The Daily Beast Podcast - Trump Did The One Thing That Could Unravel His MAGA Base

Episode Date: April 4, 2025

On this episode of The New Abnormal, Republican dissent against President Donald Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariffs has co-hosts Andy Levy and Danielle Moodie convinced that this could be the beginning of the end for blind MAGA fealty. Plus! President and executive director of Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law Damon Hewitt explains how the Trump administration is attempting to dismantle its legal opposition. Then, Columbia Classics Professor Joseph Howley discusses the university's response to student protests and a broader crackdown on dissenting voices. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hi, I'm Andy Levy, former Fox News and CNN-HLN guy, and current cable news conscientious objector. I'm a former libertarian who now sits pretty comfortably on the left. Hi, I'm Danielle Moody, former educator and recovering lobbyist. But today, I'm an unapologetic, woke commentator on America's threats to democracy. And I'm producer Jesse Cannon, and I'm here to make sure things don't go too far off the rails. We're here to have fun, smart conversations with some of the most knowledgeable and entertaining people in politics, media, and beyond. goal is to try and make sense of our current crazy world, our new abnormal, and hopefully even make you laugh through the tears.

What a great show we have for you today. President and Executive Director of Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, Damon Ewitt is here to explain how the Trump administration is trying to dismantle legal opposition and what it means for a law firm to bend the knee. Then, Columbia Classics Professor Joseph Howley joins us to talk about the university's response to student protests. It's growing entanglement with the Trump administration and what that says about the broader crackdown on campus descent.

But first, let's have some fun. Welcome back to Danielle Moody. Danielle, I know you were out of the country for a bit and you've returned home. And you have found that everything is terrific. Because on what Donald Trump is calling Liberation Day, he announced unbelievably huge tariffs pretty much. much across the board for the rest of the world. And in response, the stock market absolutely plummeted. Even some Republicans seem to be a little nervous about this, which is nice, considering it's going to totally torpedo our economy. I can only assume that Liberation

Day means we are going to be liberated from our 401ks because they're going to go away. And I guess also this is Trump keeping his promise to lower prices. We just didn't know he meant stock prices. Yeah. And let me just say this one. I don't know why I came back. I know nobody asked me, but I really don't. But when you say that stocks took a nose dive, as we're talking right now, the Dow was down 1,200 points. The S&P has lost 3%. The NASDAQ has fell 4%. It's hard to believe that five months ago, our economy was quote unquote the envy of the world. It was literally on the cover of the economists stating such that our economy had rebounded in such a way from COVID under Biden that the world was in awe. That was five months ago. And in all of the projection that Maga and

Donald Trump have done over the course of Biden's four years about the economy tanking, everything's so expensive, blah, blah, we are literally watching this regime take an entire blowtorch to America. And the fact that you just said that there are only some Republicans that are reacting to this is insane. But it is also a part of the autocrat playbook that torching the economy is part of their strategy. One, it allows the oligarchs to buy up stock super fucking cheap. It puts the rest of us who don't have that just, you know, pile of money to be able to throw into the market outside of our 401ks or pensions, have the rest of us pretty much

forced into, I don't know, some type of indentured servitude because there is unemployment through the roof. if you no longer have the security of your 401k or your pension, guess what that's going to do? Force you into the workplace where you're going to be competing like the fucking hunger games for a scrap of bread. It's extraordinary. And yet, only a handful of Republicans are like, maybe Congress should do something about Donald Trump's madman torching approach to our economy. Yeah. I mean, look, the last time we had tariffs like this was 1930, Smoot-Hawley, the tariff.

Act, as it was known, and it is sort of widely agreed by economists and historians that it plunged us even deeper into the Great Depression. So you're absolutely right that more Republicans should be speaking up about this. I actually wouldn't be shocked if they start to, because I do think this is the one thing that may wake some people up because it involves their bank accounts. And there are a lot of people who are absolutely fine with deportations without due process, who are absolutely fine with transphobia being enshrined in federal law, federal actions, who are absolutely fine with eliminating the achievements of black people, brown people, women, LGBTQ plus people. But the one thing they are not fine with is watching their wallets shrink. I think it's interesting that we're already seeing

within a day of this, we're seeing some Republicans speaking up, which is not something we've seen on any of these other things because either they agree with them or, you know, they are the opposite of profiles in courage. But I do think that this may be, this may be the biggest misstep politically that Trump has made so far. So we'll see. And I should never underestimate the Republicans' ass-kissing ability. I guess what I'm trying to say is if anything is going to drive a wedge, maybe between the administration and say congressional Republicans, this might be it. I mean, look, here's the thing. Every time that we think that we've hit rock bottom, Republicans frack us to hell. So I am not 100% sure that that is. And the fact is that there are a bunch of spineless, sloth-like creatures who don't even have the wherewithal to face their own constituents.

So maybe when people continue to show up at their houses or the restaurants at their dining out or on their golf courses demanding that they do something, maybe then we will see some action by the mindless MAGA Republicans. But here is like here are the facts, like just to list out what Donald Trump has done, which is that there are reciprocal tariffs now on more than 180 countries and territories. According to CNBC, these new duties will include a 20% tariff. on goods imported from the European Union, along with 10% levies on those originating from the UK, luxury goods, autos, and German products are among the hardest hit. So I'm like, okay, like what the world is going to learn and is learning in real time how they are going to function without the United States and how they are going to figure out either how to rally together in order to protect their economies from American madmen.

