It's like a Marvel Universe version of of the US government
right now. Like you're like what?
Why are we in this movie instead of in an actual real political
world? We are speaking at a moment when
the federal government has shut down over Congresses ability to
even keep the government running.
Where is Congress right now when some people say we need it most?
I think Americans do genuinely believe that if Trump says it's
in the Constitution, it is, and if it isn't, it isn't.
But the state is me, right? That is the kind of absurd
political decay that we're in the midst of.
Hello and welcome to Trump World.
I'm Matt. I'm Anishka and the US
government has shut down, but I have not of.
Course you haven't. I wonder if you've noticed the
shutdown where you are. I mean, lots and lots of people
are. If you're trying to get into a
National Park, you're going to notice the shutdown because
it'll be closed, for instance. And we'll be talking about the
shutdown later. But we've got lots of stuff
coming up, haven't we? Yeah, we're going to be talking
to the most revered political historian of her time, Jill
Lepore, about all of this. She's going to join us later,
but first I think we do need to focus on what is happening here
at the moment. Well, there's loads, right?
So there's the shutdown. And, and just to reflect briefly
on the week that we've had already on Monday, President
Trump announced his 20 point plan for peace in the Middle
East, including Gaza. We'll talk about that on
Tuesday. There was this extraordinary,
unprecedented gathering of the top brass of the world's
mightiest military in the history of military existence,
summoning them to the Marine base in Quantico for World War
Three. No, for a war against Flab.
We'll talk about that. But let's start with a shutdown.
So what have you noticed? How does it feel?
What? What are people saying around
you in Washington about the shutdown?
Well, I think it's worth saying first up that shutdowns are
things that are threatened every year in the USI do think this
one is different, and we'll talk about why.
And there are lots of things that you don't notice.
In fact, even some of the museums mats are very much open
because we've already been down trying to film where they're
closed and it turns out they can stay open for a few more days.
But look, in Washington, DC perhaps more than anywhere else,
I think you do feel it because the biggest impact is for
federal workers 750,000 expected to be furloughed.
A lot of those federal workers live here in DC.
And, and the reason I think it feels different this time is the
rhetoric we're getting from Donald Trump, the idea that he
could go further, that he could use this as an excuse to not
just furlough federal workers, but to sack a number of them.
It's a, it's a, I've not been here for a shutdown before.
It's a story that it obviously doesn't affect people in the UK
hugely. So it it doesn't get hugely
reported in the UK but it's totally dominant here across all
the media this morning. I think we should also explain
just what it means if you say shutdown in America.
Everyone knows what you're talking about.
But essentially what it means for those who don't know, is
that the the, the, the Congress, the Democrats and the
Republicans in Congress cannot agree on what funds the
functioning of the federal government going forward.
And you know, this needs to have a proper majority in the Senate.
Crucially, it needs a majority of 60 votes, the so-called super
majority. And you can only get that super
majority if the Democrats or a certain number of Democrats vote
with the Republicans. That was great.
Matt, how often have you covered this?
Well, I literally half a dozen times and, and the first time I
covered it, it seemed like we were at the, you know, at the
edge of an abyss, the end of the world.
The federal government shuts down.
What are we going to do? Forget about parks and, you
know, visiting museums in Washington?
It was about, you know, checks being Social Security checks
being issued by the government, which is very serious because
lots of people rely on them. Millions upon millions of people
rely on them. So that would have been delayed.
I mean, obviously military expenditure and federal police
expenditure and deployment is exempt from that.
But there's an awful lot of stuff that gets covered by the
federal government, the biggest expenditure government on planet
Earth, I'm, I'm assuming bigger even than China.
And, and this stuff just doesn't get covered.
And the last time we had a shutdown, which was seven years
ago under Donald J Trump, it lasted for I think six weeks
over the Christmas period. And you do notice things
gradually, you know, changing, not happening.
The wheels of government grind to a halt.
But crucially, Anderska, this time round, there is a very
important sort of existential political calculation at play
here. So if you remember, in March,
just after Donald Trump was inaugurated, there was another
threat of a shutdown. And it was averted because Chuck
Schumer, who's the the Democrat, Senate Minority Leader in the
Senate, together with nine other senators who were Democrats,
decided to vote with the Republicans to keep government
going to prevent the shutdown. The firestorm that erupted in
the Democratic Party against him for doing so was extraordinary.
Schumer the traitor, Schumer the sellout.
He's obviously had a a conversion on the road to the
next shutdown, which has just happened because he's voted
together with those other Democrats to shut the government
down. This is based on the calculation
that it's going to be that that they will reap the rewards of
shutting the government down and that Donald Trump will be blamed
for it. But it's a massive risk because
it's equally possible, and this is obviously Trump's
calculation, that the Democrats will be blamed for it come the
midterm elections. And he might also use this, by
the way, as an excuse, as he has threatened to sack hundreds of
thousands of federal workers. Yeah.
I mean, we'll see that. That's the kind of most
significant bit for me, what he actually does on that, whether
he uses it in that way. But that same game has already
completely erupted. I was actually, you know,
walking around the Capitol building yesterday trying to
speak to politicians who were involved in this.
And they were saying things like, you know, it's not our
fault. Democrats were saying because we
have been waving our hands essentially for weeks to try and
have a negotiation about this. And the Republicans have said
that they don't want to have a negotiation.
