The following is a lightly edited transcript of the November 7 episode of the Daily Blast podcast. Listen to it here.

Greg Sargent: This is The Daily Blast from The New Republic, produced and presented by the DSR network. I’m your host, Greg Sargent.

Donald Trump will be our next president. There will be plenty of time in coming weeks to analyze what to learn from this election, but for now we’re going to start by looking at what Trump’s presidency will look like at the outset. Trump spokesperson Karoline Leavitt went on Fox News and flatly declared that Trump has a mandate to govern as he campaigned. That’s pretty alarming since Trump campaigned relentlessly on a platform of explicit threats of authoritarian retribution and violence. Today, we’re discussing all this with David Kurtz, executive editor of Talking Points Memo and author of a good new piece for his Morning Memo, arguing that voters chose Trump in full awareness of the cruelties he’s planning to inflict on untold numbers of people. Great to have you back on David, I just wish it were a happier occasion.

David Kurtz: Good to be with you, Greg, I do too.

Sargent: Let’s start with Karoline Leavitt’s appearance on Fox News on Wednesday morning just after Trump won. Listen to this.

Karoline Leavitt (audio voiceover): And the American people delivered a resounding victory for President Trump and it gives him a mandate to govern as he campaigned, to deliver on the promises that he made, which include, on day one, launching the largest mass deportation operation of illegal immigrants that Kamala Harris has allowed into this country. It includes “Drill, baby, drill!” and expediting permits for nuclear, for fossil fuels, for an above all energy approach that’s going to bring down the cost of living in this country. It includes, on day one, bringing Ukraine and Russia to the negotiating table to end this war.

Sargent: David, I don’t think that stuff about Trump having a mandate and governing as he campaigned is just boilerplate. She’s saying that Trump clearly told us what he’s going to do and now he’s going to do it. What’s your reaction to that?

Kurtz: I think it’s right. At this point, there was no coyness. There was no doubles talk, there was nothing about this campaign or really anything that Trump has done since 2020 that is anything less than what you see is what you get. So I understand from their point of view why they see this as a green light to do whatever they want to do, both what they’ve said explicitly they’ll do and whatever else they dream up along the way. But it also, Greg, operates at a second level. There’s an intimidation factor that goes with keeping everyone on their heels about what dastardly thing they may do next or what big reaction they may provoke with their next threat or next policy move or next faint in this direction or that. So it operates at a couple of different levels to wrap themselves in the mandate that they feel like this election gave them, as well as basically say, We’re untouchable and look out for what might come next.

Sargent: Yeah, and they’re also telling their supporters that they should be excited: around the corner as some real fireworks are coming. Note that in saying Trump will do what he promised to do, the very first thing that Karoline Leavitt cited was his vow of mass deportations, which is really the centerpiece of an authoritarian second term. Mass expulsions carried out with giant detention camps and potentially with the military. And she said it in this weirdly upbeat tone, “On day one,’” as if to say it’s time to get worked up about the cruelties and horrors we’re set to unleash. The key point, and you got at this in your piece, is that the coming cruelties are advertised. Can you talk about that component of it?

Kurtz: There was an element of all of this of that the pain inflicted on out-groups, on marginalized groups is a feature of MAGA Republicanism. It........

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