Donald Trump's Revenge Tour

and the war plans group chat on Signal

When I was a second-, maybe third-year associate, I filed a motion with a federal bankruptcy court that included an attachment disclosing the personal information of a company’s employees. I failed to redact that information. Opposing counsel in the case called and alerted me to the error. It was mortifying. I remember throwing up in my office trash can before walking to my supervising partner’s office to tell on myself. I remember calling the court clerk to figure out how to pull the document from the public record. I remember frantically redacting and re-filing. I remember apologizing and apologizing and apologizing. I remember feeling like I could not breathe for at least a week. I remember the graciousness of everyone involved. Mistakes happen, they said. You're young, they said. You took responsibility and fixed it, they said. You’ll never do it again.

This episode came crashing back in my body and mind as I read about the Signal chat among the “Houthis PC small group.” I had an instant sense of empathy. Who hasn’t added the wrong person to a group text? Maggie can tell you how frequently I’ve sent her emails intended for a different Maggie. Who hasn’t been more casual about a communication than we should have been? Who among us doesn’t get sloppier than we’d like in our work occasionally? We’re tired. We’re stressed. We’re in a hurry. We’re people.

But then I remembered what everyone said to me: You’ll never do it again. It’s not that I haven’t made other (many! varied!) professional mistakes since. It’s that I haven’t made a mistake of that kind in that context again. I did learn from it.

It seems reasonable to expect the National Security Advisor, the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of State, the CIA Director, the DNI, the White House Chief of Staff, etc., to be past the mistakes happen moment of their careers—at least as it pertains to keeping information in proper channels. It seems reasonable, after years of discussions and investigations and indictments about classified documents, to expect, at least, a different class of mistakes.

This Signal debacle is disorienting because it’s about too many things: a disregard for law and procedure; debates about public relations and strategy; interpersonal dynamics among top Cabinet officials; actual bombing that killed at least two people and puts our military in jeopardy and carries risks for us as a country; the global supply chain; and, America’s role in the world.

Where do we begin? What lessons do we learn? What do we do next?

“Disorienting” seems to be the hallmark of Trump II’s first months in power. Whether we’re talking about national security or DOGE or tariffs or closing the Department of Education, it’s hard to find a through-line connecting President Trump’s stated goal with the administration’s actions and public communications and results. In today’s episode, we continue to try to see everything more clearly.

-Beth

Topics Discussed

• The War Plans Group Chat

• Donald Trump’s Revenge Tour

• Glimmers of Accountability and Hope in American Politics

• Outside of Politics: Tasks You Hate vs. Tasks You Miss

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Episode Resources

Operational Security and a War Planning Group Chat

• The Trump Administration Accidentally Texted Me Its War Plans (The Atlantic)

• For JD Vance, Europe Really Is the Enemy (Persuasion | Yascha Mounk)

• Trump launches large-scale strikes on Yemen's Houthis, at least 31 killed (Reuters)

Donald Trump’s Revenge Tour

• Inside Elon Musk and Russ Vought’s quiet alliance (POLITICO)

• Seniors won't complain if they miss a Social Security check, Lutnick says (Axios)

• The Price You Pay for College by Ron Lieber

• Trump's deep obsession: Winning the Nobel Peace Prize (Axios)

• Opinion | Gillian Tett Discusses Donald Trump and the Economy (The Ezra Klein Show | The New York Times)

• Showdown at the Institute of Peace (The New York Times)

• Decades Ago, Columbia Refused to Pay Trump $400 Million (The New York Times)

Glimmers of Hope in the Democratic Party

• Bernie Sanders is drawing record crowds as he pushes Democrats to 'fight oligarchy' (NPR)

Show Credits

Pantsuit Politics is hosted by Sarah Stewart Holland and Beth Silvers. The show is produced by Studio D Podcast Production. Alise Napp is our Managing Director and Maggie Penton is our Director of Community Engagement.

Our theme music was composed by Xander Singh with inspiration from original work by Dante Lima.

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Episode Transcript

Sarah [00:00:29] This is Sarah Stewart Holland.

Beth [00:00:31] This is Beth Silvers.

Sarah [00:00:32] You're listening to Pantsuit Politics. We've been doing this for 10 years, and we have learned to take a very different approach to the news. We don't chase headlines and we don't lean on outrage. That doesn't mean we ignore our emotional reactions. We just try to work through those together so we can respond with curiosity and stay grounded and motivated instead of anxious and depleted.

Beth [00:00:55] Part of that different approach is balancing reacting to the headlines with putting the news in context and keeping politics in its place with our conversations Outside of Politics. So we're going to try to do all of that today as we discuss the Signal controversy, the Trump administration's revenge tour against academia and the legal profession and some international events.

Sarah [00:01:16] Again, we always take a moment to exhale and talk about what's on our mind Outside of Politics. And today, after our in-depth conversation last week about parenting and crunchy moms, we're going to talk about the tasks around parenting we love, ones we miss and ones we're happier in the rear view mirror.

Beth [00:01:31] The best part of what we do here is engaging with all of you over at pantsuitpoliticsshow.com. We learn so much from you and from your expertise, your experiences. So if you would like to be part of a truly thoughtful community of people, a place where the common thread is inspiring and motivating instead of a dumpster fire, head over to pantsuitpoliticsshow.com, you will find lots of extras that we create every week for our premium members, as well as lots of additional bonus time with us and other listeners for free.

Sarah [00:02:02] Up next, we're going to talk about the Signal controversy, the war plans via text, and how that's bringing a lot of clarity for us around the Trump administration's stated goals, strategies, and ultimate motivation. Beth, let's begin with the Signal controversy, shall we?

Beth [00:02:31] Why not?

Sarah [00:02:31] Okay. Earlier this month, Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor-in-chief of The Atlantic, was added to a Signal chat by Mike Waltz, the national security advisor. Jeffrey Goldberg being the delineating, careful human that he is thought, “This is a trap. This is a fake. Surely Mike Waltz did not add me to a Signal group chat that contains the vice president, the secretary of defense, the chief of staff, the chief intelligence officer.” I can't even remember the entire list. It was so long.

Beth [00:03:13] The CIA director jumped out at me.

