Rachel Abrams
Appearances
The Daily
How Elon Musk Is Infiltrating Washington
From The New York Times, this is The Daily. I'm Rachel Abrams. Today, Elon Musk and his team have taken a hacksaw to the federal bureaucracy one agency at a time. And the question has become whether he's on a crusade that will leave the government paralyzed or deliver exactly the kind of shakeup it's needed for years.
The Daily
How Elon Musk Is Infiltrating Washington
In other words, demon mode, as we described earlier.
The Daily
How Elon Musk Is Infiltrating Washington
But how much of this is actually about the budget of USAID? Like, it doesn't strike me as sort of the biggest agency if you were looking for, you know, big cuts. Is this a huge amount of money? Is it about something that's beyond the money?
The Daily
How Elon Musk Is Infiltrating Washington
Where do you think Musk and Doge go from here? Because we're only two weeks into the new administration, so I'm wondering if you expect that he's going to continue to operate without much resistance. Yeah.
The Daily
How Elon Musk Is Infiltrating Washington
Okay, so Jonathan, is there an argument to be made that this kind of slash-and-burn tactic is actually the only way to carry out the promise that Musk and Trump have made about shrinking the government?
The Daily
How Elon Musk Is Infiltrating Washington
And that also, given Musk's track record in the private sector and his unique standing with Trump, Musk is uniquely positioned—some might even say he's really qualified—to make these kind of cuts in a way that nobody has before?
The Daily
How Elon Musk Is Infiltrating Washington
So basically what you're saying is that you're encouraging possibly the most talented, maybe some of the most important civil servants across the government who do a range of things to leave. And that does raise a really interesting question of who is left.
The Daily
How Elon Musk Is Infiltrating Washington
Well, let's talk about his private interests, actually, because there's a whole other dimension to this that we haven't even talked about, which is how much business Elon Musk does with the federal government.
The Daily
How Elon Musk Is Infiltrating Washington
Even if you think he's the right person to cut it down, and even if you think his experience at Twitter is relevant here, and just to remind people, when he took over Twitter and gutted it and got rid of a lot of employees, people said Twitter will never survive this. And obviously, Twitter X is very much still operational.
The Daily
How Elon Musk Is Infiltrating Washington
Even if you think all of that experience is relevant, he still has all kinds of potential conflicts of interest. So tell us a little bit about that.
The Daily
How Elon Musk Is Infiltrating Washington
Jonathan, you have covered Trump and those around him for years, obviously, and their biggest complaint, and you hear this almost every day from people like Stephen Miller, one of the president's top advisors, you profiled on the show last week, is that the federal government has become overrun by by unelected bureaucrats who are accountable to nobody. They don't face elections.
The Daily
How Elon Musk Is Infiltrating Washington
And in fact, even a few days ago, Elon Musk himself said it was time to, quote, restore power to the people from the vast unelected bureaucracy. But given everything you've laid out here for us, it feels like Musk and Doge have become arguably the most powerful unelected bureaucracy possibly in the history of the country.
The Daily
How Elon Musk Is Infiltrating Washington
On Tuesday, Elon Musk and his team took aim at their latest federal agency, the Department of Education. Officials told employees that Doge was scrutinizing their operations, and they warned that it could lead to staff reductions. We'll be right back. Here's what else you need to know today.
The Daily
How Elon Musk Is Infiltrating Washington
In a joint news conference on Tuesday night at the White House, President Trump said the United States would take over Gaza, permanently relocate two million of its Palestinian residents, and turn the enclave into, quote, the Riviera of the Middle East.
The Daily
How Elon Musk Is Infiltrating Washington
Trump said that developing Gaza would supply jobs and housing for, quote, the people of the area, a vague reference that aligns with the far-right coalition within Netanyahu's government, which wants to repopulate Gaza with Israelis. The statement was also striking because it contradicted decades of U.S. policy that has favored a two-state solution.
The Daily
How Elon Musk Is Infiltrating Washington
But just like statements the president has made about taking over Greenland and the Panama Canal, Trump did not cite any legal authority that would allow him to take Gaza over, nor did he address the fact that forcible removal of an entire population violates international law.
The Daily
How Elon Musk Is Infiltrating Washington
And on Tuesday, China responded to the 10 percent tariff imposed by Trump with a flurry of retaliatory measures, including tariffs of its own on liquefied natural gas, coal and farm machinery imported from the U.S. The back and forth demonstrated how quickly Trump's tariffs can escalate into a series of painful tit for tat economic reprisals.
The Daily
How Elon Musk Is Infiltrating Washington
Today's episode was produced by Jessica Chung, Muj Zaydi, and Caitlin O'Keefe, with help from Shannon Lin. It was edited by Liz O'Balin, with help from Paige Cowett. Contains original music by Will Reed, Pat McCusker, Marion Lozano, and Dan Powell, and was engineered by Alyssa Moxley. Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Landsberg of Wonderly. That's it for The Daily. I'm Rachel Abrams.
The Daily
How Elon Musk Is Infiltrating Washington
Okay, so what does that demon mode risk-taking ethos actually look like that he's applying to the government? What has he been up to this past week?
The Daily
How Elon Musk Is Infiltrating Washington
My colleague, Jonathan Swan, takes us inside this hostile takeover of Washington. It's Wednesday, February 5th. So, Jonathan, we always understood that Elon Musk was going to be important in this administration in the second Trump presidency.
The Daily
How Elon Musk Is Infiltrating Washington
And the message is really clear. They have arrived.
The Daily
How Elon Musk Is Infiltrating Washington
Right. They're really trying to send the message that we've arrived. This conversation goes one way. We ask the questions. What's the next big thing that happens last week?
The Daily
How Elon Musk Is Infiltrating Washington
So he's basically encouraging people to leave the government entirely and do something, quote unquote, more productive in the private sector, which I can imagine if you're a civil servant, that feels like you're being treated with contempt.
The Daily
How Elon Musk Is Infiltrating Washington
OK, so let me see if I understand this. Musk sends his guys in there. They demand access to this very sensitive system. It runs all the payments for the federal government. Somebody tries to resist and that guy basically, quote unquote, retires, meaning maybe gets fired. And then they get in the pipes anyway.
The Daily
How Elon Musk Is Infiltrating Washington
Why do we think Musk wants access to the actual system? Like, why does he even want his people in there reading?
The Daily
How Elon Musk Is Infiltrating Washington
Trump had given the group that Musk was put in charge of, the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE as it's commonly known, the job of shrinking the entire federal government. But the question was always just how much power Musk would actually have as a private citizen operating outside the president's cabinet.
The Daily
How Elon Musk Is Infiltrating Washington
It seems, Jonathan, that the fundamental sort of animus and feeling underneath all of these actions that you've described, the email, getting inside the pipes of Treasury, is this basic distrust or even disdain of government operations.
The Daily
How Elon Musk Is Infiltrating Washington
And over the past few days, we've actually started to get an answer, which is a whole lot of power.
The Daily
How Elon Musk Is Infiltrating Washington
We'll be right back. So Jonathan you mentioned earlier that Elon Musk set his sights on entire agencies. What did you mean by that? What did he do?
The Daily
How Elon Musk Is Infiltrating Washington
Is Musk just allowed to come in and shut down an entire agency just like that? I mean, is Trump fully supportive of this?
The Daily
The Editor Who Was Accidentally Texted War Plans
Well, hello, Jeffrey. You've had quite a week. It's only Tuesday morning.
The Daily
The Editor Who Was Accidentally Texted War Plans
Jeffrey, I want to talk about the immediate reaction. This is such a breach of security protocols. Can you explain the hazards of this from a security point of view?
The Daily
The Editor Who Was Accidentally Texted War Plans
So I'm with The Daily. My name is Rachel Abrams.
The Daily
The Editor Who Was Accidentally Texted War Plans
And in this particular scenario, this particular attack on the Houthis, if a foreign adversary had gotten this information that you saw, what is the worst case scenario? Like, can you just play out the possibilities a little bit?
The Daily
The Editor Who Was Accidentally Texted War Plans
Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a little podcast in the New York Times.
The Daily
The Editor Who Was Accidentally Texted War Plans
Yeah, I just don't want to breeze over it. I want to make it really clear for people that the reason that it is important for the government to take all of these precautions and conceal these types of plans is that this information getting out there could compromise a military mission. It could put military service members at risk.
The Daily
The Editor Who Was Accidentally Texted War Plans
Right, of course. And because these are the stakes, did they break any laws here? Like, we're talking about sort of how things are typically done, but did the existence of this group chat adding you, was any of this illegal?
The Daily
The Editor Who Was Accidentally Texted War Plans
Yeah, yeah. No, we're just starting out, so thanks for bearing with us.
The Daily
The Editor Who Was Accidentally Texted War Plans
Right. Right. So I can imagine that if you are a member of the military or the State Department, you are frustrated to say the least. That's that's what you're because you are held to a very, very high standard that these folks, at least for now, do not seem like they were holding themselves to.
The Daily
The Editor Who Was Accidentally Texted War Plans
Yeah, we have a decent amount. My mom, my dad.
The Daily
The Editor Who Was Accidentally Texted War Plans
Is there any chance that anybody on this group chat could believably say that they didn't know that they were supposed to take different kinds of precautions?
The Daily
The Editor Who Was Accidentally Texted War Plans
It really makes you wonder what else is being communicated this way.
The Daily
The Editor Who Was Accidentally Texted War Plans
And also, why would these folks be communicating this way?
The Daily
The Editor Who Was Accidentally Texted War Plans
Jeffrey and I talked on Tuesday morning. It was a full day after a story came out about how he'd been added accidentally to a group chat with top Trump administration officials. So, Jeffrey, we have never met before, but yesterday I think I texted you, I emailed you, I called you, I called your publicist. I was desperate to get you on the show to talk about your story and the reaction to it.
The Daily
The Editor Who Was Accidentally Texted War Plans
Well, they can. You can set it to disappear. Is that what happened here?
The Daily
The Editor Who Was Accidentally Texted War Plans
Right. Okay. So that sounds like it potentially could be a legal problem.
The Daily
The Editor Who Was Accidentally Texted War Plans
I think the natural question is to say, under normal circumstances, there would probably be an investigation led by Congress. Democrats are obviously calling for that, but it just feels like there must be so little interest in an investigation from anybody with the power to do it. And I just want to give you some examples of the reaction to your story that make me say that.
The Daily
The Editor Who Was Accidentally Texted War Plans
Because over the past 24 hours— The Republicans have really played this down. House Speaker Mike Johnson has said this is not our issue. Senator John Kennedy said a mistake was made. It happens. A House Republican called it a learning moment. Trump himself said Mike Waltz is a good man. He's learned a lesson.
The Daily
The Editor Who Was Accidentally Texted War Plans
Do you think there will be any consequences for the people who initiated or participated in this breach of national security?
The Daily
The Editor Who Was Accidentally Texted War Plans
You mentioned Hillary Clinton earlier, but I want to bring it back to her for a second because it seems noteworthy that a lot of the people on this signal chat, and certainly President Trump, all of these people made a very big deal about Clinton and how she used a private email server for official business when she was Secretary of State. And everybody remembers the chants, lock her up.
