Oops!: Trump's first 100 days marked by incompetent screw-ups and frantic walk backs

Speaker 1 This episode is presented by Planned Parenthood Federation of America. This year, lawmakers have attacked our rights, stretched the truth, and taken away access to health care.

Speaker 1 Through it all, Planned Parenthood has been on the front lines, providing care, defending patients, fighting back.

Speaker 1 But the Trump administration and Congress passed a law to defund Planned Parenthood, putting care for 1.1 million patients at risk. Planned Parenthood isn't backing down.

Speaker 1 They're still here, protecting access to birth control, cancer screenings, abortion, and more. Visit plannedparenthood.org/slash defend and donate today.

Speaker 4 Now's the time to start your next adventure behind the wheel of an exciting new Toyota hybrid.

Speaker 5 With the largest lineup of hybrid, plug-in hybrid, and electrified vehicles to choose from, Toyota has the one for you.

Speaker 8 Every new Toyota hybrid comes with Toyota Care, two-year complementary scheduled maintenance, an exclusive hybrid battery warranty, and Toyota's legendary quality and reliability.

Speaker 10 Visit your local Toyota dealer today.

Speaker 11 Toyota, let's go places. See your local Toyota dealer for hybrid battery warranty details.

Speaker 12 Very happy to have you here. The capital of Vermont is the beautiful city of Montpelier.
This was yesterday at the state capitol in Montpelier.

Speaker 12 Protesters outside rallying on the steps of the state capitol. They also marched outside.

Speaker 12 They ended up protesting inside, including with some state legislators among them, all to show support for Mohsen Madawi, a Vermonter and one of the international students, also a legal permanent resident, who Donald Trump has arrested, even though he's not accused of any crime.

Speaker 12 This was yesterday at the state capitol in Montpelier. This was early this morning in Burlington, Vermont.

Speaker 12 People turning out about an hour away from Montpelier, in Burlington, because Burlington is where the federal courthouse is.

Speaker 12 And they turned out there early this morning after rallying at the state house yesterday. They turned out there early this morning while a federal judge held a hearing on Mr.
Madawi's case.

Speaker 12 And at that hearing, the judge ruled that Mohsen Madawi cannot be moved out of Vermont.

Speaker 12 The Trump administration cannot move him to some immigration prison in Louisiana or somewhere else all the way across the country. The judge says he needs to stay where he is.

Speaker 12 His lawyers say they are going to be back before this same judge next week, and they will be seeking Mr. Madawi's immediate release.

Speaker 12 Today, two of the law firms that are fighting in court against Trump's efforts to target them had federal court hearings.

Speaker 12 The judges in both of those hearings appeared to favor the arguments from the law firms against the Trump administration, as they have in every hearing thus far involving these cases.

Speaker 12 But I will tell you, there was a little bit of a logistical complication in trying to get that reporting from those two court hearings today, because in both of those court hearings today, the courtrooms were packed to the rafters, every seat full and then some, which made it hard for some reporters to get in.

Speaker 12 Stakes are very high. People want to be there to witness it.
People are showing up.

Speaker 12 Last night, as the car company Tesla held its earnings call to discuss that company's catastrophic decline in fortune this year, folks in Seattle held a party at a local bar to listen to the sound of the call and to cheer their guts out when Elon Musk announced that he would be scaling back his time in Washington to instead try to salvage his flailing company.

Speaker 12 People all over the country, including in Seattle, have made this strategic decision to protest Tesla, to protest Elon Musk's role in the destruction of the federal government by focusing on that company, which of course is the source of his wealth and therefore his power.

Speaker 12 The company's nosedive, which was announced and conceded formally by the company in that call last night, the company nosediving has been the whole point of those protests,

Speaker 12 which have succeeded in their aim.

Speaker 12 And the damage to Tesla may very well be irrevocable, but so is much of the the damage that Elon Musk and Donald Trump have done together in Washington.

Speaker 12 The only thing successful here is the Focus on Tesla strategy, which has apparently succeeded in pushing Elon Musk out of the bizarre, unprecedented, unelected government role he took in Washington after paying for Donald Trump's presidential campaign.

Speaker 12 It worked.

Speaker 12 Pushback doesn't always work, but not pushing back never works.

Speaker 12 And sometimes when you do push back,

Speaker 12 you win.

Speaker 12 So this is my last week of doing this show five nights a week. I said around inauguration time that I would be here for the first hundred days of Trump's term in office.

Speaker 12 That hundred days is up a week from tonight. And so a week from tonight will be my last night of this five-day a week thing.
I will stop doing five nights a week next week.

Speaker 12 I will go back to just doing Mondays. I'm not going away.
I'm going to be here every Monday. And the great Jensaki is going to be here at nine o'clock Eastern time, Tuesday to Friday.

Speaker 12 You're going to love it. Don't worry.
It's all going to be fine.

Speaker 12 But as we get to this benchmark, which is going to be a transition for me,

Speaker 12 I've been thinking about what we've been through this past 90 plus days as we're heading toward the 100-day benchmark. And I realized that

Speaker 12 at least the way that I have come to understand what we're going through,

Speaker 12 it's got kind of,

Speaker 12 I guess it's got like three sides to it.

