00:30 Matt Thompson Already eight months into the administration of President Donald Trump, our commander in chief has broken countless norms. 00:37 But has he also broken the Republican Party? 00:41 Has he broken the presidency? 00:43 This is Radio Atlantic. 00:58 Hi, I'm Matt Thompson, executive editor of The Atlantic. 01:02 Calling in from New York is my dear co-host, Alex Wagner. 01:05 Hello, Alex. 01:07 Alex Wagner Hello, my dear co-host, Matt Thompson. 01:09 Matt Thompson Alex, I wanted to ask you a question. 01:12 Alex Wagner Ask away, Matt. 01:13 Matt Thompson Do you remember the period before President Donald Trump? 01:19 Alex Wagner Was there a time when I was not shackled to my iPhone, when I wasn't constantly looking at push alerts? 01:25 when I wasn't constantly debating the future of this country. 01:29 I can't remember that time, Matt, but I hear from outside sources that a time before this chaos did in fact exist, where I used to eat meals in peace and did not have 01:41 Matt Thompson crazy acid reflux all the time too much information i know i harbor a distant memory of this time and so i went i went excavating in our in our large and ancient libraries for evidence i did i excavated headlines from from old newspapers from the time before president trump and in fact 02:05 I perused headlines from around this time in the year after presidential elections. 02:11 So 2013, 2009, 2005. 02:16 And it was a revelation. 02:18 I found headlines like poll finds Republicans gain favor on key issues. 02:22 Alex Wagner A poll, a headline that was – 02:25 Leading the newspapers. 02:27 Amazing. 02:28 Matt Thompson How many people attended the Tea Party rally in D.C.? 02:31 This was like a big deal, a big question in 2009 that folks were asking. 02:35 Was it tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands? 02:38 Alex Wagner It was not a potentially democracy-shattering headline every single day. 02:44 I can't remember this time, but it sounds so good. 02:48 Matt Thompson The point is there has been enough news in the 230 something days of the Trump administration to more than fill an entire presidency, two terms of an entire presidency. 02:58 So. 02:59 I wanted to take stock. 03:24 whose October cover story in The Atlantic took on the question, will Donald Trump destroy the presidency? 03:30 Let's listen to their conversation. 03:38 Jeffrey Goldberg So I'm here with Jack Goldsmith, the author of one of our cover stories this month. 03:42 The cover is called The Trump Presidency, A Damage Report. 03:45 And Jack Goldsmith is here to talk about his contribution. 03:49 First, thanks for coming on. 03:50 Thanks for having me. 03:51 And thank you for writing an excellent piece. 03:54 I want to start a little bit counterintuitively because your piece is somewhat counterintuitive. 03:59 You are a well-known critic of Donald Trump. 04:01 You've criticized most every aspect of Donald Trump's existence. 04:04 But you argue in the article in this month's Atlantic that all hope is not lost, that you're pleased with the vibrancy or the resilience of American institutions or certain American institutions in the face of the Trump presidency. 04:21 So tell me what's making you happy right now. 04:24 Jack Goldsmith Well, happy might not be the right word, but not in despair may be the better way to put it. 04:30 I think that one of the things that's happened in the last year is that American institutions in many respects, institutions of government and related to government like the media, the bureaucracy, civil society, have actually learned how resilient they are in face of an extraordinary norm-breaking president, president disinclined to follow the law. 04:51 And the institutions have really pushed back and prevented him from doing a lot of the worst things that he pledged to do. 04:58 Jeffrey Goldberg Talk about the courts in reference to the so-called Muslim ban. 05:02 Jack Goldsmith Yeah. 05:03 So the – he issued this executive order that barred entry of – 05:10 anyone for 90 days from several countries and also refugees from several countries. 05:16 It was a very sloppy order. 05:17 It was issued without the usual procedures inside the executive branch. 05:21 It was sloppy on its face. 05:22 It had a lot of problems. 05:24 And the courts basically stood up to him and prevented him from 05:30 carrying it out, and he complied, which was a surprise. 05:33 Jeffrey Goldberg A lot of people thought there was a big point in February when a lot of people thought he wasn't going to comply with... Just pause there and tell me what it would look like if a president didn't comply, because it's beyond my imagination, actually. 05:45 Jack Goldsmith The fact that it's beyond your imagination shows how much norms have changed, because there was a time, certainly in the 19th century and even probably up through FDR until really Brown versus the Board and that era... 05:59 when there was a question whether the president had a duty to actually comply with legal decisions, or at least it was a question. 06:05 Jeffrey Goldberg And- What's the most notorious case in American history? 06:08 Jack Goldsmith Two most notorious cases are Lincoln not complying when Chief Justice Taney said that he couldn't suspend the writ of habeas corpus early in the Civil War. 06:16 And then FDR, Franklin Roosevelt threatened, and another habeas case involving Nazi saboteurs threatened not to comply with the Supreme Court decision if they ordered him to release the saboteurs. 06:26 The court literally got the message and gave the president the decision he wanted. 06:32 So we don't know what would have happened there. 06:34 Lincoln just ignored Tawny, went on with his business. 06:36 It was the middle of a war. 06:37 He gave a good explanation for it later. 06:40 But there's a theoretical body of evidence saying the president is a separate department and doesn't have to comply with Supreme Court decisions. 06:47 Jeffrey Goldberg Do you think Donald Trump didn't want to comply? 06:49 I mean, do you think his instinct was to push the limit here? 06:52 Jack Goldsmith I'm sure his instinct was to push the limit. 06:54 If all of his other behavior is indicative, he seems to take whatever he's told he has to do, he seems to want to take the other position. 07:03 And these courts basically stopped one of his signature issues and he attacked the courts in an unprecedented way because of it. 07:12 So we don't know. 07:12 We don't yet know exactly what happened that night in the executive branch, but we do know that he ultimately complied with it. 07:20 Jeffrey Goldberg What would it have looked like if he had ignored it? 07:23 I mean, do you think that he could have ordered his homeland security people to violate this order and that they would have done so? 07:31 Jack Goldsmith I think it would have been very messy. 07:32 I think if he had actually ordered the executive branch not to comply with the order, I think unlike in the Civil War, there would have been massive resignations in the executive branch. 