Trump’s War on Truth and Science (with James Morone)

>> Welcome to the Oath and the Office Podcast. I am John Figuelsing.

“It's great to be with you and we are joined as always by the man, by the Mac.”

By the one and only author of the book, the Oath and the Office, Constitutional Law Professor, Cory Brechneider, Professor, it's good to see you. >> Thanks so much, John. We're going to talk about the information universe that we're all living in, the war on truth, that the administration has waged, and also the war on science, and we were came from

and Trump's role in it with my amazing friend and colleague from Brown University, Professor Jim

Moron, but of course first, we're going to start with the news of the day, the horrific violence of this country is facing, including White House correspondence dinner, the horrific attempt at violence that happened there. So let's talk about that because there's a lot of information we don't know what we do know is that this man armed with a shotgun, a handgun, and knives, got inside the hotel hosting the correspondence dinner where the president and vice president

and cabinet officials, reporters, and half of the Washington DC ego infrastructure were gathered in one room.

“We know that Cole Allen is 31 of Torrance, California, ladies, he appears to be single, and”

he allegedly went to a security checkpoint with his weapons. The one thing he didn't bring with him was good assassination planning skills, because he was stopped at the perimeter.

He never entered the White House correspondence dinner dining area.

He was never on the same floor as the ballroom, no reporters or administration were ever actually in danger. We know this is bad for comedy fans because cash material will probably be fired. We know, Corey, if he'd worn explosives, instead of carrying firearms, this could have been one of the worst security disasters in America history, we know the line of succession

was strangely all in one spot, except for Chuck Grasley, because he goes to bed at 230 in the afternoon, so we could have had a scenario where Chuck Grasley becomes president for America's 250 of birthday and he's 250, and we also know that Trump is already exploiting the attempt in using this as justification to threaten more Americans attack more Americans and try to expand authoritarian powers.

Professor, I was in DC the night this happened.

“What were your first thoughts when you heard of this would be a attack?”

Well, you know, it's not a good thing for democracy when violence is on the front burner,

when there are attacks on our leaders, and as much as you and I are critical every week of

this president and this administration in no way, of course, is violence the answer. And in fact, not only is it not the answer, but we're talking every week on this podcast about the threat of authoritarianism, not only from Trump, but the way that the Supreme Court has enabled it, and one of the worst things that can happen in the face of an authoritarian threat is violence, because what authoritarian leaders are going to do, and we saw this immediately,

I mean, he took no time, less than 30 minutes, is to use the threat of violence in order to try to shut down democracy, and, you know, he did have a brief second of recognizing that his speech would have been inappropriate to give, which was going to be an attack on the media, an attack on, as he calls it, on the enemies of the people by which he means the press. And, you know, those people were under threat too.

The press and the administration were all in one room together. They were all facing potential violence and potential danger. And even if the president and his administration were the targets, certainly in the crossfire, the press might have been caught. But he just dropped it extremely fast, and saw this in the interview with 60 minutes,

and the comments about trying to shut down Jimmy Kimwell, to use the moment in order to continue his assault on free speech, on dissent, on democracy. And so, you know, this is a tragedy, not just because of the threat to the president himself, which is terrible, but the way that it is just enabled him to continue his rhetoric and his attempt to destroy our democracy.

You're right, within 30 minutes of the incident, Trump held a press conference. And instead of assuring a raw, weary nation, instead he pivoted to demanding his proposed White House ballroom, be approved after a judge halted construction on the grounds that it's totally illegal. I mean, like Clockwork Corion, it was an incredibly coordinated response of right-wing influencers, including U.S. Senator Fetterman, who right out came and said,

"Well, more gun violence, armed man failed to breach security at a hotel. This means Trump needs taxpayers to fund his illegal ballroom." I mean, I knew they'd exploited for some reason, Professor. I expected the Insurrection Act shut down in an election. I didn't expect a ballroom and fire Jimmy Kimwell.

They need to think bigger these fascists, they really do. But I mean, at some point, this seems to be the pattern. Political messaging after trauma is now just exploiting violence for political gain. He has just a ironclad focus on usurping the powers of Congress to do what he wants.

It's really about being able to do what he likes without approval of Congress.

“This is somebody who has no interest in legislation, no interest in negotiating the normal way of American politics.”

And the ballroom has really become a symbol of that. And the other thing that he is so focused on, it's why Pam Bondi lost her job. It was not because she was not willing to release enough of the Epstein files. It's the opposite, but she released too much. That she wasn't willing, especially, to go after his political opponents and to be more aggressive

in their prosecutions. And, you know, he had about just a few seconds, really, of digesting the attempted violence before he turned back to both of you surfing Congress. And that's the ballroom story. And then also going after his enemies.

I mean, you even saw in the 60 minutes interview, and I know what place of it. Where the question came, you know, about the manifesto and the idea that this person was opposing a government of pedophiles, Trump wasn't mentioned by name. And he immediately jumps in. I'm not a pedophile.

And by the way, you're careful and attacked you. Acting the press, even 60 minutes, which is, you know, more CBS has been friendly to this administration way more than it should be. And, yet, it's not 60 minutes, too. As the enemy of the people, I will say that's true.

That is true. CBS generally, but 60 minutes has proven itself to, in this case, at least, certainly, to this case. appropriately hard hitting. Now, Trump says Democrats, get this, need to hang on, stop saying, mean and hateful things.

I know, I know. Also, with the dinner last night, was your secretary, Robert of Kennedy, Jr. The sister, Carrie Kennedy, was there, they've both witnessed their father and their uncle, the SS and age. Right.