Sarah [00:03:14] Yeah. CIA director. Mr. Goldberg was like, oh, surely not. Surely not with these people. Kept an eye on it. Then war plans to bomb the Houthis in Yemen started being discussed inside this Signal group chat with great detail. There was conversation about how we don't want to prop up Europe again, how we really should extract some financial gain if we go and clear the Houthis out of the Suez Canal. A little bit of conversation about what POTUS did or didn't understand, what the American people do or don't understand about the Houthis. Until there was a team update from Pete Hegseth, basically sharing the intelligence and the plans concerning an upcoming bombing. The bombing took place, what, a couple hours later, at which point Mr. Goldberg was like, holy shit, this was real. They were discussing war plans over Signal, and they accidentally added me to the group chat. He has written about this in great detail; although, again, as a delineating and careful individual, he has excluded the great majority of intelligence information that they discussed openly over Signal.

Beth [00:04:36] My favorite detail from this whole saga, which puts me in an uncomfortable and strange position of feeling somewhat protective of Donald Trump, is that when Goldberg realized that this was for real and he sat in his car and waited for confirmation that the bombing being discussed in front of him had happened, he left the group chat, which would have notified everyone that he left group chat. Days later, when asked about this by reporters, President Trump says, "I don't know anything about this. You're telling me for the first time." If that's true, and this group of senior officials saw the editor of the Atlantic leave the group chat and no one told the president, every single one of these people should lose their job, regardless of the facts preceding that. The controversy around this, the fallout, they had to know it was going to be enormous and they didn't tell the president? Whatever you think about the rest of it, that's unacceptable. And if I were president Trump, I would be done today with this entire group of people for not telling me.

Sarah [00:05:56] I can almost buy that they didn't notice him leave. But at this point, he had called. The Atlantic and its reporters had called and said, can we confirm that you added our editor-in-chief to the Signal group chat? The National Security Council did, in fact, confirm that this was a real conversation. Pete Hegseth has continued to lie blatantly that this didn't happen. There were no war plans discussed- which is a lie. So even if they didn't notice there has been plenty of time since that the information has come out that he wasn't briefed on this or he's lying, which is also a distinct possibility.

Beth [00:06:44] I struggle with them not noticing that he left the group chat. It was called like the Houthis principles committee. They should be carefully paying attention to everything that happens in that discussion. And we haven't even gotten to the obvious fact that you don't do this on Signal. You don't talk about war plans on an app that you or I could download. There's so many problems here. National security experts' heads are exploding. I check the membership of the group chats when we're talking about who wants to get together to play cards on Saturday. I just don't understand how any of this happened.

Sarah [00:07:19] Yeah. And when we say you shouldn't, we don't mean as in norms expected of you. We mean the espionage act that this is most likely in violation of. The level of carelessness, especially when Ms. Careful herself, Susie Wiles, who's supposed to be bringing so much discipline to the administration is present in the group chat is to me illustrative of so many threads that I'm picking up as we watch this administration continue to act, with the intimidation of academia and the legal profession, with the "closure" of the Department of Education. So, first of all, there's what they tell us, what they tell the public, often dripping with lies and dishonesty, including the actual executive orders themselves, saying with no evidence that these law firms are breaking the law or these academic institutions are sheltering terrorists. So there's the complete inability to tell the truth when articulating the problem. Sometimes they are real problems. I won't debate that. But then the complete inability to tell the truth while understanding that people will be confused and not understand the truth themselves.

[00:09:04] This is what's articulated by JD Vance, which is probably the part that I found the most interesting in this exchange, which is his first articulation that Americans don't understand the Houthis, don't understand this conflict, and that's a risk. To his comments about Europe, I found so disgusting. I thought Yascha Mounk said it best, which is this don't feel like you're trying to get Europe to step up to the plate as allies. This feels like you see Europe as the enemy of the United States. You see Europeans as the enemies. There is this, oh, gross, they're so pathetic. We don't want to come to their rescue again because they really depend on the Suez Canal, not the United States, and anything we do should be reimbursed.

[00:10:00] This is a quote from Stephen Miller. If the U.S. successfully restores freedom of navigation at great cost, there needs to be some further economic gain extracted in return from our allies in Europe. So this sort of hiding the ball, how they both are really trying to articulate we want freedom of navigation. These are the priorities we've articulated. We really want to stick to our promises. But also when they're in the secret spaces where they can be honest, they're saying like, well, that's not really what we care about. We really care about sticking it to Europe. To me I can see threads of this through so much of the actions they've taken from [inaudible] that it's like this very complex knot of real problems that they know Americans care about, articulated priorities that speak both honestly to those problems, but dripping in lies about the risk or actual threat of those problems. And then behind the scenes, really what this is about is just sticking it to the people we can't stand.

Beth [00:11:14] The metaphor that I keep thinking about is when you go to the optometrist and they have the lenses on and you're staring at the chart and they click, click, and it gets a little sharper sometimes and a little fuzzier sometimes. I have felt over the past couple of weeks like I'm getting more clarity on the click, click. If I put this episode and these comments from the vice president alongside with the planned visit to Greenland by the second lady and the national security advisor over the objection of the Danish government, over the objections of the incoming new government in Greenland and alongside the Ukraine negotiations, you can see that the worldview of this administration is not that we are part of a coalition of democratic countries trying to ensure that trade is free in the world, that elections are free in the word, and that people are sovereign within their territories. Instead, I think it's just pure Darwinism. That the strong countries are entitled to kick the weaker countries around. The strong leaders are entitled to use whatever resources are at their disposal to get what they want. They're doing it domestically, they're doing internationally. And so when you look at this thread, it is interesting to me that the one check on the vice president's tendencies is how the public-- and by the public he means the MAGA base, right? How the MAGA faithful will interpret bombing Yemen.

[00:12:44] Because so successful has the Manosphere been (the right-wing Manosphere of podcast) in convincing everybody that America has basically no role to play in the world. And when we act on the world stage, we are always doing it at the expense of Americans. What I think the vice president fails to appreciate-- he's named what he thinks the president doesn't appreciate. What I think Vice President Vance doesn't appreciate and definitely Stephen Miller doesn't appreciate, is that the commerce happening through the Suez Canal, while it in the first instance directly affects Europe more than the United States, in what universe does European trade not impact US trade? All of that is so related. I know they hate that system, but that doesn't mean that system doesn't exist. And the cumulative effects of their actions around trade are absolutely going to tank this economy if anything goes a little bit sideways. And there are so many variables that could go sideways here. So I thought that was really interesting too, both because you could see the JD Vance that I think exists who will someday cut Donald Trump and because the only check on his anti-European instincts is what he can sell to the base.

