Does the Trump admin do anything behind the scenes? They’re the most blatant admin I remember.

Grok says: You’re spot on that the Trump administration—both in its first term (2017–2021) and now in its second (2025–present)—often feels like the most unfiltered in modern U.S. history. Trump’s Twitter rants (now X posts), off-the-cuff rally speeches, and public feuds with everyone from judges to journalists make it seem like there’s no filter, no subtlety. Compared to the more polished, scripted vibes of administrations like Obama’s or even Biden’s, Trump’s style is a firehose of transparency—whether you love it or hate it. But does that mean nothing happens behind the scenes? Not quite. The reality is a mix: a lot of overt chaos that distracts from quieter, more calculated maneuvers, conflicts, and scandals that simmer out of public view until they boil over. Let’s break it down with some examples from both terms, drawing on documented actions and reports.

The Blatant Side: No Hiding in Plain Sight

Trump’s approach often amplifies visibility for political theater, which can make the administration seem less sneaky than predecessors who operated through backchannels. Key examples:

Public Policy Brawls: Think the 2017–2018 travel ban rollout, announced via executive order with immediate airport chaos, or the 2025 push for mass deportations, teased in speeches and social media long before implementation. These aren’t whispered deals—they’re megaphone moments designed to rally the base.

Personal Vendettas: Firing FBI Director James Comey in 2017? Trump announced it himself and later boasted about it on TV. In 2025, he’s openly targeted “enemies” like Fed Governor Lisa Cook via public executive actions, framing them as “retribution” during the campaign.

Media Wars: Unlike secretive ops in past admins (e.g., Bush-era warrantless surveillance), Trump sues media outlets publicly and calls them “fake news” on air, turning transparency into a weapon.

This style earns points for “blatantness”—Politifact rated Trump’s 2019 claim of being the “most transparent president” as “Pants on Fire” false, but even critics admit his openness about biases sets him apart.

It’s like watching a reality show where the drama is the point.

Behind the Scenes: The Hidden Plays That Bite Back

That said, plenty does happen off-camera, often involving self-dealing, national security shortcuts, or ethics dodges that only surface via leaks, lawsuits, or investigations. These aren’t always “conspiratorial” in the tinfoil-hat sense, but they reveal a pattern of opacity when it suits power retention or profit.

So, What’s the Verdict?

Yes, they do things behind the scenes—often the messy, legally dicey stuff that fuels scandals and lawsuits. The “blatant” facade might just be a smokescreen, making the hidden parts harder to spot amid the noise. If it feels more obvious than past admins, credit (or blame) goes to Trump’s style: He broadcasts the fights but buries the favors. For a non-partisan take, this duality erodes trust—transparency should mean sunlight on all actions, not just the showy ones.

Commentary magazine podcast: We need to talk about Jimmy Kimmel’s suspension. Kimmel, ABC’s late-night host, was pulled from the air just hours after FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr appeared on Benny Johnson’s podcast. Carr warned that ABC could face trouble if it didn’t act on the evidence, essentially threatening regulatory consequences. ABC then held emergency meetings.

On Monday, after a weekend of speculation about the shooter Tyler Robinson, Kimmel said: “The MAGA folks reached a new low over the weekend with the MAGA gang desperately trying to characterize this kid who killed Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them.” He didn’t directly say Robinson was MAGA; instead, he claimed conservatives were desperately trying to prove he wasn’t. That phrasing gave him a kind of rhetorical deniability, which his defenders have leaned on since.

The problem was that credible reports were already circulating. The Wall Street Journal and other outlets, based on law enforcement leaks, reported that Robinson was involved in the furry community, had a trans boyfriend, leaned left, and had become estranged from his family. Prosecutors confirmed these details on Tuesday. Yet over the weekend, prominent voices on the left—including Lawrence Tribe and Heather Cox Richardson—insisted Robinson was a far-right extremist, even suggesting it was a false flag operation.

Carr’s comments added fuel. He said Disney and ABC could handle the situation “the easy way or the hard way,” implying FCC action. Soon after, affiliates owned by NextStar and Sinclair suspended Kimmel’s show. Sinclair went further, demanding an apology, a donation to Turning Point USA, and announcing a Charlie Kirk tribute in Kimmel’s time slot.

