A quick warning, there are curse words that are unbeaped in today's episode of the show.
If you prefer a beeped version, you can find that at our website, thisamericanlife.org.
Maybe you'll go to hard to remember now, but when Donald Trump announced he was officially
running for president again this time around, he did not seem inevitable.
Far from it.
It was a week after the midterm elections, where the Trumpiest candidates lost some key
cases, post-show governor around to Santa's beating him for the Republican nomination.
He had very few endorsements from other Republican politicians.
Jonathan Karl covered Trump's announcement for ABC News, which Chief Washington correspondent.
I mean, I was at Mar-a-Lago.
It was a really flat speech.
He was, first of all, it was teleprompter Trump.
He was reading from the teleprompter.
And there was no fire in Brimstone to it.
It was kind of warmed over policy proposals.
It was flat.
But we will bring our supply chains and manufacturing base back home, as we were strongly doing during
the Trump administration, and we will systematically bring people to the room.
I mean, I was there in Mar-a-Lago.
I saw people going to the exits halfway through the speech.
And at one point, there were so many people leaving that they actually blocked the exits.
They told me it was for security reasons.
But I don't think you wanted a half-empty Mar-a-Lago ballroom at the conclusion of his presidential
announcement.
So, not a great beginning.
When did it turn around?
Jonathan says that began with the speech that Trump gave a few months later.
In March 2023, at the annual CPAC conference, Conservatives, there's a very different
speech, with a very different tone.
It's really dark, and it is filled with talk about getting essentially revenge at those
who have wronged him.
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She is press secretary and director of communications for the White House and was also responsible
for communications for Melania.
PS, she is the only White House press secretary to never hold a single press briefing.
But Stephanie says even outside of her formal White House jobs, she spent a huge amount
of time with the Trumps.
I would always go with them during all the holidays.
So I was at Marlaga with them for Christmas, New Year's, all the way to Easter.
So I was just always there.
Always there.
So literally in the room at so many critical moments.
Like on election night in 2020, it was Stephanie who tipped her into the first lady's bedroom
around one waker.
So Melania would be dressed and ready to go on camera when Trump came out to speak.
As Melania got ready in the bathroom, Stephanie says that she sat with Baron at the end of
her bed, watching television news and calling out the results.
So Melania would know which states had been decided.
Really, Stephanie's been through all kinds of things with the Trumps.
I mean, there was the time he felt that he needed to tell me that Stormy Daniels was wrong
about his penis size.
So that was a really weird conversation.
And he called me from Air Force One, which made the whole conversation worse because there's
a tiny delay between the person on the plane and the person on the ground.
January 6th was the turning point for Stephanie.
She said she was horrified that Trump didn't immediately denounce the breach of the Capitol
and attacks on Mike Pence.
And when she reached out to Melania to ask her to intervene with her husband, Melania said,
no.
For Stephanie, that was the last straw.
She told me she sent her resignation email about 15 minutes later.
But Stephanie didn't stop at resigning.
She also agreed to testify for the January 6th committee, spoke out against Donald Trump
on television, and wrote a tell-all book about her experience with the Trumps became a national
bestseller.
From a Trump perspective, Stephanie says she's sinned in almost every possible way she could
sin.
And she's been clear from the beginning, literally from the moment she pressed send on
her resignation email about what that would mean for her.
Oh, I knew I would be cast out.
I knew I would immediately be a traitor.
I mean, I helped do it to people.
If anybody spoke out against Mrs. Trump or the president, I was the one issuing terrible
statements calling them a liar, saying they were looking for fame.
Stephanie says that since she was a Trump true believer, she mostly felt fine about this.
She saw it as an important part of her job to push back.
But still, she says there were some uncomfortable moments.
I called Mitt Romney a scum, I think.
And this is a man I had worked for and actually had really respected and was always really
kind when I ever passed by him.
And I remember right when the word scum came out of my mouth, I inside was like, oh, that
was way too far, way too far.
That was really harsh and that was pretty gross of me.
And of course, I get back to the White House and I got just praise from the president.
That was great.
You were so tough.
You're so tough.
So then that makes you feel good because now the president is happy with you.
And that's one of the things about Donald Trump.
He doesn't give you a specific direction.
He just says, go after him.
And he leaves you to do the dirty work.
Stephanie says one of the only times Trump gave her very specific directions was after John
Kelly stepped down as chief of staff and then criticized Trump in the press.
Stephanie says at one point, Trump called her to say she needed to make a public statement
savaging Kelly, who was a person Stephanie liked and respected.
He said that I needed to call this reporter and say, General Kelly doesn't understand
the genius of our great president.
