Transcript 0:00 [upbeat music] Today, we have a special guest, Tevi Troy. He's a presidential historian, author, and former senior official in the Bush administration. 0:15 Tevi is one of the nation's leading experts on how presidents govern, how administrations function, and what history can teach us about the challenges of presidential leadership. 0:23 We're going to dive into his unique perspective on the presidency and the inner workings of Washington. 0:28 His latest book, The Power and the Money, dives into the battles over ideas and influence in Washington, and that's exactly what we're gonna be talking about today. My name is Ariel David, and this is Redshift. 0:41 Thank you so much, Tevi, for joining us today. Thanks for having me on your podcast. I appreciate it. What has surprised you so far in the second Trump administration? 0:51 I, I think the energy with which they went about going through with their agenda. I think in the first Trump term, there was a lot of confusion, there was a lot of infighting. 1:00 I think this second term, they've been a lot more focused, knowing what they want to accomplish. There are fewer factions. 1:06 It doesn't mean there's no infighting, but you don't have the ideological breakdown of three different factions that you had in the last term. 1:12 If you sign up for this Trump administration, you know it's a MAGA administration, and there's basic agreement on the direction, and I think that's, uh, that gives them the opportunity to get more accomplished, which, you know, has sent a lot of people for a loop and a lot of people are very flummoxed by it, but, uh, I think that's the number one biggest surprise. 1:32 Do you think that that's kind of like in all facets of the Trump administrations? Is that kind of unity, or are there breakdowns in some sides of it? So for example, I remember he-- 1:42 Uh, uh, maybe in like foreign policy more so, or what are your thoughts on it? Yeah. There, there are some disagreements, but even the people who disagree, they think they're in the same camp. 1:50 So in the first term, you had the MAGA types represented by Steve Bannon initially. 1:55 Then you had the traditional Republicans with that, uh, Reince Priebus represented, and then you had the so-called globalists or globalist Democrats that Ivanka and Gary Cohn and Jared represented. 2:06 And they all had a legit claim or legit argument to say, "Oh, I represent true Trump." 2:12 In the second term, everybody is MAGA, they're MAGA Trump, and there are disagreements within them about what MAGA means, but you don't have the globalist Democrats, you don't have the traditional Republicans. 2:24 And h-how would you say that that defines Trump's grasp over his administration right now in terms of he's the one setting, uh, the agenda and the policy, where now you have a lot of people, uh, like Bannon and Tucker on the outside that are trying to kind of mold or define exactly what MAGA means or Republicanism means? 2:44 Well, they can do it all they want, but Trump said this in the lead-up to the Iran strike, which I supported. He said, "I define what MAGA is." 2:51 So when you have an ideology that's around a person, that person gets to define it. And if you find yourself deviating from that person, then suddenly you're by definition not part of the movement. 3:02 So it, uh, it gives Trump maximal flexibility, which is what he likes, but it will make it hard to determine what MAGA is after he's no longer on the scene. 3:12 I wanna hear your thoughts on Trump's relationship with, uh, the richest people in the country and the titans as you, as you wrote about this recently, because I remember our inauguration, one of the biggest stories was Trump's inaugurated. 3:24 Behind him are the richest people in the entire world, let alone America. These are the titans of industry. He brought them together on that first day of his administration. 3:32 Uh, how do you think that relationship between Trump and them has played out since Inauguration Day? 3:39 Yeah, well, one thing that's super interesting is they were indeed behind him, but they were in front of the cabinet and the top White House staff, so their positioning was very interesting. 3:48 And yeah, I think I was very good in my timing with the book, The Power and the Money, about top CEOs and their interactions with the presidents, because the Trump administration 3:58 sees CEOs and big companies as people to negotiate with, people to make deals with. You know, I just read this thing that Mark Zuckerberg never talked to Joe Biden. 4:06 Now, part of it was Biden was a little checked out, but, you know, usually a president is somewhat in touch with the top CEOs. 4:12 They, they don't all have as tight relationships as I talk about with some of the people in my book, like, uh, Lou Wasserman and Lyndon Johnson. 