♪♪ ♪♪ [ Applause ] >> Well, what's up, everybody?

How you doing?

How you like this first 100 days?

Uh-huh.

Yeah, that's what I thought, exactly.

Uh, we'll get into that quite a bit.

Um, and I'm very happy to have, uh, as part of the conversation, uh, today, uh, two, uh, colleagues and friends that I have had the pleasure of working with, um, over the last few years.

And certainly, uh, getting insights from them for their experience in the first Trump administration, um, and how they now see things in the second, uh, Trump administration.

So over here to my left, I have Sarah Matthews, uh, who's a Republican strategist, previously served as special assistant to President Donald Trump and White House deputy press secretary during the first administration.

She resigned her position on January 6, 2021, in the wake of the attack on the US Capitol.

She provided critical testimony during the prime time hearing before the US House Select Committee on the January 6th attack in July of 2022.

Before her tenure in the Trump administration, Sarah was an integral part of the Trump 2020 presidential campaign as deputy press secretary.

Her career also includes time on Capitol Hill, where she served in pivotal roles with the US House Homeland Security Committee and the US House Energy and Commerce Committee.

Uh, after departing the House -- the White House, uh, Miss Matthews assumed the role of communications director for the US House Select Committee on the climate crisis.

She is now a sought after political commentator and regularly appears on major media outlets, including my very own MSNBC, where she's been on my show on the weekend.

And so it's a real pleasure to welcome you here to Howard University.

Thank you so much.

>> Thank you.

>> And here to my immediate left is Olivia Troye, national security expert and media commentator.

Olivia is esteemed national security strategist and prominent commentator in national media.

Her career has been marked by high stakes roles, including serving as the homeland security and counterterrorism advisor to Vice President Mike Pence.

She has also held pivotal leadership and advisory positions within the US Department of Homeland Security, the intelligence community, including the National Counterterrorism Center, and the office of the Director of National Intelligence.

All of those departments and agencies are in the news today.

And so it's perfect to have you here to talk about that.

Olivia also served at the Department of Energy and the Department of Defense as a political appointee under President George W. Bush.

She has expertise in managing intricate policy formulation and spearheading decisive responses to major crises.

Hmm.

>> Every day.

>> Every day, right?

Notably, during the COVID 19 pandemic, she played a key role in advising, I remember, the vice president in that space as well.

In the private sector, she has directed security technology initiatives and provided strategic guidance to fortune 500 companies facing security challenges in the Middle East and North Africa.

So it's a real pleasure to welcome you, uh, to Howard University.

And this is you -- Go ahead.

You can applaud.

>> Thank you.

>> That's good.

But this -- You're back on campus because you were here as part of the Harris campaign during, uh, during the last election, and, uh, spent some time with the vice president working in that campaign.

And then, of course, being here.

So welcome back.

>> Thank you.

>> To Howard.

So this -- so to set the scene for everybody so we have a feel for where we're going and what we want to get into uh, and to sort of lay out, uh, this is a for those of you who've been a part of the conversation before, it's a free flowing conversation.

Uh, and so no holds barred, um, anything you want to put on the table we will deal with.

It's the way it works.

Um, uh, and the.

At a certain point, we'll open it up for you to come up.

There's a mic there for questions.

Uh, and you'll be able to ask our guests, uh, or myself or whomever, uh, questions, uh, about, uh, current events or specific issues that you want to raise.

Um, the goal tonight, though, the thrust is the focus, um, to, to really kind of delve into the multifaceted complexities of the first 100 days of a new administration.

Uh, even though this administration is a redux, it's number two, they've done it before, uh, it is different.

Uh, even if it were a consecutive term like Obama had in '08 and '12, the first 100 days the second term is different.

There's something about it, uh, that the media focuses on and the political culture and climate focuses on, not just here in Washington, D.C., but around the country, the various agencies and governments of state governments, governors, state legislatures are all paying attention to what are the priorities for the new administration, which is termed even though it may be a consecutive term or second term.

Uh, and what are the things that they're hoping to accomplish?

Um, the goal here is to get insights from these two individuals who had ground level experience in the first term have ties, uh, to what's going on in this term, even though they're not part of the administration, we all still have friends and contacts and connections that are communicating and expressing, uh, what's going on, even though you may not read about it in the newspaper, uh, or hear about it on TV, there are these conversations that sometimes are concerned about sometimes just inform about what's going on.

And so we want to get into some of that and share some of that this evening with you.

Um, and this is really about being in the room where it happened.

Um, because it happens a lot in that room where we often aren't.

And so that's kind of the scene setter, the ground level of where we're starting the conversation tonight.

So, um, there are a lot of places I could begin with this, with this second term.

So what I'm going to begin with is what the administration itself began with, to define itself, uh, as it came out of the gates literally about an hour or so after the inauguration on January 20th.

At that time, on that date, so the bottom line is there have been about 149 executive orders that have been produced since January.

Uh, on the first day, uh, alone, I'm looking here on January 20th, we had the executive orders that went out, uh, as part of the putting America first in international environmental agreements, restoring freedom of speech and ending federal censorship executive order.

