0:05

This is On Point. I'm

0:07

Meghna Chakraborty. Former President

0:09

Donald Trump faces four federal charges

0:12

for attempting to overthrow the results

0:15

of the 2020 presidential election.

0:17

In a grand jury indictment released

0:19

yesterday, Special Counsel Jack Smith

0:22

alleges that Trump knowingly spread

0:24

lies about the 2020 election in

0:26

a conspiracy to defraud the United

0:29

States, obstruct Congress's

0:31

lawful certification of electoral votes

0:33

on January 6th, 2021, and prevent citizens' votes

0:37

from being properly counted. It is

0:40

yet another unprecedented moment in the United

0:42

States, and it comes as Donald Trump

0:44

is running again for the presidency. Today,

0:48

we'll talk about the indictment itself, what

0:50

impact it might have on the 2024 election, and whether the

0:53

indictment's allegations and Trump's

0:56

response to them contain echoes

0:58

of established authoritarian regimes

1:01

around the world.

1:02

Ankush Koduri is in Washington.

1:05

He's an attorney and former federal prosecutor

1:07

in the U.S. Justice Department. He's

1:09

now a contributor to Politico and New York

1:12

Magazine. Ankush, welcome back

1:14

to On Point.

1:16

Thank you for having me. So

1:18

first of all, what stood out most to

1:20

you in the indictment that

1:22

was released yesterday? Two

1:25

things really stood out to me. First, this

1:28

indictment does appear to largely track, even

1:31

perhaps even trace the work of the January 6th

1:33

committee and the information that

1:35

was revealed in those hearings last year. The

1:38

second and closely related thing is

1:40

that the indictment does not charge Trump with

1:43

planning the violence on that day, being

1:45

aware of it, or inciting

1:48

an insurrection through

1:50

his speech on the ellipse that day. And

1:52

that's a significant

1:54

departure from the committee, but

1:56

also something that I was really looking for in this

1:59

indictment. one way or the other just to see how

2:01

the prosecutor is resolved in the course of their investigation.

2:04

Okay, so the fact that there's

2:07

no linkage to

2:09

Trump to the actual violence that happened

2:11

on January 6th, how do you read

2:13

that significance now? Or no linkage in the indictment,

2:16

I should say?

2:18

Correct, exactly. And that's an important point.

2:20

It tells me that they did not obtain

2:22

sufficient evidence to charge

2:24

Trump with sort of inciting

2:26

the insurrection, let's say, or conspiring

2:29

to engage in some violence that day. It doesn't mean

2:31

that there's no evidence. It does not exonerate Trump

2:33

by any means. It just means at

2:35

the most basic level that all we can say is that the government

2:38

did not obtain sufficient evidence that they believed

2:40

would allow them to convict him at trial under a theory like

2:42

that.

2:43

Okay, and that's specifically regarding the violence

2:46

on January 6th. But the indictment

2:48

does contain a lot about Trump's

2:51

alleged activities and trying to thwart

2:54

the process of certifying

2:57

the electoral votes that was going on in Congress

2:59

on January 6th. I mean, just

3:01

give me a broad overview, Ankush, if you could,

3:03

of how serious you think

3:07

the alleged violations are,

3:09

because they range from conspiracy

3:11

to defraud the United States to something

3:13

called conspiracy against rights. I mean,

3:16

are these serious charges,

3:17

you think?

3:19

This indictment, I

3:21

think, raises the most serious charges that are

3:23

even potentially possible against a former

3:26

president, right? Whatever label one applies,

3:28

and I think it's important not to get hung up on the sort of

3:30

the titles on the statutes that

3:32

prosecutors use, which sometimes can be

3:35

sort of scintillating

3:37

or attractive or whatever. But in this case, the

3:40

factual allegations are

3:42

extremely serious. I mean, he's being charged

3:45

with trying to steal the last presidential election.

3:47

Like, let's just not mince words about it, right?

3:49

And in a democracy, I find it hard to

3:51

imagine a more serious affront to

3:54

Americans' rights. This is also a case

3:56

that I think will be easier for people to understand.

3:59

It concerns events. the that people were following

4:01

or that were being close the you know

4:03

publicize in the media and real time and

4:06

a i just think like as

4:08

a practical matter

4:10

if not strictly a legal matter this

4:12

is a cut above all of the other indictment

4:15

said been brought against him in i think

4:17

can and should attract more attention than the others

4:20

moon okay so let's talk

4:22

in detail about some of the things that are

4:24

in the indictments i'm going to jump

4:26

around a little bit because a one

4:29

of the things that stood out to me who

4:31

actually com sort of in them in the middle

4:33

of this roughly forty page document

4:35

when it concerns

4:36

trump's activities and the pressure

4:39

he was allegedly putting on

4:42

former vice president

4:43

mike pence

4:45

mean that because as we recall trump

4:48

was frequently to the public putting out tweet

4:50

state stating falsely

4:52

that pens had the power

4:53

to my their halt the electoral

4:55

count or

4:56

granted electoral votes to alternate

4:59

slates which will talk about

5:01

in a second of electors but what

5:03

jumped out at me was that apparently

5:05

mike pence was taking contemporaneous notes

5:07

of meetings that he had with trump did we

5:10

i don't recall knowing that prior

5:11

to reading the indict me yesterday

5:14

i don't recall either a hint that

5:16

caught my eye to but of course i

5:18

probably the same reaction you did which is there's has been such

5:20

a sea of information that you can

5:22

never be totally sure that something's

5:24

popped up or be reported or one point in time i

5:27

think i would erupt remember that though and that caught

5:29

my eye to and i do think it's new information

5:32

okay so then regarding

5:34

the section of the indictment that talks

5:36

about the efforts the alleged

5:38

efforts that when in of by

5:40

trump and his coconspirators

5:42

which are unnamed in the indictment

5:45

regarding putting the pressure

5:47

on pens and then

5:49

trying to change the activities

5:51

that happened on january six in congress me

5:53

at how how how did you do

5:55

you read the the evidence there is it convincing

5:58

to you what to the

5:59

gym Smith is putting forward here?

