From WXXI news this is connections I'm Evan Dawson.

Our connection this hour was made in 2019 when PBS frontline interviewed Steve Bannon, and they sat down for an hour and a half to talk about not only his worldview, but the Donald Trump strategy.

And I've been thinking about Steve Bannon's comments quite often in the past month.

I suspect a lot of people have.

Bannon was glad to describe how Trump and his team approached their goals.

Flood the zone with a tornado of well.

Bannon used a word that I can't repeat on public media, but I want to listen to more of that interview from 2019.

What we've got to do is just hit, hit, hit and keep it this momentum, momentum, momentum that the the opposition party is the media in the media can only because they're dumb and they're lazy.

They can only focus on one thing at a time.

And the one thing they'll mainly focus on is either they do the horse race or once the horse race, who's in, who's out.

It's like the high school.

Who?

The cool kids in the cafeteria.

Right?

Because it's easy.

It's the reason they do the horse race stuff.

All the time.

Right?

And they won't do the basic what are the core things are going on in the country?

I said, all we have to do is flood the zone every day.

We hit them with three things.

They'll bite on one and we'll get all of our stuff done.

Bang, bang, bang.

These guys will never we'll never be able to recover.

That's Steve Bannon in 2019 talking to PBS frontline.

And so here we are watching this in action.

Recently, everyone from investigative journalist David Cay Johnston to Senator Cory Booker have been compiling lists of stuff flooding the zone.

Here are just some of the examples.

President Trump fired the head of the Office of Government Ethics, the person in charge of preventing conflicts of interest and financial entanglements among federal officials.

President Trump halted enforcement of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, the law that bars American companies such as the Trump Organization, from paying cash bribes to foreign officials.

Trump got rid of Executive Order 13989, which prohibited political appointees in the government from accepting gifts from lobbyists.

Trump fired nearly most of the U.S. inspectors general, a group of independent watchdogs whose task is to root out fraud and corruption in the system.

And he decided that Elon Musk should not have to release his tax returns or share much of anything about his own finances.

All while Musk and his Doge team get access to data from millions of Americans.

Have I missed anything?

Actually, I'm sure I have.

That's that's just Cory Booker's list.

The question becomes, if Bannon wants you to be overwhelmed, what should you do?

What should journalists do?

Should you focus on Trump's comments about illegally taking over Gaza and making it a new seaside resort while forcing millions of Palestinians out?

Should you focus on the cuts to U.S. efforts to fight disease around the world?

Both the humanitarian mission and a form of soft power.

Should you focus on an escalating trade war with our closest allies?

Or maybe should you focus on the price of eggs, which the president guaranteed to cut immediately, only to see those prices soar?

Years ago, UN Connections David Cay Johnston urged us to stop obsessing about what politicians say or tweet or write.

Spend your energy, he said.

And what they do.

David is back to discuss month one of the new administration and what he is seeing the administration doing.

David Cay Johnston, Pulitzer Prize winning investigative journalist.

Welcome back to the program.

Nice to have you.

Well, glad to be here again.

Are you glad?

Well, you know, the hurricane, people need to understand what a bill of goods they were sold by Donald Trump.

If they voted for him, that he's not who they think he is, and that what he's actually doing is not even close to what he told voters he would do.

Well, and I want to start with some of what you were writing just this morning, where you were indicating that you actually think we've been euphemism when when you hear The New York Times or journalists or conversations among retired judges, as we had earlier this week, when you hear worry about a constitutional crisis to you, that's too mild of a term.

Why is that?

It's a euphemism.

Well, the fundamental problem in the press corps and Steve Bannon was pretty good about it, lazy and focused on the horse race instead of the substance.

he was right about that.

Yeah.

He I think I, you know, I made it a point in my whole career which goes back almost 60 years now to cover Washington without being there, because in Washington, there's this whole, kabuki theater game that goes on, and better to look at the public record, or at least some journalists to do so.

but fundamentally, what Donald Trump is doing is setting up, as I've been warning people for nine and a half years, a dictatorship.

if you read the works of people who studied how authoritarian regimes arise, how Rome over a 40 year period went from being a republic to a dictatorship, what happened in some of the former Soviet satellite countries after the Kremlin and the Soviet Union lost control of them?

Donald is following the very things you would expect to do remove people who would hold you accountable, like inspectors general.

withdraw access to information, shut down information sites, selectively cut off funding to people who you think are not going to be loyal to you.

asked potential new hires, as this administration is doing questions designed to determine, are you loyal to the Constitution or to Donald Trump?

one of the questions is, do you believe January 6th was an inside job by the FBI?

This is what they're asking potential new hires, not everybody in the government, but in some of the agencies.

And Steve Bannon's quite right.

You flood the zone.

You do so many different actions that even if your full time work is focused on Donald and mine isn't, because I teach full time at RIT.

it's it's, difficult to decide what's important and where to go.

But Donald has always believed that he's special, that he's not accountable to anyone.

He has said many times it should be against the law to write about things about him, unless he approves of them.

I mean, how Stalinist do you want to get?

