Weekly Wrap | A 1920s Roadmap for Resistance, Trump Wasn't Ready for No Kings 2.0 & ICE's Deadly Tactics

Welcome back to the Weekly Wrap, where we compile highlights from Lincoln Square’s top interviews and shows from the last week. From The Strategy Session to Protect & Serve, we’ve got it all for you right here.

The Fight Against Autocracy, at Home & Abroad | Stuart Stevens & Simon Rosenberg

Stuart Stevens and veteran political analyst and strategist Simon Rosenberg sat down for a discussion on the modern fight against autocracy. Stuart dug into some of the heroism he witnessed from Ukrainians fighting off Russian aggression and how those lessons can be applied to our own fight against autocracy. These global conflicts are bleeding into a restructuring of the world order and Simon helped clear up some of Trump’s plans for those shifts.

Simon Rosenberg: Stuart, if I can ask a question. I often talk about how when there are moments that I get down, or my faith is a little shaken in our collective project, I think about what it would be like to be in Ukraine and about what they’re dealing with there. I wonder, if you can reflect a little bit more on that, the kind of counsel you can give all of us in something as threatening to our constitutional order – to our way of life that we are seeing now – in terms of the resilience that you saw, the grit, the determination. … How can we learn from that?

Stuart Stevens: I think there’s a toughness to the Ukrainian people. You meet people and they’ll talk about how their great-grandmother hid from the Nazis and how they’re using some of these bomb shelters – the same bomb shelters the Nazis were attacking. And you never get this sense of, “Why is this happening to us?”

I think that’s one of the problems that Americans have – our inability to imagine a different kind of country. We feel immune from it, and they don’t have that. You can walk from the center of Kiev to Buccia, it’s not a long walk, and the horrors that occurred there – and they look at Mariupol and I think they have a sense that they have to win and therefore they will win.

Simon Rosenberg: One of the things that I’ve been thinking about a lot in the last few days is that the regime has come up with this elaborate ruse to cover up their effort to give Europe over to Putin – and it’s this idea that we’re now shifting from our focus on Asia and Europe and Russia and countering Russia and China, and now we’ve identified this new threat.

This feels very Orwellian, right? That we now, Oceana, have a threat – which is the cartels in our hemisphere. Trump is now picking a second country to confront Colombia, which has been the security anchor and our greatest ally in South America and the foundation for our entire security posture in the hemisphere. Trump is now openly attacking their leader.

Soon, we’ll see what happens with Mexico and how this moves. But I can’t believe that part of what this really is all about is not a legitimate issue. In my view, this is a completely illegitimate and ridiculous thing our government is doing(strikes in Caribbean), and I think it’s being done as part of this elaborate game that Trump has been playing – where he knows that public opinion and even people in his own party don’t approve him handing over Europe and Ukraine to Putin, which is what he wants to do. He continues to play these games with Zelenskyy. He rolled out the red carpet for Putin.

[...]

I think we have to recognize that part of what’s going on here with this new escalation in the Caribbean is that this is all being done as a way to create at least a fig leaf of a case that to allow Trump to give away the store to Putin in Ukraine and Europe – that he can try to sell the American people as opposed to him being a coward and running away from this important fight with our allies.

Read more of the interview here.

Trump Wasn’t Ready for No Kings 2.0 | Edwin Eisendrath & Susan Demas LIVE

Lincoln Square Exective Editor Susan Demas and our very own Edwin Eisendrath, host of It’s the Democracy, Stupid, got together and discussed the second round of No Kings protests and how they went. Republicans like Mike Johnson had taken to the media to denounce them as anti-American and “Hamas supporting,” but as Edwin and Susan tell us: people showed up anyway. They danced, sang, carried dogs and handmade signs, etc. There were no arrests, just good vibes for democracy.

Susan Demas: Not one arrest in New York City, either. We had several of our Lincoln Square staff and Lincoln Project staff there – it was an incredible sight. 100,000 people, a quarter-million in Washington, D.C. Just amazing protests. And they were peaceful. They were fun.

I happened to be in Santa Monica, which is the hometown of Stephen Miller, and he is not popular there. Plenty of signs about him and the ghoul that he is. There were people dancing in the streets. People were bringing their families, lots of dogs, dogs with signs on them – it was great. I was not from there. My daughter and I happened to be there on vacation, but afterwards we walked away with new friends because you’ve got to talk with people and get to know them. It’s so important.

