Transcript of Trump 2.0: Rewriting Histories

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From New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily. This week, the President falsely claimed that Ukraine started the war against Russia, ordered independent federal agencies created by Congress to answer directly to him, and installed himself as the leader of Washington's premier cultural institution. To make sense of all of that, I spoke with three of my colleagues, Whitehouse reporter Zolen Kano-Yungs, National Security reporter Charlie Savage, and writer at large, Elizabeth view Miller. It's Friday, February 21st. Friends, welcome to the Roundtable, where we acknowledge week after week that covering this presidency requires multiple minds in the same room at the same time. I want to thank you all for being here, Charlie.

Thank you.

Zolen. Thank you.

Good to see you. Elizabeth, making your debut here in this format. Thank you. Elizabeth, your resume requires just a little bit of an explanation. You were, until very recently, Charlie and Zolen's boss. You were the Washington Bureau Chief, overseeing all of our coverage of really the entire federal government during the first Trump administration and the entire Biden presidency, after which I think you justifiably collapsed into a heap, and I assume got a well-earned rest.

I would disagree with collapsing into a heap, but yes.

Really We appreciate all of you being here. Today's loose theme is a rewriting of history in three parts. The first place where in many minds history is being rewritten over the past few days is the war in Ukraine. The backdrop is that Donald Trump began unilateral talks with Russia about ending the war in Ukraine without Ukraine's input, which we talked about in our roundtable last Friday. Zolen, if you would pick up the plot for us there?

Sure. I think it's smart that you started this with the fact that Trump had this significant call with Vladimir Putin. That conversation basically prompted concern amongst Europeans as well as Americans that Ukraine was not going to have a seat at the negotiating table, that the country that was invaded in this case was not going to have a say in any potential peace talks that could end the war. There are talks then in Saudi Arabia between US officials and a Russian delegation, and Zelenskyy does not attend because he was not invited to those talks, even though it was his country that was invaded. After he doesn't attend, you have President Trump come out and criticize Zelenski.

Let me play that, Zolen, for all of us, because this is a moment I think worth lingering on, this specific remark from Trump. And I think I have the power to end this war, and I think it's going very well. But today I heard, Oh, we weren't invited. Well, you've been there for three years. You should have ended it three years.

You should have never started it.

You could have made a deal. I could have made a deal- The context is, as you just said, Zolen, the President is growing impatient with Zelensky's complaints that he's not involved in the conversations with Russia. He's saying, Zelensky, you've been in this war for three years. You had a chance to end it. In fact, you started. I just want to linger on the idea of that particular remark, Elizabeth, because to many people's minds, that is not just false, but potentially a very deliberate rewriting of history.

A complete rewriting of history. Putin invaded Ukraine three years ago. That is a fact. It was not Zalinsky's fault. Zalinsky did not cause his country to be invaded. This is a classic Trump MO. It's just that the whole world knows it's wrong, but it would seem to be part of a deliberate strategy.

What is What's the deliberateness of the strategy? What would be the rationale for saying this? If we assume that there is something deliberate about it, it didn't quite seem accidental.

Well, if you want to make a deal with Putin, you need to cast Zelensky as the villain here.

Well, I think part of it also is that the deal that it looks like he's going to make is going to be a very favorable to Russia deal. They're going to be allowed to keep the territory that they unlawfully seized from Ukraine. Trump has already said that Ukraine won't be allowed to join NATO, which is another Putin demand. Handing this entirely favorable settlement, if that's what happens, to Moscow looks pretty bad if Moscow was the aggressor and the villain in this story. Of course, in the Moscow propaganda land, it was the West's fault. It was provocation by Ukraine and NATO that necessitated this nonwar military action. Trump is just embracing that narrative with this remark, which many Republicans and Conservatives find grotesque.