And this gets treated in the press like, well, he's a little different.

He's not a little different.

He is a career criminal, the third generation head of a four generation white collar crime family.

He has lied and cheated and stolen and abused children and done unbelievably abused children.

Yeah, he had a children as young as 12, gambling in his casinos because they had money and they were given liquor and limousines and hotel rooms as young as 12.

I mean, you know, 18 year old gets dolled up a man or a woman and goes to gamble and with a fake ID and passes for 21.

Okay, that's bad, but it's not 12, 12, 13, 14. and Donald spent a decade involved up to his eyeballs with one of the biggest cocaine traffickers in America.

He did extraordinary favors from him.

Somehow, the man's case was transferred to the court room of his sister, Maryanne Trump Barry.

And the people who simply drove the drugs from Florida to Ohio.

They're just mules.

They just drove the cars.

20 years in prison each.

Donald's friend and business partner.

He served 18 months.

He said he couldn't pay his $30,000 federal fine because he was broke.

But he moved into a multimillion dollar double apartment in Trump Tower and went back to work for Donald.

And Donald wrote a letter saying he shouldn't get any prison time because he was such a terrific guy.

And that letter, which I've published in the past, if you read it, really says, hey, Joe, keep your mouth shut about what we were up to, and I will take care of you.

And by the way, at the time all this went on, he was a casino owner, prohibited from being involved with organized crime figures, and he's in business with an organized crime figure.

So we all have skeletons.

Yeah.

Okay, so I know you've reported on that part of his past, but what?

You're you're laying the groundwork to make the case that his presidency is still a reflection of that person.

Yes.

Donald is a lawless person.

He doesn't believe the law applies to him.

He believes that he should be able to get out of the law.

He attacks every judge who's ever made a ruling against him.

he is saying right now, in the last couple of days, you know, that these judges are activists, so-called judges.

And what did JD Vance, his vice president, a Yale educated lawyer, say over the weekend?

Well, the courts have no right to, or legitimacy in, interfering with the actions of the executive.

He said the legitimate actions of an executive and that word legitimate is doing a lot of work, and that it's doing a great deal of work.

And, you know, let's remember what's in our Constitution.

Article one is Congress.

Congress controls the purse.

Congress makes the laws.

Congress sets the policy.

Article two Donald says, I have an article two that allows me to do anything I want.

Go read it, folks.

It says nothing of the kind.

It what it says is you will do what Congress tells you to do.

You will execute what Congress wants executed, and you'll be the commander in chief.

And the Donald doesn't believe anything applies to him.

There are two really good examples of this.

First of all, he has not ruled out using military force against a NATO ally, Denmark, to take Greenland.

He was asked, would you do that?

He wouldn't rule it out.

secondly, he is appointed as FBI director and apparently he will be approved shortly.

Kash Patel, someone who, among other things, received millions of dollars from an operative connected with the Chinese, Communist leadership in Beijing and who got $25,000, a much smaller sum from a Kremlin connected operation.

He lied about these things, and he hid these things.

He is a walking national security risk.

Who has said that he wants to fire every FBI agent who was involved in the investigations of Donald Trump, which was that January 6th was the biggest investigation in the history of America.

So you're talking about maybe half of FBI agents, many of whom were told, go interview this guy at this address could be 6000 agents.

Yeah, it could be about 6000 of the 13,000 agents.

And, you know, the FBI has repeatedly in cases we know about stopped terrorist attacks in this country.

And you can be sure there are many, many more we're not going to hear about because they need to maintain the security of that for our national security.

the, if I were President XI in China, I'd be sitting there just licking my chops and going, this is fantastic, man.

We've been trying to get influence in various places for years.

And the American foreign aid program, I'd we just can't get in there and do anything.

Well, hey, now there's these people who are going to starve or their, diseases like, Aids are going to come roaring back.

We'll go provide the medicine and the food and get influence.

They're already doing that.

Oh they are.

They were right in there because they're smart, serious people.

But Elon Musk says, first of all, that's not our job.

Our taxpayers don't have to pay for that.

Number two, some of it was corrupt.

Well, okay, let's deal with the first part.

American foreign aid is not charity.

And it's not money.

It's an American jobs program.

We pay farmers to grow rice and soybeans and corn that we give to people.

We pay American companies to make the medical supplies, the, drugs, etc.

that we provide.

And the amount of money is pretty insignificant.

It's $42 billion.

Just the interest this year on the money Donald Trump has had us borrow so that rich people could get enormous tax cuts, is $100 million and $100 billion a year, 100 billion more than the USAID budget.

It's more than twice that budget.

and they are now proposing a huge new tax cut that would benefit super rich people.

And Lindsey Graham wants to increase the federal debt ceiling by $4 trillion.

I'm sorry.

I thought Republicans called themselves the party of fiscal responsibility here.

And they want to borrow more money because that's the only way.

Well, the two ways they can get the money to give people like Elon Musk even better tax deals.

You either borrow more money or you take from children, the disabled, the elderly and the sick.

That is people who can't fight back.