Like that's the only way that you're going to be able to function, and America is going to fall off of a cliff. Yeah, I'm 100% with you. I do want to point out one thing. I know the Trump administration is calling these reciprocal tariffs. They are not. They are reciprocal tariffs would mean, in my layman's understanding, anyway, that we would be levying tariffs at the same rate that other countries

do to us. That is not what's going on here. The tariffs in a bunch of these countries that Trump is levying are far larger than the tariffs that those countries levy on U.S. goods. I know we're all shocked that he's lying about this, but we have to deal with it. We have to deal, Danielle, with the idea that the president is actually a liar. I know you don't like to think that. I know. It's time, Danielle. It's time for you to recognize. And the other thing is these are not, and other people have figured this out, I think the first to do it was an economist named James Surwecki, whose name I may be mispronouncing, and I apologize if so, that the way they calculated these tariffs has nothing to do with reality and has some notion of a spark of an idea that

trade deficits are tariffs and that all these countries that we have trade deficits with are stealing from us, which is just not how the world works. It just means that we're importing more goods from these countries, mainly because they're cheaper. So it's this total fiction of both the idea that these are reciprocal tariffs and that the way they calculated them has any economic standing whatsoever. I'm looking now at all these companies. I think we all remember that Tim Cook and Apple gave, what was it, like a million dollar gift for the inauguration? Apple stocks have tanked. I think with maybe one or two others, Apple stocks have tanked the most because of these tariffs. All these people, we see all these quotes now from these business people

saying, you know, oh, I can't believe he's doing this. He told you he was going to do this. He told you he was going to do this and you shrugged your shoulders and you gave money to him. And I do not feel bad for these companies at all except for the fact that people who own these stocks, people who have these stocks in their 401ks, I'm not talking about rich investors. I'm talking about people who have been contributing to a retirement plan are getting really hard hit by that. And this sucks. But for the companies themselves, I got absolutely no sympathy because he told you he was going to do this. You ignored him. You didn't take him seriously. You supported him. And now you're reaping the whirlwind. I mean, that's what happens when you fuck around. Eventually, you find out.

Speaking of finding out, but in actually the good way, which we rarely ever get to talk about on this show. Let's say this. Let's say this. Wisconsin, y'all, added to a list of states I can go to in these United States because Elon Musk, who spent more than $12 million to back a conservative against Susan Crawford, who won an open seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court this week, keeping the court at a four to three liberal majority. once again, Elon Musk is providing real-world examples on how we should have never allowed Citizens United to happen that basically said, hey, corporation, hey, PAC, you have just as many voting rights, if not more, than the average American person. That Elon Musk has been throwing money around. It's how he bought the U.S. presidency with $290 million to Donald Trump. and with $12 million lost a Supreme Court seat because the people of Wisconsin fucking hate you

and realize that now we've all been, and I mean, I'm using we liberally, bamboozled by this idea that this rich guy is a genius can, you know, help us that his, you know, his understanding of tech is just, you know, bar none. And, you know, and everything that he thinks is right. and now people are waking up to the fact that he is a fucking grifter and everything that he's been doing has been about enriching himself and the people of Wisconsin showed up, voted and

showed out. And now I think I pray, Andy, that this election can be a, I don't know, what's the word I'm looking for? An alarm, a bit of hope, something that gets people into recognizing that they still have the power to show up and they need to show up while that right still fucking exists. Yeah. Let's call it a wake up call. Yes. It is. And I think you're exactly right.

And beyond the importance of keeping that state Supreme Court from going, as unfortunately other states have from going full MAGA, which would have horrific repercussions for things like abortion and so many other things. But beyond that, I do think nationally this was, or at least should be, a wake-up call. And for the exact reasons that you said, we're dealing with an autocrat. We're dealing with an authoritarian system of government right now. But we are not yet, and we can hopefully prevent the slide into sort of a full fascist regime where the people really have absolutely no power at all. We still have some power.

And the more we use it, like the people in Wisconsin did, it's one of those things that sort of the more you use it, the more of it you have. And it should be hopefully, you know, a beacon shining across the country to those of us, you know, who do not want a full fascist government, and to those of us who do not want an authoritarian government, and to those of us who don't want an oligarchy where someone like Elon Musk has all this power and all this money and can seek to by elections. And so this was huge. This was absolutely huge. Musk campaigned really, really hard for this. He went to Wisconsin. He wore a cheesehead and looked like a damn fool doing it. And it was all for nothing. And that's absolutely fantastic. And of course, he's now pretending he expected to lose, which is an outright lie.

He was going on Fox News and saying that if his guy lost this election, Brad Schimmel, that it would lead to the end of Western civilization. He could not have tried harder to elect this guy. And he lost. And he lost big. It wasn't like a one or two point loss. It was, I think, a nine or ten point loss. I think it was 12. But it might have, yeah, yeah, no, you're right. Except for me. It was 12. It was one point. It was one point for every million he spent. Come on. This is absolutely fantastic news for a country that really needed it. Speaking of fantastic news, because again, we don't get to do this. And with just a couple of minutes, fucking Senator Cory Booker.

All I will say, I was away, and I try my damnedest when I am away to literally not pay attention to the news so that I can feel the right way of liberated. Not Donald Trump's faux liberation, but actual liberation from America. And watching Cory Booker, as it came across my phone, stand for 25 hours with the passion and the integrity and the courage to fucking. this administration for filth was gorgeous. And for folks that I'd said, oh, well, this is performative, it doesn't do anything. It does. People really underestimate the power of fucking hope. They underestimate, like, the sparks that, like, can actually create real action in people.

That you just need to see someone do something that is unimaginable that gives you the courage and the steam to keep pressing forward. And people need to remember that fear and hopelessness are the greatest tools of autocracy and dictatorships. And any spark that we can get is what will fuel people to fight back against what is happening at the hands of the Trump regime. And so I just, I cannot thank Cory Booker enough for what he did and how impactful we will continue to see that moment be.

