What are the key takeaways from this Making Sense episode?

Key insights include: **Justice Department Weaponization:** Trump administration publicly targets political enemies for investigation while pardoning allies, violating longstanding DOJ practice of not confirming investigations to protect innocent people from reputation damage and creating two-tiered justice system based on loyalty.; **January 6 Pardons:** Blanket pardons for all January 6 participants, including those on video assaulting police officers, represent exactly the abuse of pardon power that founders like George Mason warned against—using unreviewable presidential authority to benefit political allies regardless of merit.; **Congressional Power Erosion:** Constitution designed Congress as supreme branch with power of purse and war declaration, able to impeach executive and judicial members, but presidential power accumulation over decades has accelerated under Trump into active power-grabbing that contradicts constitutional structure.

What did David French discuss on Making Sense?

David French analyzes Trump's second term as systematic assault on republican government through Justice Department weaponization, loyalty purges in federal agencies, and unprecedented pardon power abuse that undermines constitutional checks and balances. Key topics include: **Justice Department Weaponization:** Trump administration publicly targets political enemies for investigation while pardoning allies, violating longstanding DOJ practice of not confirming investigations to protect innocent people from reputation damage and creating two-tiered justice system based on loyalty.; **January 6 Pardons:** Blanket pardons for all January 6 participants, including those on video assaulting police officers, represent exactly the abuse of pardon power that founders like George Mason warned against—using unreviewable presidential authority to benefit political allies regardless of merit..

How long is this episode of Making Sense?

This episode is 25 minutes long. SignalCast provides an AI-generated summary so you can get the key insights in about 3 minutes.

Making Sense

#432 — The Undoing of America

August 27, 2025

25 min episode · 2 min read

David French

Episode

25 min

Read time

2 min

Topics

Startups, Fundraising & VC, Leadership

AI-Generated Summary

Published Dec 25, 2025

Key Takeaways

✓Justice Department Weaponization: Trump administration publicly targets political enemies for investigation while pardoning allies, violating longstanding DOJ practice of not confirming investigations to protect innocent people from reputation damage and creating two-tiered justice system based on loyalty.
✓January 6 Pardons: Blanket pardons for all January 6 participants, including those on video assaulting police officers, represent exactly the abuse of pardon power that founders like George Mason warned against—using unreviewable presidential authority to benefit political allies regardless of merit.
✓Congressional Power Erosion: Constitution designed Congress as supreme branch with power of purse and war declaration, able to impeach executive and judicial members, but presidential power accumulation over decades has accelerated under Trump into active power-grabbing that contradicts constitutional structure.
✓Prosecutorial Credibility Damage: Public vilification of targets like Bolton before investigation, combined with Kash Patel's enemies list and premature case announcements, undermines both public confidence in evenhanded justice and actual prosecution ability by providing defense attorneys clear political motivation evidence for juries.

What It Covers

David French analyzes Trump's second term as systematic assault on republican government through Justice Department weaponization, loyalty purges in federal agencies, and unprecedented pardon power abuse that undermines constitutional checks and balances.

Key Questions Answered

•Justice Department Weaponization: Trump administration publicly targets political enemies for investigation while pardoning allies, violating longstanding DOJ practice of not confirming investigations to protect innocent people from reputation damage and creating two-tiered justice system based on loyalty.
•January 6 Pardons: Blanket pardons for all January 6 participants, including those on video assaulting police officers, represent exactly the abuse of pardon power that founders like George Mason warned against—using unreviewable presidential authority to benefit political allies regardless of merit.
•Congressional Power Erosion: Constitution designed Congress as supreme branch with power of purse and war declaration, able to impeach executive and judicial members, but presidential power accumulation over decades has accelerated under Trump into active power-grabbing that contradicts constitutional structure.
•Prosecutorial Credibility Damage: Public vilification of targets like Bolton before investigation, combined with Kash Patel's enemies list and premature case announcements, undermines both public confidence in evenhanded justice and actual prosecution ability by providing defense attorneys clear political motivation evidence for juries.

Notable Moment

French notes that accusing President Obama of treason—potentially a capital offense—would have consumed any other presidency entirely, but under Trump's flood-the-zone strategy, it barely registers in public memory amid constant outrage, inducing fatigue that makes resistance feel futile.

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Episode Transcript

Welcome to the Making Sense podcast. This is Sam Harris. Just a note to say that if you're hearing this, you're not currently on our subscriber feed and will only be hearing the first part of this conversation. In order to access full episodes of the Making Sense podcast, you'll need to subscribe at samharris.org. We don't run ads on the podcast, and therefore it's made possible entirely through the support of our subscribers, so if you enjoy what we're doing here, please consider becoming one. I am here with David French. David, thanks for joining me again. Thanks so much for having me back. I appreciate it. Yeah. It's great to see you. I'm a a big fan of your writing. Remind people where they can read you online. New York Times. I have, two I have a newsletter and a column every week at the Times and then also podcast pretty regularly. So just go to the New York Times, and there I'll be. Do you publish anywhere else or are you exclusive to the Times now? I all my written work is at the Times. Okay. I'm also on a I have a podcast called Advisory Opinions, that I do with Sarah Isker, and that is covering the law and the constitution basically exclusively with a little bit of, free, like, dating advice for lawyers sprinkled in there as well. Right. Well, we're not gonna cover the dating advice, but we will talk about the law a little bit. Let's start with the, sort of your your big picture experience of the last seven some odd months. How has the second Trump term struck you? I would classify it as an assault on our republican form of government, is is one way to put it. If you're thinking about the American system and the American form of government, one of the things that's really important is you sort of break down the two foundings of America, the first founding, the '17 you know, running from 1776 and the declaration through the constitution and the Bill of Rights, and then the second founding is the civil war and the and the civil war amendments. The fundamental aim of the first founding was establishing this republican form of government. No monarchs, no centralized power under one person. This is really fundamentally the the entire object of that first founding is establishing this republican form of government. And what we've seen is in the last seven months is what we've seen is an escalating attack on that Republican form of government. And this is something that's been happening for a while in the sense that the presidency has continued to just accumulate more and more power over time, but it has now gotten to a point where that process is accelerating out of control. And we're now seeing sort of a not just presidents accruing power sort of as part of a incremental process, but now grabbing power. President Trump …

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