[MUSIC]

Brian Lehrer: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning, everyone. If you went into the weekend thinking the big news Monday morning would be revelations from the Epstein files, you were probably mostly wrong. There are some things worth knowing and what they released on Friday afternoon, but one of them might be that the release didn't live up to the name of the law that required it, the Epstein Files Transparency Act. There's a lot that remains pretty opaque. We'll parse some of what we can.

There's an opacity issue for Democrats, too, that maybe you didn't expect going into the weekend. They had promised, as some of you may know, to release a so-called "autopsy" on why they lost the presidency to Donald Trump last year and Congress, too. Now that the report is complete, DNC Chair Ken Martin decided to keep it secret. After all, many Democratic activists are furious at their party leadership.

There are new divisions on the Republican side, too. Perhaps you were shocked on Friday, like many people were, that rising GOP star Elise Stefanik, the frontrunner for the Republican nomination to run against Kathy Hochul for governor of New York next year, suddenly announced she is quitting the race and will quit her seat in Congress, too, at the end of this term. You probably didn't expect this kind of story from the first Turning Point USA gathering since its founder, Charlie Kirk, was assassinated.

As The New York Times headline put it, Turning Point's Annual Gathering Turns Into a Gripe Fest. We'll explain Democratic and Republican unhappiness with their own, the Epstein Files sort of Transparency Act release, and more now with Philip Bump, one of the many big-name columnists who left The Washington Post this year after they announced their new, very specific editorial direction emphasizing personal liberties and free markets.

He had been with The Post for 11 years and had been on this show so many times in that role. He is now an MS NOW contributor, author of the How to Read This Chart newsletter. He is also author of the book, The Aftermath: The Last Days of the Baby Boom and the Future of Power in America, which came out in 2023. Philip, always good to have you first time in your post-Post era. Do you want to say anything to start off about why you left?

Philip Bump: Sure. I think you summarized. I think people who are listening and listening to your show regularly understand that there was a change that was made at the newspaper. I had moved to the opinion side, actually, just at the beginning of this year. Then it was made clear that the owner, obviously Jeff Bezos, had decided that he wanted to shift the focus of what the opinion page was writing about.

I thought that that was both transparent in terms of what it was hoping to achieve, which was not making the administration mad. I thought it was not something that I thought was worth spending my time and energy writing about. I think it's important, in this moment to particularly now, to speak truth to power. This seemed to be a mandate to not do that. I was offered a buyout, and I accepted the buyout and left.

Brian Lehrer: One of the stories in the news today, maybe in the same lane, some of our listeners have heard this. CBS pulling a story that was supposed to air on 60 Minutes about the Trump administration and the notorious-- What's it called? ECOT? Do I have that?

Philip Bump: CECOT, yes.

Brian Lehrer: CECOT, right, of course. Prison in El Salvador. You have posted about that on Bluesky, I see. Do you see that and the changes at The Post as part of a pattern?

Philip Bump: Yes, I do. According to the reporting, and the story is not fully complete at this point, it appears as though the new news director, editor-in-chief at CBS News, Bari Weiss, decided that this needed to be pulled, even though they'd been promoting it. It was expected to air last night, but that this story about CECOT needed to be pulled because it was not fully reported. It was the claim.

There was a suggestion by one of the people that actually worked on it and was expecting it to air that this was because they wanted to have the White House have an opportunity to have on-air comments, which they had not wanted to provide. I think it goes back to the same idea, which is news institutions that have power that's supposed to be oriented around afflicting the comfortable and comforting the afflicted, as the old saying goes, are instead worried or are part of broader business conglomerates that don't want to make the administration mad. This certainly seems to be in that pattern.

Brian Lehrer: I guess the CBS position on pulling the story, at least from what they're saying, is that a Trump administration official wasn't included. That's different than saying it had to support the CECOT policy. Is it not fair, good and fair journalism, CBS might say, on a story about a Trump policy to include a Trump administration voice?

Philip Bump: It is absolutely fair. In fact, it's proper journalistic procedure to reach out to the administration and do so. However, if the administration says they don't want to participate or are not going to participate, you don't then spike the story. You say, "Okay, we're going to do this story. Here's your opportunity to weigh in and answer the questions that we have for you. If you don't do that, we are going to run the story anyway." If you do the alternative, if you say, "Okay. Well, we didn't get your side, then we can't run the story," then that is a de facto veto or spike from the administration, and that is bad journalistic practice. That is giving them more power than you should.

Brian Lehrer: That's your best understanding as of now of what happened. The administration was invited to have a spokesperson on the story, and they declined?

