The Daily - Trump 2.0: Bans, Purges and Retribution

Episode Date: January 24, 2025

This week, President Trump has banned diversity, equity and inclusion programming in the federal government, punished former aides by taking away their security detail and celebrated the release of hundreds of Jan. 6, 2021, rioters and planners.The New York Times journalists Michael Barbaro, Maggie Haberman, Zolan Kanno-Youngs and David E. Sanger try to make sense of it all.Guests: Maggie Haberman, a senior political correspondent for The New York Times.Zolan Kanno-Youngs, a White House correspondent for The New York Times.David E. Sanger, a White House and National Security Correspondent for The New York Times.Background reading: Mr. Trump’s D.E.I. order creates “fear and confusion” among corporate leaders.The president revoked the security detail for Mike Pompeo and others despite threats from Iran.Mr. Trump granted sweeping clemency to all Jan. 6 rioters.For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. Photo: Doug Mills/The New York Times Unlock full access to New York Times podcasts and explore everything from politics to pop culture. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

From the New York Times, I'm Michael Bobarro. This is The Daily. Over the past 48 hours, President Trump banned DEI programming in the federal government, punished three former aides by taking away their security detail, and celebrated the release of hundreds of January 6th rioters and planners. Today, I talked through all of that with three of my Times colleagues, White House reporters Maggie Haberman, Zolan Kano-Youngs, and David Sanger. It's Friday, January 24th. Friends welcome back to the roundtable. Maggie, Zolan, David, thank you for being here.

Thanks, Michael. Thanks. Thank you. Last time the three of you were on the show, your locations were incredibly exotic. Mar-a-Lago, Italy. Where were you, Maggie? Washington, D.C. Washington, D.C.

Today, we join you from two boring studios on the East Coast. We are taping this on Thursday afternoon at the end of week one of the Trump presidency and what a week it has been. I don't think it's a stretch to say that in record time President Trump has begun to remake both the federal government and arguably American society in his image in just a few days. And I want to start with late breaking policy that we haven't covered on the show from the White House, and that is around DEI, diversity, equity, and inclusion. What exactly, Zolan, had the policy been and what has Trump just changed it to?

Zolan McClendon So basically throughout the federal government, all the different cabinet agencies, you had these different programs that were focused on increasing diversity. In the previous administration's mind, it was programs that would basically be addressing decades of systemic inequalities and racism. And it's worth also saying this DEI has ramped up recently, but it's not necessarily new came out of legislation in the 60s, what have you. Trump comes into office and one of his executive orders essentially calls this immoral in saying

that under the guise of diversity that actually this is promoting inequality, right? Just in recent days, his administration has taken a number of actions, right? So that includes a directive to put those that are working and leading DEI initiatives on paid leave. It also includes sending out memos to each agency, basically asking different federal employees to report any indication or any work that may be in progress that is in line with DEI initiatives. I've talked to federal employees who have said that this makes them feel as if they have to almost turn in their own peers who might be working on this broad term as well.

And that's sent a chilling effect in the private sector as well, where now you have companies that are basically trying to decide, do we still maintain these programs that were meant to promote diversity? Do we shy away from it? Do we rename it? Is it just that the acronym is toxic in itself? You've seen multiple actions at this point to follow through on what during the campaign

was fiery rhetoric, but now seems to be an attempt to be at least one piece of reshaping this administration in a way that's aligned with the president. I want to make sure I understand how widespread DEI programs and personnel have been in the government to understand the impact of these executive orders, the executive orders and actions that attempt to root it out, essentially to forbid forbid it and the ones that attempt to encourage employees to report on Essentially what's now banned? Attempt at enforcing DEI

Who among you has a sense of of just how much government we're talking about here My sense is that it is actually not that gigantic a portion of the federal government But it does exist in various pockets of agencies. It shouldn't be surprising, Trump did say all of this as Nolan said, during the campaign he is doing what he said he was going to do, but what is striking is this climate of fear that has been created within the federal government to say not just are we getting rid of these programs, but we are looking for who might be trying to work against Donald Trump.

