Primary Concerns

It’s hard to boil down all the ways the Trump campaign and presidency have reshaped American political norms into a single conceptual frame. But in his new, best-selling book Devil’s Bargain: Steve Bannon, Donald Trump, and The Storming of the Presidency, Businessweek’s Joshua Green has done just that. He joined New Republic Senior Editor Brian Beutler in studio to discuss the duo's impact on politics, and whether there’s any going back to how things were before.

Trumpcare is dead! At least for now. Senate Republicans lack sufficient support to repeal and replace Obamacare, or do anything to the health care system on a purely partisan basis. So what happens next? Will Republicans sabotage Obamacare for revenge? Will they feel compelled to stabilize the health care system? And how will congressional Republicans’ passivity toward Trump change now that their legislative agenda is in freefall. Daily Beast politics editor Sam Stein joined New Republic Senior Editor Brian Beutler in studio to discuss.

The Trump campaign’s efforts to collude with the Russian government against Hillary Clinton have now been established. Donald Trump’s son, Don Jr, produced emails on Tuesday that corroborate a meeting where he and the campaign’s top leadership sought compromising information about Clinton, sourced to the Russian government. Trump and his allies have been caught in a full year’s worth of lies. Republican congressional leaders have been caught covering up a conspiracy. The question now is what anti-Trump forces can do to make accountability more likely. Greg Sargent, author of the Washington Post’s Plum Line blog joined us by phone to discuss these issues and more.

Former Kentucky Governor Steve Beshear discusses the health care policy successes in his state, the threat of the Senate's new health care bill, and a new path forward for Democrats with New Republic Senior Editor Brian Beutler. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is just a few votes away from passing legislation that would reduce health insurance coverage by 22 million people. Ironically, the impact would be most severe in his home state of Kentucky, where the Affordable Care Act covered half a million people—a huge percent of that state’s population. The person most responsible for that success story is Kentucky’s former governor, Steve Beshear. He joined Primary Concerns by phone from Lexington to discuss GOP efforts to repeal Obamacare, and his prescriptions for a Democratic party revival.

Democratic Strategist and CNN Political Analyst Hilary Rosen discusses Democratic strategies to resist AHCA. Republicans are crafting a secret health care bill, and nobody has any idea how to stop them from passing it. President Trump is champing at the bit to fire the Justice Department special counsel investigating him and associates for obstruction of justice, and financial and election-related crimes. In the suburbs of Atlanta, voters will determine Tuesday night whether Democrats flip the conservative sixth district, and create a new benchmark for the political environment Trump’s presidency has created, or not. Here’s how all these stories interlock.

Brian Beutler and Ron Klain discuss Klain's political history [1:30], his role in response to the Ebola outbreak [12:30], and James Comey's Senate Intelligence committee hearing [28:15]. The Trump administration is roiled by both political and substantive crises. At a basic level, Trump doesn’t know how to run the government, or think in terms of the public interest. And at an acute level, he is mired in the scandal of the century. On Thursday, fired FBI Director James Comey testified that Trump is an abject liar, and without explicitly saying so, left no doubt he believes Trump obstructed justice as well The interaction of these crises is particularly striking to people who have worked in high levels of both politics and governing. Ron Klain was chief of staff to the Vice President in the Obama and Clinton administrations. He joined me in studio to assess this perilous moment.

A lot has changed in the two months since former chief Justice Department spokesman Matthew Miller joined New Republic Senior Editor Brian Beutler to discuss the FBI's investigation of the Trump campaign's involvement in Russian election subversion President Trump fired FBI Director James Comey; Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstine appointed Comey’s friend, former FBI director Robert Mueller, to oversee the investigation as Justice Department special counsel; And a large number of leaks points to the likelihood that Trump himself has attempted to obstruct justice. With the similarities to Watergate mounting, we brought Miller back to the program to reassess the scandal and where the investigation might lead.

Donald Trump’s decision to fire FBI Director James Comey in order to obstruct Comey’s Russia investigation has shocked the conscience of nearly everyone in politics. But because Trump’s party controls Congress, it is scarily plausible that he will get away with it. If he does, the harm done to rule of law in the country will be difficult to recover from. Susan Hennessy is a national security studies fellow at the Brookings Institution and managing editor of the website Lawfare. She joined New Republic Senior Editor Brian Beutler from the Brookings studio to assess the potential damage and what can be done to stop it.

