Trump's Attempts to 'Hobble' Democrats

Title: Trump's Attempts to 'Hobble' Democrats

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Brian Lehrer: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning, everyone. Today marks two months of the Trump administration, January 20 to March 20. A New York Times article focuses on one of the big picture ways to look at what the administration has been about trying to cripple the left, aiming not to just implement policies that Trump voters, or at least Trump and his inner circle think are good for the country, but also to do what the article calls hobble Democrats ability to compete in elections for years to come, also to financially hurt firms, law firms that work on behalf of Democrats.

Shane Goldmacher, national political correspondent for The New York Times, wrote that article and joins me now. We'll also touch on his recent piece about California's Democratic governor Gavin Newsom and MAGA leader Steve Bannon finding common ground over a few things, including no tax cuts for the very rich and general suspicion of Elon Musk when Bannon was on Newsom's podcast recently. Shane, thanks for joining us. Welcome to WNYC.

Shane Goldmacher: Thanks for having me on.

Brian Lehrer: In your article, you acknowledge that it's not unusual for partisans to push for investigations into political groups on the other side of the aisle, but Trump and his team are defying the usual norms around that. Where would you start to describe what they're doing that's new?

Shane Goldmacher: I think it's pulling together all the things that are happening all at once and saying, hey, these are some individual, discrete actions but put together, they paint a pretty clear picture of congressional Republicans and the Trump administration going after some of the most important core pieces of the Democratic political infrastructure, the way that Democrats run elections.

I would probably start with the ongoing investigations into ActBlue, which is the company, website, firm, nonprofit that processes almost every political contribution in the country. They are investigating ActBlue, accusing it of wrongdoing. They're investigating another tech firm that controls a number of important tools the Democrats use both to organize events. One that some of your listeners are probably familiar with, like Eventbrite, how you RSVP to events, as well as a database of basically every voter in the country that the Democratic Party uses to target people and figure out how to reach them and who to reach and what their opinions are.

Then you have Elon Musk talking about various groups and nonprofits and accusing them of being in a big cabal. What we have in this reporting that I did with my colleague Ken Vogel is that while these seem separate, all of these attacks, there's actually a group inside the White House that has begun looking more systematically at targeting some of the potential vulnerabilities that Democrats have, they say, within the law that help power Democratic candidates and campaigns and causes.

Brian Lehrer: We'll come back to how they're doing it and we'll come back to ActBlue. I really want to talk for a few minutes first about the law firms that they're targeting that you write about.

Shane Goldmacher: There's so much I didn't even get to that.

Brian Lehrer: Exactly. I've seen this topic, though, break out among people concerned about authoritarianism as allegedly an unprecedented attack on the financial stability of law firms that take on clients who are are political opponents of the party in power. The law firms you name are Perkins Coie, Covington & Burling and Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison. They're all linked directly or indirectly with either the Democratic Party or past investigations of Trump. Can you describe how Trump is trying to squeeze those firms?

Shane Goldmacher: Yes. The squeezing is a little different by firm, but the goal is the same, which is basically to punish law firms that have aligned themselves with Democrats, that have backed Democrats. These are some of the biggest firms employed, for instance, by the Democratic National Committee. Trump's animus towards Perkins in particular is long running. It dates all the way back to the 2016 campaign where that firm was working for Hillary Clinton and was involved in the funding and creation of the dossier, the Russian dossier that was since discredited.

Trump has been after this law firm for years. What he did was he signed an executive order basically prohibiting this law firm from working with the federal government, saying that they are disreputable, that they cannot be trusted, and that they're basically a danger to the country. Much of Perkins work involves interacting with the federal government and so it is an immediate financial crisis for a law firm. Again, a law firm that does many things for corporations and others, but has been allied with the Democrats in general.

By the way, this is how it works in Washington. There are more Republican-leaning law firms and there are more Democratic-leaning law firms. This move against Perkins and then the subsequent moves against the other two firms really has had a chilling effect on, let's say you're a firm in the first Trump term that you were doing a lot of pro bono work for, say, immigrants, people who are being threatened with deportation. This is now a risk to represent clients. This is a real concern.