Yeah, 100%. And look, it's really easy to be cynical. And I've seen a lot of people saying, well, this didn't accomplish anything. It was just performative. The performance was the point. And for all the reasons you just mentioned, for what it shows people is possible, you know, that it, again, much like the vote in Wisconsin, that it is possible to stand up to Donald Trump and to the Republican majority in the Senate. And a lot of politics is performance. We know this. It's just obvious. And to dismiss this as mere performance is, I think, is absolutely missing the point. We need more of this. What annoys me is that a lot of the same people saying that this was just performance are some of the same people who have been yelling at Hakeem Jeffries for saying they can't do anything. This is the opposite of that Hakeem Jeffries attitude. This is saying, you know what? Yeah, we're in the minority here. We don't have the votes.

But we can stand up for principles. and we can stand on principles, and we can throw monkey wrenches into the works, and we can be an actual opposition party. And that's what Cory Booker was doing here. And look, I'm not, you know, I'm not necessarily the world's, I don't have a mug that says world's greatest Cory Booker fan on it. But this was great. This was great that he did this. And as an added bonus, he ended up giving the longest single person Senate speech in our history. And, The real bonus there is that the previous record holder was Strom Thurmond, who did a filibuster for 24 hours and 18 minutes against the Civil Rights Act of 1957. It was a 24-hour racist speech.

And so to make that now not the longest speech, it's still the longest filibuster because Cory Booker wasn't filibustering anything. But it doesn't matter. A Strom Thurman has been erased from the record book for this. And anything that erases Strom Thurmond from any books is good in my view. Amen. And just to put a finer point on what you just said, Andy, about performance and part of politics being performance, right? Is Corey Booker just posted a couple of headlines that have come out over what is this just today over Donald Trump's tariffs. And he said this.

This is what happens when people speak up. and here are the headlines. USA Today, Senate rebukes Trump on Canada tariffs with four Republicans joining Democrats. New York Times headline. Senate votes to rescind some Trump tariffs with GOP support. And the Hill says the same thing. This is what happens when, you know, it is it is Cory Booker's action. It is Bernie Sanders and AOC going into red states. It is Tim Waltz going into red states. It is people speaking up. using the platforms that they have to draw attention away from this soul sucking that Donald Trump is trying to do to this country and remind us of what is possible. And I never would have thought last week that four Republicans would do any fucking thing. So this is movement. This is action. And it's something to get things started before April 5th, which is supposed to be one of the largest protests that are happening all around the country. So more to come. Folks, I am very happy to welcome to the new abnormal. Damon Hewitt, who is the president and executive director of the

Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights under law, who has worked closely with several of the firms that are being targeted by this current administration. Damon, it was what? Last week or so, or maybe time does make sense in this regime and country that we're living in right now. But Donald Trump's administration decided to begin targeting law firms that have represented companies he doesn't like or people he doesn't like. And rather than a number of these law firms standing on principle and integrity, they have decided that the easiest way, the best way for them to move forward would just be to bend the knee to Donald Trump in terms of offering, let's say, $40 million worth of legal services that they can provide or representing right-wing organizations that he likes. Talk to us about

what is happening in the law world right now and why folks should be alarmed. Well, look, first, I really appreciate you covering this issue and the way that you're covering it. What's happening right now is a full-scale attack not just on law firms, but on opposition to executive overreach. This is almost, if you put this in military terms, this is like clearing out a perceived enemy so that you can just roll on in and take over a clown or even a nation. That's essentially what's happening here because we know that during Trump 1.0, it was organizations like the Lawyers Committee and others. It was law firms who were allied with us who challenged the executive overreach with a very high rate of success. So he is trying

to clear out the opposition with the ruse of saying these firms are a danger to the nation. And of course, not only is he attacking individual firms, there's also an attack on the profession overall, because he sent a memo to the attorney general, urging the directing, rather the attorney general, to target law firms in individual lawyers for engaging what he calls, purpose litigation, meaning anything that is opposing his worldview or his draconian policies. So this is an attack on all opposition so that Trump can be a virtual king. The fact is that in my understanding, they should know better. You study the law.

You understand the law. You understand the ways in which our country has been created so that there were checks and balances because we do not have a king, that the whole entire beginning. of America happened, America, as we know it through the Constitution and Declaration, because we wanted to cut ties with a king. So why is it then that when these law firms and these places have the ability and the law and constitution on their side to fight back against Donald Trump, why are they deciding not to, in your opinion? The firms are focused on preserving their ability to make a living, or another way to put it as their ability to preserve a profit. And strategic

strategically, they believe that their needs have been cut out from under them for at least a couple of reasons. One is that the first wave of attack has been on corporate America. Corporate America, which has been rolling back diversity, equity, and inclusion policies, even though they're not legally required to do so under any law or any legal precedent. And I know because my organization argued the affirmative action case in the U.S. Supreme Court. And we know what that decision is about or what is not. And so these corporate clients or either directly telling these law firms or the law firms are worried that they will tell them that, hey, we'll walk away from you if you don't get out from under these

Trump executive orders. So this is part of the reason why are cutting deals. And I think, you know, a second reason is, as we say in a vernacular, that they just don't want to smoke. They just don't want to smoke. And they think it's just better for them to avoid a fight. And here's the real shame here is that, as you know, the law firms who have challenged this, executive action in court have received immediate restraining orders to enjoin at least temporarily the administration from enforcing these against individual lawyers against the firms themselves, what have you. Now, those cases aren't over yet. There'll be more to say, but the one judge who is, well, one of the judges, rather, who's ruled already, has said that this since chills down

their spine, that it is just pure and simple revenge and retribution. And so, I wish more firms would challenge these actions. I mean, here's what I know to be true about bullies. Bullies go into the school yard, the playground, and they beat you up for your lunch. And so then you decide to just start giving them your lunch money altogether. And guess what? The bully actually never stops. And the demands get bigger and bigger over time.

