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Front Burner Transcript for June 2, 2025

Host: Jayme Poisson

SOUNDCLIP

ELON MUSK: This is not the end of DOGE, but really the beginning.

[Music: Theme]

JAYME POISSON: Hey everybody, it's Jayme. So, as ever, lots has been happening in the Trump administration over the past few weeks. We are here today with Alex Shephard, senior editor at the New Republic. Hey Alex, it is always so great to have you on.

ALEX SHEPHARD: It's great to be back.

JP: So we're gonna pick three things today. I know that we can pick more than three things, but we're going to pick three things: Elon Musk's exit from the Trump White House, Trump's war with Harvard, and we're going to talk about where we are right now with the on-again/off-again tariffs as they get kicked around the courts. Okay, let's get into it.

[Music: Theme]

JP: Alex, should we start with Elon Musk and why he has a black eye?

ALEX SHEPHARD: Well, it's one of the biggest mysteries in Washington. It's certainly something that I've been talking to, uh, staffers and some other folks in Democratic circles about. Um. It's, you know, certainly, like many things involving Elon, is a topic of [JP: Yeah.] conversation and gossip.

SOUNDCLIP

ELON MUSK: Yeah, no, I was just horsing around with Little X. And I said, 'Go ahead, punch me in the face,' and he did. Turns out even a five-year-old punching you in the, in the face actually does--

DONALD TRUMP: And it was X that did it?

ELON MUSK: [laughs] Yeah.

DONALD TRUMP: X, X could do it. [REPORTER: Where is X?] If you knew X, he could do that.

ELON MUSK: X is with his mom right now.

REPORTER: Okay.

[multiple reporters try to ask a question]

ELON MUSK: But I, I didn't feel, I didn't really feel much at the time, and then it, I guess it bruises up. Um, but I was just horsing around with the kids basically.

DONALD TRUMP: I didn't notice it actually.

ALEX SHEPHARD: I would say that we do not know, but I think it is notable that he emerged with a black eye the same day that the New York Times published a pretty massive piece about his, uh, extensive drug use on the campaign. And again, you know, the general picture of Musk from people who work closely with him, and just people who have, you know, had to deal with DOGE, is someone who's just been behaving erratically for quite a long time.

JP: I mean, first of all, he showed up to this Oval Office send-off -- that we're going to talk about right now -- with a black eye. And secondly, this New York Times' piece that dropped hours before that event in the Oval Office claimed that Musk was taking ketamine so much while working for the administration that he was having bladder problems. Okay, let's talk about that send-off, which was ostensibly to, you know, thank him for his time in the White House. And, uh, talk about how he's stepping back and why is he stepping back now.

ALEX SHEPHARD: Yeah, I mean, he's stepping back because he has to, basically. So he, he is a, what's known as a special government employee. That's a distinction that basically allows somebody to work for the federal government without the kind of um, you know, onerous legal and ethical paperwork that you have to do normally. You can only maintain that distinction for 140 days. If you stay on, then you have to do that kind of, you know, these financial disclosures that Musk does not want to do. So, you know, there-- I think there's been a lot of conversation about this, you know, about a Musk-Trump breakup, right. You know, Democrats have certainly declared victory here. On the right, you're seeing a lot of people, you know, thanking Elon, while, you know, quietly, a lot of lawmakers are happy to see him take a step back. But the truth of the matter is, is that this was always going to happen this way. And I think that the other thing that is important here is that, you know, Musk isn't really actually going to go away. I mean, [JP: Right.] Trump was very clear about that at this presser.

SOUNDCLIP

DONALD TRUMP: Many of the DOGE people, Elon, are staying behind [ELON: Yes.] too, so they're not [ELON: Absolutely.] leaving. And Elon's really not leaving, he's going to be back and forth, I think. I have a feeling. It's uh, it's his baby, and I think he's gonna be doing a lot of things. But Elon's service to America...