Erica Kirk was there, the House Majority Leader, Steve Scalice, was there. Yeah. If you're not thinking about that. Political violence has touched so many people in that room. Is there something that you as president can do?

What can be done to change the trajectory? Well, you know, you go back 20 years, 40 years, 100 years, 200 years, 500 years.

To always been there, people are assassinated, people are injured, people are hurt.

And I'm not sure that it's anymore now than it was. I do think that the hate speech of the Democrats much more so is very dangerous.

“I really think it's very dangerous to the country.”

Yeah. I got to say, you know, folks, live your life in such a way that you never find yourself on 60 minutes, saying the words, "I'm not a pedophile." Out loud on camera, on 60 minutes. But wow, he had to come out and say it.

And I mean, we've seen this sort of thing throughout history where it's exploited. But in this case, there are so many side shows, 12 of this professor that we've talked about. And obviously, a big thing is the many conspiracy theories that flew up that night. I was getting calls to comment on all of the people across the aisle who within minutes were saying it had to be staged.

Now, I generally don't encourage people to read the manifestos of these losers. But in this case, I read his manifesto and I don't think anyone's going to read what this damn fool wrote and still think that this was any kind of conspiracy. I mean, you'd have to believe they hired a California math coach to carry out the stupidest, most inept false flag events and assassination history because Trump wanted to fall down

on stage and look scared and weak. I'm a big fan of conspiracy theories. I don't get me wrong, but I don't like when they're sold as conspiracy facts. I mean, Corey, you agree, right? Not everything's a false flag.

Sometimes a disturbed idiot with guns is just a disturbed idiot with guns. But at the same time, after what happened in Butler and the lies and lack of congressional investigation and the fake bandage on his head. And the fact that AR-15 rounds generally leave a little bark if you've been shot, I can't blame any of these Americans, left writer, center, for casting doubt on the official story

here. I think we need to get used to the fact that we're going to have a built-in system of conspiracy theories with this president based on the false reality that he's created. As you suggested, you know, there are two thoughts that we could hold together, the first which is really important is that we don't want to report out anything that's not based

on fact. And right now, with the evidence suggest that this was a loan attacker with a really not well-planned out plan, try to attack this ballroom and, you know, we have his motives in the form of the manifesto, but we have a court process that's going to be an indictment that

“are likely to be a trial or at least court proceedings, that's how we find out evidence.”

And so I don't want to speculate. We shouldn't be speculating about conspiracy theories, but, and this is your other point,

which is so crucial here, we live in an information universe that has been so attacked,

about any official story about anything with this president, because he has lied to us so often.

“And we don't want to just dismiss those who are skeptical, because, you know, this”

is a president who couldn't care less about the truth, who repeatedly lies, his instinct is often to lie, and who lies to us all the time directly through the ironically named "Trude Social," which is often anything but truth. One of the things that I'm so excited about, by the way, the Pope made the same exact language point last week, or you're in good company, but go on.

I was going to say one of the things I'm so excited about for this episode is in the second

half, we really have an expert on where this war on truth, this war on science, came from, and that's my colleague at Brown University Jim Marone, he's going to talk about how Trump and this war on science got going. Yeah, I mean, Trump has almost been a casualty of his own war on the truth a couple times now.

And I'll say again, I won't fault anyone who believes this might have been staged. Unless they know otherwise, and they're just lying for clicks, my influence of friends. And if I found out tomorrow this was staged, I would be zero percent surprised, of course, but Corey, is there a broader historical pattern where political leaders simultaneously call for unity while targeting cultural or media critics as scapegoats? I mean, we've seen

it a lot under this president. And I guess you could say after 9/11, how I rack was scapegoated for something that Saudis did. But throughout history, is there a lot of precedent for this

“whole weaponizing a near disaster to hurt people, you already hate?”

You know, there's a temptation, and listeners will find this familiar because I'm often turning to history as examples and parallels. There is a tendency of a lot of commentators to say, this is unprecedented. And I think that really isn't the right way to see it.

If you know history well, there are always our parallels, there are always our precedents.

And this one, the thing that comes to mind most directly is John Adams because if you think about what's going on with Trump, why is he going after Jimmy Kimmel? Why is he having what is supposed to be an independent federal FCC going after a comedian? Well, it's because he feels hurt. He feels targeted. His wife feels hurt. She feels targeted. And I should say one of the things that they're attacking Jimmy Kimmel for our jokes that he made before

this assassination at them before this violence. And you know, they're using the moment in order to read back in history, something that he couldn't have known, he wouldn't have

“made those jokes after the violence and he made them before. But the way that Trump operates”

is purely personal. He takes that dangerous idea that often the powers of the president

are really manifested in one person. And that the psychology virtue or lack thereof of that

person is really going to affect power. So we saw it once before in particular with John Adams, who not only signs the sedition act, but it's commonly acknowledged by historians of the sedition act, which really was an attempt. I should say not just to limit free speech, but to shut down the opposition party, the series of newspaper editors of targeted device president, John Adams, just to remind listeners, it made it a crime to criticize the president,

but not a crime to criticize his chief rival, which under the rules at the time meant device president of the United States Thomas Jefferson. And in particular, just to get into the details, there's a newspaper editor named Benjamin Franklin B. She was the grandson of Benjamin Franklin, who is relentless in his criticism, including in the criticism of the family and Adam's son. And Adams and his wife and correspondence make it very clear that

