Meltdown
Right. It feels worth noting that in this moment, Zelensky decides to call the vice president J.D., not Vice President Vance.
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The Fallout From Zelensky and Trump’s Oval Office Meltdown
What do you mean? Perhaps history will not note this as an important moment.
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The Fallout From Zelensky and Trump’s Oval Office Meltdown
Yeah, just translate what he's saying there because it feels like a really important point Zelensky's trying to make.
The Daily
The Fallout From Zelensky and Trump’s Oval Office Meltdown
In effect, what Trump is saying is, Zelensky, all you need to understand is that you have no power right now. We have all the power. Get on board or you're in real trouble. Yeah, exactly.
The Daily
The Fallout From Zelensky and Trump’s Oval Office Meltdown
We should say, at this moment, all three of these leaders, seasoned leaders, could have chosen to de-escalate what's becoming an incredibly acrimonious, almost shouting match. But they don't. They all seem quite loaded for bear. Yeah.
The Daily
The Fallout From Zelensky and Trump’s Oval Office Meltdown
Peter, once the shock wore off, for me at least, and as I told you, I'm watching this as well, I had this sense, and I wonder if you did as well, that people in the two delegations, the Zelensky camp and the Trump camp, they're going to find a way to try to smooth this over after the cameras leave the room because, of course, they are there to sign a deal.
The Daily
Americans to Trump: You’ve Gone Too Far
Well, talk about the practical consequences. I'm going to guess some of that might have to do with elections that are still a little bit a ways off midterms, but also perhaps with what Republicans in Congress might be willing to tolerate when they're called upon to defend what this poll has found are some of these excesses.
The Daily
Americans to Trump: You’ve Gone Too Far
Right. If you're a swing district Republican and you look at these numbers, you recognize that staying too closely attached to Trump might cost you your seat. And then the incentive structure that we normally think about, which is I don't want to piss off this president, starts to maybe change.
The Daily
Americans to Trump: You’ve Gone Too Far
Nate, since you just brought up those institutions that have been, in some cases, persecuted and prosecuted by this presidency, I wonder how you're thinking about what this poll tells us about one of the great questions throughout the campaign and in the first hundred days of this presidency, which is how we're supposed to think about a new and by many measures more authoritarian version of the presidency.
The Daily
Americans to Trump: You’ve Gone Too Far
I mean, clearly, this poll finds that many Americans are seeing excesses in it, and yet it's not stopping the president from pursuing a far more robustly powerful version of the executive branch.
The Daily
Americans to Trump: You’ve Gone Too Far
I voted for Trump. I voted for Trump. From The New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily.
The Daily
Americans to Trump: You’ve Gone Too Far
Thanks for making time for us. This is a pretty big occasion for you and the world of New York Times polling. You're now out with our first poll since the election, timed to President Trump's first 100 days in office. You're basically taking the country's temperature on most of the major facets of what he has done so far in the first three months.
The Daily
Americans to Trump: You’ve Gone Too Far
People want their president to operate within the bounds of the Constitution.
The Daily
Americans to Trump: You’ve Gone Too Far
But if the president doesn't care, and if the midterms aren't for, what, a year and a half or so, it still could mean a lot of big changes, a much more forceful, powerful executive branch that's not responsive to those numbers you just talk about, and maybe even a constitutional crisis.
The Daily
Americans to Trump: You’ve Gone Too Far
Are you saying the American psyche has not fundamentally changed in the face of this and rallied behind it? The leaders in these countries you just mentioned, Hungary, Turkey, India, they don't do what they do in the face of public opposition. They do it because they know it is popular. That is not what we're seeing here. That's not what we're seeing from this poll.
The Daily
Americans to Trump: You’ve Gone Too Far
We're seeing that when it comes to these excesses, actions that Trump is taking that resemble those of leaders in these other countries— that Americans are saying, that's not what we want.
The Daily
Americans to Trump: You’ve Gone Too Far
So high level, what did you find about how Americans are feeling about this presidency 100 days in?
The Daily
Americans to Trump: You’ve Gone Too Far
The poll does not in any way at the moment suggest that the country has a big appetite for the most extreme dimensions of Trump's first 100 days. Which doesn't tell us, as you said, that those elements won't persist. It just tells you that the electorate has not changed in a way that suggests that they suddenly now want it.
The Daily
Americans to Trump: You’ve Gone Too Far
Well, Nate. Thank you very much. We appreciate it.
The Daily
Americans to Trump: You’ve Gone Too Far
In its latest aggressive moves on immigration, the Trump administration has arrested a local judge in Wisconsin for allegedly obstructing the detention of an undocumented immigrant and has deported a US citizen to Honduras. The arrested judge is accused of steering the immigrant through a side door in her courtroom while ICE agents waited to arrest him in a public hallway.
The Daily
Americans to Trump: You’ve Gone Too Far
The judge says she will fight the charges. Meanwhile, the deported U.S. citizen is a two-year-old who, according to a federal judge, may have been unconstitutionally deported against the wishes of her father. And Pope Francis was laid to rest over the weekend in a solemn and majestic funeral held on the steps of St. Peter's Basilica in Rome.
The Daily
Americans to Trump: You’ve Gone Too Far
Today's episode was produced by Caitlin O'Keefe, Aastha Chaturvedi, and Stella Tan. It was edited by M.J. Davis-Lynn and Paige Coward, contains original music by Dan Powell, Marion Lozano, and Rowan Emisto, and was engineered by Alyssa Moxley. Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Landverk of Wonderly. That's it for The Daily. I'm Michael Barbaro. See you tomorrow.
The Daily
Americans to Trump: You’ve Gone Too Far
And what is that top line not good number that we should hold in our heads?
The Daily
Americans to Trump: You’ve Gone Too Far
In political journalism, we call this being underwater. More people disapprove of you than approve of you. It's not a good thing. And it comes so soon after Trump won the presidency with what I remember was a number meaningfully higher than 42%.
The Daily
Americans to Trump: You’ve Gone Too Far
So given all that, how are you thinking about this number at this moment, given everything that has happened in these first hundred days?
The Daily
Americans to Trump: You’ve Gone Too Far
The question hovering over President Trump's first 100 days in office is whether his extraordinarily aggressive approach to everything from tariffs to deportations is exactly what most Americans wanted.
The Daily
Americans to Trump: You’ve Gone Too Far
Yeah, well, let's do that. Let's talk about some of the details of where opportunity has been replaced by, as you just used this word, excess.
The Daily
Americans to Trump: You’ve Gone Too Far
And exactly why? It sounds like it's going to be about him maybe taking it too far.
The Daily
Americans to Trump: You’ve Gone Too Far
So even on an issue that helped Trump win the election, immigration, what you're seeing in this poll is that there are lines voters don't want him to cross. And in this case, they think he has crossed it. And in the process, he's turned what could be
The Daily
Americans to Trump: You’ve Gone Too Far
Let's talk about those one at a time because they seem worthy of examination. Let's, for example, talk through Doge and let's talk about his handling of the economy.
The Daily
Americans to Trump: You’ve Gone Too Far
Nate, what did the poll find about what I might describe as the universe of ways in which the president has expanded executive authority and used it to pursue, in some cases, punish his enemies and ideological opponents?
The Daily
Americans to Trump: You’ve Gone Too Far
Right, and as we talked about a lot on the show, the president has openly defied our norms around separation of powers by shutting down agencies, for example, that have been congressionally funded and openly talking about, and in some cases doing, the act of ignoring judicial rulings. So what this all seems to suggest is that the voters who put Trump in the White House—
The Daily
Americans to Trump: You’ve Gone Too Far
Wanted major change, that phrase you used, and the poll found a year ago. And what they got was a president who in many cases is instead tearing things down. And the gap between that desire and reality seems to account for the big finding of this poll, which is they don't like it.
The Daily
Americans to Trump: You’ve Gone Too Far
In other words, the young voters peeling away from him after the first hundred days were the least likely to have wanted him to pursue the most extreme versions of these policies in the first place.
The Daily
Americans to Trump: You’ve Gone Too Far
Of course, the big question and what I want us to talk about after the break is how much any of this matters for a president who does not seem to care much at all about public opinion, whose party is profoundly afraid of him and not operating in any way as a check against him in Congress, and as a result seems kind of immune to the result of a poll like this.
The Daily
Americans to Trump: You’ve Gone Too Far
Today. In a major new nationwide poll, voters tell The Times exactly how they feel about Trump's agenda so far. My colleague Nate Cohn is our guest. It's Monday, April 28th. Nate. Michael. Welcome back. Thanks for having me. You kind of went into a post-election hibernation of sorts, and now you have awakened.
The Daily
Americans to Trump: You’ve Gone Too Far
So, Nate, talk about why a poll like this does matter in this unique political environment in which the president, as I just said before the break, seems pretty thoroughly insulated for now from the blowback to what people regard as the excesses of his first 100 days.
The Daily
Americans to Trump: You’ve Gone Too Far
Right. The trade war shows no signs of abating. There are legally questionable deportations that are still happening.
The Daily
Americans to Trump: You’ve Gone Too Far
And that's why you're suggesting that these poll numbers, bad as they are, could get even worse. Absolutely.
The Daily
Americans to Trump: You’ve Gone Too Far
What you're describing is an invitation for resistance that would be validated by a poll like this.
The Daily
Could One Phone Call Lead to the 28th Amendment?
Correct. You have the 14th Amendment, which has an equal protection clause. Right. But that doesn't mention sex specifically. And this passed in the 1860s, decades before women were even guaranteed the right to vote. This existed when married women in many states couldn't even own property under their own names. So this was not really about sex equality. Right.
The Daily
Could One Phone Call Lead to the 28th Amendment?
Correct. So in 1923, a suffragist named Alice Paul comes up with the idea that the United States needs a constitutional amendment specifically addressing women's equality. And she actually gets something in front of lawmakers, but it doesn't really go anywhere or get any traction for years. Right.
The Daily
Could One Phone Call Lead to the 28th Amendment?
Until the late 1960s when the women's rights movement is really blossoming.
The Daily
Could One Phone Call Lead to the 28th Amendment?
And suddenly there is excitement around this idea.
The Daily
Could One Phone Call Lead to the 28th Amendment?
So in 1971, a Democratic lawmaker in the House introduces a bill called the Equal Rights Amendment.
The Daily
Could One Phone Call Lead to the 28th Amendment?
And it passes with overwhelming margins from both parties. And then a year later, it passes the Senate, where the final vote was 84 to 8 in favor of the Equal Rights Amendment.
The Daily
Could One Phone Call Lead to the 28th Amendment?
But there's one more step that needs to happen for an amendment to to become part of the Constitution, and that is it needs three-quarters of the states to adopt it.
The Daily
Could One Phone Call Lead to the 28th Amendment?
And 35 states pass it in just five years, leaving it just three states short of ratification. So it looks like it's just sailing smoothly through the process of becoming a constitutional amendment.
The Daily
Could One Phone Call Lead to the 28th Amendment?
Until it runs up against vocal opposition led by a conservative woman named Phyllis Schlafly.
The Daily
Could One Phone Call Lead to the 28th Amendment?
She's a self-described housewife, an anti-feminist Republican who wages war against the ERA.
The Daily
Could One Phone Call Lead to the 28th Amendment?
Her basic argument is that it would actually take away rights from women.
The Daily
Could One Phone Call Lead to the 28th Amendment?
with a message that traditional women's roles are a privilege.
The Daily
Could One Phone Call Lead to the 28th Amendment?
And she organized a very effective grassroots campaign where women showed up in droves to push this message on state legislators who had to vote on this.
The Daily
Could One Phone Call Lead to the 28th Amendment?
No other states are willing to adopt it. And the reason that matters is because in the original piece of legislation that had passed Congress, there was a deadline for when the states had to ratify. And in fact, a few states even go back and try and rescind their ratifications.
The Daily
Could One Phone Call Lead to the 28th Amendment?
So by 1982, which is the ultimate deadline that Congress came up with, they're short. This amendment has not met the legal requirements to become the 28th Amendment.
The Daily
Could One Phone Call Lead to the 28th Amendment?
You might think so, but the debate begins about whether or not the time limit is is something that should be taken seriously or whether that deadline was always meaningless.
The Daily
Could One Phone Call Lead to the 28th Amendment?
So constitutional amendments, first of all, each one has taken its own circuitous path to passing. And they don't normally have ratification deadlines. An example is the 27th Amendment. It was ratified in 1992. That's two centuries after Congress first passed it. So supporters of the ERA argue that the Constitution itself never mentions deadlines for an amendment.
The Daily
Could One Phone Call Lead to the 28th Amendment?
So they just are meaningless and do not exist.
The Daily
Could One Phone Call Lead to the 28th Amendment?
And on top of that, there's a real debate about this business of states trying to rescind their ratification. States have tried that in the past on other amendments, on the 14th and 15th amendments. And their original ratifications were still counted in the final count that had those become part of the Constitution.
The Daily
Could One Phone Call Lead to the 28th Amendment?
There's a lot of legal gray area here, yes. So this thing just kind of sits on the shelf for decades until Donald Trump is elected president. And three more Democratic Party-controlled state legislators, Nevada, Illinois, and Virginia, who are motivated by women who are outraged that Trump has won and what this will mean for women's rights,
The Daily
Could One Phone Call Lead to the 28th Amendment?
not to mention the Me Too movement, which was at its peak, adopt the ERA. So it suddenly hits the magic number of 38, three quarters of the states. It has still been passed by Congress. So on paper, according to supporters, it has cleared all the bars. The ERA has been ratified and should be part of the Constitution.
The Daily
Could One Phone Call Lead to the 28th Amendment?
Correct. So if you think it has met all the legal requirements and that the deadline is not in the Constitution, all that is left to do at this point is basically paperwork. The National Archivist, who's responsible for the certification and publication of constitutional amendments, just needs to publish the ERA as the 28th Amendment, and then it is part of the Constitution.
The Daily
Could One Phone Call Lead to the 28th Amendment?
But And this is a big but. The Trump White House at the time issues a legal opinion saying that the archivists cannot do that. And that's because of the deadline. They say that Congress set that 1982 deadline and that because of that, this is all null and void. Anything that happened after that is dead. And in 2022, when Biden is president, the Biden White House defends that position.
The Daily
Could One Phone Call Lead to the 28th Amendment?
So, again, we are in a legal gray area. In 2023, supporters of the ERA go to federal court to get a ruling about the deadline issue, and they lose. A federal court says that the deadline is real. So it's looking less gray and the chances of the Equal Rights Amendment becoming part of the Constitution are looking less likely.
The Daily
Could One Phone Call Lead to the 28th Amendment?
But over the past few months, Democrats have decided to give it a final try.
The Daily
Could One Phone Call Lead to the 28th Amendment?
After... Roe was overturned. Democrats saw this as more urgent than ever, that the ERA could be a tool to protect abortion rights at the federal level, that it could anchor a right to an abortion in the Constitution. And they have a Democratic president with the power to make this happen. They want to just treat this like it's already the law of the land. It's passed Congress.
The Daily
Could One Phone Call Lead to the 28th Amendment?
I'm happy to be here. I'm sitting on the house side in a small recording booth.
The Daily
Could One Phone Call Lead to the 28th Amendment?
It's got the three quarters of states ratified. Just order the archivist to publish it. And sure, it'll invite a legal challenge, but that's the next step. So they literally say, all Joe Biden has to do is pick up the phone, have a two-minute phone conversation with the archivist, ordering her to publish it, and then they'll deal with whatever comes next after that.
The Daily
Could One Phone Call Lead to the 28th Amendment?
45 senators, including Chuck Schumer, the majority leader, have written a letter to Biden saying, pick up the phone and call. House Democrats, over 100, all saying... Pick up the phone. Yes, it will invite a court challenge.
The Daily
Could One Phone Call Lead to the 28th Amendment?
But the point is that this would dare Republicans to have a legal battle to take away equal rights for women, to say, no, we're fighting against this very simple amendment that says women deserve equal rights. Dare them to start that legal battle. And the lawmaker who has really taken up this mantle is
The Daily
Could One Phone Call Lead to the 28th Amendment?
is the junior senator from New York, Kirsten Gillibrand, who has made it a priority to persuade Biden that he can and he must do something on this, that he is the president who can make the Equal Rights Amendment part of the Constitution.
The Daily
Could One Phone Call Lead to the 28th Amendment?
So this is a story that starts about a century ago, and it's a pretty remarkable story about a very simple idea. And that is that men and women should be equal under the law in the United States and that discrimination based on sex should be prohibited. That's the whole thing. But it's never actually been put into the Constitution in such plain language.
The Daily
Is the Era of Student Loan Forgiveness Officially Over?
From The New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily. Across the country, millions of Americans with unpaid student loans are discovering that years of patience and forgiveness from the U.S. government have officially come to an end.
The Daily
Is the Era of Student Loan Forgiveness Officially Over?
So how did that go, the government being the backstop?
The Daily
Is the Era of Student Loan Forgiveness Officially Over?
Right. A reasonable question. So fast forwarding a little bit, how do we arrive at a moment where the federal government decides maybe we will take on both the risk and the reward?
The Daily
Is the Era of Student Loan Forgiveness Officially Over?
student loans, even though they don't make any money from it.
The Daily
Is the Era of Student Loan Forgiveness Officially Over?
Was there a conversation in this period about whether the government's approach to this is making college more expensive? Because that seems like a clear link. If the government is the provider of these loans and it's going to forgive lots of the loans as they get bigger and bigger, what incentive do colleges and universities have to put a cap on the price of going to college?
The Daily
Is the Era of Student Loan Forgiveness Officially Over?
Right. Well, for the sake of argument, what would it look like for the federal government to get out of the student loan business and to return to the pre-Obama era, where it's really the private sector in charge of this? And would that likely create a more predictable, less confusing, whipsawing system? And, just to make this question even more complicated, might that lower the cost of tuition?
The Daily
Is the Era of Student Loan Forgiveness Officially Over?
Banks potentially might say, this is the limit you can take, which currently doesn't exist.
The Daily
Is the Era of Student Loan Forgiveness Officially Over?
Is it fair to ask whether what Trump is doing here by forcing the system to go back to its original state five years ago is that he is forcing us to reckon with all the things we're talking about here and to perhaps rethink the government's role? And is that a healthy exercise because of the confusion, because of the tuition costs that are unconstrained by the current system?
The Daily
Is the Era of Student Loan Forgiveness Officially Over?
I mean, how many times in this conversation have you basically said the system is broken? Biden was trying to fix it through ad hoc amnesty and forbearance is what Trump is trying to do here, a very different version of fixing it through a kind of brute force, tough medicine.
The Daily
Is the Era of Student Loan Forgiveness Officially Over?
And unless Trump does try to take it out of the government's hands or do something pretty radical, he will simply extend the brokenness without any upside.
The Daily
Is the Era of Student Loan Forgiveness Officially Over?
And if that is the case, if the system limps and borrowers are left to pay these huge bills, I want to go back to something you said in the beginning about delinquency and default. What does the world look like in six to nine months, a year, a year and a half, if we start to see those millions of defaults?
The Daily
Is the Era of Student Loan Forgiveness Officially Over?
It's just a wet blanket over the entire economy.
The Daily
Is the Era of Student Loan Forgiveness Officially Over?
Well, Stacey, appreciate your time. Thank you.
The Daily
Is the Era of Student Loan Forgiveness Officially Over?
On Sunday night, the Times reported that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth shared detailed information about forthcoming airstrikes in Yemen in yet another signal messaging chat, this time with a group that included his wife, brother, and personal lawyer. The latest revelation raises even more questions about Hegseth's judgment and about Trump's decision to appoint Hegseth to oversee the U.S.
The Daily
Is the Era of Student Loan Forgiveness Officially Over?
military. Today's episode was produced by Rob Zipko, Stella Tan, and Rochelle Bonjum. It was edited by Devin Taylor and Patricia Willans. Contains original music by Rowan Emisto, Marion Lozano, and Dan Powell. And was engineered by Chris Wood. Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Lansford of Wonderland. That's it for The Daily. I'm Michael Bilboro. See you tomorrow.
The Daily
Is the Era of Student Loan Forgiveness Officially Over?
Right, and it would also mean we have 9 million Americans who are basically in the worst kind of financial bind you can be in.
The Daily
Is the Era of Student Loan Forgiveness Officially Over?
I think it's important to have you remind us briefly how we got here because a lot of factors went into how we arrived in this moment.
The Daily
Is the Era of Student Loan Forgiveness Officially Over?
Right. Huge deal. And kind of understandable because it was the federal government that shut our economy down. And so the thinking was we're going to not force a lot of people who are out of work or making a lot less than usual to have this burden on top of that.
The Daily
Is the Era of Student Loan Forgiveness Officially Over?
Today, Stacey Cowley on what's behind the change of heart, its financial consequences for borrowers, and the larger reckoning that it could finally trigger about how Americans pay for higher education. It's Monday, April 21st. Well, Stacey, it's nice to have you back.
The Daily
Is the Era of Student Loan Forgiveness Officially Over?
And so for how long were, I think, tens of millions, right, of folks who had lots of student loan debt permitted to not make repayments? Right.
The Daily
Is the Era of Student Loan Forgiveness Officially Over?
I'm going to guess a lot of people took advantage of that.
The Daily
Is the Era of Student Loan Forgiveness Officially Over?
Right. There's just a lot of amnesty kind of built into the messaging and the system. But of course, Trump and his allies on the campaign trail, and I watched this closely, were making the argument, wait a minute, why is student debt being treated with all this forgiveness? Nothing like that happens to auto debt or mortgage debt. So why college debt?
The Daily
Is the Era of Student Loan Forgiveness Officially Over?
And to Trump, out of office at this point, it felt like a Democratic president handing out gifts to Democratic kind of people.
The Daily
Is the Era of Student Loan Forgiveness Officially Over?
So plenty of people in the Trump coalition have student debt.
The Daily
Is the Era of Student Loan Forgiveness Officially Over?
Okay, so let's fast forward to the part where Trump does come back to office. What exactly does he do? What does he change? What does he take away? And what remains?
The Daily
Is the Era of Student Loan Forgiveness Officially Over?
Because Trump is trying to shut it down.
The Daily
Is the Era of Student Loan Forgiveness Officially Over?
I think this is the third time that we have had a version of this conversation with you.
The Daily
Is the Era of Student Loan Forgiveness Officially Over?
This is where the doge job cut rubber meets the road.
The Daily
Is the Era of Student Loan Forgiveness Officially Over?
I'm going to assume that you have spoken to some borrowers who, when they've been told now they have to start repaying, are trying to do that. And I wonder what the math looks like in their financial life all of a sudden.
The Daily
Is the Era of Student Loan Forgiveness Officially Over?
Well, that's right. I mean, we keep coming to you to talk about this subject because you're the authority on it and because it keeps changing. And at this point, it's genuinely confusing. And it's extremely important to tens of millions of people. So I'm preemptively grateful. Well, thank you for your interest. So where exactly are we right now in this long winding saga of America's student loans?
The Daily
Is the Era of Student Loan Forgiveness Officially Over?
How should we think about the bind that a lot of these folks are in? I mean, perhaps this is an imperfect analogy, you'll let me know, but this feels a bit like the moment when a lot of folks in the mid-2000s who had those adjustable rate mortgages, like had them reset. And all of a sudden they owed a lot more. On some level, they knew that moment would come.
The Daily
Is the Era of Student Loan Forgiveness Officially Over?
And yet when it comes, there's still a lot of financial sting. Even as I'm asking the question, I'm recognizing why it's imperfect because in the case of student loans, the situation kept changing. The rules kept changing. The expectations kept changing. So maybe there's a flaw to that question. How should we think about this?
The Daily
Is the Era of Student Loan Forgiveness Officially Over?
What has become very evident from this conversation and all the previous conversations we've had with you is that student loans, as managed by the federal government, have become this really variable, wildly unpredictable thing that changes from one president to the next. And that starts to make me wonder, and I'm guessing I'm not the only one,
The Daily
Is the Era of Student Loan Forgiveness Officially Over?
whether the federal government, with all the political whims of our system, is the right institution to be overseeing $1 trillion in student loans.
The Daily
Is the Era of Student Loan Forgiveness Officially Over?
So, Stacey, if, as you just said, there's some real questions about whether the government should play this role in student loans, I think it naturally makes sense to understand how and why the federal government got into this business in the first place. What's that story?
The Daily
Is the Era of Student Loan Forgiveness Officially Over?
Because there's a public interest in sending more and more Americans to college.
The Daily
It’s Tariff Time, Again
From The New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily. Weeks before taking office, Donald Trump is doubling down on tariffs as the way to bring back the millions of American manufacturing jobs that have been lost over the past 30 years.
The Daily
It’s Tariff Time, Again
Huh. So one of the biggest beneficiaries of this program so far is a company not owned by an American corporation, but by a Taiwanese corporation. Is the Biden administration okay with that, that some of these investments may end up favoring foreign-owned companies? Is the idea that a U.S. manufacturing job is a U.S.
The Daily
It’s Tariff Time, Again
manufacturing job even if the ownership is overseas, or is that a disappointment to the Biden people?
The Daily
It’s Tariff Time, Again
Got it. So back to our original question, is this approach working? Just as we asked with Trump and tariffs, what can we say about whether or not this program and plan for direct investments to increase U.S. manufacturing under Biden has been effective?
The Daily
It’s Tariff Time, Again
So slow moving, but overall, it sounds like, and please correct me if this characterization is wrong, a modest success.
The Daily
It’s Tariff Time, Again
So just to step way back and compare these two approaches, Is it possible or even fair, because I know how complicated these questions could be, to ask which of these is more effective at doing what it sets out to do?
The Daily
It’s Tariff Time, Again
It seems just on paper, based on everything you're saying, like the Biden approach just numerically has the edge here in creating overall more manufacturing jobs, admittedly at a pretty significant cost to the taxpayer than the Trump program. Is that right?
The Daily
It’s Tariff Time, Again
Well, it strikes me that we have been talking about these as separate strategies. tariffs and direct investment when it feels like both are going to coexist side by side to a degree for quite some time, right? I mean, if the Biden administration is putting all this money into these companies, that's going to probably come to fruition during President-elect Trump's presidency.
The Daily
It’s Tariff Time, Again
And likewise, Biden kept, as you said, some of Trump's tariffs. So aren't we going to kind of see these buttressing each other and interacting with each other?
The Daily
It’s Tariff Time, Again
Right. Trump, tariffs, Biden, direct investment. And it seems like an interesting moment to be having this conversation with you because we have an incoming president who is articulating a plan for tariffs so vividly and forcefully while the sitting president is still applying the approach you just described. So that really gives us a chance to kind of evaluate them side by side.
The Daily
It’s Tariff Time, Again
Right. And we may not know the answer to that for quite some time, but what we clearly do know is that for the last... and the next four, so 12 overall, we're going to be operating under some very strong protectionist trade policies and that it really does feel like the era of unfettered free trade is over. And it's kind of hard to imagine how and when we would ever go back to
The Daily
It’s Tariff Time, Again
On Friday night, in a sign of just how much America's trading partners fear Trump's tariffs, the Prime Minister of Canada, Justin Trudeau, traveled to Mar-a-Lago. There, he sought to discourage Trump from following through with a 25% tariff against Canadian goods. Both Trump and Trudeau described the conversation as productive. We'll be right back. Here's what else you need to know today.
The Daily
It’s Tariff Time, Again
In an extraordinary use of his powers, President Biden has issued a full and unconditional pardon of his son, Hunter Biden, something that President Biden has repeatedly pledged he would not do. The pardon casts aside years of his son's legal troubles, including a federal conviction for illegally buying a gun and a guilty plea for tax evasion.
The Daily
It’s Tariff Time, Again
Biden said he issued the pardon because in his telling, the prosecutions of his son had been politically motivated and designed to hurt him politically. In a statement, Biden said, quote, enough is enough. And.
