Swift and sweeping changes have marked the first month of Donald Trump's return to the White House. Having promised to "fix every single crisis facing our country," Trump wasted no time in making his mark — signing an extraordinary 36 executive orders within his first week in office.

On this week’s episode of The Intercept Briefing, politics reporters Jessica Washington and Akela Lacy assess the full scope of changes.

Lacy is surprised at how ill-prepared people, especially Democrats, were for these changes. “So much of this stuff was on the wall with Project 2025 and Trump's own words, and yet what I'm struggling to understand is how we knew so much and why everyone is still struggling to play catch up in so many ways,” she says.

“ I think broadly what we're seeing is a wholesale test of how to overturn the Constitution. So many of the orders are clearly outside of the law and an example of the administration pushing the limits of our system to see how far they can go and what it can really withstand,” she observes.

Washington says one thing the headlines don’t fully capture is the human toll. “There are a lot of human stories in this chaos that get missed, and those are the stories I really want to tell more,” she says.

“This is necessarily going to lead us to the darkest of dark places, but when they mass-fired the people who watch our nuclear systems and then had to try and rehire them back — whether or not you're going to be able to take your kid to daycare and get to your job that you need in order to keep a roof over your head, not knowing what's going on with the nuclear system. All of this chaos has very real effects on people,” Washington says.

To hear more of the conversation, check out this week’s episode of The Intercept Briefing.

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Less than a month into Donald Trump's second term, his administration's aggressive restructuring of the government and flirtation with defying court rulings threaten to spark a constitutional crisis. "He could have done all of that lawfully, and instead what he's done is testing the limits of his power in a way we have never seen in this country," says retired federal Judge Nancy Gertner.

During a press conference on Tuesday, Trump dismissed concerns about executive overreach and claimed he would respect court decisions. But legal experts warn his broad view of presidential power crosses long held boundaries and is propelling the country into a constitutional crisis. 

On this week’s episode of The Intercept Briefing, Gertner, who is consulting on several cases challenging the administration's actions and is a senior lecturer at Harvard Law School, and The Intercept's senior counsel and correspondent Shawn Musgrave discuss the federal courts’ response so far and what it demonstrates about our system of checks and balances.

“I hope that they will realize that one of the two checks on an aggressive president doing unlawful things is that the courts are functioning as a check on his power. I fear that the other takeaway is that Congress is not. The concern about Trump wiping out programs that Congress has approved is a concern that should bother every legislator — Republican or Democrat, it shouldn't matter. That is a core, foundational checks-and-balances issue. And the fact that there is not an outcry from Congress is troubling,” says Gertner.

Musgrave adds that it is a real test of governmental structure. “We're in a moment that illustrates the fragility of the system of checks and balances that's held for a couple hundred years. The system that was set up in the Constitution isn't guaranteed; it has to be protected. And so far, it looks like it's going to be up to the courts to do that,” he says.

Gertner says there is another check that isn’t explicitly laid out in the Constitution, but is just as important. “The public will speak in two years in the midterm elections,” she says. “So the public, although it doesn't have a specific role in the next two years before we can vote again on national issues, the public is important here. I think that people should stand up if they think that what's going on is illegal and unconstitutional.”

To hear more of the conversation, check out this week’s episode of The Intercept Briefing.

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Donald Trump has unleashed a "flood the zone" strategy: a cascade of executive actions aimed at rapidly reshaping the federal government and the country. 

The scope of changes is staggering: massive reductions in the federal workforce, the dismantling of USAID, signaling departments of labor and education are next, and the firing of Justice Department prosecutors. Trump granted Elon Musk's so-called "Department of Government Efficiency" team unprecedented access to the Treasury Department payment systems. Trump's executive orders aren't just changing policy — many appear to openly challenge existing laws and constitutional boundaries. The sheer volume of changes has left government watchdogs struggling to respond.

Amid this whirlwind, a critical question emerges: Where is the opposition? What concrete steps are Democrats taking to counter this aggressive agenda? 

Currently, the answer is obvious: not enough.