Everyone in America is supposed to be entitled to a full throated legal defense. This is saying, "Hey, you might be some of the biggest, most talented, most expensive law firms in the country, but the clients you take on, they can put you at risk." This has had a big chilling effect across what is described as big law.

Brian Lehrer: Critics say this is anti democracy, not just anti your opponents, because it chills part of the basis of our open adversarial legal system. You were just referencing some of that. If there's going to be a government retribution campaign against a company for taking on clients who oppose government policies or government leaders, and that retribution intimidates other law firms from participating in that aspect of democracy, that's not the America they thought they were living in, say the critics. Have Democratic administrations tried to hurt Republican-associated law firms in this way?

Shane Goldmacher: I don't think there's ever been anything quite even close to what Donald Trump is doing here, singling out particular firms. Again, there are broad implications for the legal community. One of the focuses of the story that we were working on is that these have implications for Democratic candidates, Democratic causes, progressive communities, where these were the law firms that they would chiefly turn to, to defend them.

These law firms are coming under threat. If you cannot make money financially and support the many, many lawyers that you have because you can no longer practice, because you are barred from interacting with the federal government, that's an existential threat for those law firms. It is a big issue for the law community and it's an issue for Democrats themselves.

I think there's been a big debate in the legal community. Why have other law firms not come out more forcefully in defense of those law firms that have come under attack? There's been a push in conversations around should they have an amicus brief that all the big law firms sign? That hasn't happened yet. I think that that is an example of the kind of chill that people are feeling right now.

Brian Lehrer: You do cite a lawsuit by Perkins Coie trying to fight in court the Trump restrictions on them. They say they've lost significant revenue. Do you know their legal argument?

Shane Goldmacher: I think their legal argument is just that this is beyond the scope of what the executive branch has authority to do, that they don't have the ability to say that this law firm, based on nothing in particular that he's enumerated, is uneligible to practice or be trusted in front of the federal government. That's the central argument, is that he is basically broadly overreaching anything close to a mandate. It should be noted that Perkins has gotten another major litigating law firm to defend it in court. They have had some support in the legal community, but certainly less than some would have hoped.

Brian Lehrer: That part is new to me and that's really interesting. If these are some of the most powerful law firms in the country and they're afraid to line up behind Perkins Coie or some of the others, or this principle that you don't lock out law firms just because they're adversarial with the government's point of view or government leaders, if they're intimidated, who won't be intimidated, Right?

Shane Goldmacher: This is why it was seen as significant that Perkins did get one major litigating firm, it's called Williams & Connolly, to stand up and say we are going to defend Perkins. Williams & Connolly is known in the legal community as one of the most aggressive litigators so they have a very strong set of lawyers defending them but there are questions. Why are there not more law firms speaking out together in one voice saying we're not going to stand for this?

Brian Lehrer: Listeners, on this aspect and we're going to get to other things from Shane's reporting, but any lawyers out there want to weigh in on this? 212-433-WNYC. Is this what democracy looks like, like all fair and love and war and politics. One side tries to weaken advocates for the other side? Or is it something new and somehow more dangerous in your opinion? As Shane reports, a lot of people see it as. 212-433-WNYC, 433-9692.

Anyone with Perkins Coie or Covington & Burling or Paul, Weiss, Rifkind. I know Paul, Weiss is here in New York. I don't know about the others, but if you work at any of them or have in the past or have a professional's take of any kind or at Republican equivalents, we welcome your take. Is this what democracy looks like or is it something else? 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. Also, we'll get to Shane's reporting and you can call on this on the maybe surprising Gavin Newsom, Steve Bannon common ground conversation.

Anyone listening who considers yourself in the Bannon wing of the MAGA movement and actually don't want to see this big tax cuts bill that'll be debated in Congress soon? Bannon is against some of that. Or don't approve of Elon Musk generally, as Bannon seems not to, or of one of the latest Trump moves. This is in the news today. It's going to fall by the wayside for most people's awareness because bigger things are happening. His weakening of the Federal Trade Commission. We'll talk a little bit about the implications of that.