Sarah [00:14:01] See, that's what I thought was interesting. I didn't see that JD Vance. What I thought it was interesting is that everybody was very concerned with POTUS. Even if they said I don't know if he understands this, it was never mocking. It was very much like he has the power to decide. He has this time period with which to decide, even in this pretty large group text. So I guess you're figuring somebody might go back and tell them anything I said. There's still a lot of concern for him, his priorities, making sure he's happy. That is like sort of drawing everyone together. His priorities, his timeframe, his window of decision, this is what he wants. He was ever present in this group chat in a way I thought was very interesting. And the chat itself is illuminative. And then their response, of course, is also really clarifying the strategy, which is we don't apologize. Even though we criticized the Biden administration for never finding anybody that did anything wrong, it doesn't matter.

[00:15:06] We don't do anything wrong. Everything we do is fine. We'll either lie to you and say we didn't do it or we'll just ignore you. Ignore any consequences because we know that only people that might actually hold us to account inside the Republican party will not do so. Because that's where you kind of get the snake eating itself. Because the ultimate motivation is loyalty, punishing the enemies, tribute, vengeance. Then that is also what we use to clean up any messes while we're pursuing this vengeance, right? It's a closed ecosystem. Even though off the record they will articulate we have to move fast with DOGE because once we run out of room by the midterms and people turn on us, we'll have to accept that. You get some of that in an anonymous reporting to sources or in deeply reported stories, that kind of thing. public facing is all bluster. It's all bluster. It's all macho- for use of a better word. And so it's like what's feeding the mistakes is also what they use to cover up the mistakes themselves.

Beth [00:16:25] It's so hard to break down because there are so many issues attached to this one episode. There are the internal politics of this administration. Where is everybody? And you see, even in this group, a divide from the more traditional Republican viewpoint, which I think Secretary of State Rubio embodies to some extent. Hey, America obviously has a role to play on the world stage as it relates to free trade. I think that's the position that Secretary Hegseth is trying to advocate for. It's at a very high level. I felt like there was some credibility lost just in the statement that a month from now the conditions will be the same. Okay, I get that a month from now America will probably still be the only country capable of sending a strong message to the Houthis about the Suez Canal. But, again, what level of detail do we expect these folks to be operating at? Something's going to be different a month from now that would affect a military operation like this. So there's that piece of it. There is the national security piece of that that they shouldn't be having this conversation legally or otherwise through this application. And they should know who is in the conversation and who's not in the conversion. There's that peace. There is the public relations aspect of it. I think the public doesn't understand global commerce. Of course not. Could the vast majority of Americans talk about what happens in the Suez Canal, where it is?

Sarah [00:17:54] They couldn't place it on a map.

Beth [00:17:56] No, of course not. And that's okay. That's not a criticism, but it does mean that all administrations should feel pressure to justify the use of American weapons in the world and should tell that story to the American people. And then that gets to the Congress side of it. So will there be any accountability around this? I don't know. I think you're exactly right about that sense that always the strategy is circle the wagons, own the liberals in the process and we'll be okay. That's the case that Secretary Hegseth made in the Signal chat. I understand that our base probably won't like it. So we need to emphasize Joe Biden screwed this up and we're fixing it. That's what we tell them. President Biden made us look weak and we're going to show the world that we're strong. He went green, so we're going blue and that's all they need to know.

[00:18:52] I don't think that cuts it in Congress though, where for over a decade you've had a bipartisan consensus among at least a small group of senators, most of whom are still there, who have been saying when you use the war powers, you have to come to Congress. And you've even heard a few Republicans in the wake of the bombing campaign against the Houthis say, excuse me, this is the exercise of the war powers, you need to come to Congress. Is it possible that the clear breach in security protocols combined with people already feeling a little bit uneasy about this decision creates some kind of opening? I don't know. But I think there are crackling fissures in the Republican caucus right now that this could really exacerbate.

Sarah [00:19:44] Well, let's talk about that in the context of a bunch of other headlines out there right now up next. So the Signal controversy came after a lot of bold (I guess is the word I'm looking for) actions on behalf of the Trump administration when it comes to immigration, when it comes to colleges and universities, the Department of Education, the legal profession. They were very busy intimidating and silencing people. And so I'm trying to look at that through the lens of what we were just discussing with regards to Signal because again I think that peak behind the curtain shows with a little more clarity what's motivating them. And to me, again, at the base of all of this is this really weird tension between we want to punish our enemies and we have these radical policy ideas. But I don't think they have quite-- I know this sounds paradoxical because they're throwing around so much power and they do seem so ego-driven in their posture as having this mandate and being in charge and Elon will just primary you, so you better fall in line. But I don't think they've quite given up the sort of street fighter posture. And that's why so much of what they've done is careless and sloppy.

[00:21:26] I take seriously the reporting that they were radicalized by what they encountered in the first administration. I really do. I think that's probably pretty accurate. But that only got them to sort of-- even with somebody like Russ Vought, they've got the radical ideas, they've gotten the hatred, but I just don't think they have the careful follow-through because it's not standing on a firm foundation except for radical hatred for the people that stopped you before or the government. So there's a paradoxical weakness there anyway because you are now the government. And so that's what it feels like we're just seeing. They're ready to do the bold action, they're ready move quickly, go after their enemies, prove to people they're ready to change things, to have some radical change. But they're not getting it across the finish line. They're not careful enough in their approach that they're moving fast enough and big enough just to activate the opposition, be it legal, be it public opinion, whatever the case may be.

Beth [00:22:32] I think there are a bunch of competing goals under this umbrella, and that's part of what you're getting at. Within the team of people who are driving the administration right now, I think are a few people who are thrilled to have provoked the opposition in the legal arena because what they ultimately want is for the Supreme Court to drastically expand executive power. That's been a very long-term goal that some of them are happy to pursue. But I don't think that's everybody. I think there are also people who want to put points on the board. They want to just get stuff done and show the American people we said we were going to do this, we did it. I think those are the people that speak to like the Charlie Kirk's of the world. The folks who genuinely think the Democrats are ineffective at wielding government power and they want to come in and see someone use it to do things, and they want those things to last long enough, but they're not thinking on a 100-200 year timeline. And then you have the people who are disrupting for the sake of disruption. And then you have people who I think would like to do some good, but confuse being an outsider with being a leader.

