The Daily - ‘Their Goal Is the End of America’

Episode Date: July 7, 2020

What President Trump’s divisive speech at Mount Rushmore reveals about his re-election campaign.Guest: Maggie Haberman, who covers the White House for The New York Times.For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily Background reading: Missteps by a fractured campaign and a series of self-inflicted wounds added up to a very bad June for President Trump.In speeches at the White House and Mount Rushmore last weekend, the president promoted a version of the “American carnage” vision from his inaugural address.

From The New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily. Today. In a major speech at Mount Rushmore, President Trump said that the goal of nationwide protests is not, quote, a better America. Their goal, he said, is the end of America. Maggie Haberman on what that speech reveals about the president's re-election campaign.

It's Tuesday, July 7th. Maggie, heading into this July 4th weekend, what was our understanding of what this Mount Rushmore speech from President Trump, what it was for, what it was intended to do? So, Michael, the month of June was pretty calamitous for President Trump politically and in terms of his legacy. It began with the federal government having protesters forcibly cleared using chemical irritants from Lafayette Park across from the White House so that the president could then take a photo op to mass protests across the country to a huge spike in coronavirus cases in areas of the country where it really had not been that prevalent and where the governors in those states were looking toward reopening. So the president tried for a reboot of his campaign

with a rally in Tulsa on June 20th. That rally was sparsely attended compared to what they had advertised as their likely attendance. And so Mount Rushmore and this event was supposed to be the reboot of the failed reboot. This was going to be an effort by the president to show he was in charge and trying to look toward the general election. And from your reporting, what was this reboot of the reboot going to look like in the speech? So the president needs an enemy to fight against. In 2018, during the midterms, you saw the president try to galvanize support against a looming threat, as he put it, of a caravan that was headed across the southern border with Mexico. And this was basically a threat of a foreign invasion. And he talked about this a lot and he tweeted about it a lot.

And the main enemy that the U.S. is dealing with right now is the coronavirus, which is spreading rapidly. That's an issue on which his polling is pretty bad and his advisors know it. And another force that the country is dealing with right now is police brutality. Neither of those are issues that Donald Trump is seen as particularly strong on or areas where he has shown he wants to lead. So instead, looking for this enemy, AIDS described in his speech, he was going to go after a left-wing culture coming after people who don't agree with it. Now, the threat is other Americans. The threat is people who don't agree with it. Now, the threat is other Americans. The threat is people who don't think like you. Well, thank you very much, and Governor Noem, Secretary Bernhardt,

we very much appreciate it. Members of Congress, distinguished guests, and a very special hello to South Dakota. Okay, let's talk about how this speech actually unfolds. I watched it. I know you did as well. So I want us to walk through it and pick out a few key passages that illuminate what he's actually up to here, kind of a close reading of this speech. So where do you think we should start? I would start just understanding what it looked like. He was standing at this podium, surrounded by flags in front of this historic monument.

There could be no better place to celebrate America's independence than beneath this magnificent, incredible, majestic mountain monument to the greatest Americans who have ever lived. And that was supposed to underscore this current conversation about monuments and statues around the country. I am here as your president to proclaim before the country and before the world this monument will never be desecrated. These heroes will never be defaced.

Their legacy will never, ever be destroyed. Their achievements will never be forgotten. And Mount Rushmore will stand forever as an eternal tribute to our forefathers and to our freedom. Much of the conversation has been around Confederate totems, Confederate statues, the Confederate flag. The president has resisted those conversations, but even members of his own party have said that it is time to remove some of those monuments. party have said that it is time to remove some of those monuments. Where he is drawing the line is when the conversation moves to George Washington or Thomas Jefferson. Those are two of the faces on Mount Rushmore. And that's part of why he's choosing to have this conversation there. And what is he saying about that debate around statues to presidents like that?

What he is suggesting is that the political left is trying to rewrite history. 1776 represented the culmination of thousands of years of Western civilization and the triumph of not only spirit, but of wisdom, philosophy, and reason. And yet... By calling into question those men, by suggesting that their legacies need to be thought about again. fought so hard for, struggled, they bled to secure. Now, the reason that people are saying that their legacies need to be reconsidered is because they were slaveholders, and that you can't have an honest conversation about race if you do not acknowledge that.