On this week's episode of The Intercept Briefing, foreign policy analyst and Voices contributor Sunjeev Bery says it has a lot to do with who makes up the party leadership. “I'll say that from my perch, what I'm seeing is a window into the broader culture of the elected officials of the Democratic Party. They are not organizers, by and large. They are not people who build and channel power to extract concessions from the powers that be. They are ladder climbers and aggregators of pre-existing power. And that's why the Democratic Party is losing. You have folks like Chuck Schumer, he's not a critic of concentrated wealth. He's a product of concentrated wealth.”

Senior politics reporter Akela Lacy says there are some very obvious things the Democrats could be doing. “Movement people are asking the obvious question right now, which is: Why are there any Democrats — at all — voting to confirm a single Trump nominee? That's one of the lowest hanging pieces of fruit,” she says. The Democrats had no plan, Lacy says, despite there being “no confusion about the fact that these nominees were going to be coming up for a vote. And still there were Democrats who voted for several of Trump’s nominees.” 

Bery, Lacy, and Jordan Uhl also discuss the messaging issues the Democratic Party continues to face, even post-election. “There still seems to be a fundamental failure to recognize that one party is telling a story as to why people are hurting and they are punching down in the naming of who's responsible,” says Bery. “It's undocumented migrants, it's DEI, it's transgender people, this is who Trump is punching down and blaming. The Democratic Party's not punching up. The Democratic Party is not punching,” says Bery.

To hear more of the conversation, check out this week’s episode of The Intercept Briefing wherever you get your podcasts.

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After 15 months of Israeli bombardment, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians are returning to northern Gaza as part of the first phase of the long-awaited ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas. 

During his inaugural speech, President Donald Trump pledged to be a peacemaker and claimed credit for securing the deal.

But mere hours after promising peace and unity, Trump’s actions and rhetoric pivoted. After his inauguration, he signed an executive order lifting Biden-era sanctions against Israeli settlers in the West Bank meant to curb violence against Palestinians. 

“In the West Bank, Israeli settlers were regularly attacking Palestinian civilians, forcing them off their land, doing things like burning farms, olive groves, oftentimes injuring or killing Palestinians,” says Intercept reporter Jonah Valdez. “With Trump lifting those sanctions, Israel is getting pretty much another pass to continue its violent land grabs from Palestinians.” 

In the days since, Trump has suggested moving Palestinians from Gaza to Jordan and Egypt and said, “We just clean out that whole thing.” Before the election, Trump also floated the idea that Gaza could be rebuilt to rival Monaco as a tourist destination.

“Close to 70 percent of all structures in Gaza have been destroyed or damaged. Experts say that just clearing the rubble from the 15 months of the siege could take more than 20 years. So we're talking about decades here,” says Intercept reporter Akela Lacy. “Another big issue with the reconstruction is that one of the largest aid providers in Gaza is banned starting on Thursday. Under this new Israeli law, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, also known as UNRWA, will be expelled from the territory.”

Meanwhile, Trump issued an executive order halting foreign aid, raising concerns about U.S. future involvement in U.N. support. “This started under Biden. Trump comes in and issues this freeze of all humanitarian foreign aid, and people start blaming Trump for cutting funding,” says Lacy. 

Valdez continues, “There's really no indication that Trump would slow down actual support for the Israeli military. And I think, case in point, is Trump resuming the shipment of 2,000-pound bombs to Israel, which had been known to inflict immense loss of civilian life in Gaza.” 

“The question now is, who is going to get up off their ass and do something about this?” asks Lacy. “Who is going to either create an alternative or do more to hold the leaders, leadership accountable or break from the Democratic Party and do something else?” 

To hear the whole conversation, check out this week’s episode of The Intercept Briefing.

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Silicon Valley’s biggest power players traded in their hoodies for suits and ties this week as they sat front and center to watch Donald Trump take the oath of office again.

Seated in front of the incoming cabinet were Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg, Google’s Sundar Pichai, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, and Trump confidant and leader of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, Elon Musk. Apple CEO Tim Cook, Sam Altman from OpenAI, and TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew also looked on.

For an industry once skeptical of Trump, this dramatic transformation in political allegiance portends changes for the country — and the world. From the relaxing of hate speech rules on Meta platforms to the mere hourslong ban of TikTok to the billions of government dollars being pledged to build data centers to power AI, it is still only the beginning of this realignment.