An executive order withdrawing the United States from the World Health Organization.

An executive order restoring accountability to policy influencing positions within the federal workforce, which we affectionately now know as Project 2025.

Um, an executive order holding former government officials accountable for election interference and improper disclosure of sensitive government governmental information.

Hmm.

That's interesting.

Um, an executive order protecting the American people against invasion.

Literally that's what it is.

We don't know who the invaders are or what exactly is being invaded, but I guess we are.

>> It's the aliens.

>> Aliens.

Ah, the aliens.

Yes.

That's right, I forgot about them.

Uh, defending women from gender ideology extremism and restoring biological truth to the federal government.

That was the executive order that proclaimed that there are only two, uh, two -- I think they said sexes or did they use gender?

Because I was trying to help them understand that there's a difference between the two, uh, on air.

So you have -- you have these executive orders that come out, uh, from the administration.

Compared to where Trump 1.0 started versus what we've seen just on the first day, and again, uh, this is on the first day, one, two, three, four, five, about 25 executive orders within the first couple of hours, um, what did that tell you?

What does that tell you about the thinking of an incoming administration?

Um, and the expectations that they have relative to policy?

Olivia.

>> Uh, look, I fully expected them to come out of the gate swinging, and I think that they had been -- I don't think any of these efforts were new.

I think they had been writing them all along so they were ready to go.

Um, and that's a lot for the first day, right?

>> Right, right.

>> They came out swinging, and I think they had an agenda, and I think they wanted to set the tone that they were not going to be messing around.

Um, but again, I think when you look at some of the executive orders that day, and you're absolutely right to say it's Project 2025 in full implementation mode now.

Um, I think that they had been gearing up the past four years for this moment.

And so I would say that it's a lot.

Um, I think they learned a lot of lessons the first time around.

>> Yeah, I think the lessons piece is a big part of that, right?

>> Yeah, I think it's really -- it shows when you compare to the first 100 days of the first administration, compared to now, when Donald Trump didn't even expect to win the first go around.

And so he had no transition in place.

He was not prepared at all to take office.

And so that time, if we think the Trump presidency is chaotic, that time was especially chaotic because he didn't even understand how government worked.

And so now, going into his second term, he understands how to pull those levers of government, what he can get away with.

And he put in people in positions of power this go around who wouldn't thwart his agenda in any way, because I think in the first term you had people who would push back on him would say, sir, I don't know if that's a great idea.

We should do this instead.

You're not seeing that this go around.

You're not getting that same pushback.

And so -- and to Olivia's point, they were prepared to go on day one because they had the transition in place.

They thought he could win.

We know Project 2025 was their agenda, even though they tried to deny it at the time during the campaign.

But now we're seeing them execute on it.

>> What is -- when you look at, um -- because there are two different viewpoints.

You're in the West Wing and the comms shop and so how do you communicate the president's agenda, um, on that, in that in those first 100 days, as we're seeing the current press secretary, um, Miss Leavitt, uh, every day, uh, out there sort of talking to the press and sort of going through, uh, the agenda items that involve these executive orders.

Um, but what is the prep inside?

How do you formulate to the American people the argument for the things you want to get done, particularly when, for example, one of your executive orders is, um, you know, reevaluating and realigning United States foreign aid, which leads to the elimination of USAID, or the one that I mentioned before that deals with, uh, gender related issues, um, and declaring that, you know, we only recognize two sexes, male and female or two genders, male and female.

Um, in their point of view.

Um, how do you communicate that?

>> So I think that they had already kind of spelled out many of these executive orders during the campaign trail.

So Karoline Leavitt and her team are presenting this as promises made, promises kept, because these are -- a lot of them were not surprising.

I think maybe there are a handful of them that I was surprised about, but vast majority of them he said he was going to do on the campaign trail.

He said he was going to put Elon Musk in charge of finding waste and fraud.

They said that they were going to withdraw us from the World Health Organization.

These were things that he promised on the campaign trail.

So her and her team are going out there and presenting it as that.

He's keeping his promises.

He's restoring America.

You know, they keep using this term like Golden Age of America, but I'm not seeing that yet.

But that's what they keep presenting it as.

And so, um, they view these executive orders and the swiftness that they have done these with as him keeping his promises and, um, that he's making moves and just doing, like, shaking things up because I think that's why a lot of people voted for him were they weren't happy with the status quo.

They were unhappy with the Biden administration, unhappy with the economy, immigration.

And so they he's coming in to say, okay, well, whether we agree with it or not, he is making changes.

And that, I think, does resonate with some folks who voted for him because they see it as, oh, okay.

Yeah, he's doing what he said he would.

>> I think on that point, Olivia, you have the whole DOGE concept of Department of Government Efficiency, which is somewhat ironic or a little bit crazy because they're not the most efficient group of people, um, as I've seen it.

But it does set up this -- this narrative for people who have this sort of bias against the federal government.

>> Yes.