And you should be afraid. Somebody made the point to me that if you worked in the federal government, there were two things in the past that you were asked to call in and snitch about. One of which is if you had a suspected spy who might be leaking classified information to the Russians or the Chinese or the Iranians. And the second was corruption. And now we've created a third category, which is you might secretly be working on a DEI program.

It's worth remembering too that the previous administration signed executive orders to put racial equity essentially at the center of almost all their policymaking, including the hiring practices of the administration and just how sort of the structure of each agency too. So even if your job doesn't say DEI, even if it doesn't say it on your title, the fear here is palpable because people, even if you were working on, say, infrastructure investing

or, you know, climate programs, there was still a focus on racial equity there the past four years. So you do have agency employees here almost wondering, you know, will they be next in a way? And there was a place where you've seen it the most, Michael, which has been the Pentagon, right? So one of the first things they did was fire the admiral who was the commandant of the Coast Guard. And the argument was that she was placing DEI principles above all

others for defending the country. But you've heard it also in confirmation hearings, including for Pete Hegseth, who basically made the argument that he is going to focus on the warfighter first, and this is at the core of his argument that women shouldn't be in combat. I want to be sure that we meet this argument from, whether it's Pete Hegseth or Donald Trump or Elon Musk, on its own terms. And I listened to David Toop, Pete Hegseth talk about this. The way he put it was that he wanted to be sure that standards for

everyone in the military were equal, not equitable. And this is a quote, that's a very different word. And in his inaugural speech, that's a very different word. And in his inaugural speech, what President Trump said is he would forge a society, this is a quote that is colorblind and merit based. What I hear them saying is that diversity as something to be prized and sought in its own right is out. What's in their saying is a merit based system in which diversity might be an outcome,

but it's never the goal. That's right. I think that's exactly right. Merit-based has been something that we have heard repeatedly from Donald Trump, from other people in his new administration, and the idea is supposed to be that everybody starts out equal. And as you say, if you end up in a place That happens to be diverse. That's just because the people who rose were in Donald Trump's telling equipped for those roles

however what it does is ignore the notion that there is anything such as systemic racism or that people who are of color have historically not been necessarily looked at the same way or given an equal shake or had the same opportunities. And it's not surprising to see that Donald Trump is enacting this plan, but it has been pretty sweeping. Mm-hmm. Clearly what stood out to many people about the way Trump approached this whole issue

was the element of, tell us about colleagues who are doing this thing when they shouldn't be, to some it had kind of shades of McCarthyism. Rad out your colleagues. And Maggie, you have spent a fair amount of time over the past few days reporting on a related subject, which is the ways in which the president and those around him are starting to somewhat systematically target people they don't want to be in this administration and even former Trump officials who they see as disloyal who they want to begin to take perks away from. So I would say a couple of things, Michael.

Number one, there have been all kinds of bottlenecks for hiring for various places across the Trump administration because the loyalty tests that are being applied to prospective candidates are not just very intense and people are being asked a series of questions like who won the 2020 election? How do you feel about January 6, 2021? But the perception of loyalty is completely dependent on how Donald Trump views it at any given moment. So he has all kinds of people in his government who have said critical things about him in

the past, including his Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who ran against him in 2016, made fun of his hand size. But you have now people who can't be hired if they worked for Mike Pompeo. Who Trump hired? To be the head of CIA. And the Secretary of State in his first administration. If you worked for Mike Pompeo, you can't come in. If you worked for Mike Pence, you can't come in.

It goes on and on and on like this. You're saying these loyalty tests are very arbitrary. It's making it hard to hire, and it's based on whoever is kind of up or down in Trump's mind at any given moment. Correct. And whoever is whispering in Trump's ear about that other person at any given moment. Relatedly, he has stripped so far three that we know of, former senior officials from his first term of security protection that the Biden administration had granted them based

on intelligence community assessments of ongoing threats from Iran. Wow. Which former officials, and I'm assuming this relates to the question of loyalty, what did they do to make Trump feel they were disloyal? John Bolton, who was Trump's third national security advisor, Bolton's sin in Trump's eyes was writing a very detailed insider account of his time as national security advisor.