The Daily
It’s Tariff Time, Again
Over the weekend, Donald Trump said he wants to replace the current leader of the FBI with Kash Patel, a hardline critic of the bureau who has called for shutting down the agency's entire Washington headquarters and firing its leadership. Patel's radical views could make him a difficult pick to confirm in the U.S. Senate.
The Daily
It’s Tariff Time, Again
But Trump is intent on replacing FBI Director Christopher Wray, whom Trump himself appointed during his first term. Wray's 10-year term does not expire until 2027, so for Trump to replace him, Wray would either have to resign or be fired. Today's episode was produced by Shannon Lin, Ricky Nowetzki, and Rochelle Bonja.
The Daily
It’s Tariff Time, Again
It was edited by Lisa Chow and Maria Byrne, contains original music by Marian Lozano and Sophia Landman, and was engineered by Alyssa Moxley. Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Lansford of Wonderly. That's it for The Daily. I'm Michael Barbaro. See you tomorrow.
The Daily
It’s Tariff Time, Again
Got it. Let's explore each of these approaches one by one. And I think because he's about to become president and because he's articulating these huge tariff plans already, we should start with Trump. And, of course, we have a useful place to look to, which is his first term, which was filled with tariffs. So take us back to that first term and how that went and whether it worked.
The Daily
It’s Tariff Time, Again
Today, trade reporter Anna Swanson brings us a reality check on whether tariffs worked in Trump's first term and how they compare with the alternative approach used by President Biden. It's Monday, December 2nd. So, Ana, the world has spent the past few days absorbing Donald Trump's threat to impose enormous tariffs on America's three biggest trading partners.
The Daily
It’s Tariff Time, Again
Right. It's basically a message to American consumers and American corporations to use the domestically made thing, which makes sense because it's going to be significantly cheaper once the tariffs raise the price of the foreign good.
The Daily
It’s Tariff Time, Again
And what is the reaction from those countries when this universal set of tariffs are imposed?
The Daily
It’s Tariff Time, Again
So clearly there's an immediate diplomatic as well as economic frustration. But when it comes to the central goal of these tariffs, which is to strengthen the U.S. domestic steel business, does that happen?
The Daily
It’s Tariff Time, Again
Wow. So this very much does do what it's supposed to do, this blunt force of a trade tool. It does make America's steel production bigger and more profitable, it sounds like.
The Daily
It’s Tariff Time, Again
Which would seem to make it hard to consider an overall success. If the goal is to improve U.S. manufacturing and U.S. manufacturing overall decreases because of this, then that sounds a bit more like a failure than a success, depending on your goals.
The Daily
It’s Tariff Time, Again
We'll be right back. Okay, so let's turn now to President Biden's approach to protecting American manufacturing jobs, which, Ana, you have called this more carrot-based direct investment tactic.
The Daily
It’s Tariff Time, Again
25% tariffs on goods coming in from Mexico and Canada, 10% tariffs on goods coming in from China. And in doing so, Trump said very loudly and very clearly that his approach to protecting American jobs and American manufacturing is bad.
The Daily
It’s Tariff Time, Again
Right. And the impetus for that, as I recall, is the pandemic, right? Biden persuades Congress to do this at a point in the pandemic when supply chains are clogged and disrupted and fears about the state of the U.S. economy are growing.
The Daily
It’s Tariff Time, Again
So of those, which industry seems worth zeroing in on to see whether this Biden approach actually worked?
The Daily
It’s Tariff Time, Again
Right. Most of them are made, as we've said many times on the show, in Taiwan.
The Daily
It’s Tariff Time, Again
Right. Which means that suddenly China could control most, if not all, of the manufacturing of computer chips that are pretty essential to American computers and technology.
The Daily
It’s Tariff Time, Again
So the government is putting itself in a pretty unusual position of kind of reaching through the free market system and trying to reshape an industry by choosing which companies get direct subsidies of taxpayer money with the goal of protecting and ultimately increasing the manufacturing of computer chips here in the United States.
The Daily
It’s Tariff Time, Again
Which I have to imagine gives the government some real pause when it thinks about just how much to invest in Intel. Because the whole point of this direct investment is to pick winners and losers. And it's not sounding at the moment like the rest of the tech world sees Intel as a winner or as a place it even wants to order computer chips from.
The Daily
No More Refugees, Trump Said. Except White South Africans.
We look forward to, after this, to be able to spend a little bit of time with you and get to talk to you guys. So thank you, guys.
The Daily
The Weekend Democrats Went to War — Against Each Other
From The New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily. Over the past few days, a routine debate over government funding has exploded into an angry showdown over the Democratic Party's identity in the Trump era and whether its current leadership is right for the moment.
The Daily
The Weekend Democrats Went to War — Against Each Other
Right, when the Tea Party actually emerges. Yeah, just take us back there, because I think for this provocative question to really make sense, we're going to need to be reminded of that history.
The Daily
The Weekend Democrats Went to War — Against Each Other
Right. To many Republicans, their leadership, especially in Congress, is feeling ineffectual, not up to the task of opposing this powerful president from the opposing party. So...
The Daily
The Weekend Democrats Went to War — Against Each Other
Right. And so this explains why your provocative question isn't necessarily that provocative. You're seeing evidence, you're saying, that the Democratic Party's mindset, especially among a group of voters, has changed.
The Daily
The Weekend Democrats Went to War — Against Each Other
And suddenly they're asking the question, should we be a party where fighting is the point, even if it means potentially shutting down the government, in order to fight President Trump?
The Daily
The Weekend Democrats Went to War — Against Each Other
Right, the fight-fight Republican Party.
The Daily
The Weekend Democrats Went to War — Against Each Other
Fascinating. But of course, if we're going to stick with the Tea Party model here of internal insurgency that we might start to see on the Democratic side. I want to reflect on the fact that the Tea Party's overall message was profoundly anti-government, right? It was the government is too big, the government is too invasive, and that's not the Democratic Party's brand.
The Daily
The Weekend Democrats Went to War — Against Each Other
Democratic Party's brand is generally quite supportive of the government and of its workers. That's partly why some Democrats were so alarmed by the idea of pushing the government into a shutdown over the past few days. That's hard for a lot of Democrats to swallow. So how do these Democrats who perhaps view the Tea Party as a model for change reconcile that?
The Daily
The Weekend Democrats Went to War — Against Each Other
Right, who said, basically, we think you made the wrong call.
The Daily
The Weekend Democrats Went to War — Against Each Other
So this still pretty inchoate vision of a democratic insurgency so far is fight, fight, but not just fight for its own sake. Fight with an alternative democratic agenda than what the existing democratic leadership offers.
The Daily
The Weekend Democrats Went to War — Against Each Other
And I'm guessing many of them believe the absence of which doomed President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris in the last election in which they were seen, the whole party was seen as protectors of the status quo.
The Daily
The Weekend Democrats Went to War — Against Each Other
Shane, the reality is that the next congressional primaries for Democrats that will reveal whether or not something like a Tea Party insurgency is happening within the party, they're not for another year. And a lot can happen between now and then.
The Daily
The Weekend Democrats Went to War — Against Each Other
And therefore, just to be transparent, it's impossible for us to know whether we're at the beginning of something really big happening in this party, just as it would have been really hard to predict that Obama's election in 2008 and what he did in 2009, 2010 was going to lead to the birth of the Tea Party. Right. Absolutely.
The Daily
The Weekend Democrats Went to War — Against Each Other
Well, Shane... Thank you very much. Appreciate it.
The Daily
The Weekend Democrats Went to War — Against Each Other
On Sunday, a new poll found that an overwhelming majority of Democrats want their party to fight President Trump. By a two-to-one margin, registered Democrats told NBC News that they want Democrats in Congress to stick with their positions, even if that creates gridlock in Washington, rather than make compromises with Trump.
The Daily
The Weekend Democrats Went to War — Against Each Other
Here's what else you need to know today. The Trump administration has deported dozens of alleged Venezuelan gang members without a hearing, potentially in violation of an order over the weekend from a U.S. federal judge.
The Daily
The Weekend Democrats Went to War — Against Each Other
Trump sent the suspected gang members to a notorious prison in El Salvador by invoking the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, which allows the US to summarily expel people from countries at war with the US. But the U.S. is not at war with Venezuela.
The Daily
The Weekend Democrats Went to War — Against Each Other
And on Saturday night, a federal judge ruled that the deportations were illegal and that any planes taking the suspects to El Salvador must be turned around and returned to the U.S. Yet it does not appear that any of the flights were in fact stopped.
The Daily
The Weekend Democrats Went to War — Against Each Other
And Trump has signed an executive order dismantling the agency that oversees Voice of America, which for decades has transmitted news into mostly authoritarian countries with no independent news media. Soon after, hundreds of journalists for Voice of America were put on leave, and many radio frequencies that carry its programming overseas began playing music instead of news.
The Daily
The Weekend Democrats Went to War — Against Each Other
Today's episode was produced by Muj Zaydi and Nina Feldman, with help from Carlos Prieto. It was edited by Rachel Quester and Lexi Diao, contains original music by Marion Lozano, Rowe Nymisto, and Pat McCusker, and was engineered by Chris Wood. Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Lansford of Wonderland. That's it for The Daily. I'm Michael Bavaro. See you tomorrow.
The Daily
The Weekend Democrats Went to War — Against Each Other
Right. A remarkable moment where basically the number two Democrat in Congress won't say whether he supports the number one Senate Democrat. That's a huge, huge deal.
The Daily
The Weekend Democrats Went to War — Against Each Other
Well, tell us how we got to this moment in such a short period of time where Democrats are truly, it seems, at each other's throat about the best way to operate in this first phase of the Trump administration.
The Daily
The Weekend Democrats Went to War — Against Each Other
Right. We've only covered this, you and I, Katie, I don't know, 10 times in the last four years, something like that.
The Daily
The Weekend Democrats Went to War — Against Each Other
Right. And normally it's Democrats who end up being needed. They end up being summoned to rescue these spending bills to avoid a shutdown. You're saying in this case, suddenly they're just kind of left off to the sidelines.
The Daily
The Weekend Democrats Went to War — Against Each Other
Got it. In other words, it empowers the Trump administration at a moment where Democrats would like to do anything they can to disempower it.
The Daily
The Weekend Democrats Went to War — Against Each Other
Got it. So naturally, the bill then moves over to the Senate, where Republicans are in control, but not so much control that they can just pass a spending bill necessarily on their own.
The Daily
The Weekend Democrats Went to War — Against Each Other
Right. And based on everything you've said so far, I have to think that Senate Democrats are thinking to themselves, well, we can't support this either.
The Daily
The Weekend Democrats Went to War — Against Each Other
Right. Just as the House had done, but without any real leverage.
The Daily
The Weekend Democrats Went to War — Against Each Other
You have many options of how to spend your Sunday. Appreciate you spending it with us.
The Daily
The Weekend Democrats Went to War — Against Each Other
Right. And as agonized as they are, they know that their leader, Chuck Schumer, has their back.
The Daily
The Weekend Democrats Went to War — Against Each Other
Right. This is a genuinely surprising moment. And this is when the anger that we have been referring to since the very beginning of this conversation really begins to explode.
The Daily
The Weekend Democrats Went to War — Against Each Other
So, Katie, pretty much from the moment that Donald Trump was inaugurated for the second term, there has been this low-grade debate playing out inside the Democratic Party about how to counter him and what Democrats can do and should do about his role. really aggressive strategy of firing thousands of government workers, shutting down agencies, circumventing Congress in the process.
The Daily
The Weekend Democrats Went to War — Against Each Other
basically saying in the most public way imaginable, I disagree with the Senate Democratic leader.
The Daily
The Weekend Democrats Went to War — Against Each Other
Right. And when you put that together with the House, what you basically see is the majority of congressional Democrats, the vast majority of them, not doing what Chuck Schumer did, in fact, doing the opposite.
The Daily
The Weekend Democrats Went to War — Against Each Other
All of which suggests that the Democratic base and a fair number of Democratic lawmakers who voted against this, they wanted their party to take a stand here and are quite upset that at the last minute, at the direction of Senator Schumer, the party did not.
The Daily
The Weekend Democrats Went to War — Against Each Other
And the question has been when would that internal debate really come to a head and become a public battle? And the answer, it seems, is right now. Because it all really just became a public brawl over the past few days. And that all seems to revolve around the actions of the Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York.
The Daily
The Weekend Democrats Went to War — Against Each Other
After the break, Shane Goldmacher on how this surge of anger from Democratic voters and lawmakers could change the Democratic Party. We'll be right back.
The Daily
The Weekend Democrats Went to War — Against Each Other
Happy Sunday to you. Shane, you've been watching everything that Katie Edmondson just described, especially the anger from Democratic voters with their leaders, which as Katie just put it, is something we tend to associate much more with Republicans than Democratic voters. And you have a provocative thought about that and what it could potentially represent.
The Daily
The Weekend Democrats Went to War — Against Each Other
Well, just explain that, its own Tea Party moment.
The Daily
Pete Hegseth Was Toast. The MAGA Swarm Came to His Rescue.
From The New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily. Over the past few weeks, the resistance of a single Republican senator has threatened to derail Donald Trump's controversial choice of Pete Hegseth to run the Department of Defense. Today... Karin Demersian and Jonathan Swan with the story of how Trump and his allies ensured that that senator's resistance quickly went away.
The Daily
Pete Hegseth Was Toast. The MAGA Swarm Came to His Rescue.
Right. And the message that they're sending her via this onslaught from all sides seems to be, Senator Ernst, if you like being in the U.S. Senate as a Republican from Iowa, if you don't want us to find someone to run against you, if you don't want your phones ringing off the hook and our...
The Daily
Pete Hegseth Was Toast. The MAGA Swarm Came to His Rescue.
Trump MAGA base turning against you, you should probably just find a way to get behind Pete Hexeth as Secretary of Defense, because then all this will probably go away.
The Daily
Pete Hegseth Was Toast. The MAGA Swarm Came to His Rescue.
So how does Ernst respond to all of this?
The Daily
Pete Hegseth Was Toast. The MAGA Swarm Came to His Rescue.
So this ends up becoming a pretty extraordinary demonstration of the president-elect's power.
The Daily
Pete Hegseth Was Toast. The MAGA Swarm Came to His Rescue.
On Sunday, the Republican campaign to rally support for Pete Hegseth continued. Senator Lindsey Graham, a close Trump ally, said that Hegseth has agreed to release the woman who accused him of sexual assault from a confidential legal settlement. That, Graham told NBC News, would allow his accuser to come forward publicly with her allegations and let senators evaluate whether or not they are true.
The Daily
Pete Hegseth Was Toast. The MAGA Swarm Came to His Rescue.
Here's what else you need to know today.
The Daily
Pete Hegseth Was Toast. The MAGA Swarm Came to His Rescue.
Over the weekend, South Korea's legislature voted to impeach the country's leader, President Yoon Seok-yool, as punishment for his decision to impose martial law on the country. The vote, which immediately strips Yoon of his presidential powers, was met with cheers in the streets of South Korea's capital.
The Daily
Pete Hegseth Was Toast. The MAGA Swarm Came to His Rescue.
Yoon's martial law decree, issued on December 3, lasted only six hours, but it threw South Korea's democracy into chaos and triggered massive public protests. Yoon's fate now rests with South Korea's Constitutional Court, which will decide within the next six months whether to reinstate or formally remove him from office.
The Daily
Pete Hegseth Was Toast. The MAGA Swarm Came to His Rescue.
Today's episode was produced by Rob Zipko, Luke Vanderplug, and Asta Chaturvedi, with help from Nina Feldman. It was edited by Rachel Quester and Devin Taylor, contains original music by Dan Powell, Pat McCusker, and Marion Lozano, and was engineered by Chris Wood. Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Landsberg of Wonderland. That's it for the day. I'm Michael Barbaro. See you tomorrow.
The Daily
Pete Hegseth Was Toast. The MAGA Swarm Came to His Rescue.
Well, just explain that. Tell us about Senator Joni Ernst and how her career ends up so at odds with Hexeth.
The Daily
Pete Hegseth Was Toast. The MAGA Swarm Came to His Rescue.
Well, so given her role as a Republican leader on all of these issues, issues that do not seem to align with Hegseth's biography and these accusations that he faces, what is Ernst's response to Hegseth being tapped to run the military?
The Daily
Pete Hegseth Was Toast. The MAGA Swarm Came to His Rescue.
Yesterday, you had a significant meeting with Pete Hegseth, our former colleague. And right now.
The Daily
Pete Hegseth Was Toast. The MAGA Swarm Came to His Rescue.
It's Monday, December 16th. Karin, in your role as a congressional reporter, you have been closely tracking the fate of Trump's pick to run the U.S. military, Pete Hegseth, a pick that was controversial from the start but has become only more controversial over the past couple of weeks.
The Daily
Pete Hegseth Was Toast. The MAGA Swarm Came to His Rescue.
So quite understandably, this senator who has led her party on all these issues like sexual assault is deciding that these accusations against him might be disqualifying. And she's saying so on of all occasions. networks, Fox News, which she and everyone else in the Republican Party know that the president-elect watches so closely.
The Daily
Pete Hegseth Was Toast. The MAGA Swarm Came to His Rescue.
After the break, my colleague Jonathan Swan on how Ernst's resistance triggered a MAGA swarm that has brought Hegseth back from the brink.
The Daily
Pete Hegseth Was Toast. The MAGA Swarm Came to His Rescue.
So, Jonathan, as Hegseth's path becomes messier and messier, and he's kind of just flapping in the wind there with senators like Joni Ernst saying she can't get behind him, what's happening inside Trump world?
The Daily
Pete Hegseth Was Toast. The MAGA Swarm Came to His Rescue.
And we should just say that is surprising, not just because it means Trump is writing off Pete Hegseth, but because he has hated DeSantis. I mean, DeSantis went against him. They destroyed him in that campaign. That is a very unexpected alternative.
The Daily
Pete Hegseth Was Toast. The MAGA Swarm Came to His Rescue.
So what might have begun as a bunch of people around Trump kind of revolting against the idea of Ron DeSantis as the next Secretary of Defense morphs into this larger objection to the idea that Trump would back down again on one of his picks for the Cabinet and show weakness in a way that might completely shape his presidency. Exactly.
The Daily
Pete Hegseth Was Toast. The MAGA Swarm Came to His Rescue.
So what does it actually look like once Team Trump decides we are not going to back down and actually we're going to go on the offense here?
The Daily
Pete Hegseth Was Toast. The MAGA Swarm Came to His Rescue.
And what does it look like for Senator Ernst to be the focus of this campaign?
The Daily
Her Business Was Thriving. Then Came the Tariffs.
From The New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily. When President Trump raised tariffs against China to an astonishing 145%, he radically changed the cost of doing business for thousands of American companies. So much so, in fact, that many of those companies may not survive. Today, the story of one of those businesses. It's Monday, April 14th.
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Her Business Was Thriving. Then Came the Tariffs.
Just the tariff you would pay on $158,000 worth of product.
The Daily
Her Business Was Thriving. Then Came the Tariffs.
I mean, at this point, you have this product over there in China. You have, I think you said, several months' worth of inventory here in the U.S. So you're kind of in a face-off with the administration. You know, who breaks first, the tariffs or you? Yeah.
The Daily
Her Business Was Thriving. Then Came the Tariffs.
I mean, what would be one strategy that you thought about pursuing?
The Daily
Her Business Was Thriving. Then Came the Tariffs.
Basically, take your product from China, send it to Indonesia, Thailand, then import it to the U.S.
The Daily
Her Business Was Thriving. Then Came the Tariffs.
Have you contemplated doing what these tariffs are fundamentally and explicitly designed to force you and everyone to do? And I'm guessing by your reaction that something about that isn't so practical. But what it's supposed to do is encourage you to start manufacturing in the United States.
The Daily
Her Business Was Thriving. Then Came the Tariffs.
Why? What was it about watching your dad have a business that made you want to...
The Daily
Her Business Was Thriving. Then Came the Tariffs.
You're saying that it's just totally impractical.
The Daily
Her Business Was Thriving. Then Came the Tariffs.
I'm hearing you say that domestic manufacturing of the kind that this is intended to encourage is simply financially impractical for you.
The Daily
Her Business Was Thriving. Then Came the Tariffs.
It feels like you have learned as a small business person some pretty valuable lessons about the nature of free trade that are very much at odds with what they are proposing here. And I wonder how you would articulate those lessons.
The Daily
Her Business Was Thriving. Then Came the Tariffs.
I'm going to ask you a question that I imagine might sound insensitive, but I think to do justice to what the president claims he's up to, I do need to ask it. And it's that if you listen to him carefully and those around him, what they're saying is that the system we have now is broken and that fixing it in their estimation so that it becomes a country where manufacturing flourishes is
The Daily
Her Business Was Thriving. Then Came the Tariffs.
is going to involve some real short-term pain. You obviously are that short-term pain. And so how do you think about the idea that on some level, the president might know that a business like yours needs to suffer to get to where he thinks, not everyone even thinks it's possible, but where he thinks the country should go and can go?
The Daily
Her Business Was Thriving. Then Came the Tariffs.
So let's say that the tariffs remain in place for some time. We don't know that for sure. We're talking to you on Friday. Oh my goodness, are you okay? I'm just looking at the screen and seeing that you're not okay.
The Daily
Her Business Was Thriving. Then Came the Tariffs.
Wait, I can't even contemplate what I think you're just saying.
The Daily
Her Business Was Thriving. Then Came the Tariffs.
You're saying that the darkest possible thoughts briefly go through your head when you contemplate what it would mean to lose all this.
The Daily
Her Business Was Thriving. Then Came the Tariffs.
The question I was going to ask you before you got... justifiably quite emotional was whether or not you have at all prepared yourself not just financially but but just kind of emotionally for what it would mean to have this amazing business that you have built from scratch go away if that does happen no I'm not prepared for that
The Daily
Her Business Was Thriving. Then Came the Tariffs.
And how do you think this is going to end?
The Daily
Her Business Was Thriving. Then Came the Tariffs.
I hope. You'll have a global brand, but maybe not an American one.
The Daily
Her Business Was Thriving. Then Came the Tariffs.
Beth I really appreciate you making time for us. Thank you.
The Daily
Her Business Was Thriving. Then Came the Tariffs.
Over the weekend, at the urging of big tech companies, the Trump administration said that it would exempt smartphones, computers, and other electronics from its tariffs against China.
The Daily
Her Business Was Thriving. Then Came the Tariffs.
Shortly after, Beth sent us a voice memo.
The Daily
Her Business Was Thriving. Then Came the Tariffs.
We'll be right back. Here's what else you need to know today.
The Daily
Her Business Was Thriving. Then Came the Tariffs.
On Sunday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that the United States has sent 10 more members of gangs to El Salvador, suggesting that the White House is doubling down on its controversial strategy of deporting hundreds of suspected gang members with no due process.
The Daily
Her Business Was Thriving. Then Came the Tariffs.
The administration has portrayed those deportees as violent criminals or terrorists, but court papers have shown that the evidence on which the government has acted was often little more than whether they had tattoos or had worn clothing associated with the criminal organizations.
The Daily
Her Business Was Thriving. Then Came the Tariffs.
And Elon Musk is drastically reducing his estimate of how much money his Department of Government Efficiency will save U.S. taxpayers. In the past, Musk has said that his team's work could shrink the next fiscal year's federal budget by $1 trillion. Now, Musk anticipates saving about 85% less than the original estimate. Today's episode was produced by Olivia Natt, Will Reed, and Stella Tan.
The Daily
Her Business Was Thriving. Then Came the Tariffs.
It was edited by Mark George, contains research help from Susan Lee, contains original music by Pat McCusker and Rowan Emisto, and was engineered by Chris Wood.
The Daily
Her Business Was Thriving. Then Came the Tariffs.
Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Lansford of Winerle. Special thanks to Jessica Chung and Claire Tenesketo.
The Daily
Her Business Was Thriving. Then Came the Tariffs.
Well, how did you end up getting from there to Busy Baby? What's the story of how you go from Army to entrepreneur?
The Daily
Her Business Was Thriving. Then Came the Tariffs.
That's it for The Daily. I'm Michael Barbaro.
The Daily
Her Business Was Thriving. Then Came the Tariffs.
I have two toddlers. I know exactly what you're referring to.
The Daily
Her Business Was Thriving. Then Came the Tariffs.
So how do you end up turning this prototype into an actual product?
The Daily
Her Business Was Thriving. Then Came the Tariffs.
Just explain that. I mean, why did it feel impractical to start developing products here in the U.S.?
The Daily
Her Business Was Thriving. Then Came the Tariffs.
Which is a heck of a lot different than 30,000.
The Daily
Her Business Was Thriving. Then Came the Tariffs.
One shark is out, but Lori is interested in Beth's baby placemat, Busy Baby.
The Daily
Her Business Was Thriving. Then Came the Tariffs.
I mean, this is incredible. So suddenly you find yourself on the premier television show for small businesses trying to break out and basically have your idea validated by these ultra-rich, successful business people. As you can tell, I was a fan of the show.
The Daily
Her Business Was Thriving. Then Came the Tariffs.
Okay. Well, thank you for, Beth, making time for us. We really appreciate it. How are you doing over there?
The Daily
Her Business Was Thriving. Then Came the Tariffs.
I just, I know what I've done and I know what I need to do.
The Daily
Her Business Was Thriving. Then Came the Tariffs.
And what happened after you were on the show to the business?
The Daily
Her Business Was Thriving. Then Came the Tariffs.
And for those who don't have the mat, how much does this cost? What are you charging people?
The Daily
Her Business Was Thriving. Then Came the Tariffs.
So what does your business look like pretty much up until a week or so ago? Just how big has it gotten?
The Daily
Her Business Was Thriving. Then Came the Tariffs.
Small Business Administration. Federal Small Business Administration.
The Daily
Her Business Was Thriving. Then Came the Tariffs.
I mean, how are you financing all of this? Because the former retail reporter in me knows that this is expensive, and you said you don't have outside investors. This is a fully owned business by you. So how are you paying for all this product?
The Daily
Her Business Was Thriving. Then Came the Tariffs.
I just want to make sure I understand this. So in order to finance the amount of product required to be in these major national retail chains, you take out loans that are in part personally guaranteed with your house as a form of collateral.
The Daily
Her Business Was Thriving. Then Came the Tariffs.
Okay, so now, of course, I want to turn to the subject at hand, which is the terrace. You've been experiencing all the success over the past many months. So I'm curious, what do you think to yourself now? when Donald Trump is elected and starts to talk about what he describes as Liberation Day, tariffs that he is promising are going to rebalance global trade.
The Daily
Her Business Was Thriving. Then Came the Tariffs.
What are you thinking and what are you doing, perhaps, to prepare for them?
The Daily
Her Business Was Thriving. Then Came the Tariffs.
We're going to get to why this has been such a trying moment for you because of the terrorists. I want to start by having you tell us the story of your company. And just to begin, tell us the name of the company and then tell us the story of how you went about creating this company.
The Daily
Her Business Was Thriving. Then Came the Tariffs.
Well, in a word, what has it been like for you and your business for that 145% tariff to become your reality?
The Daily
Her Business Was Thriving. Then Came the Tariffs.
Beth, walk us through the logistics of what it started to look like immediately after the tariffs go into place.
The Daily
Her Business Was Thriving. Then Came the Tariffs.
And how much is the product itself worth?
The Daily
Her Business Was Thriving. Then Came the Tariffs.
And at that point, the tariffs are going to cost more than the value of the goods, right?
The Daily
Big Tech’s Big Bet on Trump
From The New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily. Big tech's biggest names are throwing their weight behind Donald Trump in the biggest possible way, first as candidate and now as president-elect. Today, business reporter Aaron Griffith on what one tech billionaire's journey from top-tier Democratic donor to Trump advisor reveals about the growing MAGAfication of Silicon Valley.