he's gone too far. He's criticized our family. Let's shut it all down. Let's use that as the excuse to shut down the opposition party. Wow, if that's not a parallel, let me say too, you know, as bad as things were worse than 1798, 1799, 1800, the opposition party was shut down. And this is an attempt to do that, but he hasn't succeeded. Of course, he's also writing about Democrats as being kind of, you know, often has said, actually, are kind

of terrorists. So he really has that rhetoric. He hasn't succeeded yet, but that is what he's trying to do. I just want to wrap this one up by, say, folks, the real conspiracy is that until this country deals with our addiction to guns and grievance and hate and male rage, this is going to keep on happening, just because it appears to be a figure from the left this time, doesn't make it any different. Men in power don't want to solve

gun violence. They want to use gun violence to make us hate each other even more. And Corey, I do wonder how you think Trump and the Republicans would feel if a future democratic president pardon someone who attacked them politically, the way Trump pardon January 6th rioters, just putting that one out there too. I know we have to take a quick break. We will be back in just a moment. I want to ask you a bit about what's happening to the

clan by people in the government who don't want to go after the clan. We'll be right back

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Follow how to with Mike Peska on Apple podcast, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts, and tell them I sent you. Welcome back to the oath and the office. I'm John Fugle, saying along with Professor Cory Brechneiter. If you haven't heard yet, this Department of Justice's position is that the anti-racist are the real racist. We're talking about how they've indicted the southern

poverty law center. Cory, the southern poverty law, the organization that spent decades, not fighting the Ku Kluxlan bankrupting them in the most innovative moral strategy of making racism really expensive and hauling their horrible arguments into court. And these henchmen, Todd Lanch and Caspatel have alleged that the SPLC was actually secretly helping the Ku Klux Plan. This is a stupid case for stupid people designed to tie the SPLC up in court and bankrupt

them with legal costs like Donald Trump does to everyone else. I'll turn it over to you, Professor. I have many thoughts and questions about this. Well, let me just say, our theme in this entire episode of this true of the last story, it'll be true of a discussion with Jim Morone, is about the war on truth. And what better example, the war on truth, than to just invert, gaslighting is an often the way to describe

when you make somebody believe the inverse of what's actually happening in reality. So imagine taking, it's almost like somebody was sitting around thinking to themselves, how do we take an organization that is devoted to compadding hate groups, the Southern Poverty Law Center, and accuse it of racism, accuse it of white supremacy, and it makes no sense, but especially when you're, especially when you're an entity that doesn't mind white supremacy and racism,

right? Never protested. Go on, please. Right. Or at least says there are good people on both sides

and has a huge part of their constituency, white supremacists, including many of some of those who are pardoned in January 6, we heard from Dom Jocelyn how when they did that report on January 6, how many white supremacists were part of that movement on January 6 to overturn our election. I'm really under-reported part of the story. So yes, that is part of Trump's constituency is white supremacy. So anyway, there's group that, as you say, in the 1970s, had a strategy

of bankrupting the Ku Klux Klann and other groups is being targeted, and just to set the stage of why this is happening, they've expanded beyond just the Klann and groups that are extremely obviously white supremacists. And they've talked about the ways that this Trump administration has enabled and furthered white supremacy in less obvious ways. And so, as they've done that,

they've become increasingly a target. And so there was pressure if you're going to go after Trump's

enemies, there was pressure to do that in reference to this group, but it's the way that they do it, that really makes it a symbol of this war on truth that we've been talking about. And what they've said is in particular, let me just give you their argument. Please, it's hilarious. I love it. Because this group was using paid informants,

“that's how you find out an infiltrate white supremacist groups.”

I, what police departments do, they have paid informants to find out what's going on in these groups. And they use that strategy. The interim CEO Brian Ferris says they're not using it right now, but they did in the past and it was very effective. That this is a sense enabling and furthering

the goals of white supremacy because money is flowing to these groups. They just completely ignore

the purpose, which is to uncover what's going on in these groups and to expose them and lawsuits and other techniques. And say somehow it's funding white supremacy. So the argument is, and this is a criminal case against the organization. No individual is going to go to prison for this, but there will be repercussions for the group as a whole if they're found guilty. The accusation is that there's a kind of fraud in their fundraising because they're fundraising

after all to oppose white supremacy. And then yet supposedly they're funding these groups and furthering the aims of white supremacy. But when you just did just, and then even an inch, like a half inch deep into this story, you see what's going on.

Isn't it furthering white supremacy? They're using paid informants in order to find out what's

going on? It is absurd even in terms of the facts that are being revealed by the Department of Justice. And it only makes sense in the context of not just war on opponents, but again, the war on true.

“Yeah, that's it. I mean, the cash battalion argument, which I think you summed up very nicely was,”

hey dude, you know those guys, the ones who infiltrated the hate groups and exposed them and sued them into oblivion. Bro, they were secretly funding them. And they expect us to not along like that makes sense. This case, this case is going nowhere. It's like cash battalions sued against the Atlantic. It's not making it to discovery phase. It's not making it to the snack table. They paid informants inside hate groups. That's the case. They paid people inside the groups to gather

information so they could expose and dismantle those groups, which I think professor is a thing every law enforcement agency has done since the invention of crime. I love the Mississippi Burning Movie, Gene Hackman as the FBI agent terrorizing the KKK boy. Howdy is it a fun view. In real life, the FBI in that case used paid informants to help take down the clan. I know it's shocking, but J. Edgar Hoover was not passionate about civil rights. They bribed people. So by the logic of this

SPLC case, cash battalions own FBI is a criminal enterprise. I mean, tonight on Hannity, the FBI is befunding the mafia by paying informants inside the mafia. Why is the FBI pro mafia? Am I getting the stupid right, Corey? I was going to say it is that stupid because, you know, one of the most popular shows in America is law and order. And if you watch law and order, you know every episode, there's a paid informant. It's like that doesn't mean that the prosecutors

are helping the defendants. That's just how long sportsman works in its out groups. That are, you know, let me just say something. This is a serious group. They're not just writing up ed. They are trying to expose white supremacy to show its link to violence. And, you know, these aren't groups that are just, you know, they have podcasts and they're saying what they think. They are going out there and doing violence often. They're linked to violence or incentivizing violence.