>> Um, going back to Reagan, who, you know, said, you know, the nine, you know, words you don't want to hear is, uh, I'm from the government and I'm here to help.

Um, so even going back to the '80s, you had this sort of, uh, idea of tension built within the government, uh, between the government and the American people.

Um, it's always been there in some form, but, you know, uh, but usually over a policy like, you know, Vietnam era with the Vietnam War or, um, you know, things like that.

How do you navigate, uh, this relationship between an incoming administration and the American people who, to Sarah's point, have the list of promises, right?

Um, and the idea that you're now going to try to implement those promises.

But part of that is dismantling the very institution that you need.

>> Supporting the American people.

>> Right.

How do you work that?

>> Yeah.

I mean, I think, you know, two things kind of came to mind when I was listening to Sarah talk about the political aspect and the communications aspect and, um, and, you know, while they were doing that in the first term, I was on the receiving end because I was on the policy side of the House.

And so I was the one responsible for implementing the executive orders that were coming in, and it was interesting the first time around.

And I'm hearing that it's no different this time around is the disconnect between checking the box and going down the list of what you're saying to the American people.

Meanwhile, inside the apparatus that's governing, that's trying to actually effectively run the country through all these departments, is facing all these challenges and trying to figure out how do you implement something like this at grand scale immediately when they're in such a hurry on it?

And I'd say the other part of it is also, they've done an incredible job of effectively demonizing the public service, the public workforce, the federal government, right?

So there's not a lot of sympathy out there for the government if you leave outside the bubble, right?

That's challenging.

>> I think that's missed by a lot of folks.

We can get a little bit bubbled here in Washington.

Um, but the reality is out across the country, most people are like... >> They're cheering it on.

>> Thank you, I appreciate it.

You know, that's waste, fraud, and abuse, get rid of it, even though it hasn't hit them yet.

And I think -- >> It's to their detriment.

>> I think May, June, there's going to be a 180 in the country because by then a lot of the things that are happening that started happening in January around the inauguration to right now are going to land in everyone's kitchen at their kitchen table, their bank account, their health care services, their Social Security services.

And that will be an interesting conversation then, because right now, DOGE is isolating Trump from all the trauma.

Right?

Who's getting blamed?

Elon Musk.

Right?

Elon Musk's not the president of the United States.

He may act like it, may want to be, may think he is, but at the end of the day, Donald Trump is the one behind the Resolute Desk who ultimately has to sign off on, or at least be accountable for this.

So the shield that's being created through DOGE and Elon, um, as he's tearing up the relationship between the American people and government, right, uh, exploiting it, if you will, their frustration and anger with it -- How does that then play on the back end when all of a sudden folks, you know, like right now, you know, senior citizens can't call Social Security because they told them, I'm sorry, you can't use that.

You got to go in person.

>> And they're closing offices.

>> And they're closing offices.

So when that office that's in, uh, your town closes and you now have to drive 75 miles to the nearest federal Social Security office... >> And what if you're not able to go to?

What if you're not able to get there?

Or what if you don't have help to get you there?

Or how do you navigate the system?

And, you know, I thought it was incredible to watch Lutnick say, you know, about his mother.

>> His mother in law.

Yes.

>> Here's a billionaire talking about this.

And he's like, well, no one will miss it if they miss a paycheck.

And I'm like, you are so disconnected from the actual people you claim to represent, yes, >> I lost my mind on that one.

>> And so the reality is real.

But it's happening across the board.

I mean, we're looking at Social Security or we're looking at different policies, even defense policy.

You know, just this week, Kristi Noem was in the cabinet meeting.

I know that there's a lot to talk about in terms of what's happening in the Signal -- Signalgate?

Is that what we're calling it?

>> We'll get to that, yeah.

>> But I mean, she blatantly said she was going to eliminate FEMA during this cabinet meeting this week, that a lot of people -- I mean, there's not been a lot of attention on that, but what does that mean for disaster response?

>> Well, and that's important because at the same time, she's leveling up of the elimination of FEMA, the weather services around the country are beginning to produce their reports for the upcoming hurricane season.

Buckle up, folks, it's going to be -- it's predicted to be pretty ugly.

>> So what's really interesting too I think about the FEMA elimination that I'm surprised we haven't heard more from Republicans on, a lot of the states that rely on FEMA are Republican.

>> Yes.

>> I mean, you look at Florida, Louisiana, you know.

>> Hurricane Alley.

>> Exactly.

And so I think those -- it's on those representatives and senators to speak out against cutting aid to FEMA or eliminating the department as a whole, as it was kind of discussed in the cabinet meeting, because they're the ones who are going to be impacted most, their constituents.

And at a time when hurricane season is about to start, it just seems completely irresponsible.

And so I think hopefully we'll see more of those folks speak up, because they should be doing so on behalf of their constituents, rather than worrying about fear of going against the Trump administration.

>> So here's a funny question for you.

What's the role of Congress in the 100 days, first 100 days of a new administration?

>> I mean, I would like to see some sort of, um, actual effort exerted to rein in some of these things in.

And actually being like, You're out of control.

