Primary Concerns

The turmoil and dysfunction in President Trump’s administration have persisted despite the White House’s (and the commentariat’s) fond hope that his first address to Congress would set the wind at his back. Ironically, this has taken the political spotlight away from the White House and moved it to Capitol Hill. Will Congressional investigators do their jobs? Will Republicans be able to advance a legislative agenda without presidential know-how or guidance? Where is the god damn Obamacare repeal bill?! New Republic Senior Editor Brian Beutler spoke with George Washington University professor and Brookings Institution senior fellow Sarah Binder to try to answer those questions.

There’s a strong temptation in politics to compare mass protests in support of Obamacare to the tea party protests of 2009, which nearly derailed health care reform before it passed. Jesse Ferguson thinks the comparison is flawed. Jesse worked on Capitol Hill during the law’s creation and for Hillary Clinton’s campaign in 2016. In the wake of Clinton’s defeat, he turned his efforts to saving the law from repeal. But in 2013, he was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer, which makes the fight an unusually personal one for him. Ferguson tells the New Republic's Brian Beutler about what he hopes to see from the latest batch of Town Hall protests

New Republic Senior Editor Brian Beutler discusses the future of the Democratic parties with two candidates for the DNC chair. [2:20] South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg [29:30] Former US Secretary of Labor Tom Perez (US Representative Keith Ellison's campaign declined to participate.)

The fact that Judge Neil Gorsuch had to criticize the man who nominated him to the Supreme Court perfectly encapsulates the horrifying tension between Donald Trump’s power to shape the judiciary and his inclination to trammel over it. Slate’s Dahlia Lithwick, host of the podcast Amicus, joins the New Republic’s Brian Beutler to discuss the crisis of authority facing the courts and to the crumbling distinction between law and politics that could define the Trump era.

Tom Perriello represented the Virginia’s Fifth Congressional district during the height of Democrats’ Obama-era productivity. But unlike most Democrats from GOP-leaning territory, Perriello didn’t run scared from the Democratic agenda; to the contrary, he embraced it. Now, he hopes to bring the same ethos to the Virginia governor’s mansion. He joined New Republic Senior Editor Brian Beutler in studio to talk about his race, and whether it is a microcosm of the biggest debate in Democratic politics.

Andy Slavitt saved the Affordable Care Act; he tells New Republic Senior Editor Brian Beutler how he hopes to keep Donald Trump from destroying it.

Arms Control Wonk Blog Founding Publisher and nuclear non-proliferation expert Jeffrey Lewis and Brian Beutler discuss the likelihood of us all dying in a nuclear apocalypse under a Trump presidency.

Adam Serwer, Senior Editor for the Atlantic, and Brian Beutler, Senior Editor for New Republic discuss a week of confirmations, farewells, and leaks. Serwer shares his perspective on Jeff Sessions confirmation hearings after investigating Sessions record on civil rights. Also, Buzzfeed's leaked intelligence dossier and Trump's punitive response the media's unfavorable reporting.

Former Presidential Candidate and CIA Officer Evan McMullin joins New Republic Senior Editor Brian Beutler to talk about how liberals and conservatives can find common ground in resisting Trump's authoritarian tendencies.

When the public can not agree upon a shared reality—when confusion and distrust and propaganda reign—politics devolves into a pre-democratic struggle for power, which will disfavor resisters. Donald Trump may not understand this dynamic academically, but it was a hallmark of his campaign and has become a hallmark of his pre-presidency. Sometimes his false pronouncements are buffoonish and ill-considered, but make no mistake: he is taking a hammer to one of liberal society’s guardrails. Dartmouth College Political Scientist Brendan Nyhan has studied the ways information and disinformation affect political processes extensively. He joins New Republic Senior Editor Brian Beutler to explore why propaganda and conspiracy theory are so prevalent today, how this plays neatly into Trump’s hands, and what can be done about it.

Washington Post media columnist Margaret Sullivan Donald Trump is going to be president. When he reaches the Oval Office, he will be as hellbent on accumulating power, at the expense of liberal values, as he was on the campaign trail. Many things will get in his way, and when they do, he will try to crush them. This is not a drill. The real test of our democratic institutions has just begun. One of those institutions is the free press. Our free press has taken its liberty for granted for so long that it has lost the muscle memory required to defend itself. As civil society regroups, and prepares to resist Trump’s encroachment on democracy, everyone needs to stop and think and internalize what their role in this brave new world is. Washington Post media columnist Margaret Sullivan has some thoughts on how to do that. New Republic Senior Editor Brian Beutler sat down with her at Post headquarters to sketch out a gameplan.

[0:00] Sean Trende, Senior Elections Analyst with Real Clear Politics was the first political analyst to posit the existence of a large enough latent population of disaffected whites to elect Republicans nationally, without making major inroads with minority groups. He talks to New Republic Senior Editor Brian Beutler about how Trump ultimately connected to that group [28:23] Todd Zwillich, Washington correspondent of WNYC’s the Takeaway joins Brian to imagine the life that awaits us under unified Republican rule, with Trump at the helm.

Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne is the author of a timely book called Why the Right Went Wrong. New Republic Senior Editor Brian Beutler sat down with him at the Brookings Institution to fit the closing days of this campaign into a greater historical framework, and give some thought to what lies ahead. The home stretch of this election has been marked by Republican desperation and Democratic angst. Sensing defeat, Republicans down ballot from Donald Trump are promising to prevent Hillary Clinton from filling Supreme Court vacancies—should they retain the Senate—and to beset her administration with years of investigations. They have bullied the FBI into selectively leaking information that might damage Clinton, and some Republicans have even said they’re likely to impeach her. This rapid jettisoning of political courtesies and democratic norms isn’t just an indication that Republicans sense defeat. It’s a warning of the political future that awaits us if and when Clinton assumes office.

Norm Ornstein, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, cowrote the book on Republican dysfunction. He joins New Republic Senior Editor Brian Beutler in studio to discuss what's happening to the Republican Party. This election ends—mercifully—on November 8. The question of what awaits us on November 9 is, at this point, the most important one in politics. It has begun to dawn on Donald Trump and members of his inner circle that he is headed toward defeat—a fact his enablers in the Republican Party have been aware of for a long time. What remains to be seen is how badly Trump will lose, how he’ll cope with defeat, and how Republicans will cope with the repudiation of their party. Will they finally accept the need to reform? Or will they give way even more fully to the extremism, and backlash politics that gave rise to Trump in the first place?

The 2016 presidential debates are over, and Donald Trump lost all of them. The question now, with Trump’s defeat looming, is how long our memories will be? Huffington Post writers Jason Linkins and Jeffrey Young join The New Republic's Senior Editor Brian Beutler to assess whether the Republican Party, with an assist from the news media, will be able to sweep the fact that they created and enabled Trump under the rug.