This is an adapted excerpt from the May 4 episode of "Velshi."
Chaos and turbulence have been hallmarks of the early days of Donald Trump’s second administration, but it seems the president has landed on his messaging strategy. In a recent interview with NBC News’ Kristen Welker, Trump clarified who he thinks should get the credit for things that are going well and who should get the blame for things that are going poorly.
Mahdawi spoke to the president directly, telling Trump, “I am not afraid of you.”
Following disappointing economic numbers, which Trump tried to pin on his predecessor, Joe Biden, Welker asked the president when would it become the “Trump economy.”
“It partially is right now,” Trump said. “And I really mean this. I think the good parts are the Trump economy and the bad parts are the Biden economy because he’s done a terrible job. He did a terrible job on everything.”
The president is being remarkably transparent there, admitting to a core part of Trumpian dogma: Whatever he does is good and right, and whatever his perceived political enemies do is bad and wrong.
It’s one of the reasons it’s so hard to fight the disinformation that comes from Trump and his acolytes, and why my colleague Rachel Maddow has always urged us all, when it comes to Trump, to watch what he does and not what he says.
One of the most impactful things Trump has done in his first 100 days back in power is to cut a path of retribution designed to scare political opponents, lawyers, former government officials, schools and universities, and even just regular people away from speaking up.
But it’s also important to acknowledge the flip side of Trump’s first 100 days: The first 100 days of a new resistance that’s been building.
The courage to stand up against an emboldened second Trump administration seemed in short supply in the earliest days. But we are seeing it more and more, and, as we know, courage is contagious.
There are people like Mohsen Mahdawi, a Columbia University student and legal permanent resident, whom the federal government is trying to deport on national security grounds due to his participation in protests against Israel’s war in Gaza. Addressing a crowd after a judge ordered his release from a federal immigration detention facility where he was held for weeks, Mahdawi spoke to the president directly, telling Trump, “I am not afraid of you.”
While multiple schools have given in to Trump’s demands, and others appeared to be deer caught in headlights, unsure of what to do, some in higher education are starting to fight back. Harvard University seems poised to be in the most powerful position, with its massive financial resources and backing. The university is suing the government after it froze $2.2 billion in federal funding for failing to meet a list of the administration’s demands. Trump now says he is revoking the school’s tax-exempt status as well because it’s “what they deserve!”
But this newfound fight isn’t just focused on elite East Coast institutions. The Washington Post reports there is a burgeoning movement among the faculty and student senates at more than half a dozen schools that have passed resolutions urging their leaders to join a NATO-like pact, which would allow them to share attorneys and pool financial resources should Trump target one of its members.
Jackson went on to urge her colleagues in the room to show “raw courage” to dispense justice without fear.
There are also judges across the country, and across the ideological spectrum, who continue to do their jobs in the face of Trump and his administration’s unrelenting public attacks.
Those attacks drew a strong and highly unusual public condemnation from a Supreme Court justice on Thursday. Without mentioning Trump by name, but saying she was addressing the “elephant in the room,” Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson told a conference for judges, “The attacks are not random. They seem designed to intimidate those of us who serve in this critical capacity. The threats and harassment are attacks on our democracy, on our system of government. And they ultimately risk undermining our Constitution and the rule of law.”
Jackson went on to urge her colleagues in the room to show “raw courage” to dispense justice without fear, and told them that “history will vindicate your service.”