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On MSNBC's Deadline: White House, Angelo Carusone discusses conservative media infighting offering opportunity for resistance
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From the January 21, 2025, edition of MSNBC's Deadline: White House
NICOLLE WALLACE (HOST): It is one thing to cover and understand and try to story-tell about what Trump is saying he would do if he's back. Things like being a dictator on day 1, talk about what's going to happen, and be prepared to be ready for it. It's another thing entirely to watch it play out right in front of us, to witness our deepest fears, the nightmare scenarios come to life.
So, for as much as we've talked about and covered the things Trump said and what they would mean for return to power over these past few years, we would excuse you if you feel more anxiety watching it in action than you thought you would.
Because when it comes to the dire warnings that we heard from Democrats and pro-democracy ex-Republicans, from experts, former insiders, and Trump's own cabinet administration, it's all different when it comes to pass. And Trump does represent that very same threat that John Kelly warned about and we've all understood. But today, on day 2, he has the power to act.
Joining our conversation about what that means for us, those of us covering it, two of our most trusted friends and allies, president of Media Matters for America, Angelo Carusone, and voting rights attorney and founder of the site Democracy Docket, Mark Elias.
Angelo, I love some of the things that you've been writing about, but I just want you to share them. You're -- you know, and I and we're going to get to the big news -- I mean, everything that's in Project 2025 about DOJ is happening today. The removal of folks from the key posts. I think we went over those exact paragraphs from Project 2025. It's all it's all happening as folks like yourself warned it would.
But just take me inside what -- even with all the warnings and even with all the predictions and projections laying over what Trump said and the people he'd lined up, how it's different when it's actually happening.
ANGELO CARUSONE (MEDIA MATTERS PRESIDENT): Yeah. We're here. And so it's one thing when it, you know, when you're warning about it, and there's so much to warn about. You know, it's such a dense document, you know, 900 pages, and they have all these side plans, and don't forget all the authors are out there talking every day about all their fantastic ideas connected to it. So, you can imagine what it would look like. But -- and what you're trying to do in that moment is both simultaneously warn people so that they can act accordingly, but not scare them so much that they immediately duck and cover.
Now that we're here, the way that I look at it in a weird way is that all that work, is just as important as it was, but what's significant about it is that it's sort of like getting -- so it gets some antibodies in the system, you know. But I was sort of looking at the first couple of days of action. I don't feel as terrified as I thought I was going to be. I actually feel pretty grounded and oriented. And that's the key thing here, is that part of Project 2025's plan, it's so explicit, is that it's designed to disorient. It is to do all of these extra legal and extreme things and just sort of smash and grab, the shock and awe, so that they can implement and sort of execute these things at full scale.
And one of the things that I think, and I'm so grateful for the work that you did starting in the early summer when nobody else was really talking about it, is actually get people grounded for what's about to unfold in front of us. So to me, my top line takeaways, I don't feel disoriented. Doesn't mean that I'm not nervous, but I'm not anxious, but I see exactly what they're doing and where that goes, and that's helpful.
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WALLACE: One of the things that fascinates me, Angelo, and we talked about it, is the all out, you know, knock down, drag out war between Elon Musk and Steve Bannon.
They were sort of, it's hard, I think, to cover and to focus our attention on it because it's called "two tarantulas in a bowl." There's not really anyone to root for. But one does, like, represent, right, like, the heart and the soul of MAGA. Steve Bannon, he went to prison for Trump. He's all in. And again, I don't know him. I don't know what he actually believes. And his public image is strange, but he writes all the checks.
And I'll tell you this, having covered MAGA for 9 years, they're not both going to come out alive. Right? They're not going to, like, make up. And I wonder what threat that represents to all these very detailed and scripted plans.
CARUSONE: Well, in a way, they're going to -- the very machine that, you know, has enabled and propelled, you know, what Bannon has stood for and a lot of the traditional sort of right-wing ideas. The first wave of Trump, Trump 1.0, and what Bannon really represents right now, sort of that wing of the faction. They're going to end up being, you know, getting overrun and overshadowed by the very right-wing media machine that propped them up in the first place.
Because right now, the levers have been handed over to these massive tech oligarchs. It's not just Elon Musk. It's Zuckerberg as well and others, and that's, that's ultimately it.
The, you know, Musk himself is going to be able to command an enormous amount of attention dominance and narrative dominance, and then separately wield the tools of X, to punish his critics on the right. You know, Laura Loomer, for example, who again, there's no you know, another person in the bowl, you know, she lost her ability to monetize on X. Right? Because she criticized Elon Musk over these H-1B visa fights. So, that's the thing is that -- that's where the power and ultimately where the major influence is going to be.
It's the money and then the system on top of it. So, there's going to be a lot of bloodletting and some fighting and some claws that come out.
But I think there's a bigger thing here to keep in mind. And this is a little bit of a bright spot for the next few months because it's, you know, a lot of this is about the projection of power. We just have to be mindful every day not to give Trump and what he represents and Project 2025 more power than it actually has. You know, and I think Mark, what he said before, is right. They've been defanged, the Republicans have.
So, they're not going to be a check. But I think to me, the big takeaway is that it does show the Bannon-Musk thing, that there's a very tenuous coalition there. They're not the only two factions that Trump is trying to keep together. There's a lot of fracture points and fissure points there.
And I think by us not overreacting or reacting to the wrong things and picking our battles well, and that's why I think what you said before about the Democrats being disoriented is so disturbing, is that they -- there's actually lot of vulnerability and weakness there, and we can't let them paper over those cracks.
And that I think is one of the key things right now is that it's a lot softer than I think that I think people fully realize, and that Bannon-Musk is only one of the fault lines.