Speaker 1: Good morning, peepsend. Welcome to WIKP Daily with me your girl,
Speaker 1: Danny Almody recording from a nondisclosed location because I'm actually
Speaker 1: not in the home bunker. Dear friend, I am excited
Speaker 1: for today's conversation that I'm bringing to you today, which
Speaker 1: is with Will Ragland, who is the vice president for
Speaker 1: research at the Center for American Progress Action. And we
Speaker 1: get into a conversation today about Project twenty twenty five,
Speaker 1: the plans that are in store for America if in
Speaker 1: folks five days, Donald Trump is re elected President of
Speaker 1: the United States, and Will and I kind of go
Speaker 1: through the ways that Project twenty twenty five will up
Speaker 1: end democracy, will up end our social safety nefts, will
Speaker 1: up end American life as we know it. And you
Speaker 1: think you know to yourself, well, it's five days until
Speaker 1: the election. Fifty million people have already voted. A lot
Speaker 1: of folks still vote on election day, so there is
Speaker 1: still time for this conversation, still time to alert those
Speaker 1: in your life to how important and consequential this election
Speaker 1: and this moment is. We need everyone engaged, we need
Speaker 1: everyone educated. And this conversation with Will provides us with
Speaker 1: a little more in depth plans of what the future
Speaker 1: of America will look like. And I'll tell you what.
Speaker 1: If you've listened to Elon musk recent comments about America
Speaker 1: needing to face hardship in the short term in order
Speaker 1: for there to be prosperity in the long term. That
Speaker 1: coming from an effing billionaire who's not going to give
Speaker 1: up a damn thing, but tells the rest of us
Speaker 1: that we are going to need to sacrifice under the
Speaker 1: Trump regime and get rid of social safety nets, get
Speaker 1: rid of entitlement programs, get rid of all of the
Speaker 1: things that allow for the most vulnerable among us to
Speaker 1: be able to thrive in this society. Yeah, the future
Speaker 1: under Donald Trump and Elon Musk looks dark. The future
Speaker 1: under twenty twenty five looks star five days, friends, and
Speaker 1: we're either moving forward or we're going back to the
Speaker 1: nineteenth century. Take a listen to this interview with Will Ragland,
Speaker 1: vice president of Research at the Centate for American Progress. Folks,
Speaker 1: I am very happy to welcome to WOKF Daily, the
Speaker 1: vice president for Research at the Cene for American Progress action,
Speaker 1: Will Ragland, to talk to us today about Project twenty
Speaker 1: twenty five, Donald Trump and how he wants to go
Speaker 1: even further than what has been out lined in this
Speaker 1: over nine hundred page manifest So will welcome talk to
Speaker 1: us about what it means to go further. Being as
Speaker 1: how I thought this was the cliff.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, no, I think broad the twenty twenty five's
Speaker 2: outline and move toward an authoritarian state is what people
Speaker 2: should take away from this nine hundred page play. There's
Speaker 2: a whole host of policies in there, but at its
Speaker 2: core is a roadmap, a manual to eliminate any hurdles,
Speaker 2: any person anything, any policy that would be able to
Speaker 2: restrict or tell the president no on a particular policy
Speaker 2: they want to enact. Probably twenty twenty five. That's their
Speaker 2: first priority. That's exactly what they try to lay out.
Speaker 2: Donald Trump laid that out in the first administration and
Speaker 2: wasn't able to get it done because of the people
Speaker 2: that were able to tell them no or pump the breaks.
Speaker 2: And a lot of those folks were career officials, career
Speaker 2: federal employees, climate scientists, attorneys, doctors, Department general counsels who
Speaker 2: basically said, you can't do this because it's against the law.