The Republicans are now saying, just vote to pause this, then we
can have the negotiation. And they're saying it's a bit
late. I mean, the, the, the crux of it
is that because of that super majority that's required, this
is the one opportunity a year for a minority party to actually
exert some influence. The Democrats are particularly
focused on cuts to Medicaid, which is medical care for some
of the poorest people in America and other things around
healthcare. And so they're holding out on
signing off the entire budget because of that.
Donald Trump's response is to say this is all about giving
free healthcare to illegal aliens.
I mean, the group that he's talking about don't actually
qualify for some of the benefits that Democrats are trying to
hold. What 1 interesting person I
bumped into was Senator Chris Murphy.
Oh yes, very outspoken from Connecticut.
He. We.
Like Chris Murphy? Yeah.
He had already stood up. He gives good copy.
He'd already stood up in the chamber and he'd made this
argument that it was not his responsibility to vote for this
kind of authoritarian crackdown on democracy that we were seeing
from Donald Trump. I mean, when I when I bumped
into him, he sort of gave a slightly more measured answer,
which was what he was doing was exactly what you were talking
about. The blame game that this is the
Republicans fault whilst they're saying it's the Democrats fault.
It will be interesting to see what the public think of this
and also when it starts to affect the public.
If it goes on for some time, that will become more and more
acute. But also it goes to the deeper
point, which we'll obviously put to Jill Lepore, our guest, in a
minute, the deeper point of the nature of power and governance
in the era of Donald Trump. So the suspicion, I think quite
rightly, is that Donald Trump wants to bolster his executive
powers as a president even more than any previous president has
done, you know, by governing with these, you know, emergency
declarations and decrees, these, you know, presidential missives
that are basically signed by a Sharpie pen.
He's done an awful lot of that. We'll talk about that as well.
But also sidelining Congress and and rightly, the Democrats and
even some Republicans ever so quietly in the dead of night,
are saying the Constitution is all about Congress making the
laws and essentially running the country.
But the chief executive, the president overseeing that
running, making sure that Congress doesn't get out of
hand, well, the exact opposite has happened.
And frankly, Congress has not really been there to provide the
checks and balances it is supposed to provide for a
president who is accused by the Democrats and suspected by some
quiet Republicans of trying to rule more like a monarch than a
Republican president with a small arm.
And I think and so, so this gets to the very heart of, you know,
of, of what who governs the Republic, who's got all the
power. And just briefly, I mean,
Schumer back in March was saying, well, if we if we vote
to shut down the the federal government, in other words, if
we vote against this, this emergency budget measure, we
will have no say in how Donald Trump uses his increasingly
authoritarian powers in order to sack people, you know, or corral
the federal agencies to his to his will.
And at least by, you know, by allowing the thing to continue
while Congress carries on with some kind of role.
But frankly, it's a it's a losing argument.
And the Democrats are caught between their very angry base,
their own party political foot soldiers are saying, hang on a
minute, You've got to stand up to Donald Trump.
Don't be such wusses. Don't roll over to Trump and the
general electorate that might well blame them for what is
about to happen. All of which has some echoes of
the challenges facing the Labour Party right now.
I was watching from here to see Keir Starmer try to walk that
thin line. And yeah, the Democrats seem to
have a very similar and perhaps somewhat amplified, you know,
calculation to do. Let's just, if you're happy to
talk about Gaza for a bit because obviously we've had this
situation this week. I was at the White House on
Monday where we got the. Comprehensive, that was, that
was quite a that was a big moment, wasn't it, on Monday?
And you would you would you watched it all in the Oval
Office. I did not watch it in the Oval
Office. You went in the Oval Office.
I was, it was happening while we were on air, Matt.
I had to be standing in the outside area of the White House
talking down the barrel to Channel 4 News because it was
happening as I actually had to decide whether to go into this
press conference or not. And I was standing there, really
wanted to go in to watch the moment, try and catch Donald
Trump's eyes with the question. And I was making that
calculation that we often do. And I thought there's a chance
that I then won't be able to be on air during Channel 4 News.
He was looking for you, Anushka. They didn't take a single
question, either him or Netanyahu.
And look, I'll, I'll talk in a bit about what I think the
reaction has been here, but just tell me, I mean, you've been
following this for so long. What was the reaction in Israel
and Gaza? Whenever I hear something, you
know, like Donald, someone like Donald Trump's here on a Monday
as he did, this is a new plan. It's a 20 point plan and it, and
it bats away some of the crazy ideas like there won't be
annexation of the West Bank, there won't be annexation of the
Gaza Strip. There'll be no new Israeli
settlements inside the Gaza Strip.
We're going to withdraw Israeli troops, etcetera, etcetera.
And this is a some sort of path towards Palestinian self
determination, as the plan says, and Palestinian statehood, the
inner optimist that is still just about got a pulse says
yippee. Finally a bit of a breakthrough.
Why not? You know, Donald Trump, he likes
to throw spaghetti against the wall, but maybe this noodle has
actually stuck. And then of course, and you
know, and then you hear Netanyahu looked a little bit.
I would, I thought Ashen faced and and and improved the plan
through gritted teeth because of course he's got to sell this
stuff to his own cabinet as Motrich and Ben Gavir first and
foremost. And then you look at the detail
and you realise that although it's 20 points, there were
literally dozens of points that are really fuzzy.