4:20 But there's some contact, and it was surprising to me that with Zuckerberg, there was absolutely no contact. So Trump is different that way. He likes talking to CEOs. He sees CEOs as his peers. 4:31 He likes talking to people in the fellow bil-billionaires club, and I think that he thinks they're people that he can make deals with and get things done for his agenda. 4:41 Just today, I think he said that Tim Cook was, like, one of the best people in the world, and he put out, like, I think, a Truth Social about his admiration for him, um, something of that nature. 4:50 Uh, and so I wanna ask you, do you think Trump has been getting his way in, in these relationships? 4:55 Has he been able to, I guess, make deals with them that he wanted to, or do you think they're getting kind of like the last laugh and they're taking advantage of him? 5:04 I, I think the thing with presidents and CEOs is there's a mutuality of interest. They both benefit from the relationship, and if they don't, then you see a big falling out, like with Elon Musk. 5:15 But in general, there's both sides want the relationship to continue because both sides get something from it. And it's really interesting you mention Tim Cook. 5:24 He's not a particularly political person, and I don't think of him necessarily as a Trumpy person. But in the first term, and I quote this in, in my book, he would ca- pick up the phone and call Trump. 5:36 And Trump said that's why he's a great CEO, because he calls me directly. Other people, they'll hire consultants, they'll hire lobbyists, but Tim Cook just talks to me directly, and Trump respects that. 5:46 I know in the Bush White House, you didn't pick up the phone. I, I, I worked in the Bush White House, just to make that clear to the listeners. You didn't just pick up the phone and call President Bush. 5:53 I mean, there's a whole process, and you'd have to schedule a call. 5:56 With Trump, I heard this great story about a Fortune probably 10 CEO, I mean, top, top CEO, comes to Washington, doesn't have a plan to meet Trump, but they reach out and they say, "Can we come by and see you?" 6:06 And they say, "Sure," and they flit him, fit him in that day. And that just doesn't normally happen with presidential scheduling, which is very, very regimented in most administrations. 6:16 Who do you think out of all of these CEOs, these titans, uh, is the most politically savvy right now in this Trump era? Well, when you said in this Trump era, it might have changed the question a little bit. 6:27 I was about to answer Jamie Dimon because he generally has been very good at playing both sides. He has this phrase that I think is very clever. He calls himself barely a Democrat, where each word matters. 6:38 And the Democrats hear Democrat, and they say, "Great. CEO banking is on our side. That's wonderful." 6:44 And Republicans hear the barely a, and they say, "Well, he's gotta be a Democrat 'cause he's in New York, and there's a bun- it's a blue state and everything." 6:52 But barely a means that he's against the excesses of the woke left. And when Dimon started in this business as CEO, he would come to Washington twice a year. Now he comes to Washington twice a month. 7:06 So I think he's been very savvy at playing Washington. What does someone like Jamie Dimon that I guess represents a lot of Wall Street, what does he want from Trump? 7:14 And, uh, I know that for a long time Trump was very, um, he, he made Wall Street to be out, like, this entity in America that he's up against. Um, and now it seems like, I mean, they backed him recently, right? 7:27 They said that Trump was not going to tank the economy unlike what the media was saying. What do people like Jamie Dimon, what are they trying to get from Trump, and what has Trump, I guess, been able to get from them? 7:37 Well, first of all, I'd be wary of saying that he sees himself as against Wall Street. He views the Dow and the S&P as the, the markers of success. If the Dow is going up, that's good for him, so... 7:47 And, and it's good for ob- obviously everybody who- everyone who has investments, but so he looks to the Dow. So I, I don't th- think he considers himself as against Wall Street. 7:56 But in the first term, a lot of banking CEOs, a lot, a lot of white-collar industry CEOs were against him and were critical of him, and, and that's calmed down in this term. 8:06 In terms of J- Dimon, it's not what he's looking for from the Trump administration. It was what he's looking for from government. Banking f- regulations are so complex. 8:14 They're looking for certainty, they're looking for clarity, they're looking not to be on the chopping block, and they're looking for h- whatever regulatory advantage they can have. 8:25 Uh, you know, in, in my book, I talk a lot about how big CEOs, big corporations benefit from regulation because it's a barrier to entry for little guys and small competitors. Regulation is a subsidy. 