And he said, take it down, take this down.
So I remember I wrote it down and I hung up the phone and I sat there.
And I remember I called my boyfriend.
I called one of the deputy chiefs of staff at the time.
And I think I called just like my best friend.
And I knew I was like, oh my gosh, she wants me to say this.
This is horrible, right?
And everyone was like, yeah, that's really horrible.
And but I picked up the phone and I did it.
And it sounded like I worked for Kim Jong-un, like the genius of our great president.
Who says that?
But I did.
And so he called me later that day, the president, and said, hey, I really, that was great.
I really appreciate what you said.
That was really tough.
And I'm thinking, you had me write that down.
Like, it was just very, very clear, Stephanie says that Trump wanted you to be as ruthless
as possible with his enemies.
She says Trump seemed genuinely admire people who were ruthless.
I remember one specific time when we were in a bilat with President Erdogan of Turkey.
And we were all sitting around this table.
I was, I think, maybe the only woman in the room, maybe a couple others.
But out of the blue, literally, he just yells down to me, Stephanie, who do you think is
the biggest killer?
This guy or President Xi of China?
He asked me that in a room of 30 to 40 people I'm supposed to decide who's the biggest murderer
as if that's cool.
And I remember I just said, I don't know, this guy looks pretty tough, sir.
You know, you laugh about it.
And I remember afterwards, he came up to me and grabbed my elbow and he goes, hey, just
you know, it's President Xi.
I've seen him do some shit.
And that was the moment that I was like, he really loves this.
He really loves.
He wanted to know who has murdered more of their own people, their own people.
Unfortunately, for Stephanie, Donald Trump doesn't usually forget his grudges.
And maybe worse, it's not just Donald who's angry with her.
The worst part for me is that I'm on her radar.
So like a general Kelly is not on Melania Trump's radar.
So I've got like both of them.
And I know that she is very, very good at revenge as well.
And I want to be clear, Stephanie seems to genuinely care for her.
And in some ways even admire Melania Trump.
Since she was Melania's chief of staff and communications director, they got to know
each other pretty well.
And you can tell when you read Stephanie's book that even now she has fond feelings for
her former boss.
Mrs. or even.
But she's seen what Melania's capable of.
She says Melania's tried to use the government to go after enemies in the past.
She had a friend who kind of worked for her Stephanie Winston Wolkopf.
You also wrote a book about her while we were in the White House.
And when Stephanie's book came out, Melania wanted to sue her.
Because that's what they do, the Trump sue people.
And Melania's reasoning was she wanted to sue Stephanie for violating a non-disclosure
agreement that Stephanie had signed.
Well, we all signed.
But those had been deemed that they didn't really matter because we were for the government.
And Pat Sipolloni, our attorney, our White House attorney kept telling Melania, no, if
you want to do this, you need to do it with your personal lawyer.
This isn't a government thing.
And Melania was like, nope, nope, I want to sue her.
I want to sue her.
And she forced Pat Sipolloni to make the Justice Department take it on.
Pat said, two or three times, this should be your personal lawyer.
This is not a government situation.
And she finally, one day, said, I don't care.
Do it.
No, they did it.
I reached out to Pat Sipolloni and the Justice Department to confirm Stephanie's story.
Neither would comment.
The Justice Department did file a suit against Stephanie Winston Wolkopf shortly after her
book came out.
The Biden administration dropped that suit its first month in office.
This story points to something that really worries Stephanie about a second Trump term.
She believes there will be many fewer Pat Sipolloni's, people willing to push back or say
note at the Trumps.
Because like Ira mentioned earlier, Trump has told people he's not going to appoint anyone
this time around who will tell him no.
And there's something else that Stephanie is worried about in a second Trump term, something
I heard from a few people.
It's not how he'd use government institutions for personal retribution.
It's another weapon at his disposal.
He and she, they both can call forth these armies of people, mostly online, but certainly
we've seen with January 6th and other situations that some are in public.
And you just get besieged with hate and bullying and they know that and they wield that power
like no problem.
And I remember there were times with Mrs. Trump that I'd say, do you want me to put a statement
out about this person who said something bad about you and she'd say no, no, no, we
will let all my fans get them.
And that meant the people online, you know, all her supporters would go after this person.
And they do.
People I spoke to for this story told me that they feared Trump would encourage a kind
of culture of ventualness in a second term.
And that Magazzella's might be liberated to do what they want because Trump's government
will have their backs.
After all, he has already promised to pardon the January 6th rioters, which brings me
to Fred Wellman and the way that fear of retribution from Trump supporters can infect a life.
Fred lives in a suburb of St. Louis on this residential street with modest houses.