Speaker 12 I mean, yes,

Speaker 12 this is a story of Trump's extremism, right? We really are, without a doubt, going through a kind of attempted authoritarian takeover of our country.

Speaker 12 And that has included destroying as much of the government as possible and using the government in every way they can to try to hurt people in the country who the president wants targeted.

Speaker 12 They are having government attempted takeovers of huge swaths of civil society, including the legal profession and education and even like museums. They are banning books.

Speaker 12 They are policing what words people are allowed to use in bizarre and authoritarian ways.

Speaker 12 They are using terror tactics and secret police tactics against people they are targeting, including secret detention and sending people to foreign gulags.

Speaker 12 They are reversing our alliances with the countries of the free world and aligning us with the dictatorships instead. They have freaking redecorated the White House with cheesy-looking gold Gugaws.

Speaker 12 So it looks like a cheap budget hotel version of the Kremlin. I mean, like,

Speaker 12 we are there. The authoritarian project is definitely here.
It is what we are up against. Everybody who warned against that before the election was correct, no question.
That's part of it. Right.

Speaker 12 The second part of what we're going through is the country loudly and roundly saying no to that.

Speaker 12 People protesting against him in every single state in the country, in blue states, in red states, in big cities, in small towns, in Washington, and everywhere else. I mean, every single freaking day.

Speaker 12 This was yesterday in Detroit and yesterday in San Diego. People protesting saying, hands off the EPA.
This was Tyler, Texas yesterday.

Speaker 12 People absolutely reaming out their Republican Congressman Nathaniel Moran at a town hall in his district in Tyler, Texas. This was North Carolina earlier this week.

Speaker 12 People in Republican Congressman Ted Budd's district holding an empty chair town hall there for him, to which he refused to show up. They packed the house anyway without him.

Speaker 12 This is Pomona, California yesterday. People turned out to protest at a Home Depot parking lot

Speaker 12 after Trump's immigration agents came there earlier that day and arrested people from that parking lot. Community turned out in response.

Speaker 12 This was 40 minutes away in Anaheim, outside the offices of Republican Congressman Young Kim.

Speaker 12 People protesting against the Trump Cades to Medicaid, which will be absolutely devastating in Kim's district and in most places around the country. And everywhere.

Speaker 12 This just, you know, like snapshot headlines today, everywhere, every state, people turning out and saying no every way they can.

Speaker 12 That has been part of the story too, and one that we've tried to keep in focus here on this show.

Speaker 12 But I said there's kind of, I think, three parts to this story.

Speaker 12 It's Trump's extremism, people saying no. But there then is this third thing, which has been the undercurrent to all of it.

Speaker 12 And to me, I think it is the real lesson of the first 100 days. I mean, I know the first 100 days is like an artificial benchmark, but it's a benchmark that we are using.

Speaker 12 And if there is something to learn about what Trump in power is going to be like, I think the first 100 days have given us one very clear lesson, right?

Speaker 12 We know he's trying for the whole dictator thing, you know. No elections, no courts, no resistance, ruled by terror, right? We know that.
We know the people of this country aren't having it.

Speaker 12 But I think what we should also know, what we have just lived through in this first 90 plus days thus far,

Speaker 12 is him screwing up.

Speaker 12 It's him absolutely blowing it. I mean, it is one thing to understand the gravity of his intentions, but I think it is equally important to recognize that he's really bad at everything he tries to do.

Speaker 12 I don't know if he's bad at good stuff he tries to do because he's not trying to do much that seems good. But the bad stuff he's trying to do, he's been real bad at that.

Speaker 12 I mean, it hasn't been funny exactly. It's too disgusting for that, but it has been the proverbial comedy of errors.
Let me show you what I mean.

Speaker 12 You remember the first big surprise destroy the government thing that he did right after the inauguration?

Speaker 12 He sent out a White House memo ordering the freezing of all federal funding, all federal grants.

Speaker 12 And then less than 48 hours. Oops, had to take that back.
Headline, Trump White House rescinds memo freezing federal grants after widespread confusion and legal challenges.

Speaker 12 Quote, President Donald Trump's budget office on Wednesday rescinded a memo freezing spending on federal grants less than two days after it sparked widespread confusion and legal challenges across the country.

Speaker 12 The Monday evening memo from the White House Office of Management and Budget sparked uncertainty and left the White House scrambling to explain what would and wouldn't be subject to a pause in funding.

Speaker 12 So it was kind of the first big thing he did, and then they immediately had to take that back.

Speaker 12 Did we say freeze federal funding? We didn't.

Speaker 12 We're just going to, that's rescinded. We'll try that again.

Speaker 12 Right out of the gate. And then right on the heels of that, you remember this one when they accidentally put somebody in charge of the FBI who they didn't mean to?

Speaker 12 Quote, White House officials goofed. on the White House website.
You don't see the word goofed in the Wall Street Journal all that often.

Speaker 12 White House officials goofed on the White House website and listed the wrong man in charge of the FBI, people familiar with the matter said.

