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1:10

This is the Daily Blast from

1:12

the New Republic, produced and presented by

1:15

the DSR Network. I'm

1:17

your host, Greg Sargent. After

1:26

the news broke on Tuesday that Amazon

1:29

might be labeling its products with the

1:31

added costs of President Trump's tariffs, the

1:34

White House issued a veiled threat toward

1:36

Amazon. After that, Amazon

1:38

quickly announced that there was no such

1:40

plan after all. Then

1:43

we learned that Trump had called up

1:45

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos to express his

1:47

anger over the decision, and

1:50

subsequently Trump boasted to reporters that

1:52

Bezos had listened to him and

1:54

acted. This

1:56

is an absurd abuse of power. And

1:58

it comes as a new poll from the Public

2:00

Religion Research Institute, shed some really

2:03

interesting new light on what Americans

2:05

think of abuses like these. Today

2:08

we're talking about all of this with

2:10

Melissa Deckman, a political scientist who's also

2:12

the CEO of PRRI and knows this

2:14

data well. Melissa, thanks for coming

2:16

on. Thanks for having me, Greg.

2:18

I appreciate you talking about our survey today. So

2:21

let's start with Trump and Amazon. Trump's

2:24

tariffs are going to drive out costs for

2:26

consumers across the country. There was

2:28

this report that Amazon was going to list

2:31

out the costs imposed by tariffs on its

2:33

products. Then we heard from

2:35

White House Press Secretary Caroline Levitt, who

2:37

said this. This is

2:39

a hostile and political act

2:41

by Amazon. Why didn't

2:44

Amazon do this when the Biden administration

2:46

hiked inflation to the highest level in

2:48

40 years? And I would

2:50

also add that it's not a surprise,

2:53

because as Reuters recently wrote, Amazon

2:55

has partnered with a Chinese propaganda

2:58

arm. And then Trump himself said

3:00

he had personally talked to Bezos.

3:03

Jeff Bezos was very nice. He

3:06

was terrific. He solved the problem

3:08

very quickly, and he did the

3:10

right thing, and he's a good

3:12

guy. Melissa, that's not

3:14

okay. The White House shouldn't be threatening

3:17

private companies for flirting with the idea

3:19

of telling the truth about Trump policies,

3:21

should they? No,

3:23

not at all. You know, wearing my political

3:26

scientist hat, it made me think about when

3:28

I used to teach a course in the

3:30

presidency for many years, we talk about the

3:32

imperial presidency. And this was, of course, this

3:34

era during the late 60s, early 70s, largely

3:37

in response to the Vietnam War, where many

3:39

people thought the president was taking too much

3:41

power unilaterally without the control of Congress. Those

3:44

days, however, look quite weight compared

3:46

to, I think, what we're seeing

3:48

now, when I would argue in

3:50

some ways we are seeing an

3:53

imperial presidency. because we really have

3:55

a president who is willing to

3:57

use the full throttle of the

3:59

administrative state, the office to really

4:01

get private businesses, universities, law firms

4:03

to really bend to as well.

4:05

It's really remarkable. And

4:07

I think it really is a violation of

4:10

sort of the idea of kind of checks

4:12

and balances, the role of government in our

4:14

society. It's pretty remarkable. I

4:17

like to refer to it as

4:19

an all -of -government or whole

4:21

-of -government approach to authoritarian rule.

4:23

They're using every single agency they

4:25

conceivably can in every conceivable way

4:27

they can invent to arrogate more

4:29

and more power in the presidency,

4:31

right? Yeah, and just thinking

4:34

about it from an economic perspective if

4:36

you look at it through the lens

4:38

of kind of traditional conservative Republicanism, you

4:40

know, I think about Milton Friedman I'm

4:42

not an economist but this idea of

4:44

a planned economy right having government dictate

4:46

the terms of what is going to

4:49

be sold at what price is really

4:51

pretty much blasphemy, according to that kind

4:53

of school of thought. And so it

4:55

is a pretty remarkable change of events,

4:57

the overreach that we're seeing with this

4:59

presidency on even on sectors that here

5:02

to for have largely been touted, you

5:04

know, the proper role and scope of

5:06

government should be government getting out, right?