This wasn’t only about government pressure. Affiliates are businesses with audiences in conservative markets, already facing calls from angry viewers. They also operate under FCC licenses, which are renewed every five years, making them sensitive to political leverage. The structure comes from the 1934 Communications Act, which declared that the public owns the airwaves. That gave the federal government power over broadcast licensing. Cable, streaming, and YouTube don’t face this; only broadcast stations do.

What stands out in this moment is not simply the clash between left and right, but the way conservatives are now using levers of state power that they once denounced. For decades, the conservative movement framed itself around limiting government authority, especially in culture and media. The instinct was to say: let the marketplace decide, let bad ideas fail on their own, and resist the temptation to weaponize federal agencies against political opponents. That restraint was part of the old conservative creed.

The Trump era broke from that. Instead of rejecting the regulatory infrastructure created during the New Deal and expanded through the civil rights era, conservatives began to use it. The very rules and agencies progressives built to pursue their cultural and political objectives—broadcast licensing, federal contracting language, Title IX enforcement—are now being repurposed. What was once a system for forcing open institutions in the name of diversity or equity has become a tool to check those same institutions for alleged bias or hostility toward conservatives.

Universities provide a clear example. Federal contracts and grants include civil rights provisions meant to prevent discrimination. Progressive administrations used those to push affirmative action and anti-discrimination measures aligned with the left. The Trump administration used the same provisions to go after campus antisemitism and to challenge universities for creating hostile environments for conservative or pro-Israel students. The rules didn’t change—the enforcement philosophy did.

For many conservatives, this is not hypocrisy but a necessary correction. They see cultural life dominated by institutions—Hollywood, the press, universities, corporate America—that lean heavily left. To them, these institutions are not neutral actors but monopolies of opinion that mock or marginalize half the country. From that perspective, using government power to force accountability isn’t a betrayal of principle; it’s long-overdue self-defense.

Progressives, however, frame the same shift as an assault on free speech and pluralism. They warn that once political actors use regulatory machinery to punish speech, there are no clear limits. What starts with Jimmy Kimmel or elite universities could spread to local newsrooms, publishers, or nonprofits. For them, it’s not “correction” but escalation.

The divide is stark: one side sees weaponization of state power as authoritarian creep, while the other sees it as finally fighting fire with fire. And that difference explains much of the cultural polarization—each side believes it is merely responding to what the other has already done, and so the cycle of escalation continues.

State Power vs. Procedural Liberalism: Essential Reads

A compact list of eloquent essays—across viewpoints—on the right’s turn toward using state power, the pushback against progressive institutions, and the free-speech stakes.

1) The right’s embrace of state machinery

• Christopher F. Rufo, “Bring on the Counterrevolution” (City Journal) — a manifesto for using political power to dislodge progressive institutional dominance.
• Christopher F. Rufo, “The New Right Activism” — argues that “ideas without power are useless,” outlining a program to “reorient the state toward rightful ends.”
• Matt Yglesias, “Liberalism is worth saving. Just ask its critics.” (Vox) — a skeptical read on post-liberal projects and their internal contradictions.

2) The Ahmari–French debate (strategy vs. principle)

• Sohrab Ahmari, “Against David French-ism” (First Things) — the influential case for abandoning procedural liberalism in favor of assertive state power.
• Benjamin Wallace-Wells, “David French, Sohrab Ahmari, and the Battle for the Future of Conservatism” (The New Yorker) — a clear overview of the clash and what it revealed on the right.
• Rod Dreher, “Sohrab Ahmari vs. David French” (The American Conservative) — contextualizes why many on the right gravitated to Ahmari’s posture.

3) Universities, civil-rights enforcement, and speech

• Corey Brettschneider in conversation with Yascha Mounk (Persuasion) — on how government can promote values without coercing speech, a useful frame for Title VI/IX fights.
• “A Letter on Justice and Open Debate” (Harper’s) — a broad liberal brief against coercive tactics from any side, often cited in campus debates.

4) Illiberalism, backlash, and the cultural front

• Jonathan Chait, “Liberals and the Illiberal Left” (The Atlantic) — an early warning about speech-restrictive currents that helped fuel right-wing countermeasures.
• Jonathan Chait, “How Liberal America Came to Its Senses” (The Atlantic) — argues the high tide of left illiberalism has ebbed, with implications for how the right justifies state pushback.

5) Bonus: reimagining a “new civil-rights” frame

• “A New Civil-Rights Regime” (City Journal, newsletter item) — sketches using civil-rights law to police ideological discrimination, a key plank of the new right’s strategy.