Our nation is witnessing a merciless campaign to wipe out our history, to fame our heroes, erase our values, and indoctrinate our children. What he's really trying to do is convince Republicans who are feeling shaky about him, and he hopes some independent voters, that the protests around the country have gone too far. He is trying to get them to see it the way he sees it, which is, this isn't just a movement about the Confederacy. They're coming for our whole history, our. They are coming for the history of white America. Angry mobs are trying to tear down statues of our founders, deface our most sacred memorials, and unleash a wave of

violent crime in our cities. It is in keeping with what President Trump has done for many, many years now, which is an us-versus-them approach to his base of older white voters. But no, the American people are strong and proud, and they will not allow our country and all of its values, history, and culture to be taken from them.

Okay, what stands out next to you in this speech? So the president very quickly went on to talk about how a quote-unquote political weapon of the Americans he's talking about in this speech is... Cancel culture. So-called cancel culture. Driving people from their jobs, shaming dissenters, and demanding total submission from anyone who disagrees. He is describing it as anyone who disagrees with certain folks are going to get chased out of polite society. And that's not

really what this is. This is the very definition of totalitarianism. And it is completely alien to our culture and to our values. And it has absolutely no place in the United States of America. So in part, this is appealing to a longstanding sense among conservatives that they are being attacked by the left for their beliefs. Also notice his emphasis on our values and our culture. He has used the words culture and values repeatedly to appeal to his base since 2017. This is the thing that he shares with his voters. It certainly is not geography. In many places, they're in the Deep South, and he is a man from Queens.

But this sense of our way of life is being taken over is what he has used time and again to appeal to people. This attack on our liberty, our magnificent liberty, must be stopped, and it will be stopped very quickly. We will expose this dangerous movement, protect our nation's children, end this radical assault, and preserve our beloved American way of life. In our schools, our newsrooms, even our corporate boardrooms, there is a new far-left fascism that demands absolute allegiance. If you do not speak its language,

perform its rituals, recite its mantras, and follow its commandments, then you will be censored, banished, blacklisted, persecuted, and punished. It's not going to happen to us. So, Maggie, what is the next passage in this speech that strikes you? Sure, so keeping up with these themes, the president went on and said, This left-wing cultural revolution is designed to overthrow the American Revolution. This left-wing cultural revolution is designed to overthrow the American Revolution. This left-wing cultural revolution is designed to overthrow the American Revolution. And then he went on a little bit later to say, their goal is not a better America. Their goal is the end of America.

In so doing, they would destroy the very civilization that rescued billions from poverty, disease, violence, and hunger, and that lifted humanity to new heights of poverty, disease, violence, and hunger, and that lifted humanity to new heights of achievement, discovery, and progress. You would think that he was talking about the British, the way that he's describing this. In its place, they want power for themselves. As opposed to talking about primarily black people in this country, but not only, who have been trying to right historic wrongs. He is making it sound, once again,

as if something is being taken from him and his supporters. Mm-hmm. In this case, American civilization. Yes, and he is trying to drive that home with everything he says. I mean, this feels like race baiting. I think it more than feels that way, Michael. I would argue it is race baiting. Look, I don't think that Donald Trump is suddenly a different person. I think this is who he has been for a very, very long time going back decades. But I do think he is getting explicit in what he is saying, both as protests are growing in the country and as his own poll numbers are sinking. But just as patriots did in centuries past, the American people will stand in their way

and we will win and win quickly and with great dignity. He is not explicitly using the words black and white, but he is explicitly describing one version of America versus another. And that, I think, is different, along with the fact that we have really not seen a president before use an Independence Day speech to be so divisive and to pit Americans in two the way he is here. So, Maggie, how does this speech end? Americans must never lose sight of this miraculous story. So the president concludes the speech by saying he wants to build... I am signing an executive order to establish the National Garden of American Heroes.

A garden of statues. A vast outdoor park that will feature the statues of the greatest Americans to ever live. And in this garden, he wants to put a variety of American figures, presidents, artists, sports figures. From this night.

And with that. And from this magnificent place. The president applauded for himself and for the crowd. God bless your families. God bless our great military. And God bless America. Thank you very much. And there was a fireworks display over Mount Rushmore.