6:01

Well, an indictment is always pretty

6:03

convincing because it's the government's theory,

6:06

right? There hasn't been a defense. But

6:08

in this case, we have more insight than just what the indictment

6:11

tells us, right? Because again, we have the hearings

6:13

and testimony about John Eastman, who

6:15

appears to be an unnamed co-conspirator

6:18

in this document. And

6:20

I find it persuasive. I

6:22

hate to prejudge these things until a defendant

6:24

has the opportunity to put on a defense.

6:27

But I thought it was outrageous. I thought the legal theory was crazy.

6:30

I actually spoke to John Eastman

6:31

a couple weeks ago for a story

6:33

that I was working on. And

6:37

I think it'll come as a surprise to him that

6:39

he features so prominently in this indictment

6:41

because he at least told me that

6:43

he was quite confident he would not be charged. But

6:47

look, as a lawyer, I mean, his conduct

6:49

was outrageous. And I

6:51

think it has appropriately drawn the ire

6:54

and detention of federal prosecutors.

6:57

Okay. Now, to be clear, though, the

6:59

indictment contains unnamed

7:02

co-conspirators. But

7:04

the details in the indictment make it pretty clear

7:07

who those folks are. But

7:09

they haven't been formally charged yet. Do

7:12

you think that the special counsel is waiting

7:15

on that? And would it be kind of

7:17

a big legal

7:18

thicket to have to wade through if all

7:20

the charges against the co-conspirators came through

7:22

at the same time?

7:24

Yeah. He may be waiting on it. It

7:27

would be more of a thicket for sure,

7:29

right? Because if you want this

7:31

case to try to proceed to trial next year, and

7:33

it's clear that they're going

7:35

to attempt that, unclear whether they'll be able to achieve

7:38

that, adding defendants just complicates

7:40

that. It means more defendants, more lawyers,

7:42

more legal challenges, more issues you need to brief, efforts

7:45

to separate out certain defendants and sever

7:48

trials and that sort of thing. And I do

7:50

think it was smart for the prosecutors

7:52

to just charge Trump in a standalone indictment.

7:55

And if at some point they charge those other folks at

7:57

some point in time, which if I were them I

7:59

would assume that they will be. charged, that

8:01

can come in a separate proceeding. And I

8:03

ideally wouldn't hold this one up.

8:06

Okay, so

8:08

I want to talk about something that happens right

8:10

on the second page of the indictment,

8:13

where the

8:15

special counsel goes out of his way to say

8:17

the defendant, meaning Trump, had

8:20

a right like every American to speak publicly

8:23

about the election and even to claim falsely

8:25

that there had been outcome determinative

8:27

fraud during the election and that

8:29

he had won. Essentially, the

8:31

indictment acknowledges Trump

8:34

and all Americans freedom of speech to say

8:36

whatever they want, even if they know that it's a lie

8:38

and that that is

8:40

not criminal. And yet

8:43

throughout the rest of the indictment, much

8:45

of the language is about Trump knowingly

8:48

spreading lies about the 2020

8:51

election. And this is something that

8:53

Trump

8:54

supporters are already honing

8:56

in on, that Jack

8:58

Smith here in their reading is actually

9:00

attempting to criminalize the former president's

9:04

freedom of speech. How do

9:06

you respond to that? Yeah,

9:09

I think that's really silly because like, for

9:11

instance, when someone

9:14

like, you know,

9:15

calls you some telemarketer or person

9:17

from, you know, halfway over the across

9:19

the world and is trying to like scam you, that's

9:22

also speech, but it's illegal because it's

9:25

criminal misconduct to try to defraud someone

9:27

through even just verbal misrepresentations.

9:30

So at the highest level, it's

9:32

nonsense. But I

9:35

did actually get hung up on this line myself,

9:37

actually, when I read it. I don't think it's

9:39

artfully crafted. I think it's confusing. I don't

9:42

think it was necessary, precisely

9:44

because, you know, nobody is contesting

9:47

that, you know, Trump can say things. But the

9:49

question is like what those things are,

9:51

what those things are that he's saying, who these saying

9:54

and saying them to and what his

9:56

objective is.

9:58

And so therefore. Or do you

10:01

think it shouldn't have been in the indictment?

10:04

I would not have put it in that way

10:07

in the indictment, not so prominently or not, frankly,

10:09

so awkwardly worded. But I don't

10:11

think it's going to matter. I mean, these sorts

10:13

of arguments from Republicans and conservative

10:15

supporters are coming no matter what. They

10:18

would have said the same stuff, whether the

10:20

language was in there or not.

10:22

OK. So then

10:24

what parts in the indictment do you think most

10:26

clearly lay out the former

10:29

president and his co-conspirators' actions

10:31

as rising to the level of

10:33

an illegal conspiracy?

10:37

Well, I think the key part to focus

10:39

on if folks are kind of pressed for time would

10:42

be pages three through

10:44

six. And that is where

10:47

the prosecutors allege the overarching

10:50

core conspiracy to allegedly

10:52

interfere with the electoral certification. And also

10:55

lays out these five

10:57

different prongs of

10:59

the effort, including falsely getting

11:01

state officials to try to change their results,

11:04

putting that pressure on Mike Pence,

11:07

enlisting these quote unquote fraudulent

11:09

slates of electors. And I think when

11:11

you read it all in one place and

11:14

read it in that compact, sort of succinct,

11:16

really quite clear fashion, I think they wrote this

11:19

part particularly well, I think

11:21

it's a pretty potent set of allegations.