And he told me that a couple months ago, right before bed, he let his dog river out for
her bedtime stretch.
You know, open the door, she jumps down three steps and sitting right here with those
garbage cans are was a pickup truck.
Sitting there idling, facing my house and I'm like, okay, I washed them for a second.
Couldn't see, tended windows, couldn't see what was going on.
I'm like, that's strange.
You're talking 10 o'clock at night?
What got me gone was I gave him bug eyes.
You know, I looked at him, I gave him a stink eye.
It's like, what are you doing here?
It's locked and you know, he had to know I saw him and I came back and they didn't leave,
which is really suspicious.
And in your mind, what was the first thought you had about who could be sitting in that truck?
Oh, Trump's supporters.
Maga, Maga, Mag extremeist, if you will.
I'm on the list.
I'm on the list.
And what do you mean by list?
Enemies, I'm on the Mag enemies list.
To be clear, it's not a literal list.
But Fred's definitely done enough to get on the wrong side of Trump world.
Fred was executive director of the Lincoln project.
Maybe you've heard of it.
It's this group of high profile Republican operatives who set out to use their political know-how
to keep Trump out of power in 2020 and immediately attracted attention and money.
The group trolled Trump on Twitter daily and spent close to $80 million on a series
of viral anti-Trump campaign ads.
Trump responded with rage tweets.
There were a bunch.
And those written attacks from Trump almost immediately translated into actual attacks
from Trump supporters.
One Lincoln project founder I talked to said that hundreds of boxes of excrement were
mailed to his house.
Then a couple months ago, Fred discovered that all of his information and the information
of his family members had been posted on this doxing site that he didn't want a name,
but what she showed me during our visit.
I keep it open.
I love the picture of the devil.
It's very subtle.
There it is.
That's my steps on.
That's my dad who's dead.
That's my ex-wife's ex-husband.
That's my brother.
That's my mother.
They do have all the email and socials, right?
What do they have all your email?
They have all your stuff.
That's not me.
I guess there's a Fred Wilmer's realtor that keeps staking for me.
Poor Fred Wilmer.
I know.
Have you reached out to him and thought he'd be like, sorry guy?
He should change his name.
I was first.
At the top of the page was a box which listed how many people had searched for Fred's name.
There were 187.
And now this truck was sitting near his driveway.
Could it be a Trump supporter?
So anyway, I do what I do, which is...
You know.
Just explain what this is.
I have a 9mm handgun.
Smith and Wesson 9mm.
In the drawer by your bed?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Or actually on the nightstand.
Before getting sideways with Trump World, Fred didn't keep guns in his house, much less
on his bedside table.
It's not that Fred's uncomfortable with guns, Fred's military.
You went to West Point, was a protege of David Patreus, a certain desert storm, and had
three combat tours in Iraq.
It's just that after his time in the military, Fred struggled very seriously with PTSD.
And so to be safe, about seven years ago he got rid of all of his weapons.
He told me it was the responsible thing to do for his kids, for his family.
Easy access to guns kills veterans.
It was a big deal for me to go ahead and get one.
Did you have...
Is it okay for me to ask?
Did you...
Did you at a certain point have real trouble with suicidal ideas?
Oh, yeah.
Oh yeah.
That was a constant companion to me for many years.
Many, many years.
But I went to treatment for PTSD back in 2018 as my wife and I separated.
And I took that.
I still...
Still therapy.
Still treating it.
Come a long way.
That's why Fred's War of Guns.
At least until he was promoted to Executive Director of the Lincoln Project in 2021.
Maga supporters already hated them.
But on his first day on the job, something happened that unleashed a whole new level of
fury at the group.
One of the Lincoln Project's founders admitted to sending sexually suggestive messages to young
men, which turned Maga's anger at the group up to 11.
The daily barrage was so extreme, the professional security consultants hired to do a threat analysis,
told Fred and his colleagues to avoid going outside.
Fred felt he had no choice.
He says he drove to a store and purchased the spith and wasn't.
Carried it everywhere, even inside his house.
I needed to have it in the same room just to make sure in case I'd kick the door in or
came in the back door that I'd at least be able to fight back.
I had a whole plan where I'd fall back.
What's safe room?
I set up a safe room.
I mean, just put Maga's drama in the bathroom upstairs.
Look, if I had to retreat the bathroom, I'd have the extra ammo in the bathroom.
It was pretty intense for a while there.
I'm an old soldier.
I'm not going to sit back on him and kill me.
Being aware of my surroundings, being aware of my operational security is my way of life
now.
Has to be.
You know, I have a choice.
Which brings me back to that night in late January and the truck parked in front of Fred's
driveway.