Speaker 12 Instead of correcting the error, White House officials let it stand. And the two men traded temporary titles at the FBI.

Speaker 12 So they, oops, accidentally put the wrong person as the acting head of the FBI, mixed up the names. We didn't mean to put you in there.
Oh,

Speaker 10 oh, well, who cares?

Speaker 12 We'll just let the other guy we didn't mean to put in charge of the FBI be in charge of the FBI. What could possibly go wrong?

Speaker 12 Immediately after that, oops, turns out they accidentally put the names of hundreds of CIA officers in an unclassified email

Speaker 12 and sent it to the White House, where things like that just kind of happen now.

Speaker 12 That same day, we learned that Trump has accidentally made it impossible for the Postal Service to accept mail from China. Oops.
Trump made an announcement about shipping things from China.

Speaker 12 He had no idea, apparently, what the implications of that announcement would be.

Speaker 12 Then the Post Office announced, based on what you said, sir, this this means America can no longer receive mail from China.

Speaker 12 And, well, I'm not exactly sure what he did mean, but that wasn't what he meant. So, oops, that had to be reversed, too.

Speaker 12 By then, the president's top campaign donor was working his bizarre magic in Washington.

Speaker 12 So we got the accidental firing of the National Nuclear Security Agency, which handles the safe transportation, storage, assembly, and dismantling of our nation's nuclear weapons. Oops.
Oops.

Speaker 12 We didn't mean to do that. Oops.

Speaker 12 Trump administration fires and then tries to rehire nuclear weapons workers in Doge reversal.

Speaker 12 Then this was the very next day. Headline, New York Times, Doge claimed it saved $8 billion in one contract.
It was actually $8 million.

Speaker 12 So that's cool. They were off by roughly 100,000 percent.

Speaker 12 But, you know, don't forget, these are the smart guy, the smart guys, smart smart kids.

Speaker 12 Next day, headline, agriculture department tries to rehire fired workers tied to bird flu response. Oops, we accidentally fired all the bird flu people in the middle of the bird flu.

Speaker 12 Oops, can we get them back?

Speaker 12 No? No, we can't. That same day.

Speaker 12 Headline, Trump administration reverses plan to end free COVID test program. The taxpayers bought all these COVID tests, perfectly good COVID tests.
They're still COVID.

Speaker 12 People are still testing for COVID to see if they have COVID. But because the Trump administration doesn't like COVID, they're going to what?

Speaker 12 Incinerate millions of tests, of perfectly good tests, so Americans instead have to buy more of them

Speaker 12 by paying for themselves instead of getting the free ones the government already bought to hand out? Seriously? No, not seriously. Reverse that one too.

Speaker 12 This was also that same day. This is a big day in Oopsville.
Headline, Trump administration reverses its previous decision and reinstates legal aid for migrant children.

Speaker 12 Yeah, turns out babies don't make great lawyers.

Speaker 12 Doesn't work out great to have literally babies and toddlers appearing in court alone with a judge like asking them questions. I said, all rise, baby.

Speaker 12 Are you able to stand on your own? Oh, actually, sorry. Yeah, they reversed that too.

Speaker 12 They have since tried again to take away the lawyers for babies and little kids in court after this initial reversal. So this one actually remains a live issue.
I don't know if that's better.

Speaker 12 Two days later, oops, we accidentally cut the program that helps the 9-11 first responders. Did we mean to do that?

Speaker 12 I think we did mean to do that, but we certainly can't defend it now that people are asking us to defend it. So that one gets reversed too.

Speaker 12 Then Trump's top campaign donor, Elon Musk, tries on the federal government the same thing he did to destroy the company Twitter.

Speaker 12 He sends out the what did you do last week email insisting that anybody who doesn't immediately respond to that email will instantly be fired from the federal government, no exceptions.

Speaker 12 Really?

Speaker 12 Seriously? No, not really and definitely not seriously. Headline, federal agencies can ignore what did you do last week email, Trump administration says.

Speaker 12 then this is the following day.

Speaker 12 We get news from the VA where Trump has cut things like, oh, I don't know, little liberal woke programs like cancer treatment and support for veterans with cancer and burial services for veterans.

Speaker 12 Trump cut burial services for veterans? Really? Yeah, for a hot minute until people freaked out. And so, yeah, he reversed that too.

Speaker 12 I mean, are you kidding me? He was not kidding.

Speaker 12 Next, headline. VA contract cancellations halted in major reversal.

Speaker 12 Maybe at this point, they're getting a little shy about screwing up so much, about having to take back and try to undo all these things that they're messing up. No, they're just getting warmed up.

Speaker 12 The very next day, after taking back the veterans' burials that Trump cut, we got this headline. Elon Musk admits Doge accidentally eliminated prevention measures combating Ebola virus.

Speaker 12 Oops.

Speaker 12 The next day, headline, Trump administration reverses course after putting veterans crisis line hires on hold.

Speaker 12 Quote, due to an administrative error, job offers for some

Speaker 12 veterans crisis line positions that were scheduled to be filled later this month were mistakenly rescinded. This issue has been addressed and VA is in the process of reissuing these offers.

