What A Day - Trump Returns to the White House

Episode Date: January 20, 2025

Today is Inauguration Day in DC. As of around noon ET, we will officially be living under a Donald Trump administration. Again. The president-elect's inaugural committee has raised a record $170 million for the ceremony and accompanying festivities — a huge jump from the then-record $107 million raised for Trump’s first inauguration. We talk to reporter Ilya Marritz, former co-host of the WNYC podcast ‘Trump Inc.,’ to explore the parallels between today’s inauguration and 2017.And in headlines: TikTok restored service to its more than 170 million users in the U.S, a temporary ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas went into effect, and the federal government is rushing to develop a bird flu vaccine.Show Notes:'The Harvard Plan' - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-harvard-plan-pt-1-a-president-on-trial/id1767012898?i=1000679405864'Trump, Inc.' - https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/trumpincCheck out Pod Save The World – crooked.com/podcast-series/pod-save-the-world/Support victims of the fire – votesaveamerica.com/reliefSubscribe to the What A Day Newsletter – https://tinyurl.com/3kk4nyz8What A Day – YouTube – https://www.youtube.com/@whatadaypodcastFollow us on Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/crookedmedia/For a transcript of this episode, please visit crooked.com/whataday

It's Monday, January 20th, Inauguration Day. I'm Jane Coaston and this is What a Day, the show that remembers that it's also Martin Luther King Jr. Day, a day to honor a truly American hero. Happy birthday, Dr. King. On today's show, TikTok goes dark in the U.S. for like half a day, but now it's back. But for how long? An continuous ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas leads to the war's first meaningful pause in fighting in more than a year. Today is Inauguration Day in D.C.

And because it's apparently too cold for the typical outdoor ceremony, President-elect Donald Trump and Vice President-elect J.D. Vance will be sworn in at the Capitol Rotunda. Afterwards, Trump will hold a big party at Capitol One Arena in Chinatown. And yes, that's the same Chinatown Trump seemed to believe was controlled by the country of China back in 2023. Anyway, there will be much pageantry. Carrie Underwood will take a break from singing the theme to Sunday Night Football to sing

America the Beautiful. And then there is the Liberty inaugural ball, which will feature a cursed combination of performances by the rapper Nelly, country singer Jason Aldean, and disco band the Village People. And there will be money. Lots of money. From Amazon to Meta to cryptocurrency firms and high-level CEOs, Trump's inauguration committee has pulled in $170 million, nearly double the amount of money President Biden's inauguration did four years ago. That reminded of money President Biden's inauguration did four years ago. That reminded me of Trump's first inauguration, which raised a then record

$107 million from a number of donors and resulted in multiple investigations and at least one lawsuit because, um, inaugurations don't cost $100 million. So to explore the parallels between today's inauguration in 2017, I spoke with reporter Ilya Meretz. He is the former co-host of the WNYC podcast Trump, Inc., which was all about who profited off the first Trump administration. He's currently the host of the Boston Globes, the Harvard plan about higher ed and culture wars. Ilya, welcome to What a Day. Great to be here. Thank you for having me.

So I don't know if you know this, but a lot has happened since 2017. So I think we can all be forgiven for forgetting some of the big stories that came out of Trump's first inauguration. Besides, all of the lies about the crowd says. Can you remind us of some of the questions that swirled around inauguration number one? There were a lot. I spent quite a while as a reporter kind of looking at his inaugural fund, which brought in a huge amount of money, over $100 million, which at the time had set a record. And I remember going to people of both parties who had planned previous presidential inaugurations and was like, is it possible to spend $100 million, especially like on a kind of a smaller inauguration, which it was, and they were

just absolutely stumped. So what I think is really interesting though, right now, drawing a contrast between this one and that one, is that inauguration, although it brought in a lot of money, it didn't bring in a lot of big name corporate money, it didn't bring in a lot of big name executives. This time, it's like a whole different ballgame. Right. Because, you know, in 2017 Trump's first inaugural committee brought in about $107 million. Who was donating the first time? It was all over the place, but definitely it was like businessmen with whom Trump had

