The Political Scene: Big Money and Trump’s New Cabinet
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This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. Every week, our Washington correspondents Jane Mayer, Susan Glasser, and Evan Osnos join our podcast, The Political Scene. On Friday, they discuss the nomination hearings for the new cabinet and the dawn of Trump 2.0.

What was the first inauguration that you guys went to? Oh, boy, do I remember mine. Yeah. Oh, my God, yeah. Yeah. No, I came down to Washington. I'd hardly ever been to Washington before. I was here right when they were setting up the barricades for Reagan's inaugural. I think I was in school. Yeah.

I'll never forget. It was just such a sea change about what was going to happen. I mean, that was a gigantic change and a hinge moment in American history. And even I knew that then. I mean, it had a momentous feeling to it. And, okay, since I know we're going to talk about money and how many –

insane amount of money is going into this inaugural. There was a great term that was created at that point in the Washington Post, the term limo lock. And the limos were lining up and locked in traffic for that inaugural. And all the fur coats, right? This is supposed to be, I believe, the coldest inaugural since

Why did they do it this time of year? And I do think if there's ever been an administration that's going to be pro-fur, it's going to be the Trump administration. Well, that could be the big trend story. You know, style editors like, you know, call your writers. Paging Vanessa Friedman. Yeah, get going on that. Welcome to The Political Scene, a weekly discussion about the big questions in American politics. I'm Susan Glasser, and I'm joined by my colleagues, Jane Mayer and Evan Osnos. Hi, Jane. Hey, Susan. Hey, Evan. Morning, guys.

On Monday, President Joe Biden will watch as the man he swore to protect the country from, Donald Trump, becomes the next president of the United States. Eight years ago, we sat and watched as Donald Trump talked of American carnage. There was a sense of disbelief in Washington. It was a moment of resistance.

But we've been hearing something very, very different since Donald Trump won reelection this time. A feeling of exhaustion, a sense from Republicans and even some Democrats that this time somehow maybe will be different. A normal Donald Trump. Is that even a possibility? Well, look, Monday, I think, is a day when the fantasy dies once and for all.

Donald Trump has already promised a shock and awe approach on day one of his administration. We'll talk about that. We'll talk about his new cabinet, arguably the most extreme ever. A series of very revealing hearings this week on cabinet nominations like that of Pete Hegseth. Already we're seeing that fealty to Donald Trump ranks above all else in Trump 2.0. And meanwhile, as Jane herself has reported this week...

The dark money interests are showing their hand, coercing the Senate Republican majority to push through nominees despite concerns about their ability to do the job. So here we are on the brink of Inauguration Day. How should we understand what we've learned in this purgatory period between the end of the Biden era and whatever awaits us next week? Sigh. Deep breath. Let's talk first about...

Joe Biden's farewell tour, such as it's been. Evan, you have been our premier Biden watcher, written an important book about him. Do you think Joe Biden has helped the case for his legacy over the last couple months or hurt it?

Well, I was really interested in what he was going to say in that final speech, partly because I thought there's a high risk that he's going to do exactly as you were just implying in your question, which is that he really did not do himself a lot of favors in these final interviews where he said things like, you know, I could have beaten Trump, which I don't think you're going to find many pollsters who agree with that. But what's interesting to me is that presidents, when they're walking out the door, sometimes

use a phrase or they drop in a bit of language that can characterize their era. You know, Ronald Reagan, remember, invoked the shining city on the hill. Whatever we think about his politics, that was how he wanted to characterize his period. And of course, the one I was thinking about actually was Eisenhower talking about the rise of the military industrial complex. And Biden adapted that concept to the present by describing what he called the tech industrial complex. Today,

An oligarchy is taking shape in America of extreme wealth, power and influence that literally threatens our entire democracy, our basic rights and freedoms. And I think that is not just a description of this very immediate set of events, which we're going to be talking about with these

tech bros kind of surging to Washington to embrace Trump. But it really describes a defining fact of this period that I think was underdescribed until now. I've been writing in the magazine over the last few years about the rise of the ultra rich and the ways in which they ripple through our lives. And I've

believe that that is as political a story. Every time you write about that, that is as political as writing about swing voters in Philadelphia. And I'm sort of glad to see that these two things are now fusing in the public consciousness in a more explicit way. A lot of people will say, I wish that Joe Biden had done more on that matter earlier in his presidency. But I think as he walks out the door, naming it is useful.