11:24

And hopefully we'll drive home to folks who are

11:27

engaging with this at home, the seriousness

11:29

of their underlying allegations. Okay,

11:31

Ankush, I just have less than

11:33

a minute to go with you and I've got one more question.

11:37

As you know, the special counsel,

11:39

Jack Smith,

11:40

also has a lot of experience

11:43

with war crimes investigations in the Hague

11:45

as well. It's something actually I only recently learned

11:47

about him. How much do you think that

11:50

experience is playing into

11:52

his approach

11:53

in investigating the former president?

11:56

Well, it seems to have had at least two effects. First,

11:59

he does. not appear gun-shy or

12:02

unwilling to charge the most significant

12:05

political leader in our country. And

12:07

second, he moved quickly and appears to have understood

12:10

that time is of the essence in a situation like this.

12:13

Well,

12:13

Ankush Koduri is an attorney

12:15

and former federal prosecutor in the

12:17

Justice Department. He's now a contributing writer

12:20

at Politico and

12:20

contributing editor at New York Magazine.

12:23

Thank you for joining us. Thank you.

12:26

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13:14

This is On Point. I'm Meghna Chakrabarty. And

13:17

Michael Tomaski joins us. He's editor

13:19

of the New Republic and editor in chief of

13:21

the journal Democracy, also author

13:24

of If We Can Keep It, How the Republic

13:26

Collapsed and How It Might Be Saved, and

13:28

The Middle Out, the Rise of Progressive Economics

13:31

and a Return to Shared Prosperity. Michael

13:33

Tomaski, welcome back to the show.

13:35

Happy to be here. And

13:37

Ruth Ben-Ghiat, professor of history

13:39

and Italian studies at New York University

13:42

and author of Strong Men, Mussolini

13:44

to the Present. Professor Ben-Ghiat,

13:46

welcome back to you.

13:48

Thank you. First of all, let me just

13:50

get a take from both of you on your reactions

13:53

to yesterday's indictment

13:56

as released by the special counsel, Professor

13:58

Ben-Ghiat. What were your thoughts?

13:59

your first responses to it? I

14:03

think it's just such an important move

14:06

to make to uphold the rule of law, because

14:09

America has been an outlier in the

14:12

world, not in having a coup, but

14:14

in not prosecuting

14:17

Trump, and the fact that he's the front-runner

14:19

for a presidential nomination

14:22

with what he did is very unusual

14:25

in history.

14:27

OK, and Michael Tomaski, same question

14:29

to you. Just quickly, I was most struck

14:31

by the note on which the

14:34

45-page document ended, the words

14:36

on which it ended, which I don't

14:38

have in front of me, but was something to the effect

14:41

that what he subverted

14:44

was the right to

14:46

vote and to have one's vote counted. I'm

14:49

glad it ended on that point rhetorically,

14:52

because that's really what this comes down to.

14:56

You know, we invented

14:58

that right in the modern sense in this

15:00

country. We didn't extend it to everybody. Ultimately,

15:04

we have done that. And

15:06

ever since we've done that, full extension,

15:09

there's been forces in this country

15:11

that have opposed that and that fight voting

15:14

rights. That's what Donald

15:16

Trump was doing from November to January 6

15:18

of 2020 and 21. So

15:21

I was glad to see that Jack

15:24

Smith and his prosecutors had

15:26

their eyes on not just

15:28

the legal, but I would say the ethical or even

15:30

moral prize here. Well,

15:32

I do actually have the last page of the indictment here in front

15:35

of me, and it's worth reading those last

15:37

lines in full. It says that,

15:40

again, the allegation is that, quote,

15:43

Donald J. Trump did knowingly combine,

15:45

conspire, confederate, and agree with

15:47

co-conspirators known and unknown to the grand

15:49

jury to injure, oppress, threaten,

15:52

and intimidate one or more persons in the

15:54

free exercise and enjoyment of a right

15:57

and privilege secured to them by the Constitution.

15:59

and laws of the United States. That

16:02

is the right to vote and to have

16:04

one's vote counted. So those are

16:06

the actual

16:06

words from the indictment.

16:08

I want to underscore

16:11

right now that this is an indictment. This

16:15

still has a legal process to go through in

16:17

terms of the court and

16:19

Trump's right to defend

16:21

himself strongly and

16:23

fully. So this is not necessarily

16:27

a decision by a jury. It is the beginning

16:29

of a legal process, which is why

16:31

these are still all currently

16:33

allegations rather than proven

16:38

facts, I would say. So Professor

16:41

Ben Giotto, as you read

16:43

some of the allegations in the indictment,

16:45

I mean, you're the specialist

16:48

in authoritarian governments.

16:51

Are some of the things alleged that

16:53

Trump had done familiar

16:56

to you in terms of actions that other authoritarian

16:59

governments have or are

17:01

taking now?

17:03

Well, absolutely. The spreading

17:05

of lies, what

17:11

this really is is an attempt

17:13

to reeducate through propaganda.

17:16

And Trump is a highly skilled propagandist.

17:19

Many people underestimate him. It's easy to

17:21

call him the clown. He really is one

17:24

of the most important propagandists of the 21st

17:26

century. And he

17:29

didn't have the advantages that other,

17:32

the despots

17:33

he so admires had because he

17:35

did this. He made tens

17:37

of thousands of people believe that he actually

17:39

won the election and that he's the victim.

17:43

He did this in a democracy. I

17:45

don't know if this has ever been accomplished,

17:47

this mass deception on such a

17:49

scale in a democracy before.