a longstanding relationship. People like Steve Wynn, Sheldon Adelson, as well as I would say sort of like B, C, and D list kind of business people. This time, obviously, like the big story is like all the tech titans who are going to be there and all the tech money that is flooding in. And because of the increasing role that tech plays in all of our lives and our total inability to remove ourselves from our technology and our phones, this is really a historic inauguration. And any inauguration is kind of like a blueprint for who matters in that new administration. And this one, it's such a contrast to last time.

And there were also some shady donations going on too, right? Some anonymous donors, for example? Yeah, there were a number of kind of shell company donors. There were also a number of foreign donors, which is not legal, and there were people prosecuted for basically arranging for straw men donations to come in from Eastern Europe. I'm talking about 2017. This time I've seen no evidence of that. That's not to say it isn't happening or couldn't happen,

but there's so much kind of more legit looking money coming in that it's almost kind of less interesting. The consensus among most experts at the time was that the actual cost of Trump's first inauguration would have come out to a fraction of the $107 million the committee organizing it raised. So where did that money go? One place it went was the Trump Hotel in DC, just a few blocks from the White House.

It's not a Trump Hotel anymore. We found that the hotel had been paid likely way above market rate for use of a ballroom, for some events related to the inauguration. In the end, the DC Attorney General brought a lawsuit over that and won a judgment. So one beneficiary was Donald Trump's private business, which is poised, again, to profit from the presidency the same way he did the first time because Congress has passed no new laws. There are no new enforcement mechanisms

to prevent a businessman president from profiting from his presidency. Yeah, I remember living in DC at the time and it was basically if you wanted to meet with anyone in Trump world, you always did it at that hotel, which was weird in every single possible way. So how did the Trump family use that hotel for its benefit while he was in office throughout his term? I'm glad you mentioned that. I dropped in on the hotel a few times during the Trump admin and it's like anytime you went you'd kind of see people. Like you'd see like a Sebastian Korka or like all these kind of people. Yeah and if you're a little bit more of a well-versed DC guy

than I am you could probably pick out individual lobbyists and maybe committee chairs in Congress and people like that. That's not there this time. I'm not sure what the equivalent space is going to be for the second Trump administration. Is it truth social? Is it like various other commercial properties? There's so many ways that you can

pay the president to be of the United States that it's kind of mind-boggling. This time around, Trump's inaugural committee has raised more than $170 million for swearing in. So way more than the first time around. I know you've moved on to other reporting work, but given all the work you put into covering the first inauguration, what are some of the questions you have about how all that money will be spent, given that inaugurating a president doesn't cost $170 million? It just doesn't.

Right. Well, obviously, who's going to get paid? Are they being paid at market rate, above market rate? I think the most important question, though, always is, who is seeking influence? What are they doing to get that influence. I think within the American political system we tolerate a certain amount of pay-to-play in the sense of like you got a pony up to have a voice at the table for big regulatory decisions. The American people kind of accept that. Then

there are areas where it starts to get really dicey. There's ties to foreign governments. Again, foreigners, non-Americans are not allowed to donate if there are very specific, very particular business interests that want a very specific thing from this new administration rather than simply a seat at the table. So those are the questions to answer and it's going to take a long time to answer them. It's going to take quite a while before we have the full paperwork on everyone who gave and the amount that they gave and then it takes several years before the inaugural fund files their charitable tax return that could tell us for example who the biggest contractors are.

It's going to be years after this party is over that we'll be able to give it the scrutiny that it or any other inaugural party really deserves. You mentioned how this inauguration is a lot different from the first one because all of these corporations want to get involved and there are tons of big names swirling around him kissing the proverbial ring. You've got Elon Musk, you've got Mark Zuckerberg, you've got Mark Andreessen. Basically, if you're rich and easily annoyed, you are a huge fan of Trump this time. So, the influence peddling seems way more out in the open this time. And in your view, is that a good thing that we can see them doing this? We know what's going on. What do you think?