Bannon also spoke on Newsom's podcast in defense of Lina Khan, the former Biden appointee FTC commissioner who has gone under Trump. 212-433-WNYC. A weird kind of strange bedfellows caller invitation. Lawyers at law firms on the Trump administration trying to cripple law firms that are adversarial to it from doing their work. Steve Bannon MAGA callers who may be different from Elon Musk's wing. 212-433-WNYC, 433-9692.

Now we can go back to ActBlue. Well, I'll let you just start talk about ActBlue, tell people a little bit more about what it is and how they're trying to cripple it.

Shane Goldmacher: Before I do, I want to just respond to something you were just saying, which is Trump is attacking and congressional Republicans, a bunch of these institutions and groups. The argument they have used broadly is that it was actually the Democrats that weaponized the Department of Justice against Donald Trump. You've heard this a lot when he was out of power and that he was being pursued for wrongdoing and that it was actually the Democrats that went after Republican groups.

The truth is that there's a little bit there. Donald Trump was obviously pursued for criminal behaviors and activities. It's true that Democrats did look at some Republican groups, but there was really nothing at the scale of what we're seeing right now. Of course, this fits in for years and years of Trump's approach, which is basically he accuses other people of doing exactly what he is doing. In the case of ActBlue, congressional Republicans had begun these investigations before Trump took power.

Again, ActBlue processes almost every major donation, small donations and big donations in the country for Democrats so it's a key piece of the infrastructure. Republicans are saying, "Hey, this website is full of corruption and illegality." There is yet to be particular evidence presented but they continue to ask for more information. Now, the congressional Republicans are saying actually the Trump administration, the FBI and the Treasury Department are going to be much more forthcoming with bank records and other things that they could potentially use to find evidence of what they're already saying exists, which is some type of wrongdoing.

Brian Lehrer: Of course, Democrats would say there were more investigations, and probably lawyers in the justice system at the federal or state or local level in various places would say there were more investigations and prosecutions of Trump because he did more things that were arguably illegal than past presidents. The one trial that actually wound up being held and went to a jury, Trump got convicted in New York of 34 counts.

You also note that the first Trump impeachment was over just this kind of thing, using the power of the president to pressure Ukraine to open an investigation of Joe Biden for political reasons, not for the pursuit of justice. Trump got away with that. Do you think that that in particular has emboldened the slash and burn approach to wielding partisan power through investigations this time around?

Shane Goldmacher: I think that's absolutely emboldened him. The other thing that I have been thinking about this week, and I covered the Trump campaign, and I was at his speech in early 2023 when he said he was going to be a vessel for retribution. I am your retribution. I watched and voters didn't react to that that much. I don't think that there was a backlash to Trump talking about retribution. I think that that has also emboldened him, which is that he has power now, and people didn't object to him saying he was going to be a vessel for retribution so now he is seeking retribution.

I do want to get in one small weed about ActBlue, but applies to other groups that the Trump administration is targeting, which is they are accusing them indirectly of being involved in terrorist activity or terrorism in some way, because money that has gone through this platform has gone to groups that they are again, accusing without particular evidence of terrorist activity.

That term is really, really important because there's legislation in Congress that would empower the treasury secretary to basically strip any nonprofit that they deem involved in terrorist activity of their nonprofit status. That is a term that has a lot of meaning in the world, but in the political space, it has a real potential implication to allow basically a Trump administration official, if this legislation passes, to freeze, pause, take away the status of any nonprofit on the left in the country if they make an accusation of ties to terrorism in some way.

Brian Lehrer: I'll give an example of this from your article, that's very salient. Again, as you point out, without evidence at this point. It's Elon Musk suggesting that ActBlue and this other Democratic fundraising-related group called Arabella were somehow related to protests and vandalism at Tesla and Tesla dealerships. He called the vandalism that has happened there terrorist activity. Again, this is without evidence at this point. You note that some Republican experts on left wing political financing are puzzled by Musk's claims.