And so to me, by these law firms deciding that they don't want the, that they don't want the smoke, that it's just better for them in the long run to lay down, it doesn't ever stop. In your mind, is it like, oh, okay, it's the same way that he is acting right now with the universities. The universities that are choosing not to protect their students and instead move along the path of draconian policies that will endanger their students in the long run. But they're saying, oh, well, if we do this, he'll give us back our $400 million in federal grants. That's not how this works. Am I wrong?

You are exactly right. Trump will never stop until we collectively stop him. the attacks will not stop until there is finality. Perhaps they can be finality through to courts. Perhaps there is finality when he's no longer in office. Now he was sure how long some of this will take. But he will not stop. What the firm should understand is that none of them are safe.

None of them are safe. One could be attacked today. Another could be attacked tomorrow. And so the best thing to do is to band together and defend each other. We have not seen much of that happening to date. One big test will be which firm signed on to a brief, an amicus or friend of the court brief, in support of Perkins Cooey, which is the first firm to follow a lawsuit and to secure a temporary restraining order against enforcement of Trump's

executive order. You know, when I hear Tom Holman, who acts as Trump's quote-unquote borders are, and his response to the decisions that have come down from Judge Bosberg, as those two planes were leaving with filled with people that, again, did not receive. due process were brought to El Salvador into a horrific, horrific for-profit prison system that essentially the Trump administration is paying off the El Salvador in president to hold these people who, again, have not received due process. We don't even know what they were picked up for other than presumably being non-white and men, is that he said, Tom Holman, I don't give a damn what these judges say. Mike Johnson, the Speaker of the House, said that these judges, these quote-unquote

activist judges that are ruling against Donald Trump need to be removed. So as we are seeing this play out, it is very clear that the Republican Party has no care whatsoever for the rule of law. And people are saying, oh, well, we're, you know, we're sliding into a constitutional crisis. Damon, aren't we there? Aren't we inside of the constitutional crisis? Is this not? what is happening? Because the rule of law, as I understand it, is only as important as those who choose to abide by it. Right now, we have a constitutional crisis in terms of the bark. But the story is not yet written in terms of whether we have a crisis in terms of bite. How far will some of these folks go to essentially obstruct justice and to violate brazenly federal court orders?

The one case about the flight that's apparently in mid-air or took off and turned around, that's one test where there's a whole lot of fudging where federal officials are refusing, essentially, to tell the full story. Will they do the same in cases like ours where the lawyers committee, we represent an organization that receives a Department of Labor grant, and we filed a lawsuit because it was threatened with having their grant terminated because it's a quote-unquote. equity-related grant. In court, Trump lawyers couldn't even define what so-called illegal DEI is. And so we received the temporary restraining order, and there'll be another hearing in that case soon.

Will the Department of Labor follow the restraining order and terminate any effort to end our client's grant? Will they also follow the other parts of the order that has a nationwide injunction on any Department of Labor grantee being required to certify that they're not doing illegal DEI? when the administration can't even define what that is, we shall see if their bite is as big as their bark. And I suspect it's not, but we have to be ready for it anyway. Because I guess my feeling here is that, and this is what I've said, and please correct me if I'm wrong, which is that the courts don't have their own police. They don't run the military. They can say you're obstructing justice and here's a fine or here's whatever.

But what enforcement power following their decision? do they actually have that would have this administration have to do a pivot in the way that they're trying to steamroll our Constitution? That question is the source of much consternation and raging debate amongst legal scholars and practice and lawyers alike. The truth is that in the system of checks and balances, the courts interpret the laws that Congress as the nation's legislative body develops and passes, the executive branch enforces those orders from the courts. And so if that system of checks and balances is out of whack, they're analyzed your constitutional crisis. The courts have very little ability to have judges jump off of the bench literally or figuratively and go into

communities and make sure that the executive branch follows those orders. So the crisis could be fast approaching. You know, and the other thing, I want to back up to your points on the legality around DEI, diversity, equity, and inclusion. And what I see, Damon, is the purposeful vagueness of the Trump administration around DEI. Because if they were specific, then there could be workarounds and loopholes and what have you. But by making it vague, by making their opposition to DEI practices vague, then people would just have to abandon it all together because they wouldn't know which direction to move in. And that is the outcome that they want altogether. You're exactly right. And I think you've really hit on the through line between what's happening

with the attacks on diversity, equity, and inclusion. It was happening with the attacks on law firms in the bar. Trump's superpower is his ability to have a chilling effect on entirely legal and lawful activity, even though he can't change the law on his own. He's having that chilling effect with corporations and even law firms and even some nonprofit organizations on DEI practices and philanthropies for that matter as well. He's also having that effect on law firms when it comes to just handling their day-to-day regular business. When put to the test, much of what he is foaming at the mouth about through the diarrhea of his mouth and the diarrhea of his pen is actually not required by law. In fact, it's actually illegal. That's what's been demonstrated thus far

in every court ruling, and that's what we think we'll continue to demonstrate. How do you see this playing out in front of the Supreme Court? Some of these instances that we know are winding their way up to the Supreme Court, knowing that Donald Trump stacked the Supreme Court for a number of reasons. This is the same court that gave him, you know, the powers of a king. Oh, if the president does it, then it's not illegal. And then he also has the power of the pardon. So you surround yourself with a bunch of criminal.

and then you can give out pardons the way that you do, you know, candy on Halloween. How do you think as this court now is being faced with the outright lawlessness of this administration and basically in some sense, too, their own survival? I'm asking you to look into a crystal ball, but what are the ways in which this could play out in front of the Supreme Court? The thing about bullies is that when you hit them where it hurts, you can stop them in their tracks. But even when you can hit them there, sometimes they go too far and cross the line. The calls, the public calls for removing judges from the bench by certain people.

