From the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown University, this is Trending Globally. I'm Dan Richards. On Monday, January 20, Donald Trump once again was sworn in as President of the United States. The ceremony was moved inside the Capitol Rotunda due to the cold in D.C., where Trump gave his inauguration speech, declaring that, however, it wasn't all words and symbolic ceremonies that day. Trump also signed dozens of executive orders that will affect American policy on climate change, public health, immigration, and transgender rights, to name a few. And while his administration is only days old as of this taping, we've also already seen the beginning of confirmation hearings in Congress for his cabinet nominees. So what can this all tell us about what to expect from another Trump term, and about how Trump will operate in a country that seems even more open to his brand of politics now than it was the last time he was sworn in. To help answer those questions, I spoke with Wendy Schiller. Wendy is a political scientist and director of the Talman Center for American Politics and Policy at the Watson Institute. She's also the interim director of the Watson Institute. Here is our conversation. Wendy Schiller, thank you so much for coming back on "The Trending Globally." It's my pleasure to be here. So let's start with Trump's inauguration speech. In some ways, it carried a lot of the themes from his first inauguration speech with an America sort of in decline. For many years, a radical and corrupt establishment has extracted power and wealth from our citizens while the pillars of our society lay broken and seemingly incomplete disrepair. That Trump and his movement will now restore and bring to new heights. Change is sweeping the country, sunlight is pouring over the entire world, and America has the chance to seize this opportunity like never before. But it wasn't all the same, and I wonder what stood out to you from his inaugural address yesterday and how did it compare to his first one? Well, I think it was a more assured, more confident Donald Trump in the second inaugural than in the first when I think he didn't even think he was going to win and was a little bit surprised. So this time he has an agenda, he's been thinking about it working on it, he's got his staff working on it, and he sounded like a man who knew what he wanted to get done. We will begin the process of returning millions and millions of criminal aliens back to the places from which they came. We will reinstate my remain in Mexico policy. And intended to use all the powers of the presidency to do it. So that was a big difference, I think, from the first and second inaugural. And the day's ceremonies, also, you know, it put on display some of the strands that now form Trump's support. And one of the more notable features to a lot of people was the amount of tech leaders that were visible alongside, you know, former presidents and Supreme Court justices, not just Elon Musk, but Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, Tim Cook, they could all be seen in that very intimate setting of the inauguration. And I guess first off, how unusual is it for, you know, business leaders to be that central in an inauguration ceremony? Well, you know, it's hard to make generalizations here because the weather made it impossible for them to have it outside, you know, it's the lowest temperature in DC in 40 years. So that was unusual. I think that for the Reagan second inaugural, they had to move it inside as well. So everybody was really crammed in. And normally, you know, the tech guys, and mostly they were men, were on the other side of the former presidents, but big donors to Trump, Miriam Adelstein, for example, was sitting right behind former presidents. And that's not something I'm sure you would have seen in an outdoor inauguration and certainly probably not in prior years. So everything about Trump is different. However, I will tell you, more than 100 years ago, John D. Rockefeller, you know, oil, you know, railroads, Andrew Carnegie, they were most likely invited to presidential inaugurations. And you know, the wealthy certainly have always had a big influence and even Ronald Reagan, going way back there, had wealthy donors and wealthy friends who he brought to the inaugural. So I think the interesting tie to make is the fact that the inaugural speech did not talk about really punitive tariffs on China in the way that the campaign did. Trump did all throughout the campaign. And I think that was an actual nod to the people sitting in the room, people like Tim Cook, head of Apple, who really relies on China for manufacturing and for parts and knowing that they're in the room, Trump seemed to have modified his position on that. And so that's what you sort of say, is there a direct influence from the people sitting in the room to the president's policies? So more than the visuals, which may be caught a lot of people's attention, you're saying there were actual sort of signals in his policy proposals that make it clear he is listening closely to what these people are saying. Yeah. I mean, or that he's been moderating his position in response to their concerns. Well, let's look a little bit more at Trump's policies or what we have seen of them in this already brief period of Trump's second term. Trump signed dozens of executive orders in his first 24 hours as president, including one's aimed at restricting immigration, pulling out of the Paris climate agreement. I mean, all over across the board, he was sort of making statements with these, with these executive orders. I wonder, were there any that really stood out to you that