On this week’s episode of The Intercept Briefing, Justin Hendrix, the CEO and editor of Tech Policy Press, and Intercept political reporter Jessica Washington dissect this shift. 

“Three of the individuals seated in front of the Cabinet are estimated by Oxfam in its latest report on wealth inequality are on track to potentially become trillionaires in the next just handful of years: Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk,” says Hendrix. “Musk is estimated to be the first trillionaire on the planet, possibly as early as 2027.”

Washington says there’s more at stake than just personal wealth. “These are people who view themselves as world-shapers, as people who create reality in a lot of ways. Aligning themselves with Trump and with power in this way is not just about their financial interests, it's about pushing their vision of the world.”

To hear more of this conversation, check out this week’s episode of The Intercept Briefing.

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What can we expect when President-elect Donald Trump begins his second term on Monday? This week on The Intercept Briefing, we ask Intercept reporters what’s on their radar as a new president and a Republican-controlled Congress take office. 

They’ll be watching the tentative ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas, the brazenness of oligarchs seeking to profit from the new administration, and threats to reproductive healthcare. Trump’s biggest policy promise has been immigration, with a campaign built around his pledge to conduct “the largest mass deportation operation” in U.S. history.

Now Congress is advancing measures that could help the administration achieve its deportation vision by expanding immigration authority to the states. Provisions in the Laken Riley Act, which passed the House of Representatives last week with support from dozens of Democrats, would mandate detention for unauthorized immigrants accused of shoplifting and theft. It would also grant state attorneys generals the power to sue the federal government over who is detained or released by U.S. immigration and Customs Enforcement and block people from specific countries from obtaining visas. Historically immigration has been the exclusive domain of the federal government — not states. 

“We've been trying to raise the alarm,” says Juliana Macedo do Nascimento, Deputy Director of Federal Advocacy for United We Dream, a nonprofit immigration advocacy organization.

“This would just totally change the way detention and deportation decisions operate,” says Shawn Musgrave, The Intercept’s Senior Counsel and Correspondent. “The Laken Riley Act doesn't have any provisions that change the powers of local law enforcement,” says Musgrave. But it implicitly “allow[s] an arresting officer to trigger an immediate detention for something like petty shoplifting.” 

To hear more of this conversation and understand what’s at stake, check out this week’s episode of The Intercept Briefing.

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The Supreme Court is poised to decide a landmark case on Friday that could reshape social media in America. At stake: TikTok must either break from its Chinese parent company, ByteDance, or cease U.S. operations entirely.

While the government frames this as a critical national security measure, the short-form video app and its creators and users see a direct challenge to First Amendment freedoms. This tension sits at the heart of a broader debate about digital communication and national interests.

On this week's Intercept Briefing, Alex Pearlman, aka Pearlmania500, whose videos reach nearly 3 million followers, says the issue is not the app but the way tech platforms operate. He says, “We want regulations of algorithms. We at least need to know what the rules are." And when it comes to the government’s crackdown on TikTok, he says, “Everything that they've accused TikTok of, Facebook has done, either domestically or internationally. Everything that they have screamed could happen with TikTok, when it came to the elections, Elon Musk did openly. And most people know that. Most people see that. And I think it's going to lend to further cynicism when it comes to our institutions and when it comes to how government can actually operate." 

Intercept senior counsel and correspondent Shawn Musgrave adds, “Tech competitors to TikTok have generally avoided saying very much about the ban. … But these companies obviously stand to benefit incredibly from knocking out their top competitor in the short-video space. It is not really a consideration before the court in the case itself, but I do think it's important to look at some of the background issues. That it's not just about national security and First Amendment. There are also really considerable economic interests here too."

Intercept politics reporter Jessica Washington says TikTok isn't just another social network — it's fostering political conversations that wouldn't exist anywhere else. “We've seen Twitter, which is now X, move really far to the right. I think anyone who's been on there in recent times can attest to that. We know YouTube also has a pretty right-leaning audience as well and an algorithm. And Facebook and Instagram are very different platforms than TikTok. So I think we lose a lot of those conversations that are happening, important political conversations in different regions, different areas of the world. Important conversations that young people are having with each other.”

To hear more of this conversation and understand what’s at stake, check out this week’s episode of The Intercept Briefing.