Philip Bump: That's my understanding based on reporting, yes, based on a note that was offered by one of the people, one of the reporters who worked on the story in the first place, yes.

Brian Lehrer: Right, so that would be, like you say, tantamount of having the power to cancel stories by not providing a spokesperson for that side.

Philip Bump: Exactly.

Brian Lehrer: All right, let's go on to some of the other news from the weekend. The release under the Epstein Files Transparency Act. How much transparency? How much an act as far as you could tell?

Philip Bump: [chuckles] It's a good question. Yes, so the law stated, essentially, they were meant to release literally everything they possibly could that was not putting victims at risk. What was offered was very obviously short of that, enormous, just scabs, the hundreds of pages of fully redacted or mostly redacted documents. Then, of course, we had this sub-story of files and photos that had been posted online that were then pulled down.

One of which I believe was actually restored. I think the real question I have about this is less why they didn't release all the files, which is very obvious, which is that the administration has been very uninterested, disinterested in releasing the files over the course of the past 11 months. The question is, why they don't just realize that all they're doing is keeping this story in the news, right?

All this does then is put pressure on the Department of Justice, put pressure on the administration officials who are supposed to be responsible for the release, to actually release more files over the short term. It keeps the story in the news. It's just baffling to me why they are putting their foot down and not just dumping all these files, getting the story over with, taking whatever damage. Obviously, there's going to be some damage to Trump from it, pretty clearly based on what's happening here, and not just taking that loss and moving on. It's very, very strange.

Brian Lehrer: Listeners, our phones are open. Our text message thread is open if you want to get in with a comment or a question for Philip Bump, formerly a Washington Post columnist, now with MS NOW, and his own newsletter and very active on Bluesky, among other places, 212-433-WNYC, on any of these things, the Epstein files, the divisions in the Republican Party at the Turning Point USA conference over the weekend. The divisions in the Democratic Party as manifested in the lack of release of the so-called autopsy report about the 2024 election. CBS News, any CBS News journalists want to call in? 212-433-WNYC.

Oh, and how about you Elise Stefanik supporters or anyone else in New York, especially on her shocking decision on Friday, or at least the announcement of her decision on Friday to pull out from the Republican primary, which she was considered likely to win, to run against Governor Kathy Hochul next fall on any of those things, comments, thoughts, stories, questions? 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. Call or text.

Philip, staying on the Epstein files, there was at least some really disturbing news, not about Trump, but about a complaint filed years before the official investigation by the FBI into Epstein began by someone who said Epstein had stolen pictures of her younger sisters. That complaint was dismissed, I guess, as not credible. It suggests not believing women and, in this case, something that perhaps could have prevented many, many victimizations had he been identified for what he was when the woman reported it. This was apparently new to the public's eyes in the Epstein files dump. Did you see that?

Philip Bump: I did, yes. Yes, the woman had reported this to the FBI in the summer of 1996, I believe, and essentially, as you articulated, that she had these suspicions about Epstein that, apparently, nothing happened with it, and that she read a story in The Times that indicated that she felt very vindicated, that she had, as you suggested, been dismissed as though this was not a serious issue. Now, she is aware, and very obviously the case that this is a credible accusation that she feels very vindicated by it. You're right. There were not a lot of revelations, but the fact that the scale of the institutional failure that has been obvious for some time, I don't know that anyone knew there was that long a span of institutional failure that had been in play here.

Brian Lehrer: The New York Times published a long article about Trump and Epstein's former close friendship the other day, like competing with each other to see who could sleep with what women, that kind of thing. The article also says they found "no evidence implicating Mr. Trump in Mr. Epstein's abuse and trafficking of minors" from The New York Times article. Is there a wild goose-chase element to this regarding Trump himself? Maybe is looking for more on Trump, maybe even the wrong way to look at the importance of the Transparency Act?

Philip Bump: I think that it is not the only important aspect. I think that a lot of people focus on that as the important aspect. For obvious reasons, the President of the United States very clearly had at least downplayed his relationship with Epstein, or perhaps there was more to it that we just haven't yet uncovered. There is this broader question of the extent to which Epstein was allowed to do what he did, which has always been an undercurrent here.

It is not necessarily the thing that is the most attention-grabbing at any given moment, but there's always been this undercurrent of, how did he do this? How was it the case that he had just this much money and these many people in his orbit, which, of course, answers his own question that he was able to get away with this for so long? I think that it's useful to have all that adjudicated, including the story that you just mentioned.

