Breaking down the first month of Trump 2.0

KERA's Think

KERA

Society & Culture, 071003, Kera, Think, Krysboyd

4.8 • 861 Ratings

🗓️ 21 February 2025

⏱️ 46 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

President Trump signed more than 50 executive orders on his first day in office —the contents of which are already fundamentally changing the federal government. David E. Lewis is the Rebecca Webb Wilson University Distinguished Professor in the Department of Political Science at Vanderbilt University. He joins host Krys Boyd to discuss Trump’s first month in office, from tariffs to foreign policy, domestic actions to DOGE, and what it all means to the American people so far.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	I'll just speak for myself here.
0:11.4	I spend time every single workday reading up on current events to stay on top of public
0:16.7	policies that will affect our listeners and shape the conversations we have on the show.
0:26.2	But I'll confess, the unprecedented pace of the changes coming down since the start of the second Trump administration have left me feeling like I'm playing catch-up all the time.
0:32.2	From KERA in Dallas, this is think. I'm Chris Boyd. In just a single month, the president has issued
0:38.9	dozens of executive orders. It is not just the amount of those changes, but the scope and the
0:44.3	scale, broad proclamations on tariffs, the recognition or lack of recognition of certain gender
0:49.9	identities, the halting of longstanding federal DEI initiatives, places renamed on the map,
0:56.0	entire federal agencies decimated in the name of government efficiency. And those are just things
1:01.7	I could list in a single sentence without running out of breath. So I want to spend this hour
1:05.9	getting up to speed to the extent we can. Also getting some expert insight on whether all this change is as
1:12.7	unprecedented as it feels. My guest is the ideal choice for a conversation like this. Professor
1:18.6	David E. Lewis is the Rebecca Wilson University Distinguished Professor in the Department of Political
1:24.2	Science at Vanderbilt University, where he studies the American Presidency,
1:28.2	Executive Branch Politics, and Public Administration. David, welcome to think. Thanks. I'm so glad to be
1:34.0	here. President Trump often promises to deliver things in a way that no one has ever done before.
1:40.7	Sometimes that rhetoric has been hyperbolic. In terms of his first month in this second term,
1:46.0	would you say that claim is accurate to the extent that the scale and speed of change is, in fact,
1:51.3	unprecedented? I think so. It's pretty remarkable what they've done in this first month. I think
1:57.8	we're all a bit surprised. They promised shock and awe and they've
2:01.3	delivered, at least in terms of their immediate actions. We'll see what the long-term effects
2:05.9	are of the things that they've chosen to do.
	...

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