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The Political Scene | The New Yorker

Trump Makes a Big Show of Military Force

The Political Scene | The New Yorker

WNYC Studios and The New Yorker

Politics, Obama, News, Wnyc, Washington, Barack, President, Lizza, Wickenden

4.23.3K Ratings

🗓️ 14 June 2025

⏱️ 34 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

The Washington Roundtable discusses President Trump’s deployment of uniformed troops in Los Angeles, the Administration’s attempt to blur the distinction between the military and law enforcement, and this weekend’s parade in D.C. to celebrate the Army’s two-hundred-and-fiftieth anniversary, which also happens to be the President’s seventy-ninth birthday. Plus, the handcuffing of California Senator Alex Padilla at a press conference given by Kristi Noem, the Secretary of Homeland Security. “To suddenly see this guy being thrown around on the ground—it really brought back all of the feelings I’ve had about living in places like Egypt and in China,” says the staff writer Evan Osnos. “When the highest office-holders in the land start to get brutalized, that just tells you that really anybody out there is being treated in much harsher ways.” 


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Transcript

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0:00.0

So, guys, were you shocked by the Israel news or did you have a hunch that something like this was coming?

0:07.9

Well, it was pretty amazing.

0:10.7

If you looked on Thursday morning, there was a sort of strikes you're coming, strikes are coming, huge change in messaging.

0:17.6

And the problem is we're living in this world of so much bombardment of information

0:22.8

in advance of any actual bombardment, which part do you take seriously. But yes, it was a pretty

0:28.0

big slap maybe to Donald Trump, who's been desperate for a peace deal somewhere or anywhere,

0:34.7

none of which have materialized. This is before his envoy was supposed to meet

0:38.7

with the Iranians again this weekend. When they started emptying American personnel from the area,

0:44.4

you had a sense something was coming, but it's always a shock. I was at dinner with a bunch of

0:50.0

other reporters actually last night, and people's phones buzz buzzed and the next thing you knew,

0:56.8

somebody next to me was saying, oh, aye, aye, aye.

0:59.1

There's a difference between thinking it might come and, oh my God, they actually did it.

1:05.1

It completely undercut what his administration claimed they were trying to do, which was to have peace negotiations with Iran.

1:13.0

We're still trying to know where the Trump administration really was on this behind the scenes,

1:18.4

but it seems to have been a dis.

1:20.7

Also, if you think about it, you've got a secretary of state who is simultaneously the national security advisor,

1:26.6

also running a host of other things that I've probably forgotten about this morning.

1:31.5

Not to mention that you have a, let's just use a generous word, a relatively untested Pentagon chief in the person of Pete Hegeseth, who is now suddenly managing the American involvement or response to whatever

1:46.6

unfolds in the Middle East in the hours ahead, while also dealing with almost unprecedented

1:52.5

constitutional questions around the use of the American military here at home. Sometimes people

1:58.6

focus a lot on the president themselves, but this is one of those

2:02.4

moments, folks, when it will become a big test of the people around him, too.

...

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