I just want to make sure people understand what you're saying when you refer to the idea of Ukraine as a provocateur here. You mentioned NATO. I think we should just translate this for folks. The argument, and Putin makes it, and some foreign policy figures have made it less strongly than Putin, is that NATO's expansion, the growth of this defensive alliance that was created and designed to contain Russia's territorial ambitions over time, especially as it contemplates allowing Ukraine in, becomes a provocation to Russia. Is that in some ways what Trump is parroting here? I mean, Elizabeth, you posited it may be that he needs to villainize Zelensky in order to allow for a peace deal that cuts Zelensky out. But is he adopting this larger foreign policy Policy Framework as well?

Sure. He didn't say that explicitly, though, but that is certainly a view of many people in the foreign policy establishment. History is split on this so far about whether it was a good idea or a bad idea.

But there are people-For NATO to contemplate letting Ukraine in.

Yes. But the other thing I wanted to say was this is very helpful to Trump to promote this rewriting of history because it's worked for him in the past. Look at how many people think that he won the election in 2020. Look at how many people now think that January sixth was a day of of a peaceful protest. Peaceful protest. Yeah. So it works.

I think you also have to look at it in tandem with the outright skepticism that has come from Trump and his team about USAID to Ukraine as well. As you continue to put out these false statements that cast blame on Ukraine, turn it from victim to villain, does that now lay the groundwork to pull back USAID on a long-term basis to Ukraine as well.

Right. Well, what do we think the answer is? I mean, that isn't what's actually happened yet. Do we think that's the plan?

There's been multiple indicators that we could be getting to that point. You saw in recent days, the President say that for previous aid to Ukraine that's already gone through, that he wanted an exchange critical earth minerals from Ukraine. You're already seeing now a shift from a Biden administration whose position was, We're going to send aid in arms to Ukraine to give them the best leverage in potential negotiations to a Trump administration that's saying, Essentially, what are we getting back for this USAID? The skepticism has been building here, and now you have these false statements that are casting blame on Ukraine in an attempt to potentially shape public perception over the war as well, potentially laying the groundwork for a major change in not just USAID to Ukraine, but also US foreign policy and how the United States deals with allies over overseas.

How the US deals with Europe, specifically. That is the great difference here. It's moving closer to Russia and moving away from Europe. I think we all know that there was complete panic at the Munich Security Conference last week about that. If you talk to any European official, they are beside themselves with what is happening and preparing for a future without the United States. Ukraine is the beginning of that.

That's right. Hovering over all this is the prospect of eventual NATO withdrawal, which Trump wanted to do in his first term and was talked out of several times.

Do you think that's a logical next step, Charlie? The United States leaving this military alliance it created to protect Europe from Russia.

All the signs on that have been that he's interested in a retreat from Europe and withdrawal of the American security umbrella over Europe, whether that manifestsates itself in actual withdrawal from NATO or just a undermining of NATO and withdrawal of security commitments in a way that the organization ceases to have meaning is, I think, up for grabs, but that's the direction.

I do want to talk about where even within this framework of Trump doing some serious rewriting of history, there is an element where he would not seem to be rewriting history, where he would seem to be exactly where many Americans are. That is in saying that it's time for this conflict to end. Polling consistently shows that's where more and more Americans are. Also that this would seem to be a European problem more than it would be an American problem. One of the comments Trump made over the past few days that got less attention than the comments he made about Ukraine starting the war or when he called Zelenskyy a dictator, which we haven't even talked about, is that he said there's an ocean between us and all of this conflict. I took that naturally to mean Europe, it's your turn to deal with all of this.

Absolutely. Look, the Biden- Is he right?

Is he right?

Yes, he is right because the Biden Administration was obviously moving in this direction. But there was always the view that Ukraine would be part of any settlement. This is just completely casting Ukraine out. There also is a sense among the Europeans that we are totally on our own.

Michael, you also mentioned the public polling, too, and some of the skepticism from the country. That is something that gets brought up when you press Trump administration officials and some foreign policy experts, too, about this, that there was some frustration building, including in Ukraine, of what's the strategy for a diplomatic off-ramp here? What's the end game? Is this just going to continue? This is something I hear a lot when you press the Trump administration, that the status quo essentially wasn't working for the American people anymore. So at least this is an effort to force talks. The only issue is, are you now forcing talks and pretty much giving up the leverage that you might have had? How much are you actually going to force Ukraine to seed?