07:40 I think there would have been resignations in the White House, in the Justice Department. 07:45 Some people would have carried out the order. 07:46 A lot of people wouldn't have. 07:47 And it would have been mayhem, I think. 07:48 Jeffrey Goldberg Would that have counted as a, quote, constitutional crisis, end quote? 07:52 Jack Goldsmith I think it would have counted as a constitutional crisis depending on what – I don't know how you define constitutional crisis. 07:56 Jeffrey Goldberg That's why I ask. 07:56 Jack Goldsmith Law professors debate about this. 07:57 But that would have counted as a constitutional crisis if he defied the courts in a very high-profile case like this. 08:03 And I think it would have – but I think that the reason I'm speculating, the reason he complied was because someone got to him and explained what these consequences were. 08:11 Jeffrey Goldberg So the norms overpowered the desire. 08:14 Jack Goldsmith I would say it's – the difference between norms and law is hard to draw that distinction. 08:19 It was actually a legal ruling but there are norms around compliance and there are professional norms for the people who work for them and I do think – 08:25 That those overwhelmed his desire not to comply. 08:28 Jeffrey Goldberg So let's assume that he is a norm-busting president. 08:31 The big question as an American citizen is obviously how strong are the norms? 08:37 Yep. 08:38 Jack Goldsmith So there are a lot of different norms. 08:40 And we were just talking about there's the law, which is something that he has a duty to comply with. 08:46 And norms by definition are not something he has a duty to comply with. 08:49 And those are the things that he's really successfully violated all over the place. 08:53 Not staffing the government, not following ethics rules that might not apply to him, but the norms say that you should apply to them. 09:00 The way he attacks people in his party, the way he attacks courts, we go on and on about the norms he's violated. 09:05 One of the things I argue in the piece is, yes, he's busted norms all over the place, but we shouldn't worry as much about those norms for the presidency because any future rational president – 09:15 will want to return to not attacking their attorney general, not attacking members of their party, not attacking the court. 09:21 Jeffrey Goldberg Is it an assumption to assume that the next president returns to normal behavior? 09:25 Jack Goldsmith It's a prediction, but I think it's a prediction grounded in pretty good reasons. 09:29 The reason presidents follow these norms, first of all, a lot of these norms, it never occurred to anyone to violate them. 09:35 Jeffrey Goldberg Well, some of them are just characterological. 09:37 Like most people don't behave like Donald Trump behaves. 09:39 Jack Goldsmith Well, I think most of his norm violations are that. 09:41 Jeffrey Goldberg Right. 09:42 And he has an outlandish personality by the way. 09:44 On top of it. 09:45 Jack Goldsmith And he likes to be contrarian. 09:46 He likes to stick his finger in people's eye. 09:49 All of those things, though, have been, I believe, largely self-defeating. 09:53 They've hurt him more than they've helped him. 09:55 And that simple reason is why future presidents won't do the vast majority of the things he's done. 09:59 Jeffrey Goldberg Okay, but what if you're wrong? 10:00 It's fine. 10:03 Jack Goldsmith We'll find out. 10:05 Jeffrey Goldberg The question is maybe we're in a cycle now of having outlandish and more outlandish presidents. 10:10 I mean, this guy has opened the door. 10:12 It turns out that you don't have to release your tax returns. 10:15 And you can still become president. 10:17 So he's proven some – he's proven the ephemerality of some of these norms or that you don't actually have to follow them to succeed. 10:28 I don't mean to be too negative. 10:29 No, no. 10:30 Jack Goldsmith It's a fair point. 10:31 And I'm making a prediction. 10:32 But I predict that all of these things he's gotten away with – at the core, the reason he's gotten away with this – 10:38 He's essentially shameless and he just doesn't care about doing the right thing and complying with these basic standards. 10:46 You're absolutely right that maybe we're going to be entering a period where future presidents will act this way. 10:51 I think that the things he got away with on the campaign trail that actually worked for him. 10:57 haven't been working for him as president, and that's why I think future presidents won't follow the path that he's taken. 11:03 Jeffrey Goldberg Right. 11:03 So you've given us the quote-unquote hopeful view of the current moment, which is that the law is still the law, the courts are still the courts, that he's probably aberrational behaviorally in terms of the presidency. 11:17 But what is the damage done in a more broad way? 11:22 Jack Goldsmith Right. 11:22 This is what I worry about. 11:23 So I think that – 11:25 One of the things Trump is very good at is getting people to break norms like he does. 11:31 He's really good at winding people and institutions up and getting them to act uncharacteristically. 11:37 And we've seen courts going places they haven't gone before acting with a type of disrespect towards the president they haven't done before. 11:44 I think we've seen the media going much further than it usually would in its news stories and social media and the like and attacking and disrespecting the presidency. 11:54 I think they've played into a lot of his characterizations of them, both the courts and the media. 11:59 The bureaucracy has taken unprecedented steps to push back against him. 12:04 With all these institutions, what I worry about that these norms that have been broken, 12:08 That unlike in the presidency, I think there's a better chance of the norm breaches sticking with regard to these other institutions. 12:14 So ironically, I worry that the norm violations that we need to worry about the most are not the ones Trump is committing because I think a future president will have an incentive to go back to the old way. 12:23 I think it's these other institutions, which I think now that the cat's out of the bag, I think they might tend to continue that way. 12:28 Jeffrey Goldberg So I understand the media critique. 12:31 I'm not so clear on the critique of the courts. 12:35 Give me an example of a judge who's sort of taken some liberties that maybe the judge wouldn't have taken in a previous age. 12:41 Jack Goldsmith It's the very same case as the immigration cases. 12:44 And the immigration judges in the churn that was going on in January, February, March, when Trump was viciously and unprecedentedly attacking them, when he issued this order, when everyone had this hysterical reaction to the order – 12:58 I believe it's my interpretation that the courts got caught up in that and they issued decisions that didn't follow their rules in terms of paying deference to the president, even a bad president, in terms of 13:09 tying their analysis, what they actually reasoned in their opinions to the outcome of the case. 13:14 They issued some very sloppy opinions. 