Well, let me also just read a little bit related to everything you're saying about an administration that has the opening and the power to try to benefit for trends.

He is wiping out every conviction.

Rod Blagojevich just got pardoned after I think he commuted Blagojevich in 2019.

And now he's now it's full.

Pardon?

Vince McMahon just got pardoned for potential play with the criminal charges against Eric Adams, the mayor of New York City.

Yeah.

He did, in the face of abundant evidence that he was bought off by the Turks and other people.

And he lied, left and right.

Yeah.

So I take those points, but I'm wondering if if the work of journalism can still have results.

So I wonder what you make of this one.

This, after NPR reporting yesterday on, an issue with Tesla and an a contract.

This is time magazine reporting just last hour, quote, the State Department was planning to buy $400 million worth of armored Tesla later this year, according to its 2025 procurement forecast, a document outlining projections of anticipated contracts, which was published in December.

But after reports emerged of the potential for conflict of interest given Tesla CEO Elon Musk's role in the Trump administration, the document was updated, removing mention of Tesla and changing the line item to armored V electric vehicles instead.

Well, and and Elon Musk was under investigation by the FAA over his Starlink, which is like most of his operations, heavily funded by the US government.

He fired the even though he's a private citizen.

At that moment, he fired the head of the FAA.

I'm sure what he did was say, well, you know, you can resign right now and walk away with your pension without a fight, or we're going to fire you and refuse to pay your pension.

Remember, that happened to the number two guy at the FBI eventually got his pension, but he had to spend a fortune trying to get it back.

the, 19 to 25 year old tech wizards who were sent into Treasury and got access to everything, it has been reported.

I don't think it's been resolved that it's true, but it's been reported that they have software that would allow them to capture every keystroke by every federal worker who deals with the payment system.

Well, that would mean you could capture their passwords.

And wouldn't the people in Tehran and the Kremlin and Beijing and his, his bro, dictator Kim in North Korea like to get some of that information.

They ordered the CIA to send unencrypted the names of every person hired at the CIA in the last two years, just their first name and their last initial.

Of course, you know, the intelligence services in in Moscow and Beijing, they're so stupid.

I'm sure they couldn't ever figure out who those, future CIA agents are.

Okay, so, do you think that the change, by the way, in the State Department contract indicates Tesla is still getting the money?

They just want to be a little less overt.

I will be utterly shocked if they don't get the money.

I mean, this is among many things, this is a kleptocracy.

You know, most of us, hopefully everybody listening to this, whatever you think of Donald Trump, understands that the money in your pocket is yours.

It's not somebody else's.

But Donald is a mercantilist.

He believes.

Before Adam Smith figured out market economics 248 years ago, Donald would have been a very happy man because the belief then was, if you have a piece of gold, even I don't have it.

And it's legitimate for me, if I'm a government and you're the country of heaven to go kill you, to go depose you so he can get your gold because you can't create wealth.

Well guess what?

We're really good at creating wealth in the last hundred years, we have spectacularly increased wealth.

And mercantilism is completely out of the picture.

But Donald doesn't see it that way.

If you've got money and he doesn't have it, what his father taught him is you failed.

You know, you did a deal with this man.

You didn't get all his money.

You're a failure.

So, on the subject of money, I want to hear your take on something Joe Rogan said this week.

So Joe Rogan, on his podcast summed up what I think is, the defense of Doge and the defense of what Musk and Trump have done in the first month.

And it sounds, I think this is a pretty faithful, represents version of what Rogan was saying.

He said he is mystified by the people who see what Doge is doing and what Trump and Musk are doing as personally enriching, because they're so rich already.

He's got more money than a ever spend.

He doesn't need a $400 million contract.

He doesn't need money for his friends.

He doesn't need money for himself, Musk or Trump.

And that ignores the fact that some of what Musk is turning up is legitimately wasteful, etc.

he can let me tack that for just a moment.

Yeah, yeah.

In foreign aid.

Okay.

you have 12 truckloads, military sized truckloads full of food and medical supplies.

You're driving in the middle of somewhere in Africa that's in a war zone.

And the warlord, local warlord pulls up to you and says, here are your choices.

You give me 16 paper bags full of $100 U.S bills, or we're just going to kill you all and take the medicine for in the food away from you.

So yeah, there's corruption in foreign aid because people will get killed if they don't pay off criminal elements.

We're we're talking about relative peanuts here.

We're also talking about saving lives.

We literally know that Elon Musk has now killed people.

There are people who were getting hospital care from from a kid where that's been stopped because Elon Musk went in and said, you have to shut everything down.

So you're saying he's responsible for.

Absolutely.

If you shut off people's medical care in the U.S here in Rochester, somebody went into a room at a hospital here and disconnected your breathing machine and you died.

You could be prosecuted for that.

Absolutely.

This administration is kleptocratic in its nature because of this mercantilist view of the world.

Now an additional $100 million or billion dollars is meaningless to Elon Musk.

It's the power that's involved.

