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TRANSCRIPT

Erin Ryan: It’s Monday, May 5th. I’m Erin Ryan, in for Jane Coaston, and this is What a Day, the show that knows why Alcatraz closed in the first place, because it was too expensive. [music break] On the show, President Donald Trump hits the shrug emoji when asked about whether he needs to uphold that old thing called the Constitution, and the White House comes for Elmo and tries to cut funding for NPR and PBS. But let’s start with President Trump making the upcoming papal conclave about himself. The official White House account tweeted out an AI-generated photo on Friday of Trump sitting on a golden throne and dressed like the Pope. A move that did not go over well with the world’s one and a half billion Catholics who are mourning the recent death of Pope Francis. Trump’s original I should be Pope joke came right before he appeared to support the papal candidacy of Archbishop of New York Timothy Dolan. Cardinal Dolan disavowed the image on Sunday. 

[clip of Timothy Dolan] I hope he didn’t have anything to do with that. I I that–

[clip of unnamed person] Are you offended by that? 

[clip of Timothy Dolan] Well, you know you, it wasn’t good. [speaking in Italian]

Erin Ryan: That’s Italian for making a fool of yourself. If Dolan doesn’t end up being Pope, one could argue that this makes the third global election Trump swayed in an anti-Trump direction simply by being himself, after Canada early last week and Australia over the weekend. Also on Sunday, NBC aired the president’s interview with Meet the Press’ Kristen Walker and he went full grinch on a public already nervous about his tariff scheme. 

[clip of President Donald Trump] I’m just saying they don’t need to have 30 dolls. They can have three. They don’t have to have 250 pencils. They can five. 

Erin Ryan: Those kids demanding their 250 pencils. Turns out the American people just need a touch more than trust me bro on a sweeping plan to make everything more expensive, brought to you by the man who had promised during the campaign to make everything less expensive. We’ll get into some of the soundbites and substance of that interview later. Shockingly, a man who spent literal years of his life being driven around on a golf cart rather than walking thinks that following the Constitution would be ugh so much work. But amid all the chaos, the Trump administration actually does have a track record of executing on some wide-reaching plans, just not plans that Trump came up with. We’re talking about Project 2025, the nearly 1,000-page far-right policy blueprint from the equally far-right think tank the Heritage Foundation, the one Trump denied knowing absolutely anything about when he was running for president and during his debate with then Vice President Kamala Harris. 

[clip of President Donald Trump] 2025. That’s out there. I haven’t read it. I don’t want to read it purposely. I’m not going to read it. This was a group of people that got together. They came up with some ideas, I guess, some good, some bad, but it makes no difference. 

Erin Ryan: I do believe that he didn’t want to read that. I don’t think he’s ever really wanted to read anything. But it turns out that maybe that wasn’t totally true. Who could have guessed? So, for more on what the think-tank-generated blueprint for turning America into a libertarian version of the Black Hole Sun video has in store for us, I spoke with David Graham. He’s a staff writer at The Atlantic and author of the new book, The Project: How Project 2025 is reshaping America. We also talked a little bit about why even Trump can’t figure out how to sell his tariffs to the American public. David, welcome to What a Day. 

David Graham: Oh, thank you for having me. 

Erin Ryan: So Trump is the ultimate spin master, and I feel bad for giving him that nickname. Um. He managed to convince half the country that the insurrection was both a deep state conspiracy and a completely peaceful demonstration. So why are the tariffs proving difficult for even him to spin? 

David Graham: I think it’s because it comes down to money. Like it’s really hard to both take money from people and tell them that they’re not actually giving anything up. And that’s exactly what he’s trying to do. 

Erin Ryan: Hmm okay. Presidents have asked Americans to make sacrifices in the face of a crisis before, like in World War II, fuel shortages in the ’70s, but those were all crises inflicted on the nation by outside forces and not the president himself. So what does history tell us about Americans’ willingness to make personal sacrifices like that? 

David Graham: You know, Americans not huge on personal sacrifice, I would say. You’ve got to have a really good cause for it. I mean, I was thinking about like the difference between World War II rationing sacrifices and the way people responded to Jimmy Carter telling them to turn up their thermostat, which was basically to vote him out of office. So it doesn’t it doesn’t tend to go over well. I mean you got to give people a reason and you’ve got to have them on board and I don’t think he’s given them a reason and I think they’re on board separately. 

Erin Ryan: Mm-hmm. Yeah, the sweater heard around the world when Jimmy Carter was like, hey kids, put on a sweater. Wow. That was, uh, that was taken as quite offensive by Americans. So, okay. Trump is maybe losing a step when it comes to selling parts of his agenda to the American public, but your book, the project details how the administration has been successful at reshaping the government. And the blueprint of that has been Project 2025 this massive policy proposal from the conservative think tank, the Heritage foundation. As someone tracking this, how much of Project 2025 has Trump successfully implemented so far? 