The Daily
Big Tech’s Big Bet on Trump
We'll be right back. Aaron, talk about this courtship from the other side, because so far what you're describing from Mark Andreessen is really a deepening frustration with the left, with the Biden administration, rather than any kind of deep kinship with Donald Trump.
The Daily
Big Tech’s Big Bet on Trump
Right. It sounds like what he's telling Andreessen, and it sounds like Andreessen wants to hear it, is that Trump is prepared to restore the deal, as Andreessen would call it. You do your thing. I'm here to cheer you on and celebrate and help.
The Daily
Big Tech’s Big Bet on Trump
So Andreessen creates something of a permission structure for others in the Valley to say, I, too, support Trump.
The Daily
Big Tech’s Big Bet on Trump
Mm hmm. In thinking about the story that you have told here and the journey that Marc Andreessen has gone on, it's pretty clear that there are two major elements here. One is that in his mind, the Democratic Party failed him and failed tech, both culturally and financially. And the second component is that Trump, in his mind, meets...
The Daily
Big Tech’s Big Bet on Trump
the tech industry where it is, both culturally and financially. And in that sense, it's just not all that complicated. But what stands out, to me at least, is that this ends up being the story of the Democratic Party seeming to forfeit what had been a very long and seemingly fruitful relationship with these innovators and leaders of tech. And when we think about the result of the 2024 election...
The Daily
Big Tech’s Big Bet on Trump
I think quite naturally, you know, we think about the fact that the vote went to Trump and that once again he made all these gains in various constituencies. I hadn't really thought of it as an election in which he had also made gains in the constituency of Silicon Valley. But that is clearly one of the places that he made very unexpected inroads.
The Daily
Big Tech’s Big Bet on Trump
Well, now that we understand the depth of Silicon Valley support for Trump, and now that Trump is about to take office, how much sway do we think people like Marc Andreessen, because they were out early and publicly for Trump, will have over him as president?
The Daily
Big Tech’s Big Bet on Trump
Because so far, it feels like it's the tech industry in some of its policy announcements and its donations to Trump's inauguration that have been making the concessions to Trump rather than Trump necessarily making any concessions to Silicon Valley.
The Daily
Big Tech’s Big Bet on Trump
You know, it strikes me, Aaron, that Andreessen's animating premise here and really the heart of his political evolution is is his belief that this deal he articulated makes sense, still makes sense. But the reality, I think, for many is that the deal he wants to bring back, the one he felt Biden walked away from, the one he thinks Trump will honor, was from a different era, right?
The Daily
Big Tech’s Big Bet on Trump
When tech was small, it was the underdog. You could argue it needed a long leash to grow and thrive. But that's not the story of tech now. It is huge and hugely powerful. It affects all of us, in many cases for good, in many ways.
The Daily
Big Tech’s Big Bet on Trump
For bad, take kids' social media or the anti-competitive behavior of tech giants that's laid out in federal antitrust lawsuits, or take the risks of artificial intelligence or crypto. We watched the biggest crypto exchange explode and billions of dollars just disappear. And therefore, many would argue, tech does require some kind of meaningful government oversight.
The Daily
Big Tech’s Big Bet on Trump
And so what he's asking for seems to be a world where the government's approach to tech The deal no longer really matches what tech is today. And yet what he seems to want from Trump and people like Andreessen seem to want from this administration is a world where the terms of this deal don't change, even though the industry quite obviously has.
The Daily
Big Tech’s Big Bet on Trump
On Friday, Silicon Valley's alienation from Biden and growing fondness for Trump continued to be on vivid display. At a news conference, Biden denounced the decision by Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg to end the company's system of fact-checking, calling it, quote, really shameful. Meanwhile, Zuckerberg traveled to Mar-a-Lago for his second in-person meeting with Trump since the election.
The Daily
Big Tech’s Big Bet on Trump
Over the weekend, the death toll from the wildfires across greater Los Angeles reached 24 people, with many more still missing. As winds briefly calmed, firefighters made some progress in fighting two of the biggest fires. As of Sunday night, they have contained 11% of the Palisades Fire and 27% of the Eaton Fire.
The Daily
Big Tech’s Big Bet on Trump
But forecasters expect another round of strong winds to return today and tomorrow, which may only intensify and spread the fires and force the planes that are fighting them from the sky to be grounded. And Jack Smith, the special counsel who brought two federal prosecutions against President-elect Trump, has resigned.
The Daily
Big Tech’s Big Bet on Trump
Smith was forced to drop both of his cases, one charging Trump with mishandling classified documents, the other of plotting to overturn the 2020 election under a Justice Department policy that bars the pursuit of prosecutions against a sitting president. Today's episode was produced by Jessica Chung, Mujzadi, and Nina Feldman, with help from Eric Krupke and Mary Wilson.
The Daily
Big Tech’s Big Bet on Trump
It was edited by Lisa Chow, Patricia Willans, and Mark George, and fact-checked by Susan Lee. It contains original music by Marion Lozano and Dan Powell, and was engineered by Alyssa Moxley. Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Landsberg of Wonderly. That's it for The Daily. I'm Michael Barbaro. See you tomorrow.
The Daily
Big Tech’s Big Bet on Trump
Right. Roughly translated, he's saying we are doing this because of Trump's victory. More or less. And the question that that raises right away is, is this opportunism? Is this big tech and Silicon Valley doing what a lot of profitable industries do when there's a new president, which is... seek friendly relationships with the new boss? Or is this something deeper?
The Daily
Big Tech’s Big Bet on Trump
Is this the case of big tech's true political identity emerging from behind what may have been a cloak of liberalism?
The Daily
Big Tech’s Big Bet on Trump
So how does Andreessen go from reliable, normie Democrat to supporter and now advisor to Donald Trump?
The Daily
Big Tech’s Big Bet on Trump
You have been covering startups and Silicon Valley for a long time. And you know as well as anyone that by reputation, Silicon Valley is seen as a liberal bastion, a place where progressive thinking is nursed and promoted. But over the past decade, year, especially during the presidential campaign, it really did feel like Silicon Valley's conservative self began to emerge.
The Daily
Big Tech’s Big Bet on Trump
So in his mind, the deal had been honored for much of the history of Silicon Valley and much of his own very successful career until suddenly people start to, as you said, pick apart, question, challenge everything about the people who are at the center of the deal, these entrepreneurs, these founders, people like Mark Zuckerberg, and suddenly they can only do wrong.
The Daily
Big Tech’s Big Bet on Trump
Right. And I remember Facebook in particular took that very personally and they were upset about it.
The Daily
Big Tech’s Big Bet on Trump
So at first, he's watching with some alarm as... Tech companies, primarily from the left, are being pushed toward a form of what he regards as censorship. And then he's watching as a new administration comes in that, based on its appointments, seems outright hostile to big tech's business interests.
The Daily
An American Pope
It sounds like you're saying Francis essentially entrusts Prevost with the future of the Catholic bureaucracy.
The Daily
An American Pope
So clearly Francis played a big role in his rise. How much do his views genuinely overlap with those of Francis? You said a few moments ago that we don't really know his views on social issues the way we do know the views of Francis. But reading the tea leaves and his record, what do we know?
The Daily
An American Pope
To end this conversation, Jason, I want to return to the subject of Pope Leo as being from America. And as you've made clear, he spends so much of his career outside of it. But What we know about Pope Francis is that he had such a rough time with the American Catholic Church. You made that so clear last time we spoke. He was endlessly frustrated with the conservative elements of the church.
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An American Pope
They tangled with them constantly. He ended up pushing a lot of them out of the church. They thought that he was going to ruin the church with some of his progressive viewpoints. If we believe that Pope Leo is in the mold of Pope Francis, do we think he's going to have those same battles with the conservative elements of the Catholic Church in the U.S.?
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An American Pope
Or do we think because he spent so much time in America and grew up here... that he might have an easier time navigating those forces within the church. And at this point, I think we have to describe those forces as at times being aligned with conservative American political forces as well, like President Trump and J.D. Vance and Steve Bannon.
The Daily
An American Pope
That's fascinating because earlier in this conversation, you suggested that for so long, the thinking was that there couldn't be so much power concentrated in America. And now we have a pope who wants to be a bridge to America, back home to America. That marks a really big change.
The Daily
An American Pope
Well, Jason, when you and I last spoke, the evening that Pope Francis had died, you laid out for us quite clearly the stakes around the question of who would succeed Francis. Would it be a pope in the mold of Francis who embodied his desire for inclusion over rules and religious purity?
The Daily
An American Pope
We'll be right back. Here's what else you need to know today. On Thursday, President Trump announced his first proposed trade deal since imposing tariffs on dozens of countries. The deal with the United Kingdom requires the U.K. to drop its tariffs on, among other products, U.S. beef, ethanol, and sports equipment, and to buy $10 billion worth of U.S.-made airplanes.
The Daily
An American Pope
In return, the United States said it would roll back its tariffs on cars and steel, but would leave a 10% tariff in place for most British imports. It's unclear how much of a template the deal represents for future trade agreements. U.S. officials have been holding trade talks with India, Israel, Japan and South Korea.
The Daily
An American Pope
But so far, little progress has been made with America's most important trading partner, China. And... The White House is dropping a controversial nominee to become the U.S. attorney for Washington, D.C., after Senate Republicans told the president there was not enough support to confirm him.
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An American Pope
The nominee, Ed Martin, is a partisan activist with no prosecutorial experience who is known for supporting January 6th rioters and for his close ties to a well-known anti-Semite. For now, Trump said, Martin will be replaced by the conservative Fox News personality, Jeanine Pirro. Today's episode was produced by Anna Foley and Eric Krupke, with help from Claire Tennesketter and Rochelle Bonja.
The Daily
An American Pope
Or might it be a pope who represented, as you put it, these powerful conservative forces and traditional instincts that were so frequently at odds with Francis? Did it feel like that was the guiding principle over this process? Yeah.
The Daily
An American Pope
It was edited by Maria Byrne, contains original music by Dan Powell and Diane Wong, and research help from Susan Lee. It was engineered by Alyssa Moxley. Our theme music is by Jim Brumberg and Ben Landsberg of Wonderly. Special thanks to Patty Mazzei and Ang Lee. That's it for The Daily. I'm Michael Barbaro. See you on Monday.
The Daily
An American Pope
Well, with that principle and influence seemingly guiding the process, it sounds like, Francis, a bit from the grave, hanging over all this, tell us about the mechanics of this election process, the unique rules around it, and what we understand happened behind closed doors. Well,
The Daily
An American Pope
From The New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily. Today. Today. The world's 1.4 billion Catholics now have a new pope. And for the first time, he's from America. It's Friday, May 9th. Jason, good evening. Good evening, Michael. As they say in Italy, habemus pabulum. Do I have that right?
The Daily
An American Pope
It very much seems you're answering the question that hovered over this entire process. Which version of the Catholic Church... would emerge in a post-Francis era? And the answer is basically another Francis?
The Daily
An American Pope
We'll be right back. So Jason, tell us about the life story, the career, and the path through the church of this new pope and how past might be prologue when it comes to what his papacy might look like.
The Daily
An American Pope
Jason, just remind us why it would be seen as a non-starter to have an American pope.
The Daily
An American Pope
Well, just describe that. Francis bringing Prevost to Rome. That seems like a pretty important moment.
The Daily
The Cinematic Masterpiece You Won’t Get to See
We'll be right back. So, Sasha, I think we've arrived at the moment in this conversation, we've held it in suspense long enough, where you just have to explain why it is, how it is, that this masterpiece is never going to be seen by anyone else. How that's possible, what the story there is.
The Daily
The Cinematic Masterpiece You Won’t Get to See
Wow. Sounds like Netflix basically sells out Ezra Edelman after all these years and says that some family-made version of a film might someday replace what you have described as this masterpiece.
The Daily
The Cinematic Masterpiece You Won’t Get to See
So the argument was that a film that fully exposes the motivations and the biography of this artist will hurt his reputation for a generation. I just want to translate that phrase.
The Daily
The Cinematic Masterpiece You Won’t Get to See
That's the estate side of this. What does Ezra make of Netflix's role in all of this?
The Daily
The Cinematic Masterpiece You Won’t Get to See
Let's just assume for a moment that Netflix is in the business of doing what's good for Netflix and Netflix's audience. Would Netflix be right to assume that what Ezra Edelman has created here might not actually necessarily be what its vast audience wants?
The Daily
The Cinematic Masterpiece You Won’t Get to See
I want to ask you a somewhat provocative question. This was an effort to demystify someone who to a large degree wanted to be unknowable.
The Daily
The Cinematic Masterpiece You Won’t Get to See
And so this outcome, as tragic as it must seem to Ezra Edelman and clearly to you as someone who sees it as a masterpiece, is there any kind of cruel poetic justice here that this controlling artist who curated his image so carefully is going to remain, because of what happened here, unknowable? That he is weirdly getting the last word on what we all get to see of him?
The Daily
The Cinematic Masterpiece You Won’t Get to See
What she really seems to be saying is to deny the world this film is to deny this man's full humanity and to hide it away. And that only reinforces the idea that there's something wrong with being what all of us kind of are, which is damaged and complex, and that this whole journey means... that revealing the fullness of that experience is somehow intolerable.
The Daily
The Cinematic Masterpiece You Won’t Get to See
much we appreciate it thank you michael we'll be right back Here's what else you need to know today. President Trump is suspending tariffs on most imports from Mexico and Canada for the next month in a concession to the country's leaders and to the U.S. business community, which fears the tariffs will cost them money.
The Daily
The Cinematic Masterpiece You Won’t Get to See
Mexico's president, Claudia Sheinbaum, celebrated the news, saying that Mexico's cooperation with the United States had, quote, "...yielded unprecedented results." And on Thursday, California's Democratic governor, Gavin Newsom, broke with other top party officials by saying he objected to the participation of transgender athletes in women's sports. Would you do something like that?
The Daily
The Cinematic Masterpiece You Won’t Get to See
Would you say no men and female sports? Well, I think it's an issue of fairness. I completely agree with you on that. It is an issue of fairness.
The Daily
The Cinematic Masterpiece You Won’t Get to See
Newsom, widely seen as a potential Democratic candidate for president in 2028, made the declaration during an interview with the conservative podcaster Charlie Kirk at a moment when Democrats are wrestling with how to respond to President Trump's victory and the reality that the party's position on social issues like trans participation in sports is unpopular with many voters.
The Daily
The Cinematic Masterpiece You Won’t Get to See
Well, tell me more about Ezra Edelman and why he is such a once-in-a-generation talent.
The Daily
The Cinematic Masterpiece You Won’t Get to See
Today's episode was produced by Rob Zipko, Aastha Chaturvedi, and Diana Nguyen. It was edited by Michael Benoit and Brendan Klinkenberg. Was fact-checked by Susan Lee. Contains original music by Dan Powell, Mary Lozano, Alishaba Itu, and Diane Wong. And sound design by Alishaba Itu. It was engineered by Alyssa Moxley. Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Landfrank of Wonderly.
The Daily
The Cinematic Masterpiece You Won’t Get to See
That's it for The Daily. I'm Michael Barbaro. See you on Monday.
The Daily
The Cinematic Masterpiece You Won’t Get to See
From New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily. For the last few years, one of the country's most celebrated filmmakers has tried to unlock the mysteries of one of the country's most celebrated musicians. According to my colleague, Times Magazine deputy editor Sasha Weiss, the result is a cinematic masterpiece. So how is it possible that nobody will ever see it?
The Daily
The Cinematic Masterpiece You Won’t Get to See
It's Friday, March 7th. Sasha, welcome to The Daily.
The Daily
The Cinematic Masterpiece You Won’t Get to See
Okay, I very much now appreciate why the prospect of this filmmaker, this mystery unlocker being applied to the subject of Prince, who remains pretty deeply mysterious, would be appealing to you. So how does Ezra Edelman become drawn to and ultimately undertake a documentary of the same scale, the work you just described, applied to Prince?
The Daily
The Cinematic Masterpiece You Won’t Get to See
Hard to fathom it's your inaugural episode.
The Daily
The Cinematic Masterpiece You Won’t Get to See
I want to just acknowledge... a certain awkwardness to the work we're about to undertake, which is we are going to be talking, you and I, about a very important film that none of us will ever see. Yeah. That's weird. Totally. But back when you thought the world very much would see the film... You became deeply invested in the story of it. And you have stayed invested in it for years.
The Daily
The Cinematic Masterpiece You Won’t Get to See
So the vault, for all intents and purposes, and perhaps on purpose, was kind of empty. So what does he do?
The Daily
The Cinematic Masterpiece You Won’t Get to See
And what did you think? It's a masterpiece. And what makes you say that?
The Daily
The Cinematic Masterpiece You Won’t Get to See
Sounds like somebody locking somebody in a room for six weeks. He wanted control. So basically this is a portrait of, this is something of a psychological cliche, but someone who was hurt who goes on to do some real hurt.
The Daily
The Cinematic Masterpiece You Won’t Get to See
I wonder if you can explain, and I'm sure the film attempts to do this, how all of that pain, that anguish, all this biography influences and is ultimately responsible for Prince's music.
The Daily
‘The Protocol’: The Story Behind Medical Care for Transgender Kids
The Protocol is a six-part series from The Times. That was part one. You can hear the rest of the series right now. Go to wherever you listen to podcasts and search for The Protocol. We'll be right back with the headlines. Here's what else you need to know today.
The Daily
‘The Protocol’: The Story Behind Medical Care for Transgender Kids
The political partnership between President Trump and Elon Musk appeared to implode in real time on Thursday, as the two men traded a series of increasingly acrimonious insults and threats.
The Daily
‘The Protocol’: The Story Behind Medical Care for Transgender Kids
What had started as a spat over Trump's big domestic policy bill, which Musk opposes as too expensive, mushroomed into squabbles about which man deserves credit for Trump's election victory and recriminations over Trump's decision last week to drop his support for a Musk ally who had been nominated to run NASA. Then came the threats.
The Daily
‘The Protocol’: The Story Behind Medical Care for Transgender Kids
Trump questioned whether the federal government should cut billions of dollars in contracts to Musk's companies. And Musk seemed to approve of calls that Trump be impeached.
The Daily
‘The Protocol’: The Story Behind Medical Care for Transgender Kids
I was surprised because... During a news conference in the Oval Office, Trump acknowledged the rupture.
The Daily
‘The Protocol’: The Story Behind Medical Care for Transgender Kids
And Trump suggested that since Musk had stepped away from his administration, he had turned anti-Trump because he missed the limelight.
The Daily
‘The Protocol’: The Story Behind Medical Care for Transgender Kids
That's it for The Daily. I'm Michael Barbaro. See you on Monday.
The Daily
‘The Protocol’: The Story Behind Medical Care for Transgender Kids
From The New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. Today, the first episode of our new series, The Protocol.
The Daily
The Texas Village Rethinking Homelessness
From The New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily. In Austin, Texas, a local businessman has undertaken one of the nation's biggest and boldest efforts to confront the crisis of chronic homelessness. Today, Lucy Tompkins takes us inside the multi-million dollar experiment to understand both its promise and its peril. It's Friday, December 6th.
The Daily
The Texas Village Rethinking Homelessness
And how often is someone reprimanded or even removed from this community?
The Daily
The Texas Village Rethinking Homelessness
And just describe that population, what that word really means.
The Daily
The Texas Village Rethinking Homelessness
From what you just said, this sounds like a success.
The Daily
The Texas Village Rethinking Homelessness
We'll be right back. So, Lucy, just before the break, you had mentioned Justin Tyler and how his story complicates what feels like the visible success you observed at Community First. So where does his story begin?
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The Texas Village Rethinking Homelessness
And it would seem like a population that a lot of major American cities are really having a hard time grappling with.
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The Texas Village Rethinking Homelessness
I mean, it's a very sad situation. He almost died. And that makes me think about the meaning and effectiveness of this model of community first. I mean, on the one hand, in Justin's story, you clearly see that the absence of really strict rules and standards around sobriety mean that he is able to drink this way and almost drink himself to death.
The Daily
The Texas Village Rethinking Homelessness
But on the other hand, before that, he had been making all the progress you described. His kids are able to stay over, which is wonderful. And even after he gets out of the ER, he's back in the community, and it's creating a space for him to try to get back on his feet, which no doubt would be all the harder if he were on the streets.
The Daily
The Texas Village Rethinking Homelessness
And so those two sides of this story, they can feel hard to reconcile, right? I mean, is community first supporting him and or is it enabling him?
The Daily
The Texas Village Rethinking Homelessness
Can you just explain that? That word palliative care means something pretty specific to most people. It means end-of-life care. It means hospice. And therefore, it's a little bit of a confusing word to use when talking about homelessness.
The Daily
The Texas Village Rethinking Homelessness
The rapid rebel advance has shifted the front lines in Syria's 13-year-old civil war for the first time in years. Analysts say that the rebels' success has exposed the vulnerability of Syria's government, which is led by President Bashar al-Assad, and the degree to which Assad's biggest allies, including Russia and Iran, are now preoccupied with their own crises.
The Daily
The Texas Village Rethinking Homelessness
And what did you see when you first went out there to see it yourself?
The Daily
The Texas Village Rethinking Homelessness
Remember, you can catch a new episode of The Interview right here tomorrow. David Marchese speaks with the actor Tilda Swinton.
The Daily
The Texas Village Rethinking Homelessness
Today's episode was produced by Olivia Nat and Will Reed, with help from Mary Wilson. It was edited by Mark George, with help from Ben Calhoun. Fact-checked by Susan Lee. Contains original music by Alishaba Itu, Dan Powell, Mary Lozano, and Diane Wong. And was engineered by Chris Wood. Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Lansford of Wonderly. The Daily is made by...
The Daily
The Texas Village Rethinking Homelessness
Aastha Chaturvedi, Rochelle Banja, Diana Nguyen, Marion Lozano, Rob Zipko, Alishaba Etub, Muj Zaydi, Patricia Willans, Rohini Misto, Jodi Becker, Ricky Nowetzki, Nina Feldman, Chris Haxell and Maria Byrne.
The Daily
The Texas Village Rethinking Homelessness
Special thanks to Lisa Tobin, Sam Dolnick, Paula Schumann, Larissa Anderson, Julia Simon, Mahima Chablani, Elizabeth Davis-Moore, Jeffrey Miranda, Maddie Maciello, Isabella Anderson, Nina Lassam, and Nick Pittman. That's it for The Daily. I'm Michael Barbaro. See you on Monday.
The Daily
The Texas Village Rethinking Homelessness
So, Lucy, how does this very unique-sounding concept of Community First, how did it come to be? And what exactly is the philosophy behind it?
The Daily
The Texas Village Rethinking Homelessness
So I want to start by asking you, how did you come to the story of this social experiment that's been happening in Texas?
The Daily
The Texas Village Rethinking Homelessness
So how does he go about trying to take that philosophy and this idea he has of an RV community for the chronically homeless and also then make it a thing, make it a reality?
The Daily
The Texas Village Rethinking Homelessness
So now that we understand how community first came to be, walk us through how exactly this village serves this population that's so hard to serve. What are the nuts and bolts of how it operates?
The Daily
The Texas Village Rethinking Homelessness
You're describing all these social functions that would seem to keep people connected to each other within this community. I'm curious what kind of rules are in place to hold it all together.
The Daily
Fear and Fury: The Fallout From Trump’s Tariffs
OK, well, on that note, we're going to take a break. And when we come back, we're going to talk about what retaliation we suspect is going to look like from all the countries in the regions you all cover against the United States in response to what we have just done with these tariffs. We'll be right back.
The Daily
Fear and Fury: The Fallout From Trump’s Tariffs
So, Peter and Gina, Natalie, let's talk about how this is all going to play out over the next few months, specifically in the form of retaliation and the impacts of the retaliation from the countries who have just been hit with these tariffs and are stewing over that and planning to essentially fire back at us. Where should we start?
The Daily
Fear and Fury: The Fallout From Trump’s Tariffs
It's Friday, April 4th. So, colleagues, welcome to The Roundtable. Peter Goodman, thank you for being here in the studio. Great to be here. Natalie Kittoroff, thank you for joining us from Mexico City. Thanks for having me. And Gina Spilak, I don't know where in Europe you are.
The Daily
Fear and Fury: The Fallout From Trump’s Tariffs
Who feels like they have the best handle on the coming retaliation? Probably Gina does.
The Daily
Fear and Fury: The Fallout From Trump’s Tariffs
Is it worth saying, Gina, that the European Union is, how big a trading partner is it to the U.S. when we think about the meaning of retaliation? Huge. Huge.
The Daily
Fear and Fury: The Fallout From Trump’s Tariffs
When we say services, what do we mean, just to be clear?
The Daily
Fear and Fury: The Fallout From Trump’s Tariffs
What does it look like, this crossed Rubicon? Does that mean they're going to tax our tech?
The Daily
Fear and Fury: The Fallout From Trump’s Tariffs
But, Peter, can you explain why does that matter? When I think of Amazon or Meta, these companies getting taxed by Europe, wouldn't on its face seem like such a big deal? What am I missing?
The Daily
Fear and Fury: The Fallout From Trump’s Tariffs
Right. So you're saying if Europe decides to cut American tech out of Europe, then suddenly the American tech industry is really unhappy. And they're probably going to tell President Trump that the tariffs are the reason why. That is effective retaliation.
The Daily
Fear and Fury: The Fallout From Trump’s Tariffs
Thank you for joining us from sunny Brussels. We have assembled the three of you because you have tremendous experience covering the three regions of the world that are at the center of this historic and historically disruptive moment, Trump's sweeping global plans for tariffs, what he's calling Liberation Day for the U.S.
The Daily
Fear and Fury: The Fallout From Trump’s Tariffs
What's going to be the retaliation from China, and how is that going to impact American consumers, Peter?
The Daily
Fear and Fury: The Fallout From Trump’s Tariffs
What you're all outlining here is just a huge dose of uncertainty. And so I want to ask each of you to think about what the best case and the worst case scenario is from these tariffs. Let's call it over the next six months. to four years. I made up that window, but just think big about how this might play out.
The Daily
Fear and Fury: The Fallout From Trump’s Tariffs
Peter, you have covered Asia for years and years, for the time you lived there for many years. Gina, you are covering Europe. Natalie, you are our economic authority on... Mexico, but really, in some sense, North America. So, my first question to the three of you, with 24 hours to reflect on what the president just announced, how big a deal is this? I want to start with you, Peter.
The Daily
Fear and Fury: The Fallout From Trump’s Tariffs
Which has serious implications for the U.S. given the border relationship and migration between the two countries, we would presume. Gina?
The Daily
Fear and Fury: The Fallout From Trump’s Tariffs
And that's the gamble that the president has just made.
The Daily
Fear and Fury: The Fallout From Trump’s Tariffs
Well, on that note, I'm going to thank you all. Peter, thank you. Thanks very much, Michael. Gina, thank you.
The Daily
Fear and Fury: The Fallout From Trump’s Tariffs
On Friday morning US time, China retaliated against President Trump's new tariffs in a variety of ways. It issued 34% across-the-board tariffs on imports from the US, essentially barred 11 major American companies from doing business in China, and opened multiple investigations into US trade practices.
The Daily
Fear and Fury: The Fallout From Trump’s Tariffs
We'll be right back. Here's what else you need to know today.
The Daily
Fear and Fury: The Fallout From Trump’s Tariffs
President Trump has fired six officials from the National Security Council after an extraordinary meeting in the Oval Office with the far-right activist Laura Loomer, who laid out a list of people that she believes were disloyal to the president.
The Daily
Fear and Fury: The Fallout From Trump’s Tariffs
The sequence of events suggests that Loomer, who has floated the baseless conspiracy theory that the September 11th attacks were an inside job, is now wielding more influence over the staff of the National Security Council than the cabinet officials who officially oversee them. Today's episode was produced by Will Reed and Muj Zaydi. It was edited by Maria Byrne, Paige Cowett, and Lisa Chow.