And remember, Elon Musk's maternal grandparents were Nazis who left Canada in 1945 or 46 to go to South Africa to be with people they were comfortable with.

And what did the Trump administration just announce after shutting the country down?

All sorts of people.

We're going to offer asylum to white farmers in South Africa because they have been victimized.

Yes, they're the victims.

And, but it's about power and influence and this belief.

And let me read you this from the man Donald Trump has appointed to be the undersecretary of state.

He hasn't been approved yet, but he will be by the Senate.

his name is Darren Beatty.

Yeah.

And in a, what was then Twitter post said that the problem in America is we don't have competent white men running things because our national ideology is coddling the feelings of women and minorities.

So they're kleptocrats, they're power hungry, they're white supremacists and they're misogynists.

And I can go on for a long time about this.

Remember when Donald used to tell us to only hire the best people?

This is a carcass autocracy.

This is a government of the worst possible people.

You're not a Pete Hegseth fan, You know that Pete Hegseth?

No, no.

And he he you know, the former Army captain doesn't have the chops to do the job.

Forget about the sexual assault that he paid a woman off to try and cover up, and his refusal to answer all sorts of questions about other sexual assault.

There are a whole lot of people like that in the Trump administration, because Donald has told us quite plainly, he has a right to any woman's body he wants.

But David, then why is it not correct to just call this a constitutional crisis?

Because I think that's way too mild.

What we're seeing here is an effort to end the American, republic as we have.

No, you don't think that's too strong?

No, not at all.

And and and look what?

Look at the specific things they're doing.

Donald has repeatedly said you shouldn't be allowed to write anything about me that I don't approve of.

The Associated Press White House reporter was stopped from entering, where he, he or she were in the room because the AP says the Gulf of Mexico, which is the two international bodies that decide these things, both say it's the Gulf of Mexico.

they're imposing.

You will speak in the words we say.

You will not talk about things we don't want talked about.

or you will pay a price for that.

That is not freedom.

That is not liberty.

And this is what totalitarian regimes do now.

It's not to the point, as in North Korea, where you say something out of line, they'll literally pull you out of a line and shoot you.

But down the road of dictatorship eventually.

And I don't mean to suggest tomorrow it could be a decade or way there will be firing squads.

David Ames, show me a dictatorship in the world that doesn't kill people eventually.

And by the way, among the first people that they kill in prison and kill are the true believers.

They pick people out among the true believers to make sure that none of them get the idea they're going to challenge the dictator and the dictator's chosen successors.

Okay, on that note, if you want to call the program, it's toll free.

844295 talk.

It's 84429582552636.

I fear for calling from Rochester.

2639994.

You can email the program Connections at York.

If you're watching live on the Sky news YouTube channel right there.

Hello.

you can join the chat there and we'll work in your comments as we go here.

We're going to start with I think this is Roy in Rochester.

Hi, Roy.

Go ahead.

We have to stop meeting like this.

well, I think that David had had again done, you know, I would just date that he's told falsehoods about these people or anything, but what do we do that really makes a difference to this?

You know, really.

I mean, he called it a kleptocracy.

I thought it was a cactus autocracy.

And then he said, well, we can call it all manner of things, but what can we do?

Yeah, that David Roy raises a very good question.

And, you know, my first, trying to get out of that question is going to be I'm in the business of diagnosing and exposing, not fixing, but there are a lot of things we can do.

First of all, the the, Senate Democrats held the floor all last night.

They knew that Robert F Kennedy was going to be approved to be in charge of, health and welfare.

But they made a point of saying this man is not qualified and building a record about that.

so one thing that needs to be done is building records on these people.

secondly, people who are in the business of organizing folks need to organize significant peaceful demonstrations like the January 19th, 2017 Women's March in Washington, D.C. the word of caution about that.

Donald has spoken of suspending the Constitution, and he has spoken of, his desire.

Maybe a bit too strong of a word, but if there are what he considers to be insurrections, he intends to turn the U.S. military on people.

the Fifth Amendment gives you the right of habeas corpus.

If you're arrested, brought, be brought before a magistrate.

It is not a right.

It is a privilege.

The privilege of habeas corpus shall not be suspended except.

And if Donald can argue.

Well, the big demonstrations in a bunch of cities, our national emergency, we have to suspend the the Constitution and revoke, for the time being, habeas habeas corpus.

He can jink people off the streets and hold them incommunicado for forever.

Roy.

Thank you.

I'm going to come back to your calls in just a second.

one question that comes to mind for me, David, is, I hear the urgency and the directness in your language this hour.

I also look around and say, is there evidence that despite any intentions that if everything you're stipulating is correct, is there any comfort in saying, well, there's still not very good at this?

And a good example is January 20th comes around last month, and they knew that Cash Patel was going to be their choice for the FBI.

But they knew that was going to take weeks to confirm him.

And they knew that Chris Wray was he had resigned because he knew he was going to be fired.

And so they and the 22nd January, the new administration comes in and they, they put in the new name of the interim FBI director, but the Trump administration puts in the name of the wrong person, and they chose a 45 year old longtime agent, very well regarded within the agency, who kind of looks like he stumbled out of a Wild West saloon with a pseudonym.