17:52

So

17:53

it's very important that this

17:55

was singled out, the knowingly

17:59

perpetrating

17:59

these lies. The other thing I'd say is the

18:02

end game of this, obviously,

18:05

was to keep him in power illegally. That's

18:07

the coup part. But he'd been trying

18:09

since 2016 relentlessly

18:12

through propaganda to his

18:15

own propaganda and his leader cult

18:17

to turn Americans off the idea

18:19

of elections altogether. That's

18:21

the end game. And Tommy Tuberville,

18:23

one of his lackeys, came out and said that, that,

18:26

oh, we don't really need elections anymore. But

18:28

the idea that elections are corrupt, they're not really necessary

18:31

because I alone can fix it. That's

18:34

something that is there. So that's

18:36

also why, as Michael said, ending

18:39

this on the right to vote, they're

18:42

way beyond

18:42

this. They're like, we're going to convince

18:45

the public that elections aren't even

18:47

necessary because they're just corrupt.

18:50

And that's also why Trump relentlessly

18:52

praises models of

18:54

leadership like the most murderous dictators

18:56

around, Putin and Xi. He

18:59

says they're top of the line people at the top of

19:01

their game. We can laugh at that. But

19:03

this is reeducation of Americans

19:06

to want democracy, sorry,

19:08

to want autocracy.

19:10

Hmm. Michael, to ask you, what do you think about that?

19:13

Well, I naturally agree with it. And

19:18

I think, first of all, that

19:20

he's running to reinstate

19:24

that or to impose that in a way he wasn't

19:27

able to impose it in his first term. He's

19:30

also running to stay out of prison. Will

19:32

Hurd was right when he said that the other day. He's

19:35

a congressional or presidential candidate in

19:37

the Republican side. So he's

19:39

running for those two reasons. But it's

19:41

a very frightening thought that if he gets in, he

19:44

will take certain steps that he and his

19:47

people have already announced they'll take, for

19:50

example, in a recent and prominent New York Times

19:52

story to curtail

19:54

democracy.

19:56

You know, the Republican

19:59

Party has in.

19:59

view have been headed in this direction for

20:03

quite some time. They

20:05

didn't have anybody to say the quiet

20:07

part out loud until Trump came along.

20:11

But I think you can trace the roots of this in the GOP

20:13

back to Newt Gingrich and

20:16

certainly the avowedly right-wing

20:18

media, including

20:21

prominently Rupert Murdoch and Rush

20:23

Limbaugh,

20:27

chipped away at democratic

20:29

norms and institutions. Celebrating,

20:32

for example, Bush v. Gore, a decision

20:35

that the five justices who agreed to

20:37

it even said, admitted that

20:39

it was not standing precedent and shouldn't be standing

20:42

precedent to install

20:45

a presidential candidate who got the majority of the

20:47

popular vote. I

20:49

could go on with more

20:51

of that history, but my

20:54

point is that Trump

20:57

didn't just happen

20:58

in a vacuum and this all doesn't

21:00

spring from Donald Trump's head. A lot of it

21:02

does. A lot of it does, to be sure.

21:05

But there are historical antecedents there that

21:08

produced him and that made that party

21:10

want to nominate a guy like that in the first place.

21:13

Yeah. Well, actually, for

21:15

the remainder of this segment, I do want to explore

21:17

a little bit more of the how we got

21:19

here because then it helps us have

21:21

a more informed conversation of where

21:23

we as a country might go next.

21:26

But to that point, I mean, you mentioned some

21:28

of the things that Trump and

21:31

his campaign have been talking about

21:34

quite openly regarding

21:35

what they would do with

21:37

the presidency if Trump wins again in

21:42

2024. So I want to spend a little bit more time

21:44

on that because as we've been talking about, the

21:46

federal grand jury indictment contains those 45

21:49

pages of allegations of how Trump

21:51

used the power of the presidency, allegedly,

21:54

to overturn the results in an attempt

21:56

to

21:56

overturn the results in the 2020 election. So should you

21:59

he win in 2024, Trump

22:02

is and his allies really are crafting

22:05

a plan to make the presidency even more

22:07

powerful by smashing legal

22:10

and political norms, refashioning

22:12

the federal government. He's

22:14

proposing stripping federal agencies of their

22:16

independence, purging the civil service

22:18

of those disloyal to him, even subverting

22:21

Congress's power of the purse. So

22:23

we talked with Isaac Arnzdorf,

22:25

national political

22:26

reporter, covering Donald Trump for the Washington

22:29

Post. And he says that this isn't

22:31

just Trump speaking off the cuff. Like you said,

22:33

Michael, it's not just

22:34

all sort of springing forth from Trump's

22:36

head. It's a $22 million

22:39

effort crafted in concert

22:41

with one of the most influential conservative think

22:44

tanks in Washington.

22:45

The Heritage Foundation and

22:48

a cluster of groups under the

22:50

umbrella of the conservative

22:52

partnership institute, probably most prominently

22:54

the Center for Renewing America, which

22:57

is led by Russ Vought, who was

23:00

Trump's head of the Office of Management

23:02

and Budget and is kind of

23:04

taken on the role of like a White House chief

23:06

of staff in exile.

23:09

Now, the Heritage Foundation, that conservative

23:11

think tank has drifted quite far from

23:13

its original Reaganite philosophy of deregulation,

23:17

lower taxes and keeping the federal

23:19

government out of people's lives.

23:21

Reagan's idea was that government

23:23

is the problem. And Trump is

23:26

up there saying not only government is the

23:28

solution, but basically I, meaning

23:30

Trump as the government and

23:32

the solution. So he's proposing

23:36

knocking down any laws

23:39

and norms that establish independence

23:41

among different

23:43

arms of the executive branch

23:45

from direct presidential

23:48

and White House control.

23:50

So one example of that, Trump

23:52

wants to subvert a law called the Impoundment

23:56

Act. That law states that the president

23:59

must approve spending.