I mean, we've said for years and years that sunlight is the best disinfectant, but that and years that sunlight is the best disinfectant, but that idea was kind of germinated in our pre-internet age and now we're just floating in a soup of so much information that I think it just tends to breed cynicism. So that can be a bad thing for our democracy. On the other hand, if people feel that it gives them the tools to actually understand who's seeking influence in the new administration, that's really good. I also can't let this little convo pass without mentioning that a lot of corporations that expressed outrage over the January 6th attack on the United States Capitol, a number of corporations that said they weren't going to give to Trump affiliated groups or

that kicked Trump off their platform or whatever else, they're back in the picture now. And that just sort of shows how important it is to have the favor of a very transactional president who is telling the world how he's going to do things, which is the transactional way. If you're Donald Trump, maybe your defense to that is this is how the world works. The other side of it is breeding an immense amount of cynicism and also saying, yeah, laws don't matter. All these measures that we've put in place to have an accountable government, a government

that's accountable first and foremost to the people, they don't really matter because the raw tools of power, money and influence, that's what really matters. And let's just be real. Ilya, thank you so much for being here with me. It was a pleasure. That was my conversation with reporter Ilya Meretz. He's the former co-host of WNYC's podcast, Trump, Inc. His current project with the Boston Globe is called The Harvard Plan, about higher education and culture wars. We'll link to his work in our show notes. We'll get to more of the news in a moment, but if you like the show, make sure to subscribe,

leave a five-star review on Apple Podcasts, watch us on YouTube, and share with your friends. More to come after some ads. What a day is brought to you by Bombas. Well, in a lot of the United States, it is too cold to do literally anything. The upside? You can cocoon yourself in Bombas socks, slippers, and underwear all winter long. The secret? Their fabrics. We're talking about the good stuff, like merino wool, which feels as cozy as a ski

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purchase. That's B-O-M-B-A-S dot com slash day code day at checkout. Here are some other stories we're following today. Headlines. Repeat after me. We do not thank Trump for the return of TikTok. Trump is being applauded for something he started. Stop thanking that guy. TikTok is back. I think. Maybe. Users across the U.S. returned to the app Sunday after it went dark for a few hours over the weekend. A lot happened over the past few days, so stay with me. On Friday, the Supreme Court unanimously

upheld a federal law to ban TikTok from U.S. app stores starting Sunday. In anticipation of the ban, the app went dark Saturday night. It told users, quote, "'Sorry, TikTok isn't available right now.'" But early Sunday morning, Trump said on his social media platform, quote,

"'I'm asking companies not to let TikTok stay dark.'" He also promised to issue an executive order to keep the ban from immediately going into effect. Soon after, TikTok restored service to its more than 170 million users in the U.S. It put out a statement thanking Trump for, quote, providing the necessary clarity and assurance that its service providers wouldn't face any penalties for keeping the app alive. But let's not forget Trump's previous stance on the app. He issued executive orders while in office in 2020 banning TikTok and WeChat,

a Chinese-owned messaging app. We're looking at TikTok. We may be banning TikTok. We may be doing some other things or a couple of options, but a lot of things are happening. Isn't that always the case? Anyway, Trump's newfound support for the app comes in the wake of the 2024 election. He credited TikTok with helping him reach young voters. But even though Trump has done a 180 on TikTok, House Speaker Mike Johnson hasn't.

