The DSR Network

A frustrated Donald Trump is mulling more personnel changes, Politico reports, potentially targeting his Commerce and Labor secretaries. As one official confides: “He’s very angry and he’s going to be moving people.” The Politico piece depicts unnerved aides parsing his fury like tea leaves and disconcertedly leaking to reporters about who’s on “thin ice.” Crucially, Trump is mulling changes that would make him look better on the economy—where a new poll is absolutely brutal—and in hopes of getting them through before a midterm loss makes them harder. Indeed, Time reports that his advisers delivered bad news about internal polling showing that his midterm problems have taken a worse turn due to the war. We talked to New Republic staff writer Kate Aronoff, who writes well about the crises Trump is losing control over. We discuss why real-world complexities are so elusive to Trump and the real meaning of his ongoing collision with the limits of his magical thinking. 
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Corruption and madness have hit a new high-watermark with the Trump administration. From the firing of Pam Bondi to blatant war crimes, it’s a good thing we have a robust free press to report on it all. Right? Dan Froomkin and Jeff Jarvis join David Rothkopf to explore why traditional media is failing miserably during this fraught moment and why high quality journalism is needed now more than ever.
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On the DSR Weekly Wrap-up for April 3rd, we break down the firing of Pam Bondi, Pete Hegseth firing the Army Chief of Staff, Trump announcing more tariffs on drug companies, and more. 
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Nobody wants to get scammed, yet everyone has a story about it happening to them or someone they know. In the age of AI, scams are more elaborate and devious than ever. So what can you do about it? Anya Schiffrin and Alice Marwick join David Rothkopf to discuss their recent policy brief about the scourge of AI scams, what governments can do to stem the growing tide of scams, and how individuals can protect themselves. 

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During Donald Trump’s speech on Iran this week, he revealed too much. In a line that sounded partly ad-libbed, he declared that the Strait of Hormuz “will open up naturally. It will just open up naturally.” This should be read as a straight-up admission that Trump has no idea how to fix the colossal mess he’s made, and that he’s just washing his hands of it entirely. That’s utterly damning. Meanwhile, Politico reports that Republicans privately fear the speech did nothing to help them politically; as one put it: “What the hell did he just say?” Those things are related: The worse this war gets, the more it will hurt Republicans in the midterms. We talked to foreign policy writer and podcaster David Rothkopf, author of a good piece about the speech. We discuss Trump’s implicit admission of failure, the deeper reasons this is developing into such a fiasco, why it’s a trap for Republicans, and what the post-Trump Democratic Party should look like. 
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