surprised you to be coming out this, you know, right on the heels of his inauguration? Well, some of them we expected certainly the immigration, he's just reinstating his policies from his first administration in the state and Mexico policy. For example, you know, he eliminated DEI in the federal government. Now Ronald Reagan issued an executive order to eliminate affirmative action in the federal government in 1983, I believe, and it wasn't his inaugural, but he did it. And so it isn't new for presidents to try to use this power as broadly as they can to accomplish their policy goals. So that didn't surprise me pulling out of the World Health Organization surprised me because unlike the Paris Accords, which we knew he would do, you know, you wonder why we want to get absent ourselves from discussion and knowledge and research about worldwide diseases and potential plagues and epidemics. So that was surprising to me and curious. You know, presidents also have the opportunity and the power to reshuffle the federal bureaucracy. There are a lot of jobs that serve the power of the president and even divisions and the way that they spend money to implement the law is really under the president's control. So to reschedule jobs, to make people more loyal to the president, that's something that Eisenhower did, President Eisenhower did that, creating Schedule C. So that wasn't surprising to me. But surprising is the expectation that so many policy changes, you know, he wants to eliminate crime, he wants to make things safer, he wants to reinvigorate manufacturing. You need people in the federal government to oversee all those endeavors. And if you are in the business of firing them or intimidating them or pushing them out the door, I'm just not sure who's left to implement Trump policies. Speaking of, you know, sort of the implementation, how significant are these early executive orders typically? Are they more about signaling your values right off the bat as an administration? Or do they really have meaningful, a lot of meaningful consequences longer term? Well, a president always tests the waters in terms of how they want to accomplish their individual agenda with executive orders. You know, what's the, what's the pushback already? We've seen that attorney generals from Democratic leaning states are filing suit against the executive order to repeal or deny birthright citizenship, which is guaranteed another 14th amendment. So that will have to go through the courts. And typically, Republicans have always been very good at fighting executive orders, certainly under Bill Clinton, under Barack Obama, using the courts. And so now we'll Democrats be able to muster the same resources to fight some of these executive orders in federal court to get injunctions. And so this could become, you know, series after series order after order challenge in the courts. So the Supreme Court's docket will be very busy, but you know, Donald Trump in his attempt to save TikTok basically ignored the Supreme Court's upholding of the congressional law in the ban and now saying, well, let's give it a reprieve for a couple of days or maybe a month, month and a half. That's circumventing the Supreme Court. And this is the same court that gave Donald Trump in particular immunity, but the president immunity for anything he does as president of the United States. So you have a very precarious combination and potential clash of power between the Supreme Court and the president. And let's not forget. I believe also in attendance at the inauguration yesterday was not the CEO, one of the lead executives of TikTok. So yeah, and you know, Trump always he can get on a roll and he won. He won the popular vote by close to 3 million votes. He did not win 50% of the vote, but he did win the popular vote and he has, I think, more momentum and more claim to legitimacy for his agenda than he did in his first term. And he's not able to run again. And that is a constitutional amendment that has to be repealed in order for him to be able to run again, he would be approximately 82 years old when he ran again, which is the age that Biden is leaving the White House. So, so I'm not sure that happened. So if you have somebody who can't run again, their biggest goal is legacy and popularity. And now with the pardon of the 1500 convicted felons from the January 6th insurrection and riots, that is an interesting first move after a pretty glorious day for the president. And then it sort of pushes him backwards, right? Because you're already hearing some Republicans say that they're unhappy with that. You know, my guess is the majority of those individuals had already completed their sentences, had already been released from federal prison. But he also, you know, a couple of others that committed, you know, violent crimes were were pardoned. So Trump sometimes can't help himself and that's the big question mark. How much of a seesaw will we be in for in the next couple of months? I want to turn to Trump's cabinet or prospective cabinet, because even before his inauguration last week, the Senate began hearings, confirmation hearings for some of Trump's picks, including his choice for attorney general, Pam Bondi and Pete Haggsith, his pick for defense secretary. And they're just two of the rather unconventional nominees Trump has been put forth in a couple of ways. You know, Bondi is a former attorney general for the state of Florida, but was also one of Trump's personal lawyers during his first impeachment. And Pete Haggsith is most well known before this as an anchor on Fox, although, you know, he does have a career beyond that. But these were two nominations of Trump's that