Fight or Flight: Why It Pays to Stand Up to Trump

The Briefing with Jen Psaki

NBC News

News, Politics

4.5 • 664 Ratings

🗓️ 21 April 2025

⏱️ 41 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

As Trump stokes fear to leverage his power, Jen Psaki weighs the cost of obeying his demands against the reward of resisting. Congressman Jamie Raskin joins the show to help to break down the ways in which the courts, lawmakers and the American people are standing up to Trump. Later, Jen welcomes former Russian chess champion Garry Kasparov to reflect on the ways that Americans can prevent the country from backsliding into dictatorship. Jen also delves into RFK Jr.’s first press conference as HHS Secretary amid the deadly measles outbreak, in which Kennedy promoted claims about autism. Dr. Ashish Jha joins to discuss how the scientific community views Kennedy's agenda, and the damage it's doing to public health.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Okay, there is a lot of good stuff happening right now.
0:12.4	We're seeing some real fight from Democratic lawmakers.
0:15.0	That's good.
0:15.8	We're seeing institutions stand up to Donald Trump.
0:18.2	That's definitely good.
0:19.5	We're seeing courts stop him in his tracks.
0:21.6	That's great. And this weekend, we saw more massive protests all across the country.
0:26.6	But I actually wanted to start today by talking about fear. Because fear is clearly a major
0:32.5	driver of Trump's brand of politics. Always has been. And how we all respond to that fear in this moment is going to
0:39.2	determine a whole lot about the future of this country. Congressman Jamie Raskin summed it up
0:43.8	pretty well in the New York Times this week. He said there's a regime of fear that's been brought
0:48.3	down on society. People need to see leaders and organizers standing up and speaking with authority
0:54.0	against what's happening.
0:55.8	Congressman Jamie Raskin sums up very well there. He's here today. We have a lot to talk about.
0:59.8	We're going to talk to him in just a moment. But I also want to talk about a few other things, because this
1:04.0	week we also saw at least one Republican acknowledged that that fear too. I mean, during an event in Alaska
1:10.6	this week,
1:11.1	Senator Lisa Murkowski was asked
1:12.8	what she would say to people who are afraid right now.
1:15.8	And she was way more candid
1:17.1	than I at least expected her to be.
1:20.3	What are you have to say to people who are afraid?
	...

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