And then I spoke to people in Israel.
First of all had been that we had a former Brigadier General
who was the commander of the Gaza battalion when they had
one, a permanent one who was very close still to Netanyahu.
And he said, hang on a minute, Matt Frey.
This does not mean a Palestinian state.
We did not sign up to that. This does not mean the
withdrawal of Israeli troops. We did not from Gaza.
We did not sign up to that. And and suddenly you think,
well, hang on a minute, there's a fundamental disagreement here.
And then you talk to people in Gaza, as I did, or indeed to
sort of senior Palestinians, including one who was a former
chief, one of the chief Palestinian negotiators for the
Oslo agreement. And he said, look, this is this
is full of holes and there's no way they can agree to this
stuff, although it's a kind of starting point.
It's so watered down and wishy washy.
It's kind of where we were years ago.
And it doesn't really solidify the one thing that needs to be
solidified from a Palestinian point of view, which is a
credible, viable pathway to self determination and statehood as
recognized by the British government just last week that
the Israelis were respect. It's there's nothing to
guarantee any of that. So you're back to a kind of
version of the Abraham Accords. And we know how that ended.
Everyone in the Gulf was happy and the Israelis were happy, but
the Palestinians weren't. Yeah, I mean, it's worth saying
that the exact phrase you've just said, you know, credible
pathway to self determination and statehood was literally in
the 20 points. Netanyahu stands up in the White
House. He accepts this agreement, which
we can both see .19 includes that pathway to statehood.
He, of course, doesn't take any questions, which a bit like when
you were in Alaska with Putin and Trump, the first signs were
there that this wasn't quite going to work, and we both knew
it. Yeah, Matt, because both of us
were in New York for the UN General Assembly.
We listened to Netanyahu on the stage there.
I mean, did that sound like a man who's open to the idea of a
future statehood for the Palestinian people?
He said his argument was that it would be like giving Qaeda
estate a mile from New York and he was talking about
Palestinians at that point, not about Hamas specifically.
So. So immediately you think, OK,
there are problems here. Then on the other side there
was, you know, the Arab country seemed happy with it, or so
Donald Trump said. But behind the scenes, reports
here suggesting officials were absolutely furious because
Netanyahu had managed over six hours on Sunday with Jared
Kushner, Donald Trump's son-in-law, and Steve Witkoff,
the Middle East envoy, to edit it and in particular to edit the
timetable of a withdrawal from Israel.
Of course, what Donald Trump will do is to blame Hamas if
this doesn't work. But clearly there are lots of
problems in there. I had this fascinating chat
before it actually happened with a guy called Aaron David Miller.
He's a Middle East analyst. For many years, he was a
negotiator on the Middle East for Republican and Democratic
administrations. And I said to him, are you
optimistic? And he was like, I just don't
deal with optimism and pessimism in this, particularly as this
war's grinding on into its third year.
He said there's not been a single consequence for either
side imposed by either the Europeans, the Americans who
could actually do it, or the Arab countries.
And he basically said that the most hopeful he had ever been on
Palestine and Israel was in 2000.
And then the gap was the size of a Grand Canyon and it's only got
wider sense. And he said every single comma,
every single line is now going to be argued about.
And so he he didn't, he didn't say pessimistic.
But I have to say, that was the tone I felt.
I, I, I just would add one thing.
I mean, for Trump to have gone as far to the mainstream on this
because broadly speaking, these rough outlines of his 20 point
plan have been around for a very, very long time.
For Trump to get away from Mar a Lago on Sea, which is was his
vision of Gaza when he first came to power.
For him to say very clearly to the Israelis, you can not annex
the West Bank, which is what many Israeli cabinet members and
quite a few members of the public were fantasizing about.
That's quite important and shouldn't be underestimated.
He's no longer on the wacky fringe of this.
He's gone to the mainstream, although I'm sure he hates that
word. The the measure to which the
measure to which this thing is unacceptable to the Palestinians
will be seen by, if it's approved in the Israeli cabinet,
by the extremists. If they can go along with this,
even though Berkeley says you cannot annex the West Bank, then
they will have to smell something very fishy.
The final point is this. The bloke they had, you know,
they had brought out of, you know, Middle Eastern retirement,
as it were, who's dusted off occasionally for, for great
things. One Tony Blair, our former Prime
Minister. Of course, on paper it looks
good. What Blair who solved, you know,
the, the Good Friday Agreement. Blair, who, you know, worked in
the Middle East after he was Prime Minister, tried to, you
know, cobble together some kind of follow up to the Oslo
Accords. You know, Blair knows what he's
talking about. He's respected by Palestinians
and by Israelis and by the especially by the Gulf states.
Well, when I asked this senior Palestinian yesterday about
Blair, his response was disastrous idea, let him stay at
home. We don't want Blair.
And that is an opinion that is echoed not just amongst
Palestinians, a broad spectrum of them, but also in his own
Labour Party, by Labour backbenchers.
You know who asked about this at the Liverpool conference?
So I don't know what you know, if if Blair is the key to this.
What we're basically talking about is a a broader version of
the Abraham Accords. I mean, it's just with just on
that. So the idea is Trump obviously
as chair of the Board of Peace and then Blair as one of the
committee members. And So what I did yesterday was
just poured over polling. I've been talking to polling
company Gallup about a number of things.
And they've done polling both of Israeli and Palestinians and
also of Americans on all of this.