Pretty remarkable guy named Brian Driscoll.

And they call him the Dreads.

He looks like a cartoon character, and he's like me.

And the Trump administration doesn't want to admit that they screwed it up.

So they say, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure.

It's you thinking it's it's just a few weeks.

What's the harm Drizzy gets in there and within days he's going, what?

You're not doing what you think you're doing.

I'm fighting for our agents.

And he basically rallies the agency.

He becomes a meme.

And this has been a big stepping on a rake that the Trump administration didn't even want to admit that they screwed up, David.

And as soon as Kash Patel's in there, they'll just steamroller all of that.

You think so?

Yes.

I mean, are they going to make mistakes?

Yes.

But when Donald came in in 2017, he did not expect to win.

He didn't have.

Is presidential candidates normally have a whole long list of people who he was looking at.

There are about 4000 key political appointments out of the two point to 3 million people who are civilian workers.

So the federal government, he wasn't prepared at all.

And that's not surprising to me, because Donald is a terrible manager, as I documented in my first book.

Temples of Chance, 3032, 33 years ago.

but this time he has real zealots that he's appointing, and many of them are competent managers will have competent managers, and they don't you don't have to have everything work right to effectively overthrow a government.

You know, when the when the end of the Roman Republic began, they didn't get everything right, and it ultimately took them 40 years to do it.

I don't think this will take 40 years.

an in wall worth next on the phone.

Hi.

And go ahead.

And are you there?

I really want to hear Ann's comments here.

Let's do this.

I'm going to put it back on hold.

We'll see if we can get in.

Oh, Ann's on three.

That's my fault.

And we're.

That's my fault.

And go ahead, go ahead.

Can you hear me now?

Yep.

Go ahead.

Okay.

Hi.

I will admit that I haven't listened to the entire program about what caught my ear.

Was the comment made about, and possibly not even the word.

Possibly.

In ten years, there's going to be a firing squad for people and comparing us to like, North Korea.

And I'm not sure what benefit the audience gains by making predictions that you think our assumptions really.

And then so I just I didn't understand why that was even necessary.

And thank and thank you for that.

And let me explain.

First of all, my track record on predictions about Donald Trump, has been perfect if I was baseball and batting at Harvard.

No, I have, David.

Not a single thing have I said Donald Trump would do that?

He did the opposite.

The only thing I wasn't spot on about was I said he might file a strategic bankruptcy to get out of the half billion dollar civil judgment against him in New York City, and a notice the emphasis on might and in fact, George Conway and others said, yeah, but if he can't get the money, he'll do that strategically while he raised the money.

so, what I said and what's important and is if you study the rise of authoritarian regimes, all of them, the Sean, Iran, the Kims in North Korea, all of them eventually have to start killing people.

I'm saying that's not an issue.

She's saying that's not I don't think that we're any different than other people.

We're human beings.

We walk on two legs, and we live in a society where a huge number of people don't even know the basics of our Constitution.

So, to think we're exceptional in that regard, I think is, unwise.

I think she's saying that you are unnecessarily scaring people.

Well, that people are going to respond the way they're going to respond.

let me get Rico next in Webster.

Hey, Rico.

Go ahead.

Hey, how are you guys doing?

Good.

Okay.

I just heard a lot of the unbelievably leftist bullcrap that I've ever heard in my life.

This guy.

You always think he said that was right.

They.

That he doesn't think.

He doesn't think about anything.

Rico, can I ask you a question?

Excuse me.

Hold on.

This is going to be the best four years of your life.

Even if.

Even if you don't like it, you have no choice.

This is going to be the best four years of all of our lives.

You're going to go and, defend the last four years.

These people were all corrupt.

Donald Trump doesn't need any money.

Elon Musk doesn't need any money.

They're not even getting paid.

You are a left wing idiot.

Okay, so.

So, Rico, can I. Rico, can we have a conversation?

Rico, I'm just going to put you on hold.

I'm going to bring you back, Rico.

But let's let's try to keep it on the issues.

Yeah.

First of all, if you had read my economics books, you would know that they championed competitive market capitalism.

So I'm not a leftist whatsoever.

I'm an investigative reporter.

And everything I have said, I can back up with documents.

I wrote three and a half books about Donald Trump in the last three, I put my email address in and I asked readers if they found errors to report them to me.

And these books were international bestsellers.

A single word had nothing to do with Donald was found.

That was an error in these three investigative books.

So when I tell you that Donald Trump was playing 12 year olds with liquor and limousines and hotel suites because they had money to gamble, that he spent ten years entangled up to his eyeballs with one of the biggest cocaine traffickers in America, for whom he did extraordinary favors.

I've got documents about that.

I have interviews with Donald about that.

Donald.

I have spent many, many hours together.

not in the last eight years, but up until that point.

And so, I'm not a leftist.

In fact, I was a registered Republican for 25 years, and I was in Tom Golisano, the Libertarian Party, for quite a while.

simply because I wanted to vote in their primaries.