Already, Chief Justice John Roberts has done a very rare thing for him or any Supreme Court justice and spoken out publicly to chastise those who are making those kinds of calls because he views that, I believe, as an attack on the federal judiciary. So anything that sounds in obstruction of justice, ignoring federal court orders, that's going to be a bridge too far for the Supreme Court. The question will really be a matter of what cases or what cases make their way up to the Supreme Court first, and what is the narrative about the executive branch's actions in those cases? What evidence can we present if we're in that case or others? It'll really depend upon the context, but I do think there's a line that even

this Supreme Court, as currently constituted, will not let this administration cross. Do you think right now, then Damon, as some have said, I preface this by saying, we are but three months into this administration. It feels like 30 years, but it's only been three months. Do you think that the institutions, and I mean the judicial institution, do you think that they are holding or will hold, or will the pressure? become too great. The people and institutions of the legal profession, meeting individual lawyers, law firms, non-profit organizations like the lawyers committee, bar associations, courts and judges, all the nation has left to prevent authoritarian overreach. In our collective hearts, we're committed.

We need to see that exhibited from all sources in terms of not just support and political will, but leveraging of all forms of capital, human capital, fiscal capital, and reputational capital. The more that we see reputational capital leveraged, the more that others are speaking out across our sector, across multiple sectors, the more chance we have of institutions actually holding of the ties that bind us in a democracy actually making a difference. And frankly, just getting through the next nearly four years has to be at least a near-term goal. There's also a longer-term piece. You know, we're really in the process of rewriting what it means for our democracy to actually exist. We're writing the terms of engagement. And so there's actually an opportunity of silver

lining here to actually forge some bonds that may have been taking for granted before or may have been less than we actually cared to acknowledge or fully understood. There's an opportunity and what's happening here and we intend to take full advantage of it. Well, Damon, we will have to leave it there today. But I just want to thank you, one, for making the time for the new abnormal, but also for the work that the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights under law is doing right now to be a part of the community that is trying to hold strong and trying to hold this administration accountable. Really appreciate you. Thank you. Great to be with you. On Wednesday, Jewish students at Columbia University chained themselves to one of the gates to the

campus and called for the release of Mahmoud Khalil, the former Columbia student and protest leader, who is now in a federal detention center in Louisiana, after being killed. kidnapped by the government in the lobby of his apartment building on March 8th. This comes in the wake of the university caving to Trump administration demands that were made in return for the restoration of federal funding and a new report concluding that last year's occupation of Hamilton Hall by student activists could have been resolved without the school calling in the NYPD as it did. Here to talk about all this and possibly more about my alma mater is Columbia Associate Professor of Classics, Joseph Howley. Joseph, thank you so much for being here.

Thank you, Andy. I want to start with last year, and this was roughly a year ago. I think it was April 10th. You were signatory on a faculty letter that was published in the Columbia Campus newspaper, The Spectator, that had the headline, Jewish faculty reject the weaponization of anti-Semitism. What was the impetus for this, and what did the letter say? Well, you know, earlier in the spring of last year, we had already seen a couple of other Ivy presidents go in front of this congressional committee and basically do a terrible, job and then get in a lot of trouble for it. So my colleagues and I were very concerned about the way that the university didn't seem to have any ability or interest to reject the premise of what was happening last year. The premise being the existence of this protest movement is the same thing as a rampant and pervasive climate of anti-Semitism and why isn't anyone doing anything about it. Now, this is sort of a like, have you stopped beating your wife yet type question if you'll forgive the expression, right?

like dragging university presidents in front of Congress and saying, why aren't you doing anything about all the anti-Semitism is bad enough? But what we saw happening actually with the Harvard and Penn leadership was congressional Republicans, you know, from the party of the great replacement theory, asking college presidents, well, wouldn't you agree you have an anti-Semitism problem? And they were all basically forced to say yes or they lost their jobs. And it seemed very important to us as Jewish faculty members and particularly to my colleagues who, you know, have studied the history of things like the Holocaust. or of Judaism or of social justice movements, that we alert our leadership to the fact that they were being used and that they were being set up. And it was really important for us to stop and say, we don't think you should concede the premise of these questions, because if we concede the premise of the questions, then things are very dangerous. If right now in April of 2024,

we don't stop and say, hold on, the anti-Semitism problem that you're describing might not exist in the form that you describe it, then we're just going to open the door. for anyone to come along and point a finger at our universities and say, you've got an anti-Semitism problem and then start taking us apart, which is, in fact, exactly what has happened since Donald Trump took office. Yeah, and just to clarify, this letter was published very shortly before Columbia's then president was set to testify at this stupid committee. Well, we sent the letter, I think maybe the original letter we sent maybe a week or so before

we published it. We were really hoping to have a conversation with the president. And, you know, President Shafiq, who was president for about a year, last year when all this erupted, for most of the year it was very hard for any faculty to have a sit-down conversation with leadership. My understanding is that the president's office met regularly with pro-Israel student activists and never with any of the, you know, Palestine Solidarity student activists. Faculty members were kept at arm's length and kind of treated like a problem all year. That includes, actually, that really difficult 24 hours where Hamilton Hall was under occupation,