Did not paint Trump in a good light. He's been very critical of Trump since leaving. They have had a very, very extensive falling out. That one was not surprising, but it still put John Bolton at risk. It's less easy to explain why he has such antipathy for Mike Pompeo, his second secretary of state, and another aide to Mike Pompeo from the State Department, Brian Hook. All these people have lost their security. Correct. They have lost, and they had a different type of security than Bolton did.

Theirs was provided by the State Department. But nonetheless, they also faced real threats. And again, they are facing these threats because of actions they took in the service of Donald Trump. And now Donald Trump is saying, you're on your own. You were just talking, Maggie, about also just how much loyalty is important to this president when it comes to the people that he brings in, when it comes to the actions that he's doing. It is just interesting to square the argument of our previous topic of going after these DEI programs to have a government that's more based off merit,

when at the same time, this President also, we know, is doing loyalty tests for people coming in. That's not exactly merit. That's not merit as a top priority. That's loyalty as a top priority. Here's the oddity that I find here. I can understand this for political appointees. Everybody wants political appointees

who are aligned with your vision of how to conduct the government. But the loyalty tests are also being applied to younger career officials. So what we saw happen at the National Security Council on Wednesday... Where a bunch of folks were let go. Well, they weren't let go yet, Michael. It was interesting. They were gathered on a two or three minute Zoom call. This was well over a hundred career people who work at the National Security Council, but actually are detailed from the State Department, the Pentagon,

the CIA. And they were told, go home. Don't call us, we'll call you, don't go on your email, don't do any work, and we're going to tell you whether you still have your job. And they all have the sense that their social media is being examined, that people are being interviewed to hear, have you ever heard them say something critical of Donald Trump? Right. I mean, taken together, the moves on DEI, especially the encouragement to turn in colleagues who are still doing DEI work now that it's forbidden,

the firings, the removal of security for former Trump officials who are facing real threats but are seen as disloyal. I was about to ask you what it all adds up to, but I think that would be an abdication of my role as synthesizer. I think what it clearly adds up to is dissent will not be remotely tolerated

in this second Trump term. Yeah, that's correct. Look, Trump believes, and he has, in some cases, reason to believe that people working within his government, career bureaucrats, in his first term, were working against his agenda. Not just flagging concerns, but in other cases actively trying to stop him from implementing certain policies that he had campaigned on and wanted, and he is the president.

He is able to do that. That's different than this, which is we don't want any hint of independence or independent thinking or you're at suspicion because you may have said X, Y, Z. This is just something totally different. And we talked about McCarthy earlier. McCarthy's protege was Roy Cohn and Roy Cohn, the fixer and lawyer, was Donald Trump's mentor. And you're saying that it's sort of in Trump's DNA to ferret out those who would in any way get in his way, kind of stem to root, root to stem. Not just ferret them out, but make them afraid of what might happen to them if they don't

go along with what he wants. On that we're going to go to a break. We'll be right back. On that we're going to go to a break. We'll be right back. Okay, welcome back. I want to turn now to presidential pardons. In the days since President Trump issued these blanket pardons and commutations, we've gotten a sense of just how blanket they

actually are, because three of the people who were given the longest prison sentences for their role in the assault on the Capitol have come out of prison. Enrique Tario, ex-leader of the Proud Boys, who had been sentenced to 22 years for seditious conspiracy. Stuart Rhodes of the Oath Keepers, sentenced to 18 years for the same charge. Joe Biggs sentenced to 17 years for that charge of seditious conspiracy, which pretty much the most serious crime

you can be accused of committing against your own government. Maggie, do you think Trump knew who was going to be released when he issued these blanket commutations and pardons, given what we're now learning? I think Trump was well aware of what he was doing. I know, based on reporting that we have all done, that there was extensive conversation within his world about what the options were for releasing various people.

There were at least two executive orders drafted as to what types of pardon therapy. There was a discussion about do you exclude the people who were convicted of seditious conspiracy, for instance. Trump's team is well aware that there were people who were convicted or caught on video beating up police officers. Trump himself had said during the campaign as a way of avoiding getting pinned down on this that he was going to go on a case-by-case basis. And I don't think he was ever going to go on a case-by-case basis.

