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00:00Well, their assassinations have fueled conspiracy theories for decades, those of former President
00:05John F. Kennedy, his brother, Senator Robert F. Kennedy, and civil rights icon Martin Luther
00:10King.
00:11While insisting that, quote, the families and American people deserve transparency and
00:16truth, Donald Trump has signed an executive order ordering the release of thousands of
00:20classified government documents about those assassinations.
00:25For more on all of Donald Trump's actions in these first several days in office, Sunni
00:29Distinguished Professor Ian Reifowitz joins us on the program now.
00:33Thank you very much for joining us, Professor.
00:37So Donald Trump has been in office then for just under a week.
00:39What do you make of his first actions as president?
00:42Are they along the lines of what you expected?
00:44Are there any major surprises for you?
00:47I wouldn't say there are major surprises, with one possible exception.
00:52The president, or at least Vice President J.P. Vance and a number of Republicans before
00:57Trump took office, stated clearly that although the president was planning to pardon a good
01:04number of the January 6th insurrectionists, that those who committed violent acts would
01:08not be pardoned.
01:10That restriction went by the wayside.
01:12Trump pardoned everybody, or commuted the sentences of everybody, and that includes
01:18some 600 rioters who were convicted of violent acts.
01:20There were 10 who were convicted of sedition against the United States.
01:24He had 140 officers wounded.
01:26He had one officer, Brian Sicknick, who died.
01:29All of the people involved were either sent home from jail and or had their sentences
01:34pardoned.
01:35So that was one thing that surprised me, in particular because it opens up President Trump
01:39to the charge of being anti-police.
01:43Police officers across the country, not just those who were involved in the January 6th
01:48insurrection, were shocked by this.
01:50But I think for Trump, if you take the executive orders as a whole, it's really about him wanting
01:55to show domination, his absolute and utter domination of the American political scene.
02:01He believes that he needs to show he can do whatever he wants, and that is how he's going
02:06to cow his opponents.
02:08On that note, Professor, I think a lot of people who voted for Donald Trump thought
02:13a lot of his campaign promises were just rhetoric.
02:16It's only been a few days, but these few days have certainly set the tone for his presidency.
02:21Not only his actions on immigration, but like you said, the pardoning of those violent rioters
02:27from January 6th.
02:28Do you think that the vast majority of his supporters will approve of such radical steps?
02:35No, I don't think the vast majority of them will approve of everything.
02:40I think most of his supporters are on board with him on immigration, on his actions on
02:46the border, and that's probably the issue other than reaction against inflation and
02:52economic issues.
02:54Immigration is probably the issue motivating his supporters, especially his core supporters
02:58most strongly.
02:59I don't think he did anything there that was unexpected, that his supporters did not expect.
03:07He talked about trying to get rid of birthright citizenship, going over the 14th Amendment.
03:12As we noted already, that attempt has been blocked by a judge.
03:17I don't think there's any question that that was performative, but again, for Trump it's
03:21about performance is real for him, because performance is how you show domination.
03:27I don't care that the 14th Amendment to the Constitution says that a person born here
03:31is a citizen.
03:32I'm going to say that that's not the case, and that way it's win-win for him.
03:37Even though he's going to lose in the courts, he can go to his core supporters, even though
03:40he's not running for re-election.
03:41He can go to his core supporters and say, listen, I'm fighting for what you and I believe
03:46is really important, and the enemies are all over, including in the Supreme Court.
03:50He takes office, sir, as a quite powerful president.
03:54He's got Congress, much of Congress support.
03:57He's got the Supreme Court as well.
03:59Do you think that he will really face that many legal hurdles, if you will, to some of
04:05the more radical elements of his policy proposals?
04:09Some of them will be blocked by the courts, and even this Supreme Court may have its limits.
04:14On the 14th Amendment, if the Supreme Court decides that the 14th Amendment doesn't read
04:19the way it clearly reads, I think it will lose even more of its credibility.
04:24In terms of his legislative agenda, he's got a very narrow House majority.
04:28He can only afford to lose a couple of votes on any given policy.
04:34It looks like his intent is to combine basically all of the things he wants to do that have
04:39anything to do with budgetary matters or spending.