This broader Trump question is a totally valid question. I think one of the things that's important to remember, and I'm not trying to say that I know anything here or anything along those lines, but Donald Trump has a record of paying people off to keep private the relationships he had with them. It is not as though we can rely on Donald Trump as a good-faith actor to say what it is that happened with Epstein.

We should always take everything he says with a grain of salt, but particularly on issues like these. Who knows? Who knows what sort of non-disclosure agreements might have been signed? I think this is part of the reason why the press stays on the story is simply we just can't trust him. We certainly can't trust Epstein. The documents are at least something close to objective data that we can analyze and see if there's anything there that the American public ought to be aware of.

Brian Lehrer: In terms of non-disclosure, potential non-disclosure, it's not just Epstein not disclosing potentially horrible things that Trump might have done for which there is apparently no evidence, but also Trump knowing but not disclosing some of the horrible things that Jeffrey Epstein did. Maybe that is actually the more salient question at this point, or the more likely to produce something damning with respect to the President. There was that earlier Epstein estate emails released just recently that included references by or to Jeffrey Epstein and emails to things like referring to Trump as the dog that hasn't barked. He knew that that was going on, that what Epstein is now so infamous for was taking place before law enforcement knew it, but sat on it. Well, that's its own scandal.

Philip Bump: Yes, I think that's very true. There was this brief moment in which House Speaker Mike Johnson suggested that maybe Trump had been working with the Feds to uncover Epstein, which was very quickly debunked, but really shows that there's an awareness that Donald Trump's inaction here is by itself an indictment of Donald Trump. Not literally indictment, obviously, but suggests that he does not have, in case one thought that he was morally upstanding, this suggests that he perhaps wasn't, should anyone still be under that notion. Yes, there's this question of the extent to which Donald Trump was part of the enabling system, obviously has merits, and obviously reflects on the position he currently holds.

Brian Lehrer: Here is House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries on what's been released.

Hakeem Jeffries: The statute requires the so-called Department of Justice, at this moment, within 15 days to provide a written explanation to Congress and to the American people as to why they've withheld certain documents.

Brian Lehrer: What does come next on this? You hear how Congressman Jeffries articulated what they're required to do under the law.

Philip Bump: Yes, there has already been a bipartisan, with a very small number of Republicans, primarily Thomas Massie from Kentucky, group of legislators who have said that they believe that there ought to be at least some sort of impeachment motion brought against senior Justice Department officials, including potentially Pam Bondi, the attorney general. I think that it's fascinating that the Democrats aren't leaping on this and sinking their teeth into it simply because it's such a layup.

There's so much public demand for these files in part because everyone's been paying attention as each of the news cycles continues to fail to release all of the files, that there is huge demand for people for some sort of accountability system here. I would not be surprised if the Democrats continue to jump on this and put pressure on the administration wherever they can.

Who knows? The Democrats have not exactly risen to the moment in a lot of ways. I think their supporters would argue, so we'll see. This is certainly a place where, to my original point, it's going to stay in the news. There are a lot of opportunities for ambitious legislators like Ro Khanna from California to use this as an opportunity to talk to the public and put pressure on the administration.

Brian Lehrer: Here's Al in Newark calling in on the Epstein file story. Al, you're on WNYC with Philip Bump.

Al: Thank you so much, Brian. I've got a lot of questions, but my main question comes down to the connection between Epstein and the Israeli intelligence Mossad.

Brian Lehrer: Uh-oh.

Al: Excuse me?

Brian Lehrer: Go ahead. Sounds like you're heading toward a conspiracy theory here, but go ahead.

Al: Well, I'm not saying conspiracy as far as that it's hanging over everything, but I don't think Epstein had the wherewithal and the ability to do what he did alone. There's been speculation he was a Mossad agent. I'd like to know, is there any information and any further intelligence on that?

Brian Lehrer: Al, thank you very much. I didn't know that was where he was going to go, but this previews one of the other things we're going to talk about a little later in the segment. These divides within the Republican right as evidence that the Turning Point USA gathering over the weekend, one of which involves Candace Owens, the conservative writer and podcaster and everything, who has, I think, been the main voice, correct me if I'm wrong, if it wasn't her, floating that kind of thing, and many other conservatives saying, "Come on."

Philip Bump: Yes. First of all, just to address that there's no evidence of that. I think anyone who's lived in the United States [chuckles] for at least five minutes understands that there is an enormous amount of power in being extremely wealthy in this country. One doesn't need to ascribe to some foreign intelligence agency power that can be explained by a pocketbook. I think that's pretty obviously what's at play here, that money buys you access. Epstein obviously had a lot of that as well.