All eyes are on the Senate after House Republicans passed the American Health Care Act. Will Senate Republicans follow suit? What can Democrats do to stop them? And what would a repeal of the Affordable Care Act mean for Democratic politics going forward. Brian Beutler sat down with Senator Chris Murphy in his Capitol Hill office to discuss the Republican healthcare sales job, the resistance movement, and how he's adjusted his strategic approach to politics in the Trump era.

Glenn Greenwald returns to the podcast to discuss what lessons the media, Democrats, and progressives should draw from 2016 as they turn to the elections ahead.

Massive Democratic over-performance in multiple special elections has captured the attention of both liberals and conservatives wondering whether the Trump backlash will stymie the Republican agenda or even win Democrats control of the House in 2018. Nobody knows if this trend will continue, just as we don't know what the economy will look like in eighteen months, or what Trump himself will do between now and next November. One thing we do know though is that his administration will continue to be bogged down in scandal, including perhaps the biggest scandal in American History. Brian Fallon worked on Capitol Hill and in the Justice Department for years before serving as Hillary Clinton's campaign press secretary. He spoke with New Republic Senior Editor Brian Beutler about politics, the backlash to Donald Trump and how revelations about the Trump campaign's ties to Russian intelligence are likely to shape both.

Despite being a notorious grifter, Donald Trump was an unintended mark for Fox News. That’s great news for them. For the rest of us? Alex Pareene and Brian Beutler discuss the collateral damage in episode 51 of Primary Concerns.

Former Principal Deputy Assistant General in the US Department of Justice Civli Rights Division Samuel Bagenstos comes on the show to talk to New Republic Senior Editor Brian Beutler about the mire of Republicans’ healthcare reform efforts, and how Neil Gorsuch stacks up as a Supreme Court nominee.

Matthew Miller draws on his experience as Director of Public Affairs at the Justice Department under Attorney General Eric Holder to chat with New Republic Editor Brian Beutler about James Comey's words and actions regarding the investigation into Hillary Clinton's emails and current investigations into any potential collusions between Russia and the Trump campaign.

Huffington Post Senior National Correspondent Jonathan Cohn and New Republic Senior Editor Brian Beutler unpack the Republicans new healthcare bill and compare its legislative process to other more deliberate healthcare legislation.

The turmoil and dysfunction in President Trump’s administration have persisted despite the White House’s (and the commentariat’s) fond hope that his first address to Congress would set the wind at his back. Ironically, this has taken the political spotlight away from the White House and moved it to Capitol Hill. Will Congressional investigators do their jobs? Will Republicans be able to advance a legislative agenda without presidential know-how or guidance? Where is the god damn Obamacare repeal bill?! New Republic Senior Editor Brian Beutler spoke with George Washington University professor and Brookings Institution senior fellow Sarah Binder to try to answer those questions.

There’s a strong temptation in politics to compare mass protests in support of Obamacare to the tea party protests of 2009, which nearly derailed health care reform before it passed. Jesse Ferguson thinks the comparison is flawed. Jesse worked on Capitol Hill during the law’s creation and for Hillary Clinton’s campaign in 2016. In the wake of Clinton’s defeat, he turned his efforts to saving the law from repeal. But in 2013, he was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer, which makes the fight an unusually personal one for him. Ferguson tells the New Republic's Brian Beutler about what he hopes to see from the latest batch of Town Hall protests

New Republic Senior Editor Brian Beutler discusses the future of the Democratic parties with two candidates for the DNC chair. [2:20] South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg [29:30] Former US Secretary of Labor Tom Perez (US Representative Keith Ellison's campaign declined to participate.)

The fact that Judge Neil Gorsuch had to criticize the man who nominated him to the Supreme Court perfectly encapsulates the horrifying tension between Donald Trump’s power to shape the judiciary and his inclination to trammel over it. Slate’s Dahlia Lithwick, host of the podcast Amicus, joins the New Republic’s Brian Beutler to discuss the crisis of authority facing the courts and to the crumbling distinction between law and politics that could define the Trump era.

Tom Perriello represented the Virginia’s Fifth Congressional district during the height of Democrats’ Obama-era productivity. But unlike most Democrats from GOP-leaning territory, Perriello didn’t run scared from the Democratic agenda; to the contrary, he embraced it. Now, he hopes to bring the same ethos to the Virginia governor’s mansion. He joined New Republic Senior Editor Brian Beutler in studio to talk about his race, and whether it is a microcosm of the biggest debate in Democratic politics.

Andy Slavitt saved the Affordable Care Act; he tells New Republic Senior Editor Brian Beutler how he hopes to keep Donald Trump from destroying it.

