Deep State Rebels v. Trump (with Michael Lewis)

Pod Save America

Michael Lewis joins Jon Lovett to discuss his new book, "Blockers: Rebels in the Deep State," detailing how career civil servants resisted DOGE's aggressive takeover attempts during Trump's second term. The

Key takeaways

• Colin O'Brien physically blocked DOGE agents from seizing the U.S. Institute of Peace building before private security and D.C. police were co-opted by the administration.
• Howard Lutnick's micromanagement at Commerce stripped scientists like Alex Meringuides of basic operational autonomy, halting critical wildfire research.
• The Trump administration exploited probationary employment status to fire thousands of young civil servants under false pretenses, violating labor norms.
• DOGE's demand for a
• email was widely viewed as an insulting, counterproductive tactic that disrupted sensitive operations like the IRS and Pentagon.

Main topics

• DOGE vs. civil service resistance
• executive power expansion
• institutional trust erosion

Notable quotes

"The idea that like there's this deep state that undermined him was insane."

Conclusion

The episode underscores how ideological purges and chaotic management

Transcript preview

Speaker 4 (0:19) Hey, everybody. Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Lovett. I just wrapped a great conversation with Michael Lewis. He is an author of the new book, Blockers, Rebels in the Deep State. It is a conversation not just about what happened when Doge... tried to run roughshod over the government, but also the people inside who fought back. And there are a lot of fascinating stories and lessons and ways that we should be thinking about how not only to repair the damage, but build something better going forward. And just loved getting to talk to Michael Lewis. And I think you'll like it too. It's good to see you. John, good to see you. The book is enraging. Is it? Yeah. It was fun to write. It wasn't making me angry as I wrote it. Well, that seems sort of your quality. So I want to start with Colin O'Brien. He's the head of security for what was then known as the U.S. Institute of Peace. What happened when Doge tried to gain entry to that building? Speaker 3 (1:12) In a word, he watched. And he's at a security and he's a more interesting character than that. He's like – he presents as like an NFL lineman just to look at him. But he's like a college professor in his head. He watched Doge basically rearrange – all the guns on their side. So that he thought, first, he thought the Institute of Peace, it's not really part of the executive branch. It's a congressionally created organization, and it has got funding from the U.S. government, but it owns its own building. It's a nonprofit. They didn't think of themselves as actually answering to the White House in any way. So it's weird when Doge shows up and says, we're taking this. It's also very small, I think. But people are like, oh, it's Speaker 4 (1:50) the Institute of Peace. They associate it with USAID. USAID is... Vast compared to what the Institute of Peace is, a couple hundred people. Speaker 3 (1:56) Yeah, it's a $70 million budget or something, some of it privately raised. And Colin assumed, well, he has a private security firm that works for him. If the federal government tries to invade his building, he can call the D.C. police before he knows it. He's actually the most successful in repelling Doge because he lasted a few days. But before he knows it, the – The private security firm has been blackmailed by the Trump administration and turned. So they're working for the Trump administration. The D.C. police sign on. Whatever diabolical thing they did with the D.C. police, it's unclear. But I loved it as a kind of opening of the book because he was physically trying to block them from getting into the building. And in the end, like they get the building. I mean in the end, it's now not the – It's not the US Institute of Peace anymore. It's the Donald Speaker 4 (2:47) Trump Institute Speaker 3 (2:48) of Speaker 4 (2:48) Peace. So I feel like it's such a – obviously, this is why you start the book with it. You're very good at this. But it's a signal example, right? Because he's on solid legal ground, right? These people don't have any right. They're just doge. It's like they're coming to your house to take your house. Right. They're just people off the street. They're very aggressive. They act like they own the place, right? And he says, no, you can't come in. And Speaker 3 (3:10) they're Speaker 4 (3:10) 26 years old. Right. They're these kids, right? No, you can't come in. Then they have a, they bring an FBI guy with them. And that person isn't really there other than to facilitate. He says, no, you can't come in. The private security firm, the reason Trump is able to, the administration is able to get this firm to be part of their efforts to take the building is the Institute of Peace has a very small contract. The State Department has a... contract that's a hundred times the size, their money is at stake. So now all of Speaker 2 (3:37) a Speaker 4 (3:37) sudden, because of that contract, not for any legal reason, they're suddenly on