Right. Charles, you had mentioned that some Republicans in Congress find Trump's approach to Ukraine. I believe your word was grotesque, but so far, they're not doing much about that. The Senate majority leader, John Thune, was asked about the comments that Trump has been making, specifically that Ukraine, Zelensky, started this war, and his answer was basically, I don't want to talk about that. I just want this conflict to come to an end. How much does that that a response have to do with Zolen and Elizabeth, what you're saying, the public sentiment has moved on? What's the point of even bringing up what has been long-standing Republican hauckishness against Russia.

Well, this isn't just about public opinion. This is about the transformation of the Republican Party into an instrument of Trump's personal will, the driving out of people who were willing to stand to him in his first term. There's no more Liz Cheney's, there's no more John McCain's. People like Marco Rubio were among the Russia hawks who are now just...

Negotiating with Russia.

Well, in a way that's very favorable to Russia. The people who are openly saying this is grotesque are people who don't have political careers anymore. They're like former vice President Mike Pence. I don't see the, I don't want to talk about it from Thune that you just mentioned as something unique to this issue. I see it as just the texture of the times we live in, generally.

Okay, well, we're going to take a break, and when we come back, talk about how Trump is starting to rewrite something else, which is the President's relationship to power. We'll be right back.

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Okay, welcome back. I want to turn Charlie, Elizabeth, and Zolen to the second place where the White House seems to be rewriting or revising history, and that's through an executive order he signed this past week dealing with independent agencies. Now, Professor Savage, Charlie, this is literally your wheelhouse. Can you just start by explaining what an independent agency is and what the President's order has done to them?

Sure. United States government is structured by acts of Congress that say, We're going to have a Defense Department, we're going to have a Justice Department, and so forth. Most of those chunks of government are overseen by people who are directly accountable to the President and supervised by the and can be fired by the President if they act in a way that don't align with his policy directions. But going back to the 1880s, and then especially over the course of the 20th century, coming out of the New Deal, Congress has also created a series of independent executive branch agencies that are technocratic and have specialized jobs to regulate parts of the economy and that are not directly controlled by the President. The President appoints their leaders, usually commissions of multiple board members, but they serve fixed terms and the President can't fire them if he doesn't like what they're doing unless they've committed some personal misconduct under the laws set up by Congress. We're talking about Federal Communications Commission, Federal Trade Commission, Security and Exchange Commission, National Labor Relations Board, agencies like this. They regulate the economy. They impose rules and regulations on aspects of businesses that very wealthy people sometimes do not like.

This is helpful. What does this executive order do to what you just described?

For a long time, the conservative legal movement has wanted to get rid of that structure of government because they believe that centralizing control over these agencies in the White House with a president they could help elect would be a way to deregulate, to get rid of these rules that cut into their profits. They have invented a theory that the Constitution should be reinterpreted as not allowing Congress to do this, that if there's anything in the executive branch that's exercising government authority, the President has to control that. So these statutes that Congress has passed, setting up these independent agencies should be struck down as unconstitutional. Trump has been trying to execute this vision that's been building, really since the Reagan administration, of a new way of thinking about the Constitution that they are hoping the Republican appointees on the Supreme Court will endorse when the inevitable litigation reaches them. So Trump has been, a, firing people in disregard of the statutes that say he can't summarily do that unless they've committed some personal misconduct, and b, with this new executive order, he's imposing direct White House control over what these agencies do.

Elizabeth, how big a deal is this rewriting of our understanding of these agencies' relationship to the presidency. One way in which it would seem to matter is, as Charlie's hinting at, these were congressionally created agencies, congressionally insulated from the president. So by taking that away, the president would seem to be pretty clearly encroaching on Congress's authority.