Yes, but you're right that this is also something that is these sorts of conspiracy theories, broadly, the idea that there is this outside shadowy group that is involved in a pedophile ring was at the heart of the QAnon conspiracy theory that was very popular during Donald Trump's first term in office on the political right. We've seen that conspiratorial thinking seep very broadly into the right and into Donald Trump's base. It did erupt in the course of the past couple of weeks, and particularly at this Turning Point event this weekend.

Brian Lehrer: One more on the Epstein files from another point of view, I think. William in Jackson, New Jersey. William, you're on WNYC. Hello.

William: Hi. Hello. How are you? Yes, I did want to discuss the whole Epstein thing. I think it's so overblown and sad that this is such a big story now, so clearly is it that it was just a giant conspiracy from day one that Trump pushed at the beginning. Now, it's coming to eat him. The fact that the Democrats are joining with Marjorie Taylor Greene and Massie and all these other people who are just conspiracy-minded and making it into a story where people are taking these conspiracies seriously, this is the biggest issue or one of the biggest issues, I think, that are going on in America today, where people are just buying into stuff. Like Philip said, they're going to jump on it because it's politically expedient. It's really, really degrading the rhetoric that goes on in the country.

Brian Lehrer: William, thank you. I think we need to make a distinction, Philip, tell me if you agree or disagree, between, let's say, a Candace Owen style or Israeli Mossad might have been involved conspiracy theory, and what might be an actual earnest interest on the part of people like Massie and Marjorie Taylor Greene for actual transparency on this and find out what the evidence actually is that points at anybody in particular, and let the chips fall where they may.

Philip Bump: Yes, I think that's right. I would not be generous to Marjorie Taylor Greene and separating her from the conspiracy theories. I think she came into this from the conspiracy theory angle. While I do think she is sincerely motivated by some of the gender questions here, the very obvious gender questions, both in treatment of the files and obviously treatment of Jeffrey Epstein's victims, I also think that she is someone who's very eager to glom onto conspiracy theories and enjoys that aspect of it as well. Just as a quick aside.

Brian Lehrer: Fair enough.

Philip Bump: Yes, but you're exactly right. There are real questions here. One of the things that's been fascinating to watch is the number of people who are like, "Oh, well, Bill Clinton is implicated in this, too." Pretty much every voice I've heard on the left is like, "Okay, great, let's figure this thing out. Let's see what the scale of this was." For a lot of people, there is a large indifference to the partisan aspect of it.

Instead, there's just this desire to see people who were potentially involved in criminality or, at the very least, leveraged their power on behalf of an obvious criminal. This is a guy who had already made plea deals at the time some of these photos were taken or some of these relationships were understood to have occurred, that he was still enabled, and that his money and access to people still gave him that power.

That's an important thing for us to adjudicate and to understand the scope of. Even beyond whether or not this knocks Donald Trump down two points in his approval rating, I think it's something that's important for the American people to know about as much as they can. I'll note the very fact that we're still debating this, they haven't released the files, and they loathe to release the files keeps that particular story very much at the center of the conversation.

Brian Lehrer: Right. They say they're going to release some more files over the next two weeks as they gradually finish the act of redacting them. Then, of course, there's the whole question of these large, large sections that were redacted, and whether they needed to be redacted, and whether they're actually covering something up. The whole arc of the story here, from what the last caller was indicating, Trump, among those promoting the conspiracy theories at the beginning, and now that there seems to be actual transparency in the works, trying to block that, it certainly suggests that they're covering something up. We don't yet know what that is, so to be continued on that. When we continue in a minute, we're going to move from this that some Republicans may be trying to cover up to something that the Democrats are apparently trying to cover up. We'll explain what that is right after this.

[MUSIC]

Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC as we continue with Philip Bump, one of the many big-name columnists who left The Washington Post this year after they announced their new very specific editorial direction, emphasizing personal liberties and free markets. He had been with The Post for 11 years and had come on this show many times as a Washington Post staffer. He is now an MS NOW contributor, author of How to Read This Chart, his newsletter.

He's also author of the book, which came out in 2023, The Aftermath: The Last Days of the Baby Boom and the Future of Power in America, which may be relevant to what we're going to talk about next because we were just describing how the Republicans have this potential cover-up of some Epstein files, materials on their hands. Meanwhile, the Democrats have their own failure to release. That's much in the news right now. It's their autopsy report from the 2024 elections.

I'm going to read a quote I have from Ken Martin, the DNC chair, shortly after he assumed that position early this year. He said, "I just want to say there was a post-election review done many years ago, right after the 2016 election, right? That was never released. The DNC spent a lot of time and money on that, wasn't even released to the DNC members." That, of course, was after Hillary Clinton lost to Trump, right? This continues.

