Donald Trump is discussed across several episodes of The Bob Zadek Show as a president whose economic policies drew support from supply-side economists while his persona and approach to institutions drew concern from libertarian and classical-liberal commentators. The excerpts present him less as an ideological figure than as a businessman whose policies and psychological style were assessed differently depending on the guest.
Trumponomics and economic policy
In an October 2018 episode, Bob Zadek introduced Stephen Moore as one of President Donald Trump’s chief economic advisors and co-author, with Arthur Laffer, of the forthcoming book Trumponomics Stephen Moore on Trumponomics (2018). Moore described the Committee to Unleash American Prosperity, which he formed with Arthur Laffer, Larry Kudlow, and Stephen Forbes, as an effort to educate Republicans to run on a pro-economic-growth, supply-side, lower-taxes, less-regulation agenda in 2016. Moore said the group met Trump and teamed up with him, and that Larry Kudlow had become the chief economist for Donald Trump.
Moore characterized Trump as not an ideological person in the way Ronald Reagan was a conservative, but rather a common-sense businessman who understood that cutting taxes for businesses allows them to invest more. Moore said Trump was fully on board with these ideas and was not a hard sell. He attributed to Kudlow the formulation that taxing something yields less of it and taxing it less yields more, and said the group took taxes off businesses and workers to get more work, businesses, and investment.
Zadek framed the discussion around what he called the magic of Trumponomics, asking why it was so successful and why it was more successful than even its authors expected. He noted that the book was coming out at the end of October and that the conversation would turn to the corporate income tax, NAFTA, trade policy, and the next two years of Donald Trump’s administration from an economic standpoint.
The gathering storm for classical liberalism
In a February 2019 episode, Zadek posed the question of whether Donald Trump was the biggest threat to liberty in memory or whether, by accident or design, he was furthering libertarian principles Here Comes the Storm (2019). Guest John McGinnis, described as a law professor, said the gathering storm against classical liberalism was not due entirely or mostly to the president, but had been gathering for some time, particularly in elite universities whose faculties he called wholly antithetical to liberal and classical liberal ideas.
McGinnis said that in the blog post Zadek referenced, he thought Trump had done a variety of good things for liberty, but that partly because of his persona, Trump had increased polarization in the country. McGinnis linked this to the movement of the Democratic Party toward a more left party, calling Bernie Sanders running as a socialist a sea change. McGinnis said he was not so much worried about Donald Trump’s policies, although he had reservations about some for liberty, as about what likely came afterwards, and said he was not confident that Trump, partly because of his persona, would capture the swing voters necessary to remain in the White House in 2020.
Populism and the 2016 election
In an October 2020 episode, guest Bradford R. Kane described 2016 as a perfect storm combination of many factors and a weird convergence Populism 201: Advanced Topics in American Democracy (2020). Kane said the underlying forces went back to the origins of the country, that it was not just Donald Trump, and that Trump galvanized a lot of it but much predated him, and that Trump took it in his own direction in ways Kane argued were rather dystopian.
Kane said that in 2015 and 2016 many people felt forgotten, left behind, disaffected, and dislocated, partly because of the economic problems of 2008 and 2009 from which they never recovered, and some had feelings about the Obama presidency. He said some went with Donald Trump because they wanted to try something different, and he noted unique factors such as Jim Comey’s actions a week before the election. Kane said that by 2020 no one in America could say they did not know what Donald Trump is or stands for, and that after four years his record was not unknown.
Kane contended that whereas every other president in American history had been driven by policy and principles, Donald Trump based his actions and decisions much more on his personality preferences and psychological needs, which Kane said was borne out by Trump contradicting himself as those needs changed. Kane said he could not think of a reason why someone who voted for the Democrat in 2016 would now vote for Trump, and argued that Trump hampered institutions and tried to dismantle the credibility of institutions including the intelligence community and the FBI, which Kane called damaging to the United States.