ALEX SHEPHARD: And I think that what you'll see, you know, is not just like Musk going back to Tesla. It's that, you know, you're going to see basically what he's been doing for the last month, right, which is like still kind of a lot of, you know, pro-Trump, pro-MAGA, um, political operative stuff. It's not as intense as it was in February and March. And at the same time, you know, DOGE is still ticking.

SOUNDCLIP

ELON MUSK: The DOGE team will only grow stronger over time. Um, the DOGE influence will only grow stronger. It's-- I liken it to a sort of Buddhism. It's like a way of life. Um. So, it is permeating throughout the government, and I'm confident...

ALEX SHEPHARD: And again, like, we're only just starting to understand the effects of things like the shuttering of the, you know, United States Agency for International Development, right? So, you know, there's one study that said that 1500 babies have been born HIV-positive every day since Trump's inauguration because Musk cut off their mother's medication. Already, you know, up to 300,000 people might have died, you know, because of this aid being cut off. And like that, you know, the impact of that isn't gonna shift.

JP: Do you think that he and Trump have as good of a relationship as is put out there in the public? Because what really, um, did strike me was just how effusive Trump was towards Elon on Friday.

SOUNDCLIP

DONALD TRUMP: Today, it's about a man named Elon, and he's one of the greatest business leaders and innovators the world has ever produced. He stepped forward to put his very great talents into the service of our nation, and we appreciate it.

JP: And just how extremely flattering he was. And what do you make of that?

ALEX SHEPHARD: Yeah, so I think people have always misunderstood this relationship, because they, they looked at Steve Bannon, right? So Steve Bannon was the kind of, you know, Svengali of the Trump first term. And they had this huge falling out because Trump thought that Bannon was, you know, getting too big for his britches and taking too much credit. And people always thought that this was going to happen with Musk, and it hasn't. And it hasn't happened for one simple reason, which is that Elon Musk is extremely rich. He's richer than Trump. And Trump respects his wealth. And he thinks that, you know, that makes him an important person and having an important person backing him. And also Musk is very effusive about Trump, right? So, that I think is one of the issues. The other thing here is, you know, the big change between Trump's first term and Trump's second term is that Trump was really kind of on an island his first term. He was even isolated among, you know, the Republican Party, which was still kind of slowly morphing into what it is now. But he's governing this time almost like a kind of, you know, European-style coalition government. And I think Musk represents a kind of, you know, both the sort of tech, Silicon Valley tech mindset, but also a sort of, you know, old-style, small c, we're going to slash government spending [JP: Yeah. Yeah.] type. And Trump does not care about any of this stuff. He doesn't care about USAID, he doesn't care about, you know, the Consumer Financial Protection board. So Musk, you know, taking on a lot of this stuff, you know, he's just doing parts of government that Trump isn't interested in anyways. [JP: Right.] And, you know, I think when he has.... on the handful of occasions that he's stepped over his lane, you know, particularly on issues of immigration, that's, I think, where there's a little more friction.

JP: Yeah, I mean, I thought it was interesting to hear Elon talk about how he was disappointed with Trump's spending bill that they're trying to pass right now.

SOUNDCLIP

ELON MUSK: ...which increases the budget deficit, not just decrease it, and undermines the work that the DOGE team is doing.

JP: One of the things that that bill does. Among many, many things, including cutting Medicaid for a lot of, a lot of people. Although I imagine Elon isn't unhappy about the trillion-dollar tax cuts that largely benefit rich Americans. But I mean, it is interesting to see them diverge, uh, and still maintain this relationship. It's just kind of unusual for Trump, right?

ALEX SHEPHARD: Oh, certainly. And I think that, you know, Musk gets away with criticizing Trump more than almost any other figure does. And again, I think a lot of it stems from his wealth. But, you know, I think-- I kind of read the big, beautiful bill criticism, like, slightly differently. [JP: Hm.] I think that... and I think that inside the White House, I think that there was grumbling about it. But, you know, in general, this is Musk, like, creating a narrative for himself, essentially. Like he had promised to cut a trillion dollars in discretionary spending. And like, you know, the actual number, [JP: I think it's--] you know, I think it's probably gonna be...