David Graham: I’ve been trying to figure out how to answer that question because it’s such a weird project with things that are really small, boring, and specific, and things that’re so sweeping. You know, I think the big thing is they have really succeeded in taking a buzz saw to the federal government and, you know, closing departments, shrinking things, laying people off, and that’s stuff that’s going to be very hard to put back. All of the other things are gonna come slowly. You know there’s a lot of regulatory processes, but I think in terms of the systemic stuff and the methods they want to impose their will, they’ve really made a ton of progress in a very short period of time. 

Erin Ryan: Mm hmm. What do you think have been some of their most notable specific successes? 

David Graham: I mean, I think that uh just laying off tens of thousands of workers is in a weird way a success. It feels strange to say that. But they’ve done that without any challenge from Congress. So all of these things are happening and they’ve managed to shrink the Government, lay people off, change their classification, fire inspectors general, all of these things without Congress saying a word. And so I think they have managed to usurp more power from Congress, even than they intended just by doing it so quickly and with Republicans who aren’t interested in challenging Trump at all. 

Erin Ryan: And what parts of Project 2025 do you expect the administration to turn to next? 

David Graham: The thing that they haven’t done a lot of, and I just think we’re gonna see more of, is stuff around gender roles and family and sexuality. We already saw, obviously, like the trans athletics order. We saw the you know two sexes order. I think that’s really only the beginning. We haven’t seen anything on abortion. And I mean, they want to use every department, really, to enforce this nuclear family with a man who’s a breadwinner and a mother who’s at home, um and you know two and a half children who are straight and normal. And that hasn’t happened yet, but it’s so key to what the authors of Project 2025 want. Um. That I think it’s only a matter of time. And I think it also takes them getting their employees sort of embedded into the government. And that has taken a little bit of time 

Erin Ryan: Why do you think the administration has had the success it’s had implementing Project 2025 in such a short period of time? I mean, you mentioned in some ways it’s surpassed even their own expectations. How so? 

David Graham: I think they didn’t account for Elon, basically. They had thought deeply about how to do these things and how to take over the executive branch, um but they had thought about how do that legally, and they were like thinking about what the strictures of government were, and it turns out they didnít need to do that. I also think the acquiescence of Congress is a big deal. I mean, that is that’s the check that’s there, and we slowly see the courts doing things, but courts are slow, so if Congress just watches while you take their power from them, um you can get a lot done very fast. 

Erin Ryan: Yeah, it’s sort of like a button mash like strategy. Have you ever tried to play a video game that you just don’t know how to play and you just hit the buttons and you’re like, wow, I got in the top 10 scores. I feel like that was maybe Elon trying to do the things that the Heritage Foundation thought would be a little bit trickier. 

David Graham: Yeah, it’s the only game he’s actually good at, I guess. 

Erin Ryan: Ooh, burn. Elon Musk catching some strays. What’s the end goal of Project 2025? Like, what’s the ultimate vision for what society looks like if this is implemented to its fullest potential? 

David Graham: It’s this weird, like, it’s sort of like the ’50s. You know, you have this really conservative family vision, abortion is illegal, um you know, everybody is straight, trans people are pushed into the shadows. But it’s not quite like that because they also wanna dismantle, you now, a lot of the New Deal, they wanna dismantle the Civil Service, they wanna reduce taxes drastically. So it’s a sort of bizarro-libertarian vision of the ’50’s, but also really backwards in a lot of um social ways. It’s kind of dystopian. 

Erin Ryan: Mm hmm. Yeah, I mean, how do they expect to bring the ’50s back if they’re not going to bring quaaludes back? As a woman, that is my primary concern because staying home ain’t it. Um. What stands in the way of making that vision a reality at this point? Because you said you know Congress isn’t doing anything. Is there any checks left to this? 

David Graham: I think the courts are starting to serve as a check. And the other thing is just like popular opinion. I mean, you know thinking about the tarriffs thing, so many of the things they’re doing are really unpopular. They were really unpopular last summer when Heritage pulled it and found like a you know 14% approval. They’re really unpopular now. And that’s tricky because they hold the reins of government, but I think that does limit what they can do. And part of the other trick there is they understand they’re unpopuler. And that’s one reason they wanted to move fast. They wanted to get it all done as quickly as they could before anyone could kind of organize against it um and slow them down. 

Erin Ryan: Mm hmm. But to that end, I mean, does Trump care about popularity? He’s not running for reelection. Or I mean he jokes around that he is, but nobody serious thinks that he’s actually running for re-election. And I don’t think he thinks he’s running for reelection and so there’s really nothing in it for him personally. Like, so why would Trump care about popularity?