I think that Trump was not expecting this kind of turnout. I was frankly expecting that he would send his ICE thugs to try and create trouble. I think they really believed their own bullshit that not a lot of people would show up. And they [protesters] didn’t create trouble.

Once they saw so many people there – they really were caught flat-footed. And what did he do? He did another AI video. This time he was dropping shit all over his fellow Americans, which is a great metaphor for what his presidency has been.

Edwin Eisendrath: And he demolished the East Wing of the White House while we were all out partying.

Susan Demas: Which is just such a tragedy. There’s no Rose Garden anymore. He’s building this $250 million ballroom while he can’t pay federal workers during the government shutdown – laying them off. Congress is taking a vacation because Mike Johnson and Republicans don’t want to work. It starts with Republicans in Congress.

Edwin Eisendrath: They’ve worked about a day and a quarter per week for the last 10 weeks if you average it out. It’s disgraceful.

Read more of the interview here.

Trump Takes a Dump on the American People | The Strategy Session

When Rick Wilson, Stuart Stevens, and Joe Trippi get together and discuss politics and strategy, it’s always enlightening and hilarious — that’s why we love The Strategy Session. We all get to learn from some of the best people in the business. This week Lincoln Square’s trio discussed the No Kings rallies and the regime’s response to them.

Stuart Stevens: It’s really amazing to me that J.D. Vance saw this [the Young Republican group chat] and said, “Well, I’ve got to defend it.” Can you imagine being a staffer for him and your boss says, “Look, these guys making Nazi jokes are being unfairly attacked. I want to defend them. What do you say?” You go, “Well, Boss – that’s not really a great idea.”

Rick Wilson: Have we gotten to the Nazi streak yet? To my surprise, there’s another Nazi. There’s more MAGA Nazis. Another one has entered the chat – Paul Ingrassia, who is up for a very senior government position, the office of special counsel. He’s supposed to be the guy who, inside the government, is pursuing fraud, waste, and abuse – protecting government whistleblowers. And yet, he’s on a group chat with other Republicans and he’s like, “No, I have a Nazi streak.” He uses an Italian racial slur for African-Americans. He insults Martin Luther King. He goes crazy about Juneteenth and Kwanzaa. And this guy, he’s an Italian American.

Politico reported that Paul Ingrassia’s mother is now lobbying senators to keep him in the job.

You got your mommy to help?!

Stuart Stevens: I just go back to all that stuff that was written when Clinton was in the White House by Republicans, how the office was so much more than just an executive position, that it was something that represented the aspirational hopes of Americans and what a disgrace it was for Bill Clinton to be there. And here they have this guy that – this is the kind of shit that I mean, this is not okay. If you were president of a fraternity and you posted this, there’s a good chance you’d have to resign.

Read more of the interview here.

Loyalty Tests & the War on Terror | CNN’s Jake Tapper Joins Susan J. Demas

The Lincoln Loyal were fired up in the chat even before Jake Tapper sat down with Executive Editor Susan Demas for this discussion on his upcoming book, Race Against Terror. Tapper has made headlines for his book on Biden and CNN’s coverage of the Trump regime. Susan asked him about all that before getting into his new book.

Susan Demas: Jake, I wanted to start with – you’ve covered four presidents and you’ve been critical about press access during Democratic and Republican administrations alike. How would you characterize the Trump administration’s handling of the media during his second term?

Jake Tapper: Well, it’s a tale of two cities, right? There’s President Trump being completely accessible in terms of these press availabilities that he has all the time in the Oval Office and elsewhere. He loves interacting with the press. He loves being on air. He loves attention. And so, that’s quite a departure from President Biden and other previous presidents.

But when it comes to just the basic duties of communications offices, answering questions and providing information, then it’s the tale of the other city. It’s pretty closed off. There’s a lot of… refusal to provide information. The Pentagon press rules are absolutely preposterous. Those were initiated last week and they’re absolutely preposterous in terms of the lack of First Amendment protections. They’re asserting the potential criminalization of reporters just seeking information.

So, I guess I would say don’t be distracted by President Trump and the shiny object taking questions in the Oval Office every day. There’s a whole bunch of opaqueness as opposed to transparency beyond that – that is very, very bad for the Republic.