What does he get if in fact he's making stuff up, which we don't know if he is, about these finance campaign groups, if it never gets anywhere in an actual investigation? Just getting the base that might not care about the evidence more riled up because we know that even lies get a lot of traction via social media among people who don't look into the claims and the lie, if it is a lie, sinks in as a political reality for a lot of people anyway. Is that the point?

Shane Goldmacher: I think that's some of the point but I do think that the idea is eventually, can you take an organization like ActBlue or some of the nonprofit groups that do voter registration or get out the voter education on policy issues that tend to be more progressive and basically prevent them from continuing to operate by invoking this word terrorism, if this legislation passes?

There are other things that they're doing along the way but I think that it's worth noting that litigation is expensive, is one of the legitimate complaints that Trump had when he was out of power, which is all of these lawsuits against him cost him a lot of money. It is a huge distraction for these groups to be under this big cloud and threat. I wrote with another colleague recently that ActBlue has had actually a number of senior level departures. They are having some of their own internal struggles that are separate from these outside threats.

It's at the point now where there are some Democrats saying maybe we need to start building some alternatives to these things. If Republicans actually take down these pieces of infrastructure, we cannot be left without other ways to process everybody's donations online as easily and as effectively?

Brian Lehrer: By the way, our lines are full. We'll get to some callers right here. On the vandalism at dealerships, have Democratic leaders made a show so far of saying to whoever the perpetrators are, "Hey, people, don't do this. We hate what Elon Musk is doing to our country as much as you do but they're the ones who engage in political violence, not our side. Or it's not supposed to be our side. It's only going to drive more Americans to support Trump and company so cut this out or don't ever do it in the name of progressivism." Are Democrats shouting back from the roof tops.

Shane Goldmacher: This is definitely something that is happening out there where the Democrats are saying, A; they're against vandalism of any kind and, B; there has been very little of this. This is largely being cooked up on the right in saying Elon Musk's companies have come under attack in protest but the linkages to Democratic groups is basically non existent at this point.

Brian Lehrer: Let's take a phone call. Here's Jonathan in Haworth, New Jersey. You're on WNYC. Hello, Jonathan.

Jonathan: Hi, Brian. Thanks for taking my call. I just want to let the guest know I'm a refugee from Big Law. I have worked with Williams & Connolly. I've worked with and against Perkins Coie. That's how they pronounce it, Coie, not Coy.

Brian Lehrer: Sorry, I said Coy.

Jonathan: No, no, no biggie. It's a weird pronunciation, and of course, Paul, Weiss and other big firms. I still have friends at Big Law. Mentioned earlier was the chilling effect that all of these steps are having on lawyers. When we grew up in law school, we learned the phrase chilling effect and we're really getting a strong sense of what that is right now. There is no doubt, lawyers are absolutely scared as to what the future holds and are really struggling to figure out what the best steps are to take.

I do see a certain level of trepidation bordering on cowardice that is really, really troubling. I just cannot emphasize how absolutely unprecedented this is. I'm in my early 60s, so I've practiced law for many decades. This is absolutely unprecedented. This is an attack on lawyers and as you said earlier, the adversarial legal system which forms one of the cornerstones of our democracy and it is absolutely akin to what the Nazis started to do in the very early '30s by dismantling what was at the time a very robust and widely respected legal system in Germany in between the wars.

Again, this is a five alarm fire and it's scary to see lawyers really not stepping up. I suppose they will eventually, but hopefully, it won't be too late.

Brian Lehrer: Jonathan, you mentioned that there are some ideas starting to percolate about how to fight back about this. Do you have any of those? Do you know any of those?

Jonathan: Well, again, and I've spoken to people who are at management level at Big Law and I wish that some managing partner or executive committee member could call a colleague at another firm and you don't have to put it in writing. You just have a conversation. You say, "Hey, where do you really, really think this attack on our profession is going to go?" Start to collaborate, start to build a general consented consensus. Lawyers are going to have to ally themselves if they want to protect their profession.