Jane, what were your thoughts on hearing Biden say this the other night? Well, I too thought it's bracing to hear an American president actually use the word oligarchy. And I think what's interesting, as Evan's pointing out, is that he didn't talk about this earlier. And why is that?

And I think the reason is we've just passed the 15th anniversary of Citizens United on January 10th. The reason is that both parties, because of the way the system is now set up, are so dependent on big money. And it's only when they're walking out the door that they tell the truth about it. Yeah, well, I mean, to that point, a lot of people pointed out that the timing was pretty off when

President Biden had just given medals in the Oval Office to billionaires like George Soros and David Rubenstein.

So let me ask this then. Probably naming, framing and attacking the problem of the tech industrial complex is not going to be what Joe Biden is remembered for in terms of what he actually did and represented in his four years in office. His predecessor, Barack Obama, was famous for talking about how you essentially get your one paragraph in history. I think that was a Bill Clinton coinage originally. Right. Yeah. But it was Barack Obama who...

meditated on it, right, and who talked with our editor, David Remnick, about what he would be remembered for. Obama had, you know, always the sense of history sitting on his shoulder. And I have to say, what's remarkable to me is that Joe Biden, Obama's vice president, didn't seem to absorb that from Obama. You know, in many ways, I feel like Biden has been almost reckless or careless with his own

record of what's to come. And now, very belatedly, only in this sort of final round is he talking about, well, you know, I did all this great stuff, but it's just not going to come to fruition for the American people until much later. Too bad about that, or I should have focused on that more.

Give me a stab at what you both think is going to be in Joe Biden's paragraph. Well, I'll tell you what I think is the most interesting period to understand if you want to know where things went, in a sense, went pear-shaped for him. I had this great moment this past week when

I got a chance to listen to some of these focus groups from 2020 and 2021 that our friend Sarah Longwell has been conducting. And they are an amazing window. You see prophecy now when you see what they were talking about then. Because what you heard voters saying in 2020 when they voted for Joe Biden was, we want somebody who's not Trump. We want somebody who is a transition, who is, as he said at the time, a bridge to a new generation. That really was the dominant message. In one form or another, over and over, they said that. And then something big changed.

in the period between Election Day and the first quarter of Biden's presidency. And what happened was, partly January 6th, which I think in a way had a somewhat toxic effect on Biden's understanding of his own mandate, of his own presidency. He came to see it as a moment of a sort of galvanizing need for a giant presidency. Somebody like FDR, he put these portraits on the wall. That turns out to be, in its way, a tell. I was telling you a friend yesterday that had he...

along with portraits of Roosevelt and of these other presidents, I kind of wish he'd had a group shot of Americans, you know, a Norman Rockwell picture to remind himself that,

to remind himself it's not about you. It's not about you, the president. And I think that in a way, it was a misunderstanding of what people wanted from him. And in the end, the president's relationship with the public is a kind of unspoken compact. And if you violate that compact, people will punish you for it. And in a way, his decision to run for a second term was he broke that

faith with people. And as he always says, keep the faith. And he didn't, in a way, keep the faith that people expected of him.

Wow. I agree, but I think also that who writes this paragraph about what his presidency is is going to matter as much as anything else, and that right now, I think the conventional wisdom, not Evan, who actually truly knows what he's talking about, but there's sort of a feeling of like, oh, well, he was too liberal, he went too big, all that kind of thing. I totally agree that he

over-interpreted the mandate for himself and stayed too long. But I think the other thing that I would take away really is that it's impossible to be president of the United States if you can't communicate. And just seeing his farewell address where he said very important things, I think, but I felt his delivery was abysmal. He can barely speak a sentence without stumbling. And you...

The job, as much as anything else, is communicating. And, you know, you can't do it if you can't communicate. And his communication skills were never great, and they diminished tremendously during the presidency. And so I think that's really been a big problem as much as anything.