“And that's what's going on with this group. That's why they're used to paid informants to try to”

find out the real danger, especially in the absence of what have often been government officials unwilling to do it. If I may, though, I think the real play here, even more than bankrupting an anti-racism organization. That's a cornerstone of America's moral center. What they're doing is they're taking paid informants to infiltrate hate groups and they're rebranding that as secretly funding racism. And then the right-wing white male outrage industrial complex says, "Okay,

we'll handle the rest." So now, southern poverty loss center staged hate crimes. Now, they created racism all over Twitter that Nazi-incelled chatroom, it's all about, they organize Charlottesville. They organize, they organize the Charlottesville and they paid Trump supporters to murder Heather Heier and chant Jews will not replace us. So this is why they're doing the case, right? Like they're helping normalize racism. They have no case. There's like, why are

fraud, but there's no lie, the whole justice here is narrative laundering. If people who fought white supremacy have been the villains all this time, that means white supremacists have been the real victims here. Like those white supremacists who are the victims of affirmative action, like all those innocent people on January 6th. So suddenly Charlottesville wasn't a bunch of racist and Nazis organizing a rally to defend statues honoring Confederate scum. It was a crooked

trying to shift reality from racist, did bad things to nice people were manipulated into doing

“racist things by crooked people who oppose racism. And they're telling every extremist,”

it's not your fault. You were tricked. You're the real victim. Right, no, I've got to follow that one. I mean, it looks bizarre. We just look at the case on its own, but when you see it's really part of a wide, wide strategy that this administration is using, it makes perfect sense as an element of that strategy because, you know, one thing they could do is try to repeal the 1964 Civil Rights Act in 1965 voting rights, have legislation and say, you know, we're opposed to civil rights.

They don't want to do that. They saw that in the 19th century, you know, and in the early 20th century, that over racism like that often doesn't work, that it creates a pushback. So instead what they're doing is trying to co-op these words and these ideas and they say, well, we're here for civil rights. We're going to use the 1964 Civil Rights Act to try to defend white rights and to shut down anti-discrimination policies, to shut down affirmative action. And, you know,

“it really is in the name of civil rights attacking Latin Americans off. Yeah. And now, you know,”

what they're doing here is the extreme version of it because they're saying, well, we're fighting a white supremacist group, the name of it is the Southern Poverty Lawson. And, you know, it's absurd. I should say two personal things, which is, you know, I don't know the teacher James or James Comey, we've talked a lot about the attacks on them. I do know Brian Bear, he's a professor at the University of Alabama. This is the interim CEO of the Southern Poverty Law

Center. And I was invited actually to Birmingham, the University of Alabama Law School for

Birmingham and he commented on a paper I gave on the hate speech and we had amazing exchanges.

This is a serious principle of person, a scholar who's really devoted his life to civil rights and is now leading this organization. And what's he getting in return? He's being accused of being a white supremacist? I don't think so. Okay, well, I have to, I got a cram one more thing in here before our guest, because the Supreme Court is reportedly considering this case involving geolocation data and mass surveillance techniques like geofencing.

Corey, this one hasn't gone big yet. Why is this case potentially a turning point for fourth amendment doctrine? Well, it's, you know, it's amazing, the way that so many of our civil liberties and civil rights are being eroded. We've been talking about how civil rights legislation and the idea of a civil rights movement is being co-opted and turned towards inverse. One of the main protections that we have against dictatorship is the limit on unreasonable

searches and seizures. But there are ways that modern technology might try to make those rights irrelevant or to wipe them away and using for instance geolocation on phones

and through this technique that the police have the ability to do to basically have an enormous

area in which everybody becomes a suspect and where the data on everybody's phones within a broad map becomes a fair game without a specific kind of search. That's the danger that the Supreme Court is going to address in this case and I'm not sure how it's going to come out, but it's certainly possible that they're going to allow modern technology to allow all of us to be searched. Now there are responses to that, we're not if you're phone.

“Well, good luck, you know, we all live on our phones. That's how things are. All of these,”

you know, why we're talking about it on the opening of this podcast, it's not just because, you know, unreasonable searches and seizures are bad, they are one of the bull works against tyranny and especially in the face of a president who wants to destroy our democracy. You know, it would be really dangerous to get rid of unreasonable searches and seizures. All of a sudden we'd be subject to the whims of this government and increasingly the whims

of law enforcement, the FBI that are acting at the behest of this president, and you know, I really don't want the government to be able to know everything that I have on my phone or on my phone. Right. I think this is such an important area where we could find common ground between liberal and conservative brothers and sisters. I mean modern digital surveillance and the age of aggregated cell phone data and the quaint concept of a reasonable expectation of privacy.

We're hearing so much about these private contractors and tech firms like those charming patriots at Palantir who are, you know, supporting the marriage of government data analysis and private surveillance infrastructure. I mean, this is what gets scary for me, Corey. How does the public private fusion of surveillance capability affect constitutional accountability? I mean, the tech CEO is in comfort the way the government is by quaint the low 20th century concepts like

law. Well, out of sports, for instance, is running for Congress and the New York 12 congressional

turn to politics, which was going on in that company is the building up of surveillance technologies that are made to enable the government to really know everything about what's going on in our lives.

