On MSNBC’s The ReidOut, Angelo Carusone discusses conservative media’s role in implementing Project 2025
Carusone: “They’re going to blame the deep state, malicious implantation, right? And theyre going to use that anger and kinetic energy and turn it right back around to gather more power”
Published
Citation
From the February 14, 2025, edition of MSNBC's The ReidOut
JOY REID (HOST): It appears as though we have officially reached the 'find out' phase of Donald Trump's presidency, as red states are starting to feel the pain of what actually happens when Trump's plans are put into action. Popular Information is reporting that in Huntsville, Alabama, about 250 customers of a public utilities company received a letter informing them that their account has been debited $100. They say it is a direct result of an executive order signed by Trump that froze a grant meant to assist low income residents with their energy bills.
And Trump's abrupt decision earlier this week to stop minting new pennies may not be going over so well in heavily Republican Greene County, Tennessee, home to the nation's sole manufacturer of penny blanks. And all of Trump and Elon Musk's dismantling of government programs and slashing federal funds, yeah, spoiler alert, that's going to hurt red states, too. USAID, for example, has a program called Food for Peace, which spends hundreds of millions of dollars buying goods from American farmers and businesses to distribute around the world to help fight hunger. So, gutting the agency means hurting farmers in places like Kansas, where the program was founded. On top of that, you have Republican Senator Mitch McConnell, for years, probably Trump's most notorious enabler, now warning his constituents in an op-ed that the tariffs Trump is promising could have negative consequences for the state's 75,000 family farms that sell their crops around the globe, or the hardworking Kentuckians who craft 95% of the world's bourbon, or our auto industry.
Joining me now is Angelo Carusone, President and CEO of Media Matters, and Antjuan Seawright, Democratic strategist. Who would have thunk it, Angelo, that a lot of these cuts willy-nilly being made by some 20-somethings and the "normalize Indian hate" guy are going to hurt Trump's own base? Is that message, do you think, getting out beyond just local news? You watch the media.
ANGELO CARUSONE (MEDIA MATTERS PRESIDENT): It's not yet, and that's I think the top line takeaway here. One is that -- and we know where this is going to go, too. So, that low income heating program where those people lost that money, that was straight out of Project 2025. I mean, right in the 900 page book, that was one of the programs that they were targeting. So, in effect, Trump is just implementing a lot of the things that they've already written and prepared for. Which means we know what's coming next, and we know the people that are going to be affected by it, which means there's no excuse for Democrats, for the news media not to be able to connect the dots.
And your question is the important one here, because if we don't help build that connective tissue from his actions to the harms that people are already experiencing, what's going to happen is that, because they have narrative dominance and they have that massive megaphone, that when people start to ask questions -- "Hey, why is this happening?" -- they're going to blame the deep state, malicious implementation, right? And they're going to use that anger and kinetic energy and turn it right back around to gather more power for themselves. So, it is both an important opportunity, but we also need to make sure we're telling this story so that we don't -- we actually prevent them from using it to get stronger.
...
REID: Yeah. I mean, and by the way, who's going to gain the most, Angelo, are, you know, Trump and his family. They're already reaping money. They're selling meme coins. They're selling their -- personally, you know, enriching themselves. Elon Musk is signing himself up for contracts while canceling Medicaid money.
CARUSONE: Yeah, I mean, 800,000 people lost money in that deal. You know, they thought they were going to get rich. They thought they were going to make some money off of Trump's momentum and they lost it. And that's the nature of a lot of these scams. And that's a part, you know, that's the part about this that makes this even more intense, is that it's not just that they're using policies to directly affect people and harm people and transfer wealth, they're also then using their cultural and social influence to then fleece them and pick their other pocket, with the sort of with, you know, with these other gambits. And that, you know, and then further line their pockets. And I mean, they are really successfully managing to double dip in the most odious ways.
...
REID: Last word to you on this, Angelo, because there -- you said they were going to pivot and just blame someone. I mean, trans people are right now taking the brunt of it. I mean, they're being erased from the military. They're taking off the "T" in front of the Stonewall memorial, which is literally -- Stonewall was done by trans people. Black trans women did it. I mean, they're literally just sort of making them vanish and disappear. It is insidious.
CARUSONE: They are. They are, and that's a strategy. Yeah, I mean, and, you know, they organize power on the fringes. And when you bring all those people in from the fringes, now each of them get their small little piece of the puzzle. And there's a very strong segment of the right-wing that wants to erase trans people. There's a big push in right-wing media about two years ago that said that "this was the trans lie," and that "it was only gay white men that were at Stonewall. There weren't even anybody that wasn't white there." That is the narrative that they push. And part of it is to divide and to weaken. But it's also a reflection of the fact that they are fighting a culture war here and recognize that politics is downstream from culture, which is partly why he hung that portrait of himself in that mugshot in the White House. It's about culture, it's about vibes.