The Daily
Fear and Fury: The Fallout From Trump’s Tariffs
Contains original music by Dan Powell, Diane Wong, and Marian Lozano. And was engineered by Alyssa Moxley. Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Lansford of Wonder League. That's it for The Daily. I'm Michael Barbaro. See you on Monday.
The Daily
Fear and Fury: The Fallout From Trump’s Tariffs
Gina, any argument that this is not a big a deal as these hyperbolic colleagues of yours?
The Daily
Fear and Fury: The Fallout From Trump’s Tariffs
Okay, so now that we have absorbed the bigness of this all, I want to ask you all to help make sense of this as a strategy. And Peter, one of the things becomes very clear when you look at these tariffs is that as universal as they appear, they are seemingly pretty targeted at a familiar trade foe of the Trump administration, and that is Asia.
The Daily
Fear and Fury: The Fallout From Trump’s Tariffs
But it's not just China. Look at this chart. Vietnam now hit with a new tariff that represents 46%.
The Daily
Fear and Fury: The Fallout From Trump’s Tariffs
In other words, these manufacturers took a side door out of China into their neighboring economies, set up shop there, same problem with trade imbalance. That's right. So this is meant to catch that.
The Daily
Fear and Fury: The Fallout From Trump’s Tariffs
Got it. So the goal, if we think about the focus on Asia, is to make it far more expensive for goods to come from Asia to the United States, thereby discouraging that trade scenario where all that stuff comes from those places. That's right. In the first place. That's right. Okay. That's a strategy that I think I can wrap my head around.
The Daily
Fear and Fury: The Fallout From Trump’s Tariffs
Natalie, what in your mind is the strategy here for the North American side of that equation?
The Daily
Fear and Fury: The Fallout From Trump’s Tariffs
Now, that's complicated, of course, because of what you're saying is true, that Trump is trying to create a much stronger North American kind of trading block. He's been going about it in a very strange way, given how much he's been attacking Trump. both Mexico and Canada and threatening tariffs on them individually even before this.
The Daily
Fear and Fury: The Fallout From Trump’s Tariffs
So if we're all supposed to be operating as one vast, beloved set of partners, it hasn't been feeling that way.
The Daily
Fear and Fury: The Fallout From Trump’s Tariffs
From The New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily. On Thursday, the fallout from President Trump's sweeping new global tariffs reverberated across financial markets and foreign capitals, spreading fear and, in many cases, fury. Today, we try to make sense of Trump's strategy and its consequences with three of my colleagues, Peter Goodman, Natalie Kitchoff, and Gina Smilak.
The Daily
Fear and Fury: The Fallout From Trump’s Tariffs
But that's not really the case because you're saying bringing manufacturing back to North America, even if it's Mexico, is more American production and better for the American economy by far.
The Daily
Fear and Fury: The Fallout From Trump’s Tariffs
Gina, where does Europe fit into all of this? And... What does the U.S. get from hitting our allies in Europe with tariffs? And I'm sure I'm ignorant. What kind of jobs are going to be coming from Europe back to the U.S. in manufacturing?
The Daily
Fear and Fury: The Fallout From Trump’s Tariffs
I want to pick up on cars and the idea of reshoring. And Natalie and Peter, how realistic is the idea, and it's not just related to Europe, that through these tariffs, the United States is going to be bringing more car manufacturing jobs back to the U.S.? We've talked at length about the fact that cars are made up of component parts assembled all over the world.
The Daily
Fear and Fury: The Fallout From Trump’s Tariffs
I just want to recap what you're saying. It's a little bit. complicated, very fascinating. A company like Hyundai did exactly what we in the U.S. say we want a company from South Korea to do. They moved more manufacturing to the U.S. Then we just hit them within the last 48 hours with all these new costs through these tariffs that are going to kind of undermine the fact that they moved here
The Daily
Fear and Fury: The Fallout From Trump’s Tariffs
Natalie, what Peter's describing is a kind of paralysis that might set in as companies look at these tariffs and fear that consumers are not going to be biting in this moment. Is that something you expect?
The Daily
Trump 2.0 Arrives in Force
During the campaign, the three of you embarked on a reporting project to understand what Donald Trump's second term would look like, the norms it would challenge, the presidential power it would seek to expand, and the ways in which it would test our democratic system of checks and balances. You all came on the show to talk about it. We
The Daily
Trump 2.0 Arrives in Force
Is there any reason to think we were not, Maggie, going to get that? Kash Patel, who appeared on those podcasts, talked about enemies lists and would be pretty different from the FBI directors of the past who saw their role as having a fair bit of independence from the president.
The Daily
Trump 2.0 Arrives in Force
The future director of the FBI, potentially, has been producing a song whose focus are those who attacked the Capitol on January 6th.
The Daily
Trump 2.0 Arrives in Force
Next up, Jonathan, we have Tulsi Gabbard's nomination to be the next director of national intelligence. Another pretty unorthodox choice. A convert, once Democrat, now Republican, who has expressed a lot of loyalty to Trump with pretty non-traditional credentials for such a big national security role.
The Daily
Trump 2.0 Arrives in Force
Should we see her in the same light as Kash Patel in the context of this conversation we're having about Trump? Basically, these folks getting these jobs and just expanding the president's power because there's not going to be much independence.
The Daily
Trump 2.0 Arrives in Force
Now that Trump is president and has unveiled such an aggressive and muscular agenda, it made sense to have you back to assess and explain what he's done so far and how it maps on to what you had foreshadowed in that previous conversation. So I guess, Jonathan, since you used the word, maybe we'll start with you, but where should we start with predictions versus reality?
The Daily
Trump 2.0 Arrives in Force
But you said she might not get confirmed. And I'm curious if any of you... would explain, if she's not going to be confirmed, precisely why it will be. And I suspect it's not just because she was a Democrat, you know, five minutes ago. Clearly, I'm exaggerating.
The Daily
Trump 2.0 Arrives in Force
For the reasons you described earlier, which is why take the risk to your own job. But if enough Republicans oppose Tulsi Gabbard to get in the way of her nomination, that would – be the establishment of a line we haven't seen Republicans draw, and it would be a level of risk-taking we haven't seen, would it matter?
The Daily
Trump 2.0 Arrives in Force
A brief but ultimately not especially meaningful rebellion is what it might be.
The Daily
Trump 2.0 Arrives in Force
Charlie, I want to end this conversation by asking you, and perhaps others will expand on it, about a phrase you used in the episode we did with you all back in April. I had asked you what would be the state of our democracy if Trump carried out all the things that he'd planned to.
The Daily
Trump 2.0 Arrives in Force
And you had said it could represent a genuine challenge to, and maybe even over time, to a certain degree, the end of American-style democracy. And you chose your words carefully. American-style democracy. It's obviously very early, very early, but given the blitz that we have experienced over the past two weeks, where does American-style democracy stand, if that's a fair question?
The Daily
Trump 2.0 Arrives in Force
Well, Charlie, Maggie, Jonathan, thank you very much. We appreciate it, as always. Thank you. Thanks for having us. Thank you, Michael. We'll be right back. Today's episode was produced by Olivia Nat and Muj Zaydi. It was edited by Rachel Quester and Brendan Klinkenberg. Contains original music by Dan Powell and Rowan Emisto and was engineered by Alyssa Moxley.
The Daily
Trump 2.0 Arrives in Force
Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Lansford of Wonderlay. Special thanks to Nick Pittman. Remember, you can catch a new episode of The Interview right here tomorrow. Lulu Garcia Navarro talks with addiction expert Dr. Anna Lemke, author of the bestselling book Dopamine Nation, about why so many of us are hooked on what she calls digital drugs.
The Daily
Trump 2.0 Arrives in Force
That's it for The Daily. I'm Michael Barbaro. See you on Monday.
The Daily
Trump 2.0 Arrives in Force
From The New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily. Since his inauguration, President Trump has exercised a level of power that has directly challenged the checks and balances that, on paper, define the U.S. government.
The Daily
Trump 2.0 Arrives in Force
Today, I gathered three of my colleagues, Maggie Haberman, Jonathan Swan, and Charlie Savage, to talk about the absence of resistance and about Trump's plans to make a more powerful presidency permanent. It's Friday, January 31st. Friends, welcome back. Some of you, welcome to the roundtable. Charlie Savage, welcome. Thank you. Maggie Haberman, as always, a pleasure. Thank you, Michael.
The Daily
Trump 2.0 Arrives in Force
Maggie, what has stood out to you as you contemplate what your reporting suggested this term might look like and what it's actually been in these first two weeks?
The Daily
Trump 2.0 Arrives in Force
Charlie, I want to ask you how much these actions that the president and those around him have taken over the past two weeks are testing the limits of presidential power and just the law. And Maggie started to hint at this, how the rest of government, both legislative and judicial branches, the checks and balances are responding or not responding.
The Daily
Trump 2.0 Arrives in Force
Why? Why do something that—assuming there are lawyers in the government who are as smart as you, why do it?
The Daily
Trump 2.0 Arrives in Force
I just want to summarize that because it's a little bit of a complicated thought. It feels very important. You're suggesting that some of the actions the president is taking, especially when he seems to be getting rid of federal workers who would seem to have very clear job protections within the law, is that he wants them to trigger a legal process that ends before a Republican appointee
The Daily
Trump 2.0 Arrives in Force
majority of the Supreme Court justices who then rule not in the favor of the workers, but in favor of Trump and essentially redefine and expand presidential power in the process. But there's no guarantee that that's going to happen. But is the journey itself just worthwhile under the current ideology of this White House?
The Daily
Trump 2.0 Arrives in Force
Well, let's talk about that a little bit more, Jonathan, since you queued it up. Congress could have acted in many of the executive orders that Trump has signed. And I want to read you something that our colleague Carl Hulse, the justifiable dean of congressional reporters in my estimation, wrote in the past 24 hours.
The Daily
Trump 2.0 Arrives in Force
Jonathan Swan, welcome back. Thanks. I want to start by asking you to describe, in a word, if you'll indulge this exercise, the past two weeks.
The Daily
Trump 2.0 Arrives in Force
He said, Congress passed a law shutting down TikTok and President Trump, once inaugurated, flouted it. Congress required advanced notification for firing inspectors general and the Trump administration ignored it. Congress approved trillions of dollars in spending on a multitude of federal programs. And Mr. Trump throws it anyway.
The Daily
Trump 2.0 Arrives in Force
And he concludes, the new administration is quickly demonstrating it does not intend to be bound by the legal niceties or traditional checks and balances of its relationship with Congress. Basically, what his analysis is saying is the president doesn't really care about what Congress thinks right now, even when congressional law is being seemingly broken by his actions.
The Daily
Trump 2.0 Arrives in Force
I would expect, Charlie, and I think about you as someone who has spent a big part of your career thinking about checks and balances and institutional prerogatives. Why aren't Republicans in Congress taking an opportunity just to establish kind of a bare minimum of what Congress's role is supposed to be?
The Daily
Trump 2.0 Arrives in Force
And isn't there just a kind of a basic level of pride that a person has once they're elected to the House? or to the Senate in what that institution is supposed to do.
The Daily
Trump 2.0 Arrives in Force
I knew one of you was going to say that. And that's because we have had a series of conversations with you three that, in many ways, prepared me, prepared all of our listeners for what the last two weeks, to a degree, have looked like. And that's why we asked you all... to come back. Let me just explain.
The Daily
Trump 2.0 Arrives in Force
Right, which helps explain the congressional deference to these power plays. So just to summarize this, as the president has sought to pretty profoundly expand his power, Congress has basically said, God bless for all the reasons you just walked through, which leads to courts.
The Daily
Trump 2.0 Arrives in Force
And as you all established, it's a pretty open question of whether and how the court might rule on something as meaningful as executive power. So that's where things stand. We are going to take a quick break. And when we come back, we're going to talk about the confirmation hearings that have dominated the last 24 hours.
The Daily
Trump 2.0 Arrives in Force
So Maggie, Charlie, Jonathan, I want to turn to another way that President Trump is exercising his power in this moment and changing the nature of presidential power, which is through appointments of loyalists who we expect would defer to him.
The Daily
Trump 2.0 Arrives in Force
That's something else you all had forecast in our original Trump 2.0 conversations last year, that Trump did not want skeptics, did not want institutionalists, did not want those who would check his power or say no to him. Two of the most important appointees, Kash Patel and Tulsi Gabbard, had their confirmation hearings over the past 48 hours. Charlie, I want to begin with you.
The Daily
Trump 2.0 Arrives in Force
What would Kash Patel's confirmation to lead the Federal Bureau of Investigation mean for some of the norms and presidential power questions that we're talking about here?
The Daily
Terror in New Orleans
The thing I can't get out of my head is something you said earlier, Mike, about how when Jabbar was in the military, he'd been given an award for participating in the war on terrorism. And now, here we have the same person all these years later participating in an act of terrorism. And that's just really hard to wrap your head around.
The Daily
Terror in New Orleans
On Thursday afternoon, a fuller picture emerged of the 14 victims of Wednesday's attack who had come to Bourbon Street to celebrate the year that was and the year to come.
The Daily
Terror in New Orleans
They included a single mother who had just gotten a promotion at work, a 26-year-old attending a bluegrass concert with his younger brother, and a recent high school graduate whose family members spoke with my colleague, Christina Morales.
The Daily
Terror in New Orleans
So the idea was that she would look out into the crowd on her graduation day and see every member of her family wearing a T-shirt bearing her face.
The Daily
Terror in New Orleans
Well, what's the story of how she ends up on Bourbon Street on New Year's Day around 3 a.m.?
The Daily
Terror in New Orleans
And Christina, what did the family tell you about their reaction to that information? That their daughter or their granddaughter, someone they didn't even know was in New Orleans, was there and had been one of the victims of this terror attack?
The Daily
Terror in New Orleans
On Thursday night, the Times reported that a security assessment prepared in 2019 warned New Orleans officials that Bourbon Street was vulnerable to a terrorist attack involving a vehicle and that the existing system in place to prevent such an attack, quote, does not appear to work. We'll be right back.
The Daily
Terror in New Orleans
On Thursday, police offered new details about the explosion of a Tesla Cybertruck in front of a Trump Hotel in Las Vegas on New Year's Day. They said that the driver of the truck, an active member of the U.S. military, had died by suicide before the truck exploded. Inside of the rented truck, police said, they found multiple guns, fuel, and fireworks, which had ignited during the incident.
The Daily
Terror in New Orleans
But they said that the soldiers' motives remained unclear. Today's episode was produced by Stella Tan, Shannon Lin, Diana Nguyen, and Muj Zadie. It was edited by Brendan Klinkenberg, contains original music by Leah Shaw Dameron, Marion Lozano, Pat McCusker, Chelsea Daniel, and Dan Powell, and was engineered by Chris Wood. Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Landsberg of Wonderland.
The Daily
Terror in New Orleans
From The New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily. A mere three hours into 2025, terrorism struck in downtown New Orleans. Today, what we know about the attack, the man who carried it out, and the victims. I spoke with my colleagues, Nicholas Bogle-Purose, Mike Baker, and Christina Morales. It's Friday, January 3rd.
The Daily
Terror in New Orleans
Right. That was the feeling by the end of New Year's Day. I felt it, that there was the distinct possibility from what the police were raising that there was a coordinated multi-location attack happening.
The Daily
Terror in New Orleans
Nick, I wonder if you can set the scene for us in the French Quarter of New Orleans on New Year's Eve.
The Daily
Terror in New Orleans
After the break, my colleague, national reporter Mike Baker, on what we've learned about the suspect. We'll be right back. Mike, now that we understand from authorities that the suspect acted alone, what are we learning about his specific motivations and how it is that he goes from serving in the U.S.
The Daily
Terror in New Orleans
Army, in theory protecting America, to becoming a supporter of ISIS who seems bent on killing Americans?
The Daily
Terror in New Orleans
Well, clearly behind this external image of success you're describing, something very dark is brewing, and I wonder what you're finding about that.
The Daily
Terror in New Orleans
Hmm. So his first wife and her new husband think that he's now a danger to his daughters. Do we know why they conclude that?
The Daily
Terror in New Orleans
Like, there was this period when attacks by people who said they had been inspired by ISIS, who claimed they had joined ISIS, became terrifyingly familiar all over the world within the past decade. And in some of those cases, the people who carried out the attacks were in direct communication with ISIS, often online. They were communicating with them, in some cases taking guidance from them,
The Daily
Terror in New Orleans
But in other cases, it seemed to be a process of self-radicalization. People who had watched ISIS videos, read the propaganda, and then decided to act on their own. That was the case with the Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando.
The Daily
Terror in New Orleans
That seemed to be the case with the last major ISIS-inspired attack in the U.S., which was in 2017 in New York by a man who claimed loyalty to ISIS before he drove a truck there. along the West Side and killed a bunch of people. Do we have any sense in this case of which version we're talking about, what this man's relationship to ISIS actually was?
The Daily
Terror in New Orleans
So in the end, we don't really know if this is about... ISIS or an unstable person latching onto the idea of ISIS as a rationale.
The Daily
From Wirecutter: Don't Get Swindled on Black Friday
Hey, it's Michael. Today, as you know, is Black Friday, a day that looms oddly large in my life. For years, I was this newspaper's retail reporter.
The Daily
From Wirecutter: Don't Get Swindled on Black Friday
And so every Friday after Thanksgiving, I would wake up at four in the morning, print circulars in my hand, and dash from store to store reporting on the latest doorbuster deals and the bleary-eyed shoppers literally climbing over each other in order to buy them.
The Daily
From Wirecutter: Don't Get Swindled on Black Friday
And what I came to understand and ultimately to appreciate is that Black Friday is this strange, endearing, wild, and quintessentially American holiday. And today, we are celebrating it with a special episode from our colleagues over at Wirecutter, who started their own podcast earlier this year. You probably know Wirecutter. Product reviews, gift guides, they're very good at what they do.
The Daily
From Wirecutter: Don't Get Swindled on Black Friday
And they put together a comprehensive guide to Black Friday that we're now going to share with you. So, without further ado, here is today's special Black Friday episode from Wirecutter.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: Group Chats and a New Spat
From The New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily. Today, the ongoing fallout from the signal-text security breach and what the first real crisis of President Trump's second term is telling us about his cabinet's approach to blame and accountability.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: Group Chats and a New Spat
Can we talk for a minute about how Mike Waltz has decided to handle this moment? Increasingly, as the president has shifted the focus to him, you created the text thread, why on earth is Jeffrey Goldberg on your phone in the first place? Waltz has kind of been in the hot seat. And he went on Fox News a few nights ago and inevitably was asked the question—
The Daily
Trump 2.0: Group Chats and a New Spat
How does Jeffrey Goldberg end up in this text thread by Laura Ingram? And I want to play this for you. And the clip begins just after Waltz has claimed, I don't really know Jeff Goldberg. I've never really spoken to him.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: Group Chats and a New Spat
perhaps even scandal, of Trump's second term, which is the signal text messaging security breach, in which Jeffrey Goldberg, who was a guest on the show earlier this week, editor of the Atlantic Magazine, became the recipient of this days-long series of text messages in which the most senior officials in the White House discuss plans for an attack on Houthi terrorists in Yemen.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: Group Chats and a New Spat
Well, if you have somebody else's contact, and then somehow it gets sucked in. Oh, someone sent you that contact.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: Group Chats and a New Spat
The claim here is that somehow Jeff Goldberg's number got sucked in. into his phone and then into his signal. I have signal on my phone. I'm sure all of you do. And that's not my understanding of how this works. Signal, essentially, is a reflection of the contacts in the rest of your phone.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: Group Chats and a New Spat
And it's hard to imagine a phone just sucking up a prominent journalist's phone number from the ether, right? So what do we make of that explanation?
The Daily
Trump 2.0: Group Chats and a New Spat
Right. And it's easy to make a mistake in this app, potentially, like you said, which is why senior government officials, especially those who traffic in really confidential information, aren't supposed to communicate on an app like this.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: Group Chats and a New Spat
And yet, the White House and everyone around the president are still hyper-focused on the mistake of a journalist being added to the chat, not the chat being the place where the conversation was happening. I want to go back to just Waltz for a second, because it does seem like the bat signal has gone out from the White House that Waltz is the problem here.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: Group Chats and a New Spat
And once that message has gone out, you see it reflected and amplified in the world of conservative media. Are we approaching the moment where that world has decided that Waltz needs to go? And is that a possibility?
The Daily
Trump 2.0: Group Chats and a New Spat
Let's talk about this broader question of accountability here.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: Group Chats and a New Spat
Is there any possibility of an investigation into what happened here, or are we quite certain that that's just never going to happen for the reasons I think we talked about at the very beginning, which is that this administration is staffed with loyalists who have virtually no incentive to open an investigation that might lead somewhere bad, perhaps to one of the people with the antibodies, Maggie, like you just said?
The Daily
Trump 2.0: Group Chats and a New Spat
And what we know through multiple days of disclosures from Jeff Goldberg and The Atlantic is that those texts were very detailed, down to the type of aircraft to be used, precise timing of attacks. And that's really where I want to start. Settle for us, if you can, was this information in these texts classified or not? Eric, what do you say?
The Daily
Trump 2.0: Group Chats and a New Spat
I mean, there are going to be people in Trump's orbit and his supporters who say this approach overall, don't investigate, don't feel like you have to apologize for any of this, makes complete sense. Because in their minds, this is being totally blown out of proportion by Democrats and by the news media.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: Group Chats and a New Spat
But I have to imagine a lot of the public, especially the moderate political public, is wondering, why not just issue some kind of mea culpa here? You know, just acknowledge it's not a great idea to have had this conversation on text and say so. Say we learned a valuable lesson. The stakes here were actually high and we're not going to do this again.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: Group Chats and a New Spat
Is there anyone in the White House who's advising the president and those around him to think about that, to look beyond their anger at Jeffrey Goldberg and The Atlantic for getting these texts and publishing them and imagine that there is a group of voters in this country who just want this administration to hold itself accountable?
The Daily
Trump 2.0: Group Chats and a New Spat
You could argue, though, that this is already starting to backfire. We're starting now to see conservatives, prominent ones, not just go after Mike Waltz, but pretty much say to the president, this doesn't seem like the wise approach. So I want to play what Dave Portnoy of Barstool Sports had to say. He's someone... who we generally associate with the Trump-backing manosphere.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: Group Chats and a New Spat
He endorsed Trump in this last election. This is what he had to say about the way that the president and the administration have handled this whole thing so far.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: Group Chats and a New Spat
Eric, it feels like the real risk for Trump here is not going to be news cycles or necessarily the entire conservative movement turning on him, although there's a possibility of that happening over time. It's that this current strategy of deny, dodge, redirect persists and that the military, active and veteran, sees in this incident that
The Daily
Trump 2.0: Group Chats and a New Spat
Like you said, an administration being careless with the lives of soldiers on top of all the things that this administration has already done to the military and to veterans. Made significant cuts, made it harder for veterans to get quick care at the VA. And this is a group of Americans who, by and large, support this president. And it seems like a strange group to risk alienating them.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: Group Chats and a New Spat
But of course, Maggie, if the president succeeds in making this about Jeffrey Goldberg and sensationalistic, in their words, left-wing media storytelling, then redirection might ultimately make this not about the military, not about the idea that the wrong platform was used for a very dangerous conversation. So that's potentially going to be a successful strategy.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: Group Chats and a New Spat
Well, Maggie and Julian and Eric, thank you very much for your time. We appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. On Thursday afternoon, a federal judge ordered several Trump administration officials, including Mike Waltz and Pete Hegseth, to preserve all of the messages they exchanged over Signal in the days leading up to the attack on the Houthis.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: Group Chats and a New Spat
And why do they say it has to be classified? Can you just explain that?
The Daily
Trump 2.0: Group Chats and a New Spat
The order came in response to a lawsuit filed this week by a watchdog group that accused the officials of violating federal records laws by using Signal to plan the attack.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: Group Chats and a New Spat
Here's what else you need to know today. On Thursday, the White House said it would lay off 10,000 employees at the Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees medical care, food, and drugs.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: Group Chats and a New Spat
In a video, the department's leader, Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., said that the agency's spending had ballooned, but that its effectiveness had diminished, and that it was time for a major change.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: Group Chats and a New Spat
And in a surprise move, President Trump has asked his choice to be the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Republican Representative Elise Stefanik of New York, to return to Congress rather than join his cabinet. The decision was motivated by simple congressional math.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: Group Chats and a New Spat
Republicans hold the House by an extremely slim margin that could complicate Trump's plans to pass major legislation, including tax cuts. As a result, Trump now believes that Stefanik is more valuable to him in the House than at the United Nations. Today's episode was produced by Rob Zipko, Alex Stern, and Shannon Lin.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: Group Chats and a New Spat
It was edited by Paige Cowett and Lexi Diao and contains original music from Marion Lozano and Dan Powell and was engineered by Chris Wood. Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Landsberg of Wonderland. That's it for The Daily. I'm Michael Barbaro. See you on Monday.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: Group Chats and a New Spat
Right, and I just want to give an example of some of the language in the text messages that were sent by Pete Hexeth, the defense secretary. This is a quote. 1410, more F-18s launch, parentheses, second strike package. 1415, so five minutes later, strike drones on target. So it's really specific. Maggie, do you have a sense of, given what—
The Daily
Trump 2.0: Group Chats and a New Spat
Eric and Julian just said, why senior officials from the Trump administration who were on these text chains are so definitively denying that anything in those messages were classified.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: Group Chats and a New Spat
I spoke with three of my colleagues, national security reporter Eric Schmidt, intelligence reporter Julian Barnes, and White House correspondent Maggie Haberman. It's Friday, March 28th. Are you all situated in that tiny little adorable studio?
The Daily
Trump 2.0: Group Chats and a New Spat
I mean, two of them, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, CIA Director John Ratcliffe, happened to be testifying before Congress this week, and of course they're asked about this, and repeatedly they say none of this happened. So are they applying some kind of a legal definition that perhaps lies outside of what our colleagues are describing? Is this a political explanation?
The Daily
Trump 2.0: Group Chats and a New Spat
Are they just kind of daring the political system to hold them accountable for what might not be a true statement? How do you think about that?
The Daily
Trump 2.0: Group Chats and a New Spat
Right. They control the FBI. Right. Well, let's talk a bit more about what you just mentioned, that President Trump is introducing some very notable ambiguity into this classification question. He was in the Oval Office. I just want to play what he said and have you all process it. Do you still believe nothing classified was shared?
The Daily
Trump 2.0: Group Chats and a New Spat
That does not sound to my ears like somebody backing up the claims of two very important deputies before Congress, right?
The Daily
Trump 2.0: Group Chats and a New Spat
Got it. Of course, at the heart of this classification debate is the question of just how dangerous the information in these texts really is to soldiers. And we've started to think about that in this conversation. But I want to get into real detail about it because it seems so important. And I wonder if we can even imagine, Eric or Julian, because you've covered this previously,
The Daily
Trump 2.0: Group Chats and a New Spat
really closely over the past few days, the scenarios in which this information becomes a danger to U.S. soldiers who were about to carry out this attack in Yemen. I feel like it would really help listeners if we could get specific about the idea of how this might be dangerous.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: Group Chats and a New Spat
Even though the texts don't specify targets and precise locations of where U.S. planes are going to be.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: Group Chats and a New Spat
So the danger you're suggesting is perhaps China had been already living inside the phone of one of the 20 participants on this text thread.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: Group Chats and a New Spat
Okay, well, get comfortable, because you're really close to each other, and I appreciate it. And we're going to be here for a while. And you're going to be here for a little while. So, friends, welcome back to The Roundtable. Maggie, thank you for being here.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: Group Chats and a New Spat
Right. So you're saying the Houthis in Yemen are essentially a few degrees removed, potentially, from being able to obtain what was being said in this... text thread, in theory, and there's no indication that that happened, but that's why the specificity of the F-18s and the launch times matter, because their defense systems could then be kicked into higher gear.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: Group Chats and a New Spat
Eric, you've spent some time talking to rank-and-file service members in the military about their reaction to all of this, the use of this platform, the level of detail, the danger it poses. may have posed to those carrying out the attack. What are they telling you?