Fred told me he peeked through the blinds with the gun in his hand, waiting until eventually
it drove away.
At the time, did you question, am I being paranoid?
Oh, yeah, I always do.
You always do.
I mean, why wouldn't you?
You know, it's a weird thing to think to me, I want to.
You know, it's so ridiculous, the idea.
Even someone who lives this life is wondering, am I just being ridiculous?
I always fuck that.
Does it bother you to think that you're paranoid?
Yeah, it does.
But that's their goal, right?
I mean, the goal, I think, for all these guys is to make us on edge, that they're
rare us out to make you quit, to say, you know what?
This is too much heat.
This is too much danger for me.
And I have peers who have done that.
Peers who have backed out of their, you know, quieted down or gone to other things.
The goal is, and I think about it, why would I not think about it?
So they want us to be scared, they want us to chicken out, they want us to be broke.
It's like, you see how I live?
I live humbly.
Go forward, dude.
There's nothing more dangerous than a male zero-assist than zero-fucks.
And that's you?
That's me.
Yeah, that's me in a million ways.
Kids are grown.
I'm not married, so my wife's not going to get hit with anything.
I'm on my own.
Fred and Stephanie both worry that in a second Trump term, he'll install people in the federal
government who will come after them, in the IRS, in the Justice Department.
Like for example, they both think their taxes could be audited.
Or I don't know if they would have DOJ come after me for like treason.
He was big on treason.
What do you mean he was big on treason?
He'd always just, if people spoke out against him, that's treason.
That's treason.
That's what he felt.
It's not going to be just about Donald Trump or Melania Trump.
Some people who will also be placed without a doubt into the administration, they too will
be empowered to go after people they perceive were traders.
And so it's going to be a small little army of people that I think will be just settling
all kinds of scores using the government.
You want to talk about really what is it going to look like for people like me?
Let's say you say you're a place half the IRS with magna extremist and they go through
people like me's books.
You know as well as I do, I probably didn't cross it to you or dot an I.
It's not hard to find a crime when you look for it.
So what happens to people like me?
You see where this goes?
It's very easy to use the administrative state and a very, the deep state, if you will,
in very evil ways.
Which is why Fred and his girlfriend have been making plans.
Can you just explain the trip that you're going to be taking this summer?
Yeah, we're going to go abroad.
We've done the research of what needs to do to establish the first steps in the process
to find yourself living somewhere else and we're planning on taking some of those steps
this summer just to be safe.
You know establishing bank accounts and travel patterns, making contact with the local
passport offices, those sorts of things.
There are other ways that Fred has adjusted his life in anticipation of a Trump presidency.
Explain that why.
Why are you not married?
Well there's no legal entanglement that way.
They can't go after her because she's my partner, my wife.
There's no, we have not intertwined our finances for example, just in case.
I do not want my challenges to affect those I love.
Be it my kids, my partner, even my ex, okay?
I do not want them entangled in this.
As for Stephanie, she doesn't like to talk about what she'll do if Trump gets elected
for a second term.
The only thing she'd say on the record is that she is also considered leaving the country.
In fact, Stephanie told me she's in this text group with four women.
Former Trump administration staffers who have publicly repudiated him, all of them testified
in front of the January 6th committee.
She says that when Trump's poll numbers look especially good, they come for each other
with these half funny, half serious texts.
Like our big joke is that we're going to end up in Gitmo.
And I'm always telling people, will you just fill my commissary up?
I just why I love ramen.
I'll just eat ramen all the time.
Do you think that you could end up in jail?
Oh, yeah.
I don't know for what.
But yeah.
I mean, I even worry something is about just disappearing one day.
Like a black ops, one day Stephanie's just gone.
Where'd she go?
That's really dramatic.
I doubt that would happen, but it has crossed my mind.
Because you think they're capable of that?
Yeah.
I mean, yes.
Stephanie and Fred know that these hypotheticals seem really extreme, but they feel like they
have no choice but to think about them.
It's messed up that the United States of America in 2024, because you have a political
difference with someone around for office, you actually have to come up with a plan to
possibly leave our country.
If Donald Trump wins on November 5th, Fred and Stephanie will have roughly two months
before the new administration takes power to figure out what to do.
Two months to make a decision about whether to stay or whether to go.
In the meantime, they wait.
Fred told me that a couple of weeks ago, he had another visit from an idling truck.
He's one of the producers of our show.
Coming up, how's the plan for retribution affecting your marriage?
And the Trump vote is actually given damn about Trump's calls for retribution.
That's in a minute.
There's a lot of global radio when our program continues.
It's just American life, my regards.