I think that he went in the direction that he always wanted to go in. Could he recite chapter and verse what everybody was convicted of? No. But I think he has pretty clear understanding of the depth of the criminality described. It's a pretty extraordinary, David, reimagining of the rule of law. Is that perhaps too delicate a phrasing? Well, I think there are three things going on. I don't think it's a too delicate a phrasing

at all. First of all, this is part of the completion of his rewriting of the history of January 6th, right? If his argument was it was a day of love, then there was really nothing to convict them for. And he never actually in talking about it did the balancing test between these acts of sedition that the most serious of the cases were charged with or the attacks on the police. He simply said, well, they've served a lot of time in jail. Well, they've served a fraction of their sentences. So that's the first. The second is the symbolism of doing this

in the opening days of a new presidency. Usually presidents wait till the end of the year, Christmas, or the end of their final hours Yeah, this was highly unusual to have these pardons happen at the beginning right and to those who are most suspicious of President Trump's motives they think that he wants an outside group militia Defenders whatever you would call them who are now free to go defend his

interests out there and who now know that they can be pardoned. I just want to make explicit what I think you're saying. There are now freed loyalists of Trump who owe their freedom to him, you're suggesting, who may now operate distinctly in his defense in whatever way they think necessary. And may feel particularly loyal to him because he let them out of jail in the opening days of his administration and believe whether they are right or wrong, that that gives them freedom to go defend him in any way that they see necessary. And the president's going to be asked about this topic, you know, he already has been asked about it in the White House while he was signing an executive

order. He was pressed and asked, now that you've done these pardons, do you think there's essentially a place for the proud boys for these groups, quote, in the political conversation? And the president responded by saying, well, we'll have to see and then criticize their sentencing as well. So we'll have to watch too, now that this has happened, will the president of the United States also continue to amplify these groups as well? Can I just make one point though? Please, Mikey. Trump is clearly betting, because that is how it has played out,

almost every single time that he has been warned that Something he was going to do was going to have adverse consequences for himself he is betting that he can wait it out and the bad publicity will go away and I have to say that so far based on the pretty muted reaction that I'm seeing including from Republican lawmakers Who had not just predicted that he wasn't going to do this, but in many cases had to run for their safety on January 6th, have said almost nothing. And so he tends to bet that public opinion will shift or change or at least not revolt

against him. And that's proven true over the last four years. And when Maggie, those Republican lawmakers have said something about these pardons, they've used a phrase over and over again. It felt like they had all gotten together in the room and decided on the phrase. The phrase was, we want to look forward, not backward. And yet, Zolan, in one important respect, congressional Republicans do want to look backward.

Yeah, that's right. I mean, we've been talking about this topic of retribution, right? And we have heard comments from the president's allies, including some in Congress, who have talked about wanting to pursue investigations of those that were on the committee set up to investigate the attack on the Capitol. That is looking back. It's just looking back in a way that aligns with the president's political priorities. It's the completion of the rewriting of that history. Will Congress, Maggie, officially, I mean, is this going to happen? Is Congress going

to investigate the investigation of January 6th? Yes, and they have already. This is not new. They did in the previous Congress, too. But this is going to be, I think, a different level of this than what we have heard before. Look, Michael, we know that Trump was very upset that President Biden issued preemptive pardons to people who worked on the House Select Committee investigating the lead up to January 6th and the day itself. And so I think you will hear that as justification for why this is happening. But in reality, I suspect this was going to happen anyway.

So... Well, you have cued up my final question to you all, which is about the pardons that outgoing President Biden issued for his family members. And as you just said, Maggie, for members of the January 6 committee and for Dr. Anthony Fauci and Mark Milley, I want to read you something that our esteemed colleague Ezra Klein wrote about that decision. This is what he said, quote, the Biden of 2020 would have done none of this. In key cases like the family pardons, he said he would not do this.

And then he did. This feels in its own way like Biden's submission to the new regime by which Ezra means Trump, the powers of the presidency are whatever the president is allowed to get away with. Well, I think that's actually always been true. It's just that presidents have tended to try to abide by norms. I don't know that, and I have enormous respect for Ezra. And he's not even here to defend himself. And he's not even here to defend himself.