And I was trying to think what what will people make of Trump
and Blair and, and approval ratings among Palestinians.
And I have to say they can only poll at the moment people in the
West Bank and E Jerusalem, they can't get into Gaza.
But nevertheless, approval ratings for the American
administration and leadership are at 7% at the moment.
And then I was saying, well, how can I try and understand what
they might think of Blair? And what we did was we looked
back at 2007 when Tony Blair was in his final year as UK Prime
Minister, and disapproval for the UK leadership at the time
was 81%. It was the highest it had been I
think and has been ever since, which was when he was leader.
So that but but just on one slightly just attached point to
that is American attitudes have shifted on Israel quite heavily.
There is still more sympathy towards towards Israelis and
Palestinians, but the numbers have closer than they have ever
been before. And for the first time in
Gallup's polling history, with this sympathy with the Israelis
since October the 7th is below 50%.
I think it's reached 33% for Palestinians.
And Donald Trump is the one person in the world who has the
power to influence Benjamin Netanyahu because for any
Israeli Prime Minister, what the American, that relationship with
America is so important. At home.
He was pretty angry, at least outwardly.
I don't know whether he really knew or not about the Qatar
strike. And as you say, he has stopped
the annexation announcement of the West Bank.
So, so it does still stand with Trump, but but chillingly, I
thought on one day Donald Trump made absolutely clear, if Hamas
don't agree to this, Benjamin, you've got my back to go as far
as you want to go. And that was really scary.
They've already levelled the place, 80% of it is rubble.
You know, they've already killed 67,000 people.
I mean, there's not much else they can do when it comes to
unleashing hell that they haven't done already.
Anushka, I don't know about you. The thing that really got me
interested this week and raised a few eyebrows on my head in a
few other heads, was this unprecedented gathering of the
top brass, hundreds of them, or the world's mightiest military
in Quantico, the Marine base South of Washington, DC.
We all thought it might be some preparation for World War Three,
but in fact, there was. Drum roll.
What was it, Anoushka? Fat shaming military generals.
Yeah. So essentially they bring
hundreds in, including military, you know, leaders from the
Middle East at the moment. Were they talking about Israel,
Gaza? They certainly were not.
And then I, I tuned in. I mean, I have to say I did
wonder if it was going to be a bit of a damp squib.
I mean, there was some stuff in there which was interesting.
Obviously the optics of it somewhat North Korean, although
they probably want us to talk about that.
So let's not too much. But but Pete Hegseth, the
secretary of War, as he is now called on stage.
And then I was like, he suddenly starts talking about fat
generals. So what are you going on about?
His argument was basically like, if you're fat, you can't be the
leader in a military setting. You need to be doing personal
training every day. I do personal training every
day. We're going to make sure that
you do, I mean. Pretty ripped that Pete Hegseth.
He is pretty ripped. Amazing 6 pack Donald.
Trump has. Donald Trump is not rich, wants.
To be a bit more isolationist. Yeah.
On the world. So when he changed his that, you
know, his department to the Department of War.
I I did think, oh, that's funny because he doesn't want to be
involved in wars. But the sort of amazing bit is
when he talked about that in the room and he was talking about
not a war with other countries, but a war with the enemy within.
And he basically openly said, I want you lot to go into American
cities, you know, where we're going to put in the National
Guard and so forth. And that could be your training.
And, and look, in weeks and weeks to come, I think we're
going to discuss this a lot. But it is pretty chilling to
hear a president say that The New York Times bestselling
author of These truths. And now We the People, which
focuses on the Constitution, is with us.
Jill Lepore, thank you for joining us.
Thanks so much for having me, it's really fun to speak with
you. You obviously right and I love
this about the views of the women around some other men.
Shockingly. More from the women, please, who
drew up the Constitution, including Abigail Adams, the
wife of John. Of course he doesn't need a
surname. And she wrote this one line.
Remember, all men would be tyrants if they could.
Can I just start with that? Is that an idea to you that is
borne out through American history?
And then and I'm we're going to get to this, of course, and then
again today. Yeah, I mean, that's the idea on
which the United States is founded, right?
That's the, the, the, the notion that tyranny is inevitable
without restraints on power. And that's why we have a written
constitution, unlike England, that, you know, the idea that we
should write down the rules and constrain the power of our newly
erected federal government. The states did the same thing.
And Adams's point in writing to her husband was, well, we've you
forgot one really important kind of power, which is private
power. The, the, the, the tyranny of
husbands over their wives and over their children in private
life. And indeed, you know, just given
the nature of 18th century political thought, women and
children are left out of those protections.
They don't have rights. They there is no remedy for the
abuse of power within the domestic sphere.
And I think it's just important to remember people complained
about that. Women complained about that at
the time. That's not a, you know, an
insight of feminists in the 1970s.
That's an insight of women in the 1770s.
Extraordinary and, and, and incredibly important.
I mean, not just Abigail Adams. So many women who you talk
about. There's quite a bit of evidence
that women were deeply concerned about the consequences of a new
framing of the very premise of government which left women out,
did not regard women as persons under the law.
I mean, I lived in America for 11 years, and my kids went to
American schools and they were all, you know, brought up to
Revere the American Constitution.
And, you know, we would hear the the Pledge of Allegiance.