Speaker 12 Due to an administrative error, what kind of administrative error has you accidentally cutting the suicide hotline?

Speaker 12 That same week, headline, struggling with errors, Doge deletes billions more from list of savings.

Speaker 12 Quote, Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency has deleted hundreds more claims from its mistake-plagued wall of receipts.

Speaker 12 Late Sunday night, the group erased or altered more than a thousand contracts it had claimed to cancel, representing more than 40% of all the contracts listed on its site last week.

Speaker 12 Then this was the next day. Headline, Trump abruptly walks back his directive to fire thousands of federal employees.

Speaker 12 Quote, in revised guidance issued to the heads of federal agencies, the Office of Personnel Management tries to rewrite history by claiming it never actually ordered agencies to fire those employees.

Speaker 12 Let's pretend we didn't do that one.

Speaker 12 And then this was the next day. Oh, this was a great one.

Speaker 12 Quote, at 2 p.m.

Speaker 12 Tuesday, the Trump administration posted a list of 443 properties for sale, an inventory that ranged from an El Paso toll booth to the FDA's research campus in Silver Spring, Maryland.

Speaker 12 In the next five hours, more than 100 properties were removed from the catalog, including the headquarters of the U.S.

Speaker 12 Department of Agriculture, the headquarters of the Department of Health and Human Services, the headquarters of the Department of Justice, the headquarters of the Department of Labor, and the headquarters of Veterans Affairs.

Speaker 12 By Wednesday morning, the entire list had been removed.

Speaker 12 So yes, Trump did announce that he was selling hundreds of federal buildings, including, I don't know, the headquarters of the Justice Department. But did he mean that? We're not even sure if we know.

Speaker 12 Oops. They just put them all up for sale and then took them all down and didn't answer any questions about what had happened there.
Pretend that didn't happen.

Speaker 12 Then this was the

Speaker 12 very next day. Headline.
In dizzying reversal, Trump pauses tariffs on some Mexican Mexican and Canadian products.

Speaker 12 A few days later, headline, Trump administration scraps far-reaching cuts to social security phone services. After Washington Post report

Speaker 12 This was genius. Quote, the social security number, this is amazing.

Speaker 12 The social security numbers and other private information of more than 400 former congressional staffers and others, including President Trump's own lawyer,

Speaker 12 were made public Tuesday in the unredacted files related to to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy that President Trump ordered released.

Speaker 12 After the Post reported the disclosure on Wednesday, the White House rushed to mitigate the impact.

Speaker 12 The National Archives then started screening the documents for Social Security numbers after they had already been publicly released.

Speaker 12 National Archives started screening the documents for Social Security numbers after the fact so that the Social Security Administration could identify living individuals and issue them new social security numbers.

Speaker 12 Oops.

Speaker 12 Oops. We accidentally, very thoroughly doxxed hundreds of people,

Speaker 12 including the president's own lawyer, publishing like their names, their place of birth, their full birth dates, and their full unredacted social security numbers, hundreds of them.

Speaker 12 Oops. Then the following week, we get, oh, this is a real oops.
Jeffrey Goldberg, editor of The Atlantic magazine, headline, the Trump administration accidentally texted me its war plans.

Speaker 12 Then this one, headline, Trump administration admits Maryland man sent to El Salvador prison by mistake.

Speaker 12 Two days later, headline, Trump's tariffs hit remote islands. One is home to mainly penguins.

Speaker 12 The next day, headline, we'll make mistakes, says RFK Jr., as fired U.S. health staff asked to return.

Speaker 12 Three days later, headline, economists reveal major math blunder in Donald Trump's tariff formula, which inflates the impact by 400% and could spark global trade chaos.

Speaker 12 The next day, headline, National Park Service restores Underground Railroad web page. Oops.

Speaker 12 Oops.

Speaker 12 Had we messed that up?

Speaker 12 Will you guys please pretend that that was a mistake and not something we totally did on purpose, but then we couldn't defend it once we did it, and so we just quietly undid it while hoping you wouldn't notice?

Speaker 12 Can we leave it like that?

Speaker 12 Same day, headline, Doge cuts at a Florida manatee refuge have been reversed. Same day, headline, Trump administration says it cut funding to some life-saving UN food programs by mistake.

Speaker 12 Oops. The next day, headline, Trump announces sudden reversal on tariffs.

Speaker 12 This past Friday night, New York Times headline, Trump officials blame mistake

Speaker 12 for setting off confrontation with Harvard. Quote, the April 11th letter from the White House to Harvard should not have been sent and was, quote, unauthorized.

Speaker 12 And it hasn't even slowed down. I mean, just this week, headline, Trump administration reverses course, restores funding for critical weather data centers.

Speaker 12 Headline, Elon Musk's hand-picked IRS chief lasts just 72 hours.

Speaker 12 The story of this first hundred days of Donald Trump's presidency

Speaker 12 is sometimes a very scary movie because of what he really does seem to be trying to do and what he has already done to some people and some parts of our government and some elements of our country.

