After James Comey, Who’s Next on Trump’s Revenge Tour?
The Political Scene | The New Yorker
The New Yorker
4.2 • 3.3K Ratings
🗓️ 8 October 2025
⏱️ 46 minutes
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Summary
The New Yorker contributing writer Ruth Marcus joins Tyler Foggatt to discuss Donald Trump’s “revenge tour”—his effort to use the levers of government to settle personal and political scores. They talk about the indictment of the former F.B.I. director James Comey, why legal experts see the case against Comey as alarmingly weak, and how Trump’s campaign of retribution has expanded to include prosecutors, lawmakers, and even the families of his critics. They also consider how Trump’s quest for vengeance is testing the limits of American law, and whether the country can avoid a permanent cycle of political retaliation and lawfare.
This week’s reading:
- “The Flimsy, Dangerous Indictment of James Comey,” by Ruth Marcus
- “What Will Bari Weiss Do to CBS News?,” by Jon Allsop
- “Who Can Lead the Democrats?,” by Amy Davidson Sorkin
- “The Volunteers Tracking ICE in Los Angeles,” by Oren Peleg
- “Why Israel and Hamas Might Finally Have a Deal,” by Isaac Chotiner
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| 0:00.0 | Hi, Ruth. |
| 0:07.9 | Hi, Tyler. |
| 0:09.1 | I wanted to talk to you today about Trump's revenge tour and kind of what that entails. |
| 0:13.6 | So I guess to start, I mean, Donald Trump was investigated throughout his first presidency, |
| 0:18.3 | and then he faced a number of indictments during the Biden presidency. |
| 0:22.3 | And so I feel like most Republicans, when they see Trump now going after his perceived political enemies, |
| 0:27.9 | they view it less as outrageous and more as Trump kind of just going tit for tat. |
| 0:33.3 | So I'm wondering what your argument is against this. |
| 0:36.5 | Like, why does Trump's targeting of officials like the former FBI director, James Comey, feel different to you? |
| 0:42.2 | Why is this beyond the pale? |
| 0:44.8 | Oh, my goodness. |
| 0:45.8 | Where to start with how far beyond the pale is it? |
| 0:49.7 | Let us assume for the moment, as lawyers say, that President Biden did weaponize the Justice Department and others allied with Democrats, you know, Letitia James in New York, Alvin Bragg in New York, Fannie Willis in Georgia, weaponized the Justice Department and other parts of law enforcement against Donald Trump. |
| 1:17.0 | That does not justify it is against the rules of the Justice Department to do tit for tat and to retaliate by weaponizing the criminal law against your |
| 1:31.8 | political enemies. So that's the short part of what could be a very long answer about what's |
| 1:37.7 | wrong here. So even if those prosecutions, I mean, I'm just playing the, you know, the MAGA |
| 1:43.4 | Republican here, even if those prosecutions were bogus, you don't respond to bogus prosecutions. I mean, I'm just playing the, you know, the MAGA Republican here. Even if those |
| 1:44.9 | prosecutions were bogus, you don't respond to bogus prosecutions with more bogus prosecutions. |
| 1:50.9 | Didn't we all learn about two wrongs? And let me just be clear. There are things in the various |
| 1:57.8 | cases against then former President Trump that I disagreed with. |
| 2:02.6 | But the first part will say is that, you know, what are all of our mothers told us, right? |
| 2:08.4 | Which is two wrongs don't make a right. |
... |
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