5:08

The invisible hand should be invisible. It

5:10

really shouldn't be this this blatant and

5:12

obvious. Well, what you're

5:15

getting at there is the GOP's takeover by

5:17

MAGA. I think there's

5:19

actually some continuity between the GOP

5:21

and MAGA in many ways. Trump

5:23

is really more of an exacerbation

5:26

than some sort of new aberration,

5:29

but he is an exacerbation. I

5:31

mean, he has essentially turned the

5:33

Republican Party into something that just

5:35

doesn't question things like this, even

5:37

when they go against the Republican

5:39

Party's own stated principles. Or

5:41

they go against the interest of their

5:44

voters, right? If you think about the

5:46

growth of Trump's support among the working

5:48

class, even among, I think, the working

5:50

class of color to some extent, at

5:53

least from 2024, these

5:55

sorts of policies are just really bad

5:57

for the base, economically speaking. They're

5:59

gonna get killed by these tariffs

6:01

and so are farmers as well

6:03

So on to the PRRI poll

6:06

the new poll it asks a

6:08

novel question It asks respondents if

6:10

they agree that quote Trump is

6:12

a dangerous dictator whose power should

6:14

be limited before he destroys American

6:16

democracy or Alternatively if they agree

6:18

that Trump is a quote strong

6:20

leader who should be given the

6:22

power he needs to restore America's

6:24

greatness Your poll found that

6:27

52 % of Americans picked the first

6:29

of those, seeing them as a dictator,

6:31

versus only 44 % who picked the

6:33

second option. Why did you guys

6:35

design the question survey that way? What were you

6:37

trying to measure? Well,

6:40

I think we were getting at trying

6:42

to find a question that would break

6:44

through and really demonstrate, you

6:46

know, Americans thoughts on Trump's

6:48

overall behavior, right? There's lots in terms

6:50

of the specifics of his policies, and

6:52

we can talk about that. But we

6:55

wanted a question that really put in

6:57

stark relief, really what we're seeing here.

6:59

Are we seeing someone who's dictatorial, who

7:01

is willing to use the powers of

7:03

the government in many ways that usurp

7:06

American democracy, or, you know, Are we

7:08

seeing that Americans might be more supportive

7:10

of more authoritarian tendencies within the administration?

7:12

And so this question kind of cuts

7:14

the noise. And I think it's pretty

7:17

revealing. If you had told me even

7:19

four years ago that a majority of

7:21

Americans would describe a president as a

7:23

dictator, I would have been surprised

7:25

at that. But yet this is where we

7:28

are in this political moment. Well, what's interesting

7:30

about this question and the way you designed

7:32

it is that it basically puts a negative

7:34

spin, extremely negative spin, on what we're all

7:36

seeing with our own eyes and then puts

7:39

a more positive one on what we're all

7:41

seeing. and openly defining

7:43

Trump as a dictator in the

7:45

survey question, you would expect would

7:47

push respondents away from supporting that

7:49

reading, but you have a majority

7:52

supporting this idea. So can you

7:54

tell us how independence broke down

7:56

on that particular question? Again, on

7:58

one side, it's do you view

8:01

Trump as a dangerous dictator? And

8:03

on the other, it's do you view

8:06

Trump as a strong leader who needs

8:08

these powers to restore American greatness. How

8:10

did independence break down? So

8:13

we found that independence are far more

8:15

likely to agree with the first statement

8:17

than the second. So 56 % of

8:19

independents basically say that Trump is a

8:21

dangerous dictator whose power should be limited

8:24

before he destroys American democracy versus 42

8:26

% who really viewed him more as

8:28

a strong leader who needs those powers

8:30

to restore America's greatness. That's

8:33

remarkable. I should underscore

8:35

that other polls have actually shown

8:37

fairly strong opposition among independents as

8:39

well to some of Trump's lawless

8:42

abuses of power on immigration in

8:44

particular, which is really interesting

8:46

because you'd think that independents in the

8:48

center of the electorate, maybe they're not

8:51

so pro -immigration, but when what Trump

8:53

is doing is understood as lawless acts,

8:55

as being about fundamental fairness and due

8:58

process and the rule of law, Majorities

9:00

of independents oppose these things and

9:03

you're finding that 56 % of

9:05

independents see Trump as a dangerous

9:07

dictator as opposed to a strong

9:09

leader who should be given the

9:12

power he needs is just really

9:14

stunning to me. It really underscores,

9:16

I think, the degree to which

9:18

independents are alienated by abuses of

9:20

power. Can you talk about that?

9:24

Yeah, I think that's really fair. Maybe

9:26

we return again to immigration. I'm

9:28

actually thinking back to when

9:30

Trump was first president in

9:33

his first term. I

9:36

think most Americans, regardless of ideology, regardless

9:38

of partisanship, would agree that for all

9:40

intents and purposes, our border has been

9:42

broken. We don't have a policy that

9:44

works. I think liberals would say that.