I think it was a Monday morning kind of echoing through our
streets. You know, you really worship
these parchment papers on which, you know, the greatest
Republican experiment in history is based.
But I wondered if the Founding Fathers had ever reckoned with
someone like Donald Trump, who may not have read the
Constitution, maybe has, we don't know, but who doesn't seem
to be respecting the niceties of it, to put it mildly.
Because if it's because at the end of the day, it is a kind of
agreement amongst, for want of a better term, gentleman farmers,
you know, at the end of the 18th century to, you know, to divide
power, to get away from the British monarchy as much as
possible. And 250 years almost after you
celebrated your departure from our great monarchy, you've got a
president who wants to behave like 1.
It is one of the darker ironies of the course of American
history that the very form of executive power that the US
Constitution was devised to constrain, restrain, prevent is
now shadowed by it. Did they anticipate that?
Absolutely. And, and mostly because they
were students not only of British politics, they weren't
actually that concerned about the king.
They were really concerned about Parliament, but they were
students of history. And it is a moment in time that
I think we've almost forgotten that when Statesman and I used
the term advisedly, it was crucial to study history,
ancient and modern history, in order to understand how power
works, what rights are, what to expect of, you know, what would
they would have called human nature.
They also had this, I think, kind of wonderfully Newtonian
understanding of politics. They thought that they were
applying what Alexander Hamilton called the science of politics
to modern political questions. That, yes, the ancients had, you
know, back to Plato, you know, had had brilliant understandings
of the nature of power and how systems of rule would naturally
decay into forms of tyranny without any check against them.
And they, they appreciated that wisdom and they valued it.
But they lived in a highly scientific age in which, you
know, after Newton's optics and Newton's discovery of the laws
of gravity, they believed that all of not just the physical
world, but all of human experience could be deduced
according to natural laws. That then so that they could
devise a constitution that would be an intricate, perfect machine
like the the with the perfect balancings of the gears, gears
and movements of a watch or a clock that would act to
constrain that natural tendency of power to corrupt, of power to
become tyrannical. And so they thought they were
writing a Constitution where someone like Trump could never
gain the kind of power that Trump has now gained, because
they had devised the thing so perfectly to to to break that
kind of acquisition of power. The rules respect the norms.
And if you, a guy like Trump comes along and doesn't respect
it, you know, then all those finely devised, you know,
mechanisms really for naughty. I don't know that I would go so
far As for not. I mean, there is a reason that
Americans really cherish our Constitution and the stability
that it is provided. A lot of Americans believe the
US Constitution is responsible for American prosperity.
American. There are a lot of commitments
to veneration of the Constitution from many quarters.
I think they tend to overlook the many ways in which the
Constitution has failed, not least if obviously was not able
to avert a civil war over how to end slavery.
And I think Americans tend not to really pay attention to just
how significant the amendments of the Constitution have been to
realizing its initial promise. But exactly as you say, like I'm
not going to dispute like it does, it does depend on people's
belief in constitutionalism. You know, Madison always said,
you know, there these even a Bill of Rights, these things
would be mere parchment barriers.
If someone wants to ignore the Constitution and they have the
power to do so and they have an army behind them, well, you know
that that is that is the fragility of constitutionalism.
So the question, you know, in the United States today, exactly
as you suggest is, is the Constitution still operating?
So, So what is it do you think that has allowed this to happen
right now? What what, what is it around the
institution? What did they fail perhaps to do
to not entirely close the gaps? And I just also want to ask you
about this thing that I find really interesting as someone
I'm really new to the US. I've just moved here to do the
job that Matt did for many years before.
You know, I watch this debate over free speech at the moment.
Those on the right, they argue as if they believe in the
Constitution above all else, right?
They that's what they say. And then they use those same
arguments to attack, you know, absolutely core parts of that
Constitution. Yeah, maybe the framers just
weren't cynical enough. You sometimes sort of look
around, well, people, this is the, the degree of hypocrisy on
all sides is really extraordinary.
I mean, there, there were some structural deformities from the
beginning. And I think we see the long term
consequences of those now. One of which is that if you're
going to write a constitution down, you know, which was an
innovation, right, So that it could be transparent, people
could refer to it. Well, you have to have a
mechanism to change it because things are going to change and
you, you actually need to be able to change it in an orderly
way, in a peaceful and democratic way.
And that mechanism here is, is the formal amendment process,
which turns out to not really work very well.
So almost immediately there's a kind of corruption, like a, a
weakness in those, that balance that's, that's supposed to be in
the Constitution whereby, well, then the Supreme Court steps in
and it says, OK, the Constitution needs to change.
We'll change it. We'll just read it a little bit
differently. So for most of American history,
the Constitution is not really amendable by formal amendment.
Instead, the court gains more and more power and we.
It is a really unusual. I think people outside the
United States have a hard time understanding why it is that,
you know, in my lifetime, nominations to the Supreme Court
are just this huge political controversy.
Every time they come around, you know, they'll be, you know, back
to the 1980s when a Yale Law School scholar named Robert Bork
was nominated by Ronald Reagan to the court.
There was this huge campaign, television ads against him.
The hearings were televised. People really obsessed with it.
Or, you know, your listeners might remember the Clarence
Thomas nomination controversy in the 90s where Anita Hill came
forward with allegations of sexual harassment or more
recently, Brett Kavanaugh. We're living in a world here
where there have been death threats, like credible death
threats against Supreme Court justices and at least one
seemingly attempted assassination.