David Graham: You know, I am baffled to see how little he seems to. I thought he cared about it just because it’s sort of the way he rolls. But you see him just not responding to the stock market. Um, you see them not responding to negative polls. I mean, he’s angry about them. Um, but it doesn’t seem like he’s restrained by them anymore. It, it’s a weird paradox where you kind of wish he thought he was running for office because he might care about these things, um, but then he might also run for office again, so that would be bad. 

Erin Ryan: Mm hmm. Yeah, maybe he’ll run for pope. Trump repeatedly denied knowing anything about Project 2025 while on the campaign trail and disavowed it repeatedly. And yet here we are with many of its core objectives being implemented. To what extent do you think Trump’s claims on the campaigns were a lie? Because I can see a scenario where he’s just kind of the vessel for the more specific policy visions of the people he’s surrounded himself with. And also we know he hates reading. So do you really think he didn’t know or do you think he knew and was bluffing? 

David Graham: I think he totally didn’t read it. I believe that. 

Erin Ryan: Okay. 

David Graham: Um I think he knew. You know, these people, it’s like a quarter of the people who wrote it were in his first administration, including multiple members of the cabinet. His head of OMB was the intellectual architect. He pointed that guy to run his platform committee at the RNC and then appointed him to run OMB once again. But I do think it’s kind of a vessel thing or a symbiosis thing. They have all these really specific policies they wanna get done that they know he doesn’t really care about, um but he’s a vessel for them. And what he gets is a bunch of employees and presidential appointees who are motivated and on the team, and he also gets control of, you know, the justice department and the executive branch that allows him to do things he wants, like wreak retribution, while they get the things they want like a unitary executive. So, you, know, I think they’ve figured out how to accommodate each other. 

Erin Ryan: Let’s talk again about his joking about potentially running for a third term, even though the Constitution bars him from doing so. But you write that his administration doesn’t need four more years, they just need us to stay distracted. So what are the things that are distracting us right now? There’s a lot to keep up with. What do you think we’re missing? 

David Graham: It’s so hard because even the distractions are important. You know, like it’s hard to write, like the third term thing is such a, you know, like you say, no serious person thinks he’s going to run again. But then again, like, I don’t know. I didn’t think a lot of things. Um. And if you sort of just let that normalize, then I think he could try it. I’m just trying to keep my eye on these long-term currents because when everything feels like chaos, I want to remind myself that there is in fact a plan underneath that some people are working on and I want to sort of, um, keep my eye on that ball as much as they are. 

Erin Ryan: David, thank you so much for joining us. 

David Graham: Thank you. 

Erin Ryan: That was my conversation with David Graham, staff writer at The Atlantic and author of the new book, The Project: How Project 2025 is reshaping America. We’ll link to his book in our show notes. We’ll get to more of the news in a moment, but if you like the show, make sure to subscribe, leave a five-star review on Apple Podcasts, watch us on YouTube and share with your friends. More to come after some ads. [music break]

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Erin Ryan: Here’s what else we’re following today. 

[sung] Headlines. 

[clip of Kristen Welker] When does it become the Trump economy? 

[clip of President Donald Trump] Uh. It partially is right now, and I really mean this. I think the good parts are the Trump economy and the bad parts are the Biden economy because he’s done a terrible job. He did a terrible job on everything. 

Erin Ryan: President Trump claimed responsibility for certain aspects of the economy during an interview with NBC’s Meet the Press Sunday. Those aspects? The good parts. However, the Commerce Department reported the economy shrank in the first quarter of this year. NBC host Kristen Welker asked Trump about a slew of other topics in the interview to mark his first 100 days in office. There was a lot Trump said, and a lot he didn’t say. When discussing the man mistakenly deported from Maryland to El Salvador in March, Welker pressed the president about due process. 

[clip of Kristen Welker] Your secretary of state says everyone who’s here, citizens and non-citizens, deserve due process. Do you agree, Mr. President? 

[clip of President Donald Trump] I don’t know. I’m not a lawyer. I don’t know. 

[clip of Kristen Welker] Well, the Fifth Amendment says so. 

Erin Ryan: Fifth Amendment? Never heard of her. Really, really comforting to hear the leader of the free world say he doesn’t know who deserves due process, a right that is literally enshrined in the Constitution. 

[clip of President Donald Trump] It might say that, but if you’re talking about that, then we’d have to have a million or two million or three million trials. We have thousands of people that are some murderers and some drug dealers and some of the worst people on Earth. 

[clip of Kristen Welker] But it–

[clip of President Donald Trump] Some of the worse, most dangerous people on earth. And I was elected to get them the hell out of here, and the courts are holding me from doing it. 