In China, they have this thing called social credit in which basically all of the data of

Chinese citizens is being used to evaluate them, whether they have not good credit in the sense of credit cards. In the sense of, are you loyal or not? Do you criticize the government or not?

“And if you want to know how our data can be abused, just look to China and look to the question”

of whether or not we're criticizing Trump. Now, you and I are criticizing Trump on serious exam and on the open. Oh, yeah. Yes. And we sure are doing it too in our email, big surprise. Yeah. That's the thing. And in the emails too, man. In your private emails, people don't understand. It's not just your social media posts at this point. It's the stuff you do on messenger. You think is private to your mistress, friends. Right? One really frightening moment in the anti-ice

protests where a member of ISIS to a protestor while we're compiling a database of all the protesters. We know who you are. Right. That very well might be happening. We're going to find out if the Democrats take the House of Representatives because we'll have real oversight for the first time. But that is certainly the kind of thing that is in the realm of possibility that a database of bad citizens, meaning those who criticize the president is being compiled and that those

“people will be targeted. And that's why we've got to really care about surveillance. In this case,”

is one of the places we're going to see is the Supreme Court going to defend against unreasonable searches and seizures or not. Now, you know, what's on the agenda is not dictatorship or not, but it's one piece of that puzzle. I mean, one last question before the break is we got a guest waiting, but I mean, I think Nixon's enemies list in the digital age here. I mean, could we

realistically see databases tracking protesters or political dissidents or critical voices under

some broad national security rationale? I mean, I don't know if there's any safeguards currently existing to prevent abuse of that sort of thing and there's really no way to know what they've already done it. What an amazing question. You know, I interviewed the two last remaining members of the original enemies list from Richard Nixon for my book, The Presidents and the People of Daniel Ellsberg who leaked the Pentagon paper, so I spoke to him, staff, a less well-known person,

said David of who also got on Nixon's bad side because he was working for John Lindsay, a liberal Republican, or they were supporting the anti-war movement. Now, those were lists that were kept on kind of quaint piece of paper. Imagine now it lists that's digitized to not just include a few people who the president doesn't like, but to try to figure out the millions of people who don't like him who are involved in protests, people who don't want to be political even,

who just have private opinions. What does that do? The chilling effect is devastating, really destroys the possibility of having our own opinions because we'll live in fear of governmental power. Whew, well, it's too late for us. I'll see you over at Aligator Aquadras Professor. Let's take a quick break. Back in just a moment, this is the oath on the office. Welcome back to the oath and the office. Corey, I'm very excited about this next guest. I just

did an event with our guest co-author, and I am a big fan of Whiplash, and what we're about to discuss. Great, John, and what a pleasure to do this introduction. James Morone, the author of the book that we're going to talk about today, Whiplash from the Battle for Obamacare to the War on Science. I'll also mention his other books, Health Fire Nation, and also the Democratic Wish, books that really had a huge influence on me when I write when I'm thinking about what I want to do.

These are the books that matter to me, and I can't resist, of course, a personal note, which is this is my colleague, more or less, 24 or plus years at Brown University Professor Emeritus of Political Science Public Policy and Exgenius at Brown. Yes. Well, let me see what a pleasure it is. What a pleasure to have you, Jim. I'm your deputy podcast. Thank you for being here. So let's jump into it, Jim. I want to just begin by with Trump, actually, which of course is a

big part of the book, and you have an amazing scene in the book where you're describing the

famous moment where he proposes that bleach might be away of dealing with COVID. And you're also in fact, and he said, "I'm just infected." Let's be fair, and I didn't say it correctly. We

“got to be fair. The truth is, let's get to the other side. Sorry. Thank you for the question.”

And we still mock him. And you know, so I guess I'll just begin by asking you, you know, a lot of times we focus on that moment alone and what the book does so well as a lot of your work does is trace a connection to an earlier period, a more happy period for science and truth. So how does the just destruction of science, the destruction of truth in the moment in which Trump is giving out all this false information linked to this earlier victory for health care and

he's just being crazy. And he thinks he can spin this thing away. COVID hits the United States

“while Trump is being tried for impeachment in the Senate. And he and his staff tried to”

link impeachment with the COVID scare. It's impeachment failed. So now they're coming after me with COVID. Now we know from recordings he did with Bob Woodward that he knew better, but in public on Zoom on Tweets he was constantly just spinning it away. Yes. Then the panic hit. He was really moved here. Real estate buddy named Stanley Chira, who he had worked with done some deals with in New York and one day Chira Colzeman says

"I got COVID" and Trump goes, "What are you going to do?" And Chira goes, "I'm going to hospital the next day Trump Colzeman, unusually that Trump would be that personally connected to someone and Chira is in the ICU intubated and dies before Trump can talk to her." I really he mentioned

“it a lot to his staff. It's shook him up and for a brief period in March, April and the first week of”