The Daily
The Editor Who Was Accidentally Texted War Plans
And every turn, they described what she did as a very serious breach of national security that should face consequences. And I just, can you, for a second, Putting aside whether or not this is hypocritical, could you ruminate on whether you think what you have seen is as serious, more serious, far more serious just by comparison to what she did?
The Daily
The Editor Who Was Accidentally Texted War Plans
Do you think that they think that the mistake here is being accidentally included and this getting out or having used Signal in the first place?
The Daily
The Editor Who Was Accidentally Texted War Plans
Should have tried Signal, that's right. So, as we're hinting at, you just wrote something that really everybody is talking about. So tell us, where does the story begin?
The Daily
The Editor Who Was Accidentally Texted War Plans
Right. I think this sort of speaks to the question I asked you about whether you think there are going to be any consequences, because like all of the examples you just laid out, those suggest that maybe these are folks that think the mistake here was most likely just including you, which makes me wonder, do you think that you are going to be now targeted by the administration?
The Daily
The Editor Who Was Accidentally Texted War Plans
And I just want to quote from Pete Hegseth here, because immediately after your story came out, he denied that he had shared it. war plans. He said that you yourself were a deceitful and highly discredited so-called journalist who made a profession of peddling hoaxes time and time again.
The Daily
The Editor Who Was Accidentally Texted War Plans
And just given how aggressive this administration has been toward the press generally, I just wonder if you think you might be the only one, ironically, that could face any punishment from this.
The Daily
The Editor Who Was Accidentally Texted War Plans
I got to push back on you because every journalist at a major institution right now is thinking about whether or not the administration is going to be more aggressive with its journalists. And when you are in the position that you found yourself, you are consulting with people like at The Atlantic.
The Daily
The Editor Who Was Accidentally Texted War Plans
Every major news organization has teams of lawyers, has people to talk to when you find yourselves in situations where you're wondering – What should I do next? Are there any legal consequences? And you had mentioned earlier that people could deduce why you left that chat ultimately. And I respect the fact that you can't go into the details.
The Daily
The Editor Who Was Accidentally Texted War Plans
But I do want to ask you whether part of the reason why you left was that you were concerned you could get in trouble for it. Like, were you worried at all that you had stayed in that chat too long? And not just you, the people that you're talking to at The Atlantic that presumably you're getting advice from.
The Daily
The Editor Who Was Accidentally Texted War Plans
I understand. And obviously, at the end of the day, The Atlantic published your story. And I just want to zoom out for a second because, as we mentioned earlier, you have covered foreign policy for decades. You have covered a lot of White Houses.
The Daily
The Editor Who Was Accidentally Texted War Plans
And I assume that this is not the first time that you have had to weigh the public interest in publishing information that could be embarrassing or that the government doesn't want you to publish. This is not the first time that you've weighed that against national security risks. And clearly—
The Daily
The Editor Who Was Accidentally Texted War Plans
You decided that the story was worth publishing in the public interest to know how national security leaders are flouting security protocols. And I'm wondering, as you're sitting here now at 1141 a.m. on Tuesday, how are you thinking about this calculation? Do you think that we're safer now knowing what you reported?
The Daily
The Editor Who Was Accidentally Texted War Plans
I guess the answer to my question depends on if they actually do anything.
The Daily
The Editor Who Was Accidentally Texted War Plans
Do you think that this event was so egregious that it'll break through just actually just to regular people? Or is this going to be kind of the same thing that we're so used to, which is one side gets very upset, the other side tries to dismiss it, downplay it until it eventually goes away? Like, is this so bad that it'll break through to the immunity people feel to claims of hypocrisy?
The Daily
The Editor Who Was Accidentally Texted War Plans
But if it does get brushed off, like, what does that say to you?
The Daily
The Editor Who Was Accidentally Texted War Plans
Jeffrey, I want to thank you very much for your time.
The Daily
The Editor Who Was Accidentally Texted War Plans
During a contentious hearing on Tuesday in front of the Senate Intelligence Committee, two members of President Trump's cabinet who were included in the text exchanges with Jeffrey Goldberg, CIA Director John Radcliffe and Director of National Intelligence Telsey Gabbard, both denied that any classified material was shared in the messages.
The Daily
The Editor Who Was Accidentally Texted War Plans
That prompted expressions of disbelief from several senators, including Angus King of Maine, an Independent.
The Daily
The Editor Who Was Accidentally Texted War Plans
At one point during the hearing, Democratic Senator John Ossoff of Georgia pressed Radcliffe to acknowledge the seriousness of the situation.
The Daily
The Editor Who Was Accidentally Texted War Plans
Can you translate that for us? You have deep experience in foreign policy as a journalist, as you've said. What does Houthi's PC Small Group mean to you in this moment?
The Daily
The Editor Who Was Accidentally Texted War Plans
And you are certainly, I think we need to point out, not a principal in this context. Right.
The Daily
The Editor Who Was Accidentally Texted War Plans
Right. Basically, like you being on a group chat with really top-tier officials in the administration, you're not believing this is the real thing.
The Daily
The Editor Who Was Accidentally Texted War Plans
And even though you think it's fake at this point, I'm sure you're still kind of curious. You're watching this thing.
The Daily
The Editor Who Was Accidentally Texted War Plans
From The New York Times, I'm Rachel Abrams. This is The Daily. It's being called a reckless and devastating breach of national security. Revelations that top Trump officials inadvertently shared secret U.S. military plans with a prominent journalist by mistakenly adding him to a group chat.
The Daily
The Editor Who Was Accidentally Texted War Plans
So this conversation, just to recap, is them discussing whether ramping up attacks on the Houthis militarily will be a good political strategy. Yes. And you're telling it sounds like they're having a kind of a polite disagreement. J.D. Vance is seemingly disagreeing with the position that Trump has.
The Daily
The Editor Who Was Accidentally Texted War Plans
And that disagreement seems like it hinges on whether or not we're making the Europeans pay enough, which is something we've talked about on the show quite a bit.
The Daily
The Editor Who Was Accidentally Texted War Plans
So I want to check in with you here because in this moment, do you still think that this is a hoax? Are you starting to sense that it could be real?
The Daily
The Editor Who Was Accidentally Texted War Plans
No, Bob Woodward has spent an entire career trying to infiltrate groups like this, so how could you possibly have just been added to a group chat?
The Daily
The Editor Who Was Accidentally Texted War Plans
So what happens after this? How does the discussion progress from here?
The Daily
The Editor Who Was Accidentally Texted War Plans
Like actual military planning that is a settled business and about to happen.
The Daily
The Editor Who Was Accidentally Texted War Plans
Today, Atlantic Magazine editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg explains how he initially thought the messages were a scam. And now, what he makes of the enormous fallout since going public. It's Wednesday, March 26th. Jeffrey, is that you?
The Daily
The Editor Who Was Accidentally Texted War Plans
I want you to describe to us what you're seeing in this group chat after the attacks start.
The Daily
The Editor Who Was Accidentally Texted War Plans
And can you tell us why you decided to leave the group chat?
The Daily
Can the Cease-Fire in Gaza Hold?
From The New York Times, I'm Rachel Abrams. This is The Daily. Today, as the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas enters its final phase, no one knows who will control the future of Gaza. Israel, Hamas, or possibly President Trump? My colleague, Jerusalem Bureau Chief Patrick Kingsley, walks us through this delicate moment and the questions hovering over the future of the war.
The Daily
Can the Cease-Fire in Gaza Hold?
Right, so this is actually a more extreme proposal than any American president, I think, has proposed in modern times, if not ever. So what has the reaction to it been?
The Daily
Can the Cease-Fire in Gaza Hold?
Yes, and I can imagine to those Palestinians, it would feel a lot like a second expulsion.
The Daily
Can the Cease-Fire in Gaza Hold?
And where are the Arab countries in all of this, the ones that Trump talks about in his plan, Jordan and Egypt and others? Because Trump is basically suggesting that they would have to take in millions of Palestinian refugees. So what have they said in response to that idea?
The Daily
Can the Cease-Fire in Gaza Hold?
What's really striking here is that basically, to put it another way, even if all these Arab countries hated this idea that Trump floated out there, it does actually light a fire under them to meet and start discussing other options.
The Daily
Can the Cease-Fire in Gaza Hold?
Right, because basically each side wants something that the other side, at least at this point, is absolutely unwilling to give up.
The Daily
Can the Cease-Fire in Gaza Hold?
This actually sounds harder than a Rubik's Cube. People have actually solved a Rubik's Cube.
The Daily
Can the Cease-Fire in Gaza Hold?
On the one hand, Patrick, it feels like we are exactly where we were before the war started, except obviously now there are tens of thousands of people who are dead. There are more people who are traumatized and radicalized. But on the other hand, we do have some of these leaders in the Arab world at the negotiating table.
The Daily
Can the Cease-Fire in Gaza Hold?
And so it feels like maybe there's this slight possibility that Trump may have thrown a big enough curveball into the mix that... The logjam could actually be broken, solve the riddle of Gaza, as you called it. So can you just kind of help put this all into perspective for us?
The Daily
Can the Cease-Fire in Gaza Hold?
Here's what else you need to know today. On Tuesday a group of federal tech workers resigned rather than help Elon Musk and his allies with their agenda to dramatically reshape the federal government. In a scathing letter to the White House, the 21 employees of the U.S.
The Daily
Can the Cease-Fire in Gaza Hold?
Digital Service said they would not support what they described as the breaking of critical systems and the mishandling of sensitive data. The resignations come after Musk's Department of Government Efficiency in just over one month has ended contracts, laid off workers and shuttered entire federal agencies.
The Daily
Can the Cease-Fire in Gaza Hold?
And in a major concession to President Trump, Ukraine has agreed to give the United States money from its mineral resources. The deal follows an intense pressure campaign that included threats and insults as Trump increasingly pressed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky for a quote-unquote payback in exchange for continued support in Ukraine's war with Russia.
The Daily
Can the Cease-Fire in Gaza Hold?
The details of the deal aren't clear yet, including whether President Trump has committed any specific security support at all. Today's episode was produced by Rochelle Bonja, Caitlin O'Keefe, Michael Simon-Johnson, and Jessica Chung. It was edited by Patricia Willans with help from Paige Cowett. Special thanks to Adam Rasgon.
The Daily
Can the Cease-Fire in Gaza Hold?
Contains original music by Diane Wong, Rowan Nemisto, and Marion Lozano. And was engineered by Chris Wood. Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Landsberg of Wonderly. That's it for The Daily. I'm Rachel Abrams. See you tomorrow.
The Daily
Can the Cease-Fire in Gaza Hold?
It's Wednesday, February 26th. Patrick, we're in the final days of the first phase of the ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas, which was outlined very clearly in terms of what each side had to give to the other.
The Daily
Can the Cease-Fire in Gaza Hold?
To imply that it's the prime minister's fault that these three people are dead.
The Daily
Can the Cease-Fire in Gaza Hold?
I mean, all of this, as you said, sounds just so ghoulish, the parading of these emaciated people, this mix up with the body. Given the reaction to all of this within Israel and the fact that it has, as you mentioned, held up the return of these Palestinian prisoners, what is Hamas thinking here? What is the strategy? Why are the hostages being treated this way?
