How Trump's values became the Republican party platform

Donald Trump has transformed Republican politics, and Republican policy, as reflected in the GOP's newest platform.

Analysts say it echoes the language of its presidential candidate, instead of previously held Republican views, on a range of issues from the economy to abortion.

Today, On Point: How Trump's values became the Republican party platform.

Tevi Troy, senior fellow at the Bipartisan Policy Center. Former Deputy Secretary of Health and Human Services. Presidential historian.

Heath Mayo, founder of Principles First, a grassroots organization dedicated to championing conservative principles in politics. Corporate Attorney at Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz in New York City.

Part I

MEGHNA CHAKRABARTI: The cover page of the 2024 Republican Party platform begins with the declaration "Make America Great Again." In all caps, and punctuated by an exclamation point. Page two of the platform has a dedication to the, quote, forgotten men and women of America, end quote. Thereafter follows a policy document that reads less like a conventional party platform and more like a 16-page Trump tweet.

Complete with frequent use of statements in all capital letters, random sentence fragments, and 19 direct references to the former president himself. That's because, this time around, there was no typical platform writing committee. No debate between delegates over which policies to include in the document that defines the values of the Republican Party.

In fact, Vincent Haley, former deputy assistant to Trump in his first term, oversaw the small Trump team that wrote the platform. Trump himself edited it, according to the Washington Post. And last week, Republican delegates arrived in Milwaukee, expecting to join committees and subcommittees to draft, redraft, and then re-redraft the platform.

Instead, they were herded into a room. Their phones confiscated and sealed in magnetic pouches. Trump told the delegates via speakerphone, quote, "This is something that you'll ultimately pass. You'll pass it quickly." End quote. According to the New York Times, just two hours later, they did. Not one single amendment was considered.

Trump's draft became the GOP's official platform without a single edit. Trump's takeover of not just Republican Party politics, but now also the policies it says it will enact, was complete. Only then did the delegates get their phones back. This is On Point. I'm Meghna Chakrabarti. And with that background in mind, the question now is, exactly how much has the GOP's platform been remade into Trump's image?

It uses his exact words throughout the document. Some examples. Platform page 8. On immigration, quote, "We will also invoke the Alien Enemies Act to remove all known or suspected gang members, drug dealers, or cartel members from the United States, ending the scourge of illegal alien gang violence once and for all," end quote.

And here's Trump, December 17th, Reno, Nevada.

DONALD TRUMP: On my first day back in the White House, I will terminate every open borders policy of the Biden administration.

And I will invoke the Alien Enemies Act to remove all known or suspected gang members, drug dealers, or cartel members from the United States (CHEERS), ending the scourge of illegal alien gang violence once and for all.

CHAKRABARTI: Also platform page eight. The party will quote, "Begin the largest deportation program in American history." End quote. And here's Trump April 2nd, 2024, Green Bay, Wisconsin.

TRUMP: On day one, we will terminate every open borders policy of the Biden administration (CHEERS) and begin the largest domestic deportation operation in American history. Starting with all of the criminals that are pouring in.

CHAKRABARTI: Platform page five on education in all caps, quote, "Cut federal funding for any school pushing critical race theory, radical gender ideology and other inappropriate racial, sexual or political content on our children." End quote. Here's Trump. Waukesha, Wisconsin, May 1, 2024.

TRUMP: On day one, I will sign a new executive order to cut federal funding for any school pushing critical race theory, transgender insanity, and other inappropriate racial, sexual, or political content onto the lives of our children.

CHAKRABARTI: Platform page four, the economy section, quote, the United States has more liquid gold under our feet than any other nation.

And it's not even close. End quote. Here's Trump September 20th, 2023. Maquoketa, Iowa.

TRUMP: A lot of money. We can start, by the way, not only save a lot of money, make a lot of money. We can start by drilling for our liquid gold right under our feet. (CHEERS)

CHAKRABARTI: Platform also on page four, quote, 'We will drill, baby, drill,' in all caps. And quote, 'We will become energy independent and even dominant again,' end quote.

