MSNBC guest on Supreme Court presidential immunity ruling: “There's a long tradition on the American right of interest and curiosity about a more authoritarian form of rule”
John Ganz: “Pat Buchanan, who was a major precedent for Trump, always viewed Watergate as a kind of deep state coup against, Richard Nixon, someone he admired deeply”
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From the July 1, 2024, edition of MSNBC's Katy Tur Reports
KATY TUR (ANCHOR): Joining us now is John Ganz, who we've spoken to before about Donald Trump's attraction to authoritarianism. His book is called When the Clock Broke: Con Men, Conspiracists, and How America Cracked Up in the Early 1990s. It is now, congratulations, a New York Times bestseller. John, it's really good to have you.
JOHN GANZ (GUEST): Thanks. Thanks for having me.
TUR: I really want to talk to you because we've had these conversations in the past about Donald Trump's warmth toward authoritarianism, which I mentioned. And now that the Supreme Court has ruled that he does enjoy quite a bit of immunity, not just presume, but absolute immunity, especially when it comes to his DOJ. What would a Donald Trump presidency look like under those terms?
GANZ: Well, I think he pretty much has explicitly made those threats. He's talked about, using the power of the state against his political enemies. He thinks that's what's being done to him, and he thinks that it would be justified to do it to others. During the George Floyd protest, there was some discussion among high elected officials about invoking the Insurrection Act. There's been some discussion about, Trump invoking the Insurrection Act immediately upon election if there was some mass protests in the United States.
So I think pretty much we have to think in terms of the worst-case scenarios of, of his use and abuse of the powers of the —
TUR: When he invokes the Insurrection Act, what happens?
GANZ: He's permitted to order the military onto the streets of American cities, and then that, you know, those troops could presumably use lethal force against American citizens.
TUR: And his orders are presumed under official acts according to this ruling?
GANZ: Yes. I mean, soldiers are not supposed to follow illegal orders, but it's unclear if those orders would be illegal under this circumstance.
TUR: So when we talk about Donald Trump and warmth toward authoritarianism, is that being too alarmist given the Donald Trump that we experienced in 2016 through 2021?
GANZ: No. I think it's pretty clear that his own conception of himself as a leader, is that he has a special connection with the real people of the United States that is not bounded by law, precedent, or tradition. And, he is just sort of an expression of them, and he can do anything that he feels necessary to accomplish, their ends which are identical with his ends.
TUR: How did we get to this point? I mean, you wrote all about the nineties. How are we here in 2024?
GANZ: I think there's a long tradition on the American right of interest and curiosity about a more authoritarian form of rule. Pat Buchanan, who was a major precedent for Trump, always viewed Watergate as a kind of deep state coup against, Richard Nixon, someone he admired deeply. And he thought it was a missed opportunity to, do kind of a a counter-coup on behalf of the real American people that he thought Nixon represented. And then, Samuel Francis, another person I write about in the book, conceived of the presidency as a kind of caesarist, populist, authoritarian, system that could be used to smash up liberal elites and replace it with a government on behalf of middle Americans.
TUR: Alright. John Ganz, on that happy note, thank you so much.