But my books, if you read them and their bestsellers still in print, are about competitive market capitals.

So, Rico, let me just bring you back and ask you on substance.

what do you think is is incorrect here?

Everything.

Everything is incorrect.

I don't care how many books this guy wrote, because when you write a book, Rico.

Be specific.

Be specific.

What is wrong?

Go ahead.

I'm.

We're listening.

I think the economy is going to boom.

I think those guys are like, he's, Donald Trump is the best president we've ever had in history.

Okay?

Nothing stirs you left wingers like Donald Trump.

You he is living rent free in your head, my friend, and you have to live with it.

But you know what?

Whether you like it or not, you're going to have a better life.

And and wait for years and tell me I'm wrong because I am completely right.

Well, he was in there last time.

I never had a better economy going.

And when Joe Biden got in there, everything went crap.

The bed and you, you're going to defend Joe Biden?

Are you serious?

Well, first of all, I didn't say anything.

No one has said.

No one is talking about Joe Biden this hour.

Yeah, we didn't talk about Joe Biden.

But, Rico, I mean, one thing the president says, excuse me.

Everybody says, oh, forget about what happened with Joe Biden.

Let's go on now to this one.

Yeah, well, forget about it.

But don't forget about what happened with Donald Trump the first time, okay?

And he really didn't know what he was doing as far as being a president.

And to get in the right panel, he hasn't gotten one bad person yet.

Okay.

We're we're closing the border, okay?

We're closing the border, and we're sending the wrong bad.

Rico.

Rico, can I ask you a question?

Sure.

How comfortable you have been if Joe Biden or Barack Obama or George W Bush had appointed the head of the FBI, a man who was paid millions of dollars by the communist regime in Beijing and tens of thousands of dollars by Putin's, kleptocracy, kleptocratic government and dictatorial government in Moscow.

Would you would you said, that's fine, I don't care.

You're kleptocratic.

No.

You're kleptocratic.

No way.

You're not answering the question.

The question is, how would you felt if a previous president had appointed to run the FBI?

Someone who had been paid millions of dollars by the Communist government in Beijing?

Would you have said that's fine, because that's what Donald has done?

Yeah, that would have been Joe Biden, who got that body.

That's not the question, Rico.

You're not we're not.

We're not getting anywhere.

Listen, Rico, I want to say, first of all, you're always welcome to call.

second of all, I, I hear your optimism, and you're not alone.

There's millions of Americans are optimistic about these next four years.

Yep.

There's no question about it.

And hope to hear it from me in four years.

And yeah, I mean, if, certainly if you are right, David Cay Johnston is going to be glad to come on this program and say, I'll be here no matter what, best four years of your life.

He says, yep.

If it is, I'll tell you that.

Okay.

but but let's, let's keep it on substance.

I do appreciate the phone call.

Rico, I am late for our only break.

I've got a bunch of calls now.

In fact, we're going to break the board.

Let's take that break.

We'll come right back to your phone calls with David Cay Johnston.

Coming up in our second hour, are you okay with kids developing friendships with ie real emotional attachment, real relationships, conversation with chat bots, AI programs, even relying on AI for emotional advice and more that are right with you.

We're going to talk about what's already happening and what the future might look like next.

Our.

The Panama Canal needs more water.

There's the scientist citing.

Wow, that's really fascinating.

But then the other human side says, oh, that's really bad.

The solution?

A dam that would drown entire communities.

Thank you.

I'm Ari Shapiro, reporting from the Rio Indio in Panama on All Things Considered.

From NPR news.

This afternoon at four.

This is connections.

I'm Evan Dawson.

My guest is an investigative journalist, longtime investigative journalist, Pulitzer winner, and now teaching at it, David Cay Johnston.

He's written a number of books about Donald Trump, has covered him probably longer than any American journalist.

And I want to say again, David doesn't mind tangling with people who disagree.

Oh, that's part of the deal.

As long as we say stay substantive.

So let's continue with that.

I'm going to take a phone call from San Diego, California.

This is Greg.

Hi, Greg.

Go ahead.

Good morning.

I am a regular listener to your program from here in San Diego.

All right.

My question is or statement.

I am befuddled at how the Republican Party has turned into a monolith.

The people who ran against Trump in 2016, whether it was little Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, Graham of South Carolina, who said the most awful things about Trump, how he was not capable, capable of being president.

And then in 2020, the same thing occurred.

Only, you know, he became number one even sooner.

And now, in the U.S. Senate, you've got a cult of popular.

I mean, it's become a monolith of senators, of Republican senators in the Senate and in the House.

And I'm just wondering how the heck did that come about?

Greg, first of all, thank you for listening on the mobile app or wherever you're listening from in, I guess, the San Diego area.

That's great.

David, what Greg is saying is it is a very short list, the number of people who have come out and said, not this guy.

He can't be our representative.

He can't be our candidate.

He's not fit.

There's something wrong with him.

There's a long list.

People who said those things, but they've all flipped.