The Daily
Can the Cease-Fire in Gaza Hold?
And now we're entering into this next phase, which is not yet negotiated and could lead to more talks, but it could also end up leading just to more war, which we'll get to in a moment. But just to start, how, in your estimation, has this first part of the process actually gone?
The Daily
Can the Cease-Fire in Gaza Hold?
And are they actually in charge, given how much damage Israel has done to Gaza, the infrastructure, killing their leaders, destroying the tunnels?
The Daily
Can the Cease-Fire in Gaza Hold?
Given that Israel did not achieve its intended goal of eliminating Hamas in the war, where does that leave the war and the ceasefire in this next phase?
The Daily
Can the Cease-Fire in Gaza Hold?
So what are the possible outcomes here after Saturday night? Can you just walk us through them?
The Daily
Can the Cease-Fire in Gaza Hold?
So if both sides cannot come to a deal by the weekend or an extension, as you described, is it possible that the war is just going to start again? And if so, what is that going to look like?
The Daily
Can the Cease-Fire in Gaza Hold?
So basically, the options here are go back to war or make some sort of short-term extension of the ceasefire. But are there any longer-term options on the table for a durable peace deal?
The Daily
Can the Cease-Fire in Gaza Hold?
So, Patrick, how has President Trump's, quote-unquote, Riviera vision of the Gaza Strip affected the negotiations over the ceasefire and what comes next for Gaza?
The Daily
Shen Yun: The Dark Side of a Dance Troupe
From The New York Times, I'm Rachel Abrams. This is The Daily. A few days ago, one of the most ubiquitous live shows in the country, Shen Yun, began its latest run at arguably its most prestigious venue, Lincoln Center. It's drawn thousands of people to a performance that is colorful, acrobatic, and, according to many of its performers, shockingly abusive.
The Daily
Shen Yun: The Dark Side of a Dance Troupe
Oh, wow. So it sounds like he's basically made himself into like a godlike figure.
The Daily
Shen Yun: The Dark Side of a Dance Troupe
So what is daily life actually like for these young students who end up living at the compound?
The Daily
Shen Yun: The Dark Side of a Dance Troupe
The conditions sound so extreme. Some of the injuries that you just described, having to dance through a busted kneecap. Why do people put up with this or why do their parents let them stay?
The Daily
Shen Yun: The Dark Side of a Dance Troupe
So these young people aren't just performing. They actually believe they are responsible for people's salvation.
The Daily
Shen Yun: The Dark Side of a Dance Troupe
So basically, all of these different incentives, all of these different pressures are allowing Lee to get cheap or free labor from these young people.
The Daily
Shen Yun: The Dark Side of a Dance Troupe
So the followers are actually putting up the money for the production costs of the show.
The Daily
Shen Yun: The Dark Side of a Dance Troupe
And all of this helps explain why they could be so incredibly profitable. Right. But where is the money going? Like, how is it being used?
The Daily
Shen Yun: The Dark Side of a Dance Troupe
So the purchases, the fact that she didn't seek medical treatment, the fact that she didn't have money when she did seek medical treatment, it seems like this bookkeeper is emblematic of how much these followers are giving to Falun Gong, whether it's their money or their labor.
The Daily
Shen Yun: The Dark Side of a Dance Troupe
And it also shows the extent to which this institution and maybe even the lifestyle of the Li family is made possible by these sacrifices.
The Daily
Shen Yun: The Dark Side of a Dance Troupe
I also want to come back to something you said earlier because you mentioned that even beyond all of that, there's actually a third piece of this puzzle.
The Daily
Shen Yun: The Dark Side of a Dance Troupe
So it seems clear that even if we can't pinpoint exactly how influential the Epoch Times is in this larger ecosystem, it is part of this huge network that you've helped to reveal in your reporting. And that network seems like at the center of it are these followers who in many cases have been quite mistreated. I'm curious about the response to that part of your reporting about that mistreatment.
The Daily
Shen Yun: The Dark Side of a Dance Troupe
You know, I can't help but notice that there's a certain kind of irony here that this group that flees China because of persecution comes to the United States and kind of starts acting like a persecutor just in terms of what they're doing to crack down on dissent and keep their followers in line.
The Daily
Shen Yun: The Dark Side of a Dance Troupe
In the closely watched race for control of Wisconsin's state Supreme Court, the liberal candidate has soundly defeated the conservative. It was a major victory for Democrats in an election that had become a referendum on President Trump and Elon Musk, who spent $25 million supporting the Republican-aligned candidate.
The Daily
Shen Yun: The Dark Side of a Dance Troupe
Musk's interest in the race was so intense that he offered $100 to any registered voter who signed a petition related to the race, and then entered those voters into a lottery to win a check for $1 million.
The Daily
Shen Yun: The Dark Side of a Dance Troupe
On Tuesday night, New Jersey Senator Cory Booker broke the record for speaking on the Senate floor — more than 25 hours without a break — during which he criticized the Trump administration for violating the Constitution and disregarding the needs of everyday Americans.
The Daily
Shen Yun: The Dark Side of a Dance Troupe
The marathon speech beat the record set in 1957 by South Carolina Senator Strom Thurmond when he tried to block passage of a civil rights bill.
The Daily
Shen Yun: The Dark Side of a Dance Troupe
Today's episode was produced by Stella Tan with help from Diana Nguyen. It was edited by Liz O'Balin with help from Patricia Willans. Contains original music by Marian Lozano, Dan Powell, Diane Wong, Pat McCusker, Leah Shaw-Dameron, and Alisha Baitoup, and was engineered by Alyssa Moxley. Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Landsberg of Wonderly. Special thanks to Michael Rothfeld.
The Daily
Shen Yun: The Dark Side of a Dance Troupe
That's it for The Daily. I'm Rachel Abrams. See you tomorrow.
The Daily
Shen Yun: The Dark Side of a Dance Troupe
So that is not at all what I was expecting. I mean, I expected that you were going to tell me that it was a show with dancing and colorful costumes and being transported to faraway places. But I did not expect that there would be this whole underlying religious and political message.
The Daily
Shen Yun: The Dark Side of a Dance Troupe
Yeah. So tell me about this man and this religious movement.
The Daily
Shen Yun: The Dark Side of a Dance Troupe
Okay, so far, all of this sounds pretty on par with what you would expect a lot of religions to be.
The Daily
Shen Yun: The Dark Side of a Dance Troupe
So very quickly, it sounds like it becomes a national movement.
The Daily
Shen Yun: The Dark Side of a Dance Troupe
Nicole, I have seen billboards for Shen Yun literally all over New York City. They are pastel colored. They show people dancing. They're wearing this sort of long, flowy, diaphanous clothing. But I will admit this. I don't think I've ever actually bothered to look into what these billboards were actually advertising.
The Daily
Shen Yun: The Dark Side of a Dance Troupe
This is starting to explain the scenes in the play that you described of the man who's practicing Falun Gong being beaten. This is starting to make sense now. Exactly. You mentioned Li earlier, the founder of Falun Gong. So where is he in the middle of all this?
The Daily
Shen Yun: The Dark Side of a Dance Troupe
And now you've done this big investigation into Shen Yun, which I'm really excited to talk about. We're going to get to in a minute. But first, can you just tell us what exactly is Shen Yun?
The Daily
Shen Yun: The Dark Side of a Dance Troupe
Got it. So everything you just said really helps to explain the show and the framing around, as you described it, good versus evil and Falun Gong versus the Chinese Communist Party. But given that this show is essentially propaganda, it does sort of surprise me that it's gotten so ubiquitous that it has billboards literally all over the world. So how successful could the show actually be?
The Daily
Shen Yun: The Dark Side of a Dance Troupe
So, Nicole, your investigation pulls back the curtain on the inner workings of this show. And what you found is a system that's far more complex and sounds like it exploits people in a way that might not be apparent at first blush. So walk us through how all of this works.
The Daily
Shen Yun: The Dark Side of a Dance Troupe
So let's start with the first piece that you outlined, the people who are actually performing in these shows. How do they fit in?
The Daily
Trump’s Showdown With the Courts
From The New York Times, I'm Rachel Abrams. This is The Daily. Yesterday, the showdown between President Trump and the courts reached a new milestone when Trump called for a federal judge to be impeached. And in response, the chief justice of the Supreme Court publicly scolded the president for attacking a member of the bench.
The Daily
Trump’s Showdown With the Courts
Right. If you think about it, it's actually the perfect case for them because what better way is there to test the limits of the law other than on a case that will not engender a lot of sympathy?
The Daily
Trump’s Showdown With the Courts
So what do you make of that? Because correct me if I'm wrong, but the Supreme Court doesn't actually get a say in whether a judge is impeached, right? Like that's Congress's authority.
The Daily
Trump’s Showdown With the Courts
Okay, all of that makes a lot of sense, but do we think that Trump actually cares about any of that?
The Daily
Trump’s Showdown With the Courts
Luke, I know we say this a lot in our business, journalism, especially, you know, these days, but this really feels like unfamiliar territory. Like, it does not feel like we have gotten this close to the precipice of a constitutional crisis, a showdown between judges and the president. So I just, can we play this out a little bit more to the possible conclusions here?
The Daily
Trump’s Showdown With the Courts
Like, what if the judge tells the government, you did defy my order, you are in violation? What happens after that?
The Daily
Trump’s Showdown With the Courts
OK, so I want to walk through how we got to this point. So tell us the basics of this deportation case that you just mentioned that have led us to this moment.
The Daily
Trump’s Showdown With the Courts
And if the Trump administration defies any of those orders, who would even enforce that?
The Daily
Trump’s Showdown With the Courts
Yeah, but what are the chances that Trump's Justice Department would enforce an order against its own administration?
The Daily
Trump’s Showdown With the Courts
So is there any other recourse here? Like, would it just be, what, Congress impeaching the president?
The Daily
Trump’s Showdown With the Courts
And just to take this a step further, in the scenario that you just laid out, the president could basically do whatever he wants in defiance of the courts, no accountability from Congress. And that whole situation flies in the face of the checks and balances that are the bedrock of democracy in this country.
The Daily
Trump’s Showdown With the Courts
So I just sort of wonder if what you just explained happens, can we still call ourselves a democracy if all of the powers are consolidated under the president?
The Daily
Trump’s Showdown With the Courts
On Tuesday, a House Republican took Trump's threat of impeaching the federal judge overseeing the Venezuelan immigration case even further by introducing articles of impeachment against him. The Republican, Texas Representative Brandon Gill, said that the judge's ruling had, quote, usurped the executive's constitutional authority. So far, five House Republicans have signed on as co-sponsors.
The Daily
Trump’s Showdown With the Courts
On Wednesday, Ukraine and Russia traded accusations of attacks against each other's energy infrastructure, just one day after a limited ceasefire proposal between the two countries was reported. The accusations highlight both the lack of trust between Russia and Ukraine as the White House pushes for a pause in fighting and how tenuous any deal would be.
The Daily
Trump’s Showdown With the Courts
And a federal judge ruled that Elon Musk and his team at the Department of Government Efficiency likely violated the Constitution when they helped to shutter USAID.