Today's program, Com Retribution, one of the current presidential candidates is openly
promising revenge.
If he takes office, we're looking at what that might mean and talking to some of the people
he might take revenge upon.
We've revved it at two of our program, at two, the deep stator.
So I'm like Fred and Stephanie.
This next guy is not trying to pick a fight with Donald Trump.
He's just trying to do his job.
Mr. Chairman, ranking members, thank you for the opportunity to address the House permanent
select committee on intelligence.
This is former Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Vindman.
He's the White House staffer who went to his superiors and officially reported the phone
call that President Donald Trump had that led to his first impeachment trial.
Do you remember this call?
It was with the president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, back in July 2019.
Lieutenant Colonel Vindman wrote the talking points for President Trump that day.
Trump was supposed to congratulate Zelensky for winning a big election, normal stuff, but
instead, Trump famously went off message and asked Zelensky for a favor.
He asked Zelensky to investigate Hunter Biden.
Vindman and some other officials were listening in.
I was concerned by the call.
What I heard was inappropriate.
And I reported my concerns to Mr. Eisenberg.
It is improper for the president of the United States to demand a foreign government investigate
a U.S. citizen and a political opponent.
In his testimony, Vindman emphasized that he did not go public with these concerns.
He reported him up the chain of command as a job required because they had national security
implications.
He was not hoping to put the president on a trial.
There was somebody else, an intelligence official, who blew the whistle.
They made the vote and called public.
But it was Vindman, who became the public face of all this, who testified in public at
the impeachment hearings, wearing his medals, his uniform, and was probably the most dramatic
testimony of the hearings.
There were consequences to that.
Two days after Donald Trump beat the impeachment charges, he fired Vindman from his White House
job.
One of Trump's advisors told CNN that this meant to send a message to anybody who might
cross-Trump.
There was now out of the White House, Vindman was still a military officer.
They were apparently too hot a property for the military to give a serious job to.
The offer is combat veteran, a multi-lingual expert who had been coordinating all U.S.
policy when Ukraine, Russia, and former Soviet states.
A job at an army museum that had not even opened yet.
It was about as far from the action as you can get.
It's been said to leave the military, start a new life.
You move with his wife Rachel and his daughter, Farada.
Do a big, pretty house with huge windows.
Well, would you walk into our house?
You walk into a very empty space.
High ceilings, that's why we have the echoes.
Literally, it has only dog beds in it.
We tallied 11 dog beds for three dogs across the house.
Yeah.
Yeah, this is a room where there would be living room furniture and curtains and stuff.
Yes.
We have a plan for all of that.
But we are not purchasing the furniture and the curtains, the window treatments until
we have a little bit more clarity on the election in November.
Because, you know, I don't know what we're going to do.
We don't have plans to leave, but if Donald Trump is re-elected...
That sounds a little...
That frankly sounds a little bit alarmist and I understand the idea that we need to save
money in general just to make sure that, you know, contingencies.
Yeah, that's fair.
Contentancies.
Your contingencies are different than my contingencies.
I think we have a different calculus for how we sort of calculate the danger.
What's interesting talking to the Vennmans is that they do not agree on the danger they're
in.
It really drives home how nobody knows what Donald Trump's retribution is going to look
like.
Who he's going to go after?
What he's going to try to do to them?
So you have all these people guessing, like the Vennmans.
Rachel's best guess is that they really might need to leave the country.
Things might get that bad for them.
Alex just doesn't see it.
This is the country that gave his family refuge from authoritarianism.
He arrived here at the age of four after his dad fled the Soviet Union.
You just can't imagine leaving the country.
No, not possible.
I think the fact is that I've served a full military career to protect this country and
I'm not going to give it up.
He gestures around the living room.
Well, I would just say that, you know, Ellie and I are 13 year old to have an ulterior
motive here.
And this is an ideal space to be able to be able to play her VR because there's no impediments
in the future.
That's the story, okay?
I think they explained why they see whatever danger they might be in so differently.
They each had the same answer.
Temperament.
Alex is exceedingly optimistic.
It is a little annoying at times.
So I would revert to what my daughter says about us, which is that I'm responsible for
fun and Rachel's responsible for safety.
Wait, why does it work out that way?
You're the military officer.
How is she the safety one?
Because I'm the fun one, man.
I tend to be pretty optimistic and kind of on the happy go lucky side.
In person, at home, Alex Vindman is more boyish and funnier than the decorated officer you
might have seen on TV if you're watching any of his congressional testimony.
He's the one who can't run for long stretches with a little nephews and nieces at the pool
doing cannonballs and riling them up.
He's the one who thinks things will work out.
He's the one who takes a grimmer view of their prospects.