8:38 Complexity is a subsidy. And these guys can afford the lobbyists. They can afford the client compliance attorneys that the younger, the smaller competitors can't. 8:48 And so they're all fine whenever somebody says, "We should regulate AI," or, "We should regulate high tech," or, "We should regulate banking." They all say, "Yes, and we will help. 8:55 We will come to the table and regulate with you." And of course, the regulations benefit them and their companies. What about, like, Sam Altman and this whole entire AI revolution that we're going through? 9:06 I, I mean, it's pretty, uh, disorienting to kinda catch up with all of the changes that are happening, especially, I mean, like, from, from pretty much every facet of American society and, like, AI just coming in there. 9:16 Now you have Sam Altman, who is becoming very quickly one of the most powerful people I think in the world because of what he does. 9:24 Um, how is he playing the game, and how has Trump's relationship with him, like, evolved? 9:29 Well, I think he's playing it very well because if you went back, uh, let's say a year ago, you would've said, "Uh-oh, Sam Altman's having this fight with Musk. 9:36 Musk is very in tight with Trump, and Altman's gonna be in trouble when the administration starts." Now Musk is on the outs, and Altman is the go-to guy on AI. So I, I think Altman's played it pretty well. 9:46 But the thing about AI is things are happening so fast that I don't know if Altman's gonna be the guy in two years or even two months. And you hear all this stuff about how well the Chinese are doing with AI. 9:57 Maybe we'll just all be following them because it sounds like the American AI models are very, very expensive, and the Chinese have figured out a way to do it more cheaply. 10:06 Could be like with consumer electronics in the '70s and '80s. America invented a lot of the great consumer electronic innovations, but the Japanese figured out how to do them cheaply. 10:17 Uh, do you think the Trump administration has been able to, I don't know, think about AI clearly? 10:23 I mean, in terms of, like, regulation, there's a lot of stuff happening there, and it seems like, I mean, Trump, Trump is, uh, not exactly like Gen Z, right? 10:31 He, he doesn't keep up with all of these trends that are happening. Um, how has he been able to, I guess, navigate th- the AI revolution as it's come? 10:40 Yeah, I agree that Trump probably doesn't know that much about the details of AI, but he has some very smart people around him, both inside the administration and outside advisors who are weighing in on AI. 10:50 And look, as I said, it's moving really fast, so I am leery of imposing too many regulations on it to start because we could end up in a place where we constrain ourselves and the Chinese or some other competitor could kind of lap us on AI. 11:06 At the same time, AI is potentially so dangerous that you can't just let it run amok, so it's a very complicated field to navigate. 11:13 And so because of how hard it is to navigate, they're kind of just waiting it out, you think? Um, I, I think you should take a bit of a wait-and-see approach. 11:21 And look, you know, I, I like to look at how different technologies have evolved over time. 11:26 And, you know, there, there's a reason they say that, uh, we were promised flying cars and we only have, uh, 140 characters, now 280 characters, because certain regulatory decisions made over the years led to the world we're in. 11:38 So there were regulatory barriers to, let's say, supersonic transport, which is why we don't really have the Concorde anymore. 11:44 But at the same time, Clinton and the, um, a- and his Section 230 and the, the internet, uh, the, the internet legislation that he passed in 1998, uh, that led to the development of the ba- basically the FAANG stocks. 11:58 I mean, the, the web developers benefited from that, from that regulatory scheme that gave them a lot of latitude. 12:06 And other industries like not just, uh, supersonic transport but also, let's say, nuclear energy have Suffered from too much regulation, too many lawsuits, and were behind in those areas. 12:18 So small regulatory steps that happen now at the nascent stage of an industry can have huge impacts twenty, 30 years ago about how technology develops. You mentioned so far Elon Musk's name a lot. 12:31 Um, I think when he got involved with Trump much closely, even like during the election, like that became one of the most interesting periods of political history just to watch and to every day see the news reports coming out of there. 12:41 And it seems like as quickly as he got so involved, he kind of just disappeared in a way where he flamed out, he made some mistakes. Uh, there was this big breaking out. 12:51 Um, what are your thoughts, uh, on, first of all, why you think Elon Musk failed or, uh, his relationship with Trump deteriorated, deteriorated so quickly? 