“Full-Blown Meltdown”: Don Jr. and MAGA Rage as GOPers Turn on Hegseth
President Trump’s defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, is imploding again. We just learned that he shared still more highly sensitive data on a private signal chat. A GOP Congressman just basically called for his resignation. And a former chief Pentagon official who is a Trump supporter himself also tore into Hegseth’s tenure, calling it a “full-blown meltdown.” That triggered a furious response from Donald Trump Jr., who declared this turncoat critic “exiled” from the Trump movement. Other MAGA figures raged at Hegseth’s critics as well. We talked to Juliette Kayyem, a former national security official under Barack Obama. She takes us through this latest scandal and explains why the profoundly unfit Hegseth will become a much, much bigger problem for Trump—with no easy way out for the president.
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19:50
Trump’s Ugly New MS-13 Ramblings Wreck His Case Against Abrego Garcia
President Donald Trump’s case for leaving Kilmar Abrego Garcia to rot in an El Salvadoran prison continues to collapse. In bizarre, rambling remarks to reporters in which Trump talked about Abrego Garcia’s alleged ties to MS-13, Trump revealed the profound weakness of his own arguments. In particularly ugly fashion, Trump basically admitted he knows little about the supposed evidence linking him to the gang—even though this notion is central to the rationale for refusing to bring him back. Today's guest has done deep research into MS-13: Eric Hershberg, a professor of government at American University and a leading contributor to a major report on the gang. He takes us inside this organization—and explains how implausible the case tying Abrego Garcia to it truly is.
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18:04
Trump’s Fury at Harvard Darkens as GOPer Openly Admits: “We’re Afraid”
In an extraordinary escalation of President Trump’s rage at Harvard University, the administration just threatened to block Harvard from receiving foreign students if the university doesn’t provide extensive information on students to the government. Trump also erupted at Harvard on Truth Social, making all kinds of other threats. On another front, GOP Senator Lisa Murkowski openly admitted to a sense of widespread terror of retaliation: “We are all afraid.” We talked to Jeffrey Sachs of Acadia University, a shrewd observer of authoritarianism. He walks us through the details of Trump’s new threat toward Harvard, how it can be challenged, the true nature of Trump allies’ long-term game plan, and whether our institutions will crumble in the face of it all.
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24:58
Fiasco for Trump as Judge Threatens Contempt amid New Warning in Polls
Donald Trump’s illegal deportations are running into more trouble. A federal judge just declared there’s probable cause to find the administration in criminal contempt over the removal of Venezuelans to El Salvador. Meanwhile, a Democratic Senator went to El Salvador to check on Kilmar Abrego Garcia and got a shocking response. And a new polling analysis has a warning for Trump: On immigration, he’s significantly weaker than he appears. We think all this has the makings of a fiasco for Trump: He is heading toward defying the courts on this issue, in a way that could provoke a large backlash. We talked to New Republic staff writer Melissa Gira Grant, author of a good piece on Trump’s use of spectacle on immigration. She deciphers the new ruling, why it’s pushing us toward a crisis, and how Democrats can try to make it all backfire on Trump.
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22:53
Trump’s Unhinged Eruption at Harvard Actually Reveals Big MAGA Weakness
Harvard University has declared that enough is enough, and it’s now openly refusing to buckle to Trump’s command for subservience on multiple fronts. In response, Trump erupted on Truth Social like a petty tinpot dictator, raging that Harvard should lose its tax exempt status and worse. We think this reveals a hidden weakness: Trump and MAGA know that if institutions don’t capitulate to them, and band together to overcome their collective action problem, the Trump-MAGA assault could very well falter. If there’s some way out of our disastrous mess, it partly involves major institutions doing exactly this, in a concerted, sustained way. We talked to Jonathan Friedman, the managing director of the free expression program at PEN America, about the real nature of Harvard’s pushback, the prospects for more institutions following suit, and the potential for a real united front of resistance to disarm MAGA.
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Every weekday, The New Republic’s Greg Sargent brings you a fresh way of thinking about the biggest political stories of the moment, offered up in an entertaining, information-packed conversation with a leading lawmaker, journalist, or newsmaker. We go deep into the stories behind the headlines leading TNR and other news outlets—while making it fun and fast.
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