The Daily
Trump 2.0: Group Chats and a New Spat
Eric, welcome to this format of the show. I think your first time doing it.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: Group Chats and a New Spat
So in short, it sounds like all these folks are saying that this is not consistent with the version of Pete Hegseth that Pete Hegseth has presented in this short time that he's been running the U.S. military.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: Group Chats and a New Spat
Okay, well, when we come back, we're going to discuss the question of who is really at fault here for the existence and the information conveyed on this text thread and the White House campaign so far to resist accountability. So we'll be right back.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: Group Chats and a New Spat
And Julian, this is your second day in a row on the show, so thank you for your endurance.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: Group Chats and a New Spat
Maggie, you mentioned that President Trump seems to be backing away from the certitude of those around him that nothing was classified in these chats. But I'm also wondering, just based on your reporting, how mad or not is Trump about the very existence of this crisis?
The Daily
Trump 2.0: Group Chats and a New Spat
Right, and just to explain, he does not like Jeffrey Goldberg for a number of reasons, including the fact that Jeff Goldberg broke the story, which the Trump White House has denied, that in the first term, Trump called U.S. soldiers who had been killed suckers and losers, which was, of course, extremely offensive to the veteran community.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: Group Chats and a New Spat
So you're all in D.C., I'm in New York. It is, just to timestamp this conversation in case anything changes, 11.30 a.m. on Thursday. The story that we are going to be spending the entire conversation focused on is what I think of as really the first major blow-up, blunder conversation
The Daily
Trump 2.0: Group Chats and a New Spat
But, Maggie, I want to zero in, and Julie and Eric as well, on what you just said about what the president is most focused on, not the fact that Traditional security protocols seem to have been flouted here with text messages that were on a commercial app rather than formal government channels.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: Group Chats and a New Spat
But the fact that a journalist was on the text, and if that's what he's focused on, then who does he blame for that?
The Daily
Trump 2.0: Group Chats and a New Spat
I have noticed, and I wonder, Eric, if you've noticed this as well, that as Maggie's getting at, the president has decided to shift this story away from Pete Hegseth. A couple nights ago, he was in the Oval Office and said something along the lines of, how is this about Hegseth? How do you get to Hegseth? And... kind of left unsaid was, this is a Mike Waltz story.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: Group Chats and a New Spat
This is a story about my national security advisor. And I wonder if you think that's as much about suspicion of Waltz and caring about Jeff Goldberg being on the thread, or is it about him just genuinely wanting to shield Pete Hegseth?
The Daily
Trump 2.0: The Art of the Deal
Well, to that point, if you subscribe to this ascendant, now victorious, America first worldview that has now dominated the party under Trump, isn't this quite an achievement? The United States is going to recoup the money it spent in Ukraine with no commitment to spend much more or to ever put American troops in harm's way in Ukraine in a war that Trump and many Republicans don't think the U.S.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: The Art of the Deal
Right. The best way to get America's support is to allow us to have a financial interest in you not being overrun by your larger needs. That's right. Which in this case, he's just struck.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: The Art of the Deal
Mm-hmm. I just want to end by asking for a larger reflection on all this deal-making. We started, of course, in Congress. Now we've gotten to this deal with Ukraine. But if you zoom out even further and you think about all the Trump deals that have been struck since he was inaugurated, you've got to deal with Canada on tariffs. You've got to deal with Mexico on tariffs.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: The Art of the Deal
On top of that, the prime minister of the UK was just at the White House offering Trump a deal of his own to increase the UK's defense spending, something that, as we've hinted at here, Trump has asked all European countries to do so that they are less reliant on United States defense spending. And...
The Daily
Trump 2.0: The Art of the Deal
When you think about it, the common thread here is Trump's allies, and stay with me, this is one of those heady stretch ending questions, his allies both within his party and America's allies across the world are all kind of bending to him in ways that don't seem to hew to tradition or in some cases to their own best interests.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: The Art of the Deal
And just to give you a vivid example of that knee bending and just how vivid it is, right before we started taping, the prime minister of the UK handed Donald Trump a letter from King Charles. And I want to play you that scene.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: The Art of the Deal
Not an executive action, which is pretty much to fine this president.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: The Art of the Deal
I mean, just to really summarize what has happened in this scene, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, having basically been summoned to Washington to make sure that Trump knows that he's willing to have less U.S. security in Europe... and instead that the UK will spend more on its own security, follows up by saying, oh, and by the way, our king wants to have you for dinner.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: The Art of the Deal
It's going to be amazing. It's going to be historic. The scene is one of kind of, let's just put it really plainly, self-debasement. in the name of impressing Donald Trump.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: The Art of the Deal
I think we all might have imagined that Trump's victory in the U.S. meant that there would be lots of dealmaking from within the Republican Party and concessions. But this is something else entirely. These are America's strongest allies saying, where do you need me? What do you want? Here's the deal.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: The Art of the Deal
And it's just very striking what an extraordinary exercise of power we're seeing from this president.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: The Art of the Deal
That's a very intriguing metaphor. Katie, can you explain what this half-man, half-horse thing was that ends up before Congress?
The Daily
Trump 2.0: The Art of the Deal
And that can be minerals, literally something from the ground, or it can be dinner with the king.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: The Art of the Deal
Well, my thanks to all three of you, Maggie, Zolan, Katie. See you again soon.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: The Art of the Deal
On Friday afternoon, President Zelensky traveled to the White House for a meeting with President Trump, where the two were expected to sign the mineral deal that's been negotiated over the past few days. But at the meeting in the Oval Office, Zelensky started to try to explain the history of the war and was interrupted by Vice President J.D. Vance.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: The Art of the Deal
In response, Zelensky seemed to warn Vance that before long, the United States itself could be threatened by Russian aggression.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: The Art of the Deal
The meeting then quickly devolved into a shouting match, with Trump and Vance berating Zelensky in front of live television cameras.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: The Art of the Deal
Trump then appeared to try to strong-arm Zelensky into making a peace deal with Russia on whatever terms the United States wants.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: The Art of the Deal
Zelensky was then told to leave the White House. He did so without signing the mineral deal. After the meeting, President Trump posted about Zelensky on social media, saying, quote, he disrespected the United States of America in its cherished Oval Office. He can come back when he's ready for peace.
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Trump 2.0: The Art of the Deal
Here's what else you need to know today. In the latest legal setback to the president's cost cutting efforts, a federal judge has barred the Office of Personnel Management from ordering the termination of thousands of probationary workers.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: The Art of the Deal
The judge ruled that the firings, which have occurred across federal agencies, were illegal because, he argued, only individual agencies have the power to hire and fire their own workers. As a result, the Office of Personnel Management, he found, cannot order firings beyond its own staff, as it recently has.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: The Art of the Deal
And Republican lawmakers in Iowa have overwhelmingly passed a bill to end the state's civil rights protections for transgender people.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: The Art of the Deal
If signed into law by the state's Republican governor, the legislation would remove trans identity from a list of protected groups that employers, businesses, and landlords may not discriminate against, and would make Iowa the first state in the country to revoke such protections. Today's episode was produced by Carlos Prieto and Eric Krupke. It was edited by Rachel Quester and M.J. Davis-Lynn.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: The Art of the Deal
Contains original music by Diane Wong, Dan Powell, Rowe Nimisto, and Alishaba Etube. And was engineered by Chris Wood. Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Landsberg of Wonderland. That's it for The Daily. I'm Michael Barbaro. See you on Monday.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: The Art of the Deal
Right. That's a huge part of their message. It's a huge part of their brand. It's a huge part of the Republican Party identity for the last decade.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: The Art of the Deal
From New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily. This week, the president proposed two deals, one at home, the other abroad, that would require allies to put his needs ahead of theirs. And in both cases, Trump got exactly what he wanted.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: The Art of the Deal
And so what happens once this half-man, half-horse, I'm just going to keep saying that as many times as I can, reaches the House floor?
The Daily
Trump 2.0: The Art of the Deal
To understand why, I spoke with three of my colleagues, White House correspondents Maggie Haberman and Zolan Kano-Youngs, and congressional correspondent Katie Edmondson. It's Friday, February 28th. So friends... Welcome back, all three of you, to The Roundtable. Zolan and Katie, thank you for being in our Washington studio. Good to have you.
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Trump 2.0: The Art of the Deal
I don't think we can let what you just said about Medicare and Medicaid fly by. That's a biggie in American politics. So whoever wants to take this on, what about this plan seems to many to require touching the third rail of American politics, which is potentially cutting these two huge health programs that millions and millions of Americans rely on?
The Daily
Trump 2.0: The Art of the Deal
Well, let's talk about how that, to use your word, Zolan saga unfolds in Congress when the president starts to ask questions. members of his party in Congress to pass this unwieldy thing that might require, as you all said, cuts to Medicare and Medicaid.
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Trump 2.0: The Art of the Deal
Or who just, I think I saw this, had a baby like a month ago.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: The Art of the Deal
Let's focus for just a second on the question of spending and debt, which would seem to be the thing that these defectors principally were upset about. How much is this budget going to increase the U.S. debt?
The Daily
Trump 2.0: The Art of the Deal
Yeah, it's a big number. And this is where, and Zolan, Maggie, I'm curious what you think. We know where many members of the Republican Party stand on this. House Republicans have ousted speakers over failures to rein in spending and be tough enough on the debt. And here comes the president kind of bulldozing those who raise that question about spending and debt.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: The Art of the Deal
And that creates a really complicated and I think I'd argue incoherent message about what the Republican brand is, especially in Congress, but also at the White House. Is it the party that cares about deficit and doge and cutting spending and getting rid of people so that we have a smaller government? Or is it the party that creates additional pressure
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Trump 2.0: The Art of the Deal
How presumptuous of me. There's an order to this all. The host says hello, and the guest, you can't just get ahead of it. You can't just circumvent it.
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Trump 2.0: The Art of the Deal
Got it. Back then, Republicans touching the Affordable Care Act backfired for them. Democrats hope that if they touch Medicaid now, it will backfire once again.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: The Art of the Deal
Okay, so that was the congressional deal-making this week. When we come back, we're going to talk about the international deal that the president struck. We'll be right back. Welcome back, Solon, Katie, Maggie. We have talked on the show before around this very table about a theoretical deal that Trump had wanted to make with Ukraine that would require Ukraine to basically compensate the U.S.
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Trump 2.0: The Art of the Deal
for all the military assistance necessary that the U.S. has given Ukraine in its war against Russia. It started off as very theoretical and notional, but now it's becoming an actual reality, and Ukraine's leader, Volodymyr Zelensky, is now headed to Washington to make it official on Friday. Zolan, how did this all start and become what it now is?
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Trump 2.0: The Art of the Deal
That's the plan. You ready? Maggie, thank you very much for being here.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: The Art of the Deal
And it might be left without some rare earth minerals that would help it pay for its own defense if it were to accept this deal. Maggie, how should we understand this initial offer that on its face seems like a very good deal for the U.S. and not much of a deal at all for Ukraine?
The Daily
Trump 2.0: The Art of the Deal
So this was a week, I would argue, of deal-making by President Trump. And we are going to spend time on two of those deals. And you've all been carefully selected because of your relationship to these deals. The first deal was with Congress, and there was a lot of drama surrounding this one, as there often is with Congress. Maggie, just to start, what was this?
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Trump 2.0: The Art of the Deal
But that doesn't seem like a deal the president of... Ukraine would sign, and yet, Zolan, he's about to arrive in Washington and sign it. So at some point, he decides that even though he's not really getting anything from it, it's still somehow worthwhile.
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Trump 2.0: The Art of the Deal
Katie, is this the death, like the official death, of anything resembling the conventional Republican approach to Russia and containing its territorial aggression and its previous mandate to protect Ukraine?
The Daily
The Year in Music
Hey, it's Michael. Today, our coverage of the year in arts and in culture continues with guest host Melissa Kirsch speaking to Times critics, reporters, and editors. Take a listen.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: Bans, Purges and Retribution
From The New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily. Over the past 48 hours, President Trump banned DEI programming in the federal government, punished three former aides by taking away their security detail, and celebrated the release of hundreds of January 6th rioters and planners —
The Daily
Trump 2.0: Bans, Purges and Retribution
It's a pretty extraordinary, David, reimagining of the rule of law. Is that perhaps too delicate a phrasing?
The Daily
Trump 2.0: Bans, Purges and Retribution
What exactly, Zolan, had the policy been, and what has Trump just changed it to?
The Daily
Trump 2.0: Bans, Purges and Retribution
I just want to make explicit what I think you're saying. There are now freed loyalists of Trump who owe their freedom to him, you're suggesting, who may now operate distinctly in his defense in whatever way they think necessary.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: Bans, Purges and Retribution
And when, Maggie, those Republican lawmakers have said something about these pardons, they've used a phrase over and over again. It felt like they had all gotten together in a room and decided on the phrase. The phrase was, we want to look forward, not backward. And yet, Zolan, in one important respect, congressional Republicans do want to look backward.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: Bans, Purges and Retribution
It's the completion of the rewriting of that history. Will Congress, Maggie, officially? I mean, is this going to happen? Is Congress going to investigate the investigation of January 6th?
The Daily
Trump 2.0: Bans, Purges and Retribution
Well, you have queued up my final question to you all, which is about the pardons that outgoing President Biden issued for his family members. And as you just said, Maggie, for members of the January 6th committee and for Dr. Anthony Fauci and Mark Milley, I want to read you something about that our esteemed colleague Ezra Klein wrote about that decision. This is what he said.
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Trump 2.0: Bans, Purges and Retribution
Quote, the Biden of 2020 would have done none of this. In key cases, like the family pardons, he said he would not do this, and then he did. This feels in its own way like Biden's submission to the new regime, by which Ezra means Trump. The powers of the presidency are whatever the president is allowed to get away with.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: Bans, Purges and Retribution
Thank you very much. In an interview a couple of nights ago with Sean Hannity, Donald Trump noted who outgoing President Biden did not give a pardon to.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: Bans, Purges and Retribution
He noted that Biden did not give a pardon to himself. If you look at it, it all had to do with him.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: Bans, Purges and Retribution
I'm going to point out what listeners may recognize as a bit of an irony of Trump accusing relatives of a president of making money off of his name.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: Bans, Purges and Retribution
Well, Maggie and David and Zolan, thank you very much.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: Bans, Purges and Retribution
Thank you. Thank you, Michael. We'll be right back. Here's what else you need to know today. On Thursday, a federal judge temporarily blocked Trump's executive order seeking to end birthright citizenship, calling it, quote, blatantly unconstitutional.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: Bans, Purges and Retribution
Trump's order, signed on his first day in office, seeks to end a right to citizenship for children born in the United States that was first established in the 14th Amendment. In his ruling, the judge was unsparing, saying the fact that any lawyer ever believed that Trump's executive order was legal boggles the mind. And the U.S.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: Bans, Purges and Retribution
Senate appears poised to confirm Pete Hegseth as the next secretary of defense. In a 51-49 vote on Thursday, Republicans voted to break a Democratic filibuster aimed at blocking his confirmation.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: Bans, Purges and Retribution
Democrats have tried, so far unsuccessfully, to persuade Republicans to reject Hegseth, citing a new statement from his former sister-in-law, who described him as frequently intoxicated and abusive toward his second wife. Hegseth has denied those claims, and his confirmation is expected as soon as tonight. Today's episode was produced by Olivia Nat, Will Reed, and Carlos Prieto.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: Bans, Purges and Retribution
It was edited by Rachel Quester and Devin Taylor, contains original music by Diane Wong and Dan Powell, and was engineered by Chris Wood. Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Lansford of Wonderly. That's it for The Daily. I'm Michael Barbaro. See you on Monday.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: Bans, Purges and Retribution
I want to make sure I understand how widespread DEI programs and personnel have been in the government to understand the impact of these executive orders. The executive orders and actions that attempt to root it out, essentially to forbid it, and the ones that attempt to encourage employees to report on issues essentially what's now banned attempt at enforcing DEI.
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Trump 2.0: Bans, Purges and Retribution
Who among you has a sense of just how much government we're talking about here?
The Daily
Trump 2.0: Bans, Purges and Retribution
Today, I talked through all of that with three of my Times colleagues, White House reporters Maggie Haberman, Zolan Kano-Youngs, and David Sanger. It's Friday, January 24th. Friends, welcome back to The Roundtable. Maggie, Zolan, David, thank you for being here.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: Bans, Purges and Retribution
I want to be sure that we meet this argument from whether it's Pete Hegseth or Donald Trump or Elon Musk on its own terms. And I listened, David, to Pete Hegseth talk about this. The way he put it was that he wanted to be sure that standards for everyone in the military were equal, not equitable. And this is a quote. That's a very different word.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: Bans, Purges and Retribution
And in his inaugural speech, what President Trump said is he would forge a society, this is a quote, that is colorblind and merit-based. What I hear them saying is that diversity as something to be prized and sought in its own right is out. What's in, they're saying, is a merit-based system in which diversity might be an outcome, but it's never the goal.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: Bans, Purges and Retribution
Clearly what stood out to many people about the way Trump approached this whole issue was the element of Tell us about colleagues who are doing this thing when they shouldn't be. To some, it had kind of shades of McCarthyism. Rat out your colleagues.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: Bans, Purges and Retribution
And, Maggie, you have spent a fair amount of time over the past few days reporting on a related subject, which is the ways in which the president and those around him are starting to somewhat systematically – target people they don't want to be in this administration and even former Trump officials who they see as disloyal, who they want to begin to take perks away from?
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Trump 2.0: Bans, Purges and Retribution
You're saying these loyalty tests are very arbitrary. It's making it hard to hire. And it's based on whoever is kind of up or down in Trump's mind at any given moment.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: Bans, Purges and Retribution
Which former officials, and I'm assuming this relates to the question of loyalty, what did they do to make Trump feel they were disloyal?
The Daily
Trump 2.0: Bans, Purges and Retribution
Thank you. Last time the three of you were on the show, your locations were incredibly exotic. Mar-a-Lago, Italy... Where were you, Maggie? Washington, D.C. Washington, D.C. Today we join you from two boring studios on the East Coast. We are taping this on Thursday afternoon at the end of week one of the Trump presidency, and what a week it has been.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: Bans, Purges and Retribution
Right. I mean, taken together, the moves on DEI, especially the encouragement to turn in colleagues who are still doing DEI work now that it's forbidden, the firings, the removal of security for former Trump officials who are facing real threats but are seen as disloyal. I was about to ask you what it all adds up to, but I think that would be an abdication of my role as synthesizer.
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Trump 2.0: Bans, Purges and Retribution
I think what it clearly adds up to is dissent will not be remotely tolerated in this second Trump term.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: Bans, Purges and Retribution
I don't think it's a stretch to say that in record time President Trump has begun to remake both the federal government and arguably American society in his image in just a few days. And I want to start with late-breaking policy that we haven't covered on the show from the White House, and that is around DEI, diversity, equity, and inclusion.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: Bans, Purges and Retribution
And you're saying that it's sort of in Trump's DNA to ferret out those who would in any way get in his way, kind of stem to root, root to stem.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: Bans, Purges and Retribution
Okay, welcome back. I want to turn now to presidential pardons. In the days since President Trump issued these blanket pardons and commutations, we've gotten a sense of just how blanket they actually are because three of the people who were given the longest prison sentences for their role in the assault on the Capitol have come out of prison.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: Bans, Purges and Retribution
Enrique Tarrio, ex-leader of the Proud Boys, who had been sentenced to 22 years for seditious conspiracy. Stuart Rhodes of the Oath Keepers, sentenced to 18 years for the same charge. Joe Biggs, sentenced to 17 years for that charge of seditious conspiracy, which is pretty much the most serious crime you can be accused of committing against your own government.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: Bans, Purges and Retribution
Maggie, do you think Trump knew who was going to be released when he issued these blanket commutations and pardons, given what we're now learning?
The Daily
An Outcry in Europe, a Shooting in Washington and a Blockade in Gaza
Hey there, it's Michael. A quick request before today's show. In the past couple of years, nearly half the states in the U.S. have passed bans on gender-affirming care for kids. The Trump administration is now targeting that care, and in the coming weeks, the Supreme Court is expected to weigh in.
The Daily
An Outcry in Europe, a Shooting in Washington and a Blockade in Gaza
Amidst all of that, some of our colleagues here on the Times audio team have been working on a project about where this care came from, who it was meant to help, and how it got pulled into a political fight that could end it altogether. The team making that show is looking to hear from kids and parents about their direct experience with gender-affirming care.
The Daily
An Outcry in Europe, a Shooting in Washington and a Blockade in Gaza
If that's you, what has your experience been with pediatric gender medicine? How have recent government actions affected you? And how are you feeling about the future? If you're willing to share your story, please send us a short voice memo to genderstoryatnytimes.com. That's genderstoryatnytimes.com. Thank you, and here's today's show.
The Daily
Why a Worrisome Economy Doesn’t Seem to Worry Trump
From The New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily. As President Trump has rolled out his economic agenda, the assumption was that he would quickly scale back his most aggressive policies once they began to scare consumers and the financial markets. That assumption turned out to be wrong. Today,
The Daily
Why a Worrisome Economy Doesn’t Seem to Worry Trump
And you have been trying to understand what that looks like and why it is. So tell us what you found.
The Daily
Why a Worrisome Economy Doesn’t Seem to Worry Trump
All that makes sense. But what Trump is doing now is much, much bigger when it comes to tariffs than what he did in his first term. And as a result, the risk of potential economic costs is much higher than in the first term. So far, it's not just been a wobbly stock market, but rapidly falling consumer confidence, for example.
The Daily
Why a Worrisome Economy Doesn’t Seem to Worry Trump
And yet, none of those problematic data points are acting as any kind of a break on it.
The Daily
Why a Worrisome Economy Doesn’t Seem to Worry Trump
All of which is to say that Trump thinks the real lesson of Term 1 when it comes to tariffs is that he went too small on tariffs and the costs were low. And if he can finally go much bigger on tariffs now in Term 2 because he's got the right advisors in place, the payoffs will be much bigger. The costs will remain low. But that feels like a real apples to oranges kind of comparison. Yeah.
The Daily
Why a Worrisome Economy Doesn’t Seem to Worry Trump
Are there people inside the administration saying to the president, look, Mr. President, of course we understand why you want to push for tariffs. We know how central it is to your message and your belief system. But you should know you're not really communicating it quite right. And the markets are very anxious about it. Perhaps there's something you can do differently.
The Daily
Why a Worrisome Economy Doesn’t Seem to Worry Trump
But its existence suggests that there's an understanding among the president's top aides and economic advisors that there's a problem here.
The Daily
Why a Worrisome Economy Doesn’t Seem to Worry Trump
And I've watched some of those interviews, and it seems worth saying how complicated it has become. I've seen the president's economic advisors go on TV and get asked a question like, can you please help us understand why the president is now saying that this new approach to tariffs might ultimately bring us into a recession? And the question is basically like, isn't that bad?
The Daily
Why a Worrisome Economy Doesn’t Seem to Worry Trump
Don't you not want that? And then the advisor then has to turn around and say, well, it would be a small recession. But it's a very tough position to put your economic aides
The Daily
Why a Worrisome Economy Doesn’t Seem to Worry Trump
Hmm. You seem to be suggesting that on some level, they might not really believe in this set of policies, but they do have to defend it.
The Daily
Why a Worrisome Economy Doesn’t Seem to Worry Trump
What does President Trump... or think about the fact that the majority of economists fundamentally disagree with him about the long-term prospects for tariffs. We just talked about this with Ben Castleman. He said that there's...
The Daily
Why a Worrisome Economy Doesn’t Seem to Worry Trump
pretty clearly a consensus that the short-term pain won't necessarily lead to the long-term gain of reindustrialization across the United States as a result of these tariffs. So what you may end up getting is not just short-term pain, but long-term pain without much gain.
The Daily
Why a Worrisome Economy Doesn’t Seem to Worry Trump
Is it right to think Donald Trump is kind of gambling his second term on tariffs? Yes.
The Daily
Why a Worrisome Economy Doesn’t Seem to Worry Trump
Well, the endgame one might presume, and you've hinted at this, is that the polls are pretty important to Donald Trump. He's never seemed to have a long-term stomach for unpopularity. And everything you've said here suggests that he might be able to disregard... markets for a while and the views of Wall Street. He doesn't need re-election.
The Daily
Why a Worrisome Economy Doesn’t Seem to Worry Trump
And he fundamentally believes in tariffs and has for a very long time and thinks he didn't get a shot to do it as big as he wished in the first term, so he's going to do it in this term.
The Daily
Why a Worrisome Economy Doesn’t Seem to Worry Trump
But if in a year, year and a half, two years, we're looking at polling that shows that the majority of Americans think he's mishandling the economy and prices are up and the long-term gain isn't arrived, but the short-term pain is very present, don't we expect that that he would change his approach to these tariffs?
The Daily
Why a Worrisome Economy Doesn’t Seem to Worry Trump
Or is the answer, no, not at all, because he really thinks that the only way to prove the experts wrong is to remain committed to it?
The Daily
Why a Worrisome Economy Doesn’t Seem to Worry Trump
Right, and nothing can cost an incumbent president control of Congress more than a problematic economy, high prices—
The Daily
Why a Worrisome Economy Doesn’t Seem to Worry Trump
On Thursday, President Trump signed an executive order instructing his education secretary to begin dismantling the Department of Education.
The Daily
Why a Worrisome Economy Doesn’t Seem to Worry Trump
Because the department was created by an act of Congress, it cannot be shut down without congressional action, something Trump called for on Thursday night. For now, the department will continue to carry out functions required by law, such as administering federal student aid and funding for special education.
The Daily
Why a Worrisome Economy Doesn’t Seem to Worry Trump
And the Times reports that Elon Musk's already enormous access and influence within the federal government are set to expand later today when he is briefed on the U.S. military's plans for any future war with China. That briefing will likely highlight Musk's many conflicts of interest, since he runs multiple businesses that hold government contracts, including with the Department of Defense.
The Daily
Why a Worrisome Economy Doesn’t Seem to Worry Trump
Today's episode was produced by Mary Wilson, Will Reed, and Rochelle Banja. It was edited by Mark George and Chris Haxell, contains original music by Marian Lozano and Dan Powell, and was engineered by Chris Wood. Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Landverk of Wonderly. That's it for The Daily. I'm Michael Barbaro. See you on Monday.
The Daily
Why a Worrisome Economy Doesn’t Seem to Worry Trump
But the risk, Ben, and I've learned this from you over the years, is that those eroding confidence and sentiment numbers become a self-fulfilling prophecy and they end up dragging down the hard economic numbers you just referred to.
The Daily
Why a Worrisome Economy Doesn’t Seem to Worry Trump
Well, let's talk about those reasons. Let's talk about the mechanics of these confidence numbers falling so precipitously. In my mind, there are two major things that the president has done that have affected the economy to what degree I don't quite understand. The first being his very aggressive and abrupt efforts to shrink the government, laying off thousands of workers, closing agencies.
The Daily
Why a Worrisome Economy Doesn’t Seem to Worry Trump
And the second, of course, is the tariffs he's imposed on goods imported into the U.S. Let's start with the cost-cutting to the government and how that has affected all the things you just talked about.
The Daily
Why a Worrisome Economy Doesn’t Seem to Worry Trump
My colleagues, economics reporter Ben Castleman and White House reporter Maggie Haberman, on why the Trump economic plan may be backfiring and why Trump doesn't seem to mind. It's Friday, March 21st. Hey, Ben. Hi, Michael. Good to have you back in the studio. It's been a while.