many observers of politics in Washington thought might not get confirmed for one reason or another, but it looks like they will get confirmed on a probably on partisan lines, but confirmed nonetheless. Were you surprised by how these hearings went and the level of support that nominees like Haggsith and Bondi received from Republicans? Well, most presidents have their cabinet nominees confirmed. It's rare that they pull somebody, you know, George Herbert Walker Bush nominated a man named Senator John Tower from from Texas who had some of the same complaints about his personal behavior that Haggsith has today, and particularly with abuse of alcohol, harassment of women, and he ended up pulling his own nomination because it was thought, well, that's a bridge too far. And obviously with Haggsith, the opposite happened, you know, the Republican said, well, he's changed. He's better. We'll see how he works out, you know, commanding the military is no easy job. And how much will Trump allow him in terms of liberty and freedom to be a freewheeling secretary of defense? Other nominations were quite standard. Marco Rubio, secretary of state, Doug Burtemas, former governor of North Dakota, the governor of South Dakota as Homeland Security, Kristi Gnome, you know, these are relatively standard Republican nominations with some exceptions. I think Tulsi Gabbard is the one that I'm watching and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Now, you know, I think one of those people will not make it. I think that the Senate will say no to one of them, possibly both, but I think Tulsi Gabbard might be the one that doesn't get through because if the Trump can claim victory on getting most of his cabinet through, he will probably be more accepting of some rejections. I want to remind folks in case, you know, I specialize in the Senate, I worked in the United States Senate that only a third of the Senate is ever up for reelection at one time. So many Republican senators are not facing the voters again in 2026, which means if they feel strongly enough about a nomination, they may feel that they can vote against it and still survive electorally. Outside of the official cabinet, I also wanted to ask you about Trump's plans for what he calls the Department of Government Efficiency, also known by its acronym Doge, which will be led by Elon Musk with the purported goal of eliminating wasteful spending and streamlining government services. So for listeners who haven't been following it that closely, I think it might be a little confusing. You know, it's not an official department, but we're calling it a department. Elon Musk has made sweeping claims about what this organization can and will do, while other people are saying it can't really do anything. Can you give us a little bit of a sense of where this is going? Like what's their plan? So there was an executive order to create Doge, but Doge doesn't exist. So in order to have a cabinet-level department with legal authority, you have to have Congress created. So the Department of Homeland Security was created in the wake of 9/11, and Congress created it, and the president signed it, and it's up and running as we well know. And that was in response to a lot of people's beliefs that there wasn't enough shared information of coordination and our security services and our defense services to really prevent that kind of attack. So that's the way it goes. Doge may make suggestions, but they would have to be carried out by executive order because they have no legal authority. And the bigger question is, you know, business people find the bureaucracy, as we know, very frustrating. It's why they want less regulation. You know, Elon Musk is an individual entrepreneur who really has been, you know, brilliant in some of the ways that he's transformed certain sectors of our economy and business. So how long will he stick around to wait to eliminate jobs? I mean, that's a really nitpicky, very tedious thing to do, and there are 2.4 million jobs civilian in the federal bureaucracy. So how long will he stick with this? That's my big question to remember. For those of you who are old enough to remember, Bill Clinton asked his vice president, Al Gore, to reinvent government. And Al Gore did in the course of that eight years they shared together, and they did reorganize, and they did eliminate some positions. So in that sense, I think this is not new. And the president certainly has the power constitutionally to configure the executive branch the way that he wants to. Also yesterday, multiple lawsuits were filed against Doge, claiming that it was effectively a federal advisory committee and that it was operating outside the bounds of those types of bodies. Do you think that also be the end of Doge, or do you think this is a fight that's going to continue? Well, again, it's all going to go to the courts. I also want to add that the question is, who gets fired? So if Elon Musk fires people who live in the District of Columbia or live in Northern Virginia or Maryland, I think that the Republicans in Congress or advocates won't be that bothered. But if you start firing people who live in Louisiana or Alabama or Idaho, really red states, and those jobs are gone, and Elon Musk actually says, "Okay, you're fired?" He doesn't have any legal authority to do that, and they will sue, and then they will call their members of the House and Senate and their governor's office and anybody else they can. So they will be pushed back, not just from advocates for the federal bureaucracy, but from Republicans who live in Republican states and districts who are losing their jobs. President Trump in his first term