13:01 Um, and do you think he kind of put himself in a bad position moving forward? 13:06 Well, I think, you know, the mantra of Silicon Valley is move fast and break things, and I think Musk is definitely in that mode, and I think that's served him well. 13:16 I mean, he, you know, if you look at the Walter Isaacson biography, he'll go to the production line and he'll say, "Why are you doing this? It seems inefficient." 13:24 And if somebody says, "Well, we've always done it that way," well, that, that is not the right answer if you want to stay employed in an Elon Musk company. 13:30 So he's willing to change things, break things, stop the existing traditions, and that works for him, and it's obviously made him perhaps the richest man in the world. 13:40 At the same time, if you move fast and break your relationship with the President of the United States, that's hard to repair. 13:46 And I think both of them have an interest in reconciling, but I think it's gonna be hard to repair what they've torn asunder at this point. 13:55 What about Elon Musk moving forward and looking past, like, the Trump administration, like whoever comes next? Uh, what do you think... 14:01 I mean, I, it's, I know it's impossible to predict who is even there, but, um, does someone like Elon Musk, because of what happened here, like lose political capital to come, even if it's a Democrat? 14:11 Do they see him as someone maybe that is less trustworthy than maybe another, uh, CEO of his type? Yeah, I think he's in a bit of a hard position, not that I wouldn't trade bank accounts with him. 14:23 [chuckles] But he was-- He supported the Democrats in '28, 2012, 2016, even 2020. And it's only 2024 is the first time that he supports a Republican, but he does it in a spectacular fashion and a very public fashion. 14:37 And then he has this falling out with Trump. So the Democrats were so irate with him, and remember, you know, people were, uh, defacing Teslas, and, uh, he was public enemy number one. 14:48 And I think it's hard for him to get back in the good graces of the Democrats. But at the same time, as long as Trump's around, it's gonna be hard for Republicans to embrace him as well. 14:58 So I think he's a little politically homeless, and he kind of goes against the advice that I offer in my book, The Power and the Money, about how to deal politically. 15:06 What I argue is that you want to dial up the engagement. I say go up to 11 if you can, you won't, if you want, if you like the Spinal Tap reference, but you wanna dial down the partisanship. 15:16 And Jamie Dimon, as I mentioned earlier, he does that. Very, very engaged with Washington, but he tries to keep his partisanship to a minimum. 15:23 And I think that's the strategy to staying in good graces with both parties over a long period. 15:29 Because another thing, another lesson I have in, in my book, in The Power and the Money, is that in any one interaction, a president is more powerful than a CEO. 15:40 But a CEO can outlast a president and be there for multiple presidencies, multiple administrations. 15:45 And so if you're a CEO, your strategy's gotta be about staying power, and if you're a president, your strategy is gonna be about wielding the maximum power that you have to deploy in a very limited time of four or eight years. 15:58 Besides... And I, I wanna go back to the Jamie Dimon because you just talked about how you're supposed to, uh, remain the... 16:06 try to be as little pa- uh, partisan as possible, and I'm like thinking like, okay, back in the woke era, and I know maybe it's getting a little bit easier now that that's subsided, but I'm thinking, like, during the peak division in the country, I mean, it, it probably seems very difficult to remain not partisan. 16:21 It seems like almost every political moment, uh, in the 20, early 2020s, uh, with, uh, Black Lives Matter and the protests, the riots, it feels like everything demanded some kind of statement from some organization or CEO or leader. 16:36 And, and so how has Dimon managed, besides just that statement that you said about how he's barely a Democrat, but how has that, like, actually played out where he's been able to be not bipartisan or not partisan? 16:49 Well, a smart strategist would recommend to these CEOs, even during the midst of the, the racial reckoning of 2020, that you've got to take a step back, think about it before you jump in and make a pledge with every new development. 17:04 And I think that some of the CEOs took steps that I think did not serve them well. I mean, you think about, uh, Rob Manfred in Major League Baseball. 17:11 I think he lost a lot of capital with Republicans by moving the All-Star game from Atlanta. And I, I heard Brian Kemp speak, the governor of Georgia, and he said, he told him, "Don't do this, Rob. This is a mistake. 17:22 Don't, don't succumb to the crowd." And Manfred didn't listen, and, uh, I think it's really hurt Manfred and baseball. 