That's how it's been for the beginning of their troubles with Donald Trump.
Going all the way back to the very first conversation about this Lensky phone call and what it
might mean for their family.
That first conversation they both say happened when the news broke about that phone call.
Rachel heard a story about the Trump-Solensky call on MPR.
And then that night Alex brought it up with her.
This thing in the news that obviously was something very close to his own job.
We were laying in bad and he said, can you please call and check out professional liability
insurance tomorrow?
And he rolled over and went to sleep and I was awake all night long.
You wanted to check on buying professional liability insurance to cover legal fees.
The Vindman's were a couple red to figure out how to deal with other hard stuff before
this.
Tough overseas postings, including three years in Moscow.
They'd lost their first child.
It was born four months early and died a week later.
But this was something with an any normal rulebook.
Testifying against the sitting president.
And the way they dealt with the blowback seems to be they got very practical.
Drieder says the risks and their options as clearly as they could.
After Alex testified he got called a traitor, a double agent who was working for Ukraine.
They got docks, threatened, menacing letters or sent to their house, anti-Semitic slurs.
It was frightening.
But they were pragmatic about it.
Got the army to do a threat assessment, made arrangements to move to a military base
so things got too severe.
And this past year they kept that risk assessment going.
Keeping an eye on the things that Donald Trump's been saying about retribution.
When he's talking a lot about putting his enemies in jail, they did feel like, oh, that's
us.
Alex's hackles raise any time Trump talks about the impeachment hoax with a phone call
that he had with Zelensky back in July 2019.
I mean, there was something I, I, I, I guess, commented on just within the past week where
he claimed that it was a perfect phone call.
You know, I actually I could pull it up here.
Give me a second.
Okay.
This is two days ago.
So this is at his rally, just two days ago in Dayton, Ohio, where he was talking about
the fact that there was a phone, a video or an audio tape of his, of the phone calls,
July 25th phone call.
Shifty Adam Schiff.
This is one of the most dishonest human beings.
He's talking about the Democrats who ran the impeachment hearings at him, Schiff.
He made up my conversation that I had with the president of Ukraine.
He made up the conversation.
But here's what they didn't know.
The phone call because it was a White House call and for some reason it happened to be
on tape.
So I let them go more and more.
The stories got wilder and wilder.
Then we released the tape.
They died.
They didn't know that phone call was taped and they got caught.
Just in case there's any ambiguity in your mind right now.
None of this is true.
It's complete fantasy.
There is no tape at this Lensky phone call.
The transcript we have comes from staff notes made during the call.
So Trump did not release any tape of any sort and catch Schiff or anybody else in any
lies.
He's, he talks about these things all the time.
Like in multiple venues, this is literally two days ago.
And so that tells you you're still on his mind.
Yeah, definitely still on his mind.
Alex and I talked about it.
It was very chilling.
I think that he brought up the phone call because you'd like to think he moved on to other
people that he hates, Liz Cheney.
I don't know.
I mean, any number of people and he does talk about them.
But that's still there.
And I think he would, you know, absolutely seek retribution.
So you like to think that we could fly under the radar for a little bit if things got
bad, but I'm not so sure.
If things did get bad, what do the vignements think?
Retribution for them might go like Donald Trump or the people around him.
Ask them to rank for most likely to least likely.
At the top of the list was some of the stuff other people told us that try to take Alex's
pension or entitlements, or maybe the president would direct the Department of Justice or
the FBI to investigate Alex and you'd have to hire a lawyer, which is a huge hassle,
even if no conviction came from it.
When I asked him about their most far fetched fears, Rachel said she was hesitant to mention
this next one because it's so out there.
But she worries that Alex would be tried for treason and the penalty could be death.
Yeah, I don't want to seem like a nut, but if you just Google or just do a search on
Twitter or something for, you know, what they want most of all is Alex to be arrested
and tried for treason.
They truly think that he went against his commander in chief and that is an act of treason.
That's where the maggot people feel.
Right.
The maggots.
His most far fetched fear.
Again, neither of them think these things are likely.
I think about the fact that I'm an immigrant and is there any chance that I could lose
my citizenship as a nationalized citizen, and then I frankly don't have a country, frankly,
because Soviet Union doesn't exist, the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic doesn't exist.
So that idea is probably crossed my mind once or twice, you know, that that would be a
tougher thing to bear than even some of the persecutions or something of that nature
that I would lose my, lose the fact that I'm an American.
I don't want to read too much into this, but her worst fear is that he'd die.
And his worst fear is not that he'd die, but that he would lose his country.
Back in the impeachment hearings, Benjamin ended his prepared testimony by talking about
his father, who he looks up to, and who he's turned to for advice his whole life.