Arms Control Wonk Blog Founding Publisher and nuclear non-proliferation expert Jeffrey Lewis and Brian Beutler discuss the likelihood of us all dying in a nuclear apocalypse under a Trump presidency.

Adam Serwer, Senior Editor for the Atlantic, and Brian Beutler, Senior Editor for New Republic discuss a week of confirmations, farewells, and leaks. Serwer shares his perspective on Jeff Sessions confirmation hearings after investigating Sessions record on civil rights. Also, Buzzfeed's leaked intelligence dossier and Trump's punitive response the media's unfavorable reporting.

Former Presidential Candidate and CIA Officer Evan McMullin joins New Republic Senior Editor Brian Beutler to talk about how liberals and conservatives can find common ground in resisting Trump's authoritarian tendencies.

When the public can not agree upon a shared reality—when confusion and distrust and propaganda reign—politics devolves into a pre-democratic struggle for power, which will disfavor resisters. Donald Trump may not understand this dynamic academically, but it was a hallmark of his campaign and has become a hallmark of his pre-presidency. Sometimes his false pronouncements are buffoonish and ill-considered, but make no mistake: he is taking a hammer to one of liberal society’s guardrails. Dartmouth College Political Scientist Brendan Nyhan has studied the ways information and disinformation affect political processes extensively. He joins New Republic Senior Editor Brian Beutler to explore why propaganda and conspiracy theory are so prevalent today, how this plays neatly into Trump’s hands, and what can be done about it.

Washington Post media columnist Margaret Sullivan Donald Trump is going to be president. When he reaches the Oval Office, he will be as hellbent on accumulating power, at the expense of liberal values, as he was on the campaign trail. Many things will get in his way, and when they do, he will try to crush them. This is not a drill. The real test of our democratic institutions has just begun. One of those institutions is the free press. Our free press has taken its liberty for granted for so long that it has lost the muscle memory required to defend itself. As civil society regroups, and prepares to resist Trump’s encroachment on democracy, everyone needs to stop and think and internalize what their role in this brave new world is. Washington Post media columnist Margaret Sullivan has some thoughts on how to do that. New Republic Senior Editor Brian Beutler sat down with her at Post headquarters to sketch out a gameplan.

[0:00] Sean Trende, Senior Elections Analyst with Real Clear Politics was the first political analyst to posit the existence of a large enough latent population of disaffected whites to elect Republicans nationally, without making major inroads with minority groups. He talks to New Republic Senior Editor Brian Beutler about how Trump ultimately connected to that group [28:23] Todd Zwillich, Washington correspondent of WNYC’s the Takeaway joins Brian to imagine the life that awaits us under unified Republican rule, with Trump at the helm.

Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne is the author of a timely book called Why the Right Went Wrong. New Republic Senior Editor Brian Beutler sat down with him at the Brookings Institution to fit the closing days of this campaign into a greater historical framework, and give some thought to what lies ahead. The home stretch of this election has been marked by Republican desperation and Democratic angst. Sensing defeat, Republicans down ballot from Donald Trump are promising to prevent Hillary Clinton from filling Supreme Court vacancies—should they retain the Senate—and to beset her administration with years of investigations. They have bullied the FBI into selectively leaking information that might damage Clinton, and some Republicans have even said they’re likely to impeach her. This rapid jettisoning of political courtesies and democratic norms isn’t just an indication that Republicans sense defeat. It’s a warning of the political future that awaits us if and when Clinton assumes office.

Norm Ornstein, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, cowrote the book on Republican dysfunction. He joins New Republic Senior Editor Brian Beutler in studio to discuss what's happening to the Republican Party. This election ends—mercifully—on November 8. The question of what awaits us on November 9 is, at this point, the most important one in politics. It has begun to dawn on Donald Trump and members of his inner circle that he is headed toward defeat—a fact his enablers in the Republican Party have been aware of for a long time. What remains to be seen is how badly Trump will lose, how he’ll cope with defeat, and how Republicans will cope with the repudiation of their party. Will they finally accept the need to reform? Or will they give way even more fully to the extremism, and backlash politics that gave rise to Trump in the first place?

The 2016 presidential debates are over, and Donald Trump lost all of them. The question now, with Trump’s defeat looming, is how long our memories will be? Huffington Post writers Jason Linkins and Jeffrey Young join The New Republic's Senior Editor Brian Beutler to assess whether the Republican Party, with an assist from the news media, will be able to sweep the fact that they created and enabled Trump under the rug.