Speaker 12 Sometimes it is a very scary movie.

Speaker 12 It is sometimes also an action movie with people all over the country springing into action and standing up to stop him from doing those things as best they can.

Speaker 12 But the one thing it has consistently also been from the moment he got back to Washington is an unfunny farce, a slapstick mess of reversals and mistakes and oops, let's pretend we didn't do that and let's try to undo it and let's hope no one notices just how dumb it was when we really did do it and we can't even really defend it.

Speaker 12 So

Speaker 12 oops. I mean, the one word that most sums up Donald Trump's term in office thus far, heading to 100 days in, the one word that best sums it up is, oops.

Speaker 12 Just because they're trying to do really, really bad things doesn't change the fact that they're also just really bad at everything they try to do.

Speaker 12 Which for this country is

Speaker 12 definitely a curse, but also in some ways a blessing.

Speaker 12 We're heading towards 100 days. There's going to be a lot of like look backs at what Trump has done.

Speaker 12 Whatever you hear, what anybody says, don't let anybody tell you this time around that they are competent.

Speaker 1 This episode is presented by Planned Parenthood Federation of America. This year, lawmakers have attacked our rights, stretched the truth, and taken away access to health care.

Speaker 1 Through it all, Planned Parenthood has been on the front lines, providing care, defending patients, fighting back.

Speaker 1 But the Trump administration and Congress passed a law to defund Planned Parenthood, putting care for 1.1 million patients at risk. Planned Parenthood isn't backing down.

Speaker 1 They're still here, protecting access to birth control, cancer screenings, abortion, and more. Visit plannedparenthood.org slash defend and donate today.

Speaker 13 This message comes from the International Rescue Committee. Co-founded with help from Albert Einstein, the IRC has been providing humanitarian aid for more than 90 years.

Speaker 13 The IRC helps refugees whose lives are disrupted by conflict and disaster, supporting recovery efforts in places like Gaza and Ukraine, and responding within 72 hours of crisis.

Speaker 13 Donate today by visiting rescue.org rebuild.

Speaker 4 Now's the time to start your next adventure behind the wheel of an exciting new Toyota hybrid.

Speaker 5 With the largest lineup of hybrid, plug-in hybrid, and electrified vehicles to choose from, Toyota has the one for you.

Speaker 3 Every new Toyota hybrid comes with Toyota Care, two-year complementary scheduled maintenance, an exclusive hybrid battery warranty, and Toyota's legendary quality and reliability.

Speaker 10 Visit your local Toyota dealer today, Toyota.

Speaker 11 Let's go places. See your local Toyota dealer for hybrid battery warranty details.

Speaker 12 There were peace talks for Russia's war in Ukraine today, peace talks in London, but they were thrown into disarray by us, by our government, when the American Secretary of State pulled out of these talks at the last minute, just hours after Trump's State Department said that Marco Rubio would be there for the talks,

Speaker 12 Secretary Rubio canceled.

Speaker 12 Then, Vice President J.D. Vance announced his own version of a supposed peace plan for Ukraine.
The J.D.

Speaker 12 Vance peace plan for Ukraine appears to consist entirely of Russia getting everything it wants, including all the Ukrainian territory it has invaded and occupied by force in this war.

Speaker 12 When Ukraine's president said in response, you know, that might not work for us, Donald Trump went on a rant against Ukraine's president online.

Speaker 12 Today's London talks were supposed to be attended not just by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, but also by the other actor who plays the role of Secretary of State for some reason in this administration.

Speaker 12 That would, of course, be Trump's real estate friend, Steve Witkoff, seen here bumbling through a meeting in Paris last week.

Speaker 12 Seriously, at this meeting, telling French officials how much their country's 18th century presidential palace looks just like Donald Trump's house in Florida.

Speaker 12 They literally laughed in his face. Even some of the people on his own side of the table laughed in his face.
Mr. Witkoff did not laugh.

Speaker 12 He did not appear to get the joke, nor did he appear to get the fact that he was it.

Speaker 12 But nevertheless,

Speaker 12 Mr. Witkoff was supposed to be there at those London talks today along with Marco Rubio.
When Marco Rubio pulled out, Steve Witkoff also pulled out. Where is Steve Witkopf today instead?

Speaker 12 He is getting ready once again to fly to Moscow for yet another personal man-to-man meeting with Vladimir Putin. This will be Steve Witkoff's fourth,

Speaker 12 fourth in-person visit with Vladimir Putin in Russia.

Speaker 12 Why would any individual real estate friend of the U.S. president need to have four hours-long, lengthy solo meetings in Russia with Vladimir Putin? That remains unexplained.

Speaker 12 President Biden's national security advisor, Jake Sullivan, in one of his first interviews since President Biden left office, says that from a national security perspective, in his estimation, Trump's first hundred days in office have been a, quote, unadulterated disaster.

Speaker 12 He says, quote, President Trump and his team have gone at the core American advantages in the world and systematically tried to dismantle them.

Speaker 12 Across all of the major dimensions of the things that have been America's major advantages in less than 100 days, President Trump has put them all at risk.

