What A Day - Trump Wants To Be King

Episode Date: March 24, 2025

In just about two months, President Donald Trump has managed to thoroughly shake U.S. democratic structures to the core. From firing thousands of federal workers and plunging the U.S. into a trade war, to testing the limits of our three supposedly coequal branches of government, it's been a lot to process. And the constant chaos makes it hard to grasp what's actually happening, big picture: Are we watching a wannabe strongman fumble through enacting a policy agenda that will likely prove to be deeply unpopular, or are we actually watching the end of American Democracy as we've known it for roughly the last century. Ruth Ben-Ghiat, a professor at New York University and author of the book 'Strongmen,' explains what history can tell us about our current moment and what we can do about it.And in headlines: Venezuela said it would start accepting deportation flights from the U.S. again, Palestinian health officials said the death toll in Gaza has topped 50,000, and the White House said Second Lady Usha Vance is heading to Greenland… just for fun… scout's honor.Show Notes:Check out Ruth's book and newsletter – https://ruthbenghiat.com/Subscribe to the What A Day Newsletter – https://tinyurl.com/3kk4nyz8Support victims of the fire – votesaveamerica.com/reliefWhat 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, March 24th. I'm Jane Costin, and this is What a Day, the show that fully supports Louis and Ophelia, two otters that have run away from the new zoo and adventure park in Green Bay, Wisconsin. Run free little otters, run free. On today's show, Venezuela says it will accept deportees. And Second Lady Ushra Vance is going to Greenland to watch some dogs sled. That's definitely the only reason she's going. Just for a visit. For dogs.

But let's start with perhaps the biggest question you might be asking yourself right now. How bad is all this going to get? And how scared should I be? Let's just set the stage here. Right now, the President of the United States is screaming on his personal social media website about impeaching judges who rule against him, while the government is disappearing migrants who may or may not be gang members to a nightmare prison in El Salvador, and then posting about how funny it is on social media.

And the people closest to this administration all sound like Trump assistant Sebastian Gorka speaking to Newsmax on Friday. And there is one person, according to the Constitution, according to the statutes of the nation, who has the right to decide who can be in America, who are the aliens, who are the foreigners, who are allowed into the nation and who we keep out. That individual is the commander-in-chief. That is both untrue and extremely creepy. But this is all very, very bad. The kind of bad that at absolute best is going to take years to make right. At worst, well, history tells us it doesn't end well. And the resistance to the actions of everyone involved here looks really feeble in the face

of their constant threats. On Friday, Columbia University agreed to a list of demands from the administration, including major reforms to its protest policies, after the White House cut off $400 million worth of federal grants earlier this month. But even that level of capitulation may not be enough for the Trump administration. Education Secretary Linda McMahon seemed to give the White House an opening to demand more during an interview Sunday with CNN's Dana Bash. I believe that they are on the right track so that we can now move forward.

Does that mean that the money will be unfrozen? That means that we are on the right track now to make sure the final negotiations to unfreeze that money will be in place. OK, so not yet. We're working on it. On the right track, sure, it doesn't sound like you're definitely getting your money back.

Now, I am not, by nature, a panicky person, but I'm feeling pretty anxious right now. And maybe you are too. So I wanted to know more about what history could tell us about our current moment, and more critically for us and for me, what we can do about it. So I spoke with Ruth Ben-Giat. She's a professor of history at New York University

and author of Strong Men, Mussolini to the Present. Ruth, thank you so much for joining me today. It's a pleasure. I think it's Really hard for me and it's hard for a lot of people to tell what we're watching right now when it comes to the Trump Administration are we watching a wannabe strongman fumble through enacting a policy agenda that will likely prove to be deeply unpopular Or are we actually watching the end of American democracy as we've known it pretty much for the last century How have you been thinking about his second term so far? There's no doubt that what they would like to do is kill off our democracy

and have some form of an authoritarian state. I mean, somebody's been saying that he singly, Trump, is an authoritarian since 2016 and I saw his first administration as like a trial run. And so now they use their time out of office brilliantly to set everything up so they're ready to go. I also think though that it's going to be deeply unpopular. And I think there's going to be a reckoning that we're already starting to see. So it's both, and I do want to say,

this is one of the scariest things. Comparatively speaking, the speed and the scale of what they're doing does not resemble how even Putin got started or Erdogan or Orban. It resembles after a coup. So that's very sobering. So, I mean, you use the word coup. Sometimes those aren't reversible.