The Daily
Why a Worrisome Economy Doesn’t Seem to Worry Trump
So this is how cutting government spending or threatening to withhold it starts to really affect consumer and business sentiment. And in this case, academic sentiment, but their hires as well.
The Daily
Why a Worrisome Economy Doesn’t Seem to Worry Trump
The fact that thousands of people who work at the Veterans Affairs Department have just lost their jobs might influence how you feel about those benefits.
The Daily
Why a Worrisome Economy Doesn’t Seem to Worry Trump
Okay, so that's how the president's approach to cutting the government significantly is impacting businesses. the feelings around the economy, and in some cases, behavior in the economy. Let's turn to his approach to tariffs and how that helps us understand these problematic numbers that you've been seeing over the past few weeks.
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Why a Worrisome Economy Doesn’t Seem to Worry Trump
Which means the tariffs are very quickly having a financial impact.
The Daily
Why a Worrisome Economy Doesn’t Seem to Worry Trump
Well, one reason why this nervousness seems understandable is that the president himself has started to change the way he talks about tariffs. Now, he seems to be acknowledging that tariffs can actually really be disruptive to the economy.
The Daily
Why a Worrisome Economy Doesn’t Seem to Worry Trump
A period potentially of even recession.
The Daily
Why a Worrisome Economy Doesn’t Seem to Worry Trump
Is that a moment where we should give him points for candor or be startled by the fact that he's willing to pursue a set of policies that might bring us into a recession, which is never really any president's idea of a good set of policies? Right.
The Daily
Why a Worrisome Economy Doesn’t Seem to Worry Trump
As you know, we're two months into the Trump administration and therefore two months into the Trump economy. And he comes to office with a set of sweeping economic promises that the business community and the stock market and polling shows Americans generally are very excited about. More prosperity, lower costs, lower regulation, lower taxes. The market booms when he gets elected.
The Daily
Why a Worrisome Economy Doesn’t Seem to Worry Trump
What makes these economists confident that there won't be a golden era on the other end of this bloodletting, tough medicine pain?
The Daily
Why a Worrisome Economy Doesn’t Seem to Worry Trump
But the president does not seem remotely deterred by what the economists say.
The Daily
Why a Worrisome Economy Doesn’t Seem to Worry Trump
You're saying the only certainty that has emerged from the first two months of this Trump economic agenda is, is uncertainty and, to some real degree, pain.
The Daily
Why a Worrisome Economy Doesn’t Seem to Worry Trump
Stock market is surging. And then Trump starts to actually put his fingerprints on the economy. And the stock market has, over the past few weeks, been plunging. And now the Federal Reserve is telling us that the country's financial outlook is pretty unsteady. And Trump himself is now acknowledging that his plans may wreak a certain amount of havoc on the economy.
The Daily
Why a Worrisome Economy Doesn’t Seem to Worry Trump
After the break, Maggie Haberman on what the growing blowback over the economy has looked like from inside the White House. We'll be right back. So, Maggie, typically when economic data starts to show that a president's agenda is backfiring, the president tries to correct for it. That does not seem to be the case here with President Trump.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: Rewriting Histories
Elizabeth, how big a deal is this rewriting of our understanding of these agencies' relationship to the presidency? One way in which it would seem to matter is, as Charlie's hinting at, these were congressionally created agencies, congressionally insulated from the president. And so by taking that away, the president would seem to be pretty clearly encroaching on Congress's authority.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: Rewriting Histories
This is the kind of loaded gun theory, as one of the producers on our team put it, that you want to be careful with the authority you grant yourself because you're not going to be president forever.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: Rewriting Histories
I would disagree with collapsing into a heap, but yes. Really appreciate all of you being here. Today's loose theme is a rewriting of history in three parts. And the first place where in many minds history is being rewritten over the past few days is the war in Ukraine. And the backdrop...
The Daily
Trump 2.0: Rewriting Histories
Finally, our third, our final topic where history has been rewritten over the past few days, and that is rewriting the place of the Kennedy Center, of all places, which is designed to be the cultural center for the entire nation. It's home to the National Symphony Orchestra, the Washington National Opera.
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Trump 2.0: Rewriting Histories
It has now been cast by the president as a woke purveyor of drag shows that target children, and the president has taken it over, which I don't think most of us even knew he had the power to do. Elizabeth, in your new role as a... grand writer at large of all things happening in the Capitol, you have tried to understand this saga.
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Trump 2.0: Rewriting Histories
How did this even end up on the president's radar within the first few weeks of his presidency?
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Trump 2.0: Rewriting Histories
We should say there's an irony to this, of course, because Norman Lear was involved in creating a show I think of as quite kind of adjacent to the Trump era, which is All in the Family, a very populist show about a family in Queens.
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Trump 2.0: Rewriting Histories
is that Donald Trump began unilateral talks with Russia about ending the war in Ukraine without Ukraine's input, which we talked about in our roundtable last Friday. Zolan, if you would pick up the plot for us
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Trump 2.0: Rewriting Histories
I mean, Zolan, do you have any sense of what the president... now that he has essentially taken over the Kennedy Center, wants it to be under his supervision? And do we think he's actually going to play a supervisory role in the programming of this place?
The Daily
Trump 2.0: Rewriting Histories
So just to end this conversation, how should we think about these three, if we agree on these terms, kind of rewritings of history taken together? My own sense, I'll offer my own theory, is that when it comes to Donald Trump, there is this longstanding proven instinct to frame everything as much as possible as being in crisis, right? If you're a foe of Trump, it's the worst version of that person.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: Rewriting Histories
An institution is never just flawed, it's a failure. Something isn't just problematic, it's a crisis. There's not just waste in the government, it's corruption. And it would seem that that framework, which in many cases leads to a rewriting of a history, then justifies the depth and sweep of the changes that he wants to make.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: Rewriting Histories
That's at least how I have been thinking about this concept of rewriting history. I'm curious what you all think.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: Rewriting Histories
Well, to all three of you, my thanks. Elizabeth and Charlie Zolan, really good to have you. Thank you.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: Rewriting Histories
On Thursday, the U.S. Senate confirmed Kash Patel, President Trump's controversial choice to lead the FBI, despite his long history of attacking the bureau and calling for the investigation of Trump's political enemies. Democrats had hoped to block Patel, who they fear will carry out a campaign of retribution within the FBI. But only two Senate Republicans joined them in voting against Patel.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: Rewriting Histories
New York Governor Kathy Hochul said she will not exercise her authority to remove New York City's Mayor Eric Adams from office. Many Democrats have asked her to take that step because of allegations that Adams entered a corrupt agreement with the Trump White House to drop federal bribery charges against him.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: Rewriting Histories
Instead, Hochul will impose strict new guardrails on Adams to ensure that he's accountable to New York City voters, not just to President Trump. Those guardrails include creating an inspector general to police the mayor's office and establishing a legal fund that would allow city officials to sue the Trump administration, even if Mayor Adams is unwilling to do so.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: Rewriting Histories
Remember, you can catch a new episode of The Interview right here tomorrow. David Marchese speaks with Pulitzer Prize-winning science writer Ed Yong about his years covering COVID and why, in his mind, we're thinking about bird flu in all the wrong ways.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: Rewriting Histories
Today's episode was produced by Aastha Chaturvedi and Mary Wilson. It was edited by Rachel Quester and Chris Haxell. Contains original music by Dan Powell, Marion Lozano, and Pat McCusker. And was engineered by Chris Wood. Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Lansford of Wonderly. That's it for The Daily. I'm Michael Barbaro. See you on Monday.
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Trump 2.0: Rewriting Histories
And let me play that, Zolan, for all of us, because this is a moment I think worth lingering on, this specific remark from Trump.
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Trump 2.0: Rewriting Histories
And the context is, as you just said, Zolan, the president is growing impatient with Zelensky's complaints that he's not involved in the conversations with Russia. He's saying, Zelensky, you've been in this war for three years. You had a chance to end it. In fact, you started it. And I just want to linger on the idea that,
The Daily
Trump 2.0: Rewriting Histories
of that particular remark, Elizabeth, because to many people's minds, that is not just false, but potentially a very deliberate rewriting of history.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: Rewriting Histories
And what is the deliberateness of the strategy? I mean, what would be the rationale for saying this? If we assume that there is something deliberate about it, it didn't quite seem accidental.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: Rewriting Histories
To make sense of all of that, I spoke with three of my colleagues, White House reporter Zolan Kano-Youngs, national security reporter Charlie Savage, and writer-at-large Elizabeth Bumiller. It's Friday, February 21st. Friends, welcome to The Roundtable, where we acknowledge week after week that covering this presidency requires multiple minds in the same room at the same time.
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Trump 2.0: Rewriting Histories
I just want to make sure people understand what you're saying when you refer to the idea of Ukraine as a provocateur here. You mentioned NATO. I think we should just translate this for folks. The argument, and Putin makes it, and some foreign policy figures have made it less strongly than Putin, is that...
The Daily
Trump 2.0: Rewriting Histories
NATO's expansion, the growth of this defensive alliance that was created and designed to contain Russia's territorial ambitions, over time, especially as it contemplates allowing Ukraine in, becomes a provocation to Russia. Is that in some ways what Trump is parroting here?
The Daily
Trump 2.0: Rewriting Histories
I mean, Elizabeth, you posited it may be that he needs to villainize Zelensky in order to allow for a peace deal that cuts Zelensky out. But is he adopting this larger foreign policy framework as well?
The Daily
Trump 2.0: Rewriting Histories
From The New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily. This week, the president falsely claimed that Ukraine started the war against Russia. ordered independent federal agencies created by Congress to answer directly to him, and installed himself as the leader of Washington's premier cultural institution.
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Trump 2.0: Rewriting Histories
Right. Well, what do we think the answer is? I mean, that isn't what's actually happened yet. Do we think that's the plan?
The Daily
Trump 2.0: Rewriting Histories
Do you think that's a logical next step, Charlie? The United States leaving this military alliance it created to protect Europe from Russia?
The Daily
Trump 2.0: Rewriting Histories
I do want to talk about where, even within this framework of Trump doing some serious rewriting of history, there is an element where he would not seem to be rewriting history, where he would seem to be exactly where many Americans are. And that is in saying... that it's time for this conflict to end. Polling consistently shows that's where more and more Americans are.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: Rewriting Histories
And also that this would seem to be a European problem more than it would be an American problem. One of the comments Trump made over the past few days that got less attention than the comments he made about Ukraine starting the war or when he called Zelensky a dictator, which we haven't even talked about, is that he said there's an ocean between us and all of this conflict.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: Rewriting Histories
And I took that naturally to mean, Europe, it's your turn to deal with all of this.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: Rewriting Histories
Right. Charles, you had mentioned that some Republicans – in Congress find Trump's approach to Ukraine. I believe your word was grotesque. But so far, they're not doing much about that. The Senate Majority Leader John Thune was asked about the comments that Trump has been making specifically that Ukraine's Zelensky started this war. And his answer was basically, I don't want to talk about that.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: Rewriting Histories
I just want this conflict to come to an end. How much does that kind of a response have to do with, Zolan and Elizabeth, what you're saying? The public sentiment has moved on. What's the point of even bringing up what has been longstanding Republican hawkishness against Russia?
The Daily
Trump 2.0: Rewriting Histories
I want to thank you all for being here. Charlie. Thank you. Zolan. Thank you. Good to see you. And Elizabeth, making your debut here in this format. Thank you. And Elizabeth... Your resume requires just a little bit of an explanation. You were, until very recently, Charlie and Zolan's boss.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: Rewriting Histories
OK, well, we're going to take a break and when we come back, talk about how Trump is starting to rewrite something else, which is the president's relationship to power. We'll be right back. Okay, welcome back.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: Rewriting Histories
I want to turn Charlie, Elizabeth, and Zolan to the second place where the White House seems to be rewriting or revising history, and that's through an executive order he signed this past week dealing with independent agencies. Now, Professor Savage, Charlie, this is literally your wheelhouse.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: Rewriting Histories
Can you just start by explaining what an independent agency is and what the president's order has done to them?
The Daily
Trump 2.0: Rewriting Histories
This is helpful. So what does this executive order do to what you just described?
The Daily
Trump 2.0: Rewriting Histories
You were the Washington bureau chief overseeing all of our coverage of really the entire federal government during the first Trump administration and the entire Biden presidency, after which I think you justifiably collapsed into a heap and I assume...
The Daily
Ring-Kissing, Lawsuits and a Looming Shutdown
From The New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily.
The Daily
Ring-Kissing, Lawsuits and a Looming Shutdown
Maggie, I want to play a brief clip of how Donald Trump has been experiencing this ring kissing that Andrew has just described. He was asked about it and this is what he said.
The Daily
Ring-Kissing, Lawsuits and a Looming Shutdown
And unlike many of the threatened partial or full government shutdowns that have happened over the past couple of years, this one kind of came out of nowhere, right? Does that feel like an accurate statement? Who here wants to jump in? Katie?
The Daily
Ring-Kissing, Lawsuits and a Looming Shutdown
Hmm. Biden, the aberration. Trump, the second term president. Correct. Just thinking about where we started this conversation with a shutdown. These executives, Andrew, who are currying Trump's favor, who are showing up at Mar-a-Lago for dinner, when they see someone like Elon Musk do what he just did, do they think to themselves, oh, look, we really can have tons of influence here. Wow.
The Daily
Ring-Kissing, Lawsuits and a Looming Shutdown
We can genuinely change policy if we get in early enough and then make the call later on.
The Daily
Ring-Kissing, Lawsuits and a Looming Shutdown
That's interesting, especially when you consider that one of the things that happened between then, 2016, and now is January 6th. And yet, you're saying less stigma. The favor occurring that has stood out to many of us in the news media over the past week, I think, quite logically, because we're somewhat self-absorbed, is the ring kissing from media companies.
The Daily
Ring-Kissing, Lawsuits and a Looming Shutdown
And you mentioned Jeff Bezos going down there, the owner of the Washington Post. Well, what happened several weeks before the election, of course, was that at Jeff Bezos's request, the Washington Post pulled Hell Didn't Run, an editorial that was going to be endorsing Kamala Harris for president. That happened at the L.A. Times as well.
The Daily
Ring-Kissing, Lawsuits and a Looming Shutdown
And there's this concept emerging, a fear within the media that some major media companies are beginning to engage in something that has been dubbed anticipatory obedience. And it's in that context that we get ABC News making a pretty consequential decision to settle a defamation lawsuit filed by Trump which seemed to many to be a capitulation to Trump's efforts to intimidate the news media.
The Daily
Ring-Kissing, Lawsuits and a Looming Shutdown
Can you just meditate on that all for just a minute Andrew?
The Daily
Ring-Kissing, Lawsuits and a Looming Shutdown
I think he literally said, I'm in some ways the worst person to own this newspaper.
The Daily
Ring-Kissing, Lawsuits and a Looming Shutdown
Well, that was a Freudian slip perhaps because ABC is owned by Disney. Disney is a major corporation that might not want to be in Trump's crosshairs.
The Daily
Ring-Kissing, Lawsuits and a Looming Shutdown
Got it. So, Andrew, given what Maggie just said, essentially that Stephanopoulos made an on-air error and that ABC didn't then correct it, and this case is moving forward, back to you saying this is complicated and perhaps should be disentangled from anything else. Related to, for example, Bezos holding an editorial back.
The Daily
Ring-Kissing, Lawsuits and a Looming Shutdown
and perhaps alienate many of their viewers who thought, why can't you just admit you screwed up?
The Daily
Ring-Kissing, Lawsuits and a Looming Shutdown
I think, Andrew, you're making a persuasive case here that we shouldn't put all these things in one bucket. They're not entirely the same, especially the ABC defamation lawsuit.
The Daily
Ring-Kissing, Lawsuits and a Looming Shutdown
But no matter how you slice it, this has to be seen as a victory for Donald Trump, getting ABC News to settle a lawsuit and give him, I think, $15 million for his future presidential museum, and I think another million dollars for his legal fees. So to all three of you, just to kind of close this conversation out, if you are Donald Trump,
The Daily
Ring-Kissing, Lawsuits and a Looming Shutdown
Taking all of this in, the ability to trigger the explosion of a government spending bill when you're not even president, all of these CEOs who were once so skeptical coming down to have dinner with you to get into your good graces, getting a major news organization to settle a defamation lawsuit, which almost never happens.
The Daily
Ring-Kissing, Lawsuits and a Looming Shutdown
Weeks before his inauguration, President-elect Trump is pushing the federal government toward a shutdown.
The Daily
Ring-Kissing, Lawsuits and a Looming Shutdown
This is starting to feel like an exceptionally empowering stretch of time for Donald Trump.
The Daily
Ring-Kissing, Lawsuits and a Looming Shutdown
Okay, well, Maggie, Katie, Andrew, thank you all for your time. Really appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you, Michael.
The Daily
Ring-Kissing, Lawsuits and a Looming Shutdown
Andrew, pick up where Katie leaves off. Elon Musk, not traditionally a participant in congressional spending bill negotiations. Why is he involved, and what exactly does he do?
The Daily
Ring-Kissing, Lawsuits and a Looming Shutdown
Thank you, Michael. On Thursday night, the House voted down a last-minute proposal endorsed by President-elect Trump to keep the government open past Friday. Despite Trump's support, dozens of conservative Republicans opposed the plan, and nearly all House Democrats voted against it. There is now no clear path to avoiding a shutdown later tonight. We'll be right back.
The Daily
Ring-Kissing, Lawsuits and a Looming Shutdown
On Thursday, a French court convicted the ex-husband of Giselle Pellico and dozens of other men of raping her in a case that has shocked France and transformed Pellico into a feminist icon. Her husband, Dominique Pelico, received the maximum sentence of 20 years. The rest of the men were given sentences mostly ranging from six to nine years.
The Daily
Ring-Kissing, Lawsuits and a Looming Shutdown
After the verdicts were delivered, Giselle Pelico said that she was proud of her decision to open the trial up to the public and hoped that the outcome of the case might lead to a future in which men and women could live in harmony.
The Daily
Ring-Kissing, Lawsuits and a Looming Shutdown
A reminder, you can catch a new episode of The Interview right here tomorrow. David Marchese speaks with Jonathan Rumi about playing Jesus on the popular TV show The Chosen and the responses that Rumi gets from the show's fans.
The Daily
Ring-Kissing, Lawsuits and a Looming Shutdown
Just describe what he did and what it ends up doing, and then Maggie will get to how Trump responds to that.
The Daily
Ring-Kissing, Lawsuits and a Looming Shutdown
For the reasons Katie suggested, that suddenly it's larded up with stuff?
The Daily
Ring-Kissing, Lawsuits and a Looming Shutdown
Maggie, who's leading who by the nose here? I mean, Elon Musk does all that stuff. What does the president-elect do?
The Daily
Ring-Kissing, Lawsuits and a Looming Shutdown
The country's corporate titans are flocking to Mar-a-Lago to curry Trump's favor.
The Daily
Ring-Kissing, Lawsuits and a Looming Shutdown
OK, so, Katie, once Trump publicly agrees with Elon Musk, this is a bad bill. It should be blown up. Go back to the drawing board. What actually happens in the House that brings us to this point where it seems like we might actually have a government shutdown as of tonight at midnight or so?
The Daily
Ring-Kissing, Lawsuits and a Looming Shutdown
Explicitly. So suddenly, on top of blowing up a bill that he and Elon Musk think are inconsistent with his efforts to make government smaller, he's suddenly now asking Congress to increase the debt ceiling. which is not very Republican and not very government efficient, right, Andrew?
The Daily
Ring-Kissing, Lawsuits and a Looming Shutdown
And a major media company has capitulated to Trump's legal strategy of suing those who cross him. To make sense of all of this, I gathered three of my colleagues, senior political correspondent Maggie Haberman, congressional reporter Katie Edmondson, and financial columnist and the founder of Dealbook, Andrew Ross Sorkin. It's Friday, December 20th. Everyone. Welcome to The Roundtable.
The Daily
Ring-Kissing, Lawsuits and a Looming Shutdown
And do it not on his watch, because it's not consistent with what he thinks of as his self-image, but on the current president's watch. But, Katie, Republicans hate voting for raising the debt ceiling, and Dems aren't going to give them a win right now, I suspect, because they don't want to give Donald Trump a win. Does that equal deadlock and therefore shutdown?
The Daily
Ring-Kissing, Lawsuits and a Looming Shutdown
To the degree that we think this is Elon Musk's first real exercise of raw power, even if Trump might have eventually gotten there, are we now witnessing the risk of empowering whimsical billionaires in the way that Trump is starting to do.
The Daily
Ring-Kissing, Lawsuits and a Looming Shutdown
I have the question, Maggie, of whether Trump assumes that because he's not yet president, a shutdown, if it happens for all the reasons that he wants it to now happen, won't be something he gets blamed for. Is that true? And is that actually pretty reasonable political thinking at this moment?
The Daily
Ring-Kissing, Lawsuits and a Looming Shutdown
Trump benefits from this because he's really just delivering on what he said throughout the campaign he's going to do. You know, the whole point of having Doge was to carry out the promise of making government smaller and being really disruptive. What is more disruptive than before you're even president? Disrupting business as usual. So is this a very early and wise reading of the room by Trump?
The Daily
Ring-Kissing, Lawsuits and a Looming Shutdown
It's going to work out pretty well for him potentially.
The Daily
Ring-Kissing, Lawsuits and a Looming Shutdown
Katie, Maggie, Andrew, thank you all for making time for us. Thank you for having us.
The Daily
Ring-Kissing, Lawsuits and a Looming Shutdown
We're going to take a break. And when we come back, we're going to talk about how all of this, I think, connects to a much larger phenomenon, which is just how bound up this second Trump presidency already has become, not just with Elon Musk, but with all of corporate America. So we'll be right back. Thank you. have started to really pay homage to President-elect Trump.
The Daily
Ring-Kissing, Lawsuits and a Looming Shutdown
Okay, let's jump right in. We are talking to the three of you at a very live news moment, 12.33 p.m. on Thursday, with a government shutdown looming. And I mention that timing because events could change after we tape. There could, for example, be a deal to try to avert a shutdown. But I think shutdown is where we need to start this conversation.
The Daily
Ring-Kissing, Lawsuits and a Looming Shutdown
And I've come to think of this as a kind of great genuflection. Can you just give us a description of what that has looked like, the scale of it? And then I know, Maggie, you have lots of perspective on that as well from your reporting at Mar-a-Lago.
The Daily
Family Separation 2.0
The White House is increasingly seeking to deport those who came to the U.S. decades ago and have established a life, career, and family in America. Today, Daily producer Jessica Chung tells the story of one such migrant through the eyes of his daughter. It's Friday, May 2nd.
The Daily
Family Separation 2.0
Here's what else you need to know today. President Trump is ousting his national security advisor, Michael Waltz, the first major shakeup of Trump's inner circle since the start of his second term. Waltz had infuriated the president by including a journalist on a group chat that included highly sensitive plans to attack military targets in Yemen.
The Daily
Family Separation 2.0
And he further alienated Trump by espousing a worldview that is far more traditional and interventionist than the president's. Trump said that his secretary of state, Marco Rubio, would temporarily fill in for Waltz as national security advisor.
The Daily
Family Separation 2.0
And on Thursday, General Motors said that President Trump's tariffs would increase its cost this year by $4 to $5 billion, a vivid demonstration of the tariff's impact on American businesses. Much of that cost will come from GM cars that are made in Canada, Mexico, and South Korea and sold in the United States. many of them now carrying a 25% tariff.
The Daily
Family Separation 2.0
Today's episode was reported and produced by Jessica Chung. It was edited by Michael Benoit, with help from Ben Calhoun. It was fact-checked by Susan Lee, contains original music by Diane Wong, Dan Powell, Pat McCusker, Alicia Baetube, and Marion Lozano, and was engineered by Alyssa Moxley. Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Lansford of Wonderland. That's it for The Daily.
The Daily
Family Separation 2.0
From The New York Times, I'm Michael Bavaro. This is The Daily. In his first 100 days, President Trump has struggled to fulfill his promise of deporting one million undocumented immigrants, a reality that has prompted his administration to change its strategy. Rather than putting its focus on migrants with a criminal record or those who recently crossed the border,
The Daily
Do Trump Voters Like His Tariffs? We Went to Michigan to Find Out.
From The New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily. President Trump's tariffs have terrified stock markets, business owners, and anyone with a 401k, and raised the question of whether his approach to trade is becoming a major political liability. For voters in Michigan, the answer to that question is not so simple.
The Daily
Do Trump Voters Like His Tariffs? We Went to Michigan to Find Out.
and follow up with them, basically figure out what they make of his presidency so far.
The Daily
Do Trump Voters Like His Tariffs? We Went to Michigan to Find Out.
Asit, I want to talk about the bind that these tariffs seem to be putting the Democratic Party in. Because I think a lot of people might assume that if you're a Democrat, the obvious thing to do would be to condemn these tariffs for a lot of reasons. First, the fact that they come from Trump and that they were rolled out pretty haphazardly.
The Daily
Do Trump Voters Like His Tariffs? We Went to Michigan to Find Out.
And also, the fact that they are roiling the markets, that economists predict they might lead to inflation, possibly even a recession. But as you just pointed out, it's not that simple. Especially if, as a Democratic Party, you're trying not to alienate a block of voters that at least used to make up your coalition in some very crucial swing states.
The Daily
Do Trump Voters Like His Tariffs? We Went to Michigan to Find Out.
So if you're the Democratic Party, what do you do?
The Daily
Do Trump Voters Like His Tariffs? We Went to Michigan to Find Out.
That's complicated, right? Like, tariffs might be good, but Trump's tariffs are bad. I mean, that runs the risk of kind of validating what Trump is doing, but being critical of it at the same time. It sounds very mealy-mouthed.
The Daily
Do Trump Voters Like His Tariffs? We Went to Michigan to Find Out.
I mean, what you're really getting at is a party that is in-between and therefore not coming out very clearly in favor of tariffs and not coming out all that clearly against them, that does seem to bring you back to the challenge that you talked about in the first half of our conversation, which is that Trump's message Among all the things you can say about it, it's fundamentally clear. Yeah.
The Daily
Do Trump Voters Like His Tariffs? We Went to Michigan to Find Out.
The Democratic message, as you have just established, muddled again.
The Daily
Do Trump Voters Like His Tariffs? We Went to Michigan to Find Out.
I mean, if you could imagine a Democratic Party message that somehow cuts across all those groups, I wonder what exactly it sounds like in this moment.
The Daily
Do Trump Voters Like His Tariffs? We Went to Michigan to Find Out.
Mm-hmm. You and I are flying at a somewhat high altitude here politically in this conversation. There may very well come a moment in the next, let's call it, three, six, nine months where these tariffs, especially against China, if they remain in place, start to materially influence the price of everything. And then suddenly the facts on the ground might change that runway dramatically.
The Daily
Do Trump Voters Like His Tariffs? We Went to Michigan to Find Out.
Right. Folks might love the idea of Trump as the dealmaker, but that is contingent upon the deal actually working for them. Right.
The Daily
Do Trump Voters Like His Tariffs? We Went to Michigan to Find Out.
Well, Ted, thank you very much. Thank you for having me.
The Daily
Do Trump Voters Like His Tariffs? We Went to Michigan to Find Out.
For the second time in less than a year, a federal judge has ruled that Google has operated an illegal monopoly. In the latest ruling handed down on Thursday, a judge found that Google had broken the law as it built its dominance in online advertising. The ruling could eventually lead the Justice Department to seek a forced sale of Google's advertising products.
The Daily
Do Trump Voters Like His Tariffs? We Went to Michigan to Find Out.
And President Trump is lashing out at the chairman of the Federal Reserve, Jerome Powell, for warning that Trump's tariffs might raise inflation. Writing on social media, Trump said that Powell's firing, quote, "...cannot happen fast enough." Under the law, the Federal Reserve is independent of the White House, and Powell has said that he will not step down, even if Trump asks him to.