The Daily
Trump’s Showdown With the Courts
The ruling appears to be the first time that a judge has moved to rein in Musk's power and was based on the finding that the tech billionaire was acting as an officer of the United States without being properly appointed to that role by President Trump. Today's episode was produced by Michael Simon Johnson, Shannon Lin, and Jessica Chung.
The Daily
Trump’s Showdown With the Courts
It was edited by Maria Byrne and Paige Cowett, contains original music by Rowan DeMisto, Dan Powell, and Marian Lozano, and was engineered by Chris Wood. Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Landsberg of Wonderly. Thank you. That's it for The Daily. I'm Rachel Abrams. See you tomorrow.
The Daily
Trump’s Showdown With the Courts
So it sounds like there are actually two things that are sort of unusual just right off the bat. One is that the United States is deporting these people to a country that they are not from. And the second thing that's unusual is that he's relying on this law that is not typically or maybe ever used for deportations.
The Daily
Trump’s Showdown With the Courts
Today, I spoke to my colleague Luke Broadwater about the deportation case at the center of the showdown and whether the constitutional crisis that many have feared is now actually here. It's Wednesday, March 19th. Luke, hi. Thank you so much for being here.
The Daily
Trump’s Showdown With the Courts
So, Luke, every day since Trump came into office, it has really felt like the new administration has done something to make people who know about the law and the Constitution really nervous that we are headed towards some kind of a crisis, that there's going to be some kind of a showdown between the president and the courts, unlike anything we've ever seen before.
The Daily
Trump’s Showdown With the Courts
So, Luke, what happens once the judge hauls the DOJ lawyers into his court on Monday to explain whether or not they defied his order?
The Daily
Trump’s Showdown With the Courts
But so far, largely, all of those fears, all of that conjecture has been pretty theoretical, except in the last few days. In the last few days, it feels like something has changed and maybe the crisis has actually arrived.
The Daily
Trump’s Showdown With the Courts
Right. I'm not a lawyer, but the idea that you'd tell a judge like, well, you didn't write that down so we don't have to follow it feels tenuous.
The Daily
Trump’s Showdown With the Courts
And what about the second part of the argument that the planes were already in the air? Like, I mean, planes can be turned around, obviously. Like, what does that have to do with it?
The Daily
Trump’s Showdown With the Courts
OK, but let's just assume for the sake of argument that they are correct, that there is a jurisdiction issue here. Do we know if it's true that the planes were actually gone by the time the written ruling was issued?
The Daily
Trump’s Showdown With the Courts
Okay, so one of the three planes, you could argue, should have been made aware of that order and stayed grounded, right?
The Daily
DOGE Has a Math Problem
From The New York Times, I'm Rachel Abrams. This is The Daily. Today. Since the moment President Trump took office, Elon Musk and Doge have wielded an unprecedented level of power to help the new administration slash the U.S. government. And so far, they've claimed to have cut tens of billions of dollars in wasteful spending.
The Daily
DOGE Has a Math Problem
Like, does that reveal... the doge in some way is not going to necessarily be all that effective.
The Daily
DOGE Has a Math Problem
And the fear, of course, is that if Elon Musk does not give up, he and Doge are basically going to take a wrecking ball to the federal government. I mean, they already kind of have, right? We've already seen these massive cuts. But as they continue, they might end up cutting unnecessary waste, but may also cut things that really create pain for not just employees, but the general public.
The Daily
DOGE Has a Math Problem
You know, I looked at it and it actually, the look of the website sort of looks like this HTML meets crypto trading platform meets Twitter.
The Daily
DOGE Has a Math Problem
Because, as you explained, Doge doesn't... really seem to know the ins and outs of government, and they're already making all of these kind of very simple mistakes. And who knows if they can actually fix things that they broke. But just to play devil's advocate, No one gave Elon Musk the benefit of the doubt when he bought Twitter and basically slashed his way through it.
The Daily
DOGE Has a Math Problem
Everybody said he doesn't know what he's doing. He's cutting too much. He's not leaving enough people behind to leave this thing operational. And obviously, lo and behold, Twitter is still up and running. So I just wonder if there's some bigger lesson to take from that.
The Daily
DOGE Has a Math Problem
Right, because, like, as you're pointing out, voters didn't necessarily want some of these cuts to affect them in the ways that potentially they could, because Elon Musk is getting access to all kinds of payment information, data information, and nobody really knows what's going to be affected by that.
The Daily
DOGE Has a Math Problem
Right, because even for Trump voters who might have wanted smaller government, more transparency in what the government spends its money on, there's definitely a tension, it would seem, between those priorities and what we're seeing with Doge, which is only a tiny fraction of what they claim they're up to, which makes you just sort of wonder what else is going on that we really don't have a window into right now.
The Daily
DOGE Has a Math Problem
On Monday morning, Doge deleted hundreds of additional mistakes found on its website, erasing $4 billion in savings that the group claimed to have found in government spending. It was the second time in a week that some of the biggest alleged savings were removed.
The Daily
DOGE Has a Math Problem
Here's what else you need to know today. On Monday, President Trump said that sweeping tariffs on Canada and Mexico would go into effect on Tuesday, shattering hope that the administration would make a last-minute deal to avoid a trade war.
The Daily
DOGE Has a Math Problem
The president is adding a 25% fee on all Mexican and Canadian exports, as well as an additional 10% on Chinese goods, saying that these countries have not done enough to stem the flow of drugs and migrants into the United States. The tariffs are widely expected to disrupt regional supply chains and raise prices for consumers.
The Daily
DOGE Has a Math Problem
And in response to the news, the S&P 500 fell 1.8 percent, the biggest drop so far this year. And the Trump administration says it's suspending all military aid to Ukraine and will not resume shipment of arms and ammunition until Ukraine satisfies President Trump's demand to commit to peace talks with Russia.
The Daily
DOGE Has a Math Problem
The move follows a heated exchange on Friday between Trump and Ukraine's president, Volodymyr Zelensky, in the Oval Office. Today's episode was produced by Anna Foley and Olivia Nat, with help from Mary Wilson and Carlos Prieto. It was edited by M.J. Davis-Lynn, with help from Patricia Willans. Contains original music by Pat McCusker and Rowan Nemisto, and was engineered by Alyssa Moxley.
The Daily
DOGE Has a Math Problem
Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Landsberg of Wonderly. That's it for The Daily. I'm Rachel Abrams. See you tomorrow.
The Daily
DOGE Has a Math Problem
So how did you actually start to analyze all of this and start sifting through all those receipts?
The Daily
DOGE Has a Math Problem
Wait, so these line items were just like zero? It would actually say that we made this cut and there's nothing? Interesting. Yeah.
The Daily
DOGE Has a Math Problem
Today, my colleague David Fahrenthold explains why those claims are not what they seem and what that tells us about Musk's project to shrink the federal bureaucracy. It's Tuesday, March 4th. David, we've been hearing a lot about what Doge, the Elon Musk group tasked with saving $2 trillion, has been up to in recent weeks. They've done massive layoffs. They've done job purity tests.
The Daily
DOGE Has a Math Problem
Okay, so cutting $8 billion would have been like shuttering that agency, basically.
The Daily
DOGE Has a Math Problem
Right. Somebody who actually had experience with this agency or maybe with these kinds of contracts would have been like, hey, wait a second. That does not make any sense.
The Daily
DOGE Has a Math Problem
So that sounds very extreme. Did anything else stand out to you as you were going through this accounting process?
The Daily
DOGE Has a Math Problem
It almost sounds like these agencies are intentionally deceiving these guys from Doge because, as you described, they're saying, hey, look over here, look at this cut we made. But actually, that cut was made years prior. And you would think that whoever's flagging that to Doge would have known that from inside of the Treasury or wherever else.
The Daily
DOGE Has a Math Problem
So is this a deliberate attempt at deception or what did you make of this?
The Daily
DOGE Has a Math Problem
So at the end of the day, how much total savings does it actually seem like they made out of all these cuts they claimed on the website?
The Daily
DOGE Has a Math Problem
So, OK, that is obviously a huge discrepancy between what they claimed and what you actually were able to verify, which, again, just sort of speaks to the idea that this isn't a super well-oiled operation. Can you just tell us a little bit about the people who are actually in charge of making and accounting for these cuts within Doge?
The Daily
DOGE Has a Math Problem
And they actually have made billions of dollars in cuts. But you've been looking into exactly what they say they've done, which is kind of like an audit, if you will, of Doge. And I'd love it if you could explain how you went about doing that.
The Daily
DOGE Has a Math Problem
So, David, you have laid out how Doge has, intentionally or not, exaggerated its effectiveness and in cutting government spending so far, either because of mistakes or because of the types of contracts they're targeting. But my impression overall...
The Daily
DOGE Has a Math Problem
is that Elon Musk and Doge are responsible in large part for eliminating entire agencies like USAID, for example, making massive cuts to the Environmental Protection Agency, encouraging all these workers to take a buyout. It's felt like a real bloodletting within the federal government, within the That would obviously account for savings across the government.
The Daily
DOGE Has a Math Problem
So I guess what I'm saying is that I understand the importance in holding this exercise that Doge is doing to account and doing this audit. But it kind of feels like when entire agencies are going away and being gutted, a little small potatoes to point out like some of the accounting errors on this list.
The Daily
DOGE Has a Math Problem
So, David, besides all of the mistakes that you uncovered, when you step back and you look at this wall of receipts, what is the bigger picture here? Like, what does all of this tell us about the larger project that is Doge?
The Daily
DOGE Has a Math Problem
So then this is a view also into the ideology of Doge, or maybe the Trump administration, but it also appears to be a show of force, actually. Shuttering an entire agency seemingly overnight sends quite a strong message about how power will be wielded in this administration.
The Daily
DOGE Has a Math Problem
But if this is about telegraphing and using Doge as this kind of instrument of political pressure, as you're describing, and cultural change, I just sort of wonder how you reconcile that with what you told us earlier, where these agencies are kind of duping Doge and doing just enough to appease them, basically, but not really taking seriously this mandate to cancel a bunch of government contracts or other types of work.
The Daily
A Conversation With the Architect of Trump's New Trade War
Wow, that is quite an image. And we know what happens next. Trump, who is somebody who obviously prizes loyalty very much, wins the election, returns to office, and he brings Peter Navarro back with him.
The Daily
A Conversation With the Architect of Trump's New Trade War
So, Ana, now that we understand how Peter Navarro formed his worldview about trade with China, let's talk about his tools for bringing back manufacturing jobs to the U.S. And those tools are tariffs. Tell us about how Navarro makes the case for tariffs.
The Daily
A Conversation With the Architect of Trump's New Trade War
But what does Navarro say about the criticisms that are often cited of using tariffs? Like Trump himself has acknowledged on social media that tariffs could lead to higher prices, for example, for consumers. And in the U.S., just to point out, we just went through a period of super high inflation. And that was really, really painful for people.
The Daily
A Conversation With the Architect of Trump's New Trade War
The sense I'm getting from talking to you about your conversation with Navarro is that we're talking about these really aggressive, audacious policy tools. And in fact, you know, in some form or fashion, the U.S. has been using them for the past few years. They obviously started in the first Trump administration.