13:16 And he was getting them in effect to break the norms in reaction to his norm breaking. 13:22 Now, the Supreme Court intervened there. 13:24 And I'm not sure that Trump's going to have a long-term negative impact on the courts because for one reason, the Supreme Court intervened in an extraordinary opinion in the summer. 13:32 That basically gave a gentle slap on the wrist of the lower court, said you went too far in these respects and tried to calm things down. 13:39 And really it was mostly a unanimous opinion, which the court never does on any high-profile issue. 13:44 I think the court was sending a signal that they needed to calm down and go back to their usual way of behaving. 13:49 Not necessarily on outcomes, but in the way they comported themselves as judges and their opinions. 13:53 Jeffrey Goldberg What is your worst fear? 13:56 Jack Goldsmith About Donald Trump? 13:57 Jeffrey Goldberg Well, we don't have enough time to talk about all of your worst fears. 14:01 So let's limit it to Donald Trump and the novelty of the Trump mode of governance. 14:06 Jack Goldsmith My worst fears actually have to do with war, military action, crisis situation where he doesn't have good judgment and he doesn't listen to his advisors, which he has been doing so far. 14:19 Jeffrey Goldberg Walk us through that. 14:20 Jack Goldsmith And then he starts ordering things that people around him think are – 14:26 Are you thinking in terms of North Korea? 14:42 And then you have a weird kind of crisis where you've got a president with terrible judgment ordering things that could get a lot of people killed. 14:50 Jeffrey Goldberg Talk about this in the context of presidential power because I want to understand this better myself. 14:55 Presidents have extraordinary power to initiate conflicts, to put it bluntly. 15:01 Jack Goldsmith They have – yes. 15:03 They have – there are very few constitutional limits on a president's – effective constitutional limits on a president's power to use force. 15:10 Jeffrey Goldberg What does a secretary of defense do when he absolutely disagrees and maybe even thinks that the thing that the president is ordering is not only counterproductive but possibly irrational? 15:19 Jack Goldsmith Yeah. 15:20 He – well, he can do a lot of things. 15:23 First of all, he has an obligation to follow – he has literally a legal obligation to follow Trump's orders. 15:28 Right. 15:29 Constitutional – Commander-in-chief. 15:30 Commander-in-chief and it's in the statutes and the whole point of having a commander – president's commander-in-chief was to have civilian control of the military. 15:37 Right. 15:38 So technically, they're going to follow his orders, and that's what the thing to do is. 15:42 Now, there are a lot of things that the secretary of defense or someone could do. 15:45 They could try to talk him out of it. 15:46 They could raise legal objections. 15:48 They could try to slow roll it. 15:49 They could resign. 15:51 Those are the basic options. 15:53 Jeffrey Goldberg But what in the moment – I mean resigning is fine, but it doesn't actually stop the initiation of an attack. 15:59 Jack Goldsmith It doesn't unless it sparks – 16:01 others to intervene. 16:03 That's right. 16:03 There's actually, as a legal matter and logical matter, looking at the way the bureaucracy works, the way it's supposed to work is that subordinate listens to the commander in chief. 16:13 Now, if it's an overtly illegal act, that gives them a few other little maneuvers to slow things down. 16:19 But really, in the war powers context, it's hard to make that argument. 16:23 Jeffrey Goldberg Do you think Donald Trump has a learning curve? 16:26 Jack Goldsmith We haven't seen much of one at all. 16:28 And every time I think he's starting to tweet less and be less self-destructive about certain issues, he always comes back and does it again. 16:36 So I haven't seen much of a learning curve on any of the issues that I've dealt with. 16:40 Jeffrey Goldberg Are you happy or not so happy that a group of generals seem to be, in essence, in charge of the administration to the extent that they can get Donald Trump's behavior under control? 16:51 Jack Goldsmith On any other presidency, I would be anxious or concerned about it. 16:54 I'm thrilled. 16:55 Really? 16:56 I'm thrilled because it seems to me that Kelly and Mattis are the adults and that he listens to them. 17:02 And he's been he said and it's clear that he's been persuaded by them. 17:05 And I have a lot more faith in their judgment about these matters than his. 17:08 Jeffrey Goldberg The 2007 Jack Goldsmith would be very surprised to hear the 2017 Jack Goldsmith saying this. 17:13 I have to imagine. 17:15 Jack Goldsmith Yes, he would. 17:16 But the 2007 Jack Goldsmith would not have imagined Donald Trump as president. 17:20 Jeffrey Goldberg Talk about that a little bit. 17:21 Do you think Donald Trump is a Republican, in fact? 17:23 Jack Goldsmith This is a little bit outside my expertise, but I don't see him as – he's not terribly conservative or at least not dispositionally and not in his true beliefs. 17:32 Sometimes he takes conservative positions because I think it brings him advantage. 17:36 I think we see that the most on judges where he's actually been the most successful. 17:40 He's been very successful at nominating – 17:42 outstanding judges and getting them through, and that's made the conservatives very happy. 17:47 But beyond that, I don't think he has any particular commitments, conservative or Republican, and I think he's starting to show that more and more. 17:53 Jeffrey Goldberg If he's not a Republican, what is he? 17:56 Jack Goldsmith I don't know what he is. 17:57 He's an opportunist. 17:59 I'm not even sure he knows why he wants to be president. 18:01 He doesn't really seem to have a conception of what the office is or what it's about. 18:08 We've never seen a president 18:11 attack members of his own party and his own administration like this. 18:14 It doesn't make any sense from any theory of the presidency or any sense from any theory of what party behavior should be like. 18:22 I don't know what box to put him in. 18:23 Jeffrey Goldberg Talk about the complicity or non-complicity of congressional Republican leadership in this. 18:29 Jack Goldsmith Well, I don't know what I would do if I were a political Republican and I had a president and I had a certain agenda that I thought was important to try to achieve for the Republican Party and you've been promising for eight 18:41 years or longer that you're going to do certain things when you get into power and you have a Republican president. 18:46 I guess complicity is a word you could use with regard to some of the things. 