And both students inside and faculty were reaching out to leadership saying we think we can talk this problem out. We think we can get these people out of there without the use of force. And we were just all kind of rebuffed. But so, yeah, in April 2024, we were, I think, pretty much at our wits end. How do we intervene in this? How do we get leadership to change course? And of course, the president of the university, leaders of the board of trustees, leaders of our university's anti-Semitism task force, all went in front of this congressional committee and did exactly what we were pleading. with them not to do. And the same day that they were doing that and, you know, were unable to find

anything good to say about their own university in front of Congress, let alone reject the kind of specious premise of this interrogation. Same moment that was happening, students were setting up the first Gaza Solidarity encampment on our campus. Gotcha. And so obviously, look, this letter was written before the events of this past month, because that's how time works. But would you say that there really is sort of a straight line connecting the universities or response to last year's protests and these hearings in Congress with the kidnapping of Mahmoud Khalil and the university caving to Trump's demands? Yeah, I'm partly trained as a historian. So that means I'm conditioned to be very cautious about this kind of causality stuff. Sure. But there's a couple

things I'd say. So on the one hand, Donald Trump gets elected and he's like a deranged tyrant who wants to make spectacles of immeasurating non-citizens. And that's a primary driver of Mahmahud Khalil getting detained. But yes, I mean, last year, like literally a year ago, was the moment for everyone who could actually see what was happening on university campuses to reject the premise of the question and say, you know, we do not have a rampant, pervasive anti-Semitism problem. We have a campus protest phenomenon, and we have a, like, devastating, traumatic and badly divisive war in the Middle East that's affecting our communities in lots of ways and driving all kinds of tensions and in some cases harassment. But, you know, this time a year ago,

the big lie was being kind of shaped and crafted and shopped around. And, you know, everyone from Joe Biden and Chuck Schumer down to the presidents of Ivy League universities were completely failing the test. So a year ago was the time to call BS on this. And it's only snowballed since then. Now, personally, I think any time now would be a great time for people who, like, know the truth here to start speaking up. But yeah, when nobody, except for, you know, folks like my colleagues and I, folks in the Palestine Solidarity Movement, folks on the Jewish left, nobody in kind of institutional or political leadership positions was willing to call this big lie out a year ago that absolutely set the stage for a condition now in which, you know, the Trump

administration can just say anti-Semitism and then do the most outrageous, unlawful stuff, and nobody has developed the capacity or the habit to, like, say no to that. Yeah, absolutely. That's really well put. Talk about how different Columbia's responses have been now compared to how the university has historically acted. I remember writing my application essay about how I wanted to go to Columbia because of its rich history of student activism.

And I feel like if I wrote that essay now, I wouldn't get in. God, I hope not, but I've always had the understanding that, you know, if you are someone who can get into a Columbia or a Princeton, well, if you want to be in Princeton, New Jersey, then you go to Princeton. And if you want to be in New York City and in a place that is, like, deeply embedded in a diverse and politically active culture, then you come to Columbia. And as you say, we have a history of protest that is like part of our marketing. It's part of our brand. You can look at our university statutes where it says we don't rule speech out of order just because it's offensive or controversial or even factually untrue. We actually say in our statutes, and this is partly thanks to our former president Bollinger,

who for all people's disagreements with him, was a stalwart defender of First Amendment principles. The principle is clearly enshrined in our statutes that, we can't do the stuff that makes us an excellent university in terms of like research and the creation of knowledge if we don't also have the same conditions that make it possible to have like political debate and political speech and in the 80s there was a building occupation as part of the movement to call for divestment from south african apartheid in the 90s there were sit-ins and occupations and encampments around the call for improvement in teaching ethnic studies and cultural studies and you know as far as i'm aware no one was sending in the

riot police for any of those. And actually, I think you could very easily find examples, you know, in the decade before 2023, where protest encampments on university campuses were simply not treated like a five alarm fire. Yeah, I just want to state for the record that I was part of the apartheid protest and I got academic probation, which, you know, fair play. But certainly the NYPD was not allowed on campus. And it's just, it's amazing to me how much different. it is now. Andy, even yesterday, these Jewish students, as you said, chained themselves to these gates. They, you know, they were calling for ice off campus, freedom for Mahmood. They had one demand, which we should probably come back to, that had to do with transparency around the relationship

between the board of trustees and ICE in this moment. I went and checked on them when the sun was going down last night to make sure they weren't going to freeze. It was about 7 p.m. They had chained themselves to the inside of a campus fence on a little patch of grass. They were not in the way of anything. And about four hours later, public safety officials came over and cut the chains and then physically lifted them up and carried away. And I think that people who want to engage in civil disobedience should know the risks they are taking and the possible consequences, right? Like, you're going to engage in that protest around the South Africa stuff? Academic probation, fair play. It makes sense. These students were really shocked that public safety officers put

their hands on them, which in a way, I mean, thank God no one was hurt, but like this has been one of the really disconcerting things, I think, for a lot of the student protesters, is that at any given point in the last year, the spectrum of possible responses has skewed way more aggressive and way closer to violence than anyone would have anticipated based on either law or precedent. And it's not clear by the letter of the law or, you know, sort of on paper, as it were, what warrants that? It's not as if there has been an increase in violent crime or disruptive protest. You know, this is a peaceful sit-in. So why does it require such a kind of intrusive, literally hands-on response? Yeah, it's wild. I know you're aware of this quote-unquote sundial report that came out