Yeah. And, you know, I absolutely agree with what both of you have said. And, you know, it's not just hubris, though, that Biden will be remembered for. But I think almost a level of bad luck that's dogged him throughout his life and his career that reaches sort of Greek tragedy proportions. The man who

warned us about Donald Trump is, you know, cursed by history to be bookended by him. The man who said he would end this period of dysfunction and chaos said,

uncertainty in our national life becomes the one who failed to put us back together. He promised normalcy and couldn't deliver. You know, he started his political career in tragedy. And, you know, you look at the bad luck that he got of coming to office determined to, you know, here's this miraculous vaccine and he's going to bring competence back to Washington. And I think he made it an

an unfulfillable promise to us and then suffered when he couldn't fulfill it, right? You know, I will say, though, the thing that attracted me to Joe Biden as a literary subject way back in 2014 when I first started writing about him was not that he was a winner. In fact, at the time...

At the time, he was this fascinating figure precisely because his life was this oscillation between tragedy and resilience. That's the interesting thing. It was over and over again. It would be, you know, he would mishandle the Anita Hill, Clarence Thomas hearings, and then he would build his reputation back by helping Barack Obama return to office. I do think, and I think this is, we owe history history.

a mention of the fact that he's not wrong when he says that the seeds have been planted for things that may in the long run prove to have been durable elements of his legacy. Things like the biggest investment in climate change, reducing drug prices. I want to say that three times, reducing drug prices. Reducing drug prices is something that's already having an impact on people's lives.

And we don't talk about it in Washington because it's not that sexy and it is a huge deal if it matters to you. So I'll take on this one. I'll sort of – my last word on it will be it's kind of the Truman route. It may be that over time his approval ratings begin to –

warm in memory as some of the achievements bear fruit. As Jimmy Carter's we just saw did. Again, it's who writes the history. And we've seen that in a way he was unable to sell his own legacy while he was in office. And that's for many reasons. It's not just his failure to communicate, but the whole communication system, as he said in his way out the door, has changed. Well, I think I totally agree with all of that, with the caveat here that

In the last couple months and over the course, you could say, of his last year in office, some of the flaws in Biden's character really came to stand out. And it's not just, you know, every losing presidential campaign, losing Senate campaign in history, right? It's a failure to communicate. It's not anything that the candidate did. But in this case, I think what I'm struck by is that I've seen even many Democratic supporters of Biden or of that, you know, policy agenda that Evan's talking about,

really sour on the man himself for reasons that are very manifest and manifold. It's a painful moment to recognize that he chose personal life

aggrandizement at the expense, arguably, of, you know, something really important, you know, putting the country in a position where Donald Trump could come back to power. It's never going to be washed away by history that Biden lied to the country and said that he wouldn't pardon his son and then did that. And, you know, I just I don't think that

And there were other policy failures as well. I mean, I think people are going to... People can forgive policy failures is what I'm saying. But the character flaws are the ones that unfortunately have come much more to the fore over the last year. And to that point, one of the great durable observations about the presidency is the presidency doesn't change you. It doesn't make you. It reveals you. It reveals you. And I think this is a pretty pure expression of that.

The political scene for The New Yorker will be back in just a moment, and we will talk about what will be revealed next week.

Hi, I'm Jason Adam Katzenstein, and I'm a cartoonist for The New Yorker. Something that I like to do is to stay home, because home is where you can wear sweatpants and watch movies. Another benefit of home is that you don't have to be perceived by other people. But I do like feeling healthy and having endorphins, and also I need my muscles to be huge so that I can draw those cartoons. And this, dear listeners, is what I love about the Hydro Rowing Machine.

Because now I can have the workout of an outdoorsman while being an indoorsman. And you get to do the workout equivalent of staying in and watching a movie, but in this case, you have that little TV hooked up to the Hydro, and you get workouts that are led by Olympians and world-class athletes. Also, the Hydro is low-impact, which means minimal risk of injury, and that is great news for me personally because I am very injury-prone.

Kick off the new year with a full-body workout, all from the comfort of home with Hydro. Head over to hydro.com and use code NEWYORKER to save up to $475 off your Hydro Pro Rower. That's H-Y-D-R-O-W.com, code NEWYORKER to save up to $475. Hydro.com, code NEWYORKER.

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No matter what shape it's in, you can donate it to WNYC, even if it's 100 years old. Donating is easy. The pickup is free and you'll get a tax deduction. Learn more at WNYC.org slash car. So before we get into the nitty gritty of what we've learned in this purgatory period, as we called it, Donald Trump has made a lot of promises. He's talked about a lot of things he's planning to do on day one and in the days that follow next.