18:49 I think the amazing thing is how much when the Russia investigation anyway, Congress has actually stood up to the president when both in the sanctions that they issued a couple of weeks ago and in the investigations that have been going on that are very serious and in the way when he seemed to be threatening Sessions and Mueller that they stood up to him. 19:09 The remarkable thing in that context is how much they stood up to him. 19:13 As for complicity, it really depends on the issue, and they're in a – I'm glad I'm not a Republican politician. 19:18 They're in a very tough spot. 19:20 Jeffrey Goldberg It's a little bit of a personal question, but who disappoints you more, the people who voted for Donald Trump or Donald Trump? 19:27 Jack Goldsmith I don't like to pass judgments on people who vote for Donald Trump, and I certainly would not say I'm disappointed. 19:31 I know a lot of people who voted for Donald Trump. 19:33 And I understand why they voted for Donald Trump. 19:36 Jeffrey Goldberg Well, what's your understanding? 19:37 Jack Goldsmith A lot of people that I know from different parts of the country vote over Donald Trump because they can't stand what's going on in Washington. 19:45 They think all of Washington is deeply corrupt. 19:48 And they think that Donald Trump is the person that represents the anti-Washington. 19:52 And that's a perfectly legitimate reason to vote for him. 19:54 So I'm actually – I don't have disappointment in people that voted for Trump. 19:58 And I'm not even disappointed in Trump because I had such terribly low expectations. 20:04 And he's met those expectations or has he not been – He's actually been worse than I imagined he could be because I keep thinking he's going to have a learning curve. 20:11 He's going to learn from his mistakes. 20:12 He's going to stop doing the self-defeating things. 20:15 I keep thinking, as I think has happened in the military context somewhat, that the more adults there are in the administration, the more it will stabilize and put him on a more stable path. 20:25 really hasn't happened except with regard to, I think, we can't really tell, but military affairs. 20:31 Jeffrey Goldberg So the only thing that makes you somewhat happy, apart from the presence of grown-up ex-generals in the administration, the only thing that actually makes you happy is that American society, American civics, there's a kind of resilience to it that has been tested but is still there. 20:47 Jack Goldsmith Yes, and in fact, if I were rewriting the piece or adding something to the piece, I think I would have made more of that. 20:53 I think really the amazing thing 20:55 given a president who has set out to – you can only interpret his behavior as trying to destroy these institutions. 21:01 I mean, I think that – and every institution around him. 21:05 And you've got people inside of his administration, top officials that are openly disagreeing with him across the administration. 21:10 You've got systems that are still working remarkably well. 21:14 I think the amazing thing is that the government is still functioning as well as it is. 21:17 And that is the one thing that gives me comfort about the Trump administration. 21:21 Jeffrey Goldberg Jack Goldsmith, thank you very much. 21:23 Thank you. 21:38 Alex Wagner What we all miss the most is the food. 21:41 The Chinese food. 21:42 Any decent Chinese food or pizza. 21:50 Yoni Applebaum Bagels. 21:50 Man, I miss some bacon, egg, and cheeses, man. 21:52 I have three Thai places on my block. 22:46 Matt Thompson And we're back with me on the phone, of course, Alex Wagner. 22:50 And across from me here in D.C., we're joined by the Atlantic's politics and policy editor, Yoni Applebaum. 22:56 Hello, Yoni. 22:57 Hey, nice to be back with you guys. 22:59 Glad to have you. 23:01 And with us in the studio here in D.C., we have Mindy Finn, who ran for vice president alongside Evan McMullin in 2016, is a longtime Republican digital strategist and is the founder and co-CEO of Stand Up Republic. 23:13 Hello, Mindy. 23:14 Mindy Finn Hello. 23:15 Thanks for having me on. 23:16 Matt Thompson And thank you for joining us for a conversation today. 23:19 I wanted to take stock. 23:21 What has been President Trump's impact on the Republican Party? 23:27 Mindy, I wanted to start with you as a wide open question. 23:32 What would you say has been the biggest impact of Donald Trump on the GOP? 23:38 Mindy Finn I think Donald Trump has dramatically changed the GOP in a very short period of time. 23:44 You know, he's the leader of the Republican Party, despite what Paul Ryan or Mitch McConnell, I think, wanted to operate for a while, that they could sustain the party that they knew and loved and they could just advance their agenda. 23:56 And Trump was an instrument to advance their agenda. 23:58 I think they're now starting to wake up to the fact that that is not the case. 24:02 There's this idea that a populist president, he's going to go to where the people are. 24:05 These are ideas that people were demanding. 24:07 But you look at things like support for Vladimir Putin, for example, dramatically shifted once Donald Trump assumed the presidency and the Russia investigations started to take place. 24:20 When you look at things like when Donald Trump, Mitch McConnell for the first time had a public tussle with Donald Trump, Mitch McConnell's approval ratings tanked, not Donald Trump. 24:30 So when you see those kinds of figures, there should be no doubt in your mind that he's dramatically changed the party and that he is the leader and the new standard bearer for the party. 24:38 Alex Wagner But Mindy, can I ask you, does that sense that the party is being reshaped, does that exist beyond Donald Trump, which is to say when he is out of office, 24:49 Do you feel like there are enough sort of Trumpian standard bearers to continue the Republican Party on that path? 24:56 Because when I look at the behavior of McConnell and Ryan, I get the sense that they're really holding their noses for as long as they possibly can to get some legislative accomplishments. 25:06 But they really do want a U-turn back to establishment Republican priorities. 25:11 My question is, does the tension between the two wings of the party, Trump and the establishment, remain after Trump? 25:17 Mindy Finn We have to look to the voters to answer that question. 25:20 It's very clear that at the leadership level, there is a civil war brewing. 25:26 You have Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell on one side. 25:29 You have Trump on the other side. 25:31 But then you look to what's happening in primaries right now and you see what's shaping up. 25:36 It looks very similar in some ways to 2009, 2010 primaries when the Tea Party was on the rise. 25:42 And there's this assumption that incumbents are protected, the traditional incumbents. 25:48 Of course, we didn't have a Republican president then. 25:50 And there were many Tea Party surprises that was the precursor to what we're seeing now with Trumpism. 25:57 I think when you look to those primaries, you look to the voters, that's your indication of whether there's a real civil war here. 26:04 And if there is, who is coming out on top? 26:08 One example, I think the most obvious example to look at, and pronounced example, and I don't know that this will necessarily apply across the country, but it certainly could, is in Arizona, where Jeff Flake has taken a public stance against Donald Trump. 