04:42That includes his proposals to either cut or extend tax cuts, mostly for wealthy Americans,
04:49as well as his proposals on the border, and just about anything else that involves spending
04:53into one large bill, which is known as a reconciliation bill.
04:58Even though there is a filibuster in the Senate, which would normally require 60 votes on a
05:04reconciliation bill, it gives the majority parties one bite at the apple to avoid a filibuster.
05:10If he can get everything he wants into one reconciliation bill, and they can do that,
05:14I believe, once a year, then he can get everything through as long as he holds his narrow House
05:19majority together.
05:20Yes, that's the question.
05:22Will even some of these Republicans, will any of these Republicans, or more than one
05:27or two, stand up and say, we don't want this?
05:30In 2017, he was unable to get Obamacare repealed because there were three senators, two of
05:37whom, Murkowski and Collins, are still in the Senate, who said no.
05:41And then there was John McCain who gave his famous thumbs down.
05:43We'll have to see if there's anybody willing to do that or enough people willing to do
05:46that this time around.
05:48I do want to want to piggyback off of that idea in one second.
05:52But before that, I'd like to ask you, because his immigration policies were, of course,
05:55to be expected.
05:56I think one thing that has been a bit of a surprise is the cracks that his immigration
06:01policies in particular have brought out within the MAGA movement, at least the suggestion
06:08of cracks, especially between people like Stephen Miller, Steve Bannon, and then Donald
06:12Trump's new Silicon Valley allies like Elon Musk and Peter Thiel.
06:16Do you think that we're witnessing the end of the honeymoon phase between these two distinct
06:21groups of Donald Trump's allies?
06:24There's a real division there because one group, the Silicon Valley types, want to make
06:28money.
06:29That's really all they care about in terms of what policies they support.
06:32So they want the H-1B visas because they want to be able to bring in IT workers, technology
06:38workers from other countries.
06:41Steve Bannon and the economic nationalists couldn't care less if Silicon Valley makes
06:46money.
06:47They have a broader opposition to immigration.
06:50They claim to be on the side of Americans first.
06:53So they look at the H-1B visas as bringing in, you know, quote unquote foreigners to
07:00take American jobs.
07:02At the end of the day, there are contradictions within the Trump movement between those who
07:07are more libertarian, let's say, more focused on creating more wealth for themselves and
07:12for the wealthy, which is really where Trump comes down, which is why Trump spoke in favor
07:17of the H-1B visas and these more economic nationalists who see immigration from a more
07:24ideological perspective.
07:25I do think there's a potential for a crack there.
07:29Bannon's basically condemned Musk pretty harshly in the last few days.
07:35And Bannon ended up last time going from being a key White House figure, running the campaign,
07:40running the political operation in the White House for the first few months, to being out.
07:44He's now a supporter of Trump, but he doesn't have sway in the Trump White House.
07:48At the end of the day, I think it's pretty clear that President Trump will side with
07:52the interests of the wealthiest over these populists.
07:56As a final question for you, sir, we just have a bit of time left.
07:59You mentioned how things were a bit different when Trump first was inaugurated in 2017.
08:06We saw mass protests.
08:08There was frequent talk of resistance.
08:09There was criticism from industry leaders, including in Silicon Valley.
08:14That's all much different now, much more absent, I think you could say.
08:17Do you think that the resistance to Donald Trump, then, is dead?
08:22I think it's a tactical change.
08:24Here, at the end of the day, what we have to recognize is that Donald Trump does not
08:27get support from the American people.
08:30He enters office with an average approval rating of minus 1.5 percent, and 1.5 percent
08:35more people disapprove of him than approve.
08:38That's lower than the approval rating he had entering office in 2016.
08:43It's much lower than the approval rating Biden and Obama, for example, began their terms
08:47with.
08:48They were at plus 25.
08:49There's not a great groundswell of support for these policies.
08:53The question is, will there be enough opposition that members of Congress, Republican members
09:00of Congress, will vote no on enough of these things that they won't pass?
09:04That's really what matters when it comes to policy.
09:07Don't change anywhere near the amount of U.S. policy than changing laws does.
09:12Professor Ian Reifowitz, thank you so very much for coming on the show today.