What is the biggest thing that you are bracing for? Jane, why don't you start? I am most worried that the brakes are completely off what looks like a kind of concentration of power in a single individual that we've not seen before. I'm worried about

For me, it's the potential for gross incompetence. I think, just take it at face value, the people who are now supporting Trump, you know, some of these

CEOs who are kind of surging towards him. One of the things they'll often say is like, we're sick of the politics. We just want people who can get things done, right? So what we saw this week in people like Pete Hegseth is I don't think anybody would hire Pete Hegseth to be the assistant regional manager of a paper distribution company, to borrow one example. I mean, he is

If somebody came to you and described his record, his resume, his knowledge of the relevant portfolio, you'd say, thanks, Pete, but no thanks. So that worries me because incompetence at high altitude can cause tremendous harm.

Susan, what about you? On day one, what's keeping you up at night? What isn't, right? No, to Evan's point, actually, the fact that you mentioned this idea of incompetence, ironically, I've heard many Democrats say to me that they view incompetence as the saving grace of the Trump administration. No, seriously. I mean, I've had senators say this to me, and the reason is, is that they believe that that may cause

aspects of Trump's really radical agenda to fail. And so, you know, let's just put competence aside as, you know, possibly in the positive column, possibly in the negative column. My rebuttal is one word, COVID. People have said this specifically about Pete Hegseth. There are people who've joked that maybe if he continues the kind of drinking that he's alleged to have done in the past, he'll do less harm.

I think that the real risk of Trump 2.0 is the irreversible course change. The country, we've now learned, and Joe Biden has reinforced that we can't go back to the status quo ante. You know, 2015 is firmly in the rearview mirror. But making changes that are not easily undone via executive order or quick fix changes

in four years from now if the country flips back to democratic control. Those are the things that really matter. And, of course, that's where I look at some of

the decisions he's talking about making around the world. You know, the consequences of selling out Ukraine are durable, lasting, and potentially extremely threatening, alienating our neighbors and friends. What does it mean that the very first targets of Donald Trump's new presidency are Mexico and Canada once again? You know, we've been blessed by

by our geography, by history. We have some of the best neighbors in the world. When our second largest city is the victim of a catastrophic fire,

Who's showing up in their planes to save Los Angeles? You know, it's our friends and neighbors. These are the kinds of things that actually do really worry me because I think you can't go back. You can't go back on certain ruptures. And I'm very worried about that. And I'm very worried that people are not prepared for Donald Trump, even if incompetently, to follow through on some of these pledges. Mass deportation now. Is America really ready for

Starting next week for doors being kicked down across the country and, you know, people being sent away with no warning. What does that mean for our country and for our national identity? In terms of the things that are going to be hard to get back.

I would just add the climate. What we're seeing is Trump appears to be turning environmental policy over to the fossil fuel industry, who he's putting in power in every direction. And, um,

You are not going to be able to get this climate back anytime soon. And the damage that we're seeing in L.A. is just a tiny little glimpse at what lies ahead if they don't work on this. Susan mentioned that you were at the hearings for Pete Hagsath. And I have to say, you know, you've been writing really intensively and productively about his story.

Yeah.

But there was something else that really speaks to the institutional conditions that Trump is coming into and the ways in which parts of the government can begin to fold themselves around him. And that's the fact that the FBI's background check on Hegseth is said to have been very slight and that in a way the FBI regards its client in this case, as you put it,

as the president himself. That's an astonishing thing to realize, that if the president says, give this guy a light once over, then that's all he gets. How much do you see the risk of a broader reflection of that instinct to say, well, what the man at the top wants is what the man at the top gets? Oh, I think that's indicative of what we've seen

The FBI's failure to do a thorough background research report into Hegseth and not speaking to the people who worked with him who prepared a whistleblower report when they tried to sort of raise the alarm about his behavior, not speak to the woman who accused him of raping her, who he paid off later secretly.

I should mention that he has denied the rape allegation and said that the sex was consensual.

Not speaking to those people suggests that they are just folding to the will of Trump and the transition team. And very much that is indicative of what we saw on the Hill this week, which was the Senate Republicans going along. People who had previously raised questions about these nominees are falling in line, giving into intimidation and fear.

Anyone who went to grade school in this country knows there were supposed to be checks and balances, and the role of advice and consent from the Senate is an important check. So far, other than Matt Gaetz, it's not working.

