As of this recording, lawmakers are still chaotically rushing to avoid a government shutdown. And one thing is already clear from this fiasco: Donald Trump will betray his voters very, very badly. Trump and Elon Musk killed a compromise bill, demanding deep spending cuts that would inflict real harm on Trump country, portending a lot more like this to come. (After we recorded, the House voted down the second government funding bill House Republicans advanced.) We chatted with Paul Waldman, the co-author of White Rural Rage. He explains why all this is happening, the tensions it reveals among Republicans, and how the Trump-Musk alliance looks poised to sell out MAGA voters. 

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Senator Chris Murphy, Democrat of Connecticut, sounded an extraordinary warning this week. After a House GOP report recommended that the FBI prosecute Liz Cheney, Murphy argued in a social media thread that Donald Trump is clearly putting in place a plan to cripple our democracy, one we might never recover from. In an interview with the podcast, Murphy expands on his alarm, arguing that within a few months, some of Trump’s enemies might be in jail, the media might be cowed into submission, and that Democrats need to sound the alarm before it’s too late, lest Trump’s attacks on democracy prove “fatal.”

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On Tuesday, Donald Trump exploded with fury at Judge Juan Merchan after he refused to dismiss the hush-money conviction of Trump in Manhattan. Trump also filed a frivolous lawsuit against pollster Ann Selzer for getting her pre-election survey wrong, suggesting more bullying of the media is coming. Meanwhile, Donald’s daughter-in-law Lara Trump just brazenly suggested that Kash Patel is being installed as FBI director precisely to carry out revenge against Trump’s enemies. We chatted with Talking Points Memo’s Josh Marshall about his interesting new piece arguing that these targets need to band together in the face of what’s coming. 

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On Monday, Donald Trump issued some rambling, tortured claims. He bent over backwards to reassure people about Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and vouched for the polio vaccine—while bizarrely clarifying that he sees “problems” with vaccines and even opposes vaccine mandates in schools. We think this reveals a surprising political vulnerability. Trump knows RFK’s extreme views are a problem, but also seems aware that being supportive of vaccine mandates might alienate some constituencies in his base. We talked to Anne Shoup, a senior adviser for the Democratic-allied group Protect Our Care, which is running ads against RFK, about whether stopping him is really possible and what more Dems should do to oppose Trump’s nominees.

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ABC News has abruptly agreed to a $15 million settlement with Donald Trump in his lawsuit against the network. Coming after Trump raged at ABC throughout the campaign, some observers see this as a sign of broader capitulation to him. Indeed, it comes as Trump openly boasted that he’s “tamed” the media. We talked to The Atlantic’s Anne Applebaum, author of Autocracy, Inc., who explains why this outcome has “really disturbing” implications, how Trump is conditioning Americans to accept authoritarian rule, and what the prognosis is going forward. It’s not great. 

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After Christopher Wray resigned as FBI director, Donald Trump unleashed a long, angry rant on Truth Social, suggesting that a major purge of the bureau is coming—and that the targeting of his enemies will commence the moment Kash Patel is installed. Meanwhile, leading MAGA figures are ramping up pressure on GOP senators not to stand in Trump’s way—and some of them are already signaling they’ll likely fold. We talked to The Bulwark’s William Saletan, author of a good new piece on the dangers of this moment. He explains that this is what it looks like “when a criminal takes control of law enforcement,” and lays out what it will take for us to resist.

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Eric Trump has stepped into the international limelight as the face of the new Trump oligarchy. At a conference this week, he told an audience that he and father Donald Trump will work together once Trump is president to push crypto, which the Trump family is invested in. Eric, the executive vice president of the Trump Organization, has also been prominently negotiating the ethics policy—or lack thereof—that Trump will submit to as president. We talked to Casey Michel, the author of several books on American kleptocracy, who explains how ripe conditions are for unprecedented elite corruption to flourish.

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In recent days, Donald Trump and his advisers have left no doubt: He will deport as many of the 11 million undocumented people in this country as possible. But on Fox News, Alina Habba, who’s set to be a top White House lawyer, offered some new spin on the coming plan that revealed a lot about how Trump’s propagandists will try to defend the indefensible. We talked to Vanessa Cardenas, the executive director of America’s Voice, who grapples with the hardships that immigrants will soon face, why Latinos moved toward Trump, and how pro-immigration forces should rally in response to what's coming.

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These are heady times for MAGA. Marjorie Taylor Greene and Elon Musk are teaming up to slash the government to ribbons as part of Musk’s new Department of Government Efficiency. What could give MAGA a bigger thrill than that high-wattage duo? But Politico reports that some Republicans quietly fear that Greene’s involvement could become a major distraction from the Trump/GOP agenda. We talked to tech writer Gil Duran, a close observer of Musk’s machinations, who explains why the right-wing “techbro” worldview is so dangerous—and how Greene could make it even more combustible. 

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The New York Times reports that Donald Trump is telling advisers that his biggest regret from his first term was that he appointed “traitors.” As a result, his transition team is grilling prospective nominees to gauge their loyalty to Trump. Is there some way for Democrats to drive home how dangerous all this is? We chatted with Brian Beutler, author of the excellent Substack Off Message. He argues that even as Trump’s second-term plans are getting more overtly dangerous to the rule of law, Democrats need to do a lot more to alert the public to what’s coming—not just because it’s good politics, but because the country needs it.

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