May, Trump acted like a normal executive, making decisions that were sensible. You know, the staff comes in and said, "You got to shut down travel." And he shuts down travel. It's okay. We're shutting it down. Now there are lots of loopholes. He sort of blew the speech, but he was acting really like you would want an executive to act. At one point, the economics team and the health team has a whole battle about shutting a suggesting that the people stay home, Trump really couldn't

shut down anything, but he recommended shut downs. And he just said, "What any sensible executive would say go in there, sort it out and come back with a recommendation." Chira, you go with them and Jerry guided them to recommendation. And with Operation Warp Speed, Trump's way of doing things. I'm

not getting permission for this. I'm taking $20 billion out of the budget and just throwing it at

this thing, breaking rules, breaking eggs, that actually created a fantastic achievement. But nine months from identifying a pandemic, identifying its underlying biology to having a vaccine nation unprecedented. So here we have this guy acting behind the scenes kind of normally. And then around May, early May, late April of 2020, he starts hearing from his buddies. And they're like, dude, this economy is going to, it's tanking. You're going to lose the election. And then

something that social scientists will love. It's very weird. The health team had produced a model that suggested between 150,000 people would die by Memorial Day. This is in March. And the economics team, and particularly the economic bootlickers around Trump, hated that model. So they came up with another model. It's going to only be 26,000. Mind you, when the model came out, 35,000 people

had already died of COVID. But never mind that. Fox News reports that there's no model. It's not even

as bad as the flu. Trump hears about this. And he decides these people who had contradicted him. He says bleach, they roll their eyes and say, no, no, don't take bleach. He was calling Fauci at night in the middle of the night, waking him up and screaming at him. Don't contradict me. He was so angry at these people. And now there was proof that they just made the numbers up. After all, here's another model. And no one ever said who's got the better methodology in the

light as they don't think that way. Right. Another model. And right after that model turns out, he turns. He's they're going to small anti-champer to where they do the press briefings. And he turns

“and Debbie Brooks, who's a small, you may remember as her as the woman with the scarves. She had”

been standing up and behind the scenes. And he turns on her looms over her. She's caught in a corner.

And he screams at her, I will never listen to you again. She told us that she was actually

physically frightened. And she said, at that point, he stopped listening to her and threw away any any relationship to science. He just brought in people who had tell of what he wanted to hear. And then when he lost the election, he got in his head. It was the scientists who had really screwed him. They came out the evaxing two weeks after the election because he thought they had slow walked it. There was already a lot of populist anger and experts in floating around the

maga universe. And now he led the charts. The scientists were one of the groups that had defeated

tour. It was the combination of people contradicting him. Based on their own alleged expertise,

“Trump doesn't go for that. And they contradicted him again and again and again and behind the scenes”

they kept correcting him. And telling him, no, no, you can't say that. And he just got angry or angry and then when he lost, he thought they were part of the reason why. So the war on science comes rushing out after this defeat. And this daring to contradict him based on some expertise they have as scientists. The book's amazing. And you know, April 2020 was also when we found out that this virus was disproportionately killing black Americans. And that was around the time that we began

hearing reopen America, reopen America from all the business leaders. But you, you and your co-author, nail this in whiplash, these two realities that first they downplay the virus, then help deliver vaccines through operation warp speed without actually implementing a plan to distribute them. And then, of course, his first appearance after he's left the White House, he talks about getting his shot and his booster and he's booted by the crowd. And he never mentions

the vaccine again. Never boast arguably the one solid great thing he did in the first term was

help spearhead operation warp speed. And this war on science, this tribal war on science, has now made him completely downplay his one great achievement. And so true, yes, he got booted in two rallies. He tried it once. He tried it a second time and he heard that. So we have to go ahead, let's do the head of the charge. You ran away from his one great success. But what's amazing about your book is that you tie all this together into this war on science and the backlash

against science really in many cases is a backlash against the success of the Affordable Care Act

“under Barack Obama as well. Yes, there's one story you mention race. And I think you cannot”

underplay the racial story. Obama's staff almost took her son, told us again and again, you have no idea how nasty people were about race that a members of Congress would say things in private that you couldn't believe in public. The way I would present this story goes back to when Barack was thinking of running for president. It's 2006. And Michelle is no, I'm a no, I'm a strong

no. And finally, David Axelrod, who's one of his main advisors, says, look, we have to have a meeting,

we have to decide because if she stays a strong no of you can't convince her, you can't run, you can't run without your partner. And so they all true be into the kitchen in the Obama house in South Side of Chicago. And Michelle, you know, a harbour train lawyer looks at Barack, it says, okay, Barack convinced me. And what Barack says is this, he says, I know that when I take the oath of

“office, if I win, when I take the oath of office, everywhere in America, in fact, everyone in the”

world, little black kids and little brown kids and little kids who've been left behind, they will see themselves differently. They will feel different about their prospects in the world. And no matter what happens, my taking the oath of office will liberate millions of children. And Valerie Jarrett, Rodner Book, that she began to cry. She was so moved by the speech. And Michelle said, that's pretty good, Barack. Okay, I'm in. So when we heard those kinds of

stories and we thought about Obama, for people in our end of the world, this was incredibly exciting. The Census Bureau had come out with a prediction in 2004 that this would be a majority minority nation. Right. And it was Obama representing that embodying that and bringing health care to the poorest white Americans, the lowest rate of uninsured in the history of the country. Exactly. But we didn't think that was someone else representing the other America that hated this.