[00:23:50] I was thinking about this again with Pete Hegseth and this Signal chat, and how I get that it is really tempting to believe that people in media should be in government. We hear this sometime. I did an episode about what a competitor to Project 2025 could look like and it got a great response and a lot of people were like you should write this. And I so appreciate that and no I shouldn't because I have a lot of ideas, but I have no experience in government. And I think our government should be one where people with ideas are welcome to the table, but there is a lot to be said for preparation. As this incident with the Houthis shows, you don't get a practice bombing. You have to go in and know enough about how government works to be able to do the job. That's why when we were talking about the confirmation hearings for these cabinet members I kept emphasizing maybe unqualified is the wrong word, but unprepared is the right one. They don't know what they're doing yet. And I think it's that mix that has the feeling of the flooding the zone actions being so disjointed from the results and the fallout and the case being made to the public. That's where I think they're really falling short. Nobody's out selling this agenda. They're in damage control all the time right now. Don't worry. It's not going to be that bad. When Howard Lutnick is saying my mom won't be mad if she misses a social security check, things are not going well. Things are not doing well.

Sarah [00:25:22] Well, probably this is the truest reflection of Donald Trump because everything is built on the foundation of him. So both things are true that he is brilliant at public relations in so many ways. And also that includes a sloppiness that by necessity contains an enormous amount of errors and dishonesty. So you can see that. You can see this Donald Trump approach of the honest liar, right? I'm going to speak to the problem. I'm going to lie to you about how bad it is. I'm go to lie about how quickly I fix it, but at least I told you the truth about the problem. And I see that definitely with the colleges. Look, there was a problem during the protest. You and I talked about it on the show. There were some real issues on these campuses. There are some real issues. Look, I'm reading this really great book right now about college admissions that so many of you recommended, Ron Lieber, The Price You Pay for College. And he talks about a lot of these research institutions that are getting hit really hard right now with the funding freezes, they don't have a great student experience. Professors who are consumed with research aren't involved on the ground with teaching. There's not a lot of great mentorship. That's also true.

[00:26:54] The second biggest group of universities that had terrible scores when it came to mentorship and student teacher interaction were the Ivies because they're famous teachers. They're busy writing books and doing all kinds of stuff, right? And so, again, he names a piece of the problem. Something that everybody, if you're just paying low level attention, will go, "Oh yeah, that was a mess right there at those universities last year with the protest." We know that. But then it's just a proliferation of lies about the motivations, about how bad it went, about xyz result of these protests. It can't be enough that these protests got out of hand. It's got to be that the protest leaders are basically Hamas generals. It can't ever be an actual accurate, research-driven assessment of the problem. It's got to be this flood the zone with how terrible everybody is. The same with the legal profession and the intimidation, the executive order that if you have any sort of interactions with asylum seekers, you're going to be punished.

[00:28:07] This silencing, this intimidation, the threatening, because that's how he functions, right? He functions as sort of a mob boss. You pay loyalty, you pay tribute. If you don't, there'll be hell to pay. That's the language they use over and over again for a policy. He feels like Europe disrespected him and that's why Europe is an enemy now. And so you kind of see it flows out from him. And why is there not a concern with a data-driven analysis of how to actually fix the problem long-term? Because he doesn't care about that and he doesn't prioritize that. And what's important is the street fight, right? What's important is the vengeance. What's important is the tearing things apart that people hate. That's what he's good at, that's what motivates him. And so you see the tentacles of that and all this different behavior. No matter who the enemy is, all that matters is that you're an enemy and we're going to take you out.

Beth [00:29:08] I think it's really insightful of you to name that the cabinet is a reflection of Donald Trump's competing instincts. And there's a version of that that would be healthy. Doris Kearns Goodwin has written a whole book about that.

Sarah [00:29:25] Team of Rivals.

Beth [00:29:25] It's great to have a team of rivals. It's wonderful to have people with competing instincts who fight it out in government.

Sarah [00:29:30] Yeah, but they're not rivals. This is a royal court, not a team rivals.

Beth [00:29:35] What makes it unhealthy, that bit of Donald Trump that is in every person he appoints. It is all connected and ultimately, I think, fueled by his feelings. And that's why we had them campaign on the idea that the worst thing that can happen to you in America is to be deplatformed because of your speech. And now because of people's speech, they are showing up in homes, throwing them out of the country, removing their opportunity to practice law, removing their opportunities to be in business. So we went from, hey, America, you've gone way too far in policing intolerance online. So what we're going to do is all of that in reverse and exceptionally harder. And you see that it was never about an idea, it was about a feeling. And I think that that's, again, why everything feels very disjointed and off here. I could see the Department of Education sitting down with some of the schools, not even about the content of the protest, but about the fact that students took over buildings and the experience that that creates for all of the other students on campus, many of whom are there because of federal loans and grants. There's a discussion to have about protests on campus over anything and how it is handled by an administration when so many federal dollars are tied up in it. There's a discussion to have there. This isn't it. And now what we have is really a sentiment that it is worse to be deplatformed or demonetized than to be deported. And that's insane.

Sarah [00:31:28] You can see just it's all driven by his experience and his reactions to those experience. And like I said, I don't think that stops with him. I think there are a lot of people radicalized by what they felt was an unfair targeting, that he was a Republican and he didn't get the normal pass that normal political candidates get. And that's true because he wasn't a normal political candidate. But I'm really trying to check myself, like, am I reacting to something just because he said it and that's enough for me to hate it? Because I do think some of that happened with him. And I think it was to the detriment of the government, of the Republican party, of the Democratic party. Because it's not just his followers and loyalists that feed off his emotional reactions, it is also his opponents. It is also his opponents who get wrapped up in his emotional cycles. We get trapped in responding, and he knows this. He knows that this is how it works. That if he can do something outrageous, that will feed the new cycle, that will the conflict back and forth. I think you're seeing so much of that with immigration. They're not hitting the numbers they wanted to, that they promised. And this is, I think, the absolute top promise that they made during the campaign. Revolved around immigration and the border. And I think that as they feel tension around their promises, specifically related to the economy, that's why you see this dialing up in the vengeance tour, right? This is why you see this we'll meet our promises on a lot of other areas. We'll go after the Department of Education. We'll go after deporting these academic elites.

