What history says about a split Democratic Party

0:00Support for Here and Now Anytime comes from MathWorks, creator of MATLAB and Simulink software, to design and develop engineered systems, accelerating the pace of discovery in engineering and science. Learn more at mathworks.com. WBUR Podcasts, Boston. It's harder to communicate, it's harder to get out a message, but this is the playing field both parties have, so Democrats have to figure out how to navigate in this particular atmosphere, and it can be done, as President Trump has shown. Disarray schmiseray. Nothing unites a coalition like a common enemy.

0:50It's Tuesday, August 4th, and this is Here and Now, anytime from NPR and WBUR. I'm Chris Bentley.

1:00Today on the show, New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman says President Trump's second term in the White House has cemented his status as the most consequential figure of our lifetimes. His shamelessness has always been his superpower, and that goes back long before he was in politics. That's coming up at about 10 minutes. But first, it is election day in five states, including Michigan, where establishment-backed Congresswoman Haley Stevens and progressive newcomer Abdul El-Sayed are fighting for the nomination for Senate and also for the direction of the Democratic Party. But our next guest writes that whoever wins the primary, their next goal should be to broaden their coalition.

1:44Princeton's Julian Zelizer is a presidential historian, and he tells Scott Tong that history has two powerful examples of presidents who overcame deep divisions in their parties to govern decisively. Franklin Delano Roosevelt in the 30s and Ronald Reagan in the 80s. It was a deeply divided party in the 1930s. You had conservative Southern Democrats who were the powerhouses in Congress who were very conservative on race relations, on unionization, and on many government issues. And then you had a growing cohort of Northern Democrats, such as Senator Wagner of New York, who were very liberal and wanted to expand government and were really the architects of programs like Social Security and the National Labor Relations Act.

2:31And so this was a big tension, bigger than in many ways the party faces today that FDR had to navigate. And so what did he do? How did he overcome this, build the coalition? Part one was him. I mean, it was a kind of act of successful leadership that he became a unifying presence. But then he found issues that both coalitions could agree on. And economic security was one of the biggest, that the government would help alleviate some of the drastic swings that people saw in the Depression that come with a capitalist economy. Right. So he found kind of a common issue there. Let's talk about Reagan.

3:12Post-Watergate, of course, the Republican Party had a lot of image rebuilding to do. His coalition, as you write, included conservative Democrats. What issues did Reagan confront? And I guess, as you argue, confront well. Yeah, I mean, his coalition was also just a total mess in 1980. There were so many different factions. So again, like FDR, he became a unifying presence. But two issues in particular. One, tax cuts. And he built on momentum from a movement in California to cut property taxes, to translate that at the national level. And then anti-communism. He called for a more robust, aggressive response to the Soviet Union.

3:54And those two issues overcame all the divisions that existed between an evangelical conservative and a deregulating business leader who had nothing else in common. So if one of the lessons here is good politicians, party leaders can find where the Venn diagrams overlap and build coalitions there, does that mean there's a cost of coalition? That is, you might have to jettison an issue that is just too divisive in your party? There is. And I point that out, that it's a high cost. And certainly in the 1930s, not dealing with race earlier on was tremendously damaging. On the other hand, FDR built a coalition that provided a social safety net to all Americans that was very valuable.

4:44So that's the kind of trade-off Democrats have to figure out today. But the cost of not doing that could be you know, continued power for the MAGA Republican coalition. Well, let's talk about today and the Republican Party. Are you seeing the Trump coalition being challenged, divided, say, over this next war we're in? I think divided is too strong a word so far. I mean, I think there's tension, and I think there's an uneasiness. But you look at the polls, and President Trump still has very strong standing in the Republican Party, and he just flexed that muscle in the primary. So there's potential for fragmentation, but I still think it's pretty early in that process.

5:30And briefly, Julian, I mean, your lessons are from the pre-social media days in this country, and of course, misinformation can spread so quickly today. Does that make it harder today to do what you're talking about? Absolutely. It's harder to communicate. It's harder to get a message, but this is the playing field both parties have. So Democrats have to figure out how to navigate in this particular atmosphere. And it can be done, as President Trump has shown. Historian Julian Zelizer at Princeton is a columnist at Foreign Policy, and he's got a sub stack as well. You can find it. Julian, thanks so much.

6:03Thanks for having me.

6:10coming up next some more contemporary presidential analysis indira lakshmanan speaks with the political reporter who probably knows trump best about how his superpower of shamelessness has helped him remake the federal government in his image and to his own personal benefit we'll be right back

6:34Was losing the 2020 election one of the best things that ever happened to Donald Trump? New York Times reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan make a pretty strong case that it was, because he used those four years out of office to tighten his circle of loyalists and weaponize his grievances for a stunning comeback. Their new book, Regime Change, Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump, is an exhaustive and dishy inside account of the first year of President Trump's second term. And Maggie Haberman joins me now in the studio to talk about it. Maggie, welcome. Thank you for having me.