created a voting commission led by now Attorney General Chris Kobach of Kansas, but he was Secretary of State of Kansas at the time. And so he appointed him as his vote czar to reform voting, and he wanted from every Secretary of State all the voting records and how people lived, where they lived, how they voted, and he sort of demanded it. And famously, the Secretary of State and the Attorney General, each of them, objected in Mississippi. And the line was, "If you want that information, you're just going to have to come down and Mississippi and try to get it, but we'll direct you to the Gulf and you can just jump right in." And that was fascinating, a deep red state with Republican leadership that said, "No, you have any, no right to that information, and we're not giving it to." So again, that's a way of state-based resistance from your own party that says, "No, we're not going to go in that direction." And I think Elon Musk might deal with this for a little while, and they get very tired of it and probably want to turn his attention to something else. You know, and regardless of Elon Musk's interest in this particular project, you know, what is clear is he is right now very interested in being involved in the Trump administration and having the ear of Donald Trump. How do you think about their relationship right now? You've mentioned there's obviously a long history of sort of the titans of industry working closely with presidents, but how are you thinking about this relationship that's just sort of captured the attention of so many people? Well, Donald Trump is a lone operator, and the world is big enough for one Donald Trump, but not two Donald Trump's. And so what's surprising is how much Donald Trump has let Elon Musk in, well, given that he's probably contributed $190 or $200 million to his campaign, I think that that was one of the big reasons he got in the door, but there isn't enough room for two presidents. And the Democratic Party in December when the Congress Republican controlled House, Democrat controlled Senate, they were trying to get a budget done and Elon Musk sort of threw a big monkey wrench into it in the middle of the night on X, formerly known as Twitter. And the Democrats went to the floor and said, president Musk wants us to do a co-president Musk wants to do and they keep referring to Elon Musk as president Musk and co-president. And Trump has already responded to that. It already bothers Trump. And the Democrats are going to keep doing this over and over and over again. And that's where I think a rift will develop between Trump and Musk and if Musk could be president of the United States, he is constitutionally prohibited because he was not born in the United States. And, you know, we saw him in the Capitol arena, you know, realize if he had won, I mean, it's really he's riding the wave. What's interesting to me is the connection between the executive order and the 14th amendment. If you take away birthright citizenship, then the argument for why you can't be president of the United States, if you're not born here, that doesn't make sense either. So paving the way perhaps for Musk. So what if we have a trickle down effect where that, you know, that starts to come into play? So Musk will stay in as long as these are any chance of exercising national power and then it enhances his power abroad if he's got Trump's backing. But one thing Trump could do is send him abroad. In other words, okay, you're annoying me, you're taking up all my publicity, you're riding my wave too closely, go to Europe, represent us there. And we'll see whether that happens. But I just don't see this partnership given the ego situation. And that's true of all politicians and business people lasting all that long. You know, as we start to wrap up, I wanted to talk a little bit about the opposition to Trump almost exactly eight years ago, hundreds of thousands of people gathered for the women's march as it was known in DC and millions joined in from around the country protesting Trump. There were protests this past weekend, but they were much smaller and overall, it just feels like there's less energy right now among the opposition to Trump than there was in say, 2017. And I wonder to the extent you agree with that assessment, why do you think that is or do you agree with it? Well, Dan, that's a subject for a whole nother podcast. I would say that part of the energy, particularly in 2018, 2017, 2018, the women's movement, the MeToo movement, Black Lives Matter movement, a lot of that energy was surround was based on unity, that there was this sort of male, white male dominated spoke about women badly. Charlottesville, the racist and anti-Semitic neo-Nazi movement there, that sparked a sense of commonality across a lot of different groups. COVID epidemic and remote work, remote schooling really sort of broke a lot of those bonds because you just didn't see people, you didn't experience things together. And then I think also in latter years, certainly the Israeli and Gaza-Palestinian conflict and the Ukrainian-Russian conflict have generated a lot of fierce and passionate opinion and fragmented the left significantly. Where people thought they had things in common, now they see a potential enemy. And I do think the symbolism of the marches, particularly for the past year on all these issues, I think drove some independent voters back to Trump to say, "I don't think I have anything in common with you if you're destroying a building and throwing chairs around or doing things like that." And that's true of January 6th, that's true of, you know, protesters at Columbia University. It's a sense that that's not me, that you