Like you can't come back necessarily every time from a coup. So what does that mean? Well, I see two things going on because You can see my book strongman in the background and there's only one guy on the cover because there's the thing about the strongman There's one but here we have two guys two damaged individuals who would like to wreck Democratic governance and so I've been trying to figure out what is old and what is new of what's going on. And Trump is more traditional, you know, that's why he loves Putin, he loves Xi, whether it's communist or fascist, he loves his dictators.

And so the stuff that Musk is doing, and Doge was just created as a front so that he could really infiltrate government and paralyze governance and wreck America so that we take generations to rebuild. So things just fall apart and stop functioning. And that is something that would be more difficult to fix depending on how long it goes on. I don't like doing historical comparisons because it's so difficult to say like, you know, we don't really have a lot of the same scenarios or same context that existed in 1920s Italy or 1930s Germany or, you know, talking about Venezuela or the rise of Peronism in Argentina. But can you compare the

moment we're in to the rise of past dictators, like Mussolini, for example? What did opposition to him look like during his rise, with the knowledge that the context is going to be different? Yeah, Mussolini is a good example, actually, because he was a prime minister in a democracy before he became dictator. And he used that time to intimidate the opposition, and there was a huge left. That's why you're right that it's very difficult to make historical comparisons. Because although MAGA and Trump talk a lot about the radical left, we don't have a huge left.

There's no big communist party. That's all propaganda. But one of the things that we do know is that it's very important to have unity of opposition. And in places in Europe, if you just keep today, like in Poland, they were able to get rid of their far-right party after eight years because six parties came together and they have multi-party situations. And it's very challenging for America because we've only got these two parties.

And the Democratic Party has a wide variety of types of people. And they all hate each other. And we see Bernie and AOC out there getting tens of thousands of people and actually responding to the moment in a very empathetic and engaged manner. And then we see the institutional part of the party, the kind of more elitist part of the party, I would say not responding very well as a leadership collective. They're individual people, Chris Murphy and Jasmine Crockett, who are fabulous, fabulous. So it's a problem that we only have these two parties because there's no flexibility.

It's like the party is a bit fossilized. And I just don't think that in this situation, one huge party is very equipped to handle a crisis like this. Even thinking about Trump in terms of other historical dictators, I think that that's the challenge of alleged Trump derangement syndrome, right? That when you point out how alarming his actions are

in the context of infamous strongmen that have come before him, or even if you just say things are bad, people accuse you of being crazy. It kind of reminds me a little bit because the term comes from Charles Krauthammer talking about George W. Bush, a president the right has successfully disappeared.

But sometimes even I feel crazy thinking about Trump while also trying to live my life and thinking about like how much should I be talking about him or what should I be doing? Because you want to think what would I be doing if we were in 1920s Italy or early 1930s Germany? You know, what would I be doing? And then I'm like, but is that these moments? Maybe I'm crazy. So how do you ground is that these moments? Maybe I'm crazy. So how do you ground yourself in these moments? Yeah, that's such an interesting question because one thing I saw in my research is that when this happens, people are always unprepared. They always think it's not going to happen to them as a country. And then often, even if it starts to happen to their country they think it's not going to happen to me But here's a this example that I think about a lot right now