7:08All right. First of all, the title. Regime change usually refers to the toppling of a foreign leader. But you and Jonathan argue that that is exactly what's happening. This message comes from Schwab. Self-directed investing. Trading. Full-service wealth management. Automated investing. Financial planning. Thematic investing. Retirement planning. And to think, that's just a small taste of what Schwab offers. Because Schwab knows that when it comes to your finances, choice matters. No matter your goals, investing style, life stage or experience, Schwab has everything you need all in one place so you can invest your way.

7:46Visit Schwab.com to learn more. Being here inside the U.S. government, sending the National Guard forces onto American streets, enabling mass deportations to an El Salvadoran supermax prison. You paint a picture of a man who is no longer testing the limits of power because he has transcended them. You just described exactly what we are seeing in Donald Trump, seeing a person who is operating on an almost pure gut level. It is almost unrecognizable to term one. And the word transcends that you used, that is how he is seeing himself. He is seeing himself as a capital G great man of history, that he is somebody who can impact global events.

8:28And there's a reason that he is seeing himself that way. He is, I think it's hard to argue, and this is our point in the book, he is the most consequential figure of our lifetimes, not just U.S. president. He will probably be for the next several years because even if he leaves the White House, he is almost certainly not going to leave the public stage. But what has allowed him to do it is a variety of factors, one of which is this very small group of advisors who, unlike the ones he had in term one, many of whom saw him as a danger and somebody who needed to be constrained. And he had never been in Washington in any meaningful way.

9:02He did not know what he could and couldn't do. What he has come to realize is that the U.S. federal system, when it is not about Congress and it is not about the courts, it is primarily around the presidency a system of norms and not laws. But the few that did remain in terms of what might impact a president, such as criminal exposure, he got an immunity ruling in July of 2024 from the Supreme Court saying that all U.S. presidents are broadly immune from criminal exposure for presidential acts. Now, what exactly defines a presidential act has yet to be tested, but it seems safe to assume the court will assume most of them are.

9:41Did I hear you say if he leaves the White House? Yes, but that's only because I'm allowing for people who are adamant that he is not going to. To be clear, Jonathan and I don't have any reporting that he actually wants to try to run for a third term. What I will say is that things that start out as trolls sometimes take on a life of their own with him. And obviously after January 6, 2021, I don't think you can ever rule anything out. Neither one of us, again, has any evidence that he is planning on staying. I was making a different point, which was less about what happens at the end of his term and more about the idea that there is, I think, a wish in Washington and in other parts of the country and certainly the world that he'll be gone and then that's it.

10:26It's like when President Biden wouldn't say his name. We describe in the book how Rupert Murdoch was going to non-person him. But that's kind of he who shall not be named a Voldemort thing. Correct. Where else that's wishful thinking. In fact, it's magical thinking and it is not effective and it doesn't at all fit anything we know about how Trump behaves. All right. So you've made the case that he governs a lot by gut, surrounded by loyalists who let him do what he wants. But there's also this widely held view that he is vulnerable to manipulation, including by foreign leaders. People have said that Netanyahu of Israel has manipulated him.

11:01People say his own staffers have manipulated him, that he's swayed by the last person he talks to. You have a very unique inside view with all this reporting you've done. Who is really driving the bus in the Trump White House? Trump is. And I know that that is hard to believe. And I was thinking about this as you were talking. Influenced by the last person he talked to, that has absolutely been true at various points, certainly throughout much of the first presidency. That is less true now. It doesn't mean it is not true ever. It's not black and white, but he is doing much more of what he wants to do.

11:34if he was influenced by the last person he talked to, we would not have gone to war on February 28th against Iran. Right. You report that Vice President Vance tried to talk him out of the war, but Trump ignored him. So this is a man who governs by gut. But is there a plan behind his impulsive imperial governing style? I don't think he has a plan. I do think he has a gut. In other words, his plan is this belief that he articulated to Tucker Carlson about going to war against Iran, which is that it would be okay. You want to know how I know because it always is. And that really is the belief that he has.

12:10It is this walking moral hazard where things have generally worked out for him, even if in the same situations, they don't work out for other people. That is a belief that has been so clear and bolstered by events that have happened in his mind and in his aid's minds, whether it is the fact that court rulings repeatedly went his way, whether it is the fact that tech leaders have all come to, you know, kiss the ring. Yeah, exactly. They believe that he almost has some mystical quality. He was coming back into office really less as a political leader and more as almost a, you know, someone described him as a theological figure.