17:29 And then you look at, um, Bud Light or, uh, some of these companies that kind of went with the woke craziness in their marketing that did not serve their companies well. How about someone like Mark Zuckerberg? 17:41 I remember when I was first starting Upward News, we were primarily, like, on Instagram. That's how we were, uh, getting our information out there, and we were creating different infographics. 17:49 And all of a sudden, mass censorship happened. It was, like, right in line with the pandemic, the BLM era. Um, and everyone, at least on there, started to hate Mark Zuckerberg. 17:59 Um, and I know for a long time in, like, the MAGA movement, people, like, looked on him very negatively for that whole entire thing. And then he goes through this re-rehabilitation on Joe Rogan. 18:08 He kind of acknowledges what he did was wrong. He says, "We're not doing that anymore. We're stepping away. We're un-banning Trump from Facebook," and all those things. Um- 18:17 Even though he had gone so far down in the ranks of, like, the favorables, um, do you think he's successfully been able to rehabilitate himself, or is that something that just takes much longer? 18:29 I think he in particular has a tough time with this, and he's so hated on the left, and there are obviously people on the right who didn't like him either. 18:36 I've got a great story in my book about this Facebook lobbyist who's trying to convince a Democratic lawmaker to go to dinner with Zuckerberg. And the lobbyist says, "You come to his DC house. Sheryl will be there. 18:50 It'll be great." And the guy says, the, the lawmaker says, "You understand, I don't want to meet them. I am not friends with them. I'm not interested." [laughs] And I think that is an attitude among many Democrats. 19:01 As I said earlier, Biden didn't even meet with him once. And he said at one point, "I don't like Zuckerberg." So I think, uh, Zuckerberg is, uh, particularly radioactive, uh, on the Democratic side. 19:12 But I don't think every CEO reaches that level. I think he, he has a, a, a tough hand to play. Do you think there are any underrated CEOs that are really crushing it but don't pick up a lot of media attention? 19:24 Well, yeah, but they're... Because they're not [laughs] in the headlines, they're, uh, they're, I think they're just doing an effective job. Look, CEOs have a choice. 19:32 They can focus on the inner workings of the company, or they can be more public players. And that being a public player has its advantages, especially if you get in a regulatory battle. 19:40 But at the same time, if you run afoul of an administration, that's something that could hurt you and your company. 19:47 Going back to a point that I made earlier that you disagreed with about how I said that Trump at one point positioned him- himself against Wall Street. 19:54 Uh, there's, like, a big populist kind of fervor within the Trump administration. He campaigned on it. 19:59 And a lot of, like, the natural elements of, like, populism is you probably wanna go against, like, the titans of industry, right? 20:05 Like, you want to be the champion of the common man, and these people that are incredibly rich, um, sometimes you have to reckon with them and figure out how to make them more, uh, I guess, serve the, in the people's interest. 20:19 Um, do you think Trump's populism or that kind of zeal has, um, lost some potency because of the relationship that Trump now has with these CEOs and the way he's been able to, uh, work with them and, I guess, serve both people? 20:35 Well, first of all, I don't know if I disagreed with you so much as I suggested to be careful if you go too far in this anti-Wall Street thing. 20:41 No, Trump obviously has a strong populist streak, and he's good at it, and I don't think he's gonna let that go. I, I just don't see Trump becoming one of the elitists. His brand is this populist regular guy approach. 20:52 Even though he's a billionaire, he may, manages to make it work. So I think, uh, I think populism is gonna continue to be his approach to things. Do you think it actually manifests as, in any way though? 21:03 Because for example, like, when he got elected and he has these billionaires behind him, I remember just a few years ago, like, uh, Jeff Bezos was, like, the enemy of MAGA. 21:12 Um, and the, the left and the right united to kind of start, uh, railing on him and Amazon and the way that they ran things. 21:20 And I see, like, a natural, like, populist leader is trying to do something there or see, I don't know, maybe how can, how can, can he make Bezos bend to his will, um, and make everyone happy again? 