Beth [00:33:24] Who's the real enemy? How can we get you trained on who's the really enemy?

Sarah [00:33:30] Exactly. And it's like a distraction. It's not that it's not serious.

Beth [00:33:34] It's very serious.

Sarah [00:33:34] Of course, the way that they are violating these people's due process rights are incredibly serious. But there should be a real opportunity here for an alignment between libertarians and progressives because this is a massive expansion of government power. This is the truest restriction of people's liberty. And I don't just mean people who are not citizens, I mean even these academics and these law firms. You don't have a freedom of speech. It's gone because you don' say things we like. And so we will use the power of the government to intimidate and to silence you into submission. Where are my libertarians at? Because how could they possibly be comfortable inside the Republican party watching Donald Trump use the power of the federal government to punish and silence people he disagrees with?

Beth [00:34:42] And it is having a chilling effect on the most powerful corporations in our society, all the way through the most vulnerable people in our society. And I think on the libertarian front, the way I see this, it's not just a massive expansion of government power in general. It is the specific worst case scenario that when you argue against the expansion of government power, you say, here's where it could go when the armed capacity of government meets the vulnerable individual. That's the slippery slope that you're always trying to persuade people with when you're arguing from a libertarian perspective. I know because that's often where I find myself. And this is it. Showing up at someone's house, knocking on their door to try to put them on an airplane because of what they said. And I get that the law is gray here. I get the Secretary of State has a lot of room, there's a lot ambiguity. But taken together, the theme is if you hurt our feelings, or we don't like you, or we think you're a really convenient scapegoat, or we think that we can sell to the public that we've done something important through you, there is no restraint on how we'll use the police power that we have as an executive branch to come after you. And I don't think that we can stand for that as a society. I really don't, especially when the power players are folding around it. The power players are folding.

Sarah [00:36:16] Yeah. Well, and here's the thing though, because again, Donald Trump has no long-term outlook. I appreciate that there's some members of the administration and maybe his own children that are out there trying to put forward this 100-year domination of American politics plan. I think that's a fool's errand. I think this belief they have that they've reached the finish line is again as a reflection of Donald Trump himself, not reflected in history or reality. Because I don't think he has that long-term outlook. I don' think he cares. I think he's a very present-minded sort of person. Unless it's revenge over the past, but as far as future orientation--

Beth [00:37:07] The slogan is backward looking. Make America great again.

Sarah [00:37:11] Right. So he is not concerned with any long-term planning or stability. And so the plans around him don't reflect that. And what I mean is this is so short-sighted. Do you believe that there won't be another day where Democrats win elections? Maybe you just think it's 20 years away, whatever. That's foolish. And I don't think they do because you see this deep reporting around DOGE, that they're hurrying because they know what's coming at the midterm. They know cuts are unpopular, that they'll probably lose some seats. So the deeply reported anonymous stuff doesn't match up with the fact that you think you just won't ever have to defend yourself ever again because you've lined up all these loyalists. So if you secretly know that not to be true, which I should hope that you have some sort of attachment to reality, you can't see that this is going to end badly for you? Like people will use this against you. Let's say you get this law through, because I don't think that they're trying to trigger some massive constitutional crisis. I take seriously this debate about whether district court judges should be able to put in place national injunctions. Okay, I think that's a debate worth having.

[00:38:34] I think as much as they're capable of having a policy debate in good faith, I think that's one of them. So let's say you pass your legislation that they're thinking about introducing. You know you don't have the votes to impeach a judge. Let's say you pass this legislation. What happens when you want a district judge to put a national injunction in place? When you're out of power, when you went something to be stopped that you hate, like they just can't. There's no long-term outlook. What happens when all the people that you fired or cut their funding or all that, what happens when they get radicalized the way you got radicalized? When they see this expansion of government power and they start to articulate a vision that really connects with Americans. Can you not see that that could happen to you? I said on a previous podcast a lot of these people are going to go to state governments, the state governments you've empowered to do whatever they want. What happens then? And then, of course, the New York Times had a piece. A lot of experts, a lot of these federal employees finding a home in state government. Again, because it's a reflection of him. It's just how I feel in the moment. There's no real concern with how this plays out in the long-term.

Beth [00:39:44] I want to make sure that we're all together on the district courts and injunctions for a quick second because I do think this is important and you're hearing a lot about it, but it's hard to follow. The idea with an injunction is that you go to court and say before we do the whole court thing, before we exchange documents and take depositions and have hearings, on an emergency basis, I need the court to say what's happening is so egregious and it's causing so much damage right now in the moment; that they're going to make an order before we do the rest of the stuff. And that order will be in place until we do rest of this stuff and figure out the real resolution. And for the past several administrations, going back to the Obama days at least, we had a number of actions taken by the president that a district judge, the first level of court in the federal system, a district judge said, "I think this is unconstitutional. I think it will do active harm if it goes into place before we can let the whole process work its way through our system. And so I'm going to stop it now for the entire country because I'm a federal judge and this is a federal action that affects the whole country. And if it's unconstitutional here in my district, it's unconstitutional everywhere else."

[00:40:59] And since those days we have had fights depending on whether you liked the substance of the district judge's decision or not, about whether one judge should have that much power. And the Supreme Court has really tiptoed around this issue. You have a couple of conservative justices who have a few times said we should stop this. It is too much power. It is the judiciary intruding on the executive function on an emergency basis to block executive action nationwide. I don't think that's where the majority of the court is because the majority of the Court is like the majority of the nation. Depends on how they feel about the substance. They don't want to decide this on process. They don' want to lose the ability for a district judge to stop everything nationwide because at one point there'll be something that they think is egregious and unconstitutional and should be stopped nationwide.

[00:41:52] And I don't know if Congress passes a law that says district judges can't do that anymore, that it will be constitutional. Because I think this is a power that the federal court system guards pretty jealously and probably should. We lose a whole lot of that balance of powers if that threat isn't there. That threat of blocking the action theoretically helps keep some administrations in check. So that's the argument. The Trump administration doesn't want to argue a lot of these actions on the substance, especially on a preliminary basis because they just want to get people out of the country and later say, well, they're gone. What can we do? Oops, it was unconstitutional, fine, but they're done. We did for the public what we said we were going to do for the public. That's why this fight is so important. So they're going to the Supreme Court not saying we should be allowed to deport these people, but saying this judge shouldn't be able to stop us in this way.