[clip of Kristen Welker] But even given those numbers that you’re talking about, don’t you need to uphold the Constitution of the United States as president? 

[clip of President Donald Trump] I don’t know. 

Erin Ryan: I don’t know. He sounds like a teenager whose mom just asked if there was alcohol at the party, and there definitely was alcohol at the party. Something else President Trump doesn’t know is if ByteDance, the Chinese parent company of TikTok, will meet the latest deadline extension to sell the company to an American investor. Trump said he would be willing to extend the deadline to keep TicTac, oh excuse me, TikTok online in the US if a deal isn’t reached. 

[clip of President Donald Trump] Perhaps I shouldn’t say this, but I have a little warm spot in my heart for TicTac. 

Erin Ryan: Sounds like a mistake somebody with perpetual bad breath would make. President Trump signed an executive order Thursday attempting to cut public funding for PBS and NPR over claims of left-wing bias. The order directs the Corporation for Public Broadcasting’s board of directors to stop federal funding for the two news organizations, though it’s unclear if he has the authority to actually do that. NPR CEO Katherine Maher told CBS’s Face the Nation Sunday that although NPR and PBS get relatively little federal funding on the national level. The executive order would have the most dramatic effect on local stations, some of which get up to 50% of their funding from the CPB. 

[clip of Katherine Maher] We’re seeing an advance of news deserts across the nation. 20% of Americans don’t have access to another local source of news. The impact of this could really be devastating, particularly in rural communities. 

Erin Ryan: Oh, they’ll be fine. They’ve got Facebook and PBS CEO Paula Kerger said in that same interview that should the CPB follow the executive order, the consequences for her organization would be almost immediate, especially for educational children’s programming. 

[clip of Paula Kerger] You’re not going to turn on your TV set and not see our children’s programming anymore. But if that funding is cut off, we have programs in development right now. And that will suddenly skid to a halt. We also have stations around the country that work directly with preschool providers and parents, and this funds those activities. So the immediate impact would be fairly significant. 

Erin Ryan: Coming out strong against toys and Daniel Tiger, he’s probably not gonna win the kid vote. Though Republicans have consistently threatened NPR and PBS over the last few decades, Kerger said the seriousness of the administration’s recent attempts to end funding for public broadcasting is unprecedented. 

[clip of Benjamin Netanyahu] Obviously we’re being challenged, the whole world is being challenged by the Youthis, including in the dastardly attack they did today near Ben Gurion Airport. We will not tolerate it. We will take very strong action against them. And we always remember that they act with their patron Iran’s direction and support. 

Erin Ryan: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu promised retribution for a strike by Yemen’s Houthi militia near Israel’s main international airport Sunday. Israel’s paramedic service said a few people were injured. Flights were also briefly suspended. Netanyahu said in a post on Twitter that Israel will respond to the Houthis strike and, quote, “at a time and place of our choosing, to their Iranian terror masters.” In a video statement, a Houthi military spokesman took responsibility for the attack and said America and Israel’s interception systems failed. And they successfully shut down service at the airport. The Iranian-backed Houthis have been striking Israel in solidarity with Palestinians throughout the Israel-Hamas war. The strike comes as Israel’s military announced it would start to call up tens of thousands of reservists for its operations in Gaza. Jury selection is scheduled to begin Monday for the federal sex trafficking case against Bad Boy Records founder Sean Combs, widely known by his stage name Diddy. Prosecutors allege that for over two decades, the hip hop mogul used his fame, money, and power to engage in shocking patterns of sexual abuse and violence. Prosecuters also claim Combs worked with vast networks of collaborators who engaged in, quote, “sex trafficking, forced labor, kidnapping, arson, bribery, and obstruction of justice.” Combs has denied the allegations against him and turned down a plea deal. The charges carry a maximum sentence of life in prison. Testimony in the case is expected to start next week. And that’s the news. [music break]

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Erin Ryan: That’s all for today. If you like the show, make sure to subscribe, leave a review, get excited for the Met Gala red carpet, and tell your friends to listen. And if you’re into reading, and not just about the Costume Institute’s new exhibition, Superfine: Tailoring Black Style, like me, What a Day is also a nightly newsletter. Check it out and subscribe at Crooked.com/subscribe. I’m Erin Ryan, and don’t you dare threaten my 250 pencils. [music break]

Jane Coaston: What a Day is a production of Crooked Media. It’s recorded and mixed by Desmond Taylor. Our associate producers are Raven Yamamoto and Emily Fohr. Our producer is Michell Eloy. We had production help today from Tyler Hill, Johanna Case, Joseph Dutra, Greg Walters, and Julia Claire. Our senior producer is Erica Morrison, and our executive producer is Adriene Hill. Our theme music is by Colin Gilliard and Kashaka. Our production staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America East. [music break]

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