26:25 He didn't support Trump's presidency, and he is tanking in his primary. 26:30 He's lost many points, and it looks like his lead is, he's so far behind at this point that 26:36 he potentially, and I think very highly of Jeff Flake, so I hope that he can make up ground, but it looks like potentially he could not to the point that the Republican establishment is looking for a potential, this is something that isn't playing out in public necessarily, but they're seeing, is there somebody that could run in that race that would be more aligned with us who could win just so that we could win the general? 27:00 Because they're afraid that Flake's Trump-supporting opponent, Kelly Ward, 27:06 will win if the race were held today, she would. 27:10 Matt Thompson Mindy, how would you say President Trump's moved the GOP away from your conception of what it means to be a Republican? 27:16 Mindy Finn For me, you know, Donald Trump, my opposition to Trump, there's many reasons to oppose his presidency. 27:22 There's a very simple and basic reason. 27:25 You can boil it down to a very basic reason, which I guess you could claim is conservative, but I think it's just human, which is basic decency. 27:34 Actually, basic care 27:36 about others. 27:38 And the reason that I think his presidency is unprecedented, despite the outside of the scores of things that we could list and that were in Jack Goldsmith's article, is that he does not appear to be motivated at all by service and duty. 27:53 Even past presidents who were corrupt or shifted norms, as Jack cites this, at least the norm shifting was in service to doing something to improve the country and 28:05 With Donald Trump, it's really all about him, and we've never seen that before. 28:09 And it's why he really doesn't care who's... 28:12 He's the most sensitive and emotional president we've had, but shows very little to no empathy. 28:18 And it's those reasons that made it very difficult for me to support him before even looking at his policy positions or his lack of conservatism. 28:29 Alex Wagner How would you grade Republicans in terms of trying to... 28:35 tame or otherwise hem in Trump and make their opposition to his lack of basic decency, as you call it, or policy positions. 28:47 How would you grade their behavior thus far? 28:52 Mindy Finn I'd say they're improving and learning, which is good, can be taught. 28:56 During the primaries and the general election in particular, once he was the nominee, I would give them a failing grade, a D or an F. I think the most prominent example was after the Access Hollywood tape. 29:12 when you did see many Republicans come out and say they were withdrawing their endorsement. 29:18 Obviously, Reince Priebus, who was the RNC chairman at the time, said that Trump would either need to get out of the race or lose by a landslide, but he was trying to get him to get out of the race. 29:29 Many of those Republican members of Congress who withdrew their endorsement or issued scathing critiques of Trump's behavior 29:38 Two weeks later, they were back on board the Trump train. 29:43 So to me, that's a failing grade. 29:46 And then since then, they didn't really show any – they really wanted to play ball. 29:54 And in some ways, I can't blame them immediately once he took office. 29:57 If they were looking to serve the country, they would want to work with a Republican president. 30:02 And they saw him as a vehicle for moving forward ideas that they believed would be in the best interest of the country. 30:09 But, you know, over time, they have shown that they are willing to check him somewhat. 30:15 Obviously, we have serious investigations into Russians meddling in the election in the Senate in particular, somewhat in the House. 30:23 But you also still see the House judiciary. 30:25 I believe it was just last week or yesterday. 30:26 They decided they are going to conduct a serious investigation, but this time it's into Loretta Lynch, for example, and a lot of things related to Hillary Clinton and not at all to Donald Trump. 30:41 They're learning, and so maybe now I would give them a C where during the general election I would give them an F. 30:47 Matt Thompson As you noted, the president has a really strong core base of approval of his own. 30:54 And what would you say is the overlap between his core, Trump's core supporters and the GOP's at this stage? 31:01 Mindy Finn So this is an area I've looked into a lot recently. 31:05 There's actually a really good study that Emily Eakins of the Cato Institute did for part of this voter study group, which is run by an organization called the Democracy Fund. 31:16 And it broke down the Trump electorate into five key typologies or five key groups. 31:24 And along two axes, one is identity. 31:26 which is defined often by their views on immigration, who should come here, who's an American, who should be here. 31:31 The other is economics and whether they were more conservative on economic policies or more progressive or liberal on economics. 31:40 Only one issue was common among all of these groups, and that was 31:46 Fear or opposition to Muslims in America and to Islam. 31:52 That was the one issue that overlapped across all three groups. 31:57 Otherwise, there was very little that they had in common. 32:00 Again, two of the groups were closer at identity issues in terms of immigration, the levels of immigration they were comfortable with, whether they wanted to accept refugees, what we should do about the border. 32:10 And two of the groups had overlap in terms of economics, whether they thought we should have tax cuts and customer support for small business, their views on the regulatory environment. 32:19 But there was a very little overlap, which kind of answers this question. 32:23 We often talk about the Trump voter. 32:24 There's no single type of Trump voter or single type of Republican. 32:28 There's things you can cluster them around. 32:30 But the only issue that there was overlap is really fear and an opposition to Muslims and Islam. 32:40 And if that defines the party, I mean, that's not the party that attracted me to join it. 32:45 Yoni Applebaum One of the interesting dilemmas that a lot of Republicans on the Hill are facing right now is the sense that they may not be where their constituents always were or that the party may be redefining itself away from the values that they thought they were running to represent. 33:02 And I've talked to some who feel genuinely torn between their commitment to represent their constituents and their commitment to the values that they enter public office to serve. 33:14 During the primary, we polled a lot to look at the differences between those who are backing Donald Trump and those backing other candidates. 33:23 Some of what we found was interesting. 33:25 Trump voters were much less likely to belong to local institutions. 