Speaker 12 He says, quote, this is about the core foundations of American power and purpose in the world. And President Trump's effort, essentially, to knock them out.

Speaker 12 Joining us now is Jake Sullivan, former National Security Advisor to President Biden. Mr.
Sullivan, I really appreciate you being here.

Speaker 12 I know you haven't done many interviews, and I really appreciate you being here tonight for this one.

Speaker 14 Well, thanks a lot for having me, Rachel.

Speaker 12 I'm struck by the

Speaker 12 stark nature of what you said when you say that President Trump is dismantling America's core advantages in the world,

Speaker 12 the things that have been our major advantages, the things that make us the power that we are. You describe him as systematically dismantling those things.
What are those advantages, and

Speaker 12 do you see his work against them as being irrevocable?

Speaker 14 Well, Rachel, I wouldn't say this. I'm not a person who usually speaks in hyperbole.
I say it because I genuinely believe it. You ask, what are those advantages?

Speaker 14 And there are a few. It begins with America's unique system of alliances.
No other power in the world has the strong, capable allies the United States has enjoyed for decades.

Speaker 14 And Donald Trump is intent on busting up those alliances. It's our unique capacity to attract talent from around the world.
We can count on the talent of 7 billion people.

Speaker 14 China can only count on the talent of 1 billion people.

Speaker 14 But Donald Trump is casting doubt on whether we will be a welcoming place for students and researchers and people who want to come here to start companies.

Speaker 14 It's about a unique system of scientific research and innovation where the government, the private sector, and yes, research universities all come together to invent some of the most groundbreaking things of the past century.

Speaker 14 And yet he's going after basic research funding at NIH, and he's going after major universities. And finally, it's about our unique capital markets and our currency.

Speaker 14 And you saw when he did his quote-unquote liberation day that the world started to question whether America could really be relied upon for its capital markets and for the dollar.

Speaker 14 And underpinning all of that, of course, is our unique constitutional system underpinned by the rule of law, which as you have quite articulately said, he's put under threat in various ways.

Speaker 14 These are the things that are distinctively American, and in less than 100 days, President Trump has gone after all of them.

Speaker 14 I don't believe anything is ever irrevocable because I believe in the capacity of the American people to reinvent and regenerate.

Speaker 14 But the damage he has done so far is significant, and it appears that there's probably more to come.

Speaker 12 If we lose those advantages, which you just, I think, very eloquently

Speaker 12 and succinctly described. If you take those things away from America, what kind of country are we? Is there another country in the world that has

Speaker 12 any of the other characteristics that we have as a country, but not those advantages? Is there a country in the world that you think Trump is modeling us on or trying to make us more like?

Speaker 14 Well, I mean, it certainly is taking us in the direction of a more authoritarian, more normal, more brutal great power.

Speaker 14 And that starts to look more like a China or a Russia.

Speaker 14 I mean, if you're sitting sitting in Beijing right now and you're looking at what's happening in the United States, you're saying, huh, we've spent a long time worried about these areas where the United States had a distinct advantage over us.

Speaker 14 We don't have the allies the U.S. had.
Now it appears the American president's handing them away. We can't attract talent the way the United States does.

Speaker 14 Now France is going out and saying, hey, come to France because you're scared to go to the United States.

Speaker 14 We don't have that uniquely American innovation ecosystem, and yet the President of the United States is going at the basic research foundations and the institutions of higher learning that have set America apart.

Speaker 14 Amazing. So there is a kind of remarkable way in which our competitors and adversaries have got to be looking at this and saying, what the heck is going on? And we can't believe our luck.

Speaker 12 When it comes to the conflict in Ukraine, Marco Rubio pulling out of these London talks, President Trump once again attacking Ukraine's president, J.D.

Speaker 12 Vance essentially presenting the Kremlin's dream of

Speaker 12 how this war would resolve as America's idea, or at least his idea about what should happen here.

Speaker 12 I mean, part of what you described in terms of not just America's adversaries, but America's competitors stepping up and taking up some of the space that we used to take up.

Speaker 12 I wonder if you think that the Europeans and Ukraine's other allies essentially can band together in a strong enough way to supplant the role that we've had.

Speaker 12 If we're effectively siding with Russia, we're not just getting out of this, we appear to be very much siding with Putin's side, Putin's take in this war.

Speaker 12 Do you think that Ukraine and its allies will be strong enough to take up that space

Speaker 12 where we used to be?

Speaker 14 It's a great question. Let me start by saying that it's really difficult.
to bring about a just and durable peace in Ukraine, and I will be the first to acknowledge that.

Speaker 14 But what is amazing to me, and you kind of pointed this out in your opening comments, is the way that the United States has approached this negotiation is to give Russia formal recognition of Crimea, which is sovereign Ukrainian territory, formal recognition of it as a Russian territory.

Speaker 14 Something, by the way, Rachel, China hasn't even done. China doesn't recognize Crimea as part of Russia.
And now Donald Trump is saying he's prepared to do that.