>> It's been stunning to me how inept the Congress is on both sides of the aisle.

It has been absolutely stunning to me that the Democrats haven't figured out after, particularly in the Senate, after learning at the knee of Mitch McConnell, even in the minority, how to use the rules to gum up the stuff the majority wants.

>> They haven't done it.

>> They just -- And then, of course, Republicans are sitting there with their thumb firmly, firmly planted between their cheeks.

I just don't -- I don't get it.

>> Yeah.

It's been quite frustrating to see because obviously with Republicans having total control over both chambers and then the executive branch, these first 100 days, they should just be able to ram through what they want.

But then there has been such an ineffective response from Democrats.

And I just don't think that Chuck Schumer is equipped to meet this moment.

Um, you know, he's of a -- of the past, in my opinion.

>> It's a different generation and approach.

You know, the fact that when you put out, you know, statements talking about bipartisanship and eventually working, you know, I had to respond to I did an article for MSNBC Daily in response to a quote in a book that's coming out, um, about him and in which he says, you know, you know, when Trump, you know, when Trump goes away, Republicans will return to this great, you know, the way they were.

I'm like, dude, that is not happening.

That is gone.

So we need to rethink what Republicans look like in a post-Trump environment, which some of us are doing.

But it's not this sort of longing for, you know, the Bush years or even the Reagan or Eisenhower years.

So it's a very different set of tools that are required now for the Congress in dealing with an administration that has set out with -- everything by executive order, by and large, because they don't have the congressional mandate nor the votes to do the things that they would want to do.

>> I guess my question on all these executive orders is it's a lot of reversal of everything that the Biden administration did, everything that Obama did.

Everything like reversing this, going back on this, going back on that.

What are you actually doing for the American people?

>> Well, what's funny about that is it actually wound up reversing some of the things that he did in his last administration, which tells you he doesn't get the connected dots between, well, you signed an executive order allowing for this thing to happen.

Now you're saying that that was Joe Biden, but it was actually you.

>> Right.

>> So what does that tell you?

Having been in the room with him, what does that tell you?

>> Well, I think you bringing up Biden, that has been funny from a communications perspective for me.

Everything that has gone wrong, they're blaming the previous administration.

They say, well, we inherited this economy.

It's like, at what point, though, does it become Trump's economy or, you know, nearly 100 days in and it's at a certain point like the buck stops with the president, but they keep blaming Biden at every turn.

And you know, when we're looking at the stock market crashing because of the tariffs that Trump is announcing, you can't blame Biden for that.

>> Right.

>> But that's what their defense mechanism is.

>> Well their riposte to that is well, Biden kept the Trump tariffs on China.

Yeah.

Because it's China.

>> Yeah.

China's different than our allies.

>> It's not, you know, Great Britain.

So there's a reason why you keep the pressure on China versus our allies.

>> Mm-hmm.

>> Which is noticeable because right now we are actively going out of our way to destroy these relationships with our allies.

>> How did you see that particularly from a foreign policy standpoint working with Vice President Pence?

And Pence is by most measures a sort of straight laced, by the book... >> Traditional conservative.

>> ...traditional conservative Republican.

Never really did understand the alignment between the two of them.

But okay, that's going to require some bourbon.

But the reality -- The reality is for him, before you even get into things that would happen on the reelect effort in '20, how did he see, um, the emergence within those first 100 days in 2017 on the foreign policy stage, um, when Trump started tearing at our allies?

And I'm going to get to you on the communications side with respect to the press, leveling them up as the, you know, fake news and the enemy and all this.

But the relationship between the US and the world has been 75 years in the making after World War II.

>> Yes.

>> Um, and Trump comes in and overnight begins to dismantle that.

So you have foreign policy hawks, um, and others, um, that I know are aligned with the vice president and the vice president himself, very much an advocate for those relationships.

How does it -- how does that tension work within an administration?

>> I mean, I think it's challenging because I think, you know, Pence was a -- is a traditional conservative.

He still is.

Um, and he's pushed back more recently, especially on some things, especially when it comes to Russia and Ukraine.

He did remind the president that it was Russia who invaded Ukraine.

Um, it was not Ukraine that was seeking this.

And I think that's part of the whole mixed messaging that they're doing in terms of that.

And so I think it was challenging because I think he viewed the world as, um, in a point where, you know, we're going to be strong, we're going to counter Iran, we're going to counter, I mean, we're anti-China.

We're going to stand strong on Russia.

And slowly we realized all of those things were things that we were sort of -- that were malleable when it came to Donald Trump.

And then the worst, the hardest part was being the negotiator at times on foreign policy.

Like, I covered the Latin America portfolio.

Obviously, there's a huge intersection of Latin America with the immigration executive orders that happened and the migration patterns there.

And he was having to go in and sort of in good faith, try to negotiate some of these agreements.

Or for example, Venezuela too, like he was going -- He was front and center on that.

But we consistently didn't know when the goalposts or the pendulum was going to shift behind the scenes, because I don't think that Trump has a strategic -- and you can correct me on that -- strategic view.