"What happened with that, right? Was there any utility of doing that? Of course, it will be released, right? It will be released to our members, and we all have to learn from that. There has to be some lessons that we glean on that so we can operationalize it, not just here in DC, but through all of the 57 state parties and, of course, the county parties, so people have a sense of what we need to do." They decided just the other day not to release the so-called autopsy report that they did on last year's election. Here's a blistering reaction on Facebook from former DNC Vice Chair David Hogg.

David Hogg: Here's the deal. Our party is not a serious party. It's not. If we can't hold ourselves accountable and have uncomfortable conversations, and ensure that we are actually doing what we can to understand why we lost and holding those accountable that are responsible for making us lose, we can't call ourselves a party because we are just here to keep the same people in power and empower the same special interests and not actually change anything.

Brian Lehrer: Philip, what happened there?

Philip Bump: [laughs] That's a fair question. Look, I can't speak to the internal machinations of the Democratic Party, obviously. It seems to me, though, safe to assume, A, that the party recognized that they were on something of a winning streak recently. Trump's on the defensive. They've been winning a lot of races. My guess is they probably didn't want to, at this moment in particular, relitigate 2024.

Of course, if they release it to DNC members, it'll eventually get out anyway. They're going to have to have this conversation at some point. This may have been just a bide-your-time tactic, or it may just be they change their minds, which, of course, one of the lessons that we've been discussing a lot here today is if you say you're going to release something, you should release it because, otherwise, you're going to get dinged for not releasing it no matter what it says.

Now, all that said, there is already an existing debate on the left about what happened in 2024. I think the most sober analysis is that prices went up and Donald Trump benefited from that. There are, however, a lot of ancillary discussions about what policy priorities should have been or should be moving forward. The extent to which the Democrats are beat on messaging and this side, this broader idea, which I think was always sketchy and has now been pretty much thrown out after some of these elections, which is that this is like an anti-woke backlash. I don't think there's much evidence for that.

We also have, of course, this new generation of Democrats and people who are outside of the traditional establishment, like Hogg, who see this as an opportunity to put pressure on the party. I think that one of the challenges the party has is it, unlike the Republican Party to a large extent, has to be a home for a lot of different people with a lot of different ideas and different ideologies and racial diversity, and all of these things that the Republican Party doesn't necessarily have to be.

It's always hard for the Democrats to coalesce around that. That, in this moment in particular, really provides an opportunity for outsiders to put pressure on the party by suggesting it's not going far enough. We see all these different power dynamics at play, but I think that the long story short is this thing will probably come out. There will be a round of discussion about it and what it means. I think it will be mostly relevant for 2028, quite frankly.

Brian Lehrer: Oh, why mostly irrelevant to 2028?

Philip Bump: Because I think 2024 is very sui generis, right? You had this former president, who already been on the ballot once. You had this weird switch between Biden and Harris. You really had prices as the overarching issue. There was analysis done. A great analysis by John Burn-Murdoch of The Economist, or the Financial Times rather, who looked at the extent to which incumbent parties suffered in 2024 and how that correlated to prices. It really is the fact that inflation played a major role here.

Donald Trump now is dealing with the same price issue because he's the incumbent, and I think because of all those factors, looking at 2028 and looking at having Donald Trump be in the White House as opposed to Joe Biden, all of these things. I just don't think we're going to learn a lot from 2024 in the same way that you probably couldn't have learned a whole lot from 2016 that would have advised you in 2020, given how dramatic the changes have been over the course of those four years.

Brian Lehrer: Why did you say you think this report that they decided to bottle up will come out anyway?

Philip Bump: Well, my understanding from what Martin had said, including, I think, in that clip he just played, is that he said he was going to release it to members of the actual committee, the Democratic National Committee. If he does so, then it'll come out because this is how it works, right? [chuckles] Someone's not going to like it, or someone's going to find something in there, and they'll leak it to reporters. Unless they keep it fairly close to the chest then, my guess is we're going to see at least parts of it at some point in the future.

Brian Lehrer: All right, next topic. I'll read that New York Times headline again that I read in the intro because that was a half-hour ago. We have a lot of new listeners since then. Turning Point's Annual Gathering Turns into a Gripe Fest. That, of course, is a reference to the first Turning Point USA gathering since its founder, Charlie Kirk, was assassinated this year. The subhead is, "At AmericaFest, conservative leaders insulted one another, revealing serious rifts over conspiracy theories, anti-Semitism, and who belongs in America."