Speaker 2: The number one priority that he has made clear in
Speaker 2: his administration, and that probably twenty twenty five in the
Speaker 2: other plants have outlied is a way to eliminate any
Speaker 2: of those physicians that can tell them nough and replace
Speaker 2: them with loyalists. They're planning right now to replace up
Speaker 2: two fifty thousand career staff experts and folks that could
Speaker 2: be a hurdle to him and were in the first administration,
Speaker 2: to make sure he can start implementing some of the
Speaker 2: policies that you may have heard about, whether it's weaponizing
Speaker 2: the Department of Justice or a mass deportation plan, or
Speaker 2: eliminating the Department of Education, eliminating public sector unions and
Speaker 2: being able to spend appropriated dollars in a much freer
Speaker 2: way than Congress and Ted's. So they lay that out
Speaker 2: and he takes it a step further. We have seen
Speaker 2: him talk repeatedly about his plan for the judiciary and
Speaker 2: his appointments and court shopping. So he has worked and
Speaker 2: it had actually made a lot of progress, and that
Speaker 2: during his first term. His second term will take it
Speaker 2: even further. And we saw the Supreme Court with their
Speaker 2: immunity decision basically get rid of any accountability for the
Speaker 2: president as long as he can figure out a way
Speaker 2: to defend his actions in his official capacity. That is
Speaker 2: the overarching thing that's in Project twenty twenty five. It's
Speaker 2: what he tried in his first administration and what he's
Speaker 2: outlining again. We saw it last night at Madison Square Garden.
Speaker 2: We've seen it with this top policy folks, whether it
Speaker 2: be Russ Boat, who is his omb director, or Steven
Speaker 2: Miller really laying this out and admitting that they are
Speaker 2: working to craft work arounds, loopholes to make sure that
Speaker 2: there is no friction between what a President Trump wants
Speaker 2: to do and what rules of regulations will allow him to.
Speaker 1: So talk to me about this, because these are things
Speaker 1: that we've been talking about on WOLLKF for well over
Speaker 1: a year, right, talking about the dangers of Project twenty
Speaker 1: twenty five, talking about Steven Miller, talking about Steve Benn
Speaker 1: and talking about the construction of a dictatorship that can
Speaker 1: move outside of the bounds of the Constitution in order
Speaker 1: to give the executive branch aka Donald Trump, full and
Speaker 1: complete power. You remove fifty thousand civil servants from their post,
Speaker 1: you institute an entire regime shift and change. How do
Speaker 1: you upend the constitution? Or do they just not even care, Like, basically,
Speaker 1: who's going to stop them. They're going to go before
Speaker 1: a bunch of there'll be a bunch of lawsuits that
Speaker 1: will run them up. They'll be put in front of
Speaker 1: federal judges that will just what Rubbert Stamp, Donald Trump
Speaker 1: kick it up to the Supreme Court. They'll say it's
Speaker 1: presidential and keep it moving. What does pushback then actually
Speaker 1: look like?
Speaker 2: That's a great question. So, I mean, at its core, democracy,
Speaker 2: democratic governance requires trust in our institutions, trust in general
Speaker 2: things that are factual. This requires a baseline of trust
Speaker 2: in our election systems, in our courts, in our media,
Speaker 2: in our churches to some extent, and what we've seen
Speaker 2: over the last several decades is an increase of distrust
Speaker 2: in a lot of these bedrock institutions that help us
Speaker 2: live a normal and orderly life. To make sure we're
Speaker 2: driving on the right side of the road, to making
Speaker 2: sure that school lunches are made, all the way up
Speaker 2: to making sure whether something's constitutional or not. There are
Speaker 2: a lot of facets to this that could come to play,
Speaker 2: but at its core, people us have to have a
Speaker 2: baseline trust in those institutions. And while that had been
Speaker 2: declining up until twenty sixteen, twenty fifteen, really when Trump
Speaker 2: came on the scene, he tried to light that on fire.
Speaker 2: He tried to destroy any sort of trust in institutions
Speaker 2: that we rely on that give us the constructs, the
Speaker 2: balaries that you will to live our normal lives. So
Speaker 2: addictatorship relies on terra. He moved to a fear based narrative,
Speaker 2: a fear based way of governing, and tried to take
Speaker 2: everything that was not going well in people's lives and
Speaker 2: place that blame on others, immigrants, the media, LGBTQ Committee,
Speaker 2: tres community, you name it, any other thing they said
Speaker 2: last night. I mean, I think this was a direct
Speaker 2: quote from one of the speakers. We have to slaughter
Speaker 2: these other people, right, So step one is tearing down
Speaker 2: that trust to a place where there isn't this sort
Speaker 2: of social contract that binds us anymore. And at step two,
Speaker 2: it's to scare the daylights out of people and offer
Speaker 2: what that he thinks will be the only alternative, which
Speaker 2: is a strong hand. And if people get out of line,
Speaker 2: we have the military to put them back in line.
Speaker 2: We have a doj that would be the president's personal attack.
Speaker 2: Do that's creating lists of people to monitor and watch?