9:46

I think conservatives would say that. But

9:49

I think what you saw in Donald

9:51

Trump, who of course has always been

9:53

motivated by sort of anti -immigrant sentiment

9:55

rate, the great replacement theory, all these

9:57

sorts of things, Trump likes to extol

9:59

those ideas all the time when he

10:01

was on the campaign trail. So

10:04

you had the overreach of family

10:06

separation, for example. And I

10:08

think what we found historically when Trump overreaches

10:10

in terms of these policies, and we asked

10:13

a question about should immigrants

10:16

who are in the country will literally

10:18

be in turning camps guarded by the

10:20

military before they're deported, which is actually

10:22

happening in Guantanamo Bay, right? All these

10:25

sorts of things, very unpopular with most

10:27

Americans, save the Republican base and white

10:29

evangelical Protestants. We find by

10:31

and large that independence are not supportive of

10:33

that. So when there's been an overreach in

10:35

terms of policy, when it comes to immigration

10:37

in particular, it really drives,

10:39

I think, public opinion in the opposite

10:42

direction. Spring

10:44

is finally here. For

10:46

us in DC, that means cherry blossom,

10:49

warmer weather, and more breaking news

10:51

each and every day. To

10:53

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10:55

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That's code

11:20

DSR2025 at

11:22

thedsrnetwork.com. Thank

11:25

you and enjoy the show.

11:36

I want to flag another finding in

11:38

this poll that's fascinating. 78 % of

11:40

Americans disagree with the following statement, quote,

11:42

when decisions by Congress or the Supreme

11:45

Court hold our country back, the president

11:47

should be able to ignore them. By

11:50

contrast, only 18 % agree. I

11:53

think the story here from these findings

11:55

might be that Americans grasp a core

11:58

fact about this moment, which is that

12:00

Trump is trying to concentrate for himself

12:02

and for the presidency. a

12:04

truly immense amount of power, one that's

12:06

deeply destructive to how the system is

12:09

supposed to function at the most fundamental

12:11

level. Do you think that's right? You

12:14

know, I think that what I take

12:16

away from these findings, looking at the

12:18

idea of the basic constitutional design, like

12:21

the separation of powers, checks and balances,

12:23

all those sorts of things. You know,

12:25

Americans have, I think, a strong regard

12:27

for those principles, especially checks and balances,

12:29

right? We don't find

12:32

that even among Republicans, right, we don't

12:34

find support for the idea that Trump

12:36

should, or any president, rather, should disregard

12:38

what is actually happening with the courts.

12:41

I think we're in that crisis

12:43

right now, because of course now

12:45

with the case involving the man

12:47

from Maryland, Kilmar, Abrego Garcia was

12:50

extradited to a prison in El

12:52

Salvador, despite the fact the lower

12:54

courts said this was unconstitutional. And

12:56

you had a unanimous Supreme Court.

12:58

This is a court that rarely

13:00

decides anything from unanimous perspective, saying

13:02

that they had to facilitate his

13:04

return. And that still hasn't happened.

13:07

It's a pretty remarkable act right

13:09

now. in our American political history.

13:11

And again, most Americans, not even

13:13

a majority of Republicans say that

13:15

president should disregard what the Supreme

13:17

Court is saying. You

13:20

guys also find in the poll that

13:22

seven in ten adherents of Christian nationalism

13:24

see Trump positively as a strong leader

13:27

who should be given the power. He

13:29

needs to restore America's greatness, whereas only

13:31

a small minority of them see Trump

13:33

as a dictator figure. Meanwhile, you've got

13:36

that 44 % as we discussed at

13:38

the beginning, who don't see Trump

13:40

as a dictator. In a

13:42

way, with those numbers, you're kind

13:44

of delineating the voters who are

13:47

potentially genuinely authoritarian or have real

13:49

authoritarian sympathies, right? Can you talk

13:51

about that fool of voters? Who

13:53

are they? Yeah,

13:55

and so I would also recommend

13:57

last fall. We did a very

13:59

pathbreaking survey release looking at the

14:01

underpinnings of authoritarianism within the US

14:03

population, right? And so not surprisingly,

14:05

Christian national's adherents are the strongest

14:08

in terms of support for a

14:10

strong man. And so Christian nationalists

14:12

adherents are folks who believe that

14:14

America was founded and should remain

14:16

a Christian nation. And they believe

14:18

that Christians should have preferential treatment,

14:20

like strongly believe this, right? And

14:22

if you believe that God has

14:25

ordained you to be here, and

14:27

if you believe that God ordains

14:29

a certain design of how government

14:31

should be run, the

14:33

order of how society should be

14:35

set up, hierarchically, all those sorts

14:38

of things, then the constitution and

14:40

due process and the norms of

14:42

a democracy are far less important.