It says, "This weekend, speakers at AmericaFest have scarcely mentioned Democrats and other liberal foils. Instead, some of the most promising right-wing leaders in the country have been criticizing members of their own movement, accusing them of being frauds, pompous, and a cancer." I'm going to read a little more from this just to give listeners an example or two.

It says, "The first sparks came on Thursday night with a blistering speech from Ben Shapiro, a founder of the media company The Daily Wire, who bemoaned the 'frauds' and 'grifters' in the movement and went on to savage by name, a roster of powerful right-wing figures." It says, "An Orthodox Jew, Mr. Shapiro argued that the movement was being harmed by commentators, especially the podcaster Candace Owens, who has been accused of anti-Semitism and who has been floating wild conspiracy theories about Mr. Kirk's murder under the guise, Mr. Shapiro said, of just asking questions."

"He wielded a particularly pointed arrow at Tucker Carlson, the former Fox News host, for engaging in what he said was 'an act of moral imbecility' by recently airing a softball interview with Nick Fuentes, an avowed anti-Semite. Mr. Shapiro hammered Megyn Kelly, the podcaster, for failing to condemn Ms. Owens and Mr. Carlson. He called Steve Bannon, the one-time chief strategist for Mr. Trump, a former 'PR flack' for Jeffrey Epstein," and it continues. "Many of Mr. Shapiro's targets also spoke at AmericaFest. One after another, they took the stage to clap back." Wow, nice little party they had there, Philip.

Philip Bump: [chuckles] Yes. Obviously, we have seen and will continue to see, as Donald Trump nears the end of his term, a scramble for power on the right. I think part of this is that, but I really think, fundamentally, this is about the extent to which there is a moral center to the modern right. This centers on anti-Semitism in part because of the overlap of America First and support for Israel on the right in the future, but it's really broader than that.

It is a question of whether there are moral values that the right holds at this moment broadly, in particular because it is easy to cast a moral center as weak or leftist or woke. It is powerful on the right to say that you can do whatever you want. What happened here is back in 2016, Donald Trump found a cheat code to morality, which is say you're a Christian, then do what you want as long as you keep Christian voters happy. That has been his approach. He is not a Christian. I can't speak to what's in his heart.

He's not a guy who ever went to church. He adapted to the Bible as he was on the campaign drive. I've seen him at events say, "Look, I like the Bible," but the art of the deal are side by side. He has demonstrated in the past a lack of familiarity with the Bible. He is not a religious person, certainly, but he says he's Christian. He's leaned into Christian iconography and Christian rhetoric. That has been beneficial to him because it keeps his base happy. Now, what we're seeing is a lot of people are doing that. They aren't living by Christian values.

I will say this as someone whose mother is an Episcopalian priest that I feel like I can judge that aren't living by Christian values, but saying they're Christian, and that there isn't really a moral center to that. This is again centered on anti-Semitism. Shapiro is really saying we need to have a moral center. We need to say bad things are bad, and that then is fodder for his opponents to say, "Look, he's weak. He doesn't want to win." That's the tension here. I think that that is a very significant tension, and it's one that isn't centrally oriented around Trump.

Brian Lehrer: Vice President Vance spoke at this conference. One quote from him that's jumping out as he's saying, "America is and will always be a Christian nation." I don't have that in front of me. I think I'm remembering the exact words right. That, to me, relates to one of the other interesting things from the divisions at AmericaFest involving Vivek Ramaswamy.

Some people may remember that he was in the Republican presidential primaries last year until it became clear that Trump was dominant, and then he dropped out, but very much a Trump supporter, very much on the cultural right. I know back at the time, we were playing a clip of Ramaswamy when he was running for president with his 30-second distilled version of what he was running for.

They included the lines, "Fossil fuels are necessary for prosperity, and there are only two genders." Very much running on both the anti-woke, as he would describe it, and pro-fossil fuels, and climate change is a hoax, both economic and cultural aspects of MAGA. At the Turning Point conference, The Times article says, on Friday, Ramaswamy, an Indian American who is running for governor of Ohio as a Republican-- Yes, he's the Republican nominee, I believe, for the election there next year, or maybe he's just in a primary at this point.

Philip Bump: Yes, I think he's in a primary. Yes.

Brian Lehrer: Okay, took on a faction of the right that is pushing the idea that so-called "heritage Americans," people whose families have been in this country for multiple generations, have a greater claim to the nation than more recent arrivals. It says, "Mr. Ramaswamy assailed the idea as a blood-and-soil conception of citizenship. One that is 'un-American' at its core and about as loony as anything the woke left has actually put up." It says, "Although Mr. Ramaswamy did not mention Vice President JD Vance, his remarks appear to put him at odds with the vice president." Now, we have Vivek Ramaswamy, of all people, coming out and talking about racial or ethnic discrimination.