Yeah, well, I mean, we talked at the beginning about, you know, the sort of illusions or the, you know, the fantasies that are pretty quickly going to come to an end. And, you know, one persistent fantasy, and we all heard it from lots of people, not just, you know, hardcore partisan Republicans, was this idea that, oh, you know, everything's going to be OK because those Senate Republicans are going to provide a check on this extreme cabinet that Donald Trump is pointing. Now, here we are talking in January, and the current view is that

Basically, all of Trump's nominees, with the possible exception of Tulsi Gabbard, look at the moment as though they're going to get confirmed. Do you agree with that, Evan? Is there anyone else you think might actually be in trouble? And what do you make of what we've learned so far? I'll avoid predictions just because, you know, these days things...

new information comes to light all the time. But I do get the strong sense, particularly watching the Pam Bondi hearing, she's up for attorney general, there were some really astonishing little moments, one in particular, that speak to the way in which I see a culture forming. And Susan, this will be familiar to you from having lived in authoritarian countries as I have, that there were a couple of things that she did that were just...

on point with those habits of mine. One is that when she was asked whether Joe Biden is a legitimate president, she would not answer the question to say clearly, yes, what she would say is President Biden is the president of the United States. He was duly sworn in. That's almost a sort of theological refusal to say certain words, to acknowledge reality.

That's a real feature of authoritarian political culture. The other thing is that she, of course, dismissed out of hand the idea that there would ever be a political prosecution of an opponent, an investigation of a political opponent, which is another feature of, you know, I remember living in Egypt at the time and they would say, oh, there are no political prisoners because, of course, nobody is ever prosecuted for politics. They're prosecuted for some other goofy thing.

So there was a kind of bluff confidence in the way in which she has fully absorbed the mannerisms of authoritarian fealty that I found to be quite striking. Yeah, and the thing is that it's a personalist –

that we're looking to set up here, which means that even wild veering around in terms of your ideology is to be expected because you're following whatever the dictates and the ideology of the leader, Donald Trump, famously not fixed to, you know, a set of hardcore traditional Republican principles. And so that's why you had many of these nominees that included not just Pam Bondi, but Pete Hegseth and others absolutely just following

And what was remarkable for me is having those senators just sit there and say, like,

Oh, yeah, sure. That's totally plausible. It reminded me, frankly, of all those Supreme Court nomination hearings where they were like, what's your view on Roe versus Wade? Oh, Senator, I don't have a fixed view of Roe versus Wade. And then what do they do? They get sworn in and immediately vote to throw out Roe versus Wade. Do you think there comes a point when the pantomime, the ridiculous rituals of

obfuscation of refusal to provide honest answers that people just finally sort of that the public just finally says this is ridiculous. No. In fact, the opposite. What I think happens in Washington is people admire the ability of these nominees and whoever else you're talking about to just really navigate. They think, oh, they are so politically slick. And what have we seen? OK, so take a look. It's remarkable if you take a look at the Hegseth hearings.

He flubbed some of the most basic questions about just the American defense. Let's play that, Tammy Duckworth. For the children for posterity. Speaking of a basic question here, this is going to rank up in the all-time great ones. This is Senator Tammy Duckworth, herself a veteran, asking Pete Hegseth, which countries were in the important defense group being ASEAN? And how many nations are in ASEAN, by the way?

I couldn't tell you the exact amount of nations in that, but I know we have allies in South Korea and Japan and in AUKUS with Australia trying to work on submarines with them. None of those countries are in ASEAN. None of those three countries that you've mentioned are in ASEAN. I suggest you do a little... I do think that the Hegseth hearing and his pratfall on the subject of ASEAN is an important...

milestone in the stupefication of America because, you know, I ran into a conservative commentator and I was I mentioned this Hegsass thing and the guy says, oh, that's nothing. I mean, I'm sure he just thought that Tammy Duckworth meant Asian, like Asian. And I said, but that is not allowed. Why is it that you think that that is an OK thing for secretary? So, you know, score one for for the stupid caucus. Well, and the stupefication of America is

This also, Evan, is a facet of authoritarian regimes. You know, Donald Trump is a master of picking appointees for very senior positions who never would have gotten those jobs under anyone else. It enhances the personal loyalty to the leader. You know, even in Trump 1.0, there was a lot of appointing of people who were manifestly unqualified, who didn't have the background, and also who are sort of broken people.

