Transcript: Trump Fury Erupts at NYT as Mental Decline Visibly Worsens
Lurie: Well, first of all, I think we’re past the point of having a strain of authoritarianism. It doesn’t mean that we are Putin’s Russia. In fact, it’s because we’re not that we’re seeing the kind of displays that you pointed to. It’s because Trump—and his acolytes and, in the case of Fox News, the businesses that depend on the media-slash-political industry that he is the center of—all depend on Trump appearing to be like Vladimir Putin. Vladimir Putin—his regime depends on him appearing to be something he’s not. Well, Trump, it’s even more the case, right? Here we are in—Trump is, and his people are, trying to append a dictatorship to the United States. And yes, it appeared for some time that they were going to succeed. I mean, Trump has been functioning as a dictator in many respects, but the problem is, of course, that it’s a vulnerable dictatorship. Virtually none of these abuses are popular with the American people. And unlike in Russia, where you can—the dictator can—actually kill a million Russians or send a million Russians into their death at a pointless war, in the United States, presidents, even those who aspire like Trump to be a dictator, do things that are wildly unpopular—their political impact. And it’s coming home to roost for Trump, in my opinion.
Sargent: Well, I want to home in on your point about how this illusion of strength is necessary for masking the weaknesses of this presidency, the structural, deep weaknesses. You see White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt constantly talking about how energetic Trump is. You see his doctor’s reports on his glowing health becoming something almost comical. We’ve all seen these Cabinet meetings where one after another of these figures functions as a North Korea–style propagandist for him, obsequiously bowing down to him, talking about how strong he is, how powerful he is, how—and this is important—what a world-historical figure he is. This is an essential piece of a lot of it. And I think we see with Trump’s reaction to this Times piece that he and they all know how important that illusion of strength is, right? But what his crazy response reveals is that the only way to prop up that illusion is with a lot of lies, and also what’s revealed is that they know how dangerous it is for him to be perceived as weak and diminished. Hence the absurd overreaction.
Lurie: When the image of strength is the linchpin of a leader’s political success, and then all it takes is a puncturing of the image for the success to start to dissipate. And then all of the tools that have been used in the past to promote Trump’s image—some of which you were just referring to, right? The praising of him in the weird Cabinet meetings, they actually end up weakening him. And that, I believe, is the dynamic.