The Daily
Do Trump Voters Like His Tariffs? We Went to Michigan to Find Out.
But during a news conference in the Oval Office, Trump claimed that he could, in fact, force Powell out of his job.
The Daily
Do Trump Voters Like His Tariffs? We Went to Michigan to Find Out.
Today's episode was produced by Anna Foley and Caitlin O'Keefe, with help from Will Reed. It was edited by Devin Taylor, contains original music by Marion Lozano, and was engineered by Chris Wood, with help from Carol Saburo. Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Landsberg of Wonderly. That's it for The Daily. I'm Michael Barbaro. See you on Monday.
The Daily
Do Trump Voters Like His Tariffs? We Went to Michigan to Find Out.
So as you begin to reconnect with these voters on the specific topic of tariffs. Where do you begin? Who do you begin with?
The Daily
Do Trump Voters Like His Tariffs? We Went to Michigan to Find Out.
Right. Specifically, he has said tariffs are how we bring domestic manufacturing of cars back.
The Daily
Do Trump Voters Like His Tariffs? We Went to Michigan to Find Out.
OK. So tell us what happened when you followed up with her about the tariffs.
The Daily
Do Trump Voters Like His Tariffs? We Went to Michigan to Find Out.
Today, my colleague Astead Herndon explains what he found on the ground in Michigan and what it reveals about the dilemma that tariffs now pose for Democrats. It's Friday, April 18th. Sted, welcome back. Thank you. I love being here. You know, the last time you were on the show was election night itself. Yes. The live Nate Cohn call of the election, we'll never forget.
The Daily
Do Trump Voters Like His Tariffs? We Went to Michigan to Find Out.
It sounds like that branding brings to a person like Monica a measure of patience.
The Daily
Do Trump Voters Like His Tariffs? We Went to Michigan to Find Out.
What was your experience of the Democratic Party's message around this issue in the campaign, and I guess even up to this point?
The Daily
Do Trump Voters Like His Tariffs? We Went to Michigan to Find Out.
I remember very well. became the first president, I think, in history to walk the picket line.
The Daily
Do Trump Voters Like His Tariffs? We Went to Michigan to Find Out.
This is really interesting. So even if tariffs aren't necessarily the right solution being done in exactly the right way, they are the only solution being offered in that 2024 campaign because Democrats aren't really talking about how to bring those jobs back. They're just showing up at a picket line, and that is just clearly insufficient for her.
The Daily
Do Trump Voters Like His Tariffs? We Went to Michigan to Find Out.
Now, what about the prospect of that Trump's tariffs actually backfire on the car industry. My sense is that, to some degree, that has started to happen. I think it was Stellantis who came out and said, Because of these tariffs, we're going to have to take some people out of their jobs. That would seem to impinge on a runway that Trump would have with autoworkers like Monica.
The Daily
Do Trump Voters Like His Tariffs? We Went to Michigan to Find Out.
You were very memorable yourself. And what made you, I think, such a tremendous asset and colleague to have in the campaign was the fact that you were traveling the United States talking to voters, a lot of them Trump voters, and seeing things in a very clear way. And ever since, you have been waiting for the right moment to return to a lot of those voters.
The Daily
Waiting for the Immigration Raids, Again
It could be that deportations of people with no criminal records start and there's a public outcry and it gets limited. It may be that the logistics of it are just too complicated and that limits the scale of it. But if we take him at his word, he will soon declare a national emergency and begin rounding up undocumented immigrants and deporting them at a scale that's without precedent.
The Daily
Waiting for the Immigration Raids, Again
And so I want to understand how you, as somebody with a deportation order, and your family, how you're thinking about and planning for that possibility. What has that conversation with your husband and your two children, what has it been like?
The Daily
Waiting for the Immigration Raids, Again
Are you talking about the possibility of leaving the United States for Nicaragua? I mean, where are you when you're thinking about whether you're going to try to ride this out for another four years or contemplate something more dramatic?
The Daily
Waiting for the Immigration Raids, Again
From The New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily. Five years ago, we interviewed a woman who asked that we call her Herminia.
The Daily
Waiting for the Immigration Raids, Again
You're worried that he will be exposed to a raid because that's an obvious place for immigration customs enforcement officials to go.
The Daily
Waiting for the Immigration Raids, Again
You're worried that every time your husband calls you, he is also here without documentation. You're saying any time your phone rings during the Trump presidency, you're worried it's going to mean it's that call.
The Daily
Waiting for the Immigration Raids, Again
You mentioned nightmares. Do you have a recurring nightmare about this moment?
The Daily
Waiting for the Immigration Raids, Again
I mean, you just said that I'm going to stay here until I'm caught. I wonder how small you're willing to let your life become, how cautious you're willing to be. I mean, in order to have that work, are you willing to bring the shades back down? Oh, of course. Put the sign back on the door inside that tells your husband and your kids and visitors don't ever answer the door.
The Daily
Waiting for the Immigration Raids, Again
Home, work, work, home. Of course. No travel. No.
The Daily
Waiting for the Immigration Raids, Again
I mean, that's a very small world in which to occupy.
The Daily
Waiting for the Immigration Raids, Again
There may be those listening who think to themselves that you're describing a life of staying that is so circumscribed that you cannot even go to Walmart, that you cannot go to church, that your husband has to change his job. That sounds like a scenario in which it might be preferable to have some control over
The Daily
Waiting for the Immigration Raids, Again
over your life and decide when and how you leave and have the ability to pack your bags and say goodbye on your own terms rather than basically go into hiding and wait for something to happen.
The Daily
Waiting for the Immigration Raids, Again
Well, I remember your voice as well, and it's really nice to hear it again.
The Daily
Waiting for the Immigration Raids, Again
Unlike many migrants from Nicaragua, who were eventually granted protective status in the U.S., Herminia had arrived one year too late to qualify.
The Daily
Waiting for the Immigration Raids, Again
And you're worried that if you leave and try to control the situation, then they will leave too. And you know that will be almost automatic for them based on how they feel about you.
The Daily
Waiting for the Immigration Raids, Again
Because it means your daughters get to stay here too. Yes. I feel like I have to ask you this. If you don't make it through the next four years and you are deported... Would you try to come back into the United States? Would you try to do this all over again?
The Daily
Waiting for the Immigration Raids, Again
That chapter of your life, the American chapter, would be over?
The Daily
Waiting for the Immigration Raids, Again
And dignity means not returning to a country that has deported you.
The Daily
Waiting for the Immigration Raids, Again
If you end up leaving and it ends up being at the hands of deportation, is that going to change how you feel about America and about what America means?
The Daily
Waiting for the Immigration Raids, Again
I'm trying to make sense of what it means to you that your American journey may end with Americans having decided that the way you feel about it is not the way they feel about you.
The Daily
Waiting for the Immigration Raids, Again
Well, Raminia, I want to thank you for your time. Again. And no matter where you end up, I hope that we get to speak again.
The Daily
Waiting for the Immigration Raids, Again
We'll be right back. On Thursday, Israel's prime minister accused Hamas of backing away from the terms of the ceasefire deal announced a day earlier and jeopardizing the hard-fought agreement. According to Israel, Hamas has demanded changes for how Israeli troops are deployed along Gaza's border with Egypt and called for the release of, quote, "...terrorists that are unacceptable to Israel."
The Daily
Waiting for the Immigration Raids, Again
And by the time we reached her, she was the subject of a deportation order.
The Daily
Waiting for the Immigration Raids, Again
Nevertheless, U.S. officials expressed confidence that the ceasefire would still begin as planned on Sunday. And during his confirmation hearing, former Republican Congressman Lee Zeldin, Donald Trump's pick to run the Environmental Protection Agency, was pushed to affirm the existence of climate change.
The Daily
Waiting for the Immigration Raids, Again
Breaking with Trump, Zeldin said that climate change was not a hoax and said he was committed to working with career employees of the EPA, many of whom remain deeply suspicious of the Trump White House.
The Daily
Waiting for the Immigration Raids, Again
If you caught Monday's episode about the tech billionaire Mark Andreessen, a major figure in Silicon Valley's shift toward Donald Trump, our colleague, columnist Ross Douthat, has a new interview with Andreessen out this weekend. You can find it on the New York Times podcast, Matter of Opinion. Just search Matter of Opinion wherever you listen. Today's episode was produced by Jessica Chung.
The Daily
Waiting for the Immigration Raids, Again
It was edited by Devin Taylor. Contains research assistance from Susan Lee. Original music by Alishaba Etube, Rowing Emisto, and Pat McCusker. And was engineered by Alyssa Moxley. Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Lansford of Wonderly. That's it for The Daily. I'm Michael Barbaro. See you on Monday.
The Daily
Waiting for the Immigration Raids, Again
In the end, she was never arrested. And today, while her two daughters are U.S. citizens, Herminia and her husband remain in the U.S. illegally, despite what she says are repeated efforts to become a legal resident.
The Daily
Waiting for the Immigration Raids, Again
Which means we're creating more work for you with this conversation. So thank you for making time for us. I really, really appreciate it. Nah, it's nothing. So how are you doing? How is your family? How are you?
The Daily
Waiting for the Immigration Raids, Again
So a few days ago, I called Herminia back to understand what's happened to her since Trump left office and how she's now preparing for a second Trump term in which he's pledged to put the deportation of people like her at the center of his presidency. It's Friday, January 17th.
The Daily
Waiting for the Immigration Raids, Again
I want to just go back and understand when we first spoke to you in 2019, you were in this very acute fear of a deportation raid coming. It felt like there was a weekend we spoke to you where it felt like it could happen at any moment. And then Trump loses, Biden wins.
The Daily
Waiting for the Immigration Raids, Again
And he has, at that point, been campaigning on a message of a very different approach to immigration and especially undocumented immigrants. He says it's going to be much more humane. He says he's going to roll back a lot of Trump's policies. And so I just want to understand what that felt like for you once Biden took the White House. Did it make you reevaluate your life?
The Daily
Waiting for the Immigration Raids, Again
And what could you do or did you do? that you weren't willing to do when Trump was president?
The Daily
Waiting for the Immigration Raids, Again
The sign that said to your family, don't open the door.
The Daily
Waiting for the Immigration Raids, Again
When you say you felt protected, I mean, what did you allow yourself to do, or to feel, but mostly to do, that you didn't when Trump was president? I mean, going out into the world, having certain conversations, what are some examples? Were you willing to try things like driving again and traveling again?
The Daily
Waiting for the Immigration Raids, Again
Your passport, which is a Nicaraguan passport? Yes. And you just figured, because this administration is not... Harmful for me.
The Daily
Waiting for the Immigration Raids, Again
Then you can travel, you can go wherever you want to go in the country and you'll be fine.
The Daily
Waiting for the Immigration Raids, Again
What did that tell you about how Americans think about people like you?
The Daily
Waiting for the Immigration Raids, Again
Well, let's turn where I think you're turning. I wonder if there's a moment when you started to realize that despite Biden's election, that America's views, American public views on immigration, especially around illegal immigration, was changing, and that that change... meant that their views had become far less sympathetic. Was there a moment where you kind of detected that?
The Daily
Waiting for the Immigration Raids, Again
You're saying when border crossings started to surge at the beginning of Biden's presidency, you worried there would be a backlash?
The Daily
Waiting for the Immigration Raids, Again
It sounds like it's a hard question to answer for you.
The Daily
Waiting for the Immigration Raids, Again
So you could sense even among those who were undocumented themselves a frustration with what was happening under Biden because they didn't like it.
The Daily
Waiting for the Immigration Raids, Again
You're saying that those who have been here for a long time like you became frustrated with Biden's humanitarian parole program because it felt like a backdoor.
The Daily
Waiting for the Immigration Raids, Again
The backlash that it seems you feared would come. Eventually, of course, it feels like it did come, right? Because poll after poll, and I'm thinking, you know, 2022, 2023, early 2024, you know, polls started to show just how unhappy American voters were with how President Biden was handling immigration. Crossings hit these record highs, and across the political spectrum,
The Daily
Waiting for the Immigration Raids, Again
and we did polling here at the New York Times, we could see people saying they wanted stricter enforcement of immigration laws. They wanted deportations. Basically, more and more Americans wanted laws enforced against people like you. And I wonder how that felt.
The Daily
Waiting for the Immigration Raids, Again
It sounds like it perhaps did not surprise you when Trump reemerged over the past few years as a candidate and tapped into this backlash that you had feared would come and began to arrive.
The Daily
Waiting for the Immigration Raids, Again
I'm curious what it was like for you when the results came in. He not only won and won decisively, he won the community where you live so thoroughly. I mean, you live in the Miami-Dade area. And for the first time in decades, that community elected a Republican, and that was Donald Trump. And that meant that a majority Hispanic Latino community had elected a man who
The Daily
Waiting for the Immigration Raids, Again
who ran on a platform of taking on undocumented immigrants through mass deportation.
The Daily
Waiting for the Immigration Raids, Again
And I mean, you said what you said about the different groups and where they're from in the country. But did it did it feel like your own community had rejected you?
The Daily
Waiting for the Immigration Raids, Again
In other words, the people in Miami-Dade who you talked to after the election said, don't worry, this is not about you.
The Daily
Waiting for the Immigration Raids, Again
We'll be right back. Within the next few days, once he becomes president again, Donald Trump may order and perhaps even begin to undertake the mass deportations that he has talked about throughout his campaign. And we don't know what they would look like. It may be that in the end, as people in your community have said, he ends up just focusing on those with criminal records.
The Daily
Birthright Citizenship Reaches The Supreme Court
From The New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily. On Thursday, the Trump administration's effort to abolish birthright citizenship finally ended up in front of the Supreme Court. Today. My colleague, Adam Liptak, on the White House's unusual legal strategy for defending its plan and what it may mean for the future of presidential power. It's Friday, May 16th.
The Daily
Birthright Citizenship Reaches The Supreme Court
And we will review what those lawyers said after the break. So, Adam, on the other side of this case were lawyers for those who have won these universal injunctions against Trump's executive order on birthright citizenship who were trying to defend those injunctions. So talk to us about their arguments before the justices.
The Daily
Birthright Citizenship Reaches The Supreme Court
So basically, New Jersey's Solicitor General is saying, if, justices, you don't like nationwide injunctions, I am not here to tell you that they're wonderful, but I am here to tell you that if you don't let a universal injunction survive in this specific case, it's going to create a tremendous amount of mayhem across the country. Right. And how compelled were the justices by this argument?
The Daily
Birthright Citizenship Reaches The Supreme Court
Right. You don't need a universal injunction or even a debate about them if the Supreme Court is asked whether the president's executive order itself is constitutional. Exactly right.
The Daily
Birthright Citizenship Reaches The Supreme Court
The case is submitted. So Adam, given the reality that the Trump administration is not bringing the merit-based case to the court, instead it's bringing this case that tries to invalidate nationwide injunctions, how do you think the justices are likely to rule in this case and how quickly? I mean, clearly they're skeptical of the White House's position here.
The Daily
Birthright Citizenship Reaches The Supreme Court
They're equally skeptical to some degree of nationwide injunctions. So where do you think they're going to land?
The Daily
Birthright Citizenship Reaches The Supreme Court
In other words, there's some chance that they might not rule at all and ask for the entire enchilada instead.
The Daily
Birthright Citizenship Reaches The Supreme Court
Adam, assuming that the justices don't seek... the bigger merit-based case to come before them, but they rule in a way that narrowly upholds the injunction in this case. What will that mean for the Trump agenda to have lost this bid to strike down basically all nationwide injunctions?
The Daily
Birthright Citizenship Reaches The Supreme Court
Right. Because nationwide injunctions curb the power of this really powerful president. And if in general, the court starts to disfavor those injunctions, then this presidency grows even more powerful than it already is.
The Daily
Birthright Citizenship Reaches The Supreme Court
Well, Adam, thank you very much. We appreciate it.
The Daily
Birthright Citizenship Reaches The Supreme Court
On Thursday, President Trump said that his staff was nearing a nuclear deal with Iran, a major foreign policy goal of his second term. Negotiators from the United States and Iran have held four rounds of talks, but so far the exact details of any potential deal remain unknown.
The Daily
Birthright Citizenship Reaches The Supreme Court
Well, before we get to the White House's effort to undercut nationwide injunctions, which seems very central to this case, I want to make sure we establish why the Trump White House would make the kind of concession you just described to 22 states where this was blocked and not try to defend banning birthright citizenship on the merits. Why did they so quickly bypass that option, do you think?
The Daily
Birthright Citizenship Reaches The Supreme Court
The retail giant Walmart said that President Trump's reciprocal tariffs would force it to raise prices on a wide range of goods starting later this month, even after President Trump rolled back his biggest tariffs. In an interview with CNBC, the company's chief financial officer said that it was now impossible for Walmart to keep prices at their current rates.
The Daily
Birthright Citizenship Reaches The Supreme Court
Today's episode was produced by Muj Zaydi, Alex Stern, Will Reed, Eric Krupke, and Michael Simon-Johnson, with help from Alexandra Lee Young. It was edited by Liz O'Balin and Devin Taylor, contains original music by Pat McCusker and Marian Lozano, and was engineered by Chris Wood. Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Landsberg of Wonderly. That's it for The Daily. I'm Michael Barbaro.
The Daily
Birthright Citizenship Reaches The Supreme Court
So on to this question of injunctions, nationwide injunctions, why have they, Adam, been so widely criticized?
The Daily
Birthright Citizenship Reaches The Supreme Court
Right. OK, so, Adam, take us into the courtroom as the lawyer for the Trump administration makes the argument that these widely criticized injunctions should basically go away and in so doing allow President Trump's efforts to outlaw birthright citizenship to remain largely in place.
The Daily
Birthright Citizenship Reaches The Supreme Court
And as he's making this legal case against injunctions, what is the lawyer for the White House really asking the justices to do here? I mean, what world does he want to exist if the Supreme Court does away with these injunctions?
The Daily
Birthright Citizenship Reaches The Supreme Court
Adam, always a distinct pleasure to have you on the show.
The Daily
Birthright Citizenship Reaches The Supreme Court
Got it. Right. He wants a world where there's greater judicial restraint and deference to the executive when they propose something like this. So what do the justices have to say to that argument?
The Daily
Birthright Citizenship Reaches The Supreme Court
Let's talk about this case that was argued on Thursday before the Supreme Court. It's genuinely intriguing because it's not directly about President Trump's history-making decision to try to outlaw birthright citizenship, but it's not not about his effort to ban birthright citizenship. So just explain that.
The Daily
Birthright Citizenship Reaches The Supreme Court
Got it. So the justices start to identify a little bit of a contradiction or I guess a judicial problem here, which is that the White House has shown no desire to take this case all the way up to the Supreme Court while they're asking for the quickest remedy in the lower courts to be invalidated.
The Daily
Birthright Citizenship Reaches The Supreme Court
But was it a candid channeling of the president's view of this?
The Daily
Birthright Citizenship Reaches The Supreme Court
Adam, it's around this time that Justice Kagan weighs in with a very firm theory about why she thinks the president will not ever bring this case based on the merits to the legal system, which is basically she thinks they have no shot of winning.
The Daily
Birthright Citizenship Reaches The Supreme Court
So what the justices are starting to discern is that the White House is going to do everything in its power to never have the high court issue a firm final ruling on its efforts to end birthright citizenship. And although they have taken this case, this side door case, they're expressing some real frustration with that fear.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: Musk in the Oval, a Gift to Mayor Adams and a Win for Putin
Well, we're going to take a break. And Zolan, when we come back, we're going to return to the phrase you just used, overseas, and talk about projections of power in international affairs. We'll be right back. Welcome back to David, Zola, and Maggie.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: Musk in the Oval, a Gift to Mayor Adams and a Win for Putin
It feels like the story of this presidency so far is the extraordinary wielding of power by President Trump and a remarkable wielding of power by Elon Musk, private citizen and the world's richest man. And they've been happening simultaneously and seemingly a little bit independently. And this week, we saw those two things come together in a very vivid and at times weird way in the Oval Office.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: Musk in the Oval, a Gift to Mayor Adams and a Win for Putin
I want to turn to the president's actions this week overseas because after focusing so heavily on his battle against the federal bureaucracy, he's now inserted himself quite forcefully into two of the world's biggest conflicts, the war in Ukraine and the war between Israel and Hamas. Let's start with Ukraine.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: Musk in the Oval, a Gift to Mayor Adams and a Win for Putin
David, in just about the past 48 hours, it feels like Trump tossed out most of, if not all of America's existing approach to the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, which was to isolate Russia and to support Ukraine. Can you briefly tick through what the administration did and where it leaves the conflict?
The Daily
Trump 2.0: Musk in the Oval, a Gift to Mayor Adams and a Win for Putin
We should explain that when you're in Europe, that's what the sirens sound like behind you.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: Musk in the Oval, a Gift to Mayor Adams and a Win for Putin
Right. Imperialism will not be rewarded.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: Musk in the Oval, a Gift to Mayor Adams and a Win for Putin
Maggie, I want to understand why a president who wrote a book called The Art of the Deal, who sees himself as a master negotiator, would start a peace process that many people believe should start now between Russia and Ukraine by giving away so much leverage to Russia. On top of what David described,
The Daily
Trump 2.0: Musk in the Oval, a Gift to Mayor Adams and a Win for Putin
The Trump administration in the past couple of days has said that Ukraine should not enter NATO, the alliance that would protect it from future Russian invasion. It has said that Ukraine is never going to return to its pre-invasion borders. Between those two proclamations and Trump's with Putin, it really does feel like he's starting a peace process almost entirely on Russia's terms.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: Musk in the Oval, a Gift to Mayor Adams and a Win for Putin
Why would he give away that much leverage to Russia?
The Daily
Trump 2.0: Musk in the Oval, a Gift to Mayor Adams and a Win for Putin
Maggie, for anyone who didn't see this or watch it, can you just describe this scene?
The Daily
Trump 2.0: Musk in the Oval, a Gift to Mayor Adams and a Win for Putin
Maggie, that's one of my questions, is... I know we're struggling to pin down a Trump ideology when it comes to foreign affairs. Zolan, you're describing it as transactional. But I wonder if we're underestimating the element of imperialism that David just hinted at.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: Musk in the Oval, a Gift to Mayor Adams and a Win for Putin
And if what's partly going on here is that Trump is giving Russia the deference that he wants the world to give him if he tries to, say, take Greenland or the Panama Canal or Gaza.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: Musk in the Oval, a Gift to Mayor Adams and a Win for Putin
Maggie, I want to pick up on something you're saying about how this all relates to the way his administration is treating something as local as the Adams case and how that has global implications. And I want to apply that to Gaza.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: Musk in the Oval, a Gift to Mayor Adams and a Win for Putin
The president has articulated this plan, which some don't see as literal, some do, to permanently remove all two million Palestinians in Gaza, move them to neighboring Arab countries, including Egypt and Jordan, and then have the U.S. take over Gaza and lead its redevelopment into what Trump has called a city for the peoples of the world. Many people read that to mean mostly Israelis.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: Musk in the Oval, a Gift to Mayor Adams and a Win for Putin
What ends up happening in the past couple of days, and I know a few of you covered this, is that the leader of Jordan, King Abdullah, one of the countries that would have to accept Palestinians, comes to the White House, and Trump is trying to sell him on this plan. And it's very clear how uncomfortable the leader of Jordan is.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: Musk in the Oval, a Gift to Mayor Adams and a Win for Putin
So I want you to apply that prism, Maggie, Zola, and David, that you just did of the way Trump uses power locally, how it applies to an international situation like this.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: Musk in the Oval, a Gift to Mayor Adams and a Win for Putin
What you're really getting at here is that when it comes to the domestic and the international front, This version of the Trump presidency, this undiluted, unrestrained, Maggie, to use your words, version of it, is one where the victors win totally, right? In the case of Russia-Ukraine, Russia will win almost totally.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: Musk in the Oval, a Gift to Mayor Adams and a Win for Putin
In the case of Israel versus Hamas when it comes to Gaza, Israel will pretty much win totally. And in his interactions with the bureaucracy or Eric Adams, it will be Trump who will win totally.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: Musk in the Oval, a Gift to Mayor Adams and a Win for Putin
Well, on that unexpected, incredibly erudite literary note, David, thank you. Zolan, thank you. Maggie, thank you. And again, happy Valentine's Day.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: Musk in the Oval, a Gift to Mayor Adams and a Win for Putin
On Thursday afternoon, the U.S. attorney for Manhattan resigned, rather than obey the order from Trump's Justice Department, to dismiss corruption charges against New York City Mayor Eric Adams. In a letter, the U.S.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: Musk in the Oval, a Gift to Mayor Adams and a Win for Putin
attorney said she could no longer remain in the job because, quote, "...the law does not support a dismissal, and because I am confident that Adams has committed the crimes with which he is charged." Soon after, the Justice Department sought to reassign the case to a different team of lawyers in Washington.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: Musk in the Oval, a Gift to Mayor Adams and a Win for Putin
But the two attorneys who run that team, as well as three of their colleagues, also resigned rather than follow the order. The six resignations were a remarkable rebuke of the administration's decision to end the case against Mayor Adams. We'll be right back. Here's what else you need to know today.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: Musk in the Oval, a Gift to Mayor Adams and a Win for Putin
In the latest legal setback to President Trump's executive orders, a federal judge ordered the White House to keep funding hospitals that offer gender transition treatments to people under the age of 19. Trump had sought to block that funding, which was already approved by Congress on ideological grounds.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: Musk in the Oval, a Gift to Mayor Adams and a Win for Putin
But in the ruling, the judge said that Trump's order encroached on Congress's power and put trans youth at, quote, extreme risk. And on Thursday, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was confirmed as the next Secretary of Health and Human Services and sworn in during a ceremony in the Oval Office.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: Musk in the Oval, a Gift to Mayor Adams and a Win for Putin
Kennedy, a vaccine skeptic who failed to win a single Democratic vote in the Senate, had explicitly sought the role of health secretary in return for his endorsement of Trump during the campaign. Today's episode was produced and edited by Rachel Quester, Sophie Erickson, Brooke Minters, Roman Safiulin, Eddie Costas, and Nikta Mahmoudi, with help from Shannon Lin.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: Musk in the Oval, a Gift to Mayor Adams and a Win for Putin
It contains original music by Marion Lozano, Pat McCusker, and Dan Powell, and was engineered by Alyssa Moxley. Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Landsvog of Winderlea. Remember, you can catch a new episode of The Interview right here tomorrow. Lulu Garcia-Navarro talks with Senator Ruben Gallego of Arizona about where he thinks his party has gone wrong.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: Musk in the Oval, a Gift to Mayor Adams and a Win for Putin
I think Democrats are afraid to talk to Trump voters. I think Democrats are afraid to talk to people that are going to criticize them. That's it for The Daily. I'm Michael Barbaro. See you on Monday.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: Musk in the Oval, a Gift to Mayor Adams and a Win for Putin
Right, well, Zolan and David, I want to bring you in. What immediately stood out about this scene was not just the fact that Elon Musk was there defending and justifying his unusual role. It was just the fact of him holding court next to a sitting President Trump for 30 minutes in this room that is the very definition of American presidential power. It was the stature that it conferred on Musk.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: Musk in the Oval, a Gift to Mayor Adams and a Win for Putin
And you all know this, but there's been this running motif here that Musk is a kind of co-president. And Time magazine went so far over the past couple days as to put Musk on the cover of its latest issue, sitting behind the Resolute desk with a coffee mug in his hand. And this scene didn't seem to combat that, or did it?