It's the island of broken toys. And again, that enhances it. When Donald Trump and his organization, the Trump Organization, plucked the doorman and made him the well-paid security chief, that was somebody who was loyal to him forever. And I think it's part of creating not just a government of laws and rules, but a government built around the principle of personal loyalty.

I mean, and the thing is, so then you take a look at how did the Washington press corps describe this hearing? They admired his ability not to be rattled. It could have been that he was described as flunking the basics, but instead he didn't even flinch as he went through this and the Republicans continued to try to

you know, fix his image from question to question as they backed him and talked about how wonderful it is, you know, that he's a redemption story and has given his life to, as he called it, his Lord Jesus Christ. And that's why he was chosen. Let's also be clear that Trump...

chose him because he's a very able talking head. And as Fox anchors go, he has been the most pro-Trump of any of them. That's saying quite a lot at Fox. The political scene from The New Yorker will be back in just a moment. WNYC Studios is supported by Hydro.

Hi, I'm Jason Adam Katzenstein, and I'm a cartoonist for The New Yorker. Something that I like to do is to stay home, because home is where you can wear sweatpants and watch movies. Another benefit of home is that you don't have to be perceived by other people. But I do like feeling healthy and having endorphins, and also I need my muscles to be huge so that I can draw those cartoons. And this, dear listeners, is what I love about the Hydro Rowing Machine.

Because now I can have the workout of an outdoorsman while being an indoorsman. And you get to do the workout equivalent of staying in and watching a movie, but in this case you have that little TV hooked up to the Hydro and you get workouts that are led by Olympians and world-class athletes. Also, the Hydro is low impact, which means minimal risk of injury, and that is great news for me personally because I am very injury prone.

Kick off the new year with a full-body workout, all from the comfort of home with Hydro. Head over to hydro.com and use code NEWYORKER to save up to $475 off your Hydro Pro Rower. That's H-Y-D-R-O-W.com, code NEWYORKER to save up to $475. Hydro.com, code NEWYORKER. WNYC Studios is supported by Babbel.

Are you holding back on foreign travel plans this year because you are afraid of the language gap? Well, no need to mind the gap if you have Babbel.

This year, speak like a whole new you with Babbel, the language learning app that gets you talking. Babbel's quick 10-minute lessons, handcrafted by over 200 language experts, get you to begin speaking your new language in three weeks, or whatever pace you choose. And because conversing is the key to really understanding each other in new languages, Babbel is designed using practical, real-world conversations.

Let's get more of you talking in a new language. Babbel is gifting our listeners 60% off subscriptions at babbel.com slash WNYC. Get up to 60% off at babbel.com slash WNYC. Spelled B-A-B-B-E-L dot com slash WNYC. babbel.com slash WNYC. Rules and restrictions may apply.

The New Yorker Radio Hour is supported by Rocket Money. The start of a new year is the perfect time to get organized, set goals, and prioritize what matters most. One common top priority for many of us is financial wellness. Thanks to Rocket Money, financial goals can feel achievable. They show you all of your subscriptions right in one place and pull together spending across different accounts to track spending habits.

Rocket Money's dashboard also gives you a clear view of your expenses across all of your accounts and can help you easily create a personalized budget with custom categories to help keep your spending on track. Whether your goal is to pay off credit card debt, put away money for a house, or just build your savings, Rocket Money makes it easy. Rocket Money has over 5 million users and has saved users a total of $500 million in cancelled subscriptions.

Cancel your unwanted subscriptions and reach your financial goals faster with Rocket Money. Just go to rocketmoney.com slash nyrh today. That's rocketmoney.com slash nyrh.

American TikTokers are hoping for a last-minute reprieve for their favorite app ahead of the impending ban this weekend. But maybe they need the app more than the app needs them. When TikTok was banned in India in 2020, there were 200 million Indian users on there. Almost double, let's say, the amount of Americans on there. This is not their first rodeo. Don't miss this week's On The Media from WNYC. Find On The Media wherever you get your podcasts.