23:59

on government programs authorized by Congress.

24:03

He would just basically refuse

24:05

to spend money that Congress

24:07

has appropriated that he doesn't

24:10

feel like spending on things he doesn't

24:12

support. There's a law against that. He's

24:15

taking the view that that law is unconstitutional, so he's

24:17

just going to ignore it. And that again is really

24:19

emblematic of this idea that all

24:21

of the power of the government is going

24:24

to be vested in him.

24:26

Now, resting financial control from Congress,

24:29

purging the civil service, bringing federal

24:31

agencies to heel, many

24:33

political scientists see these as hallmarks

24:36

of authoritarian governments. So

24:38

how do Trump's conservative allies justify

24:41

the plan?

24:42

Establishment conservatives are not establishment

24:45

conservatives anymore. What

24:47

you might say that more like orthodox conservative

24:49

ideology, a lot of those people have left

24:52

the party or are strangers in their

24:54

own party. And with the

24:56

evolution of institutions like heritage

25:00

is that Trump's articulation

25:03

of the party has swallowed them up too.

25:05

They are getting more comfortable with

25:07

the idea of trying to use

25:09

government power to influence society

25:12

toward the right rather than

25:14

getting the government out of civil society.

25:18

That

25:18

was Isaac Arnzdorf, national

25:20

political reporter covering Donald Trump

25:23

for the Washington Post. He's also author

25:25

of the forthcoming book, Finish What

25:27

We Started, the MAGA Movement's Ground

25:30

War to End Democracy.

25:32

And Isaac's been reporting for the Washington

25:34

Post on this plan called Project 2025.

25:38

Donald Trump calls it Agenda 47. And as

25:41

noted earlier, a lot of the reporting has also

25:43

come out of the New York Times. I'm

25:46

Magna Chakrabarty. This is On Point.

25:49

Now, Michael Tomaski, let me turn

25:51

back to you because another way

25:53

of describing what this plan is

25:56

that the Heritage Foundation and Trump are talking about

25:58

is sort of a a mac and a

25:59

maximalist view of the unitary

26:02

executive theory, as it's

26:04

sort of called, right, in wonky circles.

26:07

But can you tell me a little bit more of

26:10

what the progression was amongst

26:12

conservative thinkers and the Republican Party

26:14

that viewed the, that the executive

26:17

branch should be outright the most powerful

26:19

branch in the federal government?

26:22

That dates back to Nixon. Arthur

26:26

Schlesinger Jr., the famous historian,

26:28

wrote a book during the Nixon presidency

26:30

called The Imperial Presidency. And

26:33

it had mostly to do with Nixon's, the

26:36

way Nixon exercised foreign policy as opposed

26:38

to domestic policy, although there were domestic

26:40

aspects to it. Then

26:43

it was augmented under Bush

26:45

Jr. during the Iraq War

26:48

when he and

26:50

his administration and, errogated to

26:52

themselves certain powers that, that had

26:55

there to fore been in the hands of Congress. So

26:58

it's grown and grown. You know,

27:00

as I said before, they've chipped away and chipped away

27:03

over the last, well, I guess

27:06

I'm saying half a century now. But

27:09

Trump is a different order

27:11

of magnitude. You know, there's a phrase

27:14

from political science called competitive

27:16

authoritarianism. And by two

27:19

political scientists, Stephen Levitsky and Lucan

27:21

Way, they

27:22

were studying in the 1990s

27:25

countries in the developing world and countries

27:28

in the former Eastern Bloc and

27:30

trying to put them in category as, are you

27:32

a democracy or are you authoritarian? And

27:35

as they sifted through the data, they

27:37

came to see that a lot

27:40

of countries weren't exactly either.

27:42

They were a combination. So they came up with

27:44

the name competitive authoritarian state,

27:47

which has some of the look and trappings

27:49

of a democracy. It might have

27:52

a free press. It might

27:54

have a somewhat independent judiciary,

27:56

but essentially the game is rigged

27:59

for one party over the next.

27:59

the other. So they have elections, but one

28:02

party always happens to win them. That's

28:04

what the Republican Party wants. That's what Donald

28:06

Trump wants.

28:08

Professor Ben Giott,

28:10

you know, listen to what Michael is just saying. It reminded

28:13

me of a show we did a while ago about

28:15

Victor Orban in Hungary. And

28:17

the guest on that show said, you know, Hungary

28:20

looks like a democracy, but only if you

28:22

squint really,

28:23

really hard. Right. So

28:25

is that is that the same sort of we would have

28:27

to squint really hard if to

28:30

see American democracy, if the

28:32

plans for, you know,

28:34

agenda 47, as Trump calls it, would actually come to fruition

28:37

here?

28:38

Absolutely. And the more recent

28:41

term for competitive authoritarianism,

28:44

which I don't use, is electoral autocracy.

28:48

And that is what

28:50

Michael described when you

28:53

still maintain some use,

28:55

maintain some opposition, you don't shut down elections

28:57

today. Autocrats often

29:00

come to power through elections, and

29:02

then they have to gain the system to stay there.

29:04

And we've seen this around the world recently.

29:07

Now, Orban has his propaganda

29:09

phrase, illiberal democracy

29:11

that he uses. And that's largely

29:13

to like, you know, he's in the EU, he still

29:16

gets funds from the EU. And

29:18

so that's like kind of whitewashing

29:20

everybody that there is some

29:22

kind of democracy there, even though the elections

29:25

are no longer free or fair. So,

29:28

so, you know, in Turkey, for example,

29:31

what Erdogan did, he was very vulnerable

29:34

before these last presidential elections. And

29:37

so he put a jail sentence over the

29:39

only man who could have beaten him, the

29:42

current mayor of Istanbul, so

29:44

that that person could not be the

29:46

opposition candidate. And so

29:48

he took him out of the running. That's

29:50

what we mean by gaming the competition, as

29:52

well as investigating the media using

29:54

threat, there's a million tools that these people

29:57

have, all the while saying as

29:59

Erdogan does.