Bar associations are notoriously self-regulatory. In other words, the government does not regulate who can become a lawyer. Lawyers do that internally. That's a huge component. I have no doubt that the government and that the administration is going to start to stick its fingers into that process.

Brian Lehrer: Jonathan, thank you. I'm going to move on to some other callers, but thank you very much. Your perspective as what you call the refugee from Big Law for many decades, very informative for our listeners as just how somebody like you and then presumably a lot of people like you are thinking about this right now. Let's go from a lawyer to Benjamin in the Bronx who says he's a law professor. Benjamin, you're on WNYC. Thank you for calling in.

Benjamin: Thanks for taking my call, Brian.

Brian Lehrer: What would you like to add?

Benjamin: The question was raised, how does Trump's conduct go along with democracy? Is this democracy because he was elected and he's now exercising power? It doesn't go along with democracy, any conception of democracy I know, and it certainly doesn't go along with the conception of democracy that the framers of our constitution had.

When people talk about the rule of law, which gets tossed around a lot as a phrase, the one thing they mean above all, is that a arbitrary whim of a powerful person cannot be the source of what happens. It cannot be immediately exercised with power. There need to be constraints on that. The constraints are of two kinds. There are obviously lots of legal constraints written into the law and into the constitution but there's also an understanding that leaders need to respect the limits of power.

I also wanted to add that the two sides of your question, you also mentioned Steve Bannon and Lina Khan. In a sense, they go together because part of what Lina Khan is worried about and what Bannon agrees with and I have some agreement with, is too much concentration of power can create the same problem, a kind of imperiousness, whims of super powerful companies that do just whatever they want. That's what Trump is doing as president now and that's what Lina Khan and Bannon are worried about with too much concentration of power at Big Tech, for example.

Brian Lehrer: Benjamin, thank you very much for your call. Shane Goldmacher, before we take a break and come back and talk explicitly about that Steve Bannon, Gavin Newsom common ground on the item that the caller Benjamin just brought up and others, just curious where all this investigation of Democratic-related law firms and Democratic-related fundraising groups can go.

Maybe the question is besides the political hit that would come from whatever accusations Musk or Ted Cruz, who you cite in the article or anyone else lob out there, that may or may not be true, in terms of any action against them that's formal, that really stops them from doing their work with respect to the fundraising groups, who makes that judgment and who levels that consequence? Do we know?

Shane Goldmacher: Simultaneously that there's not one person or group but the threats are coming from a lot of different directions. It could come from the Treasury Department. It could come from the IRS. It could come from the FBI, which is being asked for information is run by a Trump loyalist who wrote a book of Trump's enemies list. It could come from congressional Republicans. The threats are really in a lot of different directions for some of these organizations.

Brian Lehrer: We'll continue in a minute and go to that Bannon-Newsom common ground and the implications for a whole bunch of things, and any of your calls on that. With Shane Goldmacher, political correspondent for The New York Times. Stay with us.

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Brian Lehrer on WNYC as we continue with Shane Goldmacher, national political correspondent for The New York Times. You had this article about California's Democratic governor, Gavin Newsom, among other things, someone who gets mentioned as a potential future presidential candidate for the Dems, inviting Steve Bannon on his podcast and finding some common ground over what?

Shane Goldmacher: Over a number of issues, actually. I think that Gavin Newsom's not the only one. The Democrats have been listening to Steve Bannon, who was a chief strategist and architect of Trump's first election and one of the leading voices on the far right for MAGA but Bannon is not fully aligned with Trump. He is against Elon Musk. Steve Bannon wants to tax the rich. He wants to go after corporations. He thinks that they have accumulated too much power. He has what he calls a populist, nationalist America first agenda.

While Newsom obviously disagrees with most of what Steve Bannon is talking about, they did find some common ground on these questions of populism and whether you can go after the corporations and go after the super wealthy and frankly tax them in order to solve some of those problems. Now, they don't agree on everything, and not even close, but actually, in a subsequent podcast Newsom did with Tim Walls, the nominee for vice president last year, Newsom was saying, "Look, Steve Bannon reminded him a little bit of his grandfather." An old guard look at the Democratic Party.