So there's the orange menace going from studio to studio saying, the guy's not legitimate, the guy's not American, the guy's a Muslim. So those two forces get into play. And when Barack Obama chooses health care, over everything else he might have chosen, that became the vehicle for all the racial optimism and hope and animosity in America. And so we had this battle to try to cover people all wrapped up. You know, health care is usually a snooze. It's about all kinds of boring

stuff. I didn't know one wants to hear about unless you were a total wank. But now it was about who's an American? What is America? And that made it incredibly volatile. And you know to my way of thinking incredibly interesting. And the challenges to evidence based medicine. That's a bad thing though. Yes. Yes. The idea that that other America would have this populist search.

movements in American history, they rise, they go back to before all the way back to colonial

“America. They were floating around against Harvard University in the in the 1660s. But they”

always received because facts end up being stubborn things. And we actually believe that the war on

science has reached its high point. And now is just beginning to run out as the previous wars against experts had done. I was going to ask you Jim about the broader trends here, because you do an amazing job. Of course, you interviewed Obama for the book. You do an amazing job of going into detail about this whiplash, this counter reaction from the Trump era. But of course, as you've just been saying, there's broader trends here. We've saw in the area of environmental science, for instance,

that become politicized kind of anti-science anti-climate change movement. And the QAnon movement, which is associated with Trump, of course, is an anti-science anti-truth movement more generally.

“So, how does that fit in? It's not that, you know, Trump created this sort of anti-science”

culture. But how do the wider trends in the culture respond and interact with Trumpism and Trump

specifically? Yes. So, that has been a very powerful theme in American history. This, the elites

there arrogant, and they don't know as much as they think they know it, was George Will, who said he'd rather be governed by 200 names picked at random from the Boston phone book than the faculty of Harvard University as a sort of a sentiment that's there. Another Republican Party, which was not really part of that, the mainstream Republican Party, they set themselves up for it. They impart because they accepted the racial dog whistles, and we can't understand the, as I keep saying,

the racial part of this, but they also accepted this angry, anti-affordable character. Affordable Care Act was a very modest effort to get everybody covered in the United States, and we should probably talk about it's remarkable and unmarked on success. But the Republicans became so ferocious in their opposition and embraced the Tea Party as it rose up, and all in an effort to defeat this relatively modest legislation. Now, the legislation has been designed by

Republicans. Exactly. It was who we were on the care. There is a great pattern that developed across the 20th century in which the Democrats come up with a plan. Republicans say that socialism excreem the yell, and they come up with a more modest, more market-based plans. Democrat plan goes down in flames. 10, 15, 20 years later, the Democrats come back saying, "Let's do national health insurance. They take the oral Republican plan." The Republicans say, "Socialism,

they come up with a more modest plan. The Democrats, what pan goes down in flames, and next time around, they pick the oral Republican plan." This is the last iteration of that cycle. There's nothing, there's nothing more much. So if I understand you, there's a long been this anti-science anti-truth part of conservative politics. You see it in the John Birch Society, for instance, in many other movements. But the Republican Party itself had retained a sort of integrity

on health care, on education, and yet what defines Trumpism as the merging of this sort of anti-science movement and the Republican Party, as he takes over the party, and also himself becomes so enmeshed in this anti-scientific worldview that really is the danger that we're facing right now.

“Yes. Yeah, it's really good point. Thanks for bringing me back to that essential point.”

There was always a John Birch Society. There was always this conservative, and there was always

racism through the party, particularly when they made their move into the South. But a moderate voices in the Republican Party thought they could let these dogs run, but keep them in check, keep them leashed, and what Trump does is not introduce something new. He unleashes the dogs. And they took over the camp. We really come, you know, the Reagan Republicans are displaced by King Richard Republicans, the King Richard Republicans are displaced by the Tea Party people,

and the Tea Party people are displaced by maga. And one gets angry and stronger, and this theme, this John Birch/white supremacy. Let's call it what it is. The theme is completely loosened. To the horror, really, to the horror of many Republicans, many mainstream Republicans who then discover if they try to stand up against this, this force will come and threaten their careers, but maybe their physical well-being. I can't tell you how many people we interviewed

I'd physically be afraid. My family would be afraid. Almost everybody I've already mentioned has said that people who worked in the Trump White House and are not still full maga, are paying for their own security services now, because Trump lifted them. But it was very frightening what he did. Just losing these right-wing dogs and somehow they became characteristic. They became

dominant in the coalition where they'd always been there, but had been check. So he had to blame

the Republicans. They never stood up and said, "We will not, we will not play the race card. We will not go sort of batch it crazy." Can I say that on this point? Yes. I encourage you. Yes. We will not go batch it crazy with the John Birch Society. They always did it with wings and nods until it consumed them. But this makes me think Professor of your earlier book, Republican, of Rath. Yes, that's all about tribalism, which is one of my favorite subjects here.

And it's interesting to think how this tribalism shaped attitudes towards science and medicine. I mean, how does distrust of scientific institutions fit into this broader populist movement

“associated with Trump? Is it primarily about ideology, about identity, cultural belonging?”

It's interesting because one thing that had been true through all this period we've been talking about, Democrats and Republicans, conservatives and liberals, this disagreed ferociously about whether we should have the government pay for health care. Democrats believe in a right to healthcare republic and say no or hell no. But everybody agreed that science was a great boom. I mean, coming out of World War II, there was no disagreement on that. So we could fight like

mad against health insurance. But agree that what we should be funding the national institutes of health and national science foundation and so forth. But this great division between Democrats and Republicans that became a division. And this is the point of the Republic of Iraq that became a division about race that traditionally Democrats were with immigrants, Republicans were a liberal party on race, Democrats were the white supremacy party.

