4:00

of course, is the place where

4:02

the Branch Davidians, David Kresh, had

4:05

their standoff with federal agents in 1993.

4:08

This, of course, ended in

4:10

disaster. The place went up in flames. 75

4:13

people died. It is the

4:16

symbol for the far right of a

4:18

government that is out of control and

4:20

is a threat to its own citizens.

4:23

So here is the place that

4:25

Donald Trump goes to have his

4:27

very first rally. When I

4:29

asked Bannon about it, I was like, come on,

4:31

Waco? What's going on

4:33

here? He said, what do you mean?

4:36

We are the Trump Davidians. We

4:43

laughed, but there

4:45

was clearly a message being sent.

4:47

The federal government was out of

4:49

control. The deep state was

4:51

out of control when the

4:54

Branch Davidians were raided and the result

4:56

was a bloodbath. Once

4:59

again, they are out of control. This

5:02

time they're going after Donald Trump and

5:05

his MAGA supporters. And what you saw on stage

5:07

when the rally started, did it seem appropriate to

5:09

the setting and to that context? It

5:12

was so remarkable. And a lot of people,

5:14

you know, people didn't

5:17

really know it much because we're early

5:19

in the presidential campaign cycle. I mean,

5:21

long before people are actually going to

5:23

be voting. But it

5:25

started with Donald Trump coming

5:27

out on stage silently.

5:31

As the speaker started blaring,

5:35

the national anthem performed by a group

5:37

called the J6 Choir.

5:40

The J6 Choir being people

5:43

who are in a D.C. prison for

5:46

alleged crimes related

5:48

to January 6th. Really

5:51

assaulting police officers breaking into the

5:53

Capitol building. And

5:55

Trump, as this is playing out, is

5:58

standing on stage. candidate

14:00

before. That once he gets into office, he's going

14:02

to take retribution on those who have opposed him.

14:04

And he's telling us that he believes he has

14:07

broad powers to command the Justice Department and other

14:09

branches of government to help him do that. We

14:12

wanted to take an hour to think about what that might look like

14:16

and what it might mean for the people who are going to

14:18

be most affected by it. And that is the people

14:20

who have crossed him in the past, people

14:22

on his enemies list. How

14:25

seriously are they taking this? After

14:27

Donald Trump says a lot of shit that he never really

14:29

delivers on. He never fully

14:31

built that wall with Mexico. Mexico did not pay

14:33

for any of it. Never

14:35

did lock up Hillary Clinton. They

14:37

really tried. As

14:39

I speak these words, Trump is leading in three

14:41

of the six swing states tied in the other

14:44

three. Today we visit with

14:46

a few of the people that Trump hates because they try

14:48

to puzzle out what Trump might

14:50

do to them. How do you plan for

14:52

this? We get a

14:54

variety of answers. WBEZ

14:56

Chicago, it's This American Life. I'm Ira

14:58

Glass. Stay with us. Step

15:13

one, Republicans who crossed Trump.