Speaker 14 To give Russia all of the territory they've illegally invaded and conquered, and to give Russia a promise that Ukraine will never be a part of NATO, and to get what exactly in return?

Speaker 14 Apparently nothing, nothing. I mean, that is not a credible way to go about a negotiation.
This is effectively diplomacy by means of full pressure on Ukraine and a series of giveaways to Russia.

Speaker 14 And down that path does not lie a just and sustainable peace. I do believe the Europeans have had a rude wake-up call, and they are going to express themselves.

Speaker 14 And Ukraine, of course, will express itself too.

Speaker 14 But the United States of America has a unique role to play here, and I do hope that before it's too late, this administration changes course in the way that it's approaching these negotiations.

Speaker 14 But there's no evidence to suggest that they're going to do so.

Speaker 12 Jake Sullivan, former National Security Advisor to President Biden. I mentioned at the top that you haven't done very many interviews.

Speaker 12 I know you spoke with the good folks at the Midas Touch, and you're here tonight. I would just suggest you've had such a long career in public service.

Speaker 12 Right now is the time that I think we need to hear more from you. I hope that you'll speak more with the media and do more interviews, make yourself publicly available.

Speaker 12 I think the country can really benefit from hearing more from you at this time, particularly when things are so chaotic in the international front. It's a real pleasure to have you here, sir.

Speaker 14 Thank you so much for having me, and thank you for all that you do.

Speaker 12 All right, thanks. Stay with us.

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Speaker 16 Extra value meals are back. That means 10 tender juicy McNuggets and medium fries and a drink are just $8.

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Speaker 12 For limited time only, prices and participation may vary.

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Speaker 12 This is something that we showed you a couple of weeks ago on this show. I have not forgot it since we showed it to you.
It's just one of these things that really stuck with me.

Speaker 12 And actually, actually we've heard from a lot of you at home that you have not been able to forget it either.

Speaker 12 People reference this little local news clip that we played all the time when people get in touch with the show.

Speaker 12 I'll show it to you here again. It's a short piece of tape.
This is local news coverage from Tennessee from WSMV in Nashville.

Speaker 18 In the back of the room, there was Lynn McFarlane sitting in wooden budge and standing a few feet away. I heard her say to troopers that she didn't mind being arrested.
She said, I'm okay with that.

Speaker 10 I I can't go.

Speaker 18 I fought for kids and what they're doing here is wrong, so I'm at peace with it.

Speaker 12 Tennessee state troopers hauling away 80-year-old Lynn McFarland, 80 years old and made of sheer determination.

Speaker 12 After she refused to leave a state Senate hearing room earlier this month, they picked her up. They carried her out.
They arrested her. It's very hard to forget once you've seen it.

Speaker 12 We covered it on the show at the time. What Ms.
McFarland was protesting was a Republican bill in Tennessee that would target immigrant kids in Tennessee elementary schools.

Speaker 12 Now in Tennessee, Republicans have a trifecta. They got a Republican governor.
Republicans control the state Senate and the state House by big margins.

Speaker 12 Despite that, or maybe because of it,

Speaker 12 people who were opposed to Tennessee Republicans on this thing,

Speaker 12 People who were opposed to Tennessee Republicans on this bill targeting little kids, they have shown up again and again and again and again, lots of them.

Speaker 12 People showing up over and over again to state House meetings and to state Senate meetings and for every vote and for every

Speaker 12 hearing, every element of the legislative process related to this bill to tell lawmakers no, to say that Tennessee should not do this.

Speaker 12 Kids themselves have shown up. Hundreds of students have shown up to look lawmakers in the eyes.
They considered this bill

Speaker 19 emmy wilkins is a 10-year-old from chattanooga she was present for the committee hearing and knelt in front of representative william lamberth and other committee members in protest of the bill when i started shouting i was just thinking about how many kids deserve to go to school during that time and every kid deserves an education no matter where they're from

Speaker 12 People young and old who oppose this bill have been making the trip to the Tennessee State House, making their voices heard week after week after week. We've covered tons of these protests.

Speaker 12 Yesterday afternoon, the Tennessee State Legislature adjourned for the year.

Speaker 12 And while the Tennessee State Senate had managed to pass its version of this bill targeting immigrant kids in elementary schools, it turns out the Tennessee House didn't get it done.

Speaker 12 They didn't do it. General Assembly ends without passing student immigration bill.
Now, the whole thing could still get revived next year, but for now, it's gone. They stopped it.

Speaker 12 The Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition posting, quote, Tennessee protects education for all. HB 793 will not be voted on this legislative session.

Speaker 12 As Lynn McFarland herself put it on Facebook, after hearing the news, she said she is breathing easier now.

Speaker 12 Delay is almost always the first step on the way to stopping something. If Tennessee Republicans want to try this again next year,

Speaker 12 they at least know what kind of pushback they're in for if they want to try for it.

Speaker 12 All across the country, we are witnessing a protest movement against Donald Trump and his Republican Party and what they're doing in Washington and increasingly what they're doing in the states.

Speaker 12 And it is a movement that is not just sustained, it is growing and spreading, including the protests that appear to be tanking the image and stock price and profitability of the Tesla car company, now ushering Trump's biggest donor, Elon Musk, out of Washington altogether.