33:29 They were less likely to attend church, less likely to belong to a bowling league or PTA. 33:33 They were relatively disconnected from their communities. 33:37 There were ideological splits too. 33:39 The Wall Street Journal this week found that those who – 33:42 I supported Trump in the primary. 33:44 Sixty percent of them thought immigration was harmful. 33:46 Sixty percent of Republican voters who back somebody else thought that immigration benefits the nation. 33:52 To what extent are what we're seeing here is just that there's a large maybe a plurality of the Republican Party whose views largely were unrepresented in Washington. 34:02 who really were choosing between two options they disliked when they looked to a Democrat or Republican. 34:09 And Donald Trump and his allies have given voice to a large, perhaps the dominant faction of the Republican Party that had been shut out, as Trump would put it, by an elite consensus. 34:20 Mindy Finn I believe that it's both and by meaning that it's both that there was a certain a large segment of the Republican Party, maybe even a slight majority or certainly about half whose views are unrepresented by the leaders in Washington. 34:36 And this group had been rearing its head for a long time. 34:39 It was a group that thought George W. Bush was too moderate. 34:43 It was a group that thought that Mitt Romney as a nominee was too moderate, that John McCain was too moderate in 2008. 34:48 They were unhappy with that nominee, but they ultimately for the most part voted for them in a general election. 34:55 Trump came along and seemed to represent that group. 34:58 But before Trump, there was the Tea Party. 35:01 And many of those, if you think of Sarah Palin in 2008 being chosen as a VP nominee, was someone that the establishment, Republican establishment, saw pretty quickly was not the type of person they thought should be a vice presidential nominee. 35:16 But a large segment of the Republican Party loved Sarah Palin. 35:20 And she became... 35:21 the critical endorsement to get for so many candidates in statewide or congressional primaries in 2010. 35:28 So many, clearly platforms like Breitbart grew for a reason because they were serving a constituency that was not served by mainstream media or even other conservative media. 35:40 So no doubt there was a group that was not represented that is now being more represented with Donald Trump. 35:46 But the party is also shifting because 35:50 leaders who represent these groups are coming into Congress. 35:53 Alex Wagner Mindy, can I ask, is there anything that Trump has done that's beneficial to the Republican Party? 35:58 I think, in part, when we look at the aftermath of the 2016 election, a lot of Democrats say, well, Donald Trump has miraculously managed to make the Republican Party, in some ways, the anti-establishment working, the party of the working class, or is seen now as more in touch with the struggles of, and particularly the white working class and the Rust Belt, 36:20 in a way that, you know, the Democrats have had a lock on that for decades. 36:25 Where else might one see some sort of beneficial, residual benefits, I guess, from Donald Trump's leadership of the party? 36:34 Mindy Finn Yeah, well, let me say I think that he has shined a light on some issues that were critical for Republicans to see and for the country to see. 36:42 It was a wake-up call to Republicans that this economic policy agenda that they've relied on pretty much since the era of Reagan may no longer apply anymore. 36:53 And be be effective today or be palatable to the American people, palatable or effective. 36:59 That's been really important. 37:00 The looking at the plight of the white working class, rampant inequality in economic inequality in the country. 37:08 Those are issues that the you could say the big business wing of the party wanted to ignore for for a long time. 37:15 Him shining a light on those issues is beneficial to the party and to the country, potentially. 37:21 The question is, at what cost? 37:25 At what cost? 37:26 This is not a binary situation where everything about Trump is bad. 37:32 It's just, was it worth it? 37:34 And even electorally, I guess we'll see in 2018, if Republicans were to manage to hang on to the House or even make gains somehow in the House and Senate, which does not appear that that's going to happen. 37:45 but it's still early. 37:46 And some would say, well, electorally, he's been incredibly beneficial. 37:50 To date, we don't see, though, that necessarily electorally he's been beneficial. 37:53 Even in 2016, sure, he won a lot of states that Republicans don't typically win in a presidential. 38:01 But in several of those states, the Senate candidate, Republican Senate candidate outperformed him. 38:06 So you might even argue that they kind of carried him along in that state. 38:11 So, you know, I 38:12 Shining a light on these issues is important. 38:15 That's what elections are about. 38:16 The question is, what do Republicans do with that now? 38:19 And I will say that if Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell just say miraculously or managed to stay in power and somehow— 38:26 they might view it right the ship um i i would hope that that they the lesson they would read is not well we need to go back to all the policy solutions you know the agenda that we had coming out of out of 2014 that's the agenda that we will pursue and that's a winning agenda for the country i think donald trump's election has proven that that that is not an appropriate uh approach and and and for that i i'll give i'll give trump credit it's it's good that he did that 38:51 Matt Thompson His success reflected the winning of an argument to a certain extent. 38:56 Can the GOP, on the one hand, should the GOP expand its demographic appeal beyond where it has historically had strength? 39:06 Or should the GOP, on the other hand, seek to double down on a largely white voter constituency? 39:15 What lesson do you think that politicians have learned from the way that Trump succeeded? 39:22 Mindy Finn Having spent significant time working within the Republican Party and even as part of efforts to try to expand the party and do outreach and work with groups who may not traditionally be Republican. 39:37 That strategy or the idea that it's important to, say, appeal to an Hispanic population or an African-American population, even young people, for example, has mostly gone out the window. 39:50 After 2012, when the... 39:53 reflections on the election led to a strategy that said we need to do a better job of burdening the tent. 39:59 Even we need to soften our position on immigration, for example. 40:03 Donald Trump's election has erased that. 40:05 I think the lesson has been that that was totally wrong and unnecessary. 