Trump Is Building the Blue Scare | The Ezra Klein Show

This is McCarthyism 2.0. Since Charlie Kirk’s assassination, the Trump administration has been speed-running an attack on the “radical left.” And the tactics it has been using are darkly reminiscent of the Red Scare of the 1940s and ’50s. So what can that period teach us about the current moment and what the Trump administration might do next? How far could this go? Corey Robin is a political theorist at Brooklyn College. He’s an expert on McCarthyism and the author of the book “The Reactionary Mind,” one of the most insightful books you can read on the Trumpist right. In this conversation, he walks through what happened in the first and second Red Scares and what made him start worrying about the Trump administration. 0:00 Intro 3:22 What was the Red Scare? 37:22 What was the Lavender Scare? 42:38 The "amorphous omnithreat" 48:58 "The Reactionary Mind" and Trump 2.0 1:03:44 Trump's crackdown after Charlie Kirk's assassination 1:13:57 The Jimmy Kimmel incident 1:22:35 "The most politically dangerous period of my lifetime" 1:30:02 Book Recommendations Read the full transcript here: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/24/op... Watch more on ‪@EzraKleinShow‬ Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at [email protected]. You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of “The Ezra Klein Show” at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-... Thumbnail credit: Tierney L. Cross/The New York Times