John Heilemann: We Are Facing ‘Autocratic’ Presidentially Driven Policy Agenda that Trump Is Putting Forward

EXCERPT:

HEILEMANN: “Look, I think where we are is, is what we were talking about earlier in the show, is the increasingly autocratic, increasingly — entirely presidentially driven policy agenda that Donald Trump is putting forward. I think on the questions of the Kimmel story is of a piece with the Comey story, the weaponization of the Department of Justice, the politicization of that, and all of the things you saw in the wake of Charlie Kirk’s tragic, undeniably tragic murder when you saw JD Vance and others. These things have not gone away, saying that the administration is going to war with what they call the radical left and plans to weaponize government in all kinds of ways against what JD Vance has talked about, against left-wing, what they call left-wing NGOs that they’re now starting to talk about as if they were sponsors of domestic terror. It is a — where are we? We are in a dark place, Joe, and I’m — you know, I take some comfort in the fact that Jimmy Kimmel got back on the air and gave us a moment, that momentary reprieve, but I don’t think that their campaign against broadcasters and free speech is over, not by a long shot. And it feels this has been a very, a very, very sobering week at the end of the string of very, very sobering weeks since this administration got underway back in January, eight months ago."