40:09 The strategy is instead that if we can help the economy, if we can implement policies that will boost the economy, then that will lift everybody up. 40:19 Everyone will be happy and that will reduce these tensions that people will vote for Republicans and 40:23 Even if they think that Republicans maybe have a preference for white Christians or having a white Christian nation, they're not white and Christian. 40:31 They'll still vote for Republicans if their daily life is better because the economy is better. 40:36 I think that's a bet that they're making. 40:40 That's a risky bet. 40:43 A risky bet, yeah. 40:44 Alex Wagner I mean, I think about some of the things that have been said about those very same voters, whether they're African-Americans or Hispanics or women or Muslims or just people that— 40:53 come from a background that is different than Donald Trump's. 40:56 And it feels like we'll never, I mean, we'll know this in the years to come that the party may have lost certain voters for a generation. 41:04 It's hard to imagine. 41:05 I mean, I understand what you're saying, Mindy, about the calculation that perhaps if your income's a little higher and, you know, you're doing better than you were three years ago, maybe you can sort of forget those things never happened. 41:17 But I feel like this moment is so tribal in American politics. 41:20 And it is so deeply emotional. 41:22 And the things that have been said, even in the beginnings of this nascent presidency, have been so deeply felt by so many people that it's hard to imagine people being able to turn the other cheek, if you will, in the years to come. 41:36 Yoni Applebaum You know, that's true, Alex, but we started off talking about how one man wrote in in 2015 and changed the tenor of a major American political party. 41:47 Alex Wagner Well, there are some people that would argue that this has been in the works for several years, if you will, including our own Ta-Nehisi Coates, who says that Donald Trump is an expression of a – he is the harvest of seeds that Republicans have been sowing for some years now. 42:03 Yoni Applebaum Absolutely. 42:04 He had, and those around him, had long roots in this particular brand of politics. 42:12 But one lesson that I'm taking from the last couple of years is the ability of tribal identities to shift. 42:20 The coalitions in American politics aren't permanent. 42:23 The things that people associate with particular parties turn out to be much more malleable than I would have thought even a couple of years ago. 42:30 If a Donald Trump can come in and 42:33 seize upon certain strains of Republican thought, emphasize them, and realign a coalition around them. 42:40 I don't know that I would write off the possibility that 42:44 Trump is succeeded in office or on the presidential campaign trail by a very different nominee who takes republicanism and reforges the coalition in a very different way, that the brands of the two major parties may be less lasting and much more malleable than most political scientists would have thought just a couple years ago. 43:07 Alex Wagner Yeah, sure. 43:08 And also personality. 43:09 I mean, Trump has taught us anything. 43:11 It's that personality is 43:12 perhaps the most important thing on the campaign trail. 43:15 I'm not sure. 43:16 So to your point, Yoni, if someone with just an incredible outsized magnetic personality helms the Republican Party in its next iteration, perhaps they can say something completely different and get the support of the American people more broadly. 43:29 Yoni Applebaum Or at least a really large Twitter following. 43:31 Mindy Finn And I actually agree with that. 43:35 I agree that these trends shift much more quickly than history would tell us or that political science would tell us. 43:42 And I agree that just because we have Donald Trump today doesn't mean that we can't have another Republican come to power or a Democrat that drastically shifts the Democratic Party. 43:53 In the next couple of years, but the not knowing and the fact that a person can win purely because they're of the personality or the massive Twitter account, I'm not sure what kind of stability that offers or what that means for the ability for that of that leader to actually govern. 44:11 Yoni Applebaum Mindy, I was wondering, you ran in 2016 as an independent. 44:14 If you were going to launch another candidacy, would you want to do it as an independent again or would you want to go back into the Republican Party and fight to reestablish the identity that you initially embraced? 44:26 Mindy Finn Well, first of all, I'm not planning to run again, so I want to make that clear. 44:28 But that's an open question. 44:32 Matt Thompson That's a sneaky way of trying to make news, yeah. 44:35 Mindy Finn Yeah, I mean, this is something I think quite a lot about. 44:38 It seems, given the makeup of the electorate, that there's really a demand for a third-party type of candidate. 44:44 The two parties have shifted to the extremes and appear to continue to shift more to the extremes. 44:50 And there's a huge segment of the voting population that's not being served. 44:54 in particular young people, and they need leadership in this moment. 44:59 That said, there's a lot of structural challenges for a third-party candidate to run and win that I'm not sure could be totally overcome in just a couple years. 45:10 Matt Thompson And with that, I'm going to turn to our closing segment, Keepers. 45:15 We have a question that we ask at the end of every episode of Radio Atlantic. 45:19 What have you seen, heard or experienced in recent days that you do not want to forget? 45:23 Mindy, our guest of honor, let me start with you. 45:26 What would you like to keep? 45:28 Mindy Finn So I'm from Kingwood, Texas, which is a suburb of Houston, about 25 miles from downtown. 45:33 It's a place that never floods. 45:35 except that it did flood. 45:38 And the high school that I went to was about halfway underwater. 45:41 I have family whose houses were completely wrecked. 45:43 What I want to hold on to is, and you see this across Houston, but I've been able to see it more firsthand in the community I'm from, is the way that obviously the community is coming together, but also people are learning a lot about what they value. 46:01 They're learning a lot about who we are. 46:03 To Alex's point, you know, is there something coarser or more angry within the American id that we didn't recognize? 46:12 I also think there's a sense of charity and generosity and a desire for unity that perhaps is not tapped just given the way that our culture is today. 46:23 And I just want to give kind of a specific example on that. 46:26 In high school, I went to even more so than when I went because now the community is bigger, is a more affluent population. 46:35 It's predominantly white. 46:37 And it's a more affluent population. 46:39 Because the school cannot open for the year, they are being sent to another school in the district that was best as a brand new campus so it could best accommodate them that is predominantly African-American and Hispanic and lower income and at risk. 46:55 And when the students from the school I went to, Kingwood, were coming for an open house to Summer Creek to tour it, 47:03 Watching the pictures, there was a huge display of welcome. 