“That's how it was when in the 1960s and 70s, when the Republican party became the anti-rac anti-immigrant”

party, that tribal story became all consuming. There were checks and balances that did not map on the party map. Some culture wars, the Democrats were on one side like immigration. Another culture wars, the Republicans were what you might call the good side. They were racially progressive. Now that you map all the anti-rac anti-immigrant sentiment in one party, it just becomes a wildfire and it starts to consume all kinds of things and because of the patterning of the

Trump administration in the first administration and his defeat, that fire began to consume science,

knowledge, expertise itself. Trump has always been an anti-intellectual, but he brought

this great partisan story, this great partisan crusade with him in a really quite ferocious way. Now I thought Republic of Wrath was out of date because hey Trump won 48 percent of the Latino vote and either well there goes that story, now we've got the whole immigrant equation taken out of it, but you know you often mock the Democrats for not attending to their base, never did someone smash his own coalition with more gust though than that fire in the White House, Mr. Miller has smashed

the idea of Spanish speaking people coming in with the Trump in a minute. So ice has blown that up. So Jim, this has been a great conversation and as we get towards the end of it, you know one

thing that we're always doing on the Oath and the Office podcast is looking for hope. We're talking,

trying to be honest, as we have through this conversation about the threat to truth, the threat to science, as you've helped explain that Trumpism really not just demonstrates manifest and spreads, but we also, you know, are thinking about how we can get through this and that sometimes there's a sort of worry that once you destroy science, you'll never be able to bring it back, but I heard a glimmer of hope in some of what you said that we're towards the end of this destruction of science.

So give us some hope at the end, how do you see science being reclaimed, truth being reclaimed from Trumpism and where's your optimism we need some of it? Yeah, it's about the dialogue. Yes, I know. Well, as Trump is discovering in Iran, facts are stubborn things. Pew came out with a study recently that showed even the majority Republicans think vaccinations are

“very important. And that get the White House like a meteor. Oh my god, we're on a fringe”

perspective and Bobby Kennedy is fringe and they've got to got that at going into the midterms, they're realizing people are really worried about their children. They're worried about

anti-intellectual white has the beginning to pull back and we're beginning to see all kinds of science that the war on science is beginning to receive because science performs if not miracles then extraordinary things and it does it all the time. You can see if you squint just a little bit, you can see the democratic party and many of its people beginning to find their populist voice, their idea that maybe having too many big in here is in a society is a bad thing.

So you mean the democrats, you mean act like democrats, yeah, democrats, democrats acting like,

“I don't know, democrats, democrats. So I think I think what you're going to say,”

in fact, we've got a piece coming out in the New England Journal of Medicine in the next couple of months saying the war on science is coming to an end. And I think that great anti-intellectual moment is beginning to receive and more over the great deal did age of our time. We're now going to enter a great battle over that. Am I 100% sure? No, of course not and things may only get worse. But I would say I'm 55% confident that all kinds of backlashes will now begin or to put it slightly

differently, you know, Trump screwed his base and slowly but surely people are figuring out we have populist sentiments, but that was not the way to take them. And so I think there's a pretty good chance that by year four, Trump will have been a failed presidency and right-wing populism or American populism will be looking for a new direction. That science itself too will be refurbished. It'll take a decade. I mean it's going to take a long time to recover from this.

But I do think all the things are in the right direction. And if democrats take the Senate, which is looking increasingly likely, what would you say 50/50 at this point? It was 75/5 against just six months ago, that will send a message throughout the political circles. The talking hit circles like the vibes has shifted. So that's the best like you want to hope, but that's not too big. Right, well that is a great end. Jim Aron, thanks so much Professor Jim Aron, Professor Emeritus

of Political Science, my friend, in many ways, my mentor, what a pleasure to have you on the earth in the office. Thanks for joining us. Thanks for giving us a reality check about the war on science, but also some hope that it might be nearing its end. Thank you very much.

Thank you for writing your flash as well. It's essential. Thank you. I'm a big fan of your podcast.

I always look forward to the email that says new addition available, so it's a pleasure to be on it. I'll talk to you both soon. Thank you, sir. Thank you, Jim. Bye bye. Monday nights when you're on Series X and Progress with me. I look forward to that too, every week, in addition to being on the office podcast. You can also find the open the office sub-stack, our podcast is wherever you get podcasts, but be sure to leave us a review, be sure to send it

“to a friend. Of course, be sure to subscribe, and you can find this on YouTube if you want to watch us,”

not just listen to us. And let me just add a personal note. Jim Aron is not just a long time colleague, he hired me at Brown, he's a friend, and he just to my mind is one of the smartest thinkers about American politics. So it really was an honor to introduce him to you, John,

if they have him on this podcast and to introduce him as well to our amazing audience. Well,

thank you, Corey, and I want to thank all of our listeners, remind everyone, I'm on Series X, M, five nights a week, or my podcast, John, Fugle St. Podcast. My book is called Separation of Church and Hate, a St. Persons guy to take him back to Bible from Fundamentals, Fascists and Floc fleecing frauds, and like most carbon-based lifeforms, I have a sub-stack, and I would like to invite folks to go to my sub-stack this week, because I have a really deep dive on this other

poverty loss center case, and why it is so egregious and silly. Professor, I want to thank you, I want to thank, of course, Wendy and Beowulf, and all the brilliant folks who keep this monster train on the tracks, and congratulations again about the crazy ratings for this podcast, Corey. Everybody listening, please subscribe, tell your friends, post about us in social media,

“be unseamly and serally and rude about it, too, right, Corey?”

Absolutely, John, what a pleasure. Do this every week. I'm so grateful to the audience

who are making this a podcast that is always in the top rank of an Apple Podcast government,

and other rankings. You know, we're facing a real threat to democracy, but we're facing it with humor, and especially with, oh, so thanks so much. Thank you, and we will see all you guys next time on the hotel, not us. You're not going to be a dictator, are you? I said, "No, no, no other than they won." How did Donald Trump turn the presidency into a king? Well, it didn't start with him. It was the goal of a decade's long master plan. When the president does it, it is not illegal.

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