His dad was a civil engineer who'd risen through the ranks and prospered in the old Soviet
Union.
Couldn't stand the wrongdoing they saw built into the system, fled, to start again in the
bottom in America at the age of 47.
Not long before Alex testified in Congress, they were driving to a family wedding in Rhode
Island.
Alex was dead, no.
They may be pulled into the upcoming impeachment hearings.
I met there was no way for me to avoid being drawn into this.
And his counsel was don't mess around with these people.
They could wreck everything for you, you know, do rail your career and all that kind of
stuff.
I was in the car.
I was in the very back.
And there was a lot of rush and I understand rush and but I don't speak it, but I could
see them in the front.
I mean, Alex's dad was yelling and he was very upset.
And his dad was saying don't testify.
Don't testify against the most powerful man in the world, don't do it.
There's nothing to be gained for it.
Don't do it.
And he was actually more concerned about like, you know, the Soviet context would be, you
know, imprisoned, murdered or things of that nature.
So he thought you could be imprisoned and murdered?
Well, I mean, we had lived in the US for 40 years so he knows the US is different than
the Soviet Union.
But when you cross power that kind of unchecked power with that kind of personality, that
the consequences would be severe.
It's testimony.
Been nodded to that disagreement with his dad.
Talked about how in many countries, including Russia, raising concerns about the president's
phone call, even privately in the chain of command, with severe discussions.
And offering public testimony involving the president would surely cost me my life.
Dad.
I'm sitting here today in the US Capitol talking to our elected professionals is proof that
you made the right decision 40 years ago to leave the Soviet Union and come here to the
United States of America in search of a better life for our family.
Do not worry.
I will be fine for telling the truth.
Alex says that at the time that really seemed true to him, that he could testify without
serious repercussions.
But today.
I'd say if we go into 2024 with Trump being reelected, I wouldn't have that kind of confidence
going forward.
I still have a lot of faith in this country, but if we do elect Trump a second time around,
I'm not sure if right would still matter.
Act three.
One more years.
Okay, so we've heard from a bunch of people who are dreading a second Trump term.
What about the people who are excited about Trump winning?
We've been gearing up for it.
We wondered, is Donald Trump's desire for revenge something they share?
Is this part of his pitch something they actually care about?
Zoe Chase talked to a bunch of Trump voters before and after the guilty verdicts in his
court case a week ago.
The first group of voters I talked to, they were in a Trump rally in Wildwood, New Jersey.
Literally on the boardwalk with our K-ed games.
And today, a Justice for January 6th, Prisoners tribute band.
The line to get into the rally was on the beach, in the sand, the mood was upbeat, the music
was classic, the vibe was relaxing, singing lots of families.
I started talking to people.
Eskying everyone, what are the top things you want from Trump if he's back in office?
Series if they'd say, revenge.
Um, I should go down.
Lower inflation, gas prices, migrants, the borders closed.
100% economy.
I drive a pickup truck and shit's getting expensive for me.
Lower rent, mortgage, that kind of thing.
I have a 28 year old that's trying to buy a home and we won't, we told them not even
to bother to move out right now.
Just to bring things back to a normalcy, to bring fuel prices back, just try to take
it back to the way it was, you know, four years ago.
Notice what never came up.
Retribution.
This is very obviously not a scientific example, but still out of about two dozen people,
none of them mentioned it.
Even brought up specific people who crossed Trump, like testified against him in the New York
trial.
And people were like, I don't know.
Do you think that Trump, like, do you think he's going to go after Stormy Daniels or
Michael Cohen, you know, like punished them?
No, I don't think so.
I don't think he can get to have a crash.
Really?
Even though he like, no, of course he probably hates them.
Right.
But I think he has more important things to do.
Exactly.
Exactly.
I think he's going to put it behind him.
Yes.
Do you think he's going to go after Biden?
No, he's not.
Biden's an old man.
He's not going to live that much longer.
I don't see Retribution or revenge.
He is for the people.
He is for helping the people.
Yes.
That's what we need.
Yeah.
You know, when Trump started this campaign, something that he said was, I am your
warrior.
I am your justice.
Retribution.
Retribution, right?
Is the word he thinks he is?
Yeah.
What do you think if, like, if he does end up using the DOJ to go after his political
enemies?
That's what they're doing.
So now we know how to do it.
But he won't do that.
To everybody here, Retribution isn't some hypothetical future thing to be afraid of.
It's already here.
It's happening now under Biden.
Biden is the one using his justice department to persecute his political opponent.
Six special prosecutors on him sent the FBI to raid his house.
