Speaker unverified: belief

Transcript context

…vervalued rather. And so we want to use tariffs to make the cost structure differently so that people have to locate more of the supply chains and the intermediate manufacturing in the United States.” But you can also use a tariff to say, Columbia has to take the people we’re deporting and they have to take them in chains. And Donald Trump is doing both things. And the reason I think it’s important to keep those in mind is that what Donald Trump wants, what connects a lot of different things is that he wants leverage over things. I think it connects to Eric Adams and you were sitting here talking to New York City. Eric Adams is a Democratic mayor. Donald Trump has no truck with Eric Adams, right? He did not support Eric Adams. Eric Adams is not his natural ally, but what he had over Eric Adams, he realized was a leverage that he could get the cases off of Eric Adams and then get Eric Adams in his pocket. So Donald Trump stepped in to save like the corrupt Democratic mayor of New York City. Not because they have a deep ideological alliance, but because then Donald Trump would’ve power over New York City and its policy that he wouldn’t otherwise have. The thing that connects Trump, Trump is a very old school politician. He’s very relational. He’s very 19th century. He’s looking for the angle. He’s very zero sum. He’s looking for things to empower. DOGE is a way of getting power over the bureaucracy. Tariffs are a way of getting power over the international financial system and foreign policy and breaking traditional alliances. Maybe in his mind, even getting Canada to become the 51st state, maybe getting Mexico to change its immigration policy, trying to weaponize the Justice Department against Eric Adams as a way of getting power over Democratic mayor. Some of what they’re doing with grants and money is a way of getting power over other institutions in American life. Again, you could think it’s bad or you could think it’s good, but it is coherent. I think it’s bad, but it is coherent, and the people who think it’s good think it’s good for Trump to have power. Again, with the Eric Adams thing, they were very explicit about this, right? They said that it is worthwhile for the president to negotiate over his policy objectives and to trade things to get his policy objectives more fully carried out. And so Eric Adams went from saying New York City would be a sanctuary city. They’d aggressively carry out deportations. You can think that kind of transactionalism is fine. I think in this case, given that it’s about corruption, it wasn’t. But the idea, Trump’s idea that the problem is that the president doesn’t wield enough power here the way he does in Russia, the way he might in India, the way he might in China. Trump has spoken very openly of envying some of the powers these other people have. I think it’s a consistent governing philosophy that needs to be taken as that. Right? ia, the way he might in China. Trump has spoken very openly of envying some of the powers these other people have. I think it’s a consistent governing philosophy that needs to be taken as that. Right? I think sometimes you describe… One of the difficulties Trump poses is sometimes if you just describe what he’s doing, I think quite neutrally, people say, “Oh, you’re criticizing him, you’re anti-Trump. ” But I’m just describing what he’s doing. You can think it’s good or it’s bad, but the fact that he wants to arrogate power and find points of leverage and tariffs are one. What he’s doing through DOGE is another. What he did with the DOJ is another. It’s all very consistent. The question is really then just what your normative view is on Trump having that much power. Yeah. I have a question about DOGE, but before that, I’ll just say that I don’t think Donald Trump should have that much power because I think to this day, my biggest criticism and concern is that he is a person that denied the results of the election. And so I’m unwilling. I like George Washington. I like people that have the skill, the ability, the track record to walk away from power. And a person who’s unwilling to accept reality and is willing to bend reality to maintain a grip on power, even if what they’re trying to do is really good, maybe making a government more efficient makes me very concerned. But on the topic of DOGE is more on the Elon side. If we can combine DOGE and abundance as a topic, if DOGE succeeds the effort, let’s just forget DOGE, but the effort of making government more efficient, what does that look like before the next election and after the next election? If we can just look at success.…

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