Our Supreme Court justices go on speaking tours.
They write memoirs. They're celebrities.
This is a complete deformity of what a justice system is meant
to do, right? The Supreme Court is meant to be
completely outside and immune to public opinion and the popular
will. But if you think about the
forces that drove Donald Trump to power and also really
buttressed the rise of Barack Obama, the 90s kind of in the
US, the sort of lifestyles of the rich and famous, everyone
becomes a celebrity. The only source of political
power is fame. And then the way that is
worsened by social media in the 2000s, we sort of live in a
world where we have yielded the idea that the people can expect
their leaders to abide by the Constitution to a popular
culture world in which our leaders are celebrities.
They're celebrity buffoons. We, you know, we know the names
of their wives and their children.
The, the idea that anyone is in good faith, acting responsibly
with regard to Constitution, constitutionalism in the rule of
law is something I don't think most Americans even believe
anymore. You know, even though I would
say, like, I, I do believe that people in the federal judiciary
are acting in good faith and, and I may disagree with their
decisions, but it's just a, it's a weird, it's like a Marvel
Universe version of of the US government right now.
Like you're like, what? Why are we in this movie instead
of in an actual real political world?
Because we have a president who's a, you know, ATV producer.
Now that that's a facile answer, I want to ask you, Jill, whether
you is, is the reason why so many things that are really
important to the way Americans live their lives.
And Roe V. Wade, which is overturned by the
Supreme Court as a prime example, you know, the right to
have an abortion. Because in in most other
democracies, that kind of important stuff is decided not
by a Supreme Court, but by parliament or by Congress.
Has the Supreme Court stepped in where Congress was unable to act
or to decide or to legislate? And and where is Congress right
now? Where when some people say we
need it most? Well, part of the problem of the
deformity of our constitutional system and the separation of
powers is that Congress is effectively useless.
It can do nothing. I mean, we are speaking at a
moment when the federal government has shut down over
Congress's ability to even keep the government running, which
does seem like the season finale of a really bad TV show.
Except it happens every 7. Years it happened, it keeps
happening. I don't mean to belabor it, but
like really you're not wrong to say it's like it's ATV produced
set of crises that we're in the midst of you know I I the way
our system of laws works is that fundamental rights are
guaranteed in the Constitution and they can't be overturned by
Congress and they can't be violated by the states.
We have the system of federalism.
So in 1965 when the Supreme Court considered it the argument
that bans on birth control in the state of Connecticut were
unconstitutional, it it agreed with the with that claim and
said there is in the Constitution a right to privacy.
The the words right to privacy is not in the Constitution, but
famously the Supreme Court said you could find them in the kind
of shadow between the letters of other words, like in the
penumbra of the Constitution, you could locate a right to
privacy. And it's on that basis that
reproductive rights became constitutional rights, including
the right to an abortion in 1973 in Roe V Wade.
So the reason for the for rights seekers to go to the court is
because Congress was not going to pass such a law.
And that is always a tenuous decision, right?
Anything that the Supreme Court does, what the Supreme Court
giveth, the Supreme Court can taketh away.
So, you know, another route would be to go for a
constitutional amendment, which the Supreme Court cannot
overturn. But historically in the 20th
century, people on the left have gone to the court instead, cause
the court has been liberal. The court is conservative now,
and so the court is undoing. So in 2022, the court overturned
the Roe V. Wade decision and said, oh, we
were wrong. There is no right to privacy in
the Constitution. They didn't go that far.
But essentially there is no right to an abortion in the
Constitution. They didn't overturn the birth
control decision, although they may well yet do that.
So you see the consequences of not having sought out a
constitutional amendment to constitutionalized that right.
And you're absolutely right. In other countries, it doesn't.
It doesn't work this way and but what we're kind of stuck with
that at the moment because we also don't we've ceded so much
of any notion that the people or through their Congress have a
right to change the Constitution, cause Congress has
to pass a constitutional amendment and then it goes to
the states. And hasn't for decades.
And what where we're at now is,
is, is one step significantly worse than that.
It's not just that we've ceded that power exclusively to the
Supreme Court. In fact, I think Americans do
genuinely believe that if Trump says it's in the Constitution,
it is. And if it isn't, it isn't that,
that somehow the president has the power to decide what the
Constitution that he's not obeying or not obeying, that he
just, he is the Constitution, right?
The state is me, right? That that is the kind of absurd
political decay that we're in the midstep.
And can I, can I just ask you about that from a broader
historical perspective? I mean, we're seeing this
retribution politics at the moment.
We're seeing Trump, you know, gloat about going after his
enemies in the courts where, you know, as you, you will have
experienced yourself. We're seeing that huge fight
with, say, Harvard. We're seeing, you know, his
attempt to sack somebody from the Federal Reserve Board.
Like how unique or different is this in a historical perspective
and, and given everything you've studied, where does it end?
How do we come out the other side?
Yeah, I don't know. I don't know how it ends.
I don't have good enough writing skills for that.
I, you know, people would point to and say the power of the
presidency in this country has been expanding ever since FDR,
the 1930s. FDR was confronting the Great
Depression, war in Europe, the decline of democracy around the
world, unbelievable suffering and unemployment in the United
States, and passed a series of laws that he dubbed the New
Deal. The Supreme Court declared began
declaring those laws unconstitutional.