this week saying the university didn't need to call in the NYPD to end the occupation of Hamilton Hall. This is an internal report, right? This was done by Columbia. Well, this was done by the university Senate. And you'd want to ask the folks in the executive committee of the Senate what their official explanation of this is. But look, after 1968, the trustees agreed to and paid for a blue ribbon commission, an independent report. It doesn't seem like anyone was willing to do that last year. It doesn't seem like anyone on the institutional side really wanted to invest in having a report that would clarify, well, who exactly was doing what, when. But we had a vote on this in the University Senate last summer after the dust, you know, settled as it were. And we voted on a

resolution that said a report like this should be written. It's been written. And the people who were consulted and interviewed for this report were deep inside things like the conversations going on while Hamilton Hall was being occupied. I mean, I can tell you that I was, you know, on some email chains and text threads that day with people who were really confident that we could, you know, do our best to talk the students out of the building, and we were asking university leadership to let us go do that, and we were just getting rebuffed and ignored. That day for me was such a low point in Columbia's history, only to be exceeded this year, I feel like, by certain things. And I'm wondering, there have been various responses by universities to these Trump administration pressures,

blackmail, you might even call it. Shake down. Yeah, shakedown. Can you contrast Columbia's actions with, for instance, I know the president of Tufts University, Sunil Kumar, wrote a letter regarding the kidnapping of a student there by ICE officers. And it was so much different from what I've been seeing from Columbia with regards to any of this, that it really, it blew my mind. Yeah. One of the crazy things about working here right now is you will get from leadership explanations made in a reasonable tone of voice about how and why the things that we are doing are the only possible way of proceeding. And then you turn around the next day

and some other university president does something completely different and the world has not ended and actually like everyone there is much more inspired by it. So I'll give you what I think is the institutional kind of take on one part of this and then I'll tell you

what I think it looks like to a lot of us. So, okay, ice black bags Mahoud Khalil out of the lobby of his apartment building. And there is dead silence from the university about it, right? His name is not said, it takes days for the event to even be acknowledged. And we have had nothing like this statement from Tuft's leadership, which says, among other things, we have no information that

corroborates anything that the government is claiming here, right? Which is actually a very simple factual statement. I think that the internal line from folks here around why don't we, didn't we say anything about Mahmoud Khalil, might be something like, well, we don't know what they have on him. Maybe they've got some really bad dirt on him, and we don't want to get out there defending him and then find out, oh, no, actually, you know, there's something to all of these insinuations. And you can kind of sort of see living in that world, but also that does not preclude saying exactly what Tuft's leadership said, which is at this time, we have no information that corroborates this. And you know what? Because Mahmoud was involved in mediating between the encampment and representatives of the university last year, we all know that there are people in the leadership here who, know for a fact what he's about and who he is, right? So we all know how many other people here

on campus know that this stuff from the White House is total bullshit, right? That these insinuations are nothing more than insinuations. Moreover, we've all been at Columbia for the last year. We've watched our students and our colleagues and our leadership get doxed and harassed. Anyone with a head on their shoulders knows that this is a moment in which people will point at someone they don't like, especially a Palestinian, and start screaming about Hamas with no evidence or justification, and just hope that that can be leveraged into whatever form of repression or a miseration they think they can get out of it. Like, anyone looking at the situation should be able to ascertain that that's what's going

on. So why is it that we were so paralyzed as an institution? Like, why have we still not been able to say the kinds of things that the Tufts leadership is saying? I mean, I'm not inside leadership right now and actually we just had a leadership change last week. I really felt like I knew, liked and trusted Katrina Armstrong who served as interim president for most of the last year. I don't know anyone, you know, on the faculty side who's had a conversation with our new acting president, Claire Shipman, who's a member of the board of trustees. So it's hard to know what's going on over there. But I think on this matter, on basically any other matter, if you look at what the university does and doesn't say, either in press communications,

or in internal memos that they know are immediately going to be leaked and posted and scrutinized. It does seem like the dominant mindset is don't say anything that could be construed as defiance of the regime. And that may be because we don't want to say anything that would make Donald Trump mad at us. Andy, can you imagine what would happen if Donald Trump was mad at us? Can you imagine what he might do? You know, like, God forbid, he might come start cutting federal funding randomly or blackbagging our students. Well, gosh. So, you know, it's just to say that I think, like, it does seem like the dominant mindset in leadership land is no open defiance, right?

But look, there's a more troubling possible interpretation that's not mutually exclusive that can coexist. This explanation can coexist with the one I've just offered, which is that somewhere in whatever body or smoke-filled room is actually directing the institution right now. And a lot of us have a lot of questions about that, that there are folks who are more or less on board with this, right? that they actually would like to see this happening. And so, you know, if you go and listen to what the students who were chained to the fence were saying yesterday,

they had one demand, which is they want some kind of transparency and accountability for what they say is possible collusion between the university or the board of trustees and ICE in Mahmoud Khalil's detention. And what they're talking about there is some claims, including reporting in the Jewish newspaper The Forward, claims that one or more members of our board had actually reported Mahmoud, to ICE. Now, I haven't seen those claims reported out, but if I had to conjecture, I think the student reaction to that is not just because that in itself is very troubling. And by the way, if it were untrue, you'd think it would be very easy to deny. But also because I think the sort of worst kept secret here is that some measure of this federal attack is being coordinated from

within our campus, right? The shakedown letter from a few weeks ago tracked very closely with a anti-protest pro-Israel faculty letter that was circulated to the president a couple weeks before that. There's some kind of close coordination going on here. And if demands from anti-protest contingents of the faculty or even student body here are getting translated into demands from the federal government, you know, then who's to say we're not also in a situation where the response to the federal government not being as robust as it could be is itself a choice being directed or influenced by people here who would like to see the federal attack continue or succeed in some form. Man, this is just, it's all so troubling. And unfortunately,

I'm out of time because I had so many other things I wanted to talk to you about. Oh, sorry, I talked too much, Andy. No, no, no. You were fantastic. Joe Howley, thank you so much for coming on and talking this through with me. I really, really appreciate it. You know, unfortunately, I don't think any of this is over. So hopefully we can have you back again. Yeah, I look forward to that. That would be great. Andy Levy. Danielle Moody. Andy, how are you closing out this week with your fuck that guy?