The Daily
A Conversation With the Architect of Trump's New Trade War
But what's coming through is that it doesn't sound like Navarro is actually grappling with what you're describing as the potential negative consequences of these tariffs. LESLIE KENDRICK
The Daily
A Conversation With the Architect of Trump's New Trade War
Well, Anna, thank you very much. Thanks for having me.
The Daily
A Conversation With the Architect of Trump's New Trade War
Here's what else you need to know today. Four top New York City officials are resigning after the Justice Department moved to dismiss the corruption case against Mayor Eric Adams. The four officials oversee much of the city government, and their departure could further weaken Adams, who's resisting calls to resign.
The Daily
A Conversation With the Architect of Trump's New Trade War
Adams was indicted on federal bribery and fraud charges, which the DOJ sought to dismiss, arguing that the prosecution was politically motivated and was impeding Adams' ability to cooperate with President Trump's deportation agenda. And on Monday, a Delta Airlines flight carrying 80 people crashed, flipped over, and injured at least 18 people on board while it was trying to land in Toronto.
The Daily
A Conversation With the Architect of Trump's New Trade War
The accident comes after a series of plane crashes over the last few weeks have stoked fears in passengers and raised broader concerns about aviation safety. Today's episode was produced by Mary Wilson and Michael Simon Johnson. It was edited by Lisa Chow and Larissa Anderson. Fact-checked by Susan Lee.
The Daily
A Conversation With the Architect of Trump's New Trade War
Contains original music by Pat McCusker, Diane Wong, Marian Lozano, and Dan Powell, and was engineered by Chris Wood. Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Landsberg of Wonderly. That's it for The Daily. I'm Rachel Abrams. See you tomorrow.
The Daily
A Conversation With the Architect of Trump's New Trade War
President Trump has pursued more trade actions against adversaries and allies than all the trade measures he took in his entire first term. Tariffs ordered by President Trump went into effect at midnight. Canada and Mexico will be among the hardest hit by these tariffs.
The Daily
A Conversation With the Architect of Trump's New Trade War
From The New York Times, I'm Rachel Abrams. This is The Daily. President Trump says he's going to announce so-called reciprocal tariffs on every country with duties placed on the U.S. With less than a month in office, we're just hours into a new trade conflict.
The Daily
A Conversation With the Architect of Trump's New Trade War
And so Navarro decides to go. Peace Corps, I feel like that's a really unusual stop along your way to becoming tariff czar.
The Daily
A Conversation With the Architect of Trump's New Trade War
So it sounds like you have these two big moments where America is really becoming much more globalized in its manufacturing processes. You've got NAFTA, where it's signing agreements with places like Mexico and opening itself up to other countries.
The Daily
A Conversation With the Architect of Trump's New Trade War
And there's one man guiding it all.
The Daily
A Conversation With the Architect of Trump's New Trade War
And then you've got this moment when China joins the World Trade Organization, which really brings China onto the world main stage in a way that it hadn't been before. Yeah.
The Daily
A Conversation With the Architect of Trump's New Trade War
Today, my colleague Ana Swanson on how Peter Navarro rose to become one of Trump's key advisors and why he thinks tariffs will usher in a new era of American prosperity. It's Tuesday, February 18th. Hi, Ana. Hey, how are you? Good. Thank you for being here. I wanted to talk to you because you covered President Trump in his first term and you focused a ton on international trade.
The Daily
A Conversation With the Architect of Trump's New Trade War
Ana, how would you characterize Navarro's view of all of this? Is his assessment of what China is doing fair?
The Daily
A Conversation With the Architect of Trump's New Trade War
It really does sound like Peter Navarro is ringing the alarm bell on China kind of well before a lot of other people are. How does he actually get attached to Donald Trump, though?
The Daily
A Conversation With the Architect of Trump's New Trade War
So I figured you would be the right person to talk to and help me understand this key advisor, Peter Navarro, who's been advising Trump on all of these tariff policies that we've been hearing about recently. Okay.
The Daily
A Conversation With the Architect of Trump's New Trade War
So when Trump and Navarro leave office in 2021, what exactly had they accomplished in terms of the trade relationship with China?
The Daily
Trump’s Bid for Greenland
So let's talk about independence for a minute because I want to understand what would it actually take for Greenland to become independent?
The Daily
Trump’s Bid for Greenland
So in a perfect world, what did the Greenlanders you spoke with see as the ideal relationship they wanted to have with the U.S. ?
The Daily
Trump’s Bid for Greenland
So I can understand why having a strong relationship with the United States would benefit Greenland economically. But just looking at how the United States is treating its most important allies right now, slapping tariffs on Mexico and Canada and telling Europe it's basically on its own to defend Ukraine.
The Daily
Trump’s Bid for Greenland
If I'm a Greenlander, aren't I looking at all of this and kind of feeling like the mayor you spoke to who is really nervous about the idea of cozying up to the U.S. right now?
The Daily
Trump’s Bid for Greenland
So all of what you just said makes a lot of sense. But we're still talking a lot of theoreticals right now, both in terms of will Greenland become independent? Will the U.S. try to take it over? Can you just help us kind of put everything into context here? Like, how likely do you see any of the major shifts we've talked about actually happening?
The Daily
Trump’s Bid for Greenland
On Tuesday, Greenlanders vote on a new parliament in what is likely to be one of the most closely watched elections that the island has ever had. Different political parties are presenting their different visions of the future, with some wanting a closer relationship with the United States and a quick independence from Denmark.
The Daily
Trump’s Bid for Greenland
Here's what else you need to know today. Wall Street had its worst day of trading this year after President Trump refused to dismiss the idea that his aggressive stance on trade could plunge the U.S. into a recession. The S&P 500 fell 2.7% on Monday as the Canadian province of Ontario and China began to implement retaliatory tariffs on farm products and energy.
The Daily
Trump’s Bid for Greenland
And the Trump administration is trying to revoke a green card for a recent Columbia University graduate who helped lead campus protests against Israel. The administration is relying on an obscure statute to try and make the case that the former student can be deported since he was involved in pro-Palestinian protests that the Secretary of State Marco Rubio says undermined a U.S.
The Daily
Trump’s Bid for Greenland
In a recent address before Congress, Donald Trump talked once again about his big ambitions for Greenland.
The Daily
Trump’s Bid for Greenland
policy of fighting anti-Semitism. The deportation would mark an escalation of the president's crackdown on both immigration and universities that Trump has argued are too liberal. And it also raises questions about the White House's attitudes towards free speech. Today's episode was produced by Jessica Chung and Olivia Nat. It was edited by Maria Byrne and fact-checked by Susan Lee.
The Daily
Trump’s Bid for Greenland
Contains original music by Diane Wong, Alicia Beitup, and Pat McCusker, and was engineered by Alyssa Moxley. Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Landsberg of Wonderly. Special thanks to Maya Ticheli. That's it for The Daily. I'm Rachel Abrams. See you tomorrow.
The Daily
Trump’s Bid for Greenland
That is so interesting because when Trump first started talking about Greenland, it just felt, I think, to me and to a lot of people, random and also kind of outrageous. But what you just laid out, those reasons for why the U.S. might be interested in Greenland actually sound quite compelling and strategic.
The Daily
Trump’s Bid for Greenland
Okay, so it sounds like there's also a long history here of Denmark making it very clear that Greenland is not for sale.
The Daily
Trump’s Bid for Greenland
So then how does Greenland end up back in the international conversation?
The Daily
Trump’s Bid for Greenland
Today, my colleague Jeffrey Gettleman on what Trump wants from Greenland and whether he may actually get it. It's Tuesday, March 11. So, Jeffrey, President Trump has repeatedly said that he wants Greenland. And before we get into whether that is even possible, can you just explain to us why is the president so interested in this place?
The Daily
Trump’s Bid for Greenland
So, Jeffrey, you went to Greenland, which I think it's fair to say a lot of Americans have never been to. So, first, can you just paint a little bit of a picture of what life is like there?
The Daily
Trump’s Bid for Greenland
So, Jeffrey, you've met a range of Greenlanders, some of whom are enthusiastic about Trump's attention, some of whom are worried about the attention. But they all seem to agree that they want independence from Denmark.
The Daily
Trump’s Bid for Greenland
So can you talk a little bit about why specifically Greenlanders want to break away from Denmark, so much so that even people like the mayor might warily be interested in closer relationships with the U.S. ?
The Daily
The Trump Tariffs Poised to Remake Global Trade
From The New York Times, I'm Rachel Abrams. This is The Daily. In a history-making day of tariffs against dozens of countries, President Trump ended one era of global trade and began a new one. Today, my colleague Anna Swanson on how the world's economy is being upended and who will be affected most. It's Thursday, April 3rd. Hi, Anna. Hey, how are you? I'm good.
The Daily
The Trump Tariffs Poised to Remake Global Trade
I mean, to that point, how are these countries responding? I mean, I know these tariffs just got announced, but do we know anything about their reaction yet?
The Daily
The Trump Tariffs Poised to Remake Global Trade
So is it fair to say that the era of free trade is over?
The Daily
The Trump Tariffs Poised to Remake Global Trade
Ana, thank you so much. Thank you. The reaction to Trump's announcement was both swift and broad, with some of the world's biggest economies warning of retaliation against what they described as a counterproductive move.
The Daily
The Trump Tariffs Poised to Remake Global Trade
As markets in Asia dropped sharply, China vowed to take countermeasures to, quote, The response from Japan, the largest overseas investor in the United States and a longtime American ally, was more restrained. The prime minister called the tariffs extremely regrettable, but refrained from talking of retaliation.
The Daily
The Trump Tariffs Poised to Remake Global Trade
Here's what else you need to know today. On Wednesday, a federal judge dismissed sweeping corruption charges against New York City Mayor Eric Adams, a victory for the Trump administration, which had asked that the case be dropped.
The Daily
The Trump Tariffs Poised to Remake Global Trade
But the judge refused the government's request to potentially reinstate the case later, a possibility that many Democrats feared would give the White House enormous power over Adams and how he governs the city.
The Daily
The Trump Tariffs Poised to Remake Global Trade
And Election Day data from Wisconsin, where Democrats scored a major victory on Tuesday, showed that Democrats far exceeded their own expectations for turning out voters in the race for a seat on the state's Supreme Court. The outcome has fueled Democratic Party hopes that Trump's agenda is energizing their voters.
The Daily
The Trump Tariffs Poised to Remake Global Trade
Today's episode was produced by Nina Feldman, Stella Tan, and Alex Stern, with help from Asta Chatterbady. It was edited by Mark George and Chris Haxel. Contains original music by Dan Powell, Pat McCusker, and Marion Lozano, and was engineered by Alyssa Moxley. Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Landsberg of Wonderly. That's it for The Daily. I'm Rachel Abrams. See you tomorrow.
The Daily
The Trump Tariffs Poised to Remake Global Trade
So let's dig into those measures for a second that he announced. Can you just explain them a bit more?
The Daily
The Trump Tariffs Poised to Remake Global Trade
And to be clear, that universal 10% tariff that you mentioned, that's going to be applied to some countries where there is currently no tariff at all, including some of our allies. Is that right?
The Daily
The Trump Tariffs Poised to Remake Global Trade
So in other words, he's sort of like, well, you have been unfair to us, so this is how we are going to get back at you. Exactly.