We'll be right back. Maggie, what most surprises me about this speech and the fact that it is supposed to be a reset of a presidential campaign is that the message seems to fly in the face of polling that shows Americans don't agree with this version of how to deal with race. And I want to read a question that the Times asked voters in six swing states about these protests. And here was the question. Would you rather have a candidate who says

that we need to be tough on protests that go too far, or whether they would rather have a candidate who says we need to focus on the cause of those protests, even when they go too far? And voters told the Times in those swing states, by a 40% margin, that they would rather have a candidate who focuses on the cause of the protests

even when they go too far. So doesn't that suggest that the president, this speech, this message, is profoundly out of sync with the electorate? Look, Michael, you read the polls, I read the polls. They all make clear that the president is wildly out of step with where the majority of

voters are right now, where conservative voters are, where independent voters are, where a broad spectrum of voters are. This is a president who likes to do things his own way, that he has ideas that he wants to put out there, regardless of how much it upsets his advisors, regardless of how scared senators are about losing their seats because his rhetoric is making things very hard for them. But he is not where the majority of Americans are in those polls. So, Maggie, what is the thinking here? If the president's re-election campaign has seen those polls that you and I have all seen, do they see something that we're not seeing?

Do they have a theory that extends beyond these poll numbers? Many of the people in the president's campaign believe the direction that the polls are taking, even if they argue with some of the margins. Some of the people around the president share with him a belief or theory or whatever you want to call it that people are not being honest with the pollsters when they talk about how much support they have for these protests

and that the numbers will come around in President Trump's favor when we get to the fall. And help me understand that. When they say that they don't think the polls reflect the real support for this movement, what do they mean? They think that people are inclined to lie to pollsters on matters of race. Now, there have been campaigns where that has happened. The margins that we're talking about are so large

that it would be really hard to fathom that. But that is the bet that some of his advisors are making. Now, are they making that on science? Not necessarily. Are they making that on political research? Only on the margins. For the most part, this is wish-casting that the president is not doing himself

the damage he seems to be doing. Maggie, campaigns tend to be defined by debates in their ranks about what is the right approach to a moment. So I have to imagine that inside the Trump campaign, there is a debate about whether this is the right approach to this moment. Is that your sense? No, Michael, I don't think there's much of a debate going on. Why not? Because there's the way the president wants to campaign, and they try to shape it around that. This is what Donald J. Trump thinks his campaign message should be. Now, there are areas where his advisors have gotten him to stick to that script that was written out and say things that they consider to be less potentially divisive. to be less potentially divisive.

So for instance, he spoke broadly about culture and history, but he did not explicitly give a defense of Confederate statues, which really turns off suburban voters, in particular suburban women. And his advisors were very pleased with that, that he stuck to the script and didn't say Confederate.

But then on Monday morning, he tweets support of the Confederate flag being aired at NASCAR events. So it undoes a lot of what had taken place before. Maggie, when you talk to people in the Trump campaign and you present them with what seems like a pretty significant dilemma here, a president with a message and a national mood that seems very out of sync with it. What do they say? There's no evidence that this message is going to help the president win again. There is no evidence that this is a successful approach to the voters he needs in order to win. But advisors are pretty candid that he thinks this is how he won last time

and he is convinced he can do it again. Right, so what you're saying is that the president is assuming that the country is more or less exactly where it was in 2016 and that this will all work out the same way and yield the same result, an electoral college victory based on white voters supporting him.

Correct. The president is of the opinion, and again, this is not his campaign. There are people in the campaign who understand this is not the same electorate. But the president has convinced himself that nothing has changed, that he can turn Joe Biden into Hillary Clinton.

And so far, there is no reason to believe that either of those things is true. So, Maggie, at this point, is this the message that you expect the Trump campaign to be using between now and November? A message of

the left being the enemy and white America needing to be afraid of this movement seeking racial equality? The campaign itself I think would like to be delivering a less blunt instrument

version of what the president is saying. But because the president is able to speak only the way he's comfortable, he will not change. And so, yes, I think this is what you will see for the next few months. Thank you, Maggie. Thank you, Maggie. Thank you, Michael. We'll be right back. Here's what else you need to know today. A Times analysis found that Black and Latino Americans have been three times as likely to become infected with the coronavirus as white Americans,

and have been nearly twice as likely to die from it. The analysis was based on 640,000 infections across nearly 1,000 counties, making it the most far-reaching study yet of the pandemic's racial disparities. In explaining the higher infection rate, experts said that Black and Latino people are more likely to have frontline jobs,

rely on public transportation, or live in multi-generational homes, raising the risk of exposure. And the Supreme Court unanimously ruled that states can require members of the Electoral College to vote for the presidential candidate that they had promised to support. 32 states and the District of Columbia have laws requiring electors to abide by the pledges that they take on Election Day. that they take on Election Day. But a lower court in Colorado had ruled that they may disregard those pledges

when they actually cast ballots a few weeks later. The Supreme Court's decision curbs the independence of electors and limits a potential source of uncertainty in the upcoming presidential election. That's it for The Daily. I'm Michael Barbaro. See you tomorrow.