Philip Bump: Yes, it brings to mind the famous tweet, "I never thought the leopard would eat my face," says lady who voted for the leopards eating people's faces party, right? This is what happened is that Ramaswamy was-- he went all in on Trump. He went all in on Trumpism. Even when he was running his candidate potentially against Trump in 2024, he was very supportive of Trump and his ideals. He discovered that there are a lot of racists in Trump's movement, which there are. I think we can say that pretty unequivocally.

We have seen this year, as the debate around immigration has become so hard right, particularly in Donald Trump's base, and not only about removing criminals who are in the country illegally, but throwing out anyone who's come to the country and even revoking citizenship as the administration has started talking about that people who are being targeted include a lot of South Asian, East Asian people who have come on work visas, who are working for companies.

This has been a problem for Donald Trump in the past as well, but there's been an undercurrent to that, which is just explicit anti-Indian, in particular, racism. Ramaswamy is correct in that the ideal of America has long been that if you are a person who wants to be successful and wants to live free, you come to America. America welcomes you, and that's what makes America great. We are seeing people, including, as you noted, JD Vance, who has said, "The people who built this country were the frontiersmen in the 1800s," suggested that anyone who didn't have that in their heritage was insufficiently American.

That runs at odds with how America has always understood itself and Americans have understood America, I think it's safe to say. What Ramaswamy is, I think, discovering is that this racism, which seemed as though, potentially, was on the fringe. It was not really on the fringe. Particularly in a party which centers so heavily on social media and on X, where these sorts of sentiments are not discouraged, that you get a lot of this rhetoric, and that you can stand up against it, but you're generally fighting a lonely fight.

Brian Lehrer: Here's the exact JD Vance quote that I was referring to before from his speech at AmericaFest from the AP, "In the United States of America, you don't have to apologize for being white anymore." The particular part I was referring to that the US "always will be a Christian nation. Christianity is America's creed. The shared moral language from the revolution to the Civil War and beyond." I guess, Philip, we could see how some Jews, some Hindus, some Muslims, some Buddhists might feel that that's unfair to them if they believe in the civic ideals of the US Constitution and related ideals from the founding of this country, right?

Philip Bump: Yes, exactly. One of the things that was at the heart of the construction of the US Constitution was the idea that there weren't going to be these sorts of divides. There's a lot of conversation about, "Oh, this is a Judeo-Christian nation," or "This is an explicitly Christian nation," which undercuts the actual religions practiced by the Founding Fathers, but also very fundamentally what it is they were trying to do. America's story is not that complicated or obscure.

We know why people came here. We know what sort of nation was founded. Ken Burns just produced 12 hours about the American Revolution. People should go watch that, understand where this nation came from, if they are under the idea that this is an explicitly Christian and necessarily Christian nation, which it wasn't. The Founding Fathers were deists, if anything. Ramaswamy is correct that this runs against what America has long stood for and presents itself as.

Brian Lehrer: By the way, we had Ken Burns on for a nice, long chat about this series a few weeks ago. Anybody want to hear it? You can go to WNYC.org and search that, or just google "Ken Burns, Brian Lehrer Show." Here's one little clip of Vice President Vance at the conference this weekend.

Vice President JD Vance: We have far more important work to do than canceling each other. We have got to build.

Brian Lehrer: Was he defending Fuentes and Carlson, or how do you hear that when he says far more important things to do than canceling each other?

Philip Bump: Yes, he was indirectly defending them. He was defending their right to say what they want to say without getting chastised. Carlson, in particular, I think, is Carlson. Fuentes has some influence. I think Carlson probably still maintains much more influence. Yes, this, again, goes back to my point about what does the party stand for? Are there things you can say which are targeted at your ostensible opponents or enemies that will be beyond the pale for the Republican Party?

Vance is essentially saying, "No, you're welcome. We are a big tent for people who hate the people that we hate." That's a little cute and terse, but that's fundamentally what he's getting at. This is what Ben Shapiro is saying, "No, there are lines you don't cross, and there are arguments you don't make, and that we cannot be people that stand for this." Again, Donald Trump reshaped what the party was, what the modern right was in America to be about. As long as you check the right boxes, you can do what you want. Now, they're, to some extent, just discussing what boxes those actually are, and whether they involve things like anti-Semitism.