29:59

Oh, no, we're not a dictatorship.

30:02

Here we have voting, but it's not free

30:04

or fair.

30:06

Right. Well, Michael, I know

30:08

I've just got you for about 30 seconds more, but

30:10

in fact, I would say Donald Trump supporters

30:12

are saying that the fact

30:15

of these indictments coming down against

30:17

him is Joe Biden and

30:19

the Biden Justice Department actually

30:21

behaving in a way that's

30:22

using the power of law enforcement

30:25

to sideline political opponents.

30:27

What's your response to that? Well,

30:30

fascists, if you don't mind me using that word,

30:33

always accuse their opponents of

30:35

doing that which they are doing. It

30:38

throws people off the scent. It confuses people.

30:41

And you know, some percentage of the population

30:44

is going to buy it. 35, 36, 37 in this case. I

30:48

would just leave people with this thought amplifying.

30:51

Actually, Michael, I'm going to let you pick

30:53

up that thought in a moment. This is on point.

31:07

You're

31:10

back with on point. I'm Meghna Chakrabarti and Michael

31:12

Tomaski for Forgive me for having to cut you

31:14

off earlier. The clock is a very unforgiving

31:17

force in the life of a radio host

31:19

here, but I wanted to let you finish your thought and have

31:21

one actually final question for you after that. So you

31:24

were going to say to listeners that.

31:26

Yeah, I'll just say quickly. Take

31:28

this seriously. You know, countries can lose

31:31

democracy. It's happened in a lot of

31:33

places. Argentina lost

31:35

its democracy for a time. Chile lost its for

31:37

a time. Hungary was a democracy

31:39

after the Cold War for a number of years. So

31:42

this is real. Now, none of those countries have

31:45

the traditions with the durability of ours, 247 years. But

31:50

they can be defeated. And

31:53

we run a very serious risk of that happening

31:55

if Trump wins. Well,

31:58

so that brings me to my final question.

31:59

you, Michael, which is so we

32:02

keep talking

32:02

about Trump, Trump, Trump himself, right?

32:05

Because obviously he is the, he's the

32:07

gravitational force around which

32:09

all this activity and attention is orbiting.

32:12

But what really strikes me now is

32:15

that it's not just Trump and his, you

32:17

know, his handpicked staffers

32:19

or campaign managers, or even his

32:22

political allies who are elected officials

32:25

with the solar full-throated

32:28

encouragement from places like

32:30

the Heritage Foundation. Fox

32:33

News has always been there, but the

32:35

Heritage Foundation, we're also now talking about

32:37

that he's getting more

32:39

overt institutional support from,

32:42

for his authoritarian ambitions

32:45

from places that we maybe hadn't heard

32:47

from as clearly before.

32:50

What do you make of that? Well,

32:53

I'd say that there are three elements

32:55

to the current MAGA

32:58

Republican Trump coalition. There's

33:02

the elites of the party who

33:04

seem for the most part comfortable with it. There's

33:07

the base, which loves it. And there's

33:09

the media, and they've built their own media

33:12

that in many ways has more power than the

33:14

mainstream media these days. And

33:16

they seem to be all in too. So

33:21

yeah, I worry

33:22

frequently that even

33:24

when Trump has gone from the scene, the Republican

33:26

Party is not going to walk back from this

33:28

cliff. There's a chance, I guess, that

33:31

some leader could come along who

33:34

can inspire people back in

33:36

a more mainstream direction.

33:38

But I would put that at less than 50%.

33:42

Michael Tomaski, editor

33:44

of The New Republic and editor-in-chief of the

33:46

journal Democracy, author

33:48

of The Middle Out, The Rise of Progressive Economics

33:51

and a Return to Shared Prosperity, and

33:53

If We Can Keep It, How the Republic Collapsed

33:56

and How It Might Be Saved. Thank you for joining us

33:58

today, Michael.

33:59

Thank you. Professor

34:01

Ben Giat, I want to spend the rest of the program

34:03

talking about what

34:06

Michael said, that it has happened elsewhere

34:08

and therefore it could happen

34:10

here as well. So allow me to just

34:12

provide a little bit more detail

34:14

of one of the examples that has been mentioned

34:17

already, and that is in Turkey.

34:20

So, Gonal Toul is

34:22

director

34:22

of the Turkey program at the Middle

34:24

East Institute and author of Erdogan's

34:27

War, A Strong

34:27

Man's Struggle at Home and in Syria.

34:30

And she's watched closely

34:32

how Turkey's president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan,

34:35

came into office through the normal

34:37

processes of a democracy, elections,

34:40

and then how he amassed

34:41

more and more power into his own hands.

34:44

Erdogan's centralization of power

34:46

in his own hands, it didn't happen in one

34:48

day. In the 20 years he's been in power,

34:51

he has taken incremental steps, and

34:53

there was no Rubicon really. When

34:56

he first came to power in 2002,

34:59

he was in a weak

35:01

position. Although he had just

35:03

captured a little more than 30% of the popular

35:06

vote, he knew that that

35:09

was just the beginning. He knew

35:11

that the secular establishment,

35:14

particularly the military, was still calling the

35:16

shots. So that's why he had

35:19

to be very cautious.

35:22

Now, key to Erdogan's ambitions, winning

35:25

over citizens and politicians of different

35:27

stripes to help him undermine

35:29

traditional centers of power in Turkey

35:32

like the country's military.