12:46And I think that's a little far, but it's not that far. It's not too far. You know, you make this point about him getting away with things that other people don't get away with, that unlike past presidents who divested their financial interests to avoid even the perception of conflicts of interest. Trump and his family have actually pursued new businesses in industries that the administration regulates. They've accepted investments linked to foreign governments. They've enriched themselves in the first year alone for Trump. His financial disclosure shows $2.2 billion just in his first year back in office.

13:22How has he gotten away with this without any consequences? Is it just this incredible self-regard? His shamelessness has always been his superpower, and that goes back long before he was in politics. And you are seeing it on steroids at this point. Maggie, you have been covering Donald Trump since the 1990s, when he was a real estate magnate long before he went into politics. How has he changed since his days in New York as a tycoon and playboy of the 90s? And how is he the same? He hasn't changed very much. We talk about this in the book. He is a man of a relatively small handful of moves that he uses repeatedly in different situations.

14:03And I think you're seeing certainly with the Iran war and a few other things, those moves are not working for him at the moment because a war cannot be tweeted away or repeatedly described as something different away. There is a part of him that still thinks this is incredibly cool. He has clearly exceeded his own belief and his own abilities in the presidency. And he really has always been about dominance and money and power and himself and attention. So I haven't really seen that much change. What I have seen is a change where he is treated seriously, and I mean serious as a serious person, by a group of people in a way that he really never was in New York.

14:49To date, has anyone from the administration come to you or Jonathan with specific allegations of falsehoods in your book? Not only have they not come to us with them, they haven't said them publicly either. No one has challenged a single quote or fact. And the vice president told Megyn Kelly that he was – paraphrasing – but that he was seriously worried that someone may have been taping some of these situation room scenes that we got very deep inside of in the lead up to the Iran war and the debates about how to handle the Epstein files crisis. So a striking endorsement of the veracity of what's in there.

15:24We were surprised. Yes. All right. Well, let me ask you, you've gotten so many scoops over the years that have embarrassed the president. Even some things he's told you himself have embarrassed him later when they appear in print. He's called you nasty names. He's called your reporting in this book fake news. Why does Trump still talk to you? Well, he actually doesn't. We really haven't spoken to him very much at all, either Jonathan or me in this term. We don't really want unstructured time with him. And we also, for what we do, which is investigative reporting primarily or longer form reporting, we don't find that particularly useful.

15:58So we went to him asking for an interview after we were done with our reporting, but it was a fact-checking interview. It was not open mic night with Donald Trump. And he really said it himself at the White House Correspondents' Dinner the other night about why he talks to us or why he talks to any reporter. He believes that he is going to be able to impact the outcome because he considers himself his own best spokesperson. That is why. And this is another way where he is exactly the person he has always been going back to Trump Tower. He would tell his children always take the call from a reporter.

16:30And this is no different now. The president's approval ratings are some of the lowest they've ever been with only about a third of the American public approving of what he's doing in office. Republicans are expected to take a drubbing in the midterm elections. But how concerned is Trump even about the midterm elections when he's not on the ballot? And is he looking beyond that to what he wants his own legacy to be? His own legacy is very much about these building projects and about not being erased once he leaves. With a ballroom that he insists has been in demand for 150 years, but I'm not quite sure where he's getting that figure.

17:06With tearing down the east wing of the White House without proper process. in terms of the midterms, his own advisors are much more concerned about it than he is. He is concerned about it, but it's really about trying to prove to people that he actually won the 2020 election, which he did not. His advisors, they are the ones who are going to be dealing with subpoenas. They are the ones who are going to be dealing with the investigations and total inertia in a Democrat-led house. And they are worried about what it means for the party. For him, he not only has the immunity ruling, he has also said he is going to pardon any number of aides.

17:39And he, in fact, describes it, and we say this in the book, as a pride point that Republicans don't do as well when he's not on the ballot. The consequences are for everyone else. Maggie Haberman's new book is Regime Change Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump, co-authored with her fellow New York Times reporter, Jonathan Swan. Maggie, thanks so much for coming in and talking to us about the book. Thank you for having me.

18:10We're following lots more news at hereandnow.org today, including the latest on the cyclosporiasis outbreak, after authorities linked two deaths to the disease in Michigan. NPR is also reporting on how a shortage of weapons in the American military could affect the wars in both Iran and Ukraine. But retired Navy Admiral Mark Montgomery told Scott Tong the shortage comes was at a particularly bad time for Ukraine. So let's be clear. For four and a half years, Ukraine has been fighting Russia, North Korea, Iran, and China, who have all transactionally and effectively supported Russia, whether it was thousands of Shahed drones from Iran, plus the blueprints for how to build Juran's, the new Russian ones.

