Tamara Keith and Amy Walter on the future of the MAGA movement

Geoff Bennett:

It has been eight months since President Trump returned to the White House, and the pace of actions coming from his administration continues to accelerate.

To help sort through a busy few days, we are joined now by our Politics Monday duo. That's Amy Walter of The Cook Political Report With Amy Walter and Tamara Keith of NPR.

It's always great to see you both.

And, look, if folks are overwhelmed by the news and recent developments out of Washington, they have good reason to be. Our team put together a list of just what has transpired since this past weekend. You see it all there.

Tam — and this, we should say, is not the entirety of it. But let's talk about the president being unusually explicit in directing his attorney general to pursue criminal cases against his political opponents, something that past presidents even avoided hinting at. How should we understand the way President Trump is wielding power right now?

Tamara Keith, National Public Radio:

And I think that we have to remind people that President Trump very early in this term went to the Justice Department and delivered an explicitly political speech at the Department of Justice, which is also something that wouldn't normally happen.

The president has made no secret of his desire to get retribution against those who he believes wronged him while he was out of office or even when he was in office last time, and truly some remarkable social media posts over the weekend directed at his attorney general saying, I'm hearing from a lot of people and they're wondering why you haven't yet indicted Adam Schiff or James Comey or Letitia James.

It's just not even remotely subtle. And it is one of many ways that President Trump is exerting power. Another way he exerts power, and this I guess is part and parcel of that, is through intimidation. What you saw happen with Jimmy Kimmel and the FCC, that wasn't actually using any real levers of power. It was just using the threat of the use of levers of power.

Geoff Bennett:

And, Amy, we speak so often about the politics of all this. What's the political calculation here? I mean, is he shoring up his MAGA base or does he risk alienating parts of the broader electorate that voted for him?

Amy Walter, The Cook Political Report:

Right.

Well, he made it very clear when he ran for office both in 2016 and 2024. And he said, I alone can fix this and I am your retribution. And he is following through on all of that. If you liked that, you said, I believe he can fix it all, or I like the idea that he's our retribution, then he is delivering on his promises.

If you didn't take that seriously or maybe you didn't believe it was true or you didn't like it, well, this is where we sit right now. Regardless of how you feel about the president, I think there has been no president in our lifetimes who has been able to wield the executive office in the way he's been able to, both, as Tam pointed out, with just pure intimidation.

He has gotten most institutions to bend to his will. He has gotten Congress. They are completely without any pushback. They give no pushback at all to him. No members of his own party do, and the way in which he has also been able to do all this, even as there are something like 300 cases still in the system.

So where this ultimately lands, Geoff, is really the fascinating question, right? There's the historical piece of, what is the Supreme Court going to do that's going to set precedent for future presidents? But then there's the immediate, which is, even as these cases are in court, he's still going along and pushing the boundaries until potentially those boundaries get set by the Supreme Court.

Tamara Keith:

It's a real act first, worry about the legal consequences later, and then…

Amy Walter:

Yes, which is very different than most of how Washington works.

Geoff Bennett:

Yes.

Amy Walter:

Yes.

Tamara Keith:

And even how he worked in the first term.

Amy Walter:

Yes.

Geoff Bennett:

That's true.

Let's talk about the future of the MAGA movement. Tam, you attended, you covered Charlie Kirk's memorial service. What messages did that gathering send, both intentionally and otherwise, about the direction of the MAGA movement? What symbolism struck you as most powerful?

Tamara Keith:

Yes, it was a real combination event. And it was a huge event. It took place in an NFL stadium. As President Trump said, look at this crowd. This isn't an arena. This is a stadium. And it was packed to the rafters with people wearing red, white, and blue, really just claiming hold on the idea of patriotism.

It was part political rally, part memorial service, part evangelical worship service. There were pyrotechnics. And there were a lot of political speeches because Charlie Kirk was a political figure. And I think that, in terms of his organization, his wife has been named the new head. There are real questions about whether anyone can do what Kirk did because he was this singular charismatic leader that had all of these relationships in the party and also could speak to young people.

But certainly the message that came out of it was that he was a martyr and that his death is going to strengthen the conservative movement, rather than weaken it. That is the resolve that everyone from President Trump on down articulated.

Geoff Bennett:

And, Amy, what does the service and the aftermath of Kirk's killing tell you about the broader trajectory of MAGA politics?

Amy Walter:

Yes, well, it was interesting to see the dichotomy in messages, Kirk's widow saying, I forgive the man who killed my husband because that is what my religion teaches me, that we forgive and we go out in love, not in hate. Hate just magnifies itself.

Donald Trump came out and said, sorry, Erika, but I disagree, you should really hate your enemy, right? So that dichotomy is really important. I think the real question politically going forward is what Charlie Kirk helped to do politically was to motivate and activate a group of voters who normally hadn't been that engaged in politics, specifically younger men.

We know a lot of them voted for Trump in 2024. Will they continue to turn out for Republicans without Trump on the ticket and without Charlie Kirk as somebody who is a voice in their feeds? That's where most people saw him was on their social media feeds or YouTube or that sort of thing.

Geoff Bennett:

Amy Walter, Tamara Keith, thanks, as always.

Amy Walter:

You're welcome.

Tamara Keith:

You're welcome.