15:16

So we're going to start today with two Republicans who

15:18

are both pretty worried about what Donald Trump might do

15:20

to them if he returns to office. One of them

15:22

was a diehard Trump loyalist. One of them

15:25

was a diehard Trump opponent. Elise

15:27

Spiegel visited with him. Plainville,

15:29

Kansas is a small town with less

15:31

than 2,000 people. The kind of place

15:33

that feels very far away from the

15:36

rest of the world, from its noise

15:38

and its concerns and its dangers, which

15:40

I think is part of what attracted Stephanie Grisham

15:43

to the area. See this

15:45

lady right here? A 70-ish year old woman

15:47

in a colorful hat passes in front of

15:49

Stephanie's car. I really want to be her

15:51

friend. She's always dressed to the

15:54

nines and goes to all the high school football games

15:56

and I just love her. Stephanie moved

15:58

here from D.C. for years. ago. Wow, this

16:01

is a different scene, huh? It's

16:04

been a lot to get used to, but

16:06

man, I've sure grown

16:09

to love it. I really have. Really? Yeah. Stephanie's

16:12

previous scene was the White House. She was

16:14

one of the Trump staffers who lasted the

16:16

longest. She went to a Trump

16:19

rally two weeks after his descent on the Golden

16:21

Escalator and was amazed by how

16:23

he connected with the crowd. She'd never seen

16:25

anything like it. So she signed up and

16:27

lasted all the way into the storming of

16:29

the Capitol on January 6th. I

16:32

was interested in talking with Stephanie because when

16:34

she was with the Trumps, it was actually

16:37

part of her job to help them take

16:39

retribution against their enemies. Stephanie

16:42

played a variety of roles for the Trumps. She

16:45

was Melania's chief of staff for a time,

16:47

but she also worked at the highest levels

16:49

of the West Wing. In fact, at one

16:51

point, she was press secretary and director of

16:53

communications for the White House and was

16:56

also responsible for communications for

16:58

Melania. P.S., she was the

17:00

only White House press secretary to never hold

17:02

a single press briefing. But

17:06

Stephanie says even outside of her formal White

17:09

House jobs, she spent a huge amount of

17:11

time with the Trumps. I

17:13

would always go with them during all

17:15

the holidays. So I was at Mar-a-Lago with

17:17

them for Christmas, New Year's, all the way

17:19

to Easter. So I was just

17:22

always there. Always there.

17:25

So literally in the room at

17:27

so many critical moments. Like on

17:29

election night in 2020, it

17:31

was Stephanie who tiptoed into the first lady's

17:33

bedroom around 1 to wake her so Melania

17:35

would be dressed and ready to go on

17:37

camera when Trump came out to speak. As

17:40

Melania got ready in the bathroom, Stephanie

17:43

says that she sat with Barron at the end

17:45

of her bed watching television news

17:47

and calling out the results so Melania

17:49

would know which states had been decided.

17:52

Really, Stephanie's been through

17:55

all kinds of things with the Trumps. I

17:57

mean, there was the time he felt that he needed

18:00

to tell me that Stormy Daniels was wrong

18:02

about his penis size. So that was a

18:04

really weird conversation. And he called

18:06

me from Air Force One, which made the

18:08

whole conversation worse because there's a tiny delay

18:10

between the person on the plane and the

18:12

person on the ground. January

18:20

6th was the turning point for Stephanie. She

18:23

said she was horrified that Trump didn't

18:25

immediately denounce the breach of the Capitol

18:27

and attacks on Mike Pence. And

18:29

when she reached out to Melania to ask her

18:31

to intervene with her husband, Melania said

18:34

no. For Stephanie, that

18:36

was the last straw. She

18:39

told me she sent her resignation email about 15 minutes

18:41

later. But Stephanie

18:43

didn't stop at resigning. She

18:46

also agreed to testify for the January

18:48

6th committee, spoke out against

18:50

Donald Trump on television, and

18:52

wrote a tell-all book about her experience with

18:54

the Trumps that became a national bestseller. From

18:57

a Trump perspective, Stephanie says

18:59

she's sinned in almost every possible way she

19:01

could sin. And she's been

19:03

clear from the beginning, literally from the moment

19:06

she pressed to send on her resignation email,

19:09

about what that would mean for her. Oh,

19:11

I knew I would be cast out. I

19:13

knew I would immediately be a traitor. I

19:16

mean, I helped do it to people. If anybody

19:18

spoke out against Mrs. Trump

19:20

or the president, I was the one issuing

19:22

terrible statements, calling them

19:24

a liar, saying they were looking for fame.

19:27

Stephanie says that since she was a Trump true

19:29

believer, she mostly felt fine about this.

19:32

She saw it as an important part of her job

19:34

to push back. But

19:36

still, she says, there were some

19:38

uncomfortable moments. I called Mitt

19:42

Romney a scum, I

19:44

think. And this is a

19:46

man I had worked for and actually had really respected

19:48

and was always really kind when I ever passed by

19:50

him. And I remember right

19:52

when the word scum came out of my mouth,

19:56

I inside was like, oh, that

19:58

was way too far. way

20:00

too far. That was really

20:02

harsh and that was pretty gross of me.

20:05

And of course I get back to the White

20:08

House and I got just praise from the president.