Brian Lehrer: Last topic. In this context of divisions within the Republican Party and the MAGA movement, people are scratching their heads over Elise Stefanik dropping out of the Republican primary for governor of New York. Folks, if you really didn't pay attention to the news for the weekend starting on Friday afternoon, I know my eyes popped out of my head as I saw this come across, I think, while I was eating dinner on Friday night, saying she'll retire from Congress after this term, as well as dropping out of the Republican primary for governor of New York, which she was, by all accounts, leading. Jenna in East Northport on Long Island has a question about that. I will let her launch this last little stretch of this segment. Jenna, you're on WNYC. Hello.

Jenna: Hello. Hi. Yes, so I am wondering, Philip, if you have the real scoop behind why Elise Stefanik dropped out. The idea that she wants to spend time with her family, which we know politicians use over and over, doesn't ring true to me because she knew this before she got into the race. What's the real scoop? The second question related is for Bruce Blakeman. How is he going to distance himself from the Trump-appointed mantle of 100% MAGA when that is not going to be a winning strategy in New York?

Brian Lehrer: Yes, Bruce Blakeman, for people who don't know, the Nassau County executive. Jenna in East Northport on the island, you'd be more familiar with him than some other listeners elsewhere. I think Blakeman originally was more moderate in his career. Philip, I know you do national politics, but you're based in New York, you've probably seen some of this, and became more MAGA over time.

Still, I think he was going to be the one running more to the center of Elise Stefanik. Now, he's, from what I've read, immediately making sure that he shores up his MAGA credentials. His original pitch was going to be, "Well, I'm more electable against Kathy Hochul in blue New York than Stefanik," who also used to be considered more of a moderate Republican but, over the years, has moved more into the Trump MAGA camp. [chuckles] To Jenna's direct question, why'd she do this?

Philip Bump: It's a totally fair question. I don't know that we know necessarily. I will say that last week, a Siena College poll came out showing that she was down by 20 points to Hochul in a general matchup, which is extremely bad position to be in, particularly for someone who has the name recognition that Stefanik does. You're right. Stefanik is about five years ahead of Blakeman on swinging to the Trump curve.

My guess is, A, that Stefanik feels burned by Trump, which he totally should, [chuckles] that she was extremely loyal, became really hard-right MAGA. He rewarded her with the ambassador to the UN position as soon as he basically won the race last year, but then revoked that because he needed her in the House because the House margin is so tight. She ran for governor.

Even before she dropped out, Trump was like, "Oh, they're both great," between her and Blakeman, which I'm sure was very irritating to her because she's been very close to him. It also may be that she recognizes that it is not useful to have a really sharply contested Republican primary in New York State because it's going to force one of the Republicans to become more MAGA, because Republicans are going to want the most MAGA candidate they can, because that's how Republican primaries have played out.

By having two of them who are contesting for that, it's going to force them to take positions that are really hard-right MAGA. If, however, the path is relatively clear for one of them, then they can at least maintain some of that moderation by not having that primary fight that will aid them in the general. That may be the calculus at play, too, here. Obviously, that would be very generous of her to drop out. Again, she's down by 20 points. No one wants to spend a year running for office and then get absolutely demolished. My guess is that probably played a significant role.

Brian Lehrer: She said no point in running a suicide mission. Why would she drop out of Congress? Any theory about that?

Philip Bump: [laughs] Well, that may be related to the-- Donald Trump is like, "I don't think this is Marjorie Taylor Greene," who, I think, sees a brighter future for herself outside of Congress. I think being in Congress, I don't know if I can use this word on air, stinks. I was not going to say that originally. I think it is not a good job. I think she was in leadership, then left leadership because of this issue over the United Nations ambassadorship.

I think she just probably doesn't like it. There's not a lot to like. They don't do a whole lot. They basically just rubber-stamp what Donald Trump wants to do. To some extent, what's the point? She can't really go anywhere in Congress. Congress really doesn't do much, and especially in the minority, which are likely to be after the 2026 elections. Why bother? That would be my guess, trying to read her mind from afar.

Brian Lehrer: Philip Bump, now an MS NOW contributor, author of the How to Read This Chart newsletter, and author of the 2023 book, The Aftermath: The Last Days of the Baby Boom and the Future of Power in America. Philip, we always appreciate it. We appreciated it when you were working for The Washington Post, and we appreciate it now that you're out as an independent. We'll keep having you on if you keep coming on.

Philip Bump: I'd be happy to. Thank you, Brian.

Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. Much more to come.

 

Copyright © 2025 New York Public Radio. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use at www.wnyc.org for further information.

New York Public Radio transcripts are created on a rush deadline, often by contractors. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of New York Public Radio’s programming is the audio record.