Now, the difference is what they would do after they taxed those corporations or after they raise taxes on the rich. Steve Bannon is in an entirely different view for what you would do with that money. Steve Bannon wants to pair that with deep cuts to programs like Social Security and Medicare to bring the budget into alignment and in his view, set America back on a better course financially. That is not at all what Newsom and most Democrats are talking about.

There's this really curious overlap and I think it gets to this question that Democrats are grappling with almost every day that I talk to them, which is how did Democrats lose working class voters last year? Some are looking toward what Bannon has talked about and saying maybe some of those ideas we need to get back and steal back from the Republican Party some of this populist approach that used to define Democrats.

Brian Lehrer: Two follow ups on that, Shane. One is do you see the Bannon wing of the MAGA movement as potentially allying with Democrats in any meaningful way to oppose the big tax cuts for wealthy individuals and corporations that Trump and the Republican Congress will try to extend and expand this year?

Shane Goldmacher: I think that they are going to make the intellectual argument against it, but I don't think when push comes to shove that they're going to object. Again, Steve Bannon was at the White House at the beginning of the first Trump term where they did major tax cuts that were tilted very heavily to the wealthiest companies and individuals. There's no sign that Trump is moving away from that at this point.

On the intellectual argument for what should Republicans stand for, there's a real debate between maybe this is an oversimplification between the Bannon wing of populists that are railing against corporations and this new rising high tech, wealthy billionaire class of Republicans, some of which are from Silicon Valley, that Musk is the front man for. There's a debate inside the Republican Party, but at the moment, Bannon seems to be outside the tent on that question.

Trump, if you have to look at how he has behaved, it has not been as aligned with what Steve Bannon is talking about. It's been much more aligned with the cutting taxes and cutting taxes for big businesses and cutting taxes for wealthy individuals.

Brian Lehrer: My other follow up to your first answer on this is why would a populist want to cut Social Security?

Shane Goldmacher: This is a really good question. I think that for Bannon, and I'm presenting his view, it's that unless America gets its fiscal house in order, unless we stop deficit spending, then we are on the wrong trajectory and the country will be weakened overall. Interestingly, Bannon basically grabs every third rail in American politics all at once. He's also advocating for deep cuts at the Defense Department. He thinks that nothing should be off the table and that everything needs to be slashed back and to create a smaller government.

At the same time, he doesn't want as much corporate power so it really is for him devolving power back down. That's his approach. It involves cutting basically things that the mainstream of the Republican Party valued, especially on defense spending, and certainly things that the mainstream of the Democratic Party has valued. Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid.

Brian Lehrer: Another area of common ground that you cite between Gavin Newsom and Steve Bannon on Newsom's podcast episode was over Lina Khan, who we mentioned, but let's go a little deeper here. Khan was Biden's chair of the Federal Trade Commission, who has now gone under Trump. A new headline just in the last day is that Trump fired two more Democratic appointees who were FTC commissioners who, as I understand it, are supposed to serve independent of presidential politics for their full terms.

Again, there's a breaking through, not just the norms, but the legality of what democracy is supposed to be right now. That's one issue but what's the line that Lina Khan supported, a policy line, and the Federal Trade Commission generally, where Newsom and Bannon might agree?

Shane Goldmacher: Lina Khan was a lightning rod even on the left. She took approach of deep skepticism of corporate consolidation and corporate power and frankly was vilified by many business leaders who wanted her out, including many prominent Democratic supporters of Kamala Harris. Yes, it was Trump who got rid of her as FTC chairman. Something Newsom pointed out to Bannon on their podcast, and Bannon had this retort was, "Well, I don't think Kamala Harris ever talked about Lina Khan either."

Newsom said, "Oh, I don't recall." He backed away from that. Lina Khan was the type of figure who made enemies in both political parties insofar as that she frustrated the part of the Democratic Party that is more closely allied with business and corporations, especially the tech sector. They were really frustrated with her. Wall street was frustrated. At the same time, she was held up high by Steve Bannon, but again, Trump got rid of her.