FDR considered trying to constitutionalized those by way
of a set of constitutional amendments.
And it's like, there's not enough time.
We're in the middle of a depression and he basically
bullied the court into constitutionalizing the New
Deal. You can think of what Trump is
doing and quite self consciously trying to take the United States
back in time to before the New Deal, dismantling every agency
of the federal government, every ability of the federal
government to regulate the economy, enact and enable social
and economic legislation, guarantee rights.
Trump like even repealing the 16th amendment essentially,
which was passed in 1913, which allows for a graduated federal
income tax. That's why Trump likes tariffs
better, right? He wants he likes the 1890s and
the 19 aughts. He is trying to dismantle what
FD Rs coalition began to put into place.
That said, you know, FDR was dealing with an actual crisis
and a set of emergencies and yet worked collaboratively with
Congress. Trump, you know, in his first
100 days, you know, passed, declared all these emergencies,
took on all these emergency powers, issued all these
emergency declarations. Congress passed no laws to do
that really was all executive, all executive authority.
And although, you know, the notional commitment is we're
dismantling the administrative state, this is not at all what
they're doing, right? They're they're, they're
mantling an executive, a unitary executive authority.
Can I just ask you, Jill, to what extent the challenge
exists? Because we know that Trump has
signed more executive orders in his first nine months than he
did in the, the, his entire first administration.
And actually, the record for, for executive orders is still
held by FDR, who I think signed something like 3900.
And he would say that's because we were in the middle of World
War 2 and the Depression and so on.
But those executive orders that Trump has signed are challenged,
aren't they, by the lower courts?
And then they end up in the Supreme Court.
And as far as I can tell, the Supreme Court in these so-called
shadow dockets has voted in Trump's favor every single time.
Explain that process to us please.
Well, normally an administration, if it wanted to
do something, whether it's by executive order or urging
Congress to pass a law, would run it past lawyers, I'd say, do
we have the authority to do this?
Is this constitutional? Is this legal?
Is this going to be struck down? And to some degree, Trump did
that in his first term. Not always.
I mean there was the the and, and sometimes they're like, you
can't do that. And so he didn't do it.
But the decision this time around is no, I mean, and it's a
very self-conscious strategy. Let's just do it all and get as
far with doing it as we can. They could maybe they'll be
injunctions in the lower courts. Things will be stayed.
We'll wait for it to work to this way to the upper courts.
The the, the, the, the Supreme Court has, as you suggest, has
generally removed the lifted the injunctions and said, well, we
don't know yet if they can do it, where one day we'll figure
that out. But meanwhile they can do it.
That's basically been the the game plan.
Meanwhile, they can do it and and meanwhile it means right.
People are being laid off, losing their jobs.
Children have no aid. There's you know, health
insurance benefits are declining at the moment.
We don't really have anyone controlling where the planes are
flying When the next flood comes, no one's gonna go to
rescue children in their attic bedrooms like we like in
meanwhile, that is a big meanwhile there's those are all
caps can. They be undone.
Yeah, I mean, I, I, I, I remain hopeful that the Supreme Court
is going to ultimately strike down more of this stuff than is
expected. Waving it along.
What, Because I'm an optimist. I have no other.
I have no credible. That's a solid scientific basis.
Isn't it? That's what I have.
I just, I kind of have to and I do believe some of this stuff
will be, will be reversed. And so the, some of the lower
court decisions have been magnificent just in terms of the
clarity of arguing against these abuses of power.
But you know, there's no, there's, there's, there's a
little bit of a question like what is going to be the thing?
What would it take for the Supreme Court to say no?
Like what would the thing be? I think a lot of people are
think maybe that's going to be the birthright citizenship
issue. It's, it's hard to say.
And I kind of as a public commitment, I feel like it's
important to say it's, it's entirely possible that they'll
be a significant judicial push back.
And I wish I could say more than that's an act of hope.
What about the midterm elections?
The question I keep getting from people on this side of the
Atlantic is, you know, especially from pessimists,
surely the midterm question, the midterm elections will be
cancelled. He'll find some kind of excuse.
He'll stay in, you know, he'll try and get re elected for a
third term in office. I mean, all that is really hard
to achieve if you want to stick to the constitution.
But could he achieve it and how? There's no way to run for a
third term constitutionally. That said, he could do it and
wait for the Supreme Court to, to, he's waited out.
I don't think he will. I think he's physically failing.
Honestly, I think there's some significant signs that he's
really on the decline in terms of the midterms.
I don't know. I'm, I will say like I'm not a
big poll watcher. I, I, I would have said just
impressionistically, why would he bother canceling the
midterms? I I don't think the Democrats
have really staged a significant opposition.
I don't. I would like to think that
there's going to be some seats shifting in the midterms, but
are. You disappointed by that?
Where is the fight back? It's really weird.
There's just not even, you know, I teach at Harvard, as you say,
and there's a lot obviously the administration has been
attempting to do to destroy our university.
And you think about the, the scale of student protest over
Gaza, you know, 2-3 years ago, encampments, protests, meetings,
constant meetings and heartfelt but, but, and, and, you know, a,
a terrible tragedy in Gaza. And, but I would say for many
students, this place they'd never heard of before and their
knowledge of it came from social media.
And there are not students out in the campus quad right now
protesting what the Trump administration is doing.