21:31 But now, I mean, there's, looks like there's no problem between them. Does, uh, Trump's, like, populism only stay, uh, in the way that he speaks, or does it kinda, like... 21:41 Is it not able to manifest anymore because he's now working closely with these people? Look, the way Trump speaks publicly is a bit of an act. 21:50 From what I hear, if you meet Trump personally, he's the most gracious person. He'll say, "Oh, you like a Diet Coke? Can I get you a Diet Coke? Do you want me to send some Diet Cokes to your house?" 21:59 I mean, he's very, very kind in person from what I hear. 22:03 But he's got this persona of the tough guy and the populist, and so I, I don't think it would preclude him from having conversations with CEOs that he rails against if they are still willing to have the conversation after being railed against. 22:17 Last question for you, um- In some ways, it's more like professional wrestling. He sees it as a bit of an act, and he's willing to have that conversation. 22:25 I don't know if you ever, um, you know, Hulk Hogan just died, and, uh, Hulk Hogan really became famous in the movie Rocky III when he does this wrestling exhibition match against Sylvester Stallone, against Rocky, and he plays just a horrible person, really mean, cruel, and then at the end of the fight, after the, the fight is over, he and Rocky are all buddy-buddy. 22:47 So I think, [laughs] uh, like with professional wrestling, which is a bit of an act, I think some of Trump's bluster is a bit of an act, but behind the scenes he speaks differently to people. 22:57 Last question for you about the Trump administration, uh, and the way you see that it's been operating. What are some really underrated things to, to start watching or paying attention to? 23:09 I think you correctly noted the foreign policy divide, and I think that is going to be a bigger deal as we get closer to 2028 and we look for a successor. 23:20 I think emerging new technologies, we, we talked a little bit about AI, but how we're gonna approach them. Do you have, take a populist approach? Do you take a more libertarian approach? 23:29 And then in general, what's going to happen with the MAGA movement? So at this point, it looks like JD Vance is probably the favorite, but I, uh, maybe I take the field over him. 23:43 But what happens as you get closer to 2028? Do he and Marco Rubio still work well together, or does one start leaking against the o- other? Does one leave the administration? 23:53 Obviously, it's harder for a vice president to leave. A secretary of state is, it's more normal for them to leave. 23:58 So I th- I think some of those issues about what happens after Trump are gonna get more and more interesting. 24:04 I can't believe I didn't ask you anything about JD Vance or the vice presidency, but, um, is the way that Trump has been using JD Vance, like, as this kind of, like, deal maker with all the factions and is, like, sending him to do, like, real work, which seems so different if you've only paid attention to the Biden administration where Kamala was sent to do things that I, I don't think were as big or as important. 24:24 I- is there anything particularly, like, novel in the way Trump decided to use the vice presidency? Well, it's a bit of a test. You see how somebody performs, and then you decide what to give them. 24:35 And on election night, Trump said, "We put you out there," to JD Vance, "against every tough interviewer, every m- biased media, liberal slanted, uh, journalist, and you did great in all of them." 24:47 And so he kind of passed that test. Whereas with Kamala, she did a poor job. Every time she had an interview, it was something the Biden administration had to clean up. 24:56 And it's actually a little surprising given that JD Vance had a very rough first week of his launch. 25:01 But he really turned it around and was, by the end, he was doing the most interviews of all four of them, meaning the vice president and presidential nominees, and he was really giving it to the liberal media when they were asking him biased questions, and kind of proved himself in the crucible of the campaign in a way that Kamala was never able to do. 25:19 So it's literally just The Apprentice, and it's just happening before our eyes. [laughs] Uh, I think there was, like, some story, right, where... 25:26 Yeah, there was the story even, like, before JD was, knew he was the pick for, for VP that, like, Trump sent, like, motorcades to, like, every single possible person that they were thinking about and, like, I don't know. 25:38 It was this whole entire spectacle, so it was funny to see Trump still thinking in, like, that theatrical Apprentice-like way even now that he's in the White House again. Yeah. 25:47 I mean, in many ways his administration is kind of like Thunderdome, right? [laughs] You, two men enter, one man leaves. You just s- uh, see, let it play out. 25:55 And he, in the first term, you know, I wrote a book about c- infighting in the White House called Fight House, and he, Trump said, "I like conflict." He's willing to let his advisors fight it out and see what happens. 26:06 [upbeat music]