The Daily
The Trump Tariffs Poised to Remake Global Trade
So during the speech, he held up this poster with kind of a big chart on it that tried to break down some of these numbers because there were a lot of countries, a lot of numbers. And the chart was supposed to help explain the calculations his administration made and how they came to it. Can you walk us through that a little bit?
The Daily
The Trump Tariffs Poised to Remake Global Trade
Just to be clear, we're talking about a 54% tariff on Chinese goods. It sounds astronomical. That is a very large number.
The Daily
The Trump Tariffs Poised to Remake Global Trade
Alana, earlier you said that these were much bigger tariffs than anybody had been expecting. Can you just explain the rationale behind some of them and like what Trump was hoping to achieve with some of these more extensive measures?
The Daily
The Trump Tariffs Poised to Remake Global Trade
I'm really curious what your day has been like.
The Daily
The Trump Tariffs Poised to Remake Global Trade
So it sounds like from your description that the 10 percent is kind of here to stay, whereas the other one is more of a negotiating tool. And we might see that one kind of fluctuate.
The Daily
The Trump Tariffs Poised to Remake Global Trade
Can we just zoom out for a second? Because I kind of want to understand how the administration went about targeting these specific countries this way to begin with. Some countries are obviously being hit harder than others.
The Daily
The Trump Tariffs Poised to Remake Global Trade
Can you just explain that? Like, why were Canada and Mexico left out, especially given the fact that I feel like we've heard so much from the administration just kind of railing against them and threatening tariffs over the past few weeks?
The Daily
The Trump Tariffs Poised to Remake Global Trade
So, Ana, obviously today has been incredibly busy, but really the news on the tariffs over the last few months has been totally head spinning and frankly kind of hard to follow. And we're speaking to you shortly after President Trump has come out to the Rose Garden and announced this expansive new plan. We all watched it here at The Daily, and there's a lot to get into.
The Daily
The Trump Tariffs Poised to Remake Global Trade
Right. He even brought one of those UAW guys up on stage today during his speech. Like, he's really trying to emphasize that these policies are helping everyday Americans.
The Daily
The Trump Tariffs Poised to Remake Global Trade
Ana, every single time that Trump has announced or threatened tariffs since he took office, there has been a chorus of prominent, probably the most prominent economists who say, this will be bad for the economy. This will raise prices. This will be bad for consumers. And here again today, President Trump was saying, no, no, these tariffs will boost jobs and they'll make America wealthy again.
The Daily
The Trump Tariffs Poised to Remake Global Trade
But I just want to start off with, can you walk us up to this moment?
The Daily
The Trump Tariffs Poised to Remake Global Trade
So if the economists are right, who is paying for all of this? Because just to emphasize here, these tariffs are enormous.
The Daily
The Trump Tariffs Poised to Remake Global Trade
I mean, it really feels like this is unbelievably broad. Like, is this as historic as it feels?
The Daily
The Trump Tariffs Poised to Remake Global Trade
You know, we've talked a lot on the show, Ana, about the reordering of the global world order, how Trump is blowing up longstanding relationships with allies. And obviously, we know that Trump shatters norms. That's what he did in his first term.
The Daily
The Trump Tariffs Poised to Remake Global Trade
And so I just sort of wonder, given the fact that these tariffs are unprecedented and historic in the ways that you've outlined, do these policies fit into that new reordering in some bigger way?
The Daily
How Close Are We to Another Pandemic?
From The New York Times, this is The Daily. I'm Rachel Abrams. Today, an outbreak of bird flu has been tearing through the nation's dairy farms and infecting more and more people. And now there are troubling signs that the United States might be closer to another pandemic, even as President Trump dismantles the country's public health system.
The Daily
How Close Are We to Another Pandemic?
Do we have any idea what the mortality rate of this virus is without a vaccine?
The Daily
How Close Are We to Another Pandemic?
But if bird flu is actually a 50% mortality rate, I mean, that would be astronomical, especially when compared to something like COVID, right?
The Daily
How Close Are We to Another Pandemic?
But we also just have no idea how contagious it would be or how it would spread.
The Daily
How Close Are We to Another Pandemic?
So, Purva, everything that you're saying is, I got to be honest, making me kind of nervous. It just sounds like there's so much we don't know about the virus. Plus, we're not testing. Plus, the virus is changing in unpredictable ways.
The Daily
How Close Are We to Another Pandemic?
And that, combined with the fact that we're not sure whether what we're hearing from the CDC is reliable or if we're getting enough information, all of that is a bad combination, right?
The Daily
How Close Are We to Another Pandemic?
Okay, so just to sum everything up, you've described a lot of worrying signs, but we have not yet seen a lot of evidence of human-to-human transmission or that that's coming anytime soon. The more alarming thing is that what you have described is how unprepared we are to tackle bird flu in this very moment.
The Daily
How Close Are We to Another Pandemic?
And I have to say, I think a lot of people listening to this are going to be sort of astounded by that, considering that we're coming up on the five-year anniversary of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Daily
How Close Are We to Another Pandemic?
But first, can we just understand bird flu a little bit better and why it's infecting all these different animals in addition to people?
The Daily
How Close Are We to Another Pandemic?
Apoorva, on that note, thank you so much. Thank you.
The Daily
How Close Are We to Another Pandemic?
Here's what else you need to know today. On Wednesday, the Trump administration took a series of steps that strengthened Russia's position in its war against Ukraine.
The Daily
How Close Are We to Another Pandemic?
President Trump said he had a, quote, lengthy and highly productive phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin, the beginning of what Trump characterized as an end to the war that he had pledged to finish as soon as he took office. The call signified that Western efforts to isolate Russia diplomatically had collapsed three years after the war began.
The Daily
How Close Are We to Another Pandemic?
And the call came the same day that Trump's Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, said the U.S. did not support Ukraine joining NATO as part of any kind of realistic peace plan, and that it was also unrealistic for Ukraine to restore its borders as they were before Russia annexed Crimea in 2014.
The Daily
How Close Are We to Another Pandemic?
And Tulsi Gabbard was sworn in as Trump's director of national intelligence hours after the Senate voted to confirm her nomination. Despite a contentious hearing that featured tough questions from Democrats and several Republicans, every Republican except Mitch McConnell voted to confirm. The Senate also advanced Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
The Daily
How Close Are We to Another Pandemic?
as Trump's nominee to lead the Department of Health and Human Services. Kennedy's vote fell along party lines, which was a stunning show of Republican support for a man whose refusal to accept scientific consensus has alarmed many public health leaders. Today's episode was produced by Alex Stern and Eric Rupke, with help from Carlos Prieto.
The Daily
How Close Are We to Another Pandemic?
It was edited by Chris Haxel and Paige Cowett, with help from Ben Calhoun. It contains original music by Dan Powell and was engineered by Alyssa Moxley. Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Landsberg of Wonderly. Special thanks to Emily Anthes and Alan Burdick. That's it for The Daily. I'm Rachel Abrams. See you tomorrow.
The Daily
How Close Are We to Another Pandemic?
Does that have anything to do with the egg situation that we're seeing? Like, I feel like every time I walk into a grocery store, there's a sign saying, you know, sorry, we don't have eggs and the shelves are bare.
The Daily
How Close Are We to Another Pandemic?
You mentioned that we've seen it in mammals. Can you talk about cattle specifically? Obviously, agriculture is huge, and I'm wondering how that has been affected by all of this.
The Daily
How Close Are We to Another Pandemic?
My colleague Apoorva Mandavilli explains how the virus has changed and why our government might be ill-equipped to respond. It's Thursday, February 13th. Apoorva, hello. Hello. So the last time we talked about bird flu on the show, which was last April, our colleague Emily Anthes was raising a modest amount of concern about the virus.
The Daily
How Close Are We to Another Pandemic?
So to make it really, really simple, the longer this thing stays circulating in cows, the more cows it has a chance of infecting, which means that the chances that it's going to affect people only grows. Is that right?
The Daily
How Close Are We to Another Pandemic?
So we've been talking about dairy cows, eggs, cattle. Obviously, that means beef and agriculture. Is this virus in the food supply?
The Daily
How Close Are We to Another Pandemic?
And by pets, you mean house cats? Like, should people that have cats be doing anything or be concerned right now?
The Daily
How Close Are We to Another Pandemic?
That's really horrible to think about. I'm sure there's a lot of cat owners out there that are really grimacing right now. But are people wondering, can an infected cat give it to a human? You mentioned earlier that 68 people have been infected. What do we know about how they got infected?
The Daily
How Close Are We to Another Pandemic?
Is there anything about these cases that indicates that it's gotten more contagious or more likely to spread between people?
The Daily
How Close Are We to Another Pandemic?
So that's obviously quite terrifying, but it also sounds like there's a lot we don't know about the virus. So I guess I'm just wondering, how close are we to bird flu actually becoming a widespread serious problem for people?
The Daily
How Close Are We to Another Pandemic?
She said it had been spreading pretty quickly and intensely in birds, and also it had started to show up in other animals. But at that point, it was not that much of a concern for people, but it could be soon. So since then, we've been checking in with you periodically just to ask, should we be worried now? And you've told us at various points, no, not yet.
The Daily
How Close Are We to Another Pandemic?
So, Apoorva, you were saying that we really aren't ready to handle a bird flu outbreak among humans if that happens, which just honestly feels really surprising given the fact that we just went through a pandemic. So I'm curious, what should we be doing that we haven't been doing?
The Daily
How Close Are We to Another Pandemic?
A lot of what you're describing, this monitoring, testing, a lot of this sounds like government intervention. And at least on the federal level, what we've seen in the last three weeks is a new administration take charge and basically take a sledgehammer to a lot of federal agencies that I would imagine would have a hand in a lot of the pandemic response or preparedness that you've described.
The Daily
How Close Are We to Another Pandemic?
So can you tell us how has what we've seen since Trump took office affected our potential ability to respond if bird flu actually does break out?
The Daily
How Close Are We to Another Pandemic?
But this week, you told us yes, which was a little alarming. So what is going on?
The Daily
How Close Are We to Another Pandemic?
So basically what you're saying is that we're getting rid of people who would be at the front lines of a pandemic response nationally, just as things are seeming like they're taking a turn for the worse.
The Daily
ICE on Campus
From The New York Times, I'm Rachel Abrams. This is The Daily. Today, the story of three Columbia students targeted for deportation by the Trump administration and why immigration arrests are happening at universities across the country. My colleague Hamed Aliaziz on what these cases reveal about the latest immigration crackdown and this administration's views on free speech.
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ICE on Campus
And that also helps kind of put the fear into people that would lead them to self-deport, which is another huge element to the administration's approach to all of this. And it feels like this is all much broader than just what's happening at Columbia.
The Daily
ICE on Campus
Is there some advantage to targeting students in particular or people who are here on student visas or green cards?
The Daily
ICE on Campus
It really feels ironic the way that you're explaining it, that the people that are most deportable are actually people that are in the system, following the rules, going through the procedures, as opposed to people who are undocumented. It also feels worth saying that these schools where ICE is targeting students, they don't really seem to be going out of their way to fight it.
