How Trump is using fear as a political tool

Diane Rehm: On My Mind

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🗓️ 27 March 2025

⏱️ 38 minutes

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Summary

The pressure campaigns of the Trump administration are beginning to bear fruit.

Last week saw two major institutions acquiesce to the president’s demands after actions taken by the White House threatened to undermine their budgets, workforce and, in some cases, ability to perform core business.

The first was Paul Weiss, a major law firm that some accuse of trading pro bono work on behalf of Trump causes to maintain business ties to federal agencies. The second was Columbia University, which agreed to terms laid out by the government in exchange for the restoration of funding that had been slashed earlier this month.

Hailed as victories by Donald Trump, Isaac Stanley-Becker, staff writer at The Atlantic, says these are just two of the highest profile examples of the ways the president has learned to wield fear as a political tool.

While Donald Trump has always used scare tactics in his exercise of power, Stanley-Becker explains, what we are seeing now is different from his first term, marked by name-calling and social media bullying.

“What I think is especially significant,” says Stanley-Becker, “is the use of government assets and government resources -- and denying those as a bargaining chip to bring these institutions to heel.”

Stanley-Becker joins Diane to talk about his recent piece for The Atlantic, “The United States of Fear.”

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi, it's Diane. On my mind, Fear.
0:09.7	Last week, we saw two major institutions acquiesce to Trump administration demand.
0:18.0	The first was Paul Weiss, a major law firm, long associated with representing
0:24.7	Democrats and Democratic causes. The second was Columbia University, which agreed to terms laid
0:34.4	out by the government in order to restore funding. Hailed as victories by Donald Trump,
0:43.1	my guest today says these are just two examples of the way the president has learned to wield fear
0:53.0	as a political tool.
0:55.0	So what I think is especially significant
0:58.0	is the use of government assets and government resources
1:01.0	and denying those as a bargaining chip
1:04.0	to bring these institutions to heal.
1:06.0	Isaac Stanley Becker is a staff writer at The Atlantic.
1:10.0	He joins me to talk about his recent piece,
1:14.1	The United States of Fear.
1:17.2	Isaac, let's start with the story of Paul Weiss, the law firm,
1:22.9	and why President Trump is so angry with him.
1:31.5	Well, Paul Weiss is one of several major law firms that the president has targeted with these executive orders that primarily do two things. They
1:37.9	strip security clearances from members of the firm, and they revoke their access to government buildings.
1:45.0	Now for major law firms with clients that include government contractors, including government
1:51.0	contractors that do sensitive work, this kind of access is extremely important to how they
1:58.0	do their work and therefore extremely important to the big business that
2:02.8	they bring in. Now, in Paul Weiss's case, the president is or was angry with them for a couple of
	...

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