Speaker 2: Are we going to pull certain news outlets license this
Speaker 2: FORFCC licenses? Are we going to threaten reporters for daring
Speaker 2: to tell the truth and investigate certain things? Create this
Speaker 2: level of disorientation and distrusting of the way we choose
Speaker 2: our leaders and how we're represented with the election system.
Speaker 2: We saw it in twenty sixteen, it was even more
Speaker 2: in twenty twenty, and they're doing it again in twenty
Speaker 2: twenty four.
Speaker 1: So let me ask you this, because these are things
Speaker 1: that were made very clear at the hate rally at
Speaker 1: Medicine Square Garden. It's something that the media, corporate media
Speaker 1: has been ignoring for roughly nine years and doing a
Speaker 1: piss poor job of highlighting the dangers that Donald Trump
Speaker 1: and the MAGA Republicans pose on our normal way of
Speaker 1: life in America. And you know, I have said it
Speaker 1: that the reason for this fifty thousand group of loyalists
Speaker 1: on their right wing LinkedIn is so that they can
Speaker 1: institute these changes within the first one hundred days of
Speaker 1: a Trump administration, because people love to believe that they
Speaker 1: have more time than they do. So can you talk
Speaker 1: to us about this timeline that we're working on. If
Speaker 1: in fact, the worst comes to fruition and Donald Trump
Speaker 1: is able to become president again, which will be the
Speaker 1: last presidency this country we'll ever see. What does the
Speaker 1: timeline for you look like? What do folks at CAP
Speaker 1: what do you think about how quickly things will shift?
Speaker 2: I think there are a number of factors. It depends
Speaker 2: on what the setate in the House look like. Ay,
Speaker 2: But you know, I do think that as you know,
Speaker 2: part of Project twenty twenty five. You've got your nine
Speaker 2: hundred page policy volume, you've got your conservative LinkedIn. But
Speaker 2: then there's this secret playbook, this one hundred and eighty
Speaker 2: day playbook, which is essentially what we know about it
Speaker 2: a set of draft executive orders that will allow them
Speaker 2: to create goopholes and get as much done via executive
Speaker 2: fiat instead of having to work with Congress. So I
Speaker 2: think the timing depends on what Congress looks like. But
Speaker 2: I think they're looking to move at a very fast speed,
Speaker 2: and they're trying to put the personnel in place to
Speaker 2: make that go as quickly as possible. Are they going
Speaker 2: to be able to get all that und pages done
Speaker 2: on the first hundred days. I seriously doubt it, but
Speaker 2: there is a lot in there that they're going to
Speaker 2: move on, and I think probably one of the first
Speaker 2: orders of business will be best deportation. Of what that
Speaker 2: looks like. We're hearing everything from going after folks that
Speaker 2: are here legally under whatever visas, going after undocumented folks
Speaker 2: who may be part of a family and removing that
Speaker 2: entire family. They're talking about getting rid of a lot
Speaker 2: of the naturalization processes, and they're talking about, you know,
Speaker 2: if you're born here, whether you should be a citizen.
Speaker 2: They're talking about all of this, and one of their
Speaker 2: biggest proponents of this is Elon Musk, who we found
Speaker 2: out over the weekend was here initially illegally as well
Speaker 2: under a student visa, and started his first business as
Speaker 2: an adocumented immigrant. I don't think they care too much
Speaker 2: about that. I think they're probably looking for a certain
Speaker 2: type of immergrant. But I don't think they understand either,
Speaker 2: just how impactfulness will be on our economy. And you
Speaker 2: know how much folks rely on people who are coming
Speaker 2: here to work and take care of jobs that a
Speaker 2: lot of Americans know.
Speaker 1: So you know, the funny thing is, well, I don't
Speaker 1: think they give a damn. The fact is is that
Speaker 1: this has everything to do with racism, It has everything
Speaker 1: to do with xenophobia, It has everything to do with hate.