Correct. This will have to be sorted out, obviously, as Charlie said, by the Supreme Court, because it's going to reach the Supreme Court. The question I have about it is if the Supreme Court rules in Trump's favor, that means the next president, who might be a Democrat also has these incredible kinglike powers. So Republicans, be careful what you wish for.

This is the loaded gun theory as one of the producers on our team put it, that you want to be careful with the authority you grant yourself because you're not going to be president forever.

Correct.

I think there's also a question of just what does the federal government look like when you have a clear disregard of the checks and balances that are set up within the federal bureaucracy at this point. He has shown that he's willing to go and effectively shrink an agency. He's also indicated that he wants Elon Musk's team to next go into the Department of Education, to also go into the Pentagon. You have a president in administration here that has been pretty honest about wanting to completely reshape the federal bureaucracy in a way where it's set up in his image, where you have loyalists throughout. When you're disregarding the checks and balances that have been set up in order to do that, that indicates that there's not going to be much hesitancy on the part of this administration to pursue these goals in upending the federal bureaucracy.

Right. One of the things that really struck me about the national conversation that's unfolding around this was an editorial in the Wall Street Journal, whose editorial board is very conservative and business friendly, and therefore, traditionally, you would expect to be a friendly place towards this notion of gutting regulatory agencies or bringing them to heal and unitary executive theory and all that. But even they were saying, this is demonstrating a downside to that way of structuring government, which is the potential for corruption by centralizing too much authority in a way that becomes unaccountable. Of course, overlaying this is just the role of Congress in general. It's one thing whether this is a better way or a worse way to do it, but completely cutting out the Article I branch of in making decisions about how to structure things suggests there's no role left for lawmakers in shaping the basic structure of our federal government.

They don't seem to be objecting, which is what is so extraordinary. He says he wants to get rid of the entire education department that was created by Congress. You just don't hear anything much out of the hill. I mean, there's the Democrats are making their protesting, but nothing else.

There's so few guardrails at this point for this administration. When you're essentially ignoring Congress's role, when you're installing loyalists at the Department of Justice, when you're ousting inspectors general as well, I think there is a real question of, at that point, what is the system of accountability that's in place for the executive branch.

Finally, our third, our final topic where history has been rewritten over the past few days, and that is rewriting the place of the Kennedy Center, of all places, which is designed to be the cultural center for the entire nation. It's home to the National Symphony Orchestra, the Washington National Opera. It has now been cast by the president as a woke purveyor of drag shows that target children, and the President has taken it over, which I don't think most of us even knew he had the power to do. Elizabeth, in your new role as a grand writer at large, of all things happening in the capital, you have tried to understand this saga. How did this even end up on the president's radar within the first few weeks of his presidency?

Well, in 2017, Norman Lear, the late Norman Lear, but he was very much alive then, said he would not attend this annual gala at the Kennedy Center that awards lifetime achievement awards to people who have contributed to the culture of the nation. Norman Lear said he would not attend the White House reception ahead of time because Donald Trump had threatened to cut off all funding for the National Endowment for the Arts.

We should say there's an irony to this, of course, because Norman Lear was involved in creating a show I think of as quite adjacent to the Trump era, which is All in the Family, a very populist show about a family in Queens.

Yes. And so then less than two weeks later, Charlottesville happened. Trump said they were fine people on both sides of that. Another honoree said she was not going to attend the White House reception.

Became a protest against the President.

Yes. And so Trump just said, I'm not having the reception, and he would not attend the Kennedy Center honors that December. He was the first President in 40 years not to attend, and he never went the entire four years of the first term. Who knew the resentments he held close to him Well, now we know because he quickly, within weeks of his new administration, installed himself as the new chairman of the Kennedy Center. He fired the President and removed all of the Biden appointees on the board and installed his own in a matter of days. To what end, though? Well, he said it was because of all the drag shows at the Kennedy Center targeted at children.

Is there any truth to that claim?