20:10

That was great. You were so tough, you're so

20:12

tough, you know. So then

20:14

that makes you feel good because now the president's happy

20:16

with you. And that's the thing, that's

20:18

the one of the things about Donald Trump, he

20:20

doesn't give you a specific direction. He just

20:23

says, go after him and

20:25

he leaves you to do the dirty work. Stephanie

20:28

says one of the only times Trump

20:30

gave her very specific directions was after

20:32

John Kelly stepped down as chief of

20:35

staff and then criticized Trump in the

20:37

press. Stephanie says at one

20:39

point Trump called her to say she needed

20:41

to make a public statement savaging Kelly, who

20:44

was a person Stephanie liked and respected. He

20:47

said that I needed to call

20:49

this reporter and say, General

20:52

Kelly doesn't understand

20:54

the genius of our great

20:56

president. And he said, take it

20:58

down, take this down. So I remember I wrote it

21:00

down and I hung up the phone

21:02

and I sat there and I remember I called my

21:04

boyfriend. I called the one

21:06

of the deputy chiefs of staff at the

21:09

time and I think I called just like

21:11

my best friend and I knew I was

21:13

like, oh my gosh, he wants me to

21:15

say this. This is horrible, right? And everyone

21:18

was like, yeah, that's really horrible. And

21:21

but I picked up the phone and I did it and

21:24

it sounded like I worked for

21:26

Kim Jong-un, like the genius of our great

21:28

president who says that. But I did. And

21:31

so he called me later

21:33

that day, the president and said, hey, I really

21:36

that was great. I really appreciate what you said.

21:38

That was really tough. And I'm thinking you

21:40

had me write that down. Like it

21:43

was just very, very clear, Stephanie says,

21:46

that Trump wanted you to be as

21:48

ruthless as possible with his enemies. She

21:51

says Trump seemed to genuinely

21:53

admire people who were ruthless. I

21:56

remember one specific time when he we

21:58

were in a bylat with. with President

22:01

Erdogan of Turkey. And we

22:03

were all sitting around this table. I was, I think maybe

22:06

the only woman in the room, maybe a couple others, but

22:08

out of the blue, literally, he just

22:10

yells down to me, "'Stephanie, who

22:13

do you think is the biggest killer?

22:15

"'This guy or President Xi of China?'"

22:18

He asked me that in a room of 30 to 40 people.

22:21

I'm supposed to decide who's the biggest murderer, as

22:24

if that's cool. And I

22:26

remember I just said, I don't know, this guy looks

22:28

pretty tough, sir. You

22:30

know, you laugh about it. And I

22:32

remember afterwards, he came up to me and grabbed

22:34

my elbow and he goes, "'Hey, just so you

22:37

know, it's President Xi. "'I've seen him

22:39

do some shit.'" And that was

22:41

the moment that I was like, he really loves

22:43

this. He really loves, he wanted

22:46

to know who was murdered more of their

22:48

own people, their own people. Ah!

22:53

["The American

23:16

Girl"] Unfortunately for Stephanie, Donald

23:18

Trump doesn't usually forget his grudges.

23:21

Stephanie seems to genuinely care for her

23:24

and in some ways even admire Melania

23:26

Trump. Since she was Melania's Chief

23:28

of Staff and Communications Director, they

23:31

got to know each other pretty well. And

23:33

you can tell when you read Stephanie's book

23:35

that even now she has fond feelings for

23:37

her former boss. Mrs. or

23:39

even. But she's seen

23:41

what Melania's capable of. She

23:44

says Melania's tried to use the government to

23:46

go after enemies in the past. She

23:49

had a friend who kind of worked for her,

23:51

Stephanie Winston-Wolkoff. You also

23:53

wrote a book about her while we were in the White House.

23:55

And when Stephanie's book

23:57

came out, Melania won.

23:59

wanted to sue her, because that's what they

24:01

do. The Trump sue people. And Melania's

24:04

reasoning was she wanted to sue Stephanie

24:06

for violating a non-disclosure agreement that Stephanie

24:08

had signed. Well, we all signed. But

24:11

those had been deemed that they didn't really

24:14

matter, because we were for the government. And

24:17

Pat Cipollone, our attorney, our White House attorney,

24:19

kept telling Melania, no, if you

24:21

want to do this, you need to do it with your personal lawyer. This

24:24

isn't a government thing. And

24:26

Melania was like, nope, nope. I want to sue her.

24:29

And she forced Pat Cipollone

24:32

to make the Justice Department

24:34

take it on. Pat said

24:36

two or three times, this

24:38

should be your personal lawyer.

24:40

This is not a government situation.