18:56So Ukraine has been against all these actors already? They've already been against them. This is, you know, if this is a shock to the United States or to Europe, you know, shame on the United States and Europe for not understanding that we have an axis of aggressors that is working together in a way that we always claimed was our strength, our alliances, our partnerships. Ours are weak right now, and the aggressors are strong. More on that at hereandnow.org. And maybe you heard that cyber attacks have targeted the water systems in at least seven states, according to the FBI and the EPA. And while authorities have yet to publicly say who is behind the attacks, some American officials, though notably not the president, have pointed the finger at Iran.

19:40The attacks targeted the computer infrastructure that controls water systems and caused low-pressure water flow in some homes, even leading some utilities to issue boil water notices. Cybersecurity expert Alex Orleans told us it's shockingly easy to hack American infrastructure. He's with the company Sublime Security. Unfortunately, the vulnerabilities are not only broad, but in a sense, they're shallow in a way that some very basic security hygiene could address them. But that basic security hygiene costs money and time that isn't available to a lot of these providers. The idea that critical infrastructure devices, that operational technology devices like programmable logic controllers operating water plants, water processing plants, are connected to the Internet.

20:26not only connected to the internet, which is already a problem, but maybe running vulnerable software that can be exploited through simply spamming a remote code exploitation from a remote source at that device, that that could enable access. That's the sort of tradecraft that the U.S. government has warned about in relationship to Iran. While that hasn't been confirmed publicly in connection with this case, it wouldn't surprise me if that was the case. So what we're seeing here is not just one password being compromised or a lack of multi-factor authentication. What we're seeing is mission-critical devices that are vulnerable just sitting out on the Internet, not behind any kind of protection.

21:06You can find that whole conversation about cybersecurity at hereandnow.org, where we're also following the wildfires in eastern Washington. Police in Spokane County arrested a man suspected of arson. The Washington wildfires have destroyed hundreds of homes and forced tens of thousands of people to flee Spokane. Kathy Pajamola has her grandchildren staying with her after four of her adult children had to evacuate their homes. She spoke to Robin Young. Spokane has over 200 ,000 people, and there's been over 67 ,000 displaced or, you know, affected. So, I mean, that just kind of puts the number in perspective.

21:46You know, we're seeing dark smoke everywhere still, you know, ash and stuff falling in yards miles and miles away. I've never seen anything like it. War zone is the term that keeps coming to mind, apocalyptic, you know, it's just, yeah. A friend of mine who lives in the area said that it's like there's a new monster, like there's a thing, a living, breathing thing that's moved in to the neighborhood. 100 percent. I mean, I couldn't agree more. Well, and you told us something yesterday that was devastating. You said, and by the way, we shared this thought with your governor, Bob Ferguson, who we spoke with.

22:26You told us that your grandkids were saying things to you like, are we going to die? Oh, yeah. I mean, here's the thing. We were up on the hill celebrating a birthday party. And when we all got evacuated, we jumped right in the cars, didn't grab anything. just, I'm thinking, you know, my naive mind was, oh, we'll just go down the hill and we'll get on Indian Trail and we'll drive out. No, we get to the end of the hill. And what should have been like a 10 minute drive out was four and a half hours. I mean, it was just gridlock. People were making their own lanes up on the sidewalk, down the middle fire lane.

22:58I mean, it was like each man for himself kind of like thing, you know, and you could see, I mean, dark, dark black smoke behind you, bellowing towards you this way, and then the other way it fires. And so my oldest granddaughter, she's 10, and she was crying the whole time, hold my hand, Grandma, hold my hand, are we going to die? And I kept trying to reassure her that, no, we're going to be fine. But inside, I was like, I don't really know if we're going to be fine. I mean, there's nowhere to go. You can hear their whole conversation at hereandnow.org. And we'll have more on the Spokane fires tomorrow, including the latest news and a conversation with a man who lost his home, but escaped with his life.

23:39Click the follow button in whatever podcast player you're listening to so you get that tomorrow and all of our episodes as soon as they're out. That's it for the show today, though. Here and Now, Anytime comes from NPR and WBUR Boston. Today's stories were produced by Jessica Carissa, Wilder Fleming, Jill Ryan, Kaliani Sixena, and Ashley Locke. Our editors were Todd Munt, Micaela Rodriguez, Michael Scotto, and Kat Welch. technical direction from Caleb Green, Matt Reed, and Nick Dussault. Our theme music is by Mike Moschetto, Max Liebman, and me, Chris Bentley. Our digital producers are Alison Hagen and Grace Griffin.

24:14And here at now's executive producer is Alan Price. Thanks for listening. We'll be back with you tomorrow.