I'll send him an email saying the same thing. I don't know that I would describe this as sort of submission to the new presidency. I think President Biden had enough agency that he didn't have to do something he said he wasn't going to do. Interesting. And I think that people have to own their own choices. And at a certain point, the broad excuse of, I had to do X because Trump, I don't think, has served Democrats especially well over the last eight years.

Those pardons are not all the same. I've talked to a bunch of former Biden administration officials, most of whom felt as if the ones for Fauci and Mark Milley they understood. Those are both older men who were clearly going to be targeted in very specific ways. Mark Milley was risking getting recalled to active duty and court-martialed and all kinds of punishments like that. The House Select Committee preemptive pardons, most people I spoke to in the administration did not love them.

The family member ones are the ones that people were very upset about. I'm putting aside Hunter Biden, which most people in Biden's world defended. But the preemptive pardons for various members of Biden's family struck them as a misuse of that power. Some of the Democrats who received a pardon didn't think it was a good idea as well. Members of the committee? You had Adam Schiff saying that he thought it was unwise to receive a pardon. Got a pardon anyway.

Yeah, he did. He did. Now, some did want one. Benny Thompson, who was also on the J6 committee, was in conversations with the White House About this and he did say that he was open to receiving one But you know just by the comments of some of those who received it and sort of the mixed responses you can see Just how sort of polarizing this was I want to end on this Mr. President, thank you. welcome back. Thank you very much.

In an interview a couple of nights ago with Sean Hannity, Donald Trump noted who outgoing President Biden did not give a pardon to. This guy went around giving everybody pardons. And you know, the funny thing, maybe the sad thing, is he didn't give himself a pardon. He noted that Biden did not give a pardon to himself. If you look at it, it all had to do with him. Is that a threat? Sounds a little bit like a threat.

Well, it was interesting. What Trump proceeded to talk about was alleged money-making by President Biden before he was president. He was accusing Biden of having taken in all kinds of money from work that his relatives were doing off his name, essentially. Again, prior to the president's name, Biden's been in Washington forever.

I'm going to point out what listeners may recognize as a bit of an irony of Trump accusing relatives of a president of making money off of his name. Putting that aside, Biden has the same immunity as President, that President Trump has. The Supreme Court last year in a case related to President Trump's first term said that presidents have broad immunity for acts committed while in office. But what President Trump was talking about were things predating the presidency. And it does raise questions about whether he is going to try to push through some kinds of investigations.

So far, the administration has taken a series of very aggressive actions against people it perceives to be Trump's enemies. David was talking earlier about the risk that has been created for some people, potentially, with the freeing of certain January 6th planners or plotters. In taking away people's security details, Trump is sending a pretty clear message to Iran that, you know, it may not bother him that much if something happens to these people. And that is what is alarming, folks.

The retribution is taking forms that people didn't expect it would. Trump in whatever it was, March 2023, right before he was indicted for the first time, told his supporters at the Conservative Political Action Committee conference, I am your retribution. And so far, he is acting that way. Well, Maggie, and David, and Zolan, thank you very much. Thank you, Michael. Thank you. Thank you, Michael.

We'll be right back. Here's what else you need to know today. On Thursday, a federal judge temporarily blocked Trump's executive order seeking to end birthright citizenship, calling it, quote, blatantly unconstitutional. Trump's order, signed on his first day in office, seeks to end a right to citizenship for children born in the United States that was first established in the 14th Amendment. In his ruling, the judge was unsparing, saying the fact that any lawyer ever believed that Trump's executive order was legal boggles the mind.

And the U.S. Senate appears poised to confirm Pete Hegseth as the next Secretary of Defense. In a 51-49 vote on Thursday, Republicans voted to break a Democratic filibuster aimed at blocking his confirmation. Democrats have tried, so far unsuccessfully, to persuade Republicans to reject Hegseth, citing a new statement from his former sister-in-law, who described him as frequently intoxicated and abusive toward his second wife. Hegseth has denied those claims, and his confirmation is expected as soon as tonight. Today's episode was produced by Olivia Nat, Will Reed, and Carlos Prieto. It was edited by

Rachel Quester and Devon Taylor, contains original music by Diane Wong and Dan Powell, and was engineered by Chris Wood. Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Lansferk of Wonderly. That's it for the Daily. I'm Michael Bobarro. See you on Monday.