[1:40] Liam Donovan [39:30] Claire Landsbaum The second presidential debate Sunday night at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, was the beginning of Donald Trump’s last stand. How does this all end? Former Republican operative, and political writer Liam Donovan joins New Republic Senior Editor Brian Beutler to assess the damage. Then, Trump has been a challenge for all journalists to cover, but especially for the female reporters embedded with him campaign. That was true before the hot mic disclosure late last week, but it’s even more true now. Claire Landsbaum, staff writer for New York magazine’s The Cut has explored the topic in a recent feature called “What It’s Like To Be A Female Reporter Covering Donald Trump.” We discuss how recent events have changed that experience.

Deadspin Senior Editor Ashley Feinberg joins The New Republic's Brian Beutler to explore how the key to winning the VP debate was getting into Trump’s head one way or another. At the first vice presidential debate in Farmville, Virginia Monday night, where her running mate Tim Kaine browbeat Trump’s running mate Mike Pence repeatedly, forcing Pence to choose between defending the indefensible and lying. In the immediate aftermath, pundit-theater critics declared Kaine the loser against Pence, and perhaps the public will reach the same conclusion. But already we’re seeing clear signs that winning in the moment was less important to team Clinton than relitigating Trump’s basic indecency and driving a wedge between him and his running mate.

Vox cofounder and senior correspondent Matthew Yglesias joins us to discuss the debate and how it has been covered so far. Monday night, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump squared off in the first presidential debate of 2016. It was perhaps the first time Clinton and Trump were in the same room together since she and Bill Clinton attended Trump’s wedding 11 years ago. Kind of a lot’s happened since then. As political theater, the debate did not disappoint. In many ways, it was a beatdown. Clinton baited Trump into demonstrating all of his shortcomings: racism, sexism, volatility, and general ignorance. But debates are supposed to be about persuasion, and if not persuasion, then at least about teaching attentive people new things. If you’re one of the few just tuning in, and managed to watch the debate without any of the spin that came before or after, you learned a great deal about how important this election is. But if you pay close attention to politics, or cover this election for a living, it offered nothing more than a capsule summary of everything you already know about the 2016 campaign.

Slate's Chief Political Correspondent Jamelle Bouie describes how he sees journalists underestimate the real stakes and potential consequences of a Trump presidency on people of color.

James Fallows, The Atlantic’s national correspondent, has undertaken a detailed pre-game analysis of presidential debates every four years going back to 2000. In 1996, he wrote a comprehensive criticism of the media in his book called Breaking the News, whose lessons are as relevant today as they were 20 years ago. He joins us this week to discuss the campaign, the coming debates, and whether Trump exploded into public consciousness just as the country was prepared to turn the corner on his brand of politics.

[2:32] Glenn Greenwald [49:35] Rebecca Traister What is the proper role for liberals in the media? What constitutes fair intervention and can liberals work the refs without falling into the conservative trap of objecting to all scrutiny of their favored candidates? Glenn Greenwald, a founding editor of the investigative journalism website, The Intercept, has been heavily critical of liberals who cry foul over the media’s Clinton coverage. Rebecca Traister, New York magazine contributor and author of All the Single Ladies, is the most insightful chronicler of Clinton’s life in the public eye. In back-to-back interviews, these leading writers look for a sweet spot of liberal media criticism and explore whether the coverage of Hillary Clinton has fallen out of whack.

Stuart Stevens, who was Mitt Romney's chief strategist in 2012, and Real Clear Politics' Senior Elections Analyst Sean Trende discuss the factors that allowed Trump to succeed and whether the Republican party can avoid a similar crisis in the future. Stevens recently published a novel about a fictional strongman taking over the Republican party, and reckons with seeing the themes of his book play out in real life. In 2013, Trende wrote about neglected blue-collar white voters, a group that has fueled Trump's rise.

How will Bernie Sanders' campaign influence future insurgent campaigns? We spoke to Becky Bond, co-founder and former political director of CREDO, about how she advised a 74-year-old socialist's campaign to harness technology to build a young enthusiastic following.

As chief speechwriter for President Barack Obama from 2005-2013, Jon Favreau’s job was to help Obama show without telling. He’ll help us get a handle on the conundrum this poses to Obama, Clinton, and the Democratic Party as a whole.

Jay Rosen discusses whether the media and the Clinton campaign can rise to the Trump challenge without fundamentally changing themselves.

Alex Wagner, senior editor at The Atlantic, has been on hand for both conventions. She has written most recently about the Democratic Party divide and calls in from the parking lot of the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia to discuss all of it.