Sarah [00:42:53] So there are members of Congress who say, okay, well, if we can't intimidate the judges by impeaching them and silence them the way we have silenced and intimidated everybody else, be it the administration at Columbia University and or fancy New York City law firms, then we'll pass legislation that will just prohibit these nationwide injunctions at all. And, again, with Trump I think so much flows from him, and I can't quite decide or see clearly how much he's changed. We're all seeing that he's change around the economy, that he used to be very, very tuned into the stock market. We all talked about this is his main poll he cares about. Well, there's been lots of economic pain, increasingly warnings that it's going to get worse. He doesn't seem concerned. He is mostly concerned still with what can only be generously described as tribute. While they're all discussing war plans in Signal, he's worried about his portrait in the Colorado State House.

[00:44:01] He is by multiple reports consumed with the idea of winning a Nobel Peace Prize, even as his ceasefire between Israel and Hamas falls apart and there's no seeming progress between Russia and Ukraine. There are conflicts getting worse around the world, particularly in Sudan. So I can't decide how much he's changed, how much she believes his own press about the mandate and the political power. I don't think all this continued reporting about the democratic party being lost in the wilderness is helping, but I can decide if he-- he's term limited anyway. He's gotten what he wants. He wants to continue to seek vengeance. He's doing that without any criticism or restriction or constraint from the Republican party. So is he on just a revenge farewell tour? Does he still care what his constituents think? Or is he just believe, well, I'm in charge. No one's stopping me. They'll just get right with whatever I decide to do. I can't quite see clearly on him. And that's important because I think everything flows from him.

Beth [00:45:23] I don't know either. I feel like I'm still adjusting the lens here to get to where he is. I'm happy for him to be motivated by the idea of winning a Nobel Peace Prize. I would much rather that than some other motivations. So if that's important to him, great.

Sarah [00:45:37] But he's not motivated to win it. He believes he's been unfairly ignored. That's not quite the same thing.

Beth [00:45:42] It's not, but I would still rather peace be in his mind in some respects. And this is what's so frustrating about him. He has an opportunity to do some good. He does have an enormous amount of power right now. He did win in a pretty extraordinary fashion. I know that it's narrow and we can argue how big the majority is or if it was a majority at all, all day long. But his party is stronger than the opposition right now under any rubric. And I think he genuinely does hate war. And I wish that that would come to fruition in some way that was constructive for people. Even with things like dismantling the Department of Education, there is a version of that that could be better. It might be that civil rights enforcement is better done just inside the Department of Justice. I don't know. But I know enough about the individuals with disabilities in education act and section 504 and the phrase "exhaustion of administrative remedies" to know that a lot of what gets built in the administrative process, while it does some good also does a lot harm.

[00:46:57] So maybe we would be better off if the Department of Justice were responsible for those cases. And maybe we'd be better off if the treasury was responsible for student loans. That there are ways that the good done in the Department of Education could be done elsewhere that are positive or at neutral. Neutral at worst. It gets so muddied by the people that he has around him, by his own ego, by his own competing motivations. Who likes me at what point? What matters to me? I think part of the reason that's not clear for us is that it's still, at this age, not clear for him. He is not a grounded person, which is why I never would have voted for him. He's not grounded person. And so we're not going to get grounded policy out of him. And that's a shame.

Sarah [00:47:49] I'm second-guessing that conclusion I also had about him around war because I feel like it could go the way of the stock market conclusion.

Beth [00:47:58] That's fair.

Sarah [00:47:59] These aggressive strategies towards Greenland, the targeting of our allies, the hell to pay if you don't agree Hamas, and then seemingly with his blessing, Israel rains down fire on Gaza, people who had just returned to their homes.

Beth [00:48:15] It's awful.

Sarah [00:48:18] I don't know. I think, again, it's just in the present moment, transactional. I win; they lose. That's the only two realities possible. I'm winning and they're losing. It's zero sum. It's this hegemonic, power-driven approach to the world. And it's very present. That present occupation to me is the reflection of the street fight. Like what's the long-term strategy if you've built everything on an orientation to the WWE? You know what I mean? I was listening to a cultural anthropologist who's an economics reporter and she talked about my cultural anthropologists training, I see that WWE approach to everything. And if you look through it, through that lens, you're like, okay, I get it. like. It's performance, doesn't matter if you lie. Doesn't it matter if it's all an act, it's about who's dominating. And in order to dominate, somebody else has to be dominated. If you strip away all the complexities, if you decide I don't actually have to hold two things at once, I just hold one thing at once and that this is a WWE fight at all times, then it all starts to make a certain amount of sense.

Beth [00:49:41] Except that when that's the orientation of the American president, just about everybody else loses. There is no domination scenario in Ukraine and Russia right now- everybody's losing. And that is specifically true with Israel and Gaza. The fact that there are still hostages being held and the fact that they're people who've been displaced over and over and again, everybody is losing. Who is winning anything there right now? It is torture all around. There's no more moral math to be done. When you're talking about these couple hundred prisoners for the remains of these hostages, there's no more moral math. It's awful. Every day that this continues without some kind of resolution that upholds the dignity of the people forced to ride along with the egos in the Israeli government and the egos in Hamas and the egos in the Whitehouse, every day is a societal failing. And so I win and everybody else loses can be true if you're sitting in the Oval Office, I guess. But outside the Oval Office, I think this is true about everything we've discussed: immigration, trade, global conflict, the civil service. If it's I win and they lose, it's everyone loses outside the comfort of where he sits.

Sarah [00:51:11] Well, and what's so frustrating is you'll get glimmers. Like the Middle East envoy, Witkoff, says Bibi is in conflict with public opinion in Israel. They don't want this anymore. And you're like, okay, that's good. Let's talk about that a little bit more. Or JD Vance will say, people don't understand this. They're not going to understand it enough to be on our side. You're like okay. Or Elon Musk says the country's over if we don't get this debt under control. Right, I agree with you. You'll see these like little blips, little glimmers where you're like, right. That is an accurate and clear-eyed assessment of the problem. Even around the Department of Education, look, the testing, the federal requirements, that's not made a single teacher's job easier. And I don't think it's improved the overall education of our students, okay?