14:45

And so those kinds of individuals

14:47

are among the most, I think,

14:50

strongest adherents. They're

14:52

among the most strongest supporters of Donald Trump.

14:55

We find that pretty consistently. And

14:57

of course, I think it's not

14:59

a coincidence that a lot of

15:01

Trump's agenda, not all of us

15:03

certainly, but a lot of it's

15:05

driven by Project 2025 from the

15:07

Heritage Foundation, which is a longstanding

15:09

conservative organization. So from

15:11

pronatalist policies to banning reproductive rights

15:13

to getting rid of, you know,

15:15

the rights of transgender Americans to

15:17

getting rid of DEI initiatives, all

15:19

of these are of a cord

15:21

that kind of harken back to

15:23

some Christian nationalist viewpoints. And so

15:25

I'm not surprised at all throughout

15:27

the report, you'll see the strongest

15:29

supporters for Trump for his policies

15:31

and administration really come from Americans

15:33

who subscribe to Christian nationalist views.

15:36

Can we talk about the whole

15:38

pool of voters who seem to

15:41

have authoritarian tendencies? It

15:43

looks as if it's maybe a minority

15:45

of the country. It's hard to tell

15:47

exactly how big because it's a little

15:49

hard to measure, but it's got to be

15:51

at least a third. Who

15:54

do you think is in that

15:56

pool in addition to Christian nationalists?

15:58

Yeah, so we found pretty consistently

16:00

that about four in 10 Americans,

16:03

we would describe as having more

16:05

support for authoritarian tendencies, right? And

16:07

so in addition, of course, to

16:09

Christian nationalist adherents and even sympathizers,

16:11

these are folks who generally support

16:13

the ideas of Christian nationalism, maybe

16:15

not to the same extent as

16:17

who we classify as adherents. That's

16:20

about 30 % of the US

16:22

population. But clearly, it's the

16:24

base of the party, strong Republicans.

16:26

I mean, I think Republicans have

16:29

been far more likely to endorse these kinds of

16:31

views. We see that showing

16:33

up over and over in our poll.

16:35

If you go back to last fall

16:37

survey of authoritarianism, it's many Republicans as

16:39

well. But I think a consistent finding,

16:42

it's really a good 35 to 40

16:44

% of the country are really behind

16:46

Donald Trump, this kind of MAGA base.

16:48

These are the folks who are watching

16:51

Fox News or more conservative news outlets.

16:53

They're getting their news and information from

16:55

podcasts that lean in that direction. You

16:59

know, and they're, they're certainly getting, um,

17:01

their ideas about policy are shaped very dramatically

17:04

by this right wing echo chamber in lots

17:06

of ways. All those sorts of things I

17:08

think have endeared Trump and his approach, uh,

17:10

to, to a lot of these folks. Look,

17:12

I had a lot of these folks think

17:14

that, you know, America is broken, um, and

17:16

that you really need a strong man who's

17:18

willing to, to, you know, scramble some eggs

17:21

or, or to break things in order to

17:23

fix it. And so they're, less willing to

17:25

say that the principles of democracy, the

17:27

rule of law, the things that are in code

17:29

in our constitution are really, really important. So

17:33

to bring this back to Bezos and

17:35

Trump, I think what's

17:37

emerging here, the big story is

17:40

that there's this small authoritarian core

17:42

in the country, but

17:44

there's this large body of voters

17:46

in the middle that includes independence,

17:48

maybe a fair amount of whom

17:51

voted for Trump, who originally went

17:53

into this, meaning voted for Trump,

17:55

with the thought that, as

17:57

you said, this is a guy who

18:00

will break the furniture, you know, he'll

18:02

knock heads together, he'll make things work.

18:04

But they're not there when it comes

18:06

to the actual authoritarianism. And when they

18:09

start to see that, they get alienated.

18:11

And what strikes me about all this

18:13

is that You've got today's thing where

18:16

Trump bullied Amazon and Jeff Bezos and

18:18

the White House threatened Amazon. They're

18:21

all out there boasting about this.