the side of Doge. And yet still this guy, O'Brien, he locks them in the portico of the building and he physically removes. This is a Speaker 3 (3:51) shocking story. The third, about the third assault, the third assault, he figures, Colin figures his only vulnerability. There is one lock on the building that actually a key will open that he can't shut down with the press of a button on his phone. There's one key that's out there. It's in the hands of someone who works for the private security firm. Nobody knows it's out there. He assumes that the guy at the private security firm will just keep it a secret, not use it. But they wake up one morning and the private security firm has broken in using that key to get in. And Colin watches them on the cameras and they all get into a single room in the front of the building. And he realizes he can sort of seal it hermetically shut. So imprison the invaders. And there's a – it's a wonderful scene where they realize they're locked in and trapped. And so the – Colin's people call the DC police and say we have trespassers and come and get them. The guys who were trapped called their bosses and resulting in a call from Ed Martin's office from – I mean it's just like it escalates inside the Trump administration. He was the US attorney at the time. The US attorney at the time. And in the end, DC police do in fact come but they come and they're working for the Trump administration. And it is – so here's the bigger point of the story. Actually, this is what got me interested kind of thinking this was a book because it was such – if you think of Trump won. Trump won the first administration. Its signature was indifference and ignorance. Like he didn't care at all about running the government. He fired his transition team right after the election. He told Chris Christie it would take him an hour to learn how the federal government worked. He just didn't care. And I think Trump too comes in and they care more than any administration has ever cared in a funny way. They're extending – their power into places that doesn't belong. They're saying, we're not only going to run the stuff that we're supposed to run, we're going to take stuff that we're not supposed to run. And, you know, the Institute of Peace is set up under Reagan, and it's set up to be really, it's not for the president to control. It's at arm's length from the American government for a very specific reason. It's set up to take... as a kind of instrument of soft power to be able to go out into the field and hotspots in the world and facilitate conversations between. Speaker 3 (6:23) warring parties without it being the U.S. government, sort of quasi-government kind of thing. And it's done this very successfully. I mean, you know, it's like if you go to the Pentagon and ask them, are you glad that this place exists? They would tell you, yes, it saved his lives and saved his money. It stopped conflict. But it only works if this isn't seen as instrument of American power. It's a nebulous kind of thing. And legally, They own their building. You know, it's just really clear. The Trump administration's clear. What it showed was not only we're going to take everything we can, we're going to show that not only are we going to run everything we're supposed to run, we're going to take everything we can and we're going to show people as a kind of statement, we can do this and we're going to worry about the law later. So it was, I mean, it's blatantly illegal, but it's working its way through the courts slowly. Speaker 4 (7:14) Right. That is what is sort of stunning about the example. There's, there's. And I do want to talk about some of the ways in which there were aspects of the Project 2025 critique that were agreed to by people within the government. But part of the reason I say that is because at a certain point, if we're not following the law, it really is about who has the keys. And the guns. And the guns in the basement. This is right. And when the cops show up, who do they point their guns at, right? Whose side did they take? It becomes about people. It's very elemental. And here at this place, this institute created by Ronald Reagan, supported in a bipartisan way for a very long time, you have this security guard basically trying to use the physical building to keep Donald Trump out. And he can't. And he ultimately can't. And Speaker 3 (8:02) he Speaker 4 (8:02) can't. And so Speaker 3 (8:03) it is, I think, because no shots were fired, I think we ignore the importance of who has the guns. Yeah. You know, but it was. Doge was very aware. The Trump administration was very aware. We don't want these security guards with guns pointing out at us. We don't want the D.C. police. We don't want – we've got to – and that just happened without anybody saying much about it. It's interesting. It's outrageous that the D.C. police turns itself into an arm of the Trump administration. It's outrageous that a private security firm turns itself into – but it's – so that's – I think the very beginning of this story. of transforming the presidency from one thing into another, from extending the power of the president, turning the two million person civil