This is the same point as the taxes for the wealthy, which is Steve Bannon is making sort of a point. He's trying to direct where the MAGA movement goes but Donald Trump is not allied with him on these things. It's Donald Trump who got rid of Lina Khan. It's Joe Biden who appointed her. It's Donald Trump who is likely to cut taxes further for the wealthiest Americans, even if Steve Bannon says he doesn't think it's a good idea.

Brian Lehrer: How about the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in this regard? On that Newsom podcast, Bannon used derogatory language about Senator Elizabeth Warren, who led the CFPB into existence. Why would the MAGA movement, if it's a populist movement, want to empower banks over their depositors or borrowers or credit card holders?

Shane Goldmacher: That's a great question. I think it's the same thing where Bannon is coming in at one place from an intellectual argument. Look, for listeners who don't know, the Consumer Bureau was created by Elizabeth Warren as an advocacy unit inside the government for regular people. They uncovered billions of dollars of what they said was money basically being taken out of the pockets of consumers. The Biden administration put in limits on some of the fees that banks could charge. The Trump administration quickly rolled back all of these things.

The critique of Steve Bannon for many on the left is sure, he talks a big game about populism and representing what regular people want, but the reality of what Trump has done since he's come in has not been allied with some of the populist plans that Bannon has espoused, especially when they come in conflict with big banks, big business, Silicon Valley, the crypto industry. A lot of these things Trump has immediately leaned on the side of the big corporations.

Brian Lehrer: I see a little conversation about Social Security's financial status has broken out in our text thread. One listener writes, "Someone please say publicly that Social Security collected three trillion more than it cost to run the program from '83 to 2010." I don't know if those numbers are exactly right but they're making the point that Social Security can be solvent. Somebody else writes, "Tax corporations and we will get out of our deficit."

That's something to talk about in more depth in a future segment. Obviously, we've talked about Social Security before. We will talk about it again. Let's take one more caller before we end this segment. Scott in the Bronx, who I think wants to come back to the basic question of is this what democracy looks like with the way some of these things are coming down right now? Maybe we've lost Scott with that beeping on the line. Scott in the Bronx, are you there? I guess not.

We'll end here with Shane Goldmacher, New York Times national political correspondent, except with the time I was going to give Scott, I'll ask you this one little tag question about Steve Bannon versus Elon Musk. Bannon called Musk on Newsom's podcast a parasitic illegal immigrant. What's the ultimate source of the animus there? Was Elon Musk ever undocumented?

Shane Goldmacher: The story of Musk is one that I'm not an expert on, but he certainly is an immigrant. He came here and there's some argument that he overstayed his status before getting legal residency. The animus is that Steve Bannon wants to punish some of the powerful. He calls them techno feudalists, the powerful tech industry leaders that he thinks are leading the country in the wrong direction. I really would center on who really has the power here.

One of these two men is a temporary employee at the White House who is exerting broad powers across the federal government and it's not Steve Bannon. It's Elon Musk. If you're thinking about who really has the authority and the closeness to Donald Trump in this relationship now, it's Musk who's seeing him almost every day. It's Musk who spent $280 million of his own money that we know of that was disclosed through super PACs backing Donald Trump last year.

If you want a sense of where is the ascendant part of the MAGA movement, I would look at to say who's actually at the White House, who's implementing policy, and who's having a podcast with Gavin Newsom making his point to the governor of the biggest Democratic state in the country instead.

Brian Lehrer: To the first part of our conversation about trying to intimidate law firms from doing their job if they represent clients that are adversarial to the Trump administration, here's another New York Times article, article by some of your colleagues that just popped up on my phone headline, Judges Fear for Their safety. Judges are worried that online threats against those who oversee cases challenging Trump administration policies may lead to violence. We leave it there with Shane Goldmacher, national political correspondent for The New York Times. Shane, thank you very much.

Shane Goldmacher: Thanks for having me on.

 

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