So in Chile, you had the US back coup in 1973. It's a big example of my book. So that's a coup So it was like a surprise and the equivalent of the GOP, which is the Christian Democrats, they were conservatives, the lead of the party who had been the president of the country, so he's no naive person. He actually thought that the military junta was going to like, you know, get make order and calm things down and get rid of the left and then hand back power to them, to civilians. And then later, a few years later, he starts to wake up and realize that's not the case and he starts speaking out and he was poisoned and he died. So I think about that a lot because even when there's been a coup and so like 24 hours in

they're like taking people to the stadium and torturing them. Some people are still like, it might be okay. You know, and so here we are, and it's easy to live our lives and try and ignore what's going on, but that's gonna become much more difficult. And, you know, one of the main things that's important to do is have solidarity because otherwise it's like, if I'm not X, they're not gonna come for me and I don't have to care and that is

a recipe for the whole country being taken over. Yeah I keep thinking about how I spent a lot of time studying the rise of Nazi Germany and the rise of Adolf Hitler and there were so many people the industrialists the socialists all these people who were like well he's not going to be the problem he's not going to be the problem it's somebody else it to be the problem. It's somebody else. It's somebody else that we don't need to worry about him. Maybe we can even use him for our own purposes. And that's not what happened.

Is there a moment in your writing and in your research in which you've seen democracies tip into a point of no return into authoritarianism, or maybe not no return, but where the road back to democracy is long and terrible. Well, we're going down that road because it's a little deceptive today if people immediately think if you hear fascism or because those were one party states.

And today it's much more common to have, it's called electoral autocracy, where you keep elections going, you keep different parties going, and then you fix the system in different ways so that you stay in power. You also change the laws, you also change the constitution eventually. So for example, in Turkey, Erdogan, who gets a pass and should not by so many people, he's always said, well, here we have the ballot box. I'm not a dictator, but he just passed the point of no return because he arrested his

chief political rival, the head of the opposition party, and 100 of his colleagues. And he removed him from office as the Istanbul mayor. And he basically took out of play the only guy who would have been able to beat him in the next election for president. So that's a tipping point. But other times, it's a slow erosion, and that's what we're living through now. A slow erosion and then test case.

So let's disappear this person. Oh let's buy off this law firm and That's where if resistance is not swift and widespread Other examples will follow so Given everything we've just talked about I am scared. I've been scared Given everything we've just talked about, I'm scared, I've been scared.

What can we do to fight back? You talked about solidarity, you talked about working together, but what does that look like for average people listening to this podcast who are, like me, scared? I think we've seen that a lot of the resistance is from the ground up. I think that you know how Steve Bannon came up with Partly Him and others, the precinct strategy that the right was going to conquer America from the ground up, the school boards, the town councils, and they were very successful at doing that. We've got to take back our country. I'm using a Trumpian phrase and turning it on them. I think that's important to do. I think it's really important to engage in community.

Communities will save us. And we also know history of resistance. Your relationships will save you. Your real live community relationships are very important. Also, I think being visible and resisting, and it doesn't matter if it's small-scale. It's it every everything counts. I was in Penn Station the train station and I went into the bathroom and I saw in one of the stalls somebody had

taped on you know, Trump musk fascism a big sign inside the stall and Because I'm a historian my mind went back to the White Rose group of students in Nazi Germany. And that's what they used to do. That's what they used to do. And I was like, okay, people see that it's something. And I, the last thing I would say, most of us have somebody in our lives who is, what I politely say, dwelling in the disinformation tunnel. I think as it becomes more evident what the terrible fallout is going to be with Social Security, with paralyzing the economy, with basically wrecking America as fast as they can, I think that there's going to be more buyer's remorse. And I think as unpleasant as it may be, I think it's time to start having

conversations with these people and also people who never voted. I'm very haunted by the 80 million people who didn't vote. This bothers me every day. And I think it's time to reach out to those people, to mobilize those people or at least make them aware of what is happening to their country. Ruth, thank you so much for joining me. That's a pleasure. That was my conversation with Ruth Ben-Giott. She is a professor of history at New York University.

We'll link to her sub stack newsletter, Lucid. 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. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp.

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Headlines. I've noticed in the media, a lot of them don't have criminal histories. Well, a lot of gamers don't have criminal histories. Well, a lot of gang members don't have criminal histories. Just like a lot of terrorists in this world, they're not in any terrorist database, right? Huh? Am I a terrorist? Or a gang member? I would hope someone would have told me.