If you want to support our work, you can go to theintercept.com/join. Your donation, no matter what the amount, makes a real difference.

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Few journalists have ventured as deep into the shadows of American power as The Intercept's James Risen. A Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter, Risen waged a remarkable seven-year battle against the federal government to protect his sources, risking imprisonment to defend press freedom.

As he prepares to retire from journalism, he joins this week's Intercept Briefing to reflect on his extraordinary career with longtime friend and colleague David Bralow, The Intercept’s general counsel.

Recently, Risen has written extensively on Donald Trump and the dangers he poses to American democracy and is working on a new book about Christian nationalism and extremism. He warns about what lays ahead: “Trump has appointed a bunch of lunatics and conspiracy theorists to positions of power and he's turned the government over to oligarchs, so I think it's gonna get bad really, really fast.”

And Risen foresees that reporters and news organizations are at even more peril than in the past because of changing public attitudes and the legal approach embraced by those in power. “The wealthy can now use libel law against the press endlessly, not to try to win cases, but just to financially exhaust news organizations,” he says. “In most libel cases brought against news organizations, the other side almost never really cares about winning. What they want to do is impose large costs on news organizations to defend against frivolous libel suits.”

To hear more of the conversation, check out this week’s episode of The Intercept Briefing.

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Originally aired November 15, 2024

In the wake of President-elect Donald Trump’s victory, Democrats and those on the left are grappling with what comes next.

On The Intercept Briefing podcast this week, columnist Natasha Lennard critiques the Democratic Party. “You can’t be both at once: You can’t be the party of Wall Street, and you can’t be the party of the working class,” Lennard says. By acquiescing to Silicon Valley and Wall Street, the Democrats failed again “to offer a robust politics that serves the working class."

Facing a second Trump term, Lennard says the way forward is a politics of everyday life and radical action that focuses on empowering grassroots movements and labor organizations. “When we look at what people can [do] — involving people at a local level, building community so that it is truly kind of a form of life to be in this politics, rather than just a donation, rather than just a vote, rather than just canvassing even.”

In conversation with Jessica Washington and Jordan Uhl, Lennard emphasizes the importance and resilience of the working class. "Nurses unions, food workers unions. Most of the working class in this country are women. And it is a profoundly multi-racial working class. And we have a working class of care workers. And a service economy. And an increasingly growing care economy," she says. "That needs investing in. That needs support. That needs building."

To hear more about the future of progressive politics, listen to this week's episode of The Intercept Briefing.

If you want to support our work, you can go to theintercept.com/join. Your donation, no matter what the amount, makes a real difference. If you haven’t already, please subscribe to The Intercept, wherever you listen to podcasts. And definitely leave us a rating or a review, it helps other listeners to find us.

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Among a president’s most profound responsibilities is the power to grant clemency. Now, as President Joe Biden's first term winds down, he faces mounting calls to use that authority to commute the sentences of the 40 men on federal death row.

Donald Trump's final months in office marked a stark shift in federal execution policy. After a 17-year hiatus, his administration executed 13 people — the most under any president in over a century. While Biden halted this practice, advocates warn that a second Trump term could restart executions. It's why they're urging Biden to take decisive action now to reduce death penalty sentences to life without parole.

On this week's episode of The Intercept Briefing, reporter Liliana Segura examines the gap between candidate Biden's promises and his actions as president. “By far the most significant thing that Biden could do and should do in my opinion is to make good on his stated opposition to the death penalty, which is something he ran on in 2020. Joe Biden said that he wanted to try to bring legislation to end the federal death penalty and, in fact, incentivize states to do the same. He had language in his campaign platform talking about how life without parole sentences were appropriate alternatives,” she says. 

According to Segura, the federal death penalty reaches far beyond the most notorious cases and its deterrent effect is questionable — challenging many Americans' assumptions. “This idea that the death penalty is a deterrent is like the myth that will not die. You know, I was in Indiana recently covering this midnight execution, and I'm looking at some of the rhetoric that is out there from the state attorney general, and he is banging that drum about, 'Oh, you know, this is a deterrent to crime.’ There's absolutely no evidence that that is true and there really never has been.”

To learn more about what Biden could do, listen to this week’s episode of The Intercept Briefing.

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