And let me just say, as you know, this is what I think is an issue for me. No matter who’s in the White House – when Obama was in the White House, I would regularly note that his administration had used the Espionage Act to go after leaks more than any president before him combined. My basic point of view is, I get the national security argument, but generally speaking, these people work for us and we have a right to demand transparency.

Read more of the interview here.

A 1920s Roadmap for Today’s Resistance | First Draft with Susan Demas and author John Fabian Witt

Charles Garland was a young man who inherited a fortune and refused it, only to see his wealth transformed into fuel for civil rights, labor organizing, and free speech – That’s the basis of the new book, The Radical Fund, by author and Yale Professor John Fabian Witt. Witt sat down with Lincoln Square Executive Editor Susan Demas to discuss his new release on this week’s edition of First Draft.

Susan Demas: It’s [The Radical Fund] really fascinating. Obviously, another huge cause was backing Black organizations that were fighting lynching and Jim Crow – and that was decades before the civil rights movement of the 50s and the 60s. It seems to me, that was really the backbone that helped form the movement that became so successful decades later.

John Fabian Witt: One of the founding members of the board of directors is James Weldon Johnson. Amazing human being. Renaissance man and the first Black executive director, the first Black day-to-day director of the NAACP starting in 1920. And Johnson, together with W.E.B. Du Bois, who’s his comrade in arms, and eventually Walter White – who takes over management of the NAACP – designed a whole series of grant programs for forms of Black liberation in the 1920s, working with A. Philip Randolph as a crucial figure.

But, it’s controversial. I mean, it won’t surprise you, Susan, to hear that there are arguments on the left. The left is arguing and bickering about strategies and tactics and things, and there’s a group on this foundation board that thinks they shouldn’t invest in race causes. They should invest in class causes because capitalism is the central form of exploitation and that everything else follows from it.

There’s a movement in 1925 at a meeting on the east side of Manhattan where the foundation decided not to fund Black organizations anymore. That’s this crucial moment in the story, and then it comes around just a few weeks later, in part because A. Philip Randolph shows up, and he’s such a compelling figure that they start investing back again in this brotherhood of sleeping car porters. There are all these tensions and maybe one of the core moves is the realization by the labor union folks, who are mostly all white – that actually in the era of the great migration, they’re going to have to organize across races. Immigration has been shut down. That then helps galvanize what becomes the civil rights project of the foundation.

Read more of the interview here.

Conservative Christians LOVE Trump’s Sh*t | The Tim & April Show

One of our latest shows is brought to you by Tim Whitaker & April Ajoy of The New Evangelicals whose goal is to amplify diverse voices who are committed to rejecting Christian nationalism through a systemic change and reclamation of the Christian Faith. We all saw the AI video Trump posted on No Kings day, and evangelical Protestants seemed to love it. Tim and April discuss this and more.

April Ajoy: Can you just imagine if Barack Obama or Joe Biden had posted a similar picture, AI dropping poop on Republicans that were out protesting. Like January 6th. Let’s just say Joe Biden posted an AI video of him dumping poop on January 6thers. They would have lost their mind.

Tim Whitaker: April, this is the crowd that got upset because President Obama wore a tan suit one time. Do you remember the Sean Hannity segment when they went after Obama because he asked for the grey poupon on his burger? I’m not kidding you. People can Google it. You can look it up.

They are the pettiest people on the face of the planet, making mountains out of molehills all day. But when their dude does some of the most obscene stuff you’ve ever seen from a president, suddenly it’s hilarious. Oh, it’s not a big deal. It’s funny.

It’s so clear how one-sided and not good faith this side of the political world is. Also, how much they moved the Overton window of what’s acceptable. Trump in less than a decade has completely rewritten what is acceptable in politics. Remember when the controversy was that he just tweets a lot?

April Ajoy: In the name of God, by the way. This is not the first time that Trump has trolled that he’s a king. Back in February, he posted that fake Time magazine cover of him. They said, ‘long live the king’ and he’s wearing a crown. And these are the same people that claimed Biden and Obama were authoritarian and that they were the evil trying to take over the country. I feel like every accusation is a confession.

Read more of the interview here.

Untrained. Unvetted. Armed. Inside ICE’s Dangerous Culture of Chaos | Protect & Serve with Michael Fanone & Maya May

Lincoln Square is lucky enough to bring you, every single week, one of the best hosts in entertainment in, Maya May alongside a true law enforcement hero, Michael Fanone. Their show Protect & Serve brings you all the latest from the law enforcement world and how it interacts with the public. This week, the topic is “RAP” restraints being used by federal agencies and the lack of training in ICE.