Beth [00:52:08] It hasn't under the department's own assessment of it.

Sarah [00:52:12] Right. And that we just pay for a lot of assessments to say nothing's working. Great. So you see these glimmers where you're like, okay, yes, I agree. And that's what makes the tragedy of them wasting what really is the political winds at their backs so painful. That's what it makes it so painful. It's they'll name just enough where you'll go, oh yeah, right, okay. So you see that and you have all this capacity, and instead we're going to waste it going after Columbia University for the exact amount that they turned you down on a real estate deal 20 years ago. Wonderful.

Beth [00:52:55] And I think the other lesson here, even if there weren't this sort of personal pettiness at the center of everything, this administration's instinct is to go everything alone. Don't bring Congress with you. Don't even bring all of the people inside various departments with you. Go alone. Take these strike teams in. What happened at the Institute of Peace where there was like a standoff and a security firm had to get a master key to let people in, it's embarrassing.

Sarah [00:53:28] Wow, wanting the Nobel Peace Prize.

Beth [00:53:30] Right, it is embarrassing. But it's going down this way because they are impatient and unwilling to persuade, to get group of stakeholders around a table. And here's some things that they might not agree with and be strong enough to sit through that disagreement, which is not pleasant. I get it. I don't like being in a meeting where there's a lot of disagreement and we're spending hours on something that I've already made up my mind about and should take five minutes from my view. Nobody enjoys that. That's the work of governing and they're unwilling to do it. And so I think that's a lesson for future administrations, right or left, or whatever else we might get out of all this because I don't think our politics is going to be unchanged by what's happened even in the past three months. Whatever comes of all of this, I hope that we can have leaders who are willing to push an agenda with urgency and with conviction, but also remember that it's a huge country and everything you do when you're holding the reins of that huge country needs to be done carefully and in partnership with Congress, and with all of the agencies that are going to be affected by it, and with governors. This is difficult work. Any one topic that they have chosen to touch here could have consumed these three months to better and more durable outcomes if they would have been up for that challenge.

Sarah [00:55:03] But he doesn't want the government to work for us. He wants the government work for him. That's the conclusion I think you just can't help but reach. I do want to say before we wrap up that there have been glimmers of hope to the activation of the opposition. I thought the crowds present at Bernie Sanders and AOC's fight the oligarchy tours were very encouraging. I think some in our audience were there. I think that is what we want to see. Enough with the inside the Democratic leadership luncheons and the very, very DC driven reporting from all kinds of outlets. This is what I want to see. I want to people in the streets talk to them, ask why they're there. That's what needs to be happening inside the democratic party. I was really, really encouraged. And, look, I have never minced words.

[00:56:01] I think that AOC is the future. I think her approach to politics is powerful. I don't even agree with her all the time on policy, but it doesn't matter because I think that she is incredibly gifted and thoughtful and clear-eyed. If you want to talk about leadership flowing from a person, do you see what I'm saying? Like you orient everything based on how that person orients themselves. She just knows what she's about and it shows. Same for Bernie. Look, Bernie's not my favorite, but when you see someone who's there and you understand why based on their own stories and their own values, it comes across. It's an authenticity that cannot be faked with a million short form videos. And she has it. She just does.

Beth [00:56:49] I think whatever gets people involved right now is positive. Am I ever going to be like, woo, Bernie and AOC? No, I'm not. But that's okay. I think that belongs. I think that belongs in this moment. I think the DC-driven conversations belong. I think people who are signing up in record numbers for training to run for office belongs. I want to see everybody giving their best. I would put in the glimmer of hope bucket, as painful as it is, all of the reporting about people who are saying things like, well, I thought this, but I didn't mean that. I think that's good. Just recognizing that whatever policy position you take is going to have a lot of unintended consequences is a civics lesson that we're all going through in terrible ways. And it happens with every administration. There isn't a federal policy that rolls out that you say every single bit of that was amazing. But it really is happening right now that many people are saying, well, I wanted a more efficient government; I didn't mean my job. Or I wanted deportation but not to El Salvadorian prisons. A little bit more reticence, I think, on the part of the public in the future could be a hopeful outgrowth to me of what we're seeing right now.

Sarah [00:58:15] I definitely agree this administration lives firmly planted, if anywhere, in the law of unintended consequences. And wouldn't it be ironic if an administration driven by expanding the power of the federal government to paradoxically take out the federal Government? Which is something I can't quite wrap my hands around. Wouldn't be beautiful if what they ultimately did was teach everyone in a really, really visceral way, both the power and importance of the federal government. Wouldn't that be a sight to behold? We know many of you are living the law of unintended consequences when it comes to this administration, and we so appreciate you sharing your experiences and the impacts of all this action on your lives. It really is so important. And we appreciate you for trusting us with those stories, and we look forward to hearing you again after this conversation. Up next, we're going to talk about what's on our minds Outside of Politics.

[00:59:32] Beth, while you're out, Maggie and I had a long conversation about our experiences as crunchy moms, and it brought up so many memories of that phase of parenting and how labor-intensive it was. There were so many tasks. There was so much job. There's just like a real physicality with taking care of kids that age no matter what your orientation or approach to parenting, but definitely when you're a crunchy mom. There's the washing of the diapers and the--

Beth [01:00:14] Make the baby food.

Sarah [01:00:16] Making of the baby foods, and the, and the, and the. And I had read this article and they were talking about task you hate versus task you miss. And I thought, wow, that is a thing to look back on. What do I actually miss from that phase of life? What will I miss about teenagers when they're all out of my house versus what do I actually just hate.

Beth [01:00:42] Well, I can tell you in my present phase what I hate. My daughters are nine, almost 10, and 14. And I spent, not this past Saturday, but this Saturday before, about an hour and a half doing what I can only describe as administrative work on their behalf. Forms for camp, school field trip forms, registering for various things, paying for various things, and I do hate that part very, very much. My older daughter is getting to where she can fill out some of those forms and just have me sign them, but there's a lot that I still just have to do. And I do not enjoy being the secretary for my children.

