meta_pixel
Tapesearch Logo
Log in
The Good Fight

Damon Linker on Why Trump 2.0 Is More Destructive Than Anyone Expected

The Good Fight

Yascha Mounk

News

4.7963 Ratings

🗓️ 20 January 2026

⏱️ 58 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Damon Linker writes the Substack newsletter “Notes from the Middleground.” He is a senior lecturer in the Department of Political Science at the University of Pennsylvania and a senior fellow in the Open Society Project at the Niskanen Center. In this week’s conversation, Yascha Mounk and Damon Linker discuss how Trump’s second term has exceeded even pessimistic expectations, why the “adults in the room” from Trump’s first administration were more effective than critics acknowledged, and whether Trump’s economic promises can survive contact with reality.  If you have not yet signed up for our podcast, please do so now by following this link on your phone. Email: leonora.barclay@persuasion.community Podcast production by Mickey Freeland and Leonora Barclay. Connect with us! Spotify | Apple | Google X: @Yascha_Mounk & @JoinPersuasion YouTube: Yascha Mounk, Persuasion LinkedIn: Persuasion Community Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

This is your latest project.

0:02.0

It's heavy with information, data and exactly 36 pages of waffle.

0:09.0

But with Acrobat Studio, you can create a PDF space,

0:13.0

an AI-powered workspace that turns documents into summaries and insights

0:17.0

and even generates reports or presentations out of it.

0:24.7

So you can cut through the waffle, work smarter, and save time.

0:29.7

Do that with Acrobat. Learn more and try it out on Adobe.com. But he also speaks in such a hyperbolic way that you always assume that he's sort of exaggerating, puffing himself up, living in a world of

0:39.9

rhetoric rather than action. And what's been surprising is the extent to which the administration

0:46.6

has actually been willing to follow through on some of the more outlandish promises that

0:53.3

it was very easy to assume was just hyperbole.

0:57.1

And now the good fight with Yasha Monk.

1:05.3

Can you believe that it has only been one year since Donald Trump took office for the second time. I feel like it feels like

1:12.6

five or ten. But to review the first year of Trump's administration to make sense of all of the

1:19.7

events that have happened in the last 12 months from economic policy to foreign policy, to domestic

1:25.9

policy, to the rule of law, to the state of the media,

1:29.2

and an outlook for what is likely to happen in Gasp for the next three years of this administration.

1:34.6

I invited one of my favorite writers and podcast guest, Damon Linker, who writes the notes from

1:42.0

the middleground, substack at dam damlinker.substack.com.

1:45.9

In the last part of this conversation, we talked about the extent to which

1:50.4

media landscape has transformed in the United States and whether people are pulling the punches

1:55.3

in criticizing Trump because of those changes.

1:58.4

We talked about the outlook for the next years.

...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Yascha Mounk, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Yascha Mounk and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.

Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.