Is Donald Trump taking over the Kennedy Center and the Smithsonian?

Are his tariffs working?

Also, the Democrats?

We will discuss all this and more on today's episode of the editors.

I'm Jack Butler.

Rich is out today.

But in his absence, we're joined by Charles C.W. Cook, Noah Rothman and Dominic Pino.

You're, of course, listening to a National Review podcast.

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don't remember what I just said. It's a real deep cut for some of you. So, let's get on with it.

Charlie, this has been an exciting August. Actually, it hasn't. August is always a boring month in D.C., with one exception, which was in 2021, when the Afghanistan withdrawal happened under Biden's watch. So, to make another sci-fi reference, we have the only spectacle remaining in the empire in Frank Herbert's God Emperor of Dune.

That is the God Emperor of Dune, the titular and main character who has converted all of the world and all of the known universe into a spectacle centering on himself.

So that equivalent phenomenon happening now is Donald Trump, working his will on the District of Columbia.

You guys talked earlier this week about his moves against D.C. crime.

There have been subsequent efforts of a sort of similar nature around the same time. There's a recently launched initiative

to investigate and improve the exhibits at the Smithsonian, uh, to purge them, or at least improve

them from their, uh, suspect ideological character. There is also Trump's continuing attempt to shape the Kennedy Center in his image, more or less.

He has announced some new awardees after having essentially taken over the leadership of the institution.

And this is all very interesting to me. It's

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