Sarah [01:01:25] I was talking to my therapist about how much I hate the three to five o'clock hour, the post-school homework activity time where you're processing all that paperwork and you're making sure people don't eat snacks continuously from three to 5 o' clock so that when we sit down for dinner and no one's hungry. That's the part I hate right now. I just feel like I just have basically sit in my kitchen and go, "No, you cannot have a full bowl of ramen after you've had three granola bars and two things of yogurt. Thank you so much for asking. Please go do something else." She was like, you'll never regret it. Because that's like the third category, right? I don't regret it, but I'm glad it's over. She's like, you'll ever regret being home during that time of day. There's a lot happening in that time of day. It's better if there's an adult there. And I look back at that, so many of the tasks, with that littles phase. I don't regret it, but I don' miss it. I was talking with some friends about storybooks and I do miss storybooks. Even though bedtime was such a pain so often, like, so exhausting, you're tired, just please go to sleep. But I do miss children's storybook a lot. I started reciting Pete the Cat and I was like, oh, I can still recite the whole thing. And it was very comforting to start to recite Pete the Cat in a way.

Beth [01:02:57] I miss the story books. I miss some of the playing. I liked getting down on the floor with some blocks or singing a song when you're doing the songs with the hand motions. That stuff I really loved. Now I know that it's very easy to romanticize that from here because I can just remember those parts instead of the fact that I was doing a lot of that to keep them from screaming about something else or for breaking something and I'm exhausted and not sleeping well. I do miss some those things. There's a lot that I think I'll miss about this timeframe, this older elementary, young teenager moment when they have the most interesting questions and the most interest stories. We were walking over the weekend and my older daughter said, "Mom, do you want to hear what went down in choir today?" And I was like, "Yes, I want to hear every detail of what went down in choir today." I will miss a lot of just the talking that we're doing right now.

Sarah [01:03:55] I miss PBS Kids. I really loved that morning hour when I knew we had about an hour, we're going to eat breakfast, it's going to be on. I found it deeply comforting just to have PBS Kids on in the background, especially Daniel Tiger. I miss it. I definitely miss that background preschool programming, Peg+Cat. Loved them all. I was telling Nicholas the other day that they're just getting really funny. I don't laugh if my kids aren't funny. That's just not my approach. I don' let them win games. I don't laugh at their jokes if they're not funny. I don't act interested when I'm not. That's my approach to parenting. You might take a different approach, that's just mine. Because I'm a not a good faker. That is just my personality. I'm bad at faking things. That's why I was a terrible politician probably. And so now they're getting just legitimately funny. They're really, really funny. And I'm like, man, this is such a bummer. They get to be really good, interesting conversationalists. They can land a joke, and then they leave. This is poor design. I've been putting up with their boring stories for years about Minecraft or some YouTube short they saw, and now they're getting really funny and they're going to go make their friends laugh somewhere else. This is not fair. I put it in all the time, and I should get the full benefit of the senses of humor that I have carefully cultivated. That's just all I'm saying.

Beth [01:05:25] I think a lot of parenting is like that. You start to find your rhythm in a phase and then the phase is over.

Sarah [01:05:30] That's what my mom told me when I had my kids. She was like just know the second you think you figured it out, it will change.

Beth [01:05:38] Yeah, that's right. It's also the best. I had a pregnancy dream last week, which I have not had in a long time. And anytime I have a pregnancy dream, I am so grateful that I am not waking up in the middle of the night anymore, that we are out of car seats, that I can say go take a shower, that I can say stay here by yourself I'm running to the store. I love the phase of parenting I'm in now. I do not wish to go back in any way. And I am grateful that I have had the experience and that I have all of those of storybooks and blocks moments and coloring times and Play-Doh to just remember as part of the fabric of my life. Even though I know they're going to leave me and I'm not going to hear every funny thing and get the detail on what went down in choir or its current version today, I'm really, really grateful that I've had this experience. And it's becoming easier to be grateful because the parenting itself is so much less physical now.

Sarah [01:06:36] I miss the physicality and I would go back in a second. I miss holding them. I love babies. Love babies. Just holding them, letting them sleep on your chest. And I really like that's the part of toddlers. Like the cuddles that I really enjoyed. I like the physicality. I miss holding them. I have to chase Griffin down for a hug and basically threaten him if he won't hug me for longer than five seconds, which is his preferred time frame. And I have given him the lecture about 30 seconds is how long it takes to get the dopamine rush from a hug. So it's just not the same. And also they're massive. They're so much bigger than I am. Griffin is pushing past six feet now. It's like he's just a huge person. So I definitely miss-- I look at pictures of them as 11 month olds or two and a half and I'm like, oh, what I wouldn't give to pick you up. But that's not always the sad thing. You don't know the last time you'll hold them. It kills me. I don't miss car seats not for one minute. I don't miss getting them dressed. The sort of labor around their bodies, I don't miss. But their actual little chubby bodies, I miss it so much.

[01:07:46] So we want to hear from you guys. What do you miss? What do you hate? What are you glad you've said goodbye to and don't miss one single little bit? We want to hear from all of you guys. We love hearing from you. We hope you've enjoyed this episode. If you have, be sure to follow Pantsuit Politics wherever you listen to podcasts. That's the easiest way to make sure you never miss an episode. And if you find yourself with thoughts, whether you agreed with us, disagreed with us, or have experiences or expertise related to this topic, you would love The Spice Cabinet over at pantsuitpoliticshow.com. There you can become a free or paid supporter of Pantsuit Politics and join in the conversation with our thoughtful community of listeners. Last week, after the crunchy mom episode, we had like 250 comments. It was such a great conversation in the comment thread.

[01:08:32] And I do want to take this moment-- this is a good illustration of how valuable we find your comments. All the pediatricians showed up immediately and were like, Sarah, you meant Tylenol and Ibuprofen after a fever, not aspirin. That's re-syndrome. That's very dangerous. And, of course, that's what I meant. Please don't ever take medical advice from me, guys. I meant to say Tylenol and Ibuprofen, not aspirin and Ibuprofen. So just wanted to correct that quickly because I gave all our pediatrician listeners a little bit of a panic attack, I think. So the link for the Spice Cabinet and Pantsuitpoliticsshow.com is in our show notes. We will be back in your ears on Friday with a new episode. And until then, keep it nuanced y'all.