JP: A hundred and seventy-five billion, right? That's what I have here in my notes.

ALEX SHEPHARD: Yes. [JP: Yeah.] So the actual number is, I think we... even that's contested. And there, too, you could also say, like, a lot of the stuff that's cut, right, that money has to be spent somewhere else. Musk wants to have a narrative that, like, he did succeed in doing this, it was just sort of, you know, stolen from him by, you know, rhinos and and a sort of, you know, Republican Party that is not actually committed to, um, cutting spending. So, yeah, I think that that's one way of reading it. The other thing that I did think was interesting about that though, is that it represented, um, this idea of like the MAGA movement as a coalition, right. And that part of that coalition is this sort of more hard right, Tea Party style, you know, we wanna cut welfare spending, we wanna cut defence spending. And I think that the budget bill itself kind of represents... you know, you see what actually is important to Trump, right? We should say too, it's just a absolutely transformative bill, and, you know, the reason it cuts-- the reason it increases the deficit isn't just that it increases defence spending, but also that, you know, it's cutting Medicaid to pay for the largest corporate tax cut in American history.

JP: I've heard a lot of experts talk about how it is a direct transfer, essentially, from the poor to uh, to the rich.

[music]

JP: Let's talk about two big fights that are happening in, in the courts, right? Two big fronts for the Trump administration that have essentially collided with the courts recently. The first is obviously tariffs. Last week, two federal courts blocked much of Trump's Liberation Day tariffs. Basically, they invalidated all the tariffs the administration put on that were rooted in this emergency law that is meant to address unusual and extraordinary threats during a national emergency. The court's basically saying, like, this is not what the law is for. And this includes the emergency fentanyl tariffs that the administration has placed on Canada. Um. I'll just note the court did not address some of the industry-specific tariffs like auto, steel, and aluminum, all of which do affect Canada. And Alex, what is the latest here from a court's perspective?

ALEX SHEPHARD: Basically, the court said what is obviously true, which is that you can't just go and just say everything, you know, all the toys in China, everything else that is coming from China, is is-- gets a 90% tariff, right? That there needs to be a clear rationale spelled out, and that obviously, you know, the administration had failed to do that. That it's... you know, as is the case in its, you know, use of 18th century law to try to deport Venezuelans that, you know, that they're using a bad faith legal argument in terms of fentanyl, to make-- to apply this. So, you know, this in some ways is the story of every of Trump's entire political [JP: Yes.] career, is that kind of ra-- You know, a huge, reckless thing happens, and then the courts slowly sort of wind it back and chip away at it. You know, and that I think is what's gonna happen here. You're seeing, um, as is the case with a lot of the immigration stuff, the administration really ramping up it's, um, it's attacks on the court. Uh, there's, you know, there are signs that there is a break with Leonard Leo's Federalist Society. The most influential right-wing network of lawyers has completely remade the courts. Uh, and I think that there's just a lot frustration, uh, there, but I don't entirely know what they're gonna do about it. I mean, you could see essentially them now just trying to use Section 232 to, you know, apply more sector-based tariffs here. You know, but in general, I think that they're just kind of, you know, they're out of road, but uh, but Trump, you know, is still going to use the tariffs that he has to apply pressure to China, right? That's [JP: Yeah.] I think the most important thing here. And again, also to continue this kind of hot-cold strategy that he's done so far, where he kind of floats a tariff for a long time, the market crashes, and then everyone's jubilant, you know, when he backs off.

JP: Yeah. Yeah. Um. I mean, right, he threatened the 50% tariffs on the EU and then backed off. And all of this has kind of earned him this acronym, this moniker: TACO. Just for someone who hasn't heard of it yet, just maybe you could explain it to me.