And there's a very simple answer to that.

in fact, I was discussing this yesterday on Capitol Hill with, senior members of Congress because I was doing research for my, public policy course at RIT.

They are afraid they will be primaried.

That, if you're a Republican and you don't toe the line for Donald, they will find someone to run against you and you'll lose your seat.

And to me, those people were cowards.

More than a million people died for this country.

I grew up my father, a 100% disabled veteran of of of World War two, dying in front of my eyes.

although he hung on till I was 20.

And those people sacrificed for this country.

If you're not willing to risk losing your office, you are unfit to hold any public office.

There are some, I should say, Adam Kinzinger.

There's a number of Republicans who have been highly critical of Trump and have remained so.

Most of them are now out of the office that they were in when they started criticizing Trump.

And so, thank you, Greg.

it's a fair question.

but I suspect we're going to see that trend continue.

on we go.

John in Greece.

Go ahead.

John.

Oh, I have a missed Jack, by the way.

Oh.

Hey, Jack back.

But, I'm calling in my car history, so no worries.

David, I just first off, I want to say, thank you so much for your books that read.

I think I've read every book you've written about Donald Trump, but I've read some others.

I grew up on Long Island.

I mean, we knew who Donald Trump was in the 60s and the 70s, for that matter.

so none of this is is a mystery on who he is.

but my question for you is, if you wouldn't mind commenting for a moment or two, and it's probably not enough time to talk about what you see, the impact on international affairs, what our way home from spending three nights in Canada.

And that's and they're pretty calm people.

But I, I just want to say.

But between Ukraine and and and Russia, if you will, my Jack.

I'm happy to do that.

Yeah, it's a fair question, Jack.

So, on Monday and Tuesday, the premiers of the Canadian provinces, the governors, were on Capitol Hill, and they were literally asking members of Congress, Is Trump going to invade our country?

We've invaded Canada three times a long, long time ago, but we've done it three times.

And they're seriously worried that he will start a war and take over Canada.

the winner in what Donald Trump is doing here is President XI and China.

the Chinese leadership is highly educated.

They're very strategic, not just knowing their Marxist-Leninist theory.

They they have deep knowledge of economics, geopolitical issues, etc., and what they see in shutting down U.S. aid in siding with one side, in the aggression against Ukraine and the other actions Trump is doing is the opportunity for them to step forward and replace the United States, on the world scene.

And they've been working at this for a long time.

And this is like an absolute gift.

Jack, thank you for the phone call.

Jess in Iran next.

Hi, Jess.

Go ahead.

many of us Democrats are talking about the midterms.

We're thinking Donald Trump will mess up so bad the next two years that many former voters will switch over.

It will take the House and the Senate.

What does the Trump crowd, including what is become syndicated for organized crime, used to be called the Republican Party.

What would the Trump, Trump himself, Musk and Republican Party do to cancel the midterms?

Yeah, what can they do?

Jess, this we're going to have elections in 2026.

We'll have them.

Don't worry about that.

The problem is, Donald has persuaded many people, like one of the callers earlier today, that whatever he says is the truth.

And anyone who questions that, you know, you're a leftist, you're a liar or whatever.

I mean, I've had people tell me I must be on George Soros payroll, never met the man, never been on anybody's payroll except the, newspapers and universities that I've worked for.

the the whether there will be a shift in voters is a great question.

And here's the predicate question to that.

There were 13 million fewer votes in 2024 than in 2020.

At population growth, there are 17 million fewer votes.

If we'd had the same level of enthusiasm about voting, did those people stay home because of what reason?

I suspect many of them stayed home because, the fact is, the American economy was the envy of the world.

During the last administration.

We had the most job growth.

We had 16 million jobs added in four years in the previous year.

And why would they stay home?

But well hold out okay.

Completely.

We had we had fifth.

We had only 1 million net jobs added under Republicans in the last 30 years.

Republican presidents, job growth overwhelmingly back to World War two is when Democrats are in the white House and, the economy, the rate of growth, the economy, the increase in wages among the bottom half of Americans, their wages grew 20% faster than the top half that I document this every year for for a third of a century.

This hasn't happened in the past 30, 30 some years.

They stayed home, I suspect, and we'll know in a year or so from political research because they weren't well, gee, the economy's doing pretty well.

And Trump doesn't have a chance because people will know how terrible he is.

And so they just didn't go vote.

And we'll find out.

You'll have political scientists on the show, even probably within a year who've gone out and done enough work.

They can tell you why did the number of voters fall so sharply in 2024?

Right now, it is the smallest margin in a house that a controlling party's had since we've had 50 states.

So, we'll see.

But, Jess, thank you for that phone call.

Jim in Penfield is next on the phone.

Hi, Jim.

Go ahead.

Good afternoon, gentlemen.

Mr. Johnson, admire your work.

I'm not sure when your book, Free Launch came out years ago and admired you ever since.

Well.

Thank you.

just David, I want to present an idea to you that, you were talking about the autocracy and suspending the constitution.

nobody yet has said anything about sometime in the next four years, Mr. Trump will attempt to subvert the Constitution or get it amended so that he can run for office endlessly.