The Daily
Trump 2.0: Musk in the Oval, a Gift to Mayor Adams and a Win for Putin
To make sense of all of that, I turned to three of my colleagues, White House reporters Maggie Haverman, David Sanger, and Zolin Kano-Youngs. It's Friday, February 14th. Friends, welcome back to The Roundtable. But first, happy Valentine's Day.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: Musk in the Oval, a Gift to Mayor Adams and a Win for Putin
From The New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily. Today. Over the past week, President Trump dramatically ceded the stage to Elon Musk in the Oval Office, turned the Democratic mayor of New York City into a kind of political pawn, and ensured that Vladimir Putin begins peace talks with Ukraine on Russia's terms.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: Musk in the Oval, a Gift to Mayor Adams and a Win for Putin
There seems to be an interesting thing happening where the president and Elon Musk believe that to justify their cost-cutting, they need to find and highlight corruption, just egregious cases of bad behavior, when it seems for the most part that's probably not what they're going to find.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: Musk in the Oval, a Gift to Mayor Adams and a Win for Putin
Why is it that they're having such a hard time just saying, we want to cut government because we want to cut government? Why do they feel the need to brand everything as corrupt, as kickbacks, to make claims that so malign the workforce, for which there's no evidence?
The Daily
Trump 2.0: Musk in the Oval, a Gift to Mayor Adams and a Win for Putin
I just want to close out this conversation about Elon Musk because this idea, this motif of a co-presidency is so much in the air. I just want to get some clarity on this. Maggie, is there a version of this where we should see Trump giving Elon Musk this kind of a platform as him actually exerting some power over Musk?
The Daily
Trump 2.0: Musk in the Oval, a Gift to Mayor Adams and a Win for Putin
I mean, if you watch the president set it up, he said, I've asked Elon Musk to come here to offer a few remarks. And, you know, even though Trump was sitting there at their resolute desk not saying much during the entire time Musk was talking, he was sitting at the resolute desk. That's his desk. It was very clear he was the president.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: Musk in the Oval, a Gift to Mayor Adams and a Win for Putin
Is there a way of flipping this around a little bit and seeing this as him kind of bringing Musk to heel?
The Daily
Trump 2.0: Musk in the Oval, a Gift to Mayor Adams and a Win for Putin
Thank you, Michael.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: Musk in the Oval, a Gift to Mayor Adams and a Win for Putin
Right, you're working for me now. Not a big deal.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: Musk in the Oval, a Gift to Mayor Adams and a Win for Putin
Wow. I didn't know that over the past week, among all the remarkable things, Elon Musk essentially cut a check to Donald Trump for many millions of dollars.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: Musk in the Oval, a Gift to Mayor Adams and a Win for Putin
I mean, who else would you spend it with?
The Daily
Trump 2.0: Musk in the Oval, a Gift to Mayor Adams and a Win for Putin
Yep. So Musk and Doge and... all this cost-cutting and conflict of interest, risk overshadowing something else really important that happened this week, which is that the Trump administration, its Justice Department, asked prosecutors in New York to drop sweeping federal corruption charges against the city's mayor here, Eric Adams. Maggie, you've covered this story very closely.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: Musk in the Oval, a Gift to Mayor Adams and a Win for Putin
Can you just remind us very briefly of the basics of this case and how we got to this point where the Trump administration is demanding... that charges for a big city Democratic mayor be dropped.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: Musk in the Oval, a Gift to Mayor Adams and a Win for Putin
I trust you to do this.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: Musk in the Oval, a Gift to Mayor Adams and a Win for Putin
I can, too. You have a wonderful husband. David, appreciate you joining us from Munich. I was going to say from Paris, city of love.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: Musk in the Oval, a Gift to Mayor Adams and a Win for Putin
There seems to be a quid pro quo implied here.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: Musk in the Oval, a Gift to Mayor Adams and a Win for Putin
The implied give and take here is that the Democratic mayor of America's biggest city, will become an ally of the president, and most importantly, not a critic of things like his immigration agenda, if and once this administration drops these charges.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: Musk in the Oval, a Gift to Mayor Adams and a Win for Putin
Right. I just want to be clear what you guys are saying. The Justice Department, in saying they think these charges should be dropped, basically said we'd really like to work with this mayor to conduct immigration raids and get undocumented immigrants out of New York City.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: Musk in the Oval, a Gift to Mayor Adams and a Win for Putin
Yep. You've been traveling with the Vice President. Zolan and Maggie, appreciate you coming to us from our studio in Washington, D.C., I just want to set up this conversation. Loosely speaking, our theme this week is projections of power, exercises of power by the Trump administration, both overseas and here at home. And we're going to start here at home.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: Musk in the Oval, a Gift to Mayor Adams and a Win for Putin
blowing my mind just a little bit. David, for many people, this scenario is pretty straightforwardly a subversion of the normal system of justice in the country. Putting that aside for a moment, if you wish to, just as importantly, it would seem to make the mayor of New York City something of a – and I'm going to use this word, and you all can correct me if you think it's too strong –
The Daily
Trump 2.0: Musk in the Oval, a Gift to Mayor Adams and a Win for Putin
a pawn of the president. Because it would seem, from what Maggie said, that their plan is to drop the case but say they could bring it back. That message would seem to be, we can make all your problems go away, Mr. Mayor, or we can make your problems come right back.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: Musk in the Oval, a Gift to Mayor Adams and a Win for Putin
That would end my career. That would end my career.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: Musk in the Oval, a Gift to Mayor Adams and a Win for Putin
You're saying there's a real Machiavellian value in arranging the situation such that Adams simply cannot afford to not do the president's bidding.
The Daily
The Conservative Activist Pushing Trump to Attack U.S. Colleges
We'll be right back. Well, I think that brings us to how the Trump administration is pursuing this playbook of yours, the Rufo playbook. So far, Trump has withheld $400 million from Columbia University, $500 million from Brown, $9 billion in funding from Harvard, several hundred million from Princeton.
The Daily
The Conservative Activist Pushing Trump to Attack U.S. Colleges
And the White House has so far framed this as being about anti-Semitism and to a degree about DEI on campus. And it's made very specific demands. of these universities for how students are to be disciplined, how campus rules are to be enforced, how certain departments, for example, Middle Eastern studies programs, are to be run. But the context and the motivation seems to be bigger.
The Daily
The Conservative Activist Pushing Trump to Attack U.S. Colleges
It's everything that you have been talking about here. And the president has talked about it even all the way back during the campaign when he said he wanted to reclaim our once great educational institutions from the radical left. So what's an ideal outcome of holding up this money? In your mind, what should a university look like?
The Daily
The Conservative Activist Pushing Trump to Attack U.S. Colleges
What could it look like when the Trump administration says all those hundreds of millions, in some cases, billions of dollars that you are relying on, we're holding it back unless you change your culture, your practices, in some case, your curriculum?
The Daily
The Conservative Activist Pushing Trump to Attack U.S. Colleges
And in this version of a university, would anything on the curriculum be off limits or would you be open to leaving that forever? and would the Trump administration be open to leaving that to the universities? I mean, could there be a critical race theory class, critical identities studies class, critical ethnic studies class?
The Daily
The Conservative Activist Pushing Trump to Attack U.S. Colleges
I mention those because you have talked about those as being very problematic.
The Daily
The Conservative Activist Pushing Trump to Attack U.S. Colleges
That's where you draw the line in terms of academic freedom. The universities need to have that. So...
The Daily
The Conservative Activist Pushing Trump to Attack U.S. Colleges
I'm curious, Chris, what it's like for you in this moment to watch this activism that I know you've pursued for so many years come to such full fruition under President Trump. Because in so many ways, your vision for how to challenge what universities in this country have become seems to have been adopted by the White House.
The Daily
The Conservative Activist Pushing Trump to Attack U.S. Colleges
You no doubt know that the leaders of a lot of colleges, especially private colleges, they do not... Share your goal. And they fiercely believe that it would do serious damage to their institutions. And we just spoke with the president of Princeton University, Chris Eisgruber.
The Daily
The Conservative Activist Pushing Trump to Attack U.S. Colleges
And when presented with the challenges that he has been by the president, including the threat of hundreds of millions of dollars, he said very clearly to my colleague, Rachel Abrams, he will not be making any concessions to the White House. He was very clear about that. And he cited a few reasons. And one of them was the subject we just spoke about, academic freedom.
The Daily
The Conservative Activist Pushing Trump to Attack U.S. Colleges
His belief that academics, academic researchers, administrators at the university, they should not have terms dictated to them by the government. That that's a principle, a very high-level principle central to the operation of a university. Now, I know you just distinguished between The government calling the shots on what class gets taught or which department exists and the administration.
The Daily
The Conservative Activist Pushing Trump to Attack U.S. Colleges
But I think his point would cut through that distinction. And he would simply say the government should not be telling us how to function.
The Daily
The Conservative Activist Pushing Trump to Attack U.S. Colleges
Well, can we talk about that money for a minute? Because the universities, when they received that money, understood it to be intended for research and endeavors in the name of the public good. None of them, I think, would say that they were given the binary choice that you just outlined.
The Daily
The Conservative Activist Pushing Trump to Attack U.S. Colleges
Well, the other argument that Princeton's president made revolved around the idea of what the political complexity and complexion of a university is supposed to be. And the president of Princeton concedes that universities like his can and should do better.
The Daily
The Conservative Activist Pushing Trump to Attack U.S. Colleges
when it comes to making conservatives feel more welcomed and should become, in his words, a place where conservatives feel they can speak up and where important conservative arguments can be heard
The Daily
The Conservative Activist Pushing Trump to Attack U.S. Colleges
But, and this was really interesting, and I want to get your reaction to it, he said that that is very different, making sure that there is a place for diversity of views on campus, that that is very different than saying that a university should reflect the political ideology of the country. And he says, we shouldn't actually try to do that.
The Daily
The Conservative Activist Pushing Trump to Attack U.S. Colleges
We're not a Sunday morning talk show, is what he said, trying to achieve ideological balance. And he went on to say there are political divisions about things like climate and vaccines right now, but there is no obligation on the part of universities to reflect what is the political division of opinion on those subjects. So what do you say to that?
The Daily
The Conservative Activist Pushing Trump to Attack U.S. Colleges
So, Chris, I want to understand the practical implications of, at the beginning of our conversation, what you call this industrialized effort to freeze, hold up so much money at these universities. If someone like the president of Princeton decides at the end of the day, they're not going to make concessions to the administration. then this money doesn't go to what it was designated for.
The Daily
The Conservative Activist Pushing Trump to Attack U.S. Colleges
And in many cases, that is scientific research. And the president of Princeton spoke about this when he talked about the impact of these dollars not reaching their designated endpoint. He wasn't talking about the social sciences, where so many of the liberal ideas that you're talking about would seem to have a natural home, but the hard sciences, right? cancer research, medical research.
The Daily
The Conservative Activist Pushing Trump to Attack U.S. Colleges
And how do you make sure that you're not abusing that power? I mean, I know that what you may be about to say is that in your mind, universities have abused their influence in the culture when it comes to left-wing ideas.
The Daily
The Conservative Activist Pushing Trump to Attack U.S. Colleges
I mean, just to put a fine point on the specificity with which what you have been advocating for is now happening, I was really struck by something you told my colleague Ross Douthat from the opinion side of the Times not so long ago. And I'm going to quote you here. This is what you said.
The Daily
The Conservative Activist Pushing Trump to Attack U.S. Colleges
How do you know or make sure that you, Chris Ruffo, with the tremendous power that you have achieved as an activist in this era, are not abusing yours and letting your instincts, your personal peak, your ego, and I don't say that to be mean, dictate who lives and dies as the leader of these universities? Chris?
The Daily
The Conservative Activist Pushing Trump to Attack U.S. Colleges
Chris, I want you to contemplate a scenario here where these universities decide to try to live without this federal money, which in some cases is significant when it comes to their operating budgets. And let's say they walk away from some of the research that we have been talking about. Or they borrow a lot of money. I think Harvard is starting to contemplate that.
The Daily
The Conservative Activist Pushing Trump to Attack U.S. Colleges
Is that a scenario where you end up losing your only real leverage over them? And would that mean that you have failed to achieve your original goal of having changed these universities? You have changed them because they'll be smaller. They'll be doing less research, but you haven't necessarily changed them in the way that you intended. Would that be a failure?
The Daily
The Conservative Activist Pushing Trump to Attack U.S. Colleges
A medium or long-term goal of mine is to figure out how to adjust the formula of finances from the federal government to the universities in a way that puts them in an existential terror and have them say, unless we change what we're doing, we're not going to be able to meet our budget for the year. They're going to have to make, you said, really hard decisions.
The Daily
The Conservative Activist Pushing Trump to Attack U.S. Colleges
But there would be this other casualty, right? Less cancer research, less obesity research, less scientific breakthrough and innovation.
The Daily
The Conservative Activist Pushing Trump to Attack U.S. Colleges
They would tell you that those private dollars are not readily available. There's no substitute available. Thank you.
The Daily
The Conservative Activist Pushing Trump to Attack U.S. Colleges
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
The Daily
The Conservative Activist Pushing Trump to Attack U.S. Colleges
I mean, that is what is now happening to universities under President Trump.
The Daily
The Conservative Activist Pushing Trump to Attack U.S. Colleges
Thank you. I don't know. Thank you. Thank you. Bye. Thank you. Thank you.
The Daily
The Conservative Activist Pushing Trump to Attack U.S. Colleges
From The New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily. Over the past five years, the activist Christopher Ruffo has spearheaded the conservative critique of and direct assault on critical race theory and DEI.
The Daily
The Conservative Activist Pushing Trump to Attack U.S. Colleges
Well, I want to better understand, Chris, why it is you've come to see this strategy that you want to have implemented, not only on the scale it's already being implemented on, but as you said, on an industrial scale, why you've come to see this as the right strategy for changing universities in the way you want to see them changed.
The Daily
The Conservative Activist Pushing Trump to Attack U.S. Colleges
organizing remarkably effective campaigns against government offices, corporations, and especially American universities.
The Daily
The Conservative Activist Pushing Trump to Attack U.S. Colleges
And I think to do that, we need to understand your motivation for seeing higher education in the way that you do. as a set of institutions that have been captured by leftist ideology, bureaucracy, practices, and incentives, and have spread those throughout American society. So tell us that story of how you come to see universities in this way.
The Daily
The Conservative Activist Pushing Trump to Attack U.S. Colleges
So just to summarize, because I want to make sure I'm understanding this, you're seeing what to you feels like a lot of kind of empty virtue signaling on campus when you're a student, and it combines with this experience of, making this film that suggests that liberal politics and policies are not helping the lives of many working Americans.
The Daily
The Conservative Activist Pushing Trump to Attack U.S. Colleges
And together, you're thinking this whole kind of project of the American left is not working and maybe even a little bit rotten.
The Daily
The Conservative Activist Pushing Trump to Attack U.S. Colleges
Ruffo wrote scalped after Gay was forced out. In the process, Ruffo has become an influential voice in the ear of the Trump administration as it turns his strategy into a wide-ranging government crackdown on higher education.
The Daily
The Conservative Activist Pushing Trump to Attack U.S. Colleges
And those you hold responsible, it sounds like, are essentially... left-leaning leaders and faculty of these colleges. And I just want to cite something from your book, which I happen to have in front of me. Sure. In your book, you describe numerically just how liberal, just how left-leaning the faculty have become at many of the biggest universities in the country.
The Daily
The Conservative Activist Pushing Trump to Attack U.S. Colleges
And you focus on the social sciences. And the data point that I found worth mentioning here is is that the ratio of liberal to conservative faculty has reached, according to this research report, 8 to 1 in political science, 17 to 1 in history, 44 to 1 in sociology, 48 to 1 in English, and 108 to 0 in communications and interdisciplinary studies, which you note includes race and gender studies.
The Daily
The Conservative Activist Pushing Trump to Attack U.S. Colleges
That's what you're talking about.
The Daily
The Conservative Activist Pushing Trump to Attack U.S. Colleges
So at this moment, in your mind, where something that was living in universities spills out and becomes excessive, there's an opportunity for folks like you to name it, call it out, and try to fight it. And, of course, I just want to pause here to ask, why?
The Daily
The Conservative Activist Pushing Trump to Attack U.S. Colleges
In your mind, was there anything about that that was organic and just an unnatural outpouring of grief and frustration over what had happened to George Floyd and about the history of racism in the United States that lay behind that?
The Daily
The Conservative Activist Pushing Trump to Attack U.S. Colleges
And as you've said, so much of this for you goes back to the university, the incubation center, in your words, for these ideas. What exactly are these universities doing wrong besides the virtue signaling and your telling that you saw in 2020?
The Daily
The Conservative Activist Pushing Trump to Attack U.S. Colleges
What's an example of that, just so people can understand what it is you think has happened here?
The Daily
The Conservative Activist Pushing Trump to Attack U.S. Colleges
I just want to be clear, because some of this is fiercely debated. Some of this is still in the courts. But you land on this very specific solution to address what you see as the excesses of the American left, which is to... Use the federal money that these universities depend on as a cudgel to force them to change. Why do you settle on that tactic?
The Daily
The Conservative Activist Pushing Trump to Attack U.S. Colleges
On Wednesday, we spoke about that crackdown with the president of Princeton University, Today, we ask Rufo just how far it will go. It's Friday, April 11th. Chad, Chad, you guys hear me? Is that Chris? Can he hear me? I can hear you. Well, Chris, welcome to The Daily. We appreciate you making time for us. It's good to be with you.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: A Criminal Sentencing, Presidential Legacies, and Greenland
From The New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily. Today.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: A Criminal Sentencing, Presidential Legacies, and Greenland
So you're saying if Biden can't protect everything he's done, what he can do is drive a wedge between Trump and his supporters. That's right. And leave him in a pretty tough spot.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: A Criminal Sentencing, Presidential Legacies, and Greenland
Good. And Zolan, we are talking to you from Italy, where President Biden was supposed to be but had to cancel because of the Los Angeles wildfires. Thank you for being on. Ciao. Ciao, colleagues. So we have all the geography covered here.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: A Criminal Sentencing, Presidential Legacies, and Greenland
And this is the old trope. Journalists really like it when their presidents hold news conferences. But I'm hearing you all say this is not just journalistic bellyaching about access to the president. This is about what seems like either a conscious or unconscious decision by the president to not hold the office in the fullest way possible publicly as he could at the end of his presidency.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: A Criminal Sentencing, Presidential Legacies, and Greenland
You know where I'm going, David. Yeah.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: A Criminal Sentencing, Presidential Legacies, and Greenland
Well, let's talk about what he did do in that interview. I mean, the elements of the interview with USA Today that ultimately seemed to break through were the fact that Biden— among other things, is considering issuing preemptive pardons that would protect potential targets of a criminal investigation by the incoming Trump administration.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: A Criminal Sentencing, Presidential Legacies, and Greenland
We've talked so much on the show about Trump DOJ's pretty much open commitment to going after certain of his rivals and enemies. It was interesting that Biden came out and said, I am thinking about doing this. Do we know who might be at the top of that list for – preemptive pardons? And do they want them?
The Daily
Trump 2.0: A Criminal Sentencing, Presidential Legacies, and Greenland
Because getting a preemptive pardon from the president suggests that you might have done something wrong.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: A Criminal Sentencing, Presidential Legacies, and Greenland
And as always, we begin with the caveat that we are recording this at a very specific time around 115 on Thursday because the news could change before we run this. And in fact, we know it will change because the Supreme Court is about to make a major ruling at the request of President-elect Trump. Maggie, can you walk us through that request from President-elect Trump?
The Daily
Trump 2.0: A Criminal Sentencing, Presidential Legacies, and Greenland
Biden also made a fascinating admission in this conversation with USA Today, and it was this. Although he believes he could have beaten Trump had he stayed in the race, which we'll never really know the answer to, he said he's unsure, he acknowledged an uncertainty that he would have made it through a second term. That's a big thing to acknowledge, Zolan.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: A Criminal Sentencing, Presidential Legacies, and Greenland
David, is that an admission of irresponsibility on Biden's part? You've covered this presidency for its entirety. To suggest that you might not be able to fulfill the obligations of President of the United States, Commander-in-Chief for a full term, but that you were determined to do it anyway, it borders on – raising serious questions about judgment.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: A Criminal Sentencing, Presidential Legacies, and Greenland
Before or after you decided not to run.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: A Criminal Sentencing, Presidential Legacies, and Greenland
David, this does remind me that you are basically the Forrest Gump of presidential news conferences. Totally true. Which news conference did you not ask the question?
The Daily
Trump 2.0: A Criminal Sentencing, Presidential Legacies, and Greenland
I want to end, my friends, on a scene that has just played out. A somber one in Washington at the National Cathedral. Biden was there. So was Donald Trump and all of our living former presidents. This was the funeral, of course, of former President Jimmy Carter. I'm curious what stood out to all of you about the ceremony. I know you're busy.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: A Criminal Sentencing, Presidential Legacies, and Greenland
You might not have been able to watch the funeral in its entirety. But there were several moments that I think a number of our colleagues are seizing on for their symbolism and their significance.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: A Criminal Sentencing, Presidential Legacies, and Greenland
January 6th might have spelled Mike Pence's death at the hands of people rioting in the name of Donald Trump. He rose to shake Trump's hand.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: A Criminal Sentencing, Presidential Legacies, and Greenland
Exactly. David, I want to end with a clip of President Biden's eulogy to Jimmy Carter. I think by the time we're done playing it, you'll understand why I chose it. Let me just play it for you.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: A Criminal Sentencing, Presidential Legacies, and Greenland
And Zolan and David, thank you very much for your time. I really appreciate it. Thank you, Michael. Thanks, Michael. On Thursday night, the Supreme Court denied Trump's request to stop his criminal sentencing in the New York City hush money case. The decision all but ensures that Trump's sentencing will proceed as planned later today.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: A Criminal Sentencing, Presidential Legacies, and Greenland
The justices noted that Trump faces no jail time and can still appeal his conviction through traditional legal means. We'll be right back.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: A Criminal Sentencing, Presidential Legacies, and Greenland
On Thursday, officials in Los Angeles said that the largest of the city's five wildfires, the Palisades Fire, has now damaged or destroyed thousands of buildings and continues to burn out of control.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: A Criminal Sentencing, Presidential Legacies, and Greenland
In a worrying sign for firefighters, forecasters expected winds to pick up on Thursday night, with wind speeds of 20 to 30 miles per hour and gusts of up to 60 miles per hour, and warned that heavy winds could arrive again over the weekend. So far, the fires have killed at least five people, but that number is expected to rise.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: A Criminal Sentencing, Presidential Legacies, and Greenland
And during his state funeral on Thursday, former President Jimmy Carter was remembered as a humble peanut farmer who rose to the heights of power and used that power to seek out justice and peace.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: A Criminal Sentencing, Presidential Legacies, and Greenland
In eulogy after eulogy, friends, advisors, and Carter's grandson, Jason Carter, recalled just how much the former president and his late wife, Rosalyn, had embraced a life of modesty.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: A Criminal Sentencing, Presidential Legacies, and Greenland
After the funeral, Carter's body was flown by military jet to his hometown in Georgia for a private service at his local church and a burial at a family plot next to his home. Today's episode was produced by Rob Zipko, Michael Simon-Johnson, and Will Reed. It was edited by Rachel Quester and Chris Haxell, contains original music by Dan Powell, and was engineered by Alyssa Moxley.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: A Criminal Sentencing, Presidential Legacies, and Greenland
And what's their strongest argument, Maggie, legally for why the Supreme Court should weigh in and stop this local court case from running its course?
The Daily
Trump 2.0: A Criminal Sentencing, Presidential Legacies, and Greenland
During a busy week, President-elect Trump asked the Supreme Court to prevent him from being sentenced in a New York criminal case.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: A Criminal Sentencing, Presidential Legacies, and Greenland
Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Landsberg of Wonder League. A reminder, you can catch a new episode of The Interview right here tomorrow. David Marchese speaks with the actor and comedian Ben Stiller about what it was like growing up as the son of comedy legends.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: A Criminal Sentencing, Presidential Legacies, and Greenland
That's it for The Daily. I'm Michael Barbaro. See you on Monday.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: A Criminal Sentencing, Presidential Legacies, and Greenland
Fascinating. And David, what would it mean for the ruling to go either way, not just for Trump necessarily, but for the idea of the rule of law?
The Daily
Trump 2.0: A Criminal Sentencing, Presidential Legacies, and Greenland
David, you mentioned there was a press conference from President-elect Trump earlier this week, made a lot of news. And, Zolan, you were covering that news conference. It was at Mar-a-Lago. Zolan, just to begin with, what was this news conference supposed to be about?
The Daily
Trump 2.0: A Criminal Sentencing, Presidential Legacies, and Greenland
He implied that as president, he could use military force to seize control of Greenland and the Panama Canal.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: A Criminal Sentencing, Presidential Legacies, and Greenland
And David, you were there, and you ended up asking him a question about his now repeated interest in the idea of the United States basically subsuming Canada, Greenland, and the Panama Canal. And... I want to play, David, for our listeners, the question that you asked the president-elect that basically became the exchange heard around the world. Here is what it sounded like.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: A Criminal Sentencing, Presidential Legacies, and Greenland
David, just explain what it is Trump is saying. He's not saying all that much, but it ends up making a ton of news.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: A Criminal Sentencing, Presidential Legacies, and Greenland
And he overshadowed a sitting president who is using his final days in office to try to Trump-proof his legacy. To make sense of all of this, I gathered three of my colleagues, senior political reporter Maggie Haberman and White House reporters David Sanger and Zolan Kano-Youngs. It's Friday, January 10th. Friends, welcome to the first Daily Roundtable of 2025. And thank you for being here.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: A Criminal Sentencing, Presidential Legacies, and Greenland
Maggie and Zolan, let's take the president-elect at his word here. What might it look like to use – let's just use the example of military power, perhaps not to invade but to begin a campaign of intimidation to try to convince Denmark this is inevitable?
The Daily
Trump 2.0: A Criminal Sentencing, Presidential Legacies, and Greenland
I have a theory I wanted to run by all of you or perhaps just one of you who's willing to take it on about how Trump talks about Greenland, Panama Canal, Canada, and what may simply underlie it. And let's just put aside the argument that there's a strategic economic reason for doing it. Perhaps there very much is.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: A Criminal Sentencing, Presidential Legacies, and Greenland
I don't think it's controversial to say that at this moment, Americans' sense of themselves is that we're a little bit on our heels. We aren't the only superpower in the world anymore. David, you've written books about this. Many see us as a nation somewhat in decline from our heights of power. And in that context, my logic...
The Daily
Trump 2.0: A Criminal Sentencing, Presidential Legacies, and Greenland
has been, the idea of expansion, even if it's just an idea, is enormously appealing in this moment. It's like a return to manifest destiny, westward ho. You know, we have bought states and land in the past. We bought Alaska from Russia. I looked it up right before this conversation started. And so should we just view it in that context? It's nationalism on steroids.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: A Criminal Sentencing, Presidential Legacies, and Greenland
I mean, Maggie, let me give you the last word on this before we go to break. Is this symbolic or based on your reporting, is this a serious, earnest undertaking that we should be watching with the carefulness that goes with the adage that when Trump says something, take it seriously?
The Daily
Trump 2.0: A Criminal Sentencing, Presidential Legacies, and Greenland
We are going to take a break, and when we come back, we're going to talk about what the president, the actual sitting president, is up to right now. It's quite overshadowed by the president-elect. And understand how Biden is thinking about his final days in office. We'll be right back. Okay, Zolan, talk about what President Biden is doing in this final stretch of time he has in office.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: A Criminal Sentencing, Presidential Legacies, and Greenland
Maggie, you are joining us from Washington. Welcome. Thank you. Thank you. David, you are coming to us from Mar-a-Lago.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: A Criminal Sentencing, Presidential Legacies, and Greenland
Right. What you're pointing to is that Biden might sign an executive order saying that the grounds under the ocean can't be drilled. But the thing about an executive order is that it depends on who's the executive. Trump could come in and essentially roll that back, which is the case for pretty much all executive action. That's right.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: A Criminal Sentencing, Presidential Legacies, and Greenland
David, what stands out to you about these last, I guess, two weeks and days of Biden's presidency? Yeah.