Speaker 1: And so I don't think that they care how the
Speaker 1: economy works for everyone else. They care about how the
Speaker 1: economy will work for the top one percent. And so
Speaker 1: I think that you have nobel economists that have come
Speaker 1: out and have said that Donald Trump's economic plans will
Speaker 1: cause probably the steepest recession, if not just a full
Speaker 1: blown depression that we have seen since like the twentieth century,
Speaker 1: and the biggest crash that this country experienced. I wonder, then,
Speaker 1: what does the recourse look like here. Let's now pivot
Speaker 1: and present the other worldview, which is that of Kamala Harris,
Speaker 1: the Center for American Progress and all of us who
Speaker 1: actually believe in democracy if she manages to win. And
Speaker 1: I come to you today as ballot boxes were just
Speaker 1: set on fire in Washington and Oregon that we are
Speaker 1: seeing all over the news today in another act of
Speaker 1: domestic terrorism, that we have officials like Speaker of the
Speaker 1: House Mike Johnson, who Donald Trump says he has a
Speaker 1: little secret with that they will reveal after the election,
Speaker 1: because I don't believe that he's going to go ahead
Speaker 1: and certify the election. If in fact, Kamala Harris wins,
Speaker 1: what does recourse look like, because these people and their
Speaker 1: plans for this country don't just go away with one election.
Speaker 1: And if she is elected and somehow is able to
Speaker 1: get sworn in in January, I don't even know if
Speaker 1: we can call what is needed a rebuild because there
Speaker 1: is so much friction and Donald Trump is priming his
Speaker 1: audience right now for violence. So you know, in your mind, like,
Speaker 1: how does this play if in fact we quote unquote win.
Speaker 2: No, that's an excellent question. I think we all have
Speaker 2: to be ready for this to be an ever present fight.
Speaker 2: You know, especially in the next decade. This is not
Speaker 2: going to go away. If Vice President Harris wins. There's
Speaker 2: going to be a number of a large number of
Speaker 2: people in this country that are going to continue to
Speaker 2: be distrustful of institutions. There have been people talk about
Speaker 2: the death of deliverism, right the fact that inflation reduction
Speaker 2: I've really delivered for a lot of red areas in
Speaker 2: the country. The fact that our job's numbers an unemployment
Speaker 2: are as good as they are and yes, the one
Speaker 2: challenge with inflation. It's up everywhere, but you know we've
Speaker 2: handled that better than any other developed country. So it's
Speaker 2: going to be hard, and this is going to have
Speaker 2: to be something that we face square in the face.
Speaker 2: We have to look at ourselves in the mirror. We
Speaker 2: have to be honest and transparent with the other side,
Speaker 2: and we have to hold that actor accountable. And I
Speaker 2: think that's really the best path we're going to do.
Speaker 2: It's going to be a long, hard battle even if
Speaker 2: we win, but I think we have to show them
Speaker 2: that show everyone in the country that this job can
Speaker 2: be done, and we're better as a nation when we
Speaker 2: come together. But there's no neat trick that we're going
Speaker 2: to be able to do on the first day, let
Speaker 2: alone the first six months or of those four years.
Speaker 2: I think we really have to think about laying the
Speaker 2: foundation of transparency, accountability and walk in the wall.
Speaker 1: What do you think that the role is then for
Speaker 1: organizations like yours, for the Center for American Progress either way, frankly, so,
Speaker 1: to tell me first what you think the role is
Speaker 1: of CAP if there is in fact a Trump regime.
Speaker 1: Where do you see your organization.
Speaker 2: First and foremost, I think we're working really hard to
Speaker 2: make sure that it's progressive vision and values that we
Speaker 2: have will have a possibility and that X administration. But
Speaker 2: if there is a Trump administration, I think what you'll
Speaker 2: see from places like the Center for American Progress is
Speaker 2: working like the Dickens to make sure that there's transparency,
Speaker 2: that we're calling a spade a spade and making sure
Speaker 2: that we have real accountability, that we're showing people what's
Speaker 2: going on. And it will be tougher, it will be
Speaker 2: harder if things roll out the way he says they
Speaker 2: could roll out. But I think that is going to
Speaker 2: be a critical rule for places like us to look
Speaker 2: at the policies that are happening, to paint a picture
Speaker 2: of their impacts, to tell the stories of people who
Speaker 2: are workers who are no longer able to join a union,
Speaker 2: or are no longer able to get school meals for
Speaker 2: their children, or tell the story of the people who's
Speaker 2: liger are being impacted day in and day out, people
Speaker 2: who are being monitored and threatened for trying to create
Speaker 2: environments where there's more access to reproductive health, creating environments
Speaker 2: where you know there's more help for people that need
Speaker 2: it the most creating environments where there is high quality
Speaker 2: education for everybody. You know, one of the things you
Speaker 2: mentioned in this paper that trumps moving further, that doesn't
Speaker 2: get talked a whole lot about, is with the elimination
Speaker 2: of the Department of Education, comes elimination of big primary
Speaker 2: funding sources for special education for low income kids. And
Speaker 2: there's no real plan or anything in place to replace that.