Maya May: It’s called the RAP. Go ahead, because I have a lot to say about the RAP. So I want you to continue before I go off on my rant.

Michael Fanone: I can only imagine, in my 20-year career, once or twice in which something that cumbersome would have been used. The things that come to mind are somebody who is high on PCP and completely out of control. But in that scenario, how the hell would you even get that thing on them? It looks like it takes a bit of an effort to put that thing on an individual.

The way that it’s being reported is that ICE is using this in all of their deportation flights. They’re putting people in these things regardless of what their conduct is. Just simply using it for being there and then citing “the agent’s safety.”

Let’s just call it for what it is – it’s inhumane. It’s got to be terrifying for the individuals that are being put into a contraption like that. I’ve seen reports that say it makes it difficult to breathe. It’s an incredibly uncomfortable position to be in, especially for long periods of time. Some of these flights are four, five, six hours. I think there was a report of one individual that said he was left in the device for 16 hours. That’s another example of this sadistic level of cruelty that this administration is using for simple enforcement, simple deportation efforts. It seems intentional.

Maya May: And it seems very performative in many ways. I think one of the first times we saw the belly chains being used was when they were making the ASMR video. We know that many of the people that were sent down to El Salvador to that prison were not Tren de Agua and certainly shouldn’t have been shackled up like that.

From my standpoint – first of all, a lot of these people aren’t criminals that they are putting in handcuffs and shackles. These are undocumented people, it’s a civil offense. We’ve heard that over and over. So this idea that the vast majority of these people are criminals [is not true]. So the fact that they’re put in these kind of restraints should be alarming to everyone because a lot of us now didn’t think we were suspected of being criminals and now we’re all suspected of being Antifa. So we should be very concerned about how people are being restrained.

Read more of the interview here.

Voters Ain’t Buying What Trump Is Selling | Behind the Numbers with Rick & Andrew Wilson

Lincoln Square’s father-and-son duo, Rick and Andrew Wilson, bring us all the latest in polling and data from the week. Everything from Trump’s bottoming-out approval numbers to the Venezuela conflict and East Wing demolition – all the answers are there in Behind the Numbers.

Rick Wilson: The work we’ve been doing in Virginia, is this economic driver to make sure that we get [Democrat] Abigail Spangerger in as governor – has very much been driven by the economy, very much driven by these economic realities. Very much driven by the economic damage that’s been done to Virginia by DOGE, by the federal government being closed, the Epstein files, and all this other stuff. It’s just not the kind of thing that you can wave a wand at.

Look at what Donald Trump’s focused on. His top priority is a ballroom. Nobody likes that ballroom. But, look at that Quinnipiac poll – it’s echoed across a lot of other polling, right?

Andrew Wilson: It is. This is Trump approval straight up – I think the thing here is he’s 14 points down but the thing to know is that the movement we’re seeing in a lot of polls has been happening across the year with independent voters.

Two-thirds of independent voters disapprove of the way Trump is handling his job. You’ll see that in the economic number, too. Devastating. Terrible. There is a very big divide among women for approval. Normally more women disapprove of Donald Trump than approve, but it’s growing significantly with women and independents – and that’s where the movement is happening. That is electorally devastating. This is his economic number – at 38%. We’re again talking about Joe Biden numbers.

Rick Wilson: That was always Trump’s fundamental concrete heavy, deep pillar of power is people thought he’s good with the economy. “He’s a negotiator.” I mean, when your numbers are so badly underwater on the economy, we are setting up for a very ugly fall next year for the Republicans.

Andrew Wilson: You can see it in the way they’re talking about the economy now. They’re sort of deflecting. It’s either Joe Biden’s fault the economy is suffering or, it’s the good czar, bad boyars problem, where Trump’s just getting bad advice. The czar is being advised by terrible people. The king’s evil counselors. That’ll be the next thing. We haven’t seen as much turnover in this administration as we did in the first. But I do not expect that we will get through those November elections and the midterms without a huge amount of turnover.

Read more of the interview here.

That does it for this week’s Weekly Wrap. Be sure to subscribe to Lincoln Square to get notified or updated on each interview and show as they happen throughout the week! Thanks again for all your support!