We think he was referring to one that was a drag show for gay youth But the point is, there are more than 2,000 events at the Kennedy Center every year. There have been a handful of drag shows, and only one that we could find that was aimed at children. Also, I would just like to point out that the Kennedy Center is, for the most part, It's changed a lot in recent years, but it's traditional. It's opera, it's ballet, it's the symphony. There have been country music festivals there. There's been jazz, there's been rock. It's not what you would call a risky avant-garde art house, to say the I mean, Zolen, do you have any sense of what the president, now that he has essentially taken over the Kennedy Center, wants it to be under his supervision?

Do we think he's actually going to play a supervisory role in the programming of this place?

That's a good question. I know in your story, you indicated that we might have some more country music at the Kennedy Center. Knowing Trump, probably what he envisions to be patriotic or more America-first, I think there's something broader here, which is what? I think this has to do with Trump's clear intent to put his MAGA stamp on all areas of society, not just the executive branch. I think you have to look at this also in tandem with DEI executive orders that have tried to dictate how private companies shape their hiring practices, directing different federal agencies and federal employees to remove their preferred pronouns from signatures, removing gender-neutral bathrooms, trying to also dictate how schools will handle LGBTQ issues as well. I think this It is part of trying to please a base that sees diversity and diversity in art as being a partisan issue, as being, quote, unquote, woke in a way.

There's certainly a real drive among Conservatives to be tried to become a more dominant culture in the United States. They have lived for years in the shadow of the liberal Hollywood elite. It was very hard for Trump to get people to perform at his first inaugural. It's still hard to get A-list celebrities to come and perform to his White House. They're resentful. They feel shut out. But now they said, We're going to be cool now. There's a lot of that going on, I think, with this.

So just to end this conversation, how should we think about these three, if we agree on these terms, rewritings of history taken together? My own sense, I'll offer my own theory, is that when it comes to Donald Trump, there is this long-standing proven instinct to frame everything as much as possible as being in crisis. If you're a foe of Trump, it's the worst version of that person. An institution is never just flawed, it's a failure. Something isn't just problematic, it's a crisis. There's not just waste in the government, it's corruption. It would seem that that framework, which in many cases leads to a rewriting of a history, then justifies the depth and sweep of the changes that he wants to make. That's at least how I have been thinking about this concept of rewriting history. I'm curious what you all think.

Well, what previous leaders have done is just to declare crisis. Know that everything is terrible, but I am here to save you all. That would include the three things we've talked about. I mean, Trump, he had trouble in the first term because he had too many people from the old order, the establishment, but they're gone now. You can see it's basically Trump and Elon Musk. I do think it's part of his playbook to be the leader he would like to be, to be basically the king he would like to be.

I think that's right. An effort to shape perception, too. When you're flooding the zone with false statements in the case of Ukraine, it also allows you to then shape the perception for your base for actions to come as well.

Charlie, last word, do you?

I do think you're on to something, and it makes me think as well about how he likes to invoke emergency power and declare there's an emergency, whether or not the facts on the ground might be realistically described that way. We have an emergency on the border, so I can spend all this money on a border wall that Congress didn't appropriate. Rhetorically, creating the situation that then allows extraordinary action- Yeah, that's right. Would be a theme that unites all of this.

Well, to all three of you, my thanks, Elizabeth and Charlie Zolen. Really good to have you. Thank you.

Thank you. So much.

We'll be right back. Here's what else you need to know today.

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Remember, you can catch a new episode of The Interview right here tomorrow. David Markezi speaks with Pulitzer Prize-winning science writer, Ed Young, about his years covering COVID and why, in his mind, we're thinking about bird flu in all the wrong ways. The way that it's often framed is, tell me on a scale of 1-10, how worried you are that H5N1 is going to go pandemic? I think the more important question is, if it does, how screwed are we? The answer is really, like very, very. Today's episode was produced by Asta Chhatharvady and Mary Wilson. It was edited by Rachel Quester and Chris Haxel. Contains original music by Dan Powell, Marion Lozano, and Pat McCusker, and was engineered by Chris Wood. Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Lansferck of Wunderly. Rle. That's it for the Daily. I'm Michael Barbaro. See you on Monday.