24:43

And she finally one day said, I don't care.

24:45

Do it. And so they did it. I

24:54

reached out to Pat Cipollone and

24:56

the Justice Department to confirm Stephanie's

24:58

story. Neither would comment. The

25:00

Justice Department did file a

25:03

suit against Stephanie Winston-Wolkoff shortly after

25:05

her book came out. The

25:07

Biden administration dropped that suit

25:09

its first month in office.

25:12

But this story points to something that

25:14

really worries Stephanie about a second Trump

25:17

term. She believes there

25:19

will be many fewer Pat Cipollones,

25:21

people willing to push back or

25:23

say no to the Trumps, because like

25:25

Ira mentioned earlier, Trump

25:28

has told people he's not going to appoint anyone

25:30

this time around who will tell him no. And

25:33

there's something else that Stephanie is worried about

25:35

in a second Trump term, something I heard

25:38

from a few people. It's

25:40

not how he'd use government

25:42

institutions for personal retribution. It's

25:45

another weapon at his disposal. He

25:48

and she, they both can

25:50

call forth these armies of

25:52

people, mostly online,

25:54

but certainly we've seen with January

25:57

6 and other situations that some

25:59

are in charge of. public and

26:01

you just get besieged with hate

26:04

and bullying and they know that

26:06

and they wield that power like

26:08

no problem. And I remember there

26:10

were times with Mrs. Trump that

26:12

I'd say, do you

26:15

want me to put a statement out about this person

26:17

who said something bad about you? And she'd say, no,

26:19

no, no, we will let all my fans

26:21

get them. And that meant the

26:24

people online, all

26:27

her supporters would go after this

26:29

person. And they do. Several

26:37

people I spoke to for this story told

26:39

me that they feared Trump would encourage a

26:41

kind of culture of vengefulness in his second

26:43

term. And that Magazellets might

26:45

feel liberated to do what they want because

26:47

Trump's government will have their backs. After

26:50

all, he has already promised to

26:52

pardon the January 6th rioters. Which

26:55

brings me to Fred Wellman and

26:58

the way that fear of retribution from Trump

27:00

supporters can infect a life. Fred

27:03

lives in a suburb of St. Louis on

27:05

this residential street with modest houses. And

27:07

he told me that a couple of months

27:10

ago, right before bed, he let his dog

27:12

River out for her bedtime stretch. You know,

27:14

open the door, she jumps down three steps

27:16

and sitting right here with those garbage cans

27:18

are was a pickup truck sitting there idling

27:20

facing my house. And I'm like,

27:22

okay, I washed it for a second. Didn't see tinted

27:24

windows, couldn't see what's going on. I'm like, that's strange.

27:27

You're talking 10 o'clock at night. What

27:29

got me going was I gave him bug eyes. You know,

27:32

I looked at him, I gave him stink eyes. Like, what

27:34

are you doing here? Just looked and you know, he had

27:36

to know I saw him. And I came back and they

27:38

didn't leave, which is really suspicious. And

27:40

in your mind, what was the first thought you

27:43

had about who could be sitting in that truck?

27:46

Trump supporters, MAGA, MAGA, MAGA

27:48

extremist, if you will. I'm

27:51

on the list. I'm on the

27:53

list. And what do you mean

27:55

by list? Oh, enemies. I'm

27:57

on the MAG enemies list. To

28:04

be clear, it's not a literal

28:06

list. But Fred's definitely done enough

28:08

to get on the wrong side of Trump world.

28:11

Fred was executive director of the

28:13

Lincoln Project. Maybe you've heard of it? It's

28:17

this group of high-profile Republican operatives who

28:19

set out to use their political know-how

28:21

to keep Trump out of power in

28:23

2020 and immediately attracted attention

28:25

and money. The

28:28

group trolled Trump on Twitter daily

28:30

and spent close to $80 million on a

28:32

series of viral anti-Trump

28:35

campaign ads. Trump

28:37

responded with rage tweets. There were a

28:40

bunch. And those written attacks

28:42

from Trump almost immediately translated

28:44

into actual attacks from Trump

28:46

supporters. One Lincoln

28:49

Project founder I talked to said that

28:51

hundreds of boxes of excrement were mailed

28:53

to his house. Then

28:55

a couple months ago, Fred discovered

28:58

that all of his information and the

29:00

information of his family members had been

29:02

posted on this doxxing site that he

29:04

didn't want to name, but

29:07

which he showed me during our visit. I

29:09

keep it open. I love the picture

29:11

of the devil. It's very

29:14

subtle. There it is. That's

29:17

my stepson. That's my dad who's dead.