The Daily
ICE on Campus
At this point, does it feel like the Trump administration's arrest of these students will hold up an immigration court? Like, basically, are these laws, which in some cases are arcane or kind of obscure, do you think that those will be compelling enough?
The Daily
ICE on Campus
I mean, that's actually something that I wanted to ask you about, because we've talked a lot so far about how some of these cases feel surprising or extreme. But I just want to make sure I understand, how do these cases fit into what we've seen historically?
The Daily
ICE on Campus
I realize that the government might claim that the people it is targeting, in some cases at least, are supporting terrorist activity. And so it's totally fair to use the language of the 9-11 terrorists. But it really feels like a huge stretch to say that somebody who wrote an op-ed is comparable to somebody who flies a plane into the World Trade Center.
The Daily
ICE on Campus
And so it can't help but feel like this is not as much about terrorism as it is about free speech. And if that is the case, and if you agree with that premise, it feels like we are escalating in one direction. And I am curious what you think that that crackdown looks like to you in the next four years.
The Daily
ICE on Campus
Here's what else you need to know today. President Trump said in an interview with NBC on Sunday that he was, quote, It was the most serious he's been about an idea that he's mused about in the past, and it would run afoul of the 22nd Amendment. But Trump said that there were, quote, methods to extend his presidency.
The Daily
ICE on Campus
President Trump also told NBC News that he would not fire anyone involved in a group chat that inadvertently disclosed plans for airstrikes on Yemen to a journalist. Today's episode was produced by Sydney Harper, Jessica Chung, Shannon Lin, Carlos Prieto, and Rochelle Boncha. It was edited by MJ Davis-Lynn, Paige Cowett, and Brendan Klinkenberg.
The Daily
ICE on Campus
Contains original music by Dan Powell and Pat McCusker, and was engineered by Alyssa Boxley. Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Landsberg of Wonderly. That's it for The Daily. I'm Rachel Abrams. See you tomorrow.
The Daily
ICE on Campus
I have to assume that one of those cases is one of the first cases that we saw come out of all of this, the case of Mahmoud Khalil, the former Columbia student who was arrested on campus housing in early March.
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ICE on Campus
Can they do that? I mean, can they detain a green card holder? I remember when we first learned about this case, a lot of people, myself included, thought the answer was no.
The Daily
ICE on Campus
It's Monday, March 31st. Hamed, it feels like you can't go more than a few days without hearing about another college campus or another college student that has been targeted by immigration officials. And one thing that seems to have been really making the rounds the last week is this video of a student at Tufts getting detained on the street by immigration agents.
The Daily
ICE on Campus
What they're referring to in some of these accusations seems to be a speech issue. I mean, I know they're talking about things that sound like terrorism, but they're really criticizing, it seems, his protest activity. And one thing I still don't quite understand about his story is this question of freedom of speech.
The Daily
ICE on Campus
Like, even though he's not a citizen, is he still entitled to the protections of a citizen because he's in this country? Yeah.
The Daily
ICE on Campus
Right. It feels like they're basically trying everything to send a message. And moreover, it kind of feels like his case is maybe potentially the beginning of something.
The Daily
ICE on Campus
Does she know why ICE agents are at her door? Does she know why, like, they're trying to get her?
The Daily
ICE on Campus
Okay, wait, so to be clear, was she protesting that day? Like, was she a protester at all?
The Daily
ICE on Campus
And it's kind of a shocking video. And her case feels like this larger pattern that we've been seeing recently with the targeting of students. And I want to talk to you about what is happening here and what your understanding is of this moment that we are in.
The Daily
ICE on Campus
That self-deportation, that actually feels like it's one of the administration's goals here, right? Like getting people to flee on their own, right?
The Daily
ICE on Campus
Hamed, you've just explained these two cases that help us understand how the administration is really testing all these new theories about how to get people out of the country. Tell us about that third case you just mentioned.
The Daily
ICE on Campus
This isn't someone who came here specifically to go to school and then plans to head back home, right?
The Daily
ICE on Campus
Mm-hmm. So how does it become clear that she's being targeted? Can you kind of walk us through her story a little bit?
The Daily
ICE on Campus
Right. And it feels worth noting, actually, that these aggressive tactics kind of come back to this whole messaging element of the administration's tactic here. Like they're trying to send a message that we will come for you, we will find you.
The Daily
Trump’s Escalating War With Higher Education
From The New York Times, I'm Rachel Abrams. This is The Daily. In recent weeks, the Trump administration has put the American university system on notice. It's pressed for changes, launched investigations, and in some cases, it's even withheld critical funds.
The Daily
Trump’s Escalating War With Higher Education
And just to be clear, when we're talking about federal money, we're not just talking about Columbia and the Ivy Leagues, right? Can you just give us a sense, how dependent are universities across the board on federal money?
The Daily
Trump’s Escalating War With Higher Education
That makes sense. But since you mentioned Harvard and Yale, those schools, along with Columbia and Penn and other places, are schools that have literally billions of dollars in endowments. And so it feels reasonable to say, OK, for those schools that are sitting on top of these giant piles of money, they should be able to use their big endowments to pay for their day-to-day operations.
The Daily
Trump’s Escalating War With Higher Education
They should not need to rely on the federal government.
The Daily
Trump’s Escalating War With Higher Education
Right, you can't just go to the bank and say, I have something I want to research, give me $100 million, please.
The Daily
Trump’s Escalating War With Higher Education
And what does that new realignment look like and what is driving it?
The Daily
Trump’s Escalating War With Higher Education
You're basically saying that there are two competing visions. And I'm kind of wondering what the divide is here, because you had mentioned at one point that some of this tension is ideological. So is there, for example, a vision that is coming from the left?
The Daily
Trump’s Escalating War With Higher Education
I do wonder if one of the reasons that universities are struggling to make a case for themselves is that they do need to be reformed. Like any major institution with a multi-billion dollar budget probably does have some bloat and inefficiencies here and there. But this conversation does feel connected to
The Daily
Trump’s Escalating War With Higher Education
wider conversations we've been having recently on the show about government efficiency, like cutting federal agencies, for example. Like, sure, these places could probably be run better, but is it necessary to just gut them wholesale?
The Daily
Trump’s Escalating War With Higher Education
You know, it really feels like we are in a moment where the kind of existential fear that you described, it's allowing the Trump administration to wring some pretty stunning concessions from institutions that traditionally have prided themselves on their independence.
The Daily
Trump’s Escalating War With Higher Education
And within all of that, it feels like your reporting has really focused on Columbia University for good reason. Columbia has been a poster child for a lot of this conflict and a little bit of a case study, right?
The Daily
Trump’s Escalating War With Higher Education
And I wonder how the people that you are talking to within academia are viewing what's happening to them within this broader context.
The Daily
Trump’s Escalating War With Higher Education
Because these universities might have just calculated that it's just not worth fighting. They don't stand a chance.
The Daily
Trump’s Escalating War With Higher Education
Here's what else you need to know today. On Sunday, Canada's new prime minister, Mark Carney, called for a national election to take place next month on April 28th. His Liberal Party is facing a strong challenge from the country's conservatives.
The Daily
Trump’s Escalating War With Higher Education
And all of this comes at a turbulent time, as the Trump administration has imposed punishing tariffs and threatened the sovereignty of Canada, its neighbor and longtime ally. And after weeks of pressure, Venezuela said it would resume accepting deportation flights from the United States.
The Daily
Trump’s Escalating War With Higher Education
This comes after the Trump administration invoked an obscure wartime law to deport Venezuelans accused of gang affiliations to El Salvador with little or no due process. In a statement this weekend, a Venezuelan official said the country would not rest until we, quote, "...rescue our brothers kidnapped in El Salvador." Today's episode was produced by Nina Feldman, Muj Zaydi, and Sydney Harper.
The Daily
Trump’s Escalating War With Higher Education
It was edited by Patricia Willans, with help from Ben Calhoun and MJ Davis-Lynn. Contains original music by Marianne Lozano, Diane Wong, Rowan Nemisto, and Pat McCusker, and was engineered by Chris Wood. Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Landsberg of Wonderly. That's it for The Daily. I'm Rachel Abrams. See you tomorrow.
The Daily
Trump’s Escalating War With Higher Education
Let's dive into Columbia a little bit more. Can you just walk us through what's been happening there?
The Daily
Trump’s Escalating War With Higher Education
Right. And that chaos has caused a lot of people on all sides to say that the university, as you put it, is blowing it. Can you just describe a little bit what do they mean by blowing it exactly? Right.
The Daily
Trump’s Escalating War With Higher Education
Today, my colleague Ellen Blinder on how schools are responding to all of this pressure and what it might mean for the future of higher education. It's Monday, March 24th. Ellen, thank you so much for being with us. I am not surprised given the news cycle recently and how much we've been hearing about universities that you're working on a Sunday.
The Daily
Trump’s Escalating War With Higher Education
And when they returned to power, what were they saying about universities?
The Daily
Trump’s Escalating War With Higher Education
And what are these investigations? Tell us about those.
The Daily
Trump’s Escalating War With Higher Education
$400 million sounds like a ton of money, but how much does that actually matter for Columbia, which is obviously an enormous institution?
The Daily
Trump’s Escalating War With Higher Education
So what's Columbia supposed to do about this then? What can it even do?
The Daily
Trump’s Escalating War With Higher Education
Okay, so some of the things that you outlined sound very extreme and some maybe less so based on my limited knowledge of how universities operate. How do we interpret some of these demands? Yeah.
The Daily
Trump’s Escalating War With Higher Education
Okay, so obviously Columbia is under a ton of pressure. And I would imagine that there was also a lot of pressure from people who did not want the school to cave to the administration's demands. Yeah.
The Daily
Trump’s Escalating War With Higher Education
It really feels like we cannot go more than a few days without hearing about this escalating conflict between the Trump administration and the country's colleges and universities. And you, Alan, have been covering higher education for a really long time. So we thought you'd be the right person to sit down with so that you could kind of break all of this down for us. But.
The Daily
Trump’s Escalating War With Higher Education
Wow. So what do you make of the fact that they just kind of caved to everything?
The Daily
Trump’s Escalating War With Higher Education
Right. It seems like, number one, the administration had Columbia over a barrel from the way that you're describing it. And number two, that they just decided, like, it is not worth fighting the government. Sure.
The Daily
Trump’s Escalating War With Higher Education
It wasn't even like, do all of this and you'll get your money back. It was do all of this and maybe we'll talk to you about getting your money back.
The Daily
Trump’s Escalating War With Higher Education
Right. And that bigger cost, I mean, we've been focusing a lot on Columbia, but there are other schools that the administration has said that it's targeting, right? Like, it feels like we should be prepared to see these hardball tactics elsewhere soon.
The Daily
Trump’s Escalating War With Higher Education
So, Alan, before the break, you told us about some of the fear that these threats and these demands are instilling at not just Columbia, but more broadly at universities around the country. So can you just tell us a little bit more about what you're hearing about that?
The Daily
Trump’s Escalating War With Higher Education
I think the first thing I want to do is just get a sense from you of whether you've ever seen anything like this showdown that we are currently seeing between the higher education in this country and the White House.
The Daily
Trump’s Escalating War With Higher Education
But just to play devil's advocate for a second here, I think a lot of people listening to this are going to think to themselves, well, why should universities get so much money from the federal government, especially the universities that are pretty rich to begin with?