35:34

So he pitched himself as

35:36

the guy who was going to fix

35:39

Turkey's broken democracy, and

35:41

that meant sidelining the

35:43

secularist military. And

35:46

he framed that goal as

35:48

part of his democratic agenda, and that's

35:50

how he was able to put

35:53

together a coalition of liberals,

35:55

for instance. His support went way

35:58

beyond the narrow Islamic

35:59

space, he managed to appeal

36:02

to the countries, Turks, Kurds,

36:05

conservatives, progressives, even

36:07

social democrats. And I think

36:10

that was a brilliant idea.

36:12

That's right.

36:14

Thereafter, Erdogan ceded

36:16

supporters in the judiciary

36:19

and silenced critics outside of government.

36:22

He managed to capture judiciary and

36:24

got rid of the secularists in the judiciary

36:27

and staff Turkish judiciary with

36:29

supporters. And later on, he took

36:32

over the business community in the

36:35

country because many of them owned media

36:37

outlets. And Erdogan launched several

36:40

investigations into these business

36:42

owners who had been critical of

36:45

Erdogan. So he managed to sideline

36:48

them by using tax

36:50

evasion cases, for instance.

36:52

And so that's

36:54

why by the time he

36:56

won elections in 2011, all

36:59

institutions and social levels

37:01

of power had come under his control.

37:04

And critically for this conversation,

37:06

Erdogan didn't just take

37:08

power. It was also given to him

37:10

by business interests who grew even wealthier

37:13

under Erdogan's brand of crony capitalism.

37:16

Shortly after coming to power, he surrounded

37:18

himself with loyal businessmen. So

37:20

right now, in the country, there are a handful

37:23

of businessmen who receive

37:25

an unprecedented number of public tenders

37:28

and who have become really wealthy in the last 20

37:30

years under Erdogan's rule.

37:33

And it's actions like that that have cemented

37:35

Erdogan's power, not just inside Turkish

37:38

government, but outside it as

37:40

well. And it's also won

37:42

him the stalwart support of

37:44

many of Turkey's elite.

37:46

It's a heaven. There are no accountability

37:49

whatsoever. There is no rule of

37:52

law. One man calls the

37:54

shots. And if you're close to that man, Turkey

37:56

is a great place to be living in. So

37:59

from those

37:59

point of view, Erdogan's legacy

38:02

is one of heroism.

38:04

So that's Gonal Toul, director

38:07

of the Turkey program at the Middle East Institute

38:09

and author of Erdogan's War, A Strong

38:11

Man's Struggle at Home and in

38:13

Syria. Professor Ruth Ben-Giaertz,

38:17

what are the similarities and differences

38:20

that you think lie

38:22

between the Turkish example that

38:24

we just raised and what you're seeing happening in the United

38:27

States?

38:28

Yeah, so what

38:30

Gonal was describing very

38:33

well is, with

38:35

the crony capitalism, is a concept

38:37

called authoritarian bargains.

38:40

And in my book, Strong Man, I go over 100

38:42

years of these. These are things

38:44

that all dictators do

38:46

or want to be dictators. You

38:49

have to make early on, you have to make

38:52

deals with important

38:55

elites. And it's not just the

38:57

ones that Michael mentioned, where you must

38:59

have, of course, your party, you've

39:01

got to have your fanatic grassroots

39:04

base, you've got to have the media. You also

39:06

need religion. That's been

39:08

very important. And

39:10

once these people sign

39:12

on, as well as financial people, of course,

39:15

the business elites, once they sign

39:17

on, it's very difficult

39:19

to have these authoritarian deals break.

39:22

You need some kind of major crisis. We

39:25

see in Israel, there's a crisis now

39:27

with Netanyahu. And so he's

39:29

seeing elites turn against him, even

39:31

the military and security establishment.

39:35

But so we've seen in the States,

39:37

so Trump had Christian evangelicals,

39:41

Orthodox Jews, who are saying he was

39:44

put there by the will of God. He had

39:46

all of the billionaires, the conservative

39:48

elites, who I don't call conservative anymore,

39:51

they're far right. He had all this constellation

39:53

of people, the Federalist Society Heritage

39:56

Foundation.

39:57

And you really can't think of it as a constellation.

39:59

You could matter.

39:59

it like that with him in the center. And

40:02

he's delivered for many of these people, and

40:04

they know it. And so when he says

40:07

this is the final battle, they're

40:09

all in it because this is their moment.

40:11

This is as close as they're ever going to come

40:14

to actually being able to realize

40:16

the model

40:18

of autocratic power that they have

40:21

either wanted for a long time, or have

40:23

been converted to

40:29

see

40:29

what benefits they can draw from it.

40:32

Okay, because I think

40:35

you've said previously that

40:37

the autocratic playbook,

40:40

if I can call it that, it

40:42

kind of operates on what would seem

40:44

to be two opposing truths.

40:48

That one, the autocrat says, well, I

40:50

alone can fix things. I mean, that's

40:52

literally what Donald Trump has said in the past.

40:55

And he's saying now, the quotes are along

40:57

the lines of he's calling himself

40:59

the vengeance for

41:02

aggrieved Americans. So

41:04

there's this very self-centered

41:07

aspect of the authoritarian's personality.

41:10

But you're saying that that can't rise to

41:12

power on its own, right? That it needs the complicity

41:14

of all these other groups. It

41:16

needs that. It needs also

41:19

another similarity is, authoritarians

41:22

promise a utopian future, that everything's

41:24

going to be better. They think big.

41:27

Erdogan has these huge infrastructure

41:29

projects. Trump was all about infrastructure,

41:31

never really happened, but that we're talking

41:33

about propaganda. But very important

41:36

is they appeal to nostalgia.