There's no evidence any of that's true.
These are all independent investigations, but people believe it.
So they have weaponized the DOJ.
Look at more of the law of the rate.
You're like the justice department is totally politicized.
They've got to go.
They're using the, you know, their power and authority.
They're abusing their power and authority in order to silence this person because whatever
reason they have so much hatred towards Donald Trump, it's like, you hate him that much.
Would you be comfortable with a president going after his political enemies, like using
the DOJ and the...
No, no, that's not what it's designed for.
No, I wouldn't...
I think that's what's happening to him.
I don't think that's right.
This brings me to something I want to draw your attention to.
Something very different from what you've heard this hour.
A significant number of people in my unscientific sample told me they don't want Trump or anyone
else to use the powers of the federal government to take down their political opponents.
They want things the way they used to be.
They want things back to normal.
Is there something that Trump could do with respect to going after his political enemies
that would make you uncomfortable?
If he did a witch hunt, like we're going to do right now, no witch hunt for a witch hunt.
And what do you want Trump's justice department to look like?
Well, you know what?
I don't know, but maybe it should be...
Maybe it should be non-partisan.
It sounds like you don't want the justice department to be used by a president to go after
their political enemies.
And you kind of feel like that's what's happening now.
We do.
We do.
We do.
We do.
We do.
We do.
You know what looked extra bad to Trump supporters?
Trump getting convicted of 34 felonies in the middle of Manhattan by a bunch of people
who probably didn't vote for him.
I ran over to Trump Tower the day after the verdict where supporters were gathering
to hear Trump speak.
One during, if I was going to hear anything different at this fever pitch moment, I was
mushed up against the glass of the prodigy store with a bunch of people asking what about
now?
Host verdict.
Should Trump use the government to punish his enemies at this point?
Do you feel like excited about the idea of revenge or retribution?
See, when he said, see, it's not like revenge that I'm going to go out and kill people
or beat people, put them in jail.
It's to stop the deep state and stop corruption.
And a way you think of it as making things fair.
Yes.
That like an eye for an eye.
Okay.
So what would you think though if Trump did use the levers of the federal government
to go after his political office?
He won't.
He won't.
Even though he has said he would.
Not in the context that you're saying.
That guy was from the Bronx.
But another guy met had flown in from Indiana to support Trump during the trial.
That's passion.
Would you be comfortable with Trump using the levers of the federal government against
his political enemies?
Like, he's talked about going after the Biden crime family or he's talked about going
after the radical AGs, you know, radical prosecutors.
Like, would you be comfortable with that coming from him?
No.
My preference would be that as soon as Donald Trump is inaugurated, it's 47th president
that he pardoned himself and he pardoned Joe Biden.
Well, Joe Biden's not on trial right now.
No, he's not on trial now.
But I would like him to issue it apart for the crimes that he has done so that he's
rather than prosecuting him.
So that no one could prosecute him.
If Trump becomes president, you just want to move on.
Yes.
Retribution doesn't seem to be motivating these Trump voters as much as it's motivating Trump
himself.
But if it's not turning them away, it sure doesn't seem to be.
Then he has a good chance of getting into the White House.
If you get there, you won't really matter what was driving the voters.
You'll be able to do whatever he wants.
Zoe Chase is a producer on our show.
The
day's program was produced by Louise Spiegel, edited by Louise and me, Marister Chesky,
and Bethel Hoppe.
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and Texture Matt Tierney and Diane Wu are managing editors Sarah Abduraman.
Our senior editors David Kessnerbaum, our executive editor, is a man no bury.
Special thanks to David and Mark Zaheed, Eugene and Cindy Vinman, Jennifer Jacobson, Jennifer
Weaver, James Shirk, Ellen Whitman, Stephen Bradbury, Kelle Fassane, Ryan Gerdursky, and
Sarah Isker.
Washington Post reporter Isaac Arnstorfer, you heard at the top of the show wrote a great
book about Trump's followers, called Finish What We Started.
Special thanks to David and Mark Zaheed, Eugene and Cindy Vinman, Jennifer Jacobson, Jennifer
Weaver, James Shirk, Ellen Whitman, Stephen Bradbury, Kelle Fassane, Ryan Gerdursky, and
Sarah Isker.
Washington Post reporter Isaac Arnstorfer, you heard at the top of the show wrote a great
book about Trump's followers, called Finish What We Started, our website, thisamericanlife.org.
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Thanks as always, Joe program's co-founder, Mr. Torrey Malatia.
He is constantly asking me this.
About the host of the Daily, Michael Babbaro.
Who do you think is the biggest killer, this guy, or President Xi of China?
I'm Eric Glass.
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