Lemon LIVE at 5 | Is Trump Endangering his Political Enemies? - January 24th, 2025
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Good evening, everyone. Welcome. We are live, Lemon Live at 5 Eastern in New York City. Thank you so much for joining us. We appreciate it. We have a big show for you, so I'm going to get right to it, okay? Today caps the first week. Yeah, just five days. The second term, Donald Trump's second term. What a week it was. We saw a blizzard of executive orders. We actually saw blizzards, bad weather around the country, but a blizzard of executive orders, an unconstitutional attack on birthright citizenship. We saw ICE immigration raids sweep the country this week and a sweeping pardon for violent criminal insurrectionists, people who were found guilty. were pardoned by this president. And today, Trump revoked the security details for a number of his political rivals, enemies, foes, including John Bolton, Mike Pompeo, and Dr. Anthony Fauci.
So I have a lot to talk about, as you can imagine, with this guest, Mehdi Hassan, the perfect guest here. Mehdi is the founder and editor-in-chief of Zateo. Thank you, sir. Good to see you again. Thank you for coming on.
Thanks for having me on, Doug.
How are you doing after this raucous week?
Trying to keep bearings, trying to keep up with what's going on, trying to follow the news.
Your eyes and that sigh said it all.
It's everything we knew it would be on steroids.
And more. So look, I'm going to set the table. I'm going to start at the beginning of the week. And I'm going to have Ezra Klein get us through this. And I'm going to put this up and then get your response. Here's Ezra.
of Donald Trump's second term certainly revealed a president who intends to govern based on what he can get away with.
What happened during Donald Trump’s first week back in office and why does it matter?
Trump announced immediately that he was declaring birthright citizenship invalid, unilaterally changing the clear language of the Constitution and daring the courts to stop him. He's giving TikTok a reprieve from the clean language of the law so he can figure out a way to save it. He's pardoning the January 6th rioters. He's renaming the Gulf of Mexico to be the Gulf of America and Denali to be Mount McKinley. I was struck in Trump's inaugural address how almost everything mentioned was an executive action that Trump would take and the courts would decide to accept or reject. He talked little of laws he wanted to persuade Congress to pass. What interests Trump is what he can do alone.
So just about an hour ago, I just got back. I was out on the street talking to people, interviewing folks, and they were all well aware of everything that Ezra just mentioned. And they were flummoxed, most of the folks I talked to, and they said, I don't recognize this country anymore.
It's an interesting point. What is the United States right now? Personally, I'm a little tired of the we're better than this. This is not us. I mean, this is a second term. This is very much us. They voted for it. This was us before Trump. This is us after Trump. This time, you and I can't even say, well, he didn't win the popular vote. He won the popular vote very narrowly, but he won the popular vote. It is a problem. Harry Enten on your old network CNN said today, this is a very different Trump in the sense that the public is with him on a lot of these issues. He doesn't have much opposition. He's not as unpopular or hated as he was in 17. People are not taking to the streets, doing women's marches or turning up at airports to stop his executive orders.
People are tired, they're fatigued, or they're just on board now. And I think the most important point to make as journalists to take that Ezra list is a lot of that stuff is what he said he would do. and is going beyond what he said he would do. So when some of us were warning, this is fascistic rhetoric, this is authoritarian rhetoric, this is extra constitutional rhetoric, we were told, stop being alarmist. It's just Donald Trump.
Why did Trump revoke security details for John Bolton, Mike Pompeo and Anthony Fauci?
Don't take him literally. Do you remember all that? Don't take him literally. To be fair to Trump, he is literally doing what he said he would do. That first day, I think Time Magazine did a little roundup, Don, this week, that two-thirds of Project 2025 stuff is going on.
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Chapters
7 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:19–2:03
2
What happened during Donald Trump’s first week back in office and why does it matter?
2:03–4:13
3
Why did Trump revoke security details for John Bolton, Mike Pompeo and Anthony Fauci?
4:13–20:15
4
How are the new ICE raids different and what are experts warning about?
20:15–27:51
5
Why do so many Americans remain low-information voters and how did that affect 2024?
27:51–39:02
6
Could removing protection from political critics incite violence or constitute stochastic terrorism?
39:02–1:00:14
7
What is fueling the rift between Elon Musk and Donald Trump over the AI deal?
1:00:14–1:03:46