Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
This is Andrew Ross Sorkin, the founder of Dealbook. Every year, I interview some of the world's most influential leaders across politics, culture, and business at the Dealbook Summit, a live event in New York City. On this year's podcast, you'll hear my unfiltered conversations with Gavin Newsom, the CEO of Palantir and Anthropic, and Erica Kirk, the widow of Charlie Kirk.
Chapter 2: What surprising changes have occurred in Trump's second term?
Listen to Dealbook Summit wherever you get your podcasts.
From The New York Times, I'm Natalie Kitroff. This is The Daily. In the years since Donald Trump roared back to power, one of the most surprising storylines of his second term has been a series of increasingly public ruptures between the president and the movement he created.
On everything from affordability to foreign wars, key figures on the right are now daring to challenge Trump's priorities and his effectiveness. Today, my colleague Robert Draper on the growing tensions inside the MAGA movement and what they tell us about what the American right might look like in a post-Trump world. It's Thursday, December 11th. Robert, hi. Welcome back to the show.
Thanks so much for having me.
So we're coming to you because for several years now, you've been reporting extensively on the right. And as a part of that, you spent a lot of time with some of the key figures in the MAGA movement, some of whom have started to openly speak out against the president.
And so we're hoping you can help us understand what's been happening in the relationship between President Trump and his movement, which until recently looked pretty unshakable.
Yeah, in a sense, Natalie, what's taking place is in step with what historically has transpired with presidencies, that after a certain period, a president begins to take on the appearance of being a lame duck. He no longer is in full control of the agenda, and the party begins to look at life after him. But Typically, that has taken place after the midterms, after a two-year period.
And so what's really notable is that this president is now just 10 to 11 months in, beginning to show the signs of weakness that historically we associate with a lame duck, when in fact he should not be a lame duck. Right. And alongside that, it's also notable that President Trump, like no other political figure before him in recent memory at least, has exerted a real stranglehold over his party.
The party's philosophy, the party's governing ideology has been whatever President Trump wants. has said it will be, that has started to change. And the fact that people are daring, and let's be clear, not everyone is, but that anyone is beginning to voice objections or take exception to President Trump's governing philosophy is something very new.
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Chapter 3: How are key figures in the MAGA movement challenging Trump?
And without him, it began to feel like the conservative movement or the MAGA movement was not so much cast adrift, but reverberating with all of these tensions.
So, Robert, where do you first see the impact of that loss on MAGA? Like, what's the first example of these divisions that were bubbling up, starting to spill out in the open after Kirk's death?
I think the first moment at which these discontents, disagreements became very public was when Tucker Carlson hosted on his show the white nationalist Nick Fuentes. Fuentes had been considered a sort of verboten figure in the conservative movement, a guy they very much wanted to keep at the margins. because he has casually issued some unabashedly anti-Semitic and racist and sexist commentary.
He has suggested that the numbers don't add up when it comes to six million Jews perishing in the Holocaust. He has said outright that Blacks were better off under Jim Crow than they are today. He has made all sorts of obnoxious statements regarding women and how they should... essentially be used as chattel.
And most of all, he has not just spoken critically of Israel in the Israeli government, but he has honed in on what he calls the problem of organized Jewry in America. and has been unapologetic in his belief that Jews are a problem, unassimilable and incorrigible in their unwillingness to assimilate, and that that presents America with its foremost problem. And so for Carlson...
who is arguably the most influential conservative voice in America, a person who remains very close to President Trump through the thick and thin of their disagreements, and who is especially close to Vice President J.D. Vance. To be offering Nick Fuentes an opportunity to air his bigoted musings was... the reason why so many people viewed this interview with great alarm.
Let's just slow that down for a moment. Can you tell us about Nick Fuentes? Who is he?
Sure. Nick Fuentes is a 27-year-old right-wing influencer who had been more or less on the scene since 2017. He was an early and loud supporter of President Trump, but not one of any particular consequence.
In 2017, he began to pop up in the media because at the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, that included the notorious chant, you will not replace us, Jews will not replace us.
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Chapter 4: What historical patterns are evident in Trump's presidency?
You're one of those people. One of the reasons I wanted to meet you is you're one of those people who...
is defined by clips yes and i'm one of those people also yes yes so i get it in which carlson in effect slid the microphone in front of fuentes and let him riff on so i'm gonna just shut up and you tell me what you actually believe yeah well and listen i mean and i appreciate you saying that because it's that's just the reality of the media environment we're in so if you i don't expect you to know all my views but i mean as far as the jews are concerned
Now, why did Tucker Carlson do this?
Yeah, my question exactly.
Sure. Well, and I think that the answer to that, Natalie, is that he was finding common cause in Fuentes because Carlson himself over the past year had become increasingly anti-Israel or as he would put it, anti-Israeli government.
I always thought it's great to criticize and question our relationship with Israel because it's insane and it hurts us. We get nothing out of it. I completely agree with you there.
that the Israeli government has been the tail that has wagged the dog of American affairs for far too long.
I've always thought I have the world's most moderate position on Israel. Don't hate Israel. Just don't want to get involved in their wars. Don't want to pay for this. Don't want to pay for abortion on demand in a foreign country. Sorry. When we're cutting food stamps on our own, like, that's outrageous. It's not America first.
while insisting that he abhors anti-Semitism.
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Chapter 5: What events led to the first signs of dissent within the MAGA movement?
I feel like I'm sitting next to a completely different Marjorie Taylor Greene.
the co-hosts on the air expressed astonishment that this was the Marjorie Taylor Greene they were seeing. And in addition to The View, Greene was speaking to other media outlets.
Here's my issue. I'm America first, and I don't apologize for that. And I believe Congress, both Democrats and Republicans, should be serving the American people.
Though what she had to say during these interviews wasn't openly critical of the administration, implicitly she was striking a note of disagreement.
When you campaign on America first, it's like having a restaurant advertising like a certain type of food and then you don't deliver America first. You're not going to have those return customers.
I don't know what happened to Marjorie. She's a nice woman, but I don't know what happened. She's lost her way, I think.
And it clearly got under President Trump's skin.
Somebody like Marjorie Taylor Greene, who's now catering to the other side, I don't know what, you know, I guess she's got some kind of an act going, but I'm surprised at her. But when somebody like Marjorie goes over and starts making statements like that, it shows she doesn't know.
The great umbrage that he took was expressed finally.
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