>> On most things.

>> On most things or foreign policy especially.

And so it's really hard to navigate a space when you're showing up.

I mean, I had the United Nations portfolio and we'd go there and we thought we were having serious discussions with our allies and everything.

And the next thing you know, there's backroom deals going on, and we're being blindsided in real time.

And so that's just really challenging when you have someone that is -- I mean, Pence, like, his hero is Ronald Reagan.

I think he's still very much saw the world in that way.

And so to see sort of some of the talking points that we're starting to shift on Russia and how we were kind of at some points betraying our own intelligence community to align ourselves with Russia along the way.

And you're seeing that full court press now in this second administration, where none of the sort of guardrails that were there from other traditional conservatives who believe, like you were saying, you know, in limited government and things like that, it is a very completely different dynamic.

I mean, it's people like Pence and John Bolton, whatever you may think about, you know, their policies and politics who are like, no, you cannot withdraw from NATO.

That's crazy.

You can't leave this organization.

It's an alliance.

This is why it exists.

Those voices aren't in the room anymore.

>> That remains one of my biggest concerns, actually.

And something that I know that you spoke out about and I did on the campaign trail, is that Trump wanted to withdraw us from NATO during the first term, and he had advisers who talked him out of it.

Those advisers, to Olivia's point, are not going to be in the room anymore, and there's going to be folks that will support that now.

They want to see us become more -- even more isolationist.

And they're upset with Europe.

They think that Europe's taking advantage of us.

And we've already seen with Trump, um, you know, eliminating the aid to Ukraine and intelligence sharing with them.

And those are also things that we warned would happen.

And I know there were plenty of Republicans who said, oh, no, we won't let that happen.

He won't abandon Ukraine.

Looks like that's exactly what we're doing.

And, um, and so, yeah, I remain very worried, though, about where we're headed with just our relationship with our allies.

I mean, there -- it is extremely bad right now.

I think that people don't trust us anymore.

I mean, even just talking about intelligence sharing, why should they trust us when we have someone like Tulsi Gabbard as the director of, um, our national security who is -- or the Office of National Intelligence.

Yeah.

Who is, um, in my view, sympathetic to Russia.

And, um, that's putting it kindly.

And so it's just very concerning, the foreign policy aspect and what is going to happen moving forward in our standing on the world stage and our relationships with our allies, in my view.

>> I want to get your impression, Sarah, of the evolution of the communication from the first term to now and how we start out with the name calling and the identification of individuals a certain way.

Um, the sort of labeling of institutions a certain way and the communication that you would have to be a part of putting together to put out in the public.

Uh, as deputy press secretary, means you're the number two.

So -- Right?

So you've got authority in that space, and you're trying to navigate that in some of those conversations.

What is that evolution?

What was that evolution like in the first term that we now see metastasized in the second term?

>> Yeah.

So during the first term, I was, um, deputy press secretary under Kayleigh McEnany.

So she was his last press secretary.

So I was there at the tail end of the administration, and, um.

>> She's the woman with the books.

And I know that because I had to do a lot of the writing for those books.

>> Yes.

Kayleigh had a lot of books.

>> Yeah.

>> We came prepared.

I will say that, but, um, I always say that I was serving in the Trump administration at, I believe, the most tumultuous time of his first four years.

Um, because obviously all four years were kind of crazy and chaotic, but I was there for, um, COVID, um, George Floyd protests, um, uh, Ruth Bader Ginsburg's death, uh, when the president got COVID.

I mean, it was just like one thing after another.

Um, and that's what it is like working in any White House, really.

There is just -- it feels like, you know, constant fires to put out, uh, and chaos.

But what was interesting that I almost think is the same as what I experienced as to what I'm seeing play out now, just on a more extreme level is that when we were doing press briefings, um, before the media, I was part of the team that would help prep the press secretary.

We would get there, um, you know, like 6:00 a.m. or 7:00 a.m. every day for like a 3:00 p.m. briefing.

And we would spend all morning and afternoon prepping the press secretary, just doing murder board sessions, going over any question that we thought that the media might ask her about news of the day.

Um, but at the end of the day, all that mattered was that she was out there serving an audience of one for this president, which is different than other presidencies, because really, your job as press secretary should be informing the American people about what's going on.

And, um, and even when I would try sometimes with the previous press secretary to say, we need to go out there and say this and do that, I would get pushback because she would say, well, the president doesn't want me to say that.

The president doesn't want me to do that.

And I'm kind of seeing the same thing play out now with Karoline Leavitt, the current press secretary, who's a former colleague of mine, as well, she served on the communications team with me in the first administration.

And, um, she comes out there with, uh, such hostility, but it's because that's what the president wants to see.

And at the end of the day, even if she's kind of giving some answer that doesn't seem to make a whole lot of sense, it's probably because it's -- >> Makes sense to him.

>> It's what he wants to hear and what he expects to see.

Because the thing is, your standing is never safe in Trump world.

And at any time, Trump, you know, I mean, obviously known to fire people, except for apparently the people who deserve to be fired over this Signalgate.