18:23

Trump advisors are out. Stephen Miller

18:25

went on on TV and basically

18:27

gloated about what had happened. Caroline

18:31

Levitt was clearly flaunting the

18:33

fact that they were bullying

18:35

Amazon, a private company with

18:37

the White House power. Trump

18:39

gloated about the fact that Bezos had essentially

18:42

bent the knee to him. They don't seem

18:44

to care that the middle of the country

18:46

is alienated by this stuff. What do you

18:48

make of that? I

18:50

think you have really a newly

18:52

emboldened Donald Trump who has learned

18:55

some lessons from his first term

18:57

in office. He of course has

18:59

surrounded himself by administrators who you

19:01

know, are willing to really not even just

19:03

push the needle, but to go over all

19:05

the way over into acts that I think,

19:08

frankly, are quite unconstitutional. You

19:10

know, it's not necessarily something, though, that we

19:12

see in our survey today that most Americans

19:14

endorse. To be fair,

19:16

I think that most Americans voted for

19:18

Donald Trump, and we did see him

19:20

make gains, like with Hispanic voters, with

19:22

some African American voters, not as many

19:24

as I think initially thought. potentially, but

19:26

with younger voters, Gen Z men in

19:28

particular. But I think

19:30

what was really driving that was really

19:33

frustration, not just with the political system,

19:35

but with the economy. You had for

19:37

the first time in decades sustained inflation.

19:39

That was largely a product of COVID

19:42

and looking at supply chains and all

19:44

of that, the vestiges of that. But

19:46

nonetheless, this was really new for a

19:48

large share of American voters. And for

19:50

those Americans who don't pay a lot

19:53

of attention, they're like, hey, I vaguely

19:55

remember that life was more affordable in

19:57

the first Trump administration. They

19:59

also really didn't like Joe Biden and

20:01

so that made them I think cast

20:03

their lever for Donald Trump. But you

20:06

don't have Americans voting for a system

20:08

that's purely authoritarian and yet or for

20:10

a system in which the president can

20:12

routinely disregard what the courts say. I

20:15

think Congress right now, of course, is marching

20:17

and locked up with Trump because you have

20:19

a slim majority, of course, both houses being

20:21

controlled by Republicans who are supporting him. But

20:23

nonetheless, I don't think this is what many

20:25

Americans signed up for when they voted for

20:27

Donald Trump last fall. It sure

20:29

sounds as if the findings of this poll

20:31

are that the middle of the country is

20:33

alienated by this stuff pretty strongly. Yeah,

20:36

yeah, we'll have to see. You

20:38

know, we're only 100 days in.

20:40

There's a lot left to look

20:42

at in terms of his performance

20:45

in office. You know, I think

20:47

that. Americans are also going to

20:49

probably be very fatigued by Donald

20:51

Trump, right? I think the constant

20:53

bombardment of changes that are being

20:55

afoot, whether it's doge cuts or

20:58

disregarding court decisions, I

21:00

think what's really going to happen, my prediction is,

21:02

is that once tariffs are fully in effect, And

21:05

the cost of everyday living goes up.

21:07

I think many Americans are going to

21:09

turn pretty quickly. But I also think

21:11

if, in fact, we see a situation

21:13

where Medicaid is cut on the table,

21:15

where social security checks aren't coming in

21:17

on a regular basis, and people are

21:20

trying to call their office and figure

21:22

this out, the mechanisms of government that,

21:24

by and large, are largely popular with

21:26

the American public are really being threatened.

21:28

And I think on that front is

21:30

where you'll see, I think, more disapproval

21:32

of Trump's job as president. I

21:34

totally agree. I think what we're going to

21:37

see develop here is ports are going to

21:39

stop getting products in, shelves are going to

21:41

be empty, government's going to

21:43

be breaking down in its core

21:45

services, and Trump's authoritarianism is

21:47

just going to be sitting out there on

21:50

the table without any kind of actual effective

21:52

governance behind it, and it's going to get

21:54

a whole lot worse for the president. Melissa

21:57

Deckman, thank you so much for coming on with us today. Great discussion.

21:59

Oh, thank you so much. Glad

22:01

to be here. On

22:03

May 14th, the New Republic's

22:05

editor Michael and writers Matt

22:07

Ford, Timothy Noah, Tori Otten, and

22:09

myself will host the next

22:12

in our series, America

22:14

in Crisis. With the

22:16

new administration in place, this

22:18

event will bring together influential

22:20

political commentators with TNR's most

22:22

engaged readers to explore what

22:24

we can do to fight

22:26

back against Trump's anti -democratic rampage.

22:28

Join us on May 14th.

22:30

You can register at atlasarths .org

22:32

slash events slash TNR. Thanks so

22:34

much.