ALEX SHEPHARD: Yeah, it's ‘Trump Always Chickens Out.’

SOUNDCLIP

DONALD TRUMP: I kick out?

REPORTER 2: Chicken out.

DONALD TRUMP: Oh, isn't that ni-- I chicken out. I've never heard that. You mean because I reduced China from 145 per cent -- that I set -- down to 100, and then down to another number, and...

ALEX SHEPHARD: There is this story that basically said that this is uh, it's been going around sort of Wall Street circles. And Trump knows about it. He's been asked about it and he was kind of angrily-- you know, responded angrily.

SOUNDCLIP

DONALD TRUMP: We were basically going cold turkey with China. We were doing no business because of the tariff, because it was so high. But I knew that. But don't ever say what you said. That's a nasty question.

ALEX SHEPHARD: And, you know, I think there's some concern that this will make him less likely to pull back on these deal-- on these, uh, these sort of tariff threats. But I just think that... that's not going to happen. Like that's-- this is just the way that he operates, right? [JP: Yeah.] He tweets something that is, uh, you know, incendiary, and then, you know, ultimately, like, the bond market and the stock market -- mostly the bond market -- you know, it causes him to pull back, right. He's got a lot of rich friends who convince him to not do this, and, you know, I think he is, he remains certain that tariffs are not just like economically transformative, but like, they have almost magical properties in his [JP: Yeah.] mind. But, you know, there's no real sign that he, he has the sort of gall to sort of apply them worldwide. Again, the one very notable exception here is China. And um, and I think that that's the area where our understanding of, and even of TACO is is kind of wrong, and that like, you know, people celebrate him pulling back in a lot of other ways, but the tariffs on China remain high. And, you know, that's the area in which I think you're going to start to see...

JP: Yeah. Yeah, like a real fight.

[music]

JP: Look, I know an appeals court right now is letting the tariffs stay in place while the appeals process continues, which is pretty common. That's what would happen here, too. But this thing is headed to the Supreme Court, right? Like everybody thinks that that's where it's... that's where it's going. But my understanding is that even if Trump lost at the Supreme Court, um, on these kind of Liberation Day's emergency law tariffs, that like there are so many other routes the administration could take. Is that fair?

ALEX SHEPHARD: Yeah, that's right. And I think, you know, again, this is... One could assume, right. It's always hard to guess precisely where the conservative majority on the Supreme Court will land. But, you know, one could could generally assume that they would uphold this kind of ruling. But, again, like, you know, the president's like, theor-- you know, the president's ability to impose these tariffs remains extensive. And, you know, Congress has shown no real ener-- like, interest in regulating it, right? Like the Democrats are making a lot of noise about it. You have a handful of sort of, you know, more libertarian-minded Republicans, free market guys like Rand Paul, who will make some noise about it. But, you know, for Congress to step in, it would just require a sea change, right? And Mike Johnson, the Speaker of the House, has showed no interest in picking any fight with the White House, let alone... You know, the other thing to understand about Trump is he really only cares about two things, right. Which are, which is immigration and tariffs. And there's just no reason to believe that, you know, while Republicans have power that they'll do anything to stop it. And again, when Democrats probably retake the House in 2027, um, you know, they will make a lot of noise about this, and it's not going to make a difference because they won't have the votes in the Senate. So, I think we're just stuck in this situation. You know, even if his-- he's restrained somewhat, what we're going to see is just the president continuing to use various legal authorities to impose tariffs on countries that he doesn't like, for whatever reason he decides to do it.

JP: Alex, I just wanna loop back to something you said earlier, because um, I don't know a ton about it, but I do think it's interesting, right. Is the Federalist Society and that break. And I just wonder if you could, as briefly as possible, just kind of tell me what you meant when you said that.