>> Right.

>> Um, but if he doesn't feel like you're out there fighting for him, you know, as someone who's standing behind the podium working with the press, who he sees as the enemy in his view, because he sees anything written as negative about him, you know, as, um, as incorrect, even if they're reporters telling the truth, just not what he wants to see, Um, then he could fire you and replace you in a second with someone else.

And so that's why I think you see a lot of these, um, sycophants in the administration who are willing to kind of debase themselves in any way, um, and defend any policy or any lie because they want the power.

And so, I think with the communications team, now that he's implementing an even more extreme agenda in the second term and, uh, doing more controversial things, they're going to defend it at all costs from the communications point of view, because they view it as their job.

But it's also self-preservation, kind of at the end of the day.

>> And for the record, no one was safe.

I mean, we were pretty sure that Mike Pence was going to get fired at some point.

We were worried.

I mean, there was talk that he was going to get kicked off the ticket.

>> I actually do -- I can concur.

That was a conversation that was had.

>> That was, really?

>> I swear.

Yeah.

>> The president was ready to do that?

>> Yeah.

He was debating.

Like there were internal conversations where he was unhappy.

>> Who then was he -- would they have in mind?

>> I remember Kristi Noem's name being floated.

Yeah.

>> We were all scared of that.

>> Yeah.

>> Yes.

In fact, when she boarded the plane... >> This is before we found out about the puppy killing.

>> ...the Pence team, we were all like, is it happening?

She's getting on the plane.

And we were all convinced that that was it.

We were like, that's it.

She's going to -- He's running with her.

We know what's happening here.

>> And Pence wanted to stay on the ticket?

>> I mean, I think at that point it's a little awkward if you're the vice president.

Pretty awkward and embarrassing.

>> And this, of course, is all before -- >> Before January 6th, by the way.

>> Where things turned.

>> So the summer of 2020.

>> This is the summer.

But it was a thing, an actual serious thing that was literally being discussed.

And it was just I mean, when you think about it, that's pretty crazy because that doesn't really -- that's not normal usually, unless the person's like a complete criminal or something.

Maybe you'd be discussing that.

>> It's kind of hard to jettison someone like Pence, who is so -- was so loyal and -- >> Yes.

>> And you know, I think I often posited that, uh, COVID would have been viewed very differently by the American people had Trump not inserted himself into it.

But he was so jealous of the fact that Mike Pence every day did these press briefings.

>> Oh, this is true, by the way.

He used to get mad.

He got jealous of him because it was going so well.

>> Yeah.

>> So well in the press briefing because Pence was just being honest.

>> So he was out there saying, you know, you know, get masked and do all these things you're supposed to be doing.

Trump is seething in the West Wing with, you know, a piece of chicken or whatever he's eating and a hamburger and decides that he now is going to give the press briefing instead of the vice president.

And of course, as we saw from that, it all went downhill.

>> This is how you end up with bleach.

>> And so that it's interesting that at a certain point, despite that loyalty, that Trump was prepared to kick him off the ticket.

>> Yeah.

I don't think that loyalty is in the vocabulary of Donald Trump.

>> So why don't people understand that, that this is literally a one way street to hell?

>> It's a one way street with Donald Trump when it comes to loyalty.

He demands it from you, but gives it to no one.

>> I had the chance to work with him in 2013 for a few months and just discerned that immediately, and that's what ended it because I was like, dude, no.

Are you kidding me?

I'm not going out and doing that.

You lost your mind.

No.

And I would give him stuff to do and say, well, you know, why don't we do this on the economy?

Because, you know, we're recovering from, uh, the 2009, '10, '11 sort of slowdown and the economic collapse and the housing market, et cetera.

And he just, you know -- we got into this discussion about Obama's birth certificate.

And I told him, I said, well, you know, that's racist.

And he kind of looked at me.

I said, you really should drop it because it's not working.

And he said, I'll give it a thought.

And I literally on the train ride back to Washington after I left his office, the phone rings and he goes, nah, it's working.

I'm going to keep doing it.

So that's -- And that told me everything.

And we were done at that point.

And so it surprises me that people still kind of fall into this trap that they think that sense -- And this is what the billionaire class right now, I could just kick them all in the ass.

If they were in this room, I'd just line them up.

Pop, pop, pop, right?

Because they have this notion that somehow they're going to be engorged from this relationship with him, and they're not.

They're just suckers for him who are positioned on his chessboard to achieve what he wants and be.

Given the fact that Bezos and Musk are competing for space, control of space, given that, you know, that this billionaire and that billionaire have interest in government contracts, he uses all of that very effectively.

And still yet people -- >> Kind of like Putin.

>> Kind of like Putin.

So in that sense, he's like that.

Let's open it up for questions to anybody and everybody.

Um, you've probably taken in a lot here.

So if you've got some questions, feel free where you want to go.

Yes, microphone's right there, if you don't mind, so we can get you on the sound.

Right here.

There you go.

>> Hi.

I'm Sipho Sithole.

I'm a professor here at Howard.