Speaker 1: There because they don't want to replace it, right, because
Speaker 1: those children with special needs, low income children don't matter
Speaker 1: in the grand scheme of things, right, so they want
Speaker 1: to basically eliminate the progress that was made in the
Speaker 1: twentieth century and take us all the way back to
Speaker 1: the nineteenth. My last question for you is what do
Speaker 1: you think the role is of cap If Kamala is
Speaker 1: able to win. And again, like we said, this problem right,
Speaker 1: these people, this agenda is not going away. So where
Speaker 1: do you see your role?
Speaker 2: Then our role will be to fight first and foremost
Speaker 2: to ensure that women have access to reproductive healthcare. Again
Speaker 2: our number one priorities, you know, give it away. Congress
Speaker 2: is going to be made up. We're going to have
Speaker 2: to work with states, We're gonna have to work with
Speaker 2: attorneys General to make sure that these rights are put
Speaker 2: back in place, and that's going to be a process
Speaker 2: as well, But that's one of our biggest priorities. The
Speaker 2: second is going to be making sure that we put
Speaker 2: economic supports in place, and economic opportunity and jed that
Speaker 2: in place for people to thrive, for people to continue
Speaker 2: to thrive, to continue to tamp down in place, to
Speaker 2: get to make it so people can afford the things
Speaker 2: they need, especially healthcare. I think there's a lot left
Speaker 2: to do there. We've made a lot of progress since ACA,
Speaker 2: but there's a lot more to do.
Speaker 3: And I really love Vice President Harris's proposal for the
Speaker 3: Sandwich generation, these individuals who are taking care of their
Speaker 3: kids and their parents and working to make sure that
Speaker 3: the care that their parents need and the education that
Speaker 3: their kids need is accept and affordable.
Speaker 2: She's got a clear cut, an awesome play there. I
Speaker 2: think speaks to a lot of people. And you know,
Speaker 2: I've said this before and in other interviews. I really
Speaker 2: think that's one of the sleeper issues that people should
Speaker 2: pay attention to and really resonates with a lot of folks. Meanwhile,
Speaker 2: the other side, I just do want to mention this touse.
Speaker 2: You brought it up earlier. It really takes a lot
Speaker 2: of effort for them to figure out a way to
Speaker 2: cut taxes and still increase the taxes on the middle
Speaker 2: class while giving massive cuts to the top end. So
Speaker 2: what do I mean by that? What he says he
Speaker 2: wants to get rid of income taxes, He's going to
Speaker 2: replace that revenue with tariffs, which are sales taxes, they're
Speaker 2: consumption taxes. And the people that's going to hurt the
Speaker 2: most are the middle class, the bottom eighty percent. Who
Speaker 2: is that going to help the most? The richest okay,
Speaker 2: the richest in corporations. Even some of the proposals he's
Speaker 2: put forward that don't go as far as that. For instance,
Speaker 2: cutting the corporate ratedown to fifteen percent would mean a
Speaker 2: fifty billion dollar able tax cut for just one hundred
Speaker 2: largest corporations. So to me, that is something that I
Speaker 2: think is resonating with a lot of voters. I think
Speaker 2: if you look at issue polls Bloomberg have recently, Vice
Speaker 2: President Harris has really closed the gap on middle class economics,
Speaker 2: the cost of goods, And to me, that is where
Speaker 2: I'd like us to continue to focus on in the
Speaker 2: next administration and ensuring debt workers have a voice, a
Speaker 2: collective voice, primarily three unions, to make sure that they
Speaker 2: can collectively bargain for safe work places and adequate pay
Speaker 2: and benefits.
Speaker 1: Well, we'll leave it there today. Thank you so much
Speaker 1: for the work that you are doing over at cap
Speaker 1: Action and cap in general. Really appreciate it. Do you
Speaker 1: want to say the name of the report?
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely so. My co author is Kelly McCoy and
Speaker 2: the report that is being released is called five Ways
Speaker 2: Donald Trump's plans are even more extreme than Project twenty
Speaker 2: twenty five.
Speaker 1: Amazing. All right, thank you so much, and we will
Speaker 1: see you on the other side of this election.
Speaker 2: Thank you.
Speaker 1: That is it for me today. Dear friends, on wo
Speaker 1: gay up as always, Power to the people and to
Speaker 1: all the people. Power, get woke and stay woke. As
Speaker 1: FA