29:20

That's my ex-wife's ex-husband. That's

29:22

my brother. That's my mother.

29:25

They do have all the email socials, right? They have

29:27

all your email? Yeah, but that's not me. I

29:30

guess it was Fred Wellman who was a realtor that kept mistaking for

29:32

me. Poor Fred Wellman. I know. Have

29:35

you reached out to him and be like, sorry, guy? He

29:37

should change his name. I was first. At

29:39

the top of the page was a box,

29:41

which listed how many people had searched for

29:44

Fred's name. There were 187. And

29:48

now this truck was sitting near his driveway. Could

29:51

it be a Trump supporter? So

29:53

anyway, I do what I do, which is, you know. Just

29:57

explain what this is. I have a... a

30:00

nine millimeter handgun, Smith and Wesson

30:02

nine millimeter. In the drawer by your best?

30:04

Yeah. Yeah, or actually on the nightstand.

30:08

Before getting sideways with Trump World, Fred

30:10

didn't keep guns in his house, much

30:12

less on his bedside table. It's

30:15

not that Fred's uncomfortable with guns. Fred's

30:17

military. He went to West

30:19

Point, was a protege of David Petraeus, served

30:21

in Desert Storm, and had three combat tours

30:24

in Iraq. It's just that

30:26

after his time in the military, Fred

30:28

struggled very seriously with PTSD.

30:31

And so to be safe, about seven years

30:33

ago, he got rid of all of his weapons.

30:36

He told me it was the responsible thing to do for

30:38

his kids, for his family. Easy

30:41

access to guns kills veterans. So it was a big

30:43

deal for me to go ahead and get one. Did

30:45

you have, is it okay for me to ask?

30:48

Did you, at a certain point, have real

30:50

trouble with suicidal ideas? Oh yeah,

30:52

oh yeah. That was a constant companion to me for

30:54

many years. Many, many years. But I

30:56

went into treatment for PTSD back in 2018 as

30:59

my wife and I separated. And

31:01

I took that, and I'm still therapy,

31:03

still treating it. Come a long way. That's

31:07

why Fred swore off guns, at

31:09

least until he was promoted to Executive Director of

31:11

The Lincoln Project in 2021. MAGA

31:14

supporters already hated them. But

31:17

on his first day on the job, something happened that

31:19

unleashed a whole new level of fury at the group.

31:22

One of The Lincoln Project's founders

31:24

admitted to sending sexually suggestive messages

31:26

to young men, which turned

31:28

MAGA's anger at the group up to 11.

31:31

The daily barrage was so extreme,

31:33

the professional security consultants hired to

31:36

do a threat analysis, told Fred

31:38

and his colleagues to avoid going

31:40

outside. Fred

31:42

felt he had no choice. He says he

31:44

drove to a store and purchased the Smith

31:46

and Wesson, carried it everywhere, even inside his

31:48

house. I need to have it in the same room,

31:51

just to make sure in case somebody kicked the door in or came in

31:53

the back door, that I'd at least be able

31:55

to fight back. I had a whole plan where I'd fall

31:58

back, what's safer, I set up. I

32:00

mean, just put my extra ammo in the bathroom

32:02

upstairs. So if I had to retreat to the

32:04

bathroom, I'd have the extra ammo in the bathroom.

32:07

I mean, it was pretty intense

32:09

for a while there. Again, I'm an

32:11

old soldier, you know. I'm not going to sit back and let him

32:13

kill me. You know, being aware of my surroundings, being

32:16

aware of my operational security is my way of life

32:18

now. It has to be. You know,

32:20

I have a choice. Which

32:24

brings me back to that night in late

32:26

January, and the truck parked in front of

32:28

Fred's driveway. Fred told me he peeked

32:30

through the blinds with a gun in his hand, waiting

32:33

until eventually it drove away. At

32:37

the time, did you question, am I being paranoid?