don't reflect my opinion or my values. And I think it hurt the left far more organizationally than making any damage to the right. And it will take a while for the left to build it back up and build trust inside its own movement across different constituencies within that movement. And that's going to take some work and some healing and that'll take some time. On the organizational work that the left might have to do amongst themselves, I wonder if you think, as people have predicted, that Trump backing power will provide a focus for opposition that itself could be unifying, again, having a common, you know, enemy, so to speak, that might it bring people together a little bit more on the left? And my concern is that as some people and some Democrat politicians have noted as well, is that there are, you know, real abuses of executive power that would deny people their civil rights and then there is everything else. And you really have to decide what you want to sound ring the alarm bells on. And if it's everything, then that message will get drowned out. So it's really what is he doing that affects daily lives of Americans of all, from all sectors that infringes on their constitutional rights. And then the first Trump administration, you can argue that some policies did, but not most for people who are U.S. citizens. And that's what we have to wait and see. And I, if you looked, if you looked at the executive orders, as I know you did, and you listened to the speech, at least the inaugural speech, they were very careful with delineating who they were quote unquote going after and who they were leaving quote unquote alone. And that's purposeful. They saw that. They know that they understand that's a bit precarious, you know, the House Republicans did very badly in 2024. There were almost no presidential coattails. He won by three million votes in the popular vote and the House lost at least one or two Republican seats. That means that the vast majority of the public does not support all of the Republican party's agenda, and there's, as I said, a very quick 2026 round the corner. And in that sense, paying attention to what really resonates with the vast majority of people in terms of the Trump agenda will be the way that Democrats can make inroads in 2026 and that the left, whatever way you want to define it, can unify and cohere and get back some of that support that they had in 2018 and 2020. So you're saying that despite all the different issues we've been talking about, it's really civil liberties where you think the opposition to Trump will most clearly sort of define itself. Yes. I mean, I genuinely think like we saw in Washington and see when Trump broke up the Black Lives Matter protest, you know, the freedom in the First Amendment has really our big set and it wasn't even supposed to be the First Amendment. It was supposed to be later on down the list. The freedom to assemble, the freedom to petition the government for redress of grievances, the freedom of speech, freedom of press, and freedom from an establishment of a national religion, these are fundamental rights. And if we see the Trump administration breaking up protests, committing violence against protesters, you know, suing people or arresting people for speech or for press, John Adams did that under the Alienins Edition Act. And in fact, Trump cited that very act in his inaugural speech. That is where I think you'll find common ground among the majority of Americans to say that's a bridge too far. I want to close with if you have any advice for people who are looking at this new Trump term and the flurry of activity and coverage we're already seeing and are maybe already feeling a little blown over by the amount of activity and the amount of energy and vitriol and counter vitriol and all the rest. What advice do you have for people for how to approach what is likely to be a pretty intense period in American politics? And a time when there's likely to be a lot of reporting and discussion and concern about the restricting of rights, whether we're talking about immigration rights, transgender rights or reproductive rights? Well, first, take a deep breath. Second, pace your outrage. Make sure that you save your energy for the things that you value the most, that are important to your family, your community, and when you enter the fray, make sure that you're entering the fray to protect something that is actually threatened, that may actually be lost. Not the perception or the potential, the probability, but in fact, something you see on the ground now. And remember, Tocqueville, a very famous French philosopher who came to the United States in the 1830s and wrote a very big book, Democracy in America, said the heart of the American Democracy is the local community. And the preservation of all that we find dear in terms of our rights starts in our local community. So think local, and again, take a deep breath. Well, Wendy, thank you once again for coming on to Trending Globaling. Well, Dan, thank you so much for having me. This episode was produced by me, Dan Richards. Our theme music is by Henry Bloomfield, an additional music by the Blue Dot Sessions. If you enjoyed this show, please leave a rating and review on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. It really helps other people to find us. And if you haven't subscribed to the show, please do that too. If you have any questions, or comments, or ideas for guests or topics, send us an email at trendingglobally@brown.edu. Again, that's all one word trending globally at brown.edu. We'll be back in two weeks with another episode of Trending Globally. Thanks. [MUSIC] [MUSIC PLAYING] You