service into from a nonpartisan workforce that takes a oath to the constitution, not to a person, into a sort of loyalist operation who is meant to serve the personal narrow interests of a single man. Like, All of that, those changes, they're just profound changes. But it all starts with we have the power, like we have the guns, and we're going to eliminate the law. And we eliminate fairness, like we eliminate all the referees. Speaker 4 (9:27) Yeah. And I do think there's two things happening at once in parallel that get mixed together. One is a shocking and aggressive assertion of executive power. either at the edge of or in the border between legal and illegal, right? Just trying to push executive power in new ways or ways that haven't been used in a very long time because of kind of norms and institutional prerogatives and deference, right? And then on the other side, you have just lawlessness and just we're going to go in and do what we want. And the faster we go, the harder it will be for you to catch up to us with the courts and all the rest. And those things, I think. Both are playing out here and playing out across the government. But I think it's interesting. You talk about this difference between the first term and the second term. So in the first term, Chris Christie puts together this transition team. Trump fires him, doesn't need him. It's neglect. It's indifference. It's ignorance. Fundamentally different in the second term. And you say in the book, you know, the Trump team blames bureaucracy for their failures. When in reality, their agenda was undermined by their own ineptitude, right? That they chose people with little management experience to run these agencies and then were dumbfounded by their failure to be able to kind of yoke the machine, get the machine to do as to their do their bidding. Were you in the White House when they came in the first time? No, no, Speaker 3 (10:42) I was. No, I was out here. Do I was in a post? And I see. OK, because there are people in the White House who tell you that. I can remember stories from the fifth risk. I wrote a book about the Trump one where like Jared Kushner is being – is bewildered that everybody is leaving the White House. They thought they just stayed. You know, the level of – they just – I don't know what they thought. It just ran on autopilot or something. But the level of indifference the first time was incredible. I mean did that – That I went and got the first briefing to be got about how the nuclear arsenal was run because they didn't go bother to do it, that kind of thing. And so this time – and the subsequent complaint that like whatever – Trump didn't have any great policy plans. It's not like he came in with a great plan and then it didn't get executed. He came in without any particular interest in doing anything except the dog caught the bus. He got to be president and it surprised him. But he wasn't there for any particular purpose. And so the idea that like there's this deep state that undermined him was insane. But that's – it's a line they started to peddle very hard towards the end. And it is true that when he broke the law or when he sought to do things that were illegal, that there were people – there were mechanisms inside the civil service to get in his way. And he didn't like that. But that's kind of a Speaker 4 (12:04) separate thing. But you see this playing out in all kinds of ways, right? He says, like, if you don't let me put my name on the Kennedy Center, well, it's just going to go to pot and then we'll have to tear it down, right? And no one's saying that the president can't institute a plan to repair the Kennedy Center. Just have to do it competently and legally according to the rules, right? The frustration of the kind of. shambolic, lawless effort leading to roadblocks, and therefore the deep state is stopping us, becomes a lot of the basis for what Doge does. Yes. Speaker 2 (12:43) Pod Save America is brought to you by Wild Alaskan Company. The difference between low and high quality seafood is enormous. It's also one of those things that's tough to accurately assess for yourself in the grocery store when you are just browsing around. 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Speaker 1 (15:23) So Speaker 4 (15:23) visit blinds.com right now for an exclusive $50 off when you spend $500 or more with code crooked. That's blinds.com with code crooked. Speaker 4 (15:34) So I want to talk about Howard Lutnick because I think with Howard Lutnick, you see both the neglect and ignorance and the kind of aggressive destruction that sort of, I think, kind of marries the two. What happens when Howard Lutnick takes over at Commerce and how did that impact an agency that has very rarely been seen as sort of. which is the National Institute of Standards and Technology, NIST, the place you go to find out what time it is exactly. Speaker 3 (16:08) Yes. So NIST is one of those agencies every American should know about just because it's fascinating. It's established in the early 19th century or late 19th century to just make it – to create – it's called the Bureau of Standards. Like there are arguments about – what a yard is or what