Oh, boy. For those of you who don't know who Laura Loomer is, we've talked about her on here before. She sort of is famous for back in the day chaining herself to Twitter back when Twitter was still Twitter. She's a nut job. She may or may not have had sexual relationships with that man. I'll just leave it at that. She's a loon. She is also racist, Islamophob.

She's bad. Just think of something bad, and that's Laura Lumer. So naturally, she met with President Trump in the Oval Office on Wednesday, and apparently she wanted Trump to fire a bunch of members of his national security staff, people on the National Security Council. These people were defended by Mike Walt, who was. the national security advisor about whom I think Danielle will have more in a bit. What do you know on Thursday, the day after this meeting, President Trump has fired at least three of his National Security Council members. And we are now in a place where it is truly impossible to figure out

who is the worst of the people that Trump listens to, the people who have Trump's ear. I mean, And certainly Elon Musk remains at the top. But after that, boy, it gets tough to figure out who is the worst, the craziest person. And Laura Luma has entered the chat. We sort of hadn't heard her name in a while. Her name was coming up. I think it was, was it during the campaign when she was, seemed to be advising him and a bunch of other of the Trump campaign staff were not happy about it.

And then she kind of went away for a tiny bit. But she's back. She is back. She is out there telling Trump that he has. quote unquote, neocons on his natural security council staff and that they need to be fired and Trump is responding by firing them. So the fuck that guy here obviously could go to Laura Lumer. It could obviously, as always, go to Donald Trump. I will let the listeners choose who they want to put in the top slot here. And I will simply say, fuck these guys. I don't know who the worst is.

I really don't. I don't know what this person's claim to fame is. I guess. I get the chaining event or like having Donald Trump hug up on her in videos and TikToks. Like I have no idea. But the fact that Donald Trump is so easily fucking swayed to me is absolutely wild. And just, you know, reminder, fucking Hillary Clinton warned us and said he's just a, like she said he was Putin's puppet, but he is anybody's puppet. Like literally anybody can put their hands up Donald Trump. Give him a few flattering compliments. and he is like, I don't know, like a teenage boy that got like a wink from a girl he liked.

Like he just fucking falls into a puddle. Like it's ridiculous. Oh, my, like, I don't know. I don't even know who the fuck. Fuck all of them. Fuck all of them. That's my response. There you go.

All right, Danielle, close out our week. Celebrate your return to the greatest country in the history of the world, the United States of America. Who's your fuck that guy? Oh, God. me for returning. So here's where I'll say, when I left, Mike Waltz, claimed to fame, wasn't just being national security advisor for Donald Trump, but it was for putting together the world's stupidest signal chat and accidentally including the Atlantic editor, Jeffrey Goldberg,

in it, and then exposing just their absolute incompetency to the world. And you thought to yourself, it's got to stop there, right? And then you realize who you're dealing with. And so Mike Waltz was one of the people who was part of the lock her up crowd when it came to Hillary Clinton using a private email server. And that being what needed to be investigated by Comey and reopened right before the 2016 election and she can't be trusted because who could trust her. because she's using a private email server. Come to find out Mr. Signal himself has not been using a private email server. He's just been using fucking Gmail for official business. Like official government business, we were like, no, not on Signal, which obviously we know disappears messages and what have you after a certain time, but not from screenshots, FYI, which is how we all learned about whiskey leaks and Signalgate.

But now, as it turns out and is being reported that he has been using Gmail a number of times to, I guess, transmit information. He's talking about official business. And every which way, this is what he said while campaigning for Trump in Virginia in 2016. I cannot believe this is real. He said this while campaigning for Trump in 2016 in Virginia, quote, the rigged system refused to prosecute her for conduct that put all of us, everybody in this room, everybody in this country at risk. Hillary Clinton went to great lengths to create a private email server and to bypass government security in order to keep her emails from being read by the public and by

federal officials. End quote. I swear to God, there is a post, there is a tweet. There is always, always something that you can count on from the Republican Party that their projection, right, their adamant behavior in terms of trying to admonish Democrats is always projection of what they're actually doing. And as it turns out that the quote unquote national security advisor doesn't really have any due diligence when it comes to our national security because you can get him at, I think, Mike Waltz at gmail.com and like, be good. Do you know?

And like, just ask him, so what's up with China? And I think he'll respond. So for that, reason and so many fucking others because of course the republicans are saying nothing about this scandal fuck that guy fuck those guys like i don't even know yeah i i don't really have anything to add to that it's just it's simultaneously we've talked about this before it's simultaneously pointless to point out the hypocrisy but also it's necessary to point out the hypocrisy so it's just the list is so damn long of things they claimed uh to be against that they're now and things they claimed to be for, that they're now against. And this is life to them.

It's air, it's food, it's shelter, and it's hypocrisy. Those are their, you know, basic necessities. So yeah, fuck all these guys. Hope you enjoy checking out this episode of the new abnormal. We're back every Tuesday, Friday, and Sunday. If you enjoyed it, please share it with a friend and keep the conversation going. This podcast is a Daily Beast production with production by Jesse Cannon and Shemus Call. Want more great listens?

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