32:39

Oh, yeah, I always do. You always do. I mean,

32:41

why wouldn't you? You know, it's a weird thing to

32:43

think something you might want to... You know, it's just

32:46

so ridiculous, the idea. Even

32:48

somebody who lives this life is wondering, you

32:50

know, am I just being ridiculous? You know, I always...

32:54

Does it bother you to think that you're paranoid? Yeah,

32:56

it does. But that's their

32:58

goal, right? I mean, the goal, I think, for

33:00

all these guys is to make us on

33:03

edge, to wear us out, to

33:06

make you quit, to say, you know what, this is too

33:08

much heat. This is too much danger for me. And

33:11

I have peers who have done that. I have peers who

33:13

have backed out of their quieted down

33:15

or gone to other things. The

33:17

goal is, and I think about it, why would I not

33:19

think about it? So they want us to

33:21

be scared. They want us to chicken out. They want us to

33:23

be broke. It's like, you see how I live. I live humbly.

33:26

Go for it, dude. There's nothing more dangerous than

33:28

a man with zero assets and zero fucks. And

33:30

that's you? That's me. Oh,

33:32

yeah, that's me in all familiar ways. Kids

33:34

are grown. You know, I'm not married, so my wife's not

33:36

going to get hit with anything. I'm on my own. Fred

33:46

and Stephanie both worry that in a second

33:48

Trump term, he'll install people in the federal

33:50

government who will come after them. In

33:53

the IRS, in the Justice Department. Like,

33:56

for example, they both think their taxes could

33:58

be audited. scientific

54:00

sample, but still out of

54:02

about two dozen people, none of them mentioned it.

54:05

They even brought up specific people who crossed

54:07

Trump, like testified against him in the New

54:09

York trial. And people were like, eh, I

54:12

don't know. Do you think that

54:14

Trump, like, do you think he's going to

54:16

go after Stormy Daniels or Michael Cullen? You

54:19

know, like punish them? No, I don't think so. I

54:21

don't think he gives two craps. Really?

54:24

Even though he like... No, of course he

54:26

probably hates them. Right. But no,

54:28

I think he has more important things to do. Exactly.

54:31

I think he's going to put it behind him. Yes. Do

54:34

you think he's going to go after Biden? No, he's not.

54:36

Biden's an old man. He's not going to live that much

54:38

longer. I don't see retribution or revenge.

54:41

He is for the people. He is

54:43

for helping the people. That's

54:45

what we need. Yeah. You

54:48

know, when Trump started this campaign,

54:51

something that he said was, I am

54:53

your warrior. I am

54:55

your justice. Retribution. Retribution. Right?

55:00

What do you think if like, if he does

55:02

end up using the DOJ to go

55:04

after his political enemies? That's

55:06

what they're doing. So now he knows how to do

55:08

it, but he won't do that. To

55:11

everybody here, retribution isn't some hypothetical

55:13

future thing to be afraid of.

55:16

It's already here. It's happening now under

55:18

Biden. Biden is the

55:20

one using his Justice Department to persecute his

55:22

political opponent. Six special prosecutors on

55:25

him sent the FBI to raid his house. There's

55:28

no evidence any of that's true. These are

55:30

all independent investigations, but people believe it. So

55:33

they have weaponized the DOJ. Look at Mora

55:35

Lago, the raid. You're like the Justice Department

55:37

is totally politicized. They got to go. They're

55:40

using the, you know, their power and

55:43

authority. They're abusing their power and authority

55:45

in order to silence this

55:47

person because for whatever reason, they have

55:49

so much hatred towards Donald Trump. And

55:51

it's like, you hate him

55:53

that much? Would you be comfortable

55:57

with a president going after his political

55:59

enemies? like using the DOJ and the

56:01

— No, no, that's not what it's designed

56:04

for. No, I wouldn't — That's what's

56:06

happening to him. I don't think that's right. This

56:09

brings me to something I want to draw your attention

56:11

to, something very different

56:14

from most of what you've heard this hour. A

56:16

significant number of people in my unscientific

56:19

sample told me they don't want Trump

56:21

or anyone else to use the powers

56:23

of the federal government to take down

56:25

their political opponents. They

56:27

want things the way they used to be. They

56:30

want things back to normal. Is there

56:32

something that Trump could do with

56:34

respect to — going after his

56:37

political enemies that would make you uncomfortable?