Mine is not really a question, but I was intrigued by your response to why does Trump like Putin and them so much?

And I had exactly that to say.

You know, Trump wishes he didn't live in a democracy because he would be exactly those three.

>> Right.

>> But unfortunately, he's stuck here.

But then for us who come from Africa -- I come from South Africa -- I've been asking myself, what do we learn from Western democracy, as we have been told?

Because this has completely changed my understanding of it.

As a matter of fact, I actually don't know what democracy is, just based on what we've experienced in the last hundred days.

Maybe you can comment on that.

>> Well, I think that, you know, funny you should say that, because that's the conversation next Wednesday that I'm having.

Um, and we'll be here, we're going to have, uh, Jonathan Capehart and, uh, former Congressman Joe Walsh, uh, and, um, and, uh, Cornell Belcher, uh, and we're going to have that conversation, 2025 and beyond, the fate of democracy, essentially, because I think -- I think what what's been exposed over the last ten years, at least from my perspective, and I would love to get yours because you've been inside the inside of the bubble, um, is a couple of things slap us upside the head how little as Americans we know and appreciate what the words actually mean, um, when applied to what we do and what we think we have rights to do and what we think is protected.

And the reason that's a start -- and we didn't -- I was going to throw it.

I'm going to throw it in there now.

Because today the president of the United States signed an executive order overhauling elections in the United States to include proof of your citizenship in order to register to vote in federal elections, and that all ballots be received before Election Day in every state, despite what state law requires.

Um, the fact of the matter is, people hear that and they applaud it and go, yeah, finally.

But states control our elections.

The federal government does not.

And the fact that we don't understand that... >> Right.

>> ...is a problem.

It's why we are where we are.

That feeds into the question of democracy, because the democracy is caused by the vote.

The fact that each of us has the right to vote, and all of us in this room knows that was not always the case.

>> Yeah.

>> And it may not be again, because American people don't fundamentally understand that that right is secured in individual states that have aligned themselves under this banner, United States, and have agreed to form a republic in which they will exercise the principles of a democracy, meaning voting and participation and all of that's fragile because we don't have to continue the agreement.

We all hear Texas saying, Oh, we ready to get out the hell out of here.

We want to pack up our -- and go.

Right?

They can do that.

They can.

>> I'm from Texas.

We've thought about this.

>> I know you're, right, from Texas.

I know that.

But, yeah, I mean, what do you guys think on that point?

>> Um, I think this is one of the things -- And I bet you encountered this a lot as well when we were speaking out on the campaign trail and talking about this -- >> But just so we're clear, you two campaigned for Kamala Harris in 2024, right?

>> Yeah.

>> So when they say in campaign trail, we know where on the campaign they were.

>> Um, but we both spoke a lot about this threat to democracy.

And I think to your average American person who's not following everything that's going on in the news all the time, uh, that is kind of vague to them.

And it's hard for that message to penetrate through sometimes, because I think a lot of times what I would hear as pushback is, well, we survived the first Trump administration.

The institutions held.

They'll hold again.

But the thing is, it's so different from the first time to this.

>> Project 2025 tells you it's not going to hold again.

>> Exactly.

And so, um, they want to completely reshape the way that our government, um, functions.

And so that is what is concerning, because I think you had enough good people in the room the first go around to kind of curb his worst instincts.

And that's just not happening anymore.

And, um, not just not happening, they're encouraging it.

And some of them have their own agendas that they are pushing that are extreme.

And I think that, um, it's going to take people seeing our institutions falter.

We're already kind of seeing that happen a little bit with the judiciary where, um, you know, recently Trump had this flight of Venezuela and he says gang members, um, migrants that they shipped off to El Salvador and put in that prison there, and they defied a judge's order.

And, um, the judge gave him a verbal and a written order telling him, don't let these planes take off.

These people are entitled to due process.

They did it anyways.

And now we've disappeared all these people in this mega prison.

>> And evidence is coming out that a lot of them were not part of the gang.

>> Exactly.

And now we're seeing all this evidence that these people, um, were entitled to due process because they were innocent.

And I think that it's going to be really interesting to see what happens, though, with, um, the judges, because we're seeing the Trump world, you know, they're saying, oh, well, these are liberal judges who are trying to thwart his agenda and they're are trying to, um, you know, thwart him in any way.

And really -- >> Judges he appointed.

>> Attacking the judiciary.

>> Yeah.

>> They're judges he appointed.

>> The rule of law.

>> Or, I believe in this case, this judge was first appointed by George W. Bush.

And so it that's what's going to be really concerning for me just to see those kinds of instances play out and what the repercussions are, if there are any for them.

Because if we let them get away with this, then they think they can get away with the next thing and they're going to keep pushing the boundaries.

And that is what is really scary.

>> That's the everything everywhere all at once strategy, which is what you're seeing playing out where they're creating a rabbit hole over there.

The press is going to go down that one.

They're going to create another one over here.

This interest group is going to go down that one.

And they divide and conquer by creating all these spaces where there's a lot of noise and a lot of, oh, my God, I can't believe they did that.