The Daily
Trump’s Escalating War With Higher Education
So can you just explain to us, like, why are these two institutions, the federal government and higher education, why are they so intertwined to begin with?
The Daily
Exporting America’s Immigration Problem
From The New York Times, I'm Rachel Abrams. This is The Daily. Since taking office, President Trump's plan to deport millions of undocumented people keeps running into new barriers. And it's forced the White House to come up with more and more creative solutions to fulfill his promise.
The Daily
Exporting America’s Immigration Problem
But I just want to be clear in understanding sort of what's different here because the U.S. has been doing a version of this recently. In recent years in Mexico, we deport non-Mexicans to Mexico. So how is this different exactly?
The Daily
Exporting America’s Immigration Problem
So in other words, Trump doesn't necessarily have to come out and threaten them. They're looking at what's happened with all these other countries and thinking like, what's going to happen to us if we don't take this plane full of people?
The Daily
Exporting America’s Immigration Problem
Okay, so for Panama, and presumably anybody else that makes this sort of agreement, they've agreed to accept these flights. What does that mean for the people who were actually sent there?
The Daily
Exporting America’s Immigration Problem
And just to be clear, is it legal to take somebody who's come to the U.S. seeking asylum and basically drop them somewhere entirely different with a different asylum system and possibly different set of rights?
The Daily
Exporting America’s Immigration Problem
And presumably take a very long time while the Trump administration expands this program with other countries?
The Daily
Exporting America’s Immigration Problem
You know, I really have to say that just the idea that we would take somebody that crossed into the United States from one continent and deport them to an entirely different continent where they don't know anyone, speak the language, have any resources, that just seems like a much more extreme tactic than anything I've ever heard of discussed with U.S. immigration policy.
The Daily
Exporting America’s Immigration Problem
Here's what else you need to know today. On Saturday, Elon Musk alarmed workers across the federal government with an email that asked them to summarize what they'd accomplished last week. And on social media, he warned that a failure to reply would be taken as a resignation.
The Daily
Exporting America’s Immigration Problem
But on Sunday, some Trump-appointed agency leaders pushed back, including the FBI director, Kash Patel, and the director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, who told employees not to respond at all. The pushback marks the first significant test of how far Elon Musk's power will extend.
The Daily
Exporting America’s Immigration Problem
And over the weekend, the Vatican said that Pope Francis is suffering from initial mild kidney failure in addition to a serious respiratory illness and remains in critical condition. The 88-year-old pontiff was alert and well-oriented, they said, as he continues treatment in a hospital in Rome. Today's episode was produced by Carlos Prieto, Shannon Lin, Will Reed, and Alex Stern.
The Daily
Exporting America’s Immigration Problem
That's it for The Daily. I'm Rachel Abrams. See you tomorrow.
The Daily
Exporting America’s Immigration Problem
So you're able to confirm that they're there. Are you able to also talk to them? No.
The Daily
Exporting America’s Immigration Problem
Today, my colleagues Julie Turkowitz and Hamed Aliaziz on one of the more innovative and controversial solutions so far. It's Monday, February 24th. Julie, we've had you on the show before talking about immigration, which obviously is a huge priority for President Trump. In his first week alone, he suspended the asylum program at the southern border.
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Exporting America’s Immigration Problem
My friend's passport and mobile phone are confiscated by them.
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Exporting America’s Immigration Problem
There are approximately 230 here, includes women and children.
The Daily
Exporting America’s Immigration Problem
We can't move at all. You can't go downstairs. Only waiting for waiting for waiting.
The Daily
Exporting America’s Immigration Problem
Did you manage to speak with anybody else in the hotel?
The Daily
Exporting America’s Immigration Problem
Okay, so you've made contact with these people. They've told you their stories. But what do officials say is going on here?
The Daily
Exporting America’s Immigration Problem
He pledged that no new people would enter the country. And on top of all of that, he also pledged to deport millions of people who are already here, which is a huge and complicated thing to undertake. So can you just tell us what have we seen so far and what does that say about how the government has begun tackling this issue?
The Daily
Exporting America’s Immigration Problem
So, Julie, this sounds like it would be really confusing for the people in this hotel. How long are they kept there?
The Daily
Exporting America’s Immigration Problem
The Darien Gap, that is something that we have covered with you on this show before. This is the only way for people in South America to cross into Central America by foot, and it's incredibly dangerous. And so now what you're describing is these folks are being sent to a camp right by it.
The Daily
Exporting America’s Immigration Problem
And looking around, seeing what she's seeing, does any of this change Artemis's mind about whether she wants to return to Iran?
The Daily
Exporting America’s Immigration Problem
Right. The only thing that is clear is that she is not going back to the United States. Absolutely.
The Daily
Exporting America’s Immigration Problem
After the break, my colleague Hamed Aliaziz on how this new strategy could accelerate the mass deportations that President Trump has promised. We'll be right back. So, Hamed, thank you for being here.
The Daily
Exporting America’s Immigration Problem
We just heard from our colleague Julie about all of these people who were picked up in the U.S. and flown to Panama. And I want to understand how this fits into Trump's broader strategy on immigration, which you cover. So can you unpack all of this a bit for us?
The Daily
Exporting America’s Immigration Problem
Which feels sort of surprising because I feel like the news recently has been full of stories about ICE raids and detentions all around the country. There have been raids in Chicago, Los Angeles. We recently saw New York City Mayor Eric Adams let ICE into Rikers, the jail here. So just explain how exactly is all of this actually much slower than it appears?
The Daily
Exporting America’s Immigration Problem
So in other words, what we heard about that was happening in Panama is almost like a workaround to some of what you've just described as the difficulties with deportations. And as Julie explained to us earlier, by flying people to places like Panama, we're essentially making these people somebody else's problem.
The Daily
Trump, Europe and the New World Order
So, Mark, you've explained to us how Trump is taking a fundamentally different approach to the U.S. 's relationship with Europe in his second term. How has Europe reacted to all of this?
The Daily
Trump, Europe and the New World Order
Yeah, because you've got all these countries with their own priorities, their own politics, their own needs, different economies, and they all have to come together and agree to make this massive pivot.
The Daily
Trump, Europe and the New World Order
Right. Fighter jets, military submarines, these are not things that just materialize overnight, let alone the entire military apparatus for a whole continent. It's just this massive game of catch-up that Europe is playing right now.
The Daily
Trump, Europe and the New World Order
And what about the economic aspect to all of this? Because as you told us, the trade ties are at the heart of the relationship between the U.S. and Europe.
The Daily
Trump, Europe and the New World Order
You know, I feel like the theme of this entire week has been Trump tearing up relationships with allies all over the world. And we've been talking a lot on the show about how these allies have responded, like whether they try to repair these relationships or not. And so I think that that's the question here also.
The Daily
Trump, Europe and the New World Order
Are the Europeans doing anything to try and repair this relationship or are they just kind of moving on?
The Daily
Trump, Europe and the New World Order
I guess I also just wonder about the implications of all this fracturing for the U.S. Because I know you said that even though the U.S. has been footing the bill for Europe's military security, the arrangement did really have a lot of benefits for the United States, too.
The Daily
Trump, Europe and the New World Order
So what you're saying is that this could basically push Europe into the hands of one of America's adversaries, China, which is kind of confusing because Trump very much seems like he wants to contain China so that they don't overtake the U.S. And so on the one hand, maybe it makes sense to make Europe pay its own way and be less dependent on the U.S.
The Daily
Trump, Europe and the New World Order
And yes, of course, we have more resources to spend at home in turn. But on the other hand, it would seem like the U.S. would potentially be giving away this extremely valuable relationship with Europe to China.
The Daily
Trump, Europe and the New World Order
So, Mark, you have been reporting on the relationship between the U.S. and Europe for decades. Did you ever think you'd be writing about the dissolution of the U.S.-European partnership?
The Daily
Trump, Europe and the New World Order
Well, let's go back through time. Tell us the story of how the relationship even got to this point.
The Daily
Trump, Europe and the New World Order
Here's what else you need to know today. On Thursday, Russian President Vladimir Putin declined to support an immediate ceasefire deal with Ukraine, saying that a halt in fighting would only benefit Ukraine as Russia made gains on the battlefield.
The Daily
Trump, Europe and the New World Order
Putin said that a number of questions needed to be resolved before Russia would agree to a deal, a clear sign that he was in no hurry to go along with any kind of a truce. And... Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer broke with much of his party on Thursday and said he would vote for the Republican bill to keep the government open past Friday.
The Daily
Trump, Europe and the New World Order
The move angered many of his fellow Democrats, but Schumer argued that if Democrats refused to help keep the government funded, it would lead to a shutdown that would allow Elon Musk and the Trump administration to further defund and dismantle federal programs.
The Daily
Trump, Europe and the New World Order
From The New York Times, I'm Rachel Abrams. This is The Daily. In a matter of just a few weeks, the Trump administration has remade the global order. They've taken a hard line with allies like Mexico and Canada and Ukraine. They've warmed up to adversaries like Russia. And now, a trade war is on the horizon with Europe.
The Daily
Trump, Europe and the New World Order
Today's episode was produced by Rob Zipko, Carlos Prieto, and Eric Krupke. It was edited by Maria Byrne and Paige Cowett. Contains original music by Marian Lozano, Rowan Nimisto, and Dan Powell, and was engineered by Alyssa Moxley. Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Landsberg of Wonderly. That's it for The Daily. I'm Rachel Abrams. See you Monday.
The Daily
Trump, Europe and the New World Order
Because the U.S. is paying this huge military bill, Europe can spend its money on other things, and so therefore their economies boom.
The Daily
Trump, Europe and the New World Order
Today, my colleague Mark Landler on the alliance with Europe that seems to be fracturing and what all of it means for the new world order. It's Friday, March 14th. So, Mark, it has felt like the story of the past few weeks, which we've been talking about a lot on the show, is the pretty fundamental remaking of the global order.
The Daily
Trump, Europe and the New World Order
All of that sounds like a great deal for Europe, obviously. Can you talk a little bit about what the US saw that it was getting out of this?
The Daily
Trump, Europe and the New World Order
So in other words, because the U.S. provided so much security to Europe for all these years, it allowed Europe to basically become this huge economic powerhouse. And that relationship helped to make the United States even more of a world power than it already was.
The Daily
Trump, Europe and the New World Order
And we've talked about the impact of President Trump's tariffs on Mexico and on Canada, and we've talked about his efforts to take over Greenland. But it feels like one of the biggest ruptures in all of this is the seeming breakdown of the relationship with Europe. And you have been covering Europe and the White House for decades, so I'm just really curious what you are making of this moment.
The Daily
Trump, Europe and the New World Order
Okay, so basically this is like the first crack in the relationship.
The Daily
Trump, Europe and the New World Order
What was Europe's reaction to Trump when he first came into office with all of this tough talk?
The Daily
Trump, Europe and the New World Order
But at this point in time, they've had two U.S. presidents from different political parties, both telling Europe, you guys need to step it up. And at the same time, Europe is also seeing this real existential threat from Russia. So I just sort of wonder if all of this should have made defense more of an urgent priority for Europe.