He told NBC's Meet the Press Sunday he's going to uphold the ban. Are you concerned by not enforcing this law? The U.S. is sending a message of weakness to China? No, I think we will enforce the law. And when President Trump issued the truth post and said, save TikTok, the way we read that is that he's going to try to force along a true divestiture changing of his hands, the ownership. That's not what he said, but sure. President Biden signed the TikTok ban into law back

in April. It required Chinese parent company ByteDance to either sell at stake in TikTok or face removal from app stores in the U.S. ByteDance, to either sell its stake in TikTok or face removal from app stores in the US. ByteDance has made it clear it has no interest in selling, despite at least one offer from several investors and billionaires. A long-awaited and temporary ceasefire between Israel and Hamas went into effect Sunday. It started with the release of three Israeli hostages.

I'm in debt! I'm in debt! I'm in debt! I'm in debt! I'm okay. I'm okay. I'm okay. I'm okay. I'm okay. I'm okay. I'm okay. Israel also released 90 Palestinian prisoners Sunday as part of the deal, all of them women

and minors. The ceasefire is supposed to last for six weeks, while negotiations for a permanent ceasefire continue. Over that period, Hamas has agreed to release 33 hostages, while Israel says they'll release almost 2,000 Palestinian prisoners. Hamas has also agreed to stop rocket attacks, while Israel says it will halt military operations within Gaza's borders. In an address late Saturday before the deal went into effect, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu credited cooperation between the Biden administration and the incoming Trump administration. Netanyahu added that he spoke to Trump on Friday.

Here's the prime minister speaking through an interpreter. He talked to me yesterday and blessed this agreement and he honestly said that the first phase of the agreement is only a temporary ceasefire. Netanyahu went on to say that Trump told him if needed he would remove all obstacles in the way of allowing Israel to continue the war. The federal government is putting more money toward the development of new vaccines for bird flu. On Friday, the Department of Health and Human Services said it's giving nearly $600 million to pharmaceutical company Moderna to help expedite an mRNA vaccine. The vaccines would be similar to the vaccines the company developed for COVID,

but for the strains of bird flu in wild birds, poultry, and dairy cows. That's in addition to the nearly $180 million Moderna was given in July. The federal government says it already has two vaccine candidates, but because they use older technology, they can take longer to produce.

HHS Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response, Don O'Connell, said an mRNA-based bird flu vaccine can be produced faster. The Agriculture Department says bird flu has spread to almost 1,000 herds of dairy cows across 16 states. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says so far there have been 67 confirmed cases of bird flu in humans in the U.S. One infected person in Louisiana died earlier this year, but the CDC says the risk to the general public is still low because there's no evidence the disease is spreading from person to person.

As we mentioned earlier, Donald Trump is set to be sworn in again today at noon Eastern time and he's made a lot of promises about what he wants to do in his first few days back in office. Trump has said repeatedly he plans to pardon some, most, all of the generous insurrectionists soon after taking office. He told NBC's Kristen Welker last month that he plans to issue those pardons immediately. I'm gonna look at everything. We're gonna look at individual cases, yeah.

But I'm gonna be acting very quickly. Within your first 100 days, first day? First day. First day. Yeah, I'm looking first day. Another issue Trump says he wants to tackle quickly is immigration, specifically deporting undocumented immigrants. Stephen Miller, Trump's deputy chief of staff for policy, told Fox News that on day one,

Trump plans to sign, quote, the most comprehensive border security package by executive order in American history. That bill will ensure that every single element of this government is committed to restoring our national sovereignty. State Department, Defense Department, Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Justice, FBI, ATF, DEA, ICE, and Border Patrol.

Trump has also promised to delay the TikTok ban, impose high tariffs on imports from Canada and Mexico, pull the U.S. out of the Paris climate agreement again, and more. The Associated Press says Trump is preparing more than 100 executive orders for the first days of his presidency. And that's the news. One more thing. As we mentioned, Trump's inauguration today also means new executive orders, especially on immigration.