That's border czar Tom Homan on ABC Sunday explaining how the administration is, quote, "...using the laws in the books to enforce immigration laws. Holman's comments came a day after Venezuela said it would start accepting deportation flights from the US again. Venezuela's president, Nicolas Maduro, had halted the flights in early March. In a statement on Saturday,

a representative for Venezuela's government said, quote, migration isn't a crime, and we will not rest until we achieve the return of all those in need and rescue our brothers kidnapped in El Salvador. The comment appears to come in response to the Trump administration's use of a wartime act to deport hundreds of people, including alleged Venezuelan gang members to El Salvador earlier this month. A federal judge tried to temporarily block the flights, but the government said planes were already in the air when the ruling was issued. The administration has continuously refused to provide the judge with information about the flights.

Border Guard Tom Homan said officials are, quote, confident the deported Venezuelans are members of the Tren de Aragua gang. The bottom line is that plane was full of people designated as terrorists. Number one. Number two, every Venezuelan migrant on that flight was was a TDA member based on numerous criminal investigation, on intelligence reports and a lot of work by ICE officers. Sure would be great to have some due process just to make sure. The Trump administration has been given a Tuesday deadline to answer questions about the flights or declare the state's secrets privilege, which could allow it to withhold information it considers a national

security risk. Teslas are being traded in at record rates according to new data from the car shopping website Edmunds. The site found that of all the cars traded in in March, more than 1% were Teslas from model year 2017 or newer. The trade-ins are not really that much of a surprise. Tesla dealerships and vehicles continue to deal with vandalism attacks stemming from apparent protests of Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency's efforts to slash

the federal workforce. Despite the backlash against the billionaire's car company, the Trump administration is still desperately pleading with Americans to buy Tesla stock. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick gushed about Musk on Fox News last week, calling him the best entrepreneur in America. I think if you want to learn something on this show tonight, buy Tesla. It's unbelievable that this guy's stock is this cheap. It'll never be this cheap again.

Some government ethics experts say Lutnick's endorsement broke a law that bans federal employees from using, quote, public office for private gang. I say it's giving the Simpsons monorail episode. President Trump is especially taking the attacks on Tesla personally.

He wrote on True Social Friday, quote, I look forward to watching the sick terrorist thugs get 20 year jail sentences for what they are doing to Elon Musk and Tesla. Perhaps they could serve them in the prisons of El Salvador. No.

The Palestinian death toll from Israel's war with Hamas rose to 50,000 after a relentless weekend of Israeli airstrikes in Gaza. The tally was reported by the Gaza Health Ministry on Sunday. Israel resumed strikes on the Gaza Strip last week after a two-month fighting pause. The Health Ministry reported more than 600 deaths since then. The Israel Defense Forces ordered residents to evacuate southern Gaza Sunday as its military is reportedly considering launching a full-ground invasion of Gaza. Israeli officials said they will decide whether or not to escalate based on how ceasefire talks progress. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said last week,

quote, this is just the beginning. Mediators from Egypt and Qatar are pushing for an emergency fighting pause between Israel and Hamas. Hamas has long said it will only agree to a deal that promises a permanent end to the war in Gaza and a full withdrawal of Israeli troops. The White House announced Sunday that Second Lady Usha Vance and her son will travel to Greenland this week with a U.S. delegation.

According to a statement, the visit is geared toward touring the island and learning more about its culture. One of the items on their agenda is attending Greenland's annual dog sled race. Though, notably absent from Sunday's statement was President Donald Trump's obsession with owning Greenland. He's said many times that he thinks the U.S. should annex the territory, even during his first term as president. Here's what he said during his joint address to Congress earlier this month. I think we're going to get it. One way or the other, we're going to get it.

Vance and the U.S. delegation will arrive in Greenland Thursday. And that's the news. One more thing. My conversation with Ruth Ben-Giatt earlier in the show, well, it got to me. Especially thinking about how divided the opposition to Trump has felt. I don't know about you, but it seems like a lot of Democrats have enjoyed fighting with other Democrats more than they have, say, opposing everything that's happening right now. But that's not true everywhere. Or actually, in most places. Case in point, Denver, Colorado this past weekend. We don't want a king in the United States. We overthrew a king.

Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders and New York Democratic Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez joined forces to rally for progressive policy over the weekend. But it felt like they were rallying for way more than that. The duo hosted a rally in Denver on Friday, expecting 2,000 attendees. Over 30,000 showed up. Sanders said it was the biggest crowd he's ever addressed. The event was part of Sanders' Fighting Oligarchy Tour. The independent senator is visiting cities across the country to speak out against the

Trump administration and push Democrats to fight back. Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez also stopped in Tucson on Saturday, where they spoke to a crowd of more than 20,000 people. We need to be taxing the rich on the floor of the United States Congress. We need to be establishing guaranteed health care on the floor of the United States Congress, not erasing American history on the floor of the United States Congress. And Sanders made a point to condemn co-president Elon Musk's efforts to downsize the federal government in what seems to me to be the stupidest way possible.

Does anybody think it makes sense that we have a campaign finance system where one man, Musk, can put $270 million to get Trump elected, and then his reward is that he becomes the most powerful person in government. According to Representative Ocasio-Cortez, more than 86,000 people came to see her and Senator Sanders speak in Arizona, Colorado, and Nevada. And about half of the people at their first stop were going to their first political rally. And the tour keeps getting bigger, especially as Republicans try to avoid their constituents. In Greeley, Colorado, Representative Ocasio-Cortez sent a message to Republican Representative Gabe Evans, who was avoided doing a town hall. She took a picture of the message to Republican Representative Gabe Evans, who has avoided doing a town hall.

She took a picture of the 11,000 people in the crowd and reminded Representative Evans that elections still happen here. If you will indulge me for a moment since Gabe hasn't been around here. If we could just say hi to him for a moment. Can we just say hi? See you probably know. But why they're unpopular matters too. Yes, a portion of Democrats want the party to moderate while a section want the party

to move further to the left. But pretty much everyone, from people getting polled, to the people who showed up in Denver this past weekend, to the thousands of voters and constituents going to town halls and protests, wants the Democratic Party to stand up to Donald Trump and Elon Musk. Even if companies don't, even if universities don't, they want the Democratic Party to stand in opposition to Donald Trump and, you know, oppose him. Because we're not just sad at what's happening to our country, my country. We are fucking mad.

And sure, there are a lot of things we don't agree on and a lot of values that we might not share, and that's going to be tough to figure out. But what isn't, and what Representative Ocasio-Cortez and Senator Sanders have figured out, along with thousands of our fellow Americans, is that we know what we don't want. We don't want oligarchy. We don't want MAGA-Putinism. And we don't want this. Before we go, hey WADFAM, if you love true crime, check out Shadow Kingdom, God's Banker.

In 1982, Vatican banker Roberto Colvi was found hanging under a London bridge. Suicide? That's the official story. But the truth is far murkier. Episode 3 drops today, and in it, a raid on an Italian warehouse exposes a secret far-right society, topples Italy's government, and leaves Colvi scrambling to survive. Listen to Shadow Kingdom, God's Banker, wherever you get your podcasts. Or binge all episodes now at cricket.com slash friends or on the Shadow Kingdom Apple Podcasts feed. That's all for today. If you liked the show, make sure you subscribe, leave a review, salute the University of Michigan's men's basketball team for making it to the Sweet 16 despite, um, me not thinking that would happen, and tell your friends to listen.

And if you're into reading, and not just about how Michigan went 8-24 last year, and this year have gone 27-9 and will now play the number one seed Auburn for a spot in the Elite 8, like me, what a day is also a nightly newsletter. Check it out and subscribe at cricket.com slash subscribe. I'm Jane Coaston and sure, in the scheme of things, Michigan men's basketball isn't that critically important. But also, it is always important to remember today and every day that it's great to be a Michigan Wolverine. What A Day is a production of Crooked Media. It's recorded in a mix by Desmond Taylor.

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