I just want to close on this idea of winning as its own virtue for Donald Trump. Why is it that his approval ratings as he's about to be sworn in are higher essentially than they've ever been before, pretty close to dead even between those who approve of Donald Trump and those who disapprove of Donald Trump? A reminder, not a single day in his first presidency when he ever had a net

positive approval rating. We don't know if that'll be the case in the second term. Speaking of loving Trump the winner, you also see the pile-on effect of America's big money men and, you know, all the billionaires who are going to be on that platform, many of them previously Democratic big givers, and

Mark Zuckerberg, just one example. Jeff Bezos is going to be there. Jane, help us understand, you know, what the caving of the big money men means for America in the next Trump years. Well, I mean, inaugurations have always been something of a shakedown. To tell you the truth, the money comes in, it's almost like it's a protection racket. These businessmen are saying, you know, please treat my business kindly and maybe not

throw a contract in my direction. It's so much more money this time than in the past, though. I mean, the estimates I've read say that just the inaugural fund is raising somewhere between $200 million and $500 million. It'll be just sort of at Trump's

disposal in some way or another. Like, what is it? I mean, it's a combination of fear and investment from American business that stood up to him to some extent in the past and is all falling in line. It suggests that they're paying fealty to where the power is and to some extent hoping for some goodies back. There's a report, I think it was in the Wall Street Journal, about one of the crypto companies, Ripple, where they have

literally donated $10 million, okay, in two different forms to Trump at this point. That is an investment in, you know, give me a policy that we want. And I think to your point, I mean, one of the things that's different from the traditional shakedown is that you have, as the Journal reported, companies that have not given to inaugural funds in the last decade that are now giving money to Trump's inaugural, like McDonald's, Delta, Johnson & Johnson. That is...

worth noting. I have to say this to me, to your point, Susan, about suddenly everybody is sort of gravitating to his power. This is one of the big themes of this period that I find most distressing is this essentially the attraction, an amoral conception of victory, of winning. I remember years ago when I was interviewing Mark Zuckerberg, and he was fascinated by Augustus, the Roman emperor. And

One of the things that was kind of the most telling pieces of that conversation was I said, but, you know, what about the downsides of Augustus? He was said to be a brutal and unforgiving and duplicitous leader. And he sort of took that in stride and said, yeah, but, you know, think about the impact on history. I'm paraphrasing here.

here. In hindsight, not a reassuring precedent if you're a tech gazillionaire is researching Roman emperors. Evan, does this explain the strange hairdo? Yes, it does. The Augustus look, basically. It does. I mean, at one point, they went on their honeymoon, he and his wife, in

in Rome and they had so many photos with statues of Augustus that his wife joked that it felt like it was the three of them on their honeymoon. Oh boy. Okay, this is getting into absolutely weird territory. I'm sure Donald Trump can weaponize this in some way to gain even more power over Mark Zuckerberg. It's not going to be like any inauguration, I think, of the recent past. Four years ago only, Donald Trump

you know, had sicked a mob of his followers on the Capitol. He refused even to show up at the Capitol. This time, all of the former presidents are coming, although Michelle Obama has perhaps wisely opted out. I did read, Evan, that Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush, an unlikely trio of buddies, but buddies nonetheless,

are not going to be attending the traditional post-inauguration luncheon at the Capitol. What do you think? I mean, I think that they're... Look, as long as Donald Trump gets to, quote, be a norm breaker and chuck out the rule book, I don't see a whole lot of reason for some of these guys to go through the

Some of the abject rituals of pretending as if Trump honors them. I'm worried, though, that being AWOL, it certainly sends a message, but it's not the same as resistance or actually being in opposition. It's one way to express something, but it's not the most effective.

Well, of course, it was eight years ago that George W. Bush, sitting next to Hillary Clinton at Trump's first inaugural turn to her after he heard the American carnage,

inaugural address and said, that was some weird shit. I have confirmed that, by the way, with both of the principals. It was one of the more famous things that he said. Can I just add one thing to add back to the money thing, which is I think it's also worth saying that, you know, something else that's different this year is Elon Musk is going to be not just on that platform as the richest man in the world next to Trump. He's going to have an office in the old executive office building.

All right. Deep breaths. Ready or not, here we go.

This has been The Political Scene from The New Yorker. I'm Susan Glasser. We had research assistants today from Alex D'Elia. Our producer is Julia Nutter, mixing by Mike Kutchman. Stephen Valentino is our executive producer, and Chris Bannon is Conde Nast's head of global audio. Our theme music is by Alison Leighton Brown. Thank you for listening. ♪

WNYC Studios is supported by Carnegie Hall, which presents pianist Bruce Liu in recital, performing works by Tchaikovsky, Mendelssohn, Scriabin, and Prokofiev's Piano Sonata No. 7, January 24. Tickets and information at carnegiehall.org.

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