And meanwhile, the thing that they want to do, they are quietly doing and that's the scary part of this is the airplane scenario, um, happens, but it happens in such a way -- And I made this point on the weekend, this past weekend -- that you have three people taken off of American university campuses who've been disappeared.

>> I'm not okay with that.

>> And no one's talking about it.

>> I'm not okay with that.

Yeah.

>> They just -- They just disappeared them.

They may be in El Salvador.

They may be in Louisiana.

We don't know.

And that's the piece of this that is the hardest part of the democracy question, because that's the test of democracy.

And for me, that test lands on us because regardless of the history and the means that it took for us to get here, we the people are still the three most important words, which means the government may not have intended that we have that power when they first wrote those words, but guess what?

We have it today, right?

And so now it's up to us to use it.

And the question that I've been stressing, which is why I lost my mind on the show a few -- a month ago when Simone asked me, so what do you want us to do?

I said, I just want you to show me a give a damn about what's happening, because that's the essential test of democracy is that you give a damn.

Shut your damn mouth and listen to their stories, and then you'll begin to understand how best you can legislate if legislation is even necessary.

And that's a hard thing for people to do in politics.

And a lot of us who do it, these women made choices that was against their self-interest having to take -- get security because every day is a threat being in public.

Worrying about where the next job is going to come from because people are saying, you'll never get hired in this town.

But you got to stand for something.

And we're all called to do that at some point, I think.

And that's what this moment requires.

So that goes to the heart of your question, um, and tell your truth, because America needs to hear it.

And it doesn't matter whether you're coming from a Republican background or a Democratic background, Texas or Maryland.

Your truth is every day how you live it and the choices that you make, and getting people in your community to appreciate that is important.

Because out of that, maybe one day you're going to be the next congresswoman from that area.

The governor of that state.

And that will inform that journey for you.

So don't be afraid.

Don't be afraid of the choices you have to make and the positions you want to take, because they're true to who you are.

I mean, you know, I got called all kinds of names.

Um, but here I am.

And I remember when I got elected lieutenant governor, I did an interview with The Washington Post, which I have very little regard for, by the way, the way they write about Black men, particularly Black men with power and money.

And I remember telling the reporter looking at him and go, he was asking me a question and say, so you got elected lieutenant governor.

Uh, what is that?

What do you say?

How do you feel?

I said, well, how do you like me now?

Because in your worldview, I shouldn't be here.

In my worldview, this is where I need to be right now.

And that's how you do it.

Anybody else, just grab -- just come up to the mic.

>> Yeah.

>> We got one more.

We're almost... >> Hi.

My name is Epiphany Penell, and my question was, what do you think state officials should do to combat the executive orders and the laws that are being put in place?

Um, and especially regarding to the closure of federal departments, um, what do you think that they should do to stop that or help their constituents in that regard?

>> I think you're seeing a little bit of it now.

I think you're seeing the attorney generals and some of the governors really kind of take a stand, and you're going to see a lot of the legal areas, the lawsuits happen on this.

And so I think that's one piece of it.

Um, but I also think that in a situation where the federal government is removing resources from significant programs that are going to impact your constituents, I think that really is where it's going to come down to the reaction at the state level of how you're going to look internally, right, to your infrastructure and figure out -- >> And that's going to be a bigger problem for red states than blue states, because red states rely so much on federal dollars.

>> The irony is not lost on us, right?

>> No it's not.

>> Yeah.

But I think that's going to be the big key is how do you navigate that to make up for the backbone of the federal government that really is a lot of the infrastructure for this?

I mean, it's reality of it.

>> Yeah.

I think just to finish up on that, I think the you're seeing, uh, governors, uh, begin to push back and take the stand.

Okay.

See you in court.

You're right.

>> We're testing the role of federalism.

>> We're testing the role because at the end, it goes back to what I said.

We are 50 individual states that can do whatever the hell they want, right?

But they happen to agree that we're going to do some things together.

Um, and when that becomes a problem, they will break.

And that was the message sent to the president when he met with the governors a few weeks ago, particularly among the Democratic governors, who were like, okay, we'll just see you in court because we're not going to have our states be held hostage to your requirements because you don't get to tell us what to do.

Um, and in that regard.

And of course, you see the president sort of using dollars now to threaten states.

And we're just going to pull your federal funding, which means if I'm the governor of a state right now, what I would do is, okay, I get everybody in a room and go, let's do the math.

Let's decide tomorrow.

The federal dollars aren't going to be here.

What's it going to take?

And where do we get the resources?

What do we cut?

What do we have to do?

And then be honest with the people in that state about what's happening and put the blame squarely where it needs to be, particularly as it impacts programs like Medicare and educational funding that, you know, support the states in their special ed programs, their meals programs, et cetera.

Well, unfortunately, we're at our time.

Um, but there's a little reception, we'll hang for a little bit and you can, uh, mingle with, uh, Sarah and Olivia.

But I thank you all.

And I thank you both for spending time with us here at Howard University.

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Thank you.