The Capitol riot and institutional trust
In a January 2021 episode, Zadek and guest Nick Gillespie discussed the breakdown of institutions and the resulting power void The Capitol Riot in Context (2021). Zadek said he would use the label anarchy, meaning the absence of any overriding institutional control, and said that when institutions are not respected they lose control de facto, producing a period of anarchy. Gillespie said the point was not to give the Trump people a pass on rioting and looting adjacent to Black Lives Matter’s rally in May, but to understand what was going on.
Gillespie cited John Lewis, the deceased civil rights icon, who he said called the election illegitimate when Donald Trump was elected and claimed it was because of Russian interference, and noted that a bunch of Democrats did not go to Trump’s inauguration, claiming the election was illegitimate. Gillespie described a dialectic that had been ramped up and ratcheted up for a long time, and cited the long-term erosion of trust and confidence in government tracked since the mid-1960s, when well over 50% of Americans believed government would always try to do the right thing, whereas now nobody does.
Gillespie said he had hoped libertarians would win as people evacuated government, but that instead bigger and bigger government resulted once anarchy was loosed and people saw rules as masks for power. He said he hoped the four years of Donald Trump as president would be a wake-up call for a different set of structures. Zadek said he had a visceral sense of a void created by the loss of legitimacy of almost all institutions, and that such a void drew in Donald Trump and strongmen and authoritarian figures because people want somebody in charge. Gillespie noted that Twitter kicked Donald Trump off but allowed other tyrants to continue tweeting, and said the response to institutional breakdown was to look to a strong man to save the day, which he called bad.
The 2022 and 2024 elections
In an August 2022 episode, Zadek introduced Dick Morris as a Republican political advisor who had joined the Clinton administration and whose life had been intertwined with Donald Trump’s since Trump’s early years as a New York City real estate developer and through Trump’s 2016 campaign, with close contact since the 2020 election Dick Morris on the 2022 and 2024 Elections (2022). Zadek said Morris had just published The Return: Trump’s Big 2024 Comeback. The episode summary states that Morris argued the Democratic Party had moved toward a judicial strategy to disqualify Donald Trump, while the group explored the libertarian tension between Trump’s policies and his volatile character.
Morris said he had not changed his ideas much but the Democratic Party had changed, that he used to be on the 50-yard line and now it was all the way in the end zone, and that the party had moved so far to the left. He said some of the policies he most liked about Trump were policies Clinton had done, including building a wall, making welfare recipients work, mandatory minimum sentences, and balancing the budget, which he said Biden never heard of and Trump was doing.
Across episodes
The excerpts show a development in treatment rather than a single fixed assessment. In 2018, Stephen Moore presented Trump as a common-sense businessman receptive to supply-side tax and deregulation ideas, and Zadek framed Trumponomics as a success. By 2019, John McGinnis credited Trump with good things for liberty but worried about his persona, polarization, and what would come afterwards. In 2020, Bradford R. Kane argued Trump was driven by personality and psychological needs rather than policy and principles, and was damaging to institutions. In 2021, Nick Gillespie and Zadek discussed Trump in the context of a power void and the loss of institutional legitimacy, with Gillespie hoping the four years would be a wake-up call. In 2022, Dick Morris emphasized a Democratic judicial strategy to disqualify Trump and likened some Trump policies to Clinton-era ones. The later episodes place Trump within broader concerns about populism and institutional trust rather than assessing his economic program on its own terms.
What the sources do not cover
The excerpts do not state Trump’s birth date or place, his business career beyond a reference to his early years as a New York City real estate developer, or the details of any legislation or executive action he signed. They do not give the outcome of the 2020 election or the specifics of the Capitol riot beyond the discussion of institutional breakdown. They do not state the name of any bill, the holding of any case, or the amendment any case turned on. The excerpts also do not cover Trump’s life after the period discussed or any events beyond those referenced by the guests.