Yeah, yeah.

And, you're absolutely right.

And China, China standing by and watching us, watching and waiting for us to take, take over everywhere we step out of.

Jim, let me just answer your question, because I think we'd like to do one more call in.

I don't think they can amend the Constitution to do that because it requires the approval of, two thirds of the states, 35 states.

And, I don't expect that to happen, but that doesn't mean that Donald can't, as he said, suspend the Constitution.

He can't just say, well, we are not going to have an election.

he he that's a much more likely scenario.

I don't think it's a likely scenario, but it's much more likely.

Okay.

All right, let me see.

I think we've got time for, Let's see here.

What is it?

1252 David apparently we could do this all day if you want.

I think we've got Rick and Pittsford.

Is that you, Rick?

Yeah.

Hi.

Hello.

thanks for taking my call.

so my comment is this that I believe that, the collective wisdom of the population is much more, more often than not, correct than, the views of an expert.

And Donald Trump clearly had a mandate, in this election, he won the popular vote.

You won the swing states.

none of the things he's doing, is new.

Like he talked about immigration.

He talked about those, he talked about yesterday, targeting him.

He talked about tariffs.

And my view was that, sure, I don't agree with some of the things he does, but I think we all should probably take a chill pill.

let him do what he said and what the elected handed in mandate to do.

And if something really egregious happens, I believe, the United States Constitution, courts and the people the are will take care of it eventually in the next election.

Or maybe, further down the line.

Well, Rick, here's the concern.

I would hope you would have, Donald, in many of these things he's done, he has violated the law.

He sent a private citizen to fire people.

he has allowed people who don't have security clearances or government positions to get into the most sensitive computer systems of the US government.

he has, issued executive orders like we're no longer going to recognize the constitutional rule of birthright citizenship, and he's not doing things in the proper legal fashion.

And by the way, his first mandate, he won by 1.5 percentage points.

He got less than half the vote, got a plurality.

Now he got a plurality.

And that is one of the narrowest margins in the history of American presidential elections.

You want to see someone who got a mandate Ronald Reagan in 1984, Lyndon Baines Johnson in 1964.

Those were mandates from Donald Trump barely got in.

Rick, are you still there?

Yeah.

somewhere I, I understand your point, but my point is he still has, he won the election.

Yeah, yeah, the population voted for him, and he was all all the time.

I mean, the population is okay with him sending in Elon Musk or.

Well, no, no.

Hold on Rick.

Rick.

He said during when he was running, he wasn't going to do project 2025.

And then he appointed all these project 2025 people, including Russell, vote to run the very powerful Office of Management and Budget.

There were a whole bunch of things he told people he would not do, and he is now doing them.

So you can't argue the public voted for him for that reason.

That doesn't have any credibility.

He did not run at all on claiming that the United States is going to run Gaza, put boots on the ground, clear the unexploded bombs and then turn it into resorts while Palestinians are forced elsewhere.

He didn't run on that or take food away literally from starving children and medicine.

And by the way, and cutting off medicines, there are pernicious viruses that kill every third person out there in the world.

We have corralled them by giving anti-viral medications to people.

If they stop getting those medications, they will get sick.

Those viruses will start hopscotching around the world on jetliners.

And when the virus was corralled, one out of three people who got it died, 800 out of 2500 people.

Thank goodness we corralled that people are going to die from this if we don't correct it, or the Chinese don't step in and replace us.

But, Rick, the larger point that Rick is making is even if you grant, it's a narrow win and it is a narrow win, it's a win.

He won the popular vote.

He won all seven swing states.

And in our last 45 seconds, David, you've been talking about well, this is a president who may not who may just continue to bulldoze and concentrate all the power.

Yesterday in the Oval Office, he said, if I lose a court case, well then I have to appeal.

He didn't say I'm the be all end all right.

And I would say that if I were him at this point.

But he also has cited Andrew Jackson, whose portrait he had in the white House previously, who said, you know, Justice Marshall has made his decision now let's see him enforce it.

I don't know if that will stand.

Donald Trump has every right to put his policies in place.

He does not have a right to break the law in doing so.

And you certainly can't say people voted for things that he explicitly said I won't do.

By the way, inflation has now ticked up as people like me and others who understand economics said was going to happen.

And I would also say, Rick, Elon Musk's own personal approval rating is now underwater because people have been seeing what's been going on with Doge, and that is not something the president campaigned on.

So fictional Doge, because there is no government agency called Doge.

Okay.

but Rick, the larger point that you are correct on is a lot of what Trump is trying to do.

However, he's trying to do it, a lot of it, not all of it.

He said he wanted to do so.

We're going to see, how it plays out and how the American people feel about it.

David Cay Johnston, will you come back some time?

Any time you want?

Bell he is, going to go back, teach it.

All right.

He's a Pulitzer Prize winning investigative journalist.

And listeners, this should be the public square.

No matter your feelings on any of this stuff.

Let's keep talking.

No matter what side you're on.

More connections coming up in a moment.

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