ALEX SHEPHARD: Yeah, so the Federalist Society is the preeminent sort of right-wing Republican legal association. They supply judges, basically. They have big lists of judges. All of Trump's Supreme Court picks have come from these lists. They have absolutely remade the American legal system and, by extension, the American government over the last, you know, few decades. And now, because some, some Federalist Society judges have ruled against the administration, uh, on both tariffs and immigration, you're seeing Stephen Miller in particular, the uh, the sort of, you know, most powerful person in the White House post-Elon, say essentially that the administration will no longer, uh, pick these judges because-- for this reason. And I think that that's notable because, you know, the way that Trump worked the first time around was that, you know, the sort of right-wing establishment quickly made peace and realized that, like, they could mostly get what they wanted, right? Like, the big accomplishment of Trump's first term was this gigantic tax cut that they're trying to extend now. That's a long-standing Republican priority. And now you're seeing the administration basically say, We're not doing that stuff anymore, right. We're doing the stuff we want. You know, [JP: Yeah.] And if you want this other stuff, you have to do all the stuff that we want to. And that, I think, is really notable.

[music]

JP: All right, let's move to our last topic, which is this fight between the administration and Harvard. This is a full frontal attack on the administration last week. I don't even know if I have all the, all the stuff here. But the administration threatened to redirect three billion in funding to vocational schools. Then they sent a letter to federal agencies telling them to review 100 million in contracts. This was in addition to them freezing more than three billion in research grants and suspending foreign students from enrolling, which has um, been blocked for-- by a judge for the time being. We've talked about why the administration may be doing this on the show before. Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem says it's about Harvard being an antisemitic place. She's talked about how the school uses, quote, "racist DEI policies." She's talked about how this should be a warning to all universities and academic institutions. But just talk to me about what a lot of people think this administration is really trying to accomplish here when it comes to higher learning in the U.S. And maybe you could set this, um, in a larger context for me, because this is not some completely new gripe or complaint that they have.

ALEX SHEPHARD: Yeah, this is, I mean, one of the oldest, sort of new, you know, new right -- whatever you want to call it -- gripes that there is, right. Like essentially, you know, the contemporary Republican Party formed in opposition to student protests in 1968, right? Like Ronald Reagan's rise to prominence was calling out students at UC Berkeley in, you know, the mid-1960s. And for a lot of conservative Republicans, not just-- not higher education, but specifically elite institutions of higher education, are, uh, laboratories that are producing Marxists, right. And they're unmaking America. They firmly believe that, you know, places like Columbia, Harvard, the University of Pennsylvania, are indoctrinating America's youth. That they're, you know, forming the new ranks of the Democratic Party, that they're pushing, you know, the country into socialism. Trump has spoken, uh, with a lot of venom about Harvard.

SOUNDCLIP

DONALD TRUMP: Part of the problem with Harvard is that there are about 31 per cent, almost 31 per cent of foreigners coming to Harvard. We give them billions of dollars, which is ridiculous. But they refuse to tell us who the people are. We want a list of those foreign students, and we'll find out whether or not they're okay. Many will be okay, I assume. And I assume, with Harvard, many will be bad. And then the other thing is they're very antisemitic. Everybody knows they're antisemitic...

ALEX SHEPHARD: But, you know, Trump has not historically cared about this. But for a lot of big donors, a lot people in this administration, you know, remaking higher education is one of the most important things that they can do. And I think it's not just that. What they want to do with Harvard, you know, isn't quite destroy it, although that's what they're doing. You know, I think the invocation of DEI is kind of notable here, because what they wanna do is essentially have DEI, but for Republicans, right? They want to force Harvard to become a laboratory for, you know, the 'Make America Great Again' movement or, you know, small-c conservatives. And, you know, they're I think largely kind of succeeding right now. You know, there's this story about how, you know, universities had been quietly, uh, negotiating with the administration to try to avoid this kind of, uh, this kind of fight that Harvard's in right now. And again, you know, I think Harvard standing up is one of [laughs] the... It's hard to-- it feels weird praising Harvard. But uh, but it's like one of the more notable instances of sort of courage and resistance here.