What will be in those executive orders? Honestly, we don't know. And that matters. Let's go back to January 2012. Barack Obama was president and I lived in a group house in DC and spent a lot of time watching Golden Girls. And during a GOP presidential primary debate, former Massachusetts governor and future Utah Senator Mitt Romney introduced me to a new term, self-deportation. The answer is self-deportation, which is people decide that they can do better by going home because they can't find work here because they don't have legal documentation to allow them to work here. You can't really hear it on the clip but the audience laughed at this idea

because it sounded stupid. Why would anyone leave a country they fought so hard to get to just because of some new laws? But the answer is a lot of people and Donald Trump is counting on it. See here's the truth. You know how Trump keeps talking about how he's going to launch the biggest deportation effort in American history? It's going to be way, way harder than he thinks. For example, here's his incoming border czar, Tom Homan, talking about planned ICE operations in Chicago on Fox News. Well, look, I won't categorize raids. They're going to be targeted enforcement operations. When ICE goes out, they're going to know exactly who they're looking for, pretty much where they'll find them.

The problem is mass deporting a population larger than that of the state of Ohio is really, really, really hard to do. Trump wanted to deport millions of undocumented people during his first term, but was only able to manage removing at most around 350,000 people in a year, according to the Associated Press. In those planned raids in Chicago, Homan mentioned, he now says that those plans are being reconsidered because the information leaked to the press, though according to the Wall Street Journal, the person who was bragging about planned raids in Chicago was Tom Homan. At a holiday party, of course.

We are not dealing with a finely honed government instrument here. We are dealing with people in multiple multiple agencies and jurisdictions, who are all equally capable of fucking up royally. Donald Trump hasn't gotten savvier or wiser, he's just older. He and his administration want undocumented people to self-deport because it's easier and cheaper. And they are more than willing to use scare tactics to make it happen. And sadly, liberal media outlets are often just as willing to use fear to drive views or engagement,

which means folks who need information will just get scared instead. So here's what you actually need to know. No matter what Trump says, we don't actually know anything until something gets signed. And even then, there's still so much that has to happen for anyone to get removed from the country. The National Immigrant Law Center has some helpful tips. First, if you're undocumented, talk to a lawyer. Second, create a safety plan. Make sure you know your emergency contacts

and talk to your kids' school about whom they should contact in an emergency. You can also ensure that your emergency contact has the ability to make medical and legal decisions for your kids, too. Third, gather your documents. Keep your identity documents and your financial information in a safe place, and add in your tax too. Third, gather your documents. Keep your identity documents and your financial information in a safe place and add in your tax returns, bills,

leases, and school records. We are not going to do the Trump administration's job for them. If they want to scare people into leaving their homes and communities, that's on them. The best way to respond is to stay calm, stay informed, and stay connected to one another. stay calm, stay informed, and stay connected to one another. Before we go, Trump is back in the White House following Monday's inauguration, which means the chaos isn't slowing down, it's speeding up. In the latest episode of Inside 2025,

Dan and Alyssa take a deep dive into how inaugurations come together, the scandals from the past, and their favorite moments from previous ceremonies. Get access to this exclusive subscriber series and more by joining Friends of the Pod. Head over to Crooked.com slash Friends to learn more. That's all for today. If you liked the show, make sure you subscribe, leave a review, inform people about the fun

fact that Martin Luther King Jr. was a kick-ass pool player, and tell your friends to listen. And if you're into reading, and not just about how Martin Luther King Jr. learned to play pool while getting his doctorate at Crozier Theological Seminary despite his father's objections, and used to call out his shots before he made them, like me, what a day is also a nightly newsletter. Check it out and subscribe at Crooked.com slash subscribe. I'm Jane Kostin and I dream of being like 10% as cool as Martin Luther King Jr. What Today is a production of Crooked Media. It's recorded and mixed by Desmond Taylor.

Our associate producers are Raven Yamamoto and Emily Four. Our producer is Michelle Eloy. We had production help today from Tyler Hill, Johanna Case, Joseph Dutra, Greg Walters, and Julia Clare. Our senior producer is Erica Morrison, and our executive producer is Adrian Hill. Our theme music is by Colin Gilyard and Kashaka. Our production staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America East.