Ezra Klein, Vox.com Editor-in-Chief and host of The Weeds and The Ezra Klein Show, is our guest this week. He joins us in studio to talk about the RNC, the long-awaited union of Trump and Pence, and a question at the center of his recent feature for Vox: “Why is the Hillary Clinton described to me by her staff, her colleagues, and even her foes so different from the one I see on the campaign trail?”

The Week's Michael Brendan Dougherty is our guest this week, and boy, is there news to discuss. FBI director Jim Comey lashed out at Hillary Clinton for her mishandling of classified information, while determining that she shouldn't be prosecuted for a crime. Trump, meanwhile, praised Saddam Hussein, tweeted out Neo-Nazi propaganda, and defended both actions. Amidst all this, senators Bob Corker and Joni Ernst dropped out of contention to be his running mate. If Trump is determined to campaign by his own rules, is there anything conservatives can do about it? And is Clinton really as untrustworthy and corrupt as the media narrative goes?

This week, the Supreme Court handed the abortion-rights movement a major victory in its Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt decision. Irin Carmon, MSNBC reporter and author of the bestseller “The Notorious RBG," joins the show to discuss the implications of the decision, and the future of the Court. Also this week, the conclusion of the House’s Benghazi investigation is the latest reminder of the paranoia and hucksterism running through conservative politics. New Republic senior editor Jeet Heer explains how Donald Trump is exploiting this weakness to run the greatest political scam of all time.

To call Donald Trump’s campaign a dumpster fire would be an insult to dumpster fires. This week, he fired campaign manager Corey Lewandowski, less than a month before the convention. So...why’d he do it? Conservative Matt Lewis assesses the damage, and talks about how his Palin wake-up shaped his reaction to Trump’s candidacy. Meanwhile, Trump’s incompetence frees up Hillary Clinton to pick basically any running mate she wants. The Washington Post’s political satirist Alexandra Petri joins us to talk and mock Veepstakes 2016.

The horrific mass shooting at a gay club in Orlando this weekend left the nation grieving and in shock. Yet Donald Trump made it into a victory lap that was so outlandish, even Republicans who have endorsed him are recoiling in terror. MSNBC’s Benjy Sarlin joins the show to talk about what makes Trump fans tick, and how they explain his appalling response to domestic terrorism. Then, Harvard political scientist Theda Skocpol, a contributor to TNR's new cover project The Split, and Boston College political scientist Dave Hopkins debate how and when the Democratic Party will reunify.

Donald Trump's intimidation campaign against Judge Gonzalo Curiel sounds mighty familiar to Judge Vaughn Walker, our first guest. After presiding over same-sex marriage litigation in California, he was the subject of attacks claiming that he was too biased to judge the case because of his identity. Then, former Martin O’Malley deputy campaign manager Lis Smith discusses Hillary Clinton’s historic victory, her coming race against Trump, and the future of Bernie Sanders’s base.

Hillary Clinton is taking fire from all sides. On her left, Bernie Sanders is demanding a high price for unifying the party. On her right, Donald Trump is playing all the dirty tricks. Josh Marshall, editor of Talking Points Memo, discusses the challenge Trump's posing to marquee media. Then, TNR's Alex Shephard explains Sanders's next role, the type of demands he can make of Clinton, and last week’s brouhaha at the Nevada state convention.

Republican strategists John Feehery and Rory Cooper fundamentally disagree over Donald Trump: Feehery supports him, and Cooper definitely does not. They meet in the studio to talk (and occasionally shout) out their differences over the GOP’s presumptive nominee and their party's future. Feehery is the QGA public affairs president and former press secretary for Speaker Denny Hastert. Cooper is the former communications director for House Majority Leader Eric Cantor and a senior adviser to the Never Trump PAC.

Former Jeb Bush comms director and #NeverTrump operative Tim Miller explains what distinguishes Republicans who support Trump from those who never will. Then, New York Magazine's Jonathan Chait discusses his argument that Trump’s rise should be a cautionary tale for the left. Bernie Sanders had another big win in the West Virginia primary this week. Is the Sanders movement sowing the seeds of destruction for the Democratic coalition? Listen to find out.

After Tuesday's Indiana primary and the end of the Cruz and Kasich campaigns, the Trump-Clinton race is on. Can our democracy survive it? Andrew Sullivan of New York Magazine (and formerly TNR) worries it can't. He and Brian Beutler discuss his new essay about the frailty of our Republic, and the dangers of Trump complacency. Then, Texas Monthly's Erica Grieder examines whether or not Cruz will endorse Trump, and what his political future has in store.