Speaker 12 So what is the state of organizing against the Trump administration now? Because that also is coming up on 100 days. What should we expect next?

Speaker 12 I know just who to ask. We'll be right back.

Speaker 12 Amid the wave of protests that we have seen all around the country this past 90 plus days, one of the things that has just paid off is the work of a remarkable coalition in Tennessee that has been protesting a Republican Tennessee-specific plan to target immigrant kids in elementary schools.

Speaker 12 We have seen seniors, people in their 80s, we have seen students, parents, teachers, a huge and very diverse group of people in Tennessee just relentlessly pushing back against this thing in Tennessee.

Speaker 12 They have turned up again and again and again and again and again at Tennessee's state capitol and at the state legislature as Republicans who overwhelmingly control state government in Tennessee have been debating this thing.

Speaker 12 We have showed it over and over again on this show in the past couple of weeks, excuse me, in the past couple of months.

Speaker 12 But now after that sustained campaign,

Speaker 12 the payoff. Tennessee Republicans have just shelved that proposal for the year and gone home without doing it.

Speaker 12 When you go out to protest in Nashville or anywhere, you never know what exact effect you're going to have. But we do know that if you don't turn out,

Speaker 12 you won't win. And we do know that pressure sometimes does work in unexpected places and in unexpected ways.
And we definitely know as we approach 100 days of this Trump administration

Speaker 12 that the protest movement sparked by Trump and the Republican Party in this era is not going anywhere. Joining us now is someone we like to check in with periodically about this momentum.

Speaker 12 Ezra Levin is co-founder of the grassroots group Indivisible. Ezra, thanks very much for joining us tonight.
It's nice to have you back.

Speaker 17 And great to be here, Rachel.

Speaker 12 I wanted to check in with you again, as we have done sort of periodically, to get your sort of gut check, your sense about

Speaker 12 where the resistance to Trump is heading towards that 100-day benchmark.

Speaker 12 I feel like the protests are bigger, more widespread, more sustained, more diverse, getting more media attention and starting to get more political effect visible in terms of the response to what's been happening.

Speaker 12 That's just my view from outside though. How does it look to you from inside?

Speaker 17 Look, this has been my view from the inside since roughly the week after the election when we joined you to launch the new indivisible guide to tell people Trump isn't all-powerful, that in fact there are thousands of elected officials all over the country who all have to worry about their constituents.

Speaker 17 So what do we got to do? We got to organize.

Speaker 17 I've told you that we've been in a wave moment of organizing, that we've seen just an incredible number of new local volunteers starting indivisible groups every single month since the November election.

Speaker 17 We've broken each previous month's record in the number of new indivisible groups.

Speaker 17 And as you've been showing, this is having a direct impact, not just on the vibes out there, but on actual legislation, on actual people's lives.

Speaker 17 What we've seen from Trump and Musk and from the MAGA movement is they're using the authoritarian playbook. It is a shock and awe campaign.
Go as fast as possible, do as much damage as possible.

Speaker 17 And look, some institutions, some elites were shocked, were awed. You look at Some law firms, you look at Columbia University, you look at Washington Post, there are folks who were shocked and awed.

Speaker 17 But who wasn't shocked and awed? The 80-year-old in Tennessee or the 10-year-old in Tennessee who organized who stood up who said no

Speaker 17 and that had a real impact on its own on that bill but it has another really important impact cowardice is contagious so is courage when you see a 10-year-old and an 80-year-old stand up and say no

Speaker 17 I'm not going to go along with this you know what happens A lot of other folks see that and say, well, I guess I got to stand up too.

Speaker 17 That's what we've been seeing month after month after month, starting with some people demonstrating courage and then other people looking around and saying, wait, I can do that too. It's in my power.

Speaker 17 I'm not just a victim of world events. I can be a participant.

Speaker 17 That's what we're seeing right now.

Speaker 12 Ezra Levin, the co-founder of Indivisible, we're heading into what's going to be a really intense period of reflection, people trying to sort of control the narrative about how the Trump administration is doing.

Speaker 12 What you and other folks at Indivisible have done is going to be a very, very big part of the story of this time in American history. Thanks for helping us understand it.

Speaker 17 Oh, there's a lot more to come, Rachel.

Speaker 12 I had a feeling you'd say that. We'll be right back.
Stay with us.

Speaker 12 All right, that's going to do it for me tonight. I will see you again tomorrow.

Speaker 4 Now's the time to start your next adventure behind the wheel of an exciting new Toyota hybrid.

Speaker 5 With the largest lineup of hybrid, plug-in hybrid, and electrified vehicles to choose from, Toyota has the one for you.

Speaker 3 Every new Toyota hybrid comes with Toyota Care two-year complementary scheduled maintenance, an exclusive hybrid battery warranty, and Toyota's legendary quality and reliability.

Speaker 10 Visit your local Toyota dealer today, Toyota.

Speaker 11 Let's go places. See your local Toyota dealer for hybrid battery warranty details.