47:08 People are blending the names of the mascots. 47:10 They're blending the name of the school. 47:12 Class presidents are meeting. 47:13 Teachers are hugging who are going to be sharing classrooms. 47:16 Just watching that to me is just incredibly inspiring and shows the best of America. 47:21 And also to see the reflections of people in a community in particular that were more affluent and tend to have a lot of stuff. 47:28 Houston is a place that was thriving. 47:29 It seems to be very cheap to live, but people have extra cash. 47:32 They accumulate a lot of stuff. 47:33 It's about the size of your house and your TV and your cars. 47:36 They're reflections on what they've learned from losing all of their stuff. 47:41 And in some ways that there's a special happiness that they've tapped into that they 47:45 had kind of forgotten about. 47:47 When you lose everything, they're with their families. 47:49 There's 20 strangers in their homes at almost any time looking to rebuild of every race, color, and creed. 47:54 To me, that's the best of America. 47:56 And I hope that community, Houston at large, and anyone that's been impacted by these hurricanes hangs on to that. 48:01 And I certainly want to hang on to that as well. 48:03 Matt Thompson That is lovely. 48:04 I would like to request a special coach, Mrs. Coach and Smash get back together for a special unity edition of Friday Night Lights. 48:12 Yoni Applebaum Yoni, what would you like to keep? 48:14 You know, I've got a penchant for literalized metaphors. 48:17 Some days I look out my window here and I can see dark clouds gathering over the White House. 48:22 We're not the first building in the complex here. 48:24 If you come to see us, you have to come to a second Watergate. 48:30 This weekend I was back up in Massachusetts where I'm from and took a hike in a state park outside of Worcester. 48:36 Where glacial melt had scoured a dramatic gorge with jumbled rocks and cliffs. 48:43 The best part of it for me as somebody who covers politics for a living is that I was walking there and talking to the other hikers. 48:50 Politics didn't come up at all. 48:51 We were all out there, mostly with our families, exploring, being outside. 48:56 Nobody had their iPhone out. 48:58 And I walked in with a bunch of my fellow Americans and we walked out of purgatory chasm together. 49:05 Alex Wagner Oh, Yoni, you and your penchant for literalized metaphor. 49:16 Esteemed co-host. 49:18 That's what I want to keep. 49:19 That's what I want to keep. 49:21 Yoni's penchant for literalized. 49:24 You know me. 49:24 I have a penchant for literalized metaphor. 49:27 Matt Thompson Yes. 49:27 Alex Wagner I do know you, and I do know that. 49:30 Matt Thompson For the record, friends at home, that is, yes, how Yoni speaks, and it is awesome. 49:35 Alex Wagner That's why he's Yoni Applebaum. 49:37 Matt Thompson That is why he's Yoni Applebaum. 49:38 Esteemed co-host, what do you want to keep? 49:40 Alex Wagner Well, esteemed co-host, I will take all these lofty, beautiful sentiments espoused by my fellow host and guests. 49:47 Are we going back into purgatory chasm? 49:53 I was listening to old jams, as I want to do, in these wistful days of being aged. 50:01 And I dusted off. 50:05 the seminal album by Dr. Dre, 2001, a great album, and was listening to the track Forgot About Dre, which, let me tell you, listening audience, is still one of the greatest rap songs ever made. 50:19 And if Jeff Goldberg were here, he would rap a couple bars from it. 50:22 But he's not, and I'm not going to do it. 50:24 But I will say, it made me happy, and it's something I wanted to hang on to, not just because of the incredible beats and Eminem, Marshall Mathers, and Andre Young, Dr. Dre, 50:34 But also because it reminded me of the time when the biggest rivalry in America, the greatest source of tension and battle was East Coast versus West Coast rap. 50:45 And my, weren't those halcyon days indeed. 50:49 Matt Thompson We will get back to there again, Alex. 50:52 Alex Wagner I hope so. 50:52 Matt Thompson I have a dream. 50:53 And you, by the way, are ageless, I will say. 50:59 It's been a minute since this – oh, shout out to my friend Sam Sanders and his delightful show. 51:04 It's been a minute. 51:05 It has been an interval of time since the L.A. Dodgers played the Pittsburgh Pirates. 51:11 The Dodgers pitcher, Rich Hill, was on the precipice of a perfect game and a no-hitter. 51:18 He had thrown eight perfect innings. 51:24 And then came the bottom of the ninth. 51:27 Third baseman for the Dodgers, Logan Forsyth, committed an error, and Rich Hill's near-perfect game was no longer. 51:37 He would have been something like the 24th pitcher in Major League Baseball history in hundreds of thousands of games to pitch a no-hitter slash perfect game. 51:48 And it was dashed at the very, very end of the game. 51:53 And the Pirates won. 51:55 What was astonishing was Rich Hill's... And the thing that I want to keep was Rich Hill's response after this game. 52:03 He got back when he was in interviews immediately after the game ended. 52:08 He had no recriminations to offer, no blame to cast. 52:13 He was excited to get back into... 52:16 get back onto the field and go out there to practice for another game another day. 52:22 One of the things that sports affords us is an opportunity to see the human spirit tested in ways that are not common in ordinary life, in the work of day, day in, day out course of human affairs. 52:36 And we get to see these examples of this astonishing mental toughness, the ability to go back and 52:43 Pat your coworker on the back, your colleague on the back, and say, you know what? 52:48 Great game. 52:48 That error was no one's fault, and we will get back out to the field another day. 52:53 I want to hold on to that. 52:55 A more perfect game. 52:56 Mindy Finn A more perfect game. 52:57 Amen to that. 52:59 Matt Thompson Mindy, thank you so much for joining us. 53:02 Mindy Finn Thank you. 53:03 Matt Thompson Ioni and Alex, as always, a pleasure. 53:05 Always, always. 53:08 And now, back to the chasm, purgatory chasm. 53:14 Thank you all. 53:21 This episode of Radio Atlantic was produced and edited by Kevin Townsend with production support from Katie Green and Kim Lau. 53:28 Thank you to Jack Goldsmith, Mindy Finn, and our colleague Yoni Applebaum for joining our conversation. 53:33 And thanks, as always, to our co-hosts, Jeffrey Goldberg and Alex Wagner. 53:38 The theme music for our podcast is by the one and only John Batiste, and for just a little while longer, we'll be playing it in full after these credits conclude. 53:46 As always, look for us at facebook.com slash radioatlantic and theatlantic.com slash radio. 53:52 And if you like what you're hearing, please don't forget to rate and review us in iTunes and subscribe in your preferred podcast app. 54:00 Thank you once again for listening. 54:02 Spare a smile for a stranger and see you next week.