Does that surprise you? Does it disappoint?
You it does. There's not.
There's not organized civil unrest, civil disobedience.
Like in the 60s. Yeah, and you might say, well,
you know, then I can't protest Harvard.
Harvard's like like protesting on the campus again, you know,
with regard to Gaza is to protest Harvard, you know, kind
of call for divestment. What are they going to be?
They're not protesting the university, but you can still
like. Why?
Why not? Why are they not doing that?
This is my this is this. It really puzzles me or think
about, you know, even just smaller I you know, you can
understand why people are not able to protest ICE.
The kind of crackdown, like the consequences of those kinds of
protests are, would be would be borne by the most vulnerable
people. The lack of the fight back is
really striking. It's really striking that
there's not street action. There's not just not just like
non violent. Especially compared to.
Just in the streets. Can I, can I just ask you one
final one from me. You know a lot you are
fascinated by Elon Musk, aren't you, and his origin story.
I know you've got a podcast on that.
Just just like what is going on right now with him, do you
think? And does he have any influence
there? He was in the news recently
because at the memorial following the brutal
assassination of Charlie Kirk, he and Trump apparently had a
little chat. And so there was so much like
twittering about, are they, are they making up?
I think at the moment, you know, he has been rewarded with untold
gazillions by Tesla for making I think a little bit more of a
commitment to stay out of the limelight and do more for the
company. You know, I think Musk is a good
representative of of the kind of political buffoonery, high
celebrity, social media driven extremism that characterizes
much of our political system and our political discourse right
now. He is a creature of this.
You know, I think people sort of forget that Musk became the
modern version of Musk immediately following the
insurrection on January 6th, 2021 when Trump was banned from
social media. Remember, Trump had a huge
Twitter following. He was the loudest voice on
Twitter. And then essentially the day he
was banned, Musk kind of stepped in and he became the loudest
voice on Twitter. And it's like not long after
that that he decided he wanted to buy Twitter.
I think they had, they have, they are, they are kind of peas
in a pod in an interesting way. And I think both are are truly
enthralled to the idea of their own power and their unique
importance. So I it was unsurprising to me
that they broke up. I mean, we have not seen the
last of Elon Musk's attempts to interfere with national and
international political arrangements for sure.
But but they both similarly have no real concern for basic
constraints on power that might allow for a more just world.
Just on that point, on my, my final question to you would be
this. You know, there's a real
seriousness to how Americans view their own Republic, you
know, whether it's in the courts or in the newspapers, you know,
or in conversations, you know, in the schoolyard and so on.
And Trump seems to be riding roughshod over so much of that.
And of course, half the country is applauding it and the other
half is appalled by it. Where do you see the push back
to what many people regard as an existential battle for the
future of the Republic coming? Where is it coming from and will
it succeed? This book came out a few weeks
ago and I've been doing in between classes, you know,
jumping on planes and going around the country and talking
to audiences about the Constitution.
And it's a self select. It's a book reading audience.
You know, it's like a very unusual group of people that
come to these events, but it's usually a large number of
people. And we spent a lot of time in
Q&A. And I was in Seattle the other
day. And the final question was
essentially your question. Some guy said, geez, you know, I
don't know. At this point, I don't think we
even really have a constitution. And I don't know how we defend
what we have when no one else is, you know, when when our
elected leaders aren't abiding by it and the courts seem to be
unconcerned about it. And we're not gathering in civil
meetings to deliberate over it anymore.
Maybe we just need to, you know, take a completely different
tactics to give up on the Constitution and come up with a
different way of thinking about the future of this country.
And I said, you know, that's I really appreciate the question
is really good question. And so I thought, but with this,
you know, 600 of us in this room, let's have have a vote.
So I called for, like, a voice vote of, like, do you think we
should fight for the Constitution that we have and
repairing it and seeking means by which our elected officials
honor it, or do you think we should start again, whatever.
And it wasn't just a resounding eye to the first question, like,
people wanted to uphold the Constitution.
So there is, you know, among people that are going to go out
of an evening to go here and talk about the Constitution, a
kind of commitment to it that that I was really struck by.
I thought there would be much more of like, oh, just we
basically need some fresh start. So I don't, I, I wish I had a
prediction for you. I don't.
I think there is a broad middle political middle in the United
States that's often called the exhausted majority that just
can't even participate in politics anymore because
politics has become such a hideous playground.
It's the worst system apart from all the others, as Church said
about democracy. There we go.
Jill Lepaul, thank you very much indeed for joining us.
That was thank you. Fascinating.
Thank you both. That was great from Jill Lepaul.
Really fascinating insights. That's it for this edition.
Next week I will be on a Roman holiday, and I mean literally on
holiday in Rome. So Anushka, the show is yours
next week. Yeah, because I don't take
holidays, Matt. I work hard apart from, as you
are surely going to point out, the one I've kept coming up.
Listen, I need you to help me out.
Do get in touch with any questions you've got.
You can e-mail us on Trumpworld at channel4.com or leave us a
comment on YouTube or Spotify. And if I can't answer the
questions, I'll I'll just text you.
Matt on holiday you don't mind of.
Course, of course you will and and maybe my phone will just
have to malfunction for a bit. Anyway, I'll see you soon.
Thanks to all of you for listening and taking part.
That's it from Anushka and me. That's it from Trump.
World for another week. See you next Wednesday.