SOUNDCLIP

REPORTER 3: At graduation today, Harvard President Alan Garber getting a standing ovation when he praised graduates from around the world.

SOUNDCLIP

[applause from crowd]

ALAN GARBER: Around the world, just as it should be.

[applause, cheers]

REPORTER 3: While just across town, a federal judge extended her order blocking the Trump administration from revoking all foreign student visas at the university. But it is only a small win for Harvard...

ALEX SHEPHARD: Um, bt it's risky, right? It's not popular with a lot of donors. And again, you know, we are, we are less than six months into a four-year term here, right. The idea that they can somehow wait this out, I think is pretty extraordinary. And again, they're gonna be doing it without foreign students, who provide, you know, who usually pay full tuition and provide a lot of kind of overhead spending for these institutions. And, you know, an endowment is not exactly something that you can just dip into, right. It's not a rainy day fund.

JP: Just, um, just explain that to me a little bit more. Because this-- I'm not sure everybody really understands how these endowments work. Because you hear Harvard has a, what, um, $53 billion dollar endowment, and you're like, well, maybe they'll be okay. But, but just tell me a little bit more about how that actually works.

ALEX SHEPHARD: Most of these are very long-term investments, or they're in things like real estate, you know, or... you know, they're, they're just held up. You can't just sort of dip in. I mean, I'm sure that you probably could, but that's not the way that they've ever worked. And the way that most administrations sort of operate is, one, they get money from donors, which is-- are obviously like heavily politicized right now, given the fight that Harvard's in. And then also, of course, there's tuition money, right? And a lot of... I mean, I'm sure Harvard has a lot of normal-- not normal, sorry. I'm sure that Harvard has lot of American students that are paying full tuition. Um, but for a lot colleges and universities, you know, one reason why they like foreign students is that they tend to pay full tuition. So it's like a cash flow. I mean, it sounds crass to say, but it is a cashflow problem as much as it is a cultural and educational problem.

JP: Yeah. I know you mentioned that Harvard is fighting back. Like, they're also using the courts as one of their main tools. Um, they tried to-- they're suing the administration to prevent cutting 2.2 billion right now. I know that you're talking to a lot of people about this. Are they surprised by how aggressive some of these moves are? Like what are they saying to you?

ALEX SHEPHARD: Yeah, I mean, I think that everyone was pretty shocked. The Columbia situation was predictable in part just because it had been so important politically for so many people that are close to Trump. But Harvard I think was pretty shocking because, you know, the foreign student, uh, the foreign visa-- student visa threat, and then obviously the funding stuff, these are existential, like, threats essentially. And it was just not anticipated this way. And I think, again, the big reason why Trump is animated about this, or at least, you know, the theory that keeps being presented to me when I talk to people, is that they fought back, right? That Trump's entire politi-- approach to politics is that, you know, he likes people who are nice to him, and if you push back, then, you know, he'll keep fighting forever. And so they're stuck in this kind of doom loop right now. Um, but I don't think anyone anticipated this just because I think the, like, prevailing theory was like, okay, they're going to go and crush Columbia over, you know, these alleged antisemitic incidents and uh, and then, you know, everyone will just kind of, you know, dust off their hands and move on. But that's not how this administration is playing out at all. Like they are fighting to remake institutions that the sort of right-wing Republican establishment has long believed are laboratories of leftism, Marxism, [JP: Yeah.] you know, et cetera.

JP: Oh, man. Lots going on. Um.

ALEX SHEPHARD: [chuckles] Yeah.

JP: Alex, I think this is probably a good place for us to leave it today. But um, thank you, as always, for coming on, and we'll have to have you back on real soon.

ALEX SHEPHARD: I would love to come back.

[Music: Theme]

JP: All right. That's all for today. I'm Jayme Poisson. Thanks so much for listening and we'll talk to you tomorrow.

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U.S. Politics! Elon's out, tariffs in court, and Trump vs. Harvard - Transcript

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