56:40

If he did a witch hunt like we're going through right

56:42

now. No witch hunt for a witch hunt? Yeah, nope.

56:45

And what do you want Trump's Justice Department to

56:48

look like? Well, you know what? I don't know.

56:50

But maybe it should be — maybe

56:53

it should be nonpartisan. It

56:55

sounds like you don't want the Justice Department

56:58

to be used by a president to go

57:00

after their political enemies. And you kind of

57:02

feel like that's what's happening now. They do.

57:05

Green Trump, green Trump, green

57:07

Trump, green Trump, green Trump.

57:10

You know what looked extra bad to Trump supporters?

57:13

Trump getting convicted of 34 felonies

57:15

in the middle of Manhattan by a bunch of

57:17

people who probably didn't vote for him. I

57:20

ran over to Trump Tower the day after the

57:22

verdict, where supporters were gathering to hear Trump speak.

57:25

Wondering if I was going to hear

57:27

anything different at this fever pitch

57:29

moment. I was mushed

57:31

up against the glass of the Prada store

57:33

with a bunch of people asking, what about

57:35

now, host verdict? Should

57:37

Trump use the government to punish his enemies

57:40

at this point? Do you feel, like, excited

57:42

about the idea of revenge or retribution? See,

57:45

when he say, see, say, it's

57:47

not like revenge, that

57:50

I'm going to go out and kill people or

57:52

beat people, put them in jail. It's

57:54

to stop the deep statement, stop

57:56

corruption. In a way, you

57:58

think of it as making things... What

1:00:00

a proud, so

1:00:02

proudly we hailed

1:00:05

at the twilight's

1:00:08

last gleaming. Today's

1:00:12

program was produced by Elise Spiegel, edited

1:00:14

by Elise and me, Marr Starcheski, and

1:00:16

Bethel Hoppe. The people who

1:00:18

put together today's episode include Chris Bender,

1:00:20

Evia Benin, Sean Cole, Michael Comite, Aviva

1:00:23

De Kornfeld, Seth Lin, Catherine Maymondo, Nadia

1:00:25

Raymond, Sofia Riddle, Ryan Rummery, Alyssa Ship,

1:00:27

Lily Sullivan, Christopher Sotala, Marisa Robertson-Texter, Matt

1:00:29

Tierney, and Diane Wu. Our managing editor,

1:00:32

Sara Abdurrahman. Our senior editor, David Kestenbaum.

1:00:34

Our executive editor, is Emmanuel Berry. Special

1:00:37

thanks today to Mark Zaid, Eugene

1:00:39

and Cindy Vindman, Jennifer Jacobson, Jennifer

1:00:41

Weaver, James Schirke, Elton Whitman, Stephen

1:00:43

Bradbury, Kelle Fassana, Ryan Gudurski, and

1:00:45

Sarah Isker. Washington Post reporter, Isaac

1:00:47

Arnstorff, who you heard at the top of the show,

1:00:49

wrote a great book about Trump's followers, called Finish What

1:00:51

We Started. Special thanks today

1:00:53

to Mark Zaid, Eugene and Cindy

1:00:55

Vindman, Jennifer Jacobson, Jennifer Weaver, James

1:00:57

Schirke, Elton Whitman, Stephen Bradbury, Kelle

1:00:59

Fassana, Ryan Gudurski, and Sarah Isker.

1:01:02

Washington Post reporter, Isaac Arnstorff, who you heard at the

1:01:04

top of the show, wrote a great book about Trump's

1:01:06

followers, called Finish What We Started. Our

1:01:08

website, thisamericanlife.org. If you are needing something

1:01:10

to listen to, you don't know what

1:01:13

to do while you're doing a thing,

1:01:15

you can stream our archive of over

1:01:17

800 episodes for absolutely free, thisamericanlife.org.

1:01:21

This American Life is delivered to public radio

1:01:24

stations by PRX, the Public Radio

1:01:26

Exchange. Ex-Zoe's Joe programs

1:01:28

co-founder, Mr. Tori Malatia, he is

1:01:30

constantly asking me this about

1:01:32

the host of the daily, Michael Barbaro.

1:01:34

Who do you think is the biggest

1:01:36

killer, this guy or President Xi of

1:01:38

China? I'm Eric Glass, back

1:01:41

next week, for more stories of This American

1:01:43

Life.