41:38

They get all these malcontents who think, yeah, things

41:40

used to be better before blacks had so much

41:43

power, or in the case of Turkey,

41:45

other things. So all

41:47

of them want to revive some form

41:50

of the past. So Erdogan, there's this

41:52

obsession with the power

41:54

and grandeur of the Ottoman Empire.

41:56

And look at Putin, the idea of the imperial

41:59

Russia.

41:59

And so Trump had, when Trump

42:02

came out with this slogan, it's

42:05

not make America great, it's make America

42:07

great again. I almost fell off

42:09

my chair because this is what I've been studying

42:12

for so long. This was Mussolini with

42:14

the Roman Empire. Hitler

42:16

had a kind of Aryan fantasy

42:19

civilization. So all

42:21

of these people, they all have the same

42:23

playbook and Trump has followed it

42:26

to a T, which is why he's in my book, in

42:28

the context of 100 years

42:29

of these things. Erdogan is in it too.

42:32

Well, and then,

42:35

so even if that initial vision

42:37

doesn't sort of ring true

42:39

with everybody, I

42:41

think you've also written about how when

42:44

an authoritarian comes into power, one

42:46

of the initial things that he does is

42:50

actually begin with real reforms that

42:52

might have greater appeal to people

42:54

than those in his immediate coalition,

42:56

if I can put it that way. Is that right? Well,

43:01

this is, usually they don't get

43:03

to power unless they have a very broad-based

43:06

swath of

43:08

different interested parties. Excuse

43:11

me. And one of the hallmarks

43:13

of these guys is that they

43:16

get these very eclectic constituencies.

43:18

You have gangsters, you have housewives,

43:21

and that's because this type

43:23

of leader

43:24

will be anything that each

43:27

constituency needs him to be.

43:30

They have no morals, they have no principles,

43:32

they only want powers. They promise each

43:34

group whatever they think that group

43:36

wants. And that's why people fall for

43:38

them and think, oh, he's speaking to me

43:41

in a way no one's ever spoken to me. And

43:44

I think that's one of the secrets of their

43:46

success. Who would have predicted that

43:48

the most impious person you could

43:51

think of, Donald Trump, who's

43:52

uniquely criminal, would have such

43:55

support from evangelical Christians,

43:57

Orthodox Jews, all of these

43:59

kind of...

43:59

of, you know, kind

44:02

of establishment conservatives, they've all fallen

44:04

under his spell, meaning they

44:06

see what they can get out of him.

44:09

So

44:11

Donald Trump did not win the 2020 election, but

44:15

as the indictment

44:16

that was released yesterday outlines, he,

44:19

you know, there seems to be plenty of evidence

44:21

that he fought tooth and nail to remain in

44:23

power,

44:25

but nevertheless, he is running

44:27

now, again, for the 2024 race. Are

44:32

there examples elsewhere?

44:34

I think maybe Victor Orban does spring to mind,

44:36

but of how authoritarians sort of have

44:39

their first time at bat,

44:41

but then when they come back again, they

44:43

win and

44:46

can fulfill the authoritarian

44:48

vision that they've put out there.

44:51

Yeah, there's two parts to this. First

44:53

is sadly and

44:55

scarily, whenever they come back,

44:58

they're full of vengeance and they're

45:01

five times more extremist. And so if

45:03

Trump gets back into the White House, there's

45:06

a reason he's talking about retribution, the

45:08

avenging this and that

45:11

and purging, you know, civil service,

45:13

he's got people talking about impeaching

45:15

Trump, sorry, impeaching Biden.

45:18

So there's that dynamic, but

45:20

there's something larger.

45:22

It's our turn in America

45:24

to go through this idea that

45:28

most politicians, if they're

45:31

under investigation or they've got indictments, they

45:33

don't wanna run for office because

45:36

you're under the spotlight, there's opposition research,

45:38

but authoritarians are not most people.

45:42

And so, you know, this is

45:44

Trump's third time running, now

45:46

he has indictments, but he ran in 2016, he

45:49

was under investigation for fraud for

45:51

Trump University. Bair

45:52

Lusconi ran three times for office

45:55

with massive corruption trials and indictments.

45:58

By the way, by the time Bair Lusconi,

45:59

Moscone was forced out of office. He had

46:02

over two dozen indictments and he had never been

46:04

to prison. Putin ran

46:06

for the first time while under

46:08

investigation and Netanyahu now

46:10

we're seeing the drama in Israel where

46:13

he is indicted

46:15

for bribery and other things and he's trying

46:17

to get back. He got back and

46:20

he's immediately trying to shut down judicial

46:23

independence. The reason

46:25

they do this is that the purpose of

46:27

authoritarianism is to allow the

46:29

leader

46:29

to commit crime with impunity

46:32

so that they feel safe. All

46:35

of this, Trump 2025, the

46:37

whole plan which has been laid

46:40

out for us with the help of the Heritage Foundation

46:42

purging the civil service when

46:44

Trump's former head of the office with

46:48

management and budget says, quote,

46:51

we're looking for pockets of independence

46:53

in the government to seize them.

46:56

That is what's called autocratic

46:58

capture.

46:59

That's what Tonal described

47:01

that Erdogan already did. So

47:05

you must purge the civil service and institutions

47:08

of any non-loyalists. And once you've

47:10

done that and if you can

47:12

fix the system, then

47:15

you can commit as many

47:17

crimes as you want and you're untouchable. Being

47:19

untouchable is the dream of authoritarians

47:22

like Trump.

47:24

Well Ruth Ben-Giat, professor

47:26

of history and Italian studies at

47:29

New York University and author

47:31

of Strongmen, Mussolini

47:33

to the Present. Thank you so much for coming

47:35

back to the show, Professor Ben-Giat. Always

47:38

a pleasure.

47:40

I'm Magna Chakrabarti. This is On Point.