And here's Trump August 8th, 2023. Windham, New Hampshire.

TRUMP: To stop Biden's inflation catastrophe, bring down the cost of energy and become energy independent and even energy dominant. We are just, three years ago we were energy dominant, we were energy independent. But we will drill, baby, drill. We are going to be drilling. (CHEERS) And bringing it way down.

CHAKRABARTI: The examples go on. But the question now is, though a platform is a statement of values by an American political party, is Trump's platform purely aspirational, purely performative, especially given how vague it is when it comes to actual policy.

So how much does it actually represent what the Republican Party will translate into real policy? Joining us now is Tevi Troy. He's a senior fellow at the Bipartisan Policy Center. He's a professor, presidential historian and former Deputy Secretary of Health and Human Services, a position he held from August 2007 to January 2009.

He's also author of a forthcoming book, The Power in the Money: The Epic Clashes Between Commanders in Chief and Titans of Industry. Tevi Troy, welcome to On Point.

TEVI TROY: Thanks for having me, Meghna.

CHAKRABARTI: I also have to say that you wrote a really fascinating article in National Affairs a little earlier this year called Why Party Platforms Matter.

And I just wanted to start, first of all, leaning on the historian hat that you wear. Have we ever seen a party platform from either the Democrats or the Republicans that so closely quoted actual statements from their presidential nominee in the platform?

TROY: No. And thanks for reading my National Affairs piece.

This is a little different, but the typical process for platform writing and what the committee does, is they do take speeches, talking points, policy papers, op-eds that have been used by multiple people within the party, leaders in the party, senators, congressmen, the candidate, and they do try and fold that into a working narrative.

Under Trump, however, since he is such a dominant figure in the party, and he's now had the nomination three times, only one other person has done that in the history of the Republican Party, that's Richard Nixon. And so he has such a dominant position, that really the positions of the Republican Party are the positions of Trump.

So in a way, it makes sense to use his text, but it is typical to use text by other politicians in the platform.

CHAKRABARTI: Okay. Thank you for that clarification. Because, I have to say, many people, including myself, were quite taken aback by how it's literally word for word, not just in terms of policy positions, but in fact, in sort of emotive statements as well.

But since you talked about the process. As the reporting is coming out about how this particular platform, its process unfolded, I would love your response to that. Because as I quoted a little earlier, the New York Times just today published a story that said there in fact was no real delegate-based platform committee.

There was no hashing out or debating of ideas in the long and somewhat wonky platform creating process that there usually is. It was Trump's draft put in front of folks. They were told they'd basically have to vote on it, yes or no, and that was that. How unusual is that?

TROY: Yeah, there are some things that are similar and some things that are different.

Typically, what the platform committee does is it collects all this information, this paper, these different policy statements and speeches, and start to write something. But then it also has outside groups coming in to lobby the gun people, or the pro-life people or the education people. They'll come and they'll say, we would like to see something like this in the platform.

So that's the pre-convention process where a lot of voices are heard. Now, as I said, Trump now has had control of the Republican Party three times. He's gotten the nomination three times, which gives him more control over the mechanisms of the party than he's had before. Certainly 2016, his control was somewhat tenuous.

In 2020, they didn't really have a platform. So in 2024, this is the first time we're having a platform where he has complete control over the platform. So it's not surprising to me that they wrote a platform that reflects his views and his perspectives. I think the more unusual part is the kind of up, down, thumbs up, thumbs down, no leaks, no phones process where once they gave it to the delegates, they said, this is what you're voting on.

And that's it. And there's very little conversation. As in previous cycles, there have been very robust conversations and debates over a platform, documents, like 1948, that was the legendary fight in the Democratic party over the civil rights plank that Hubert Humphrey fought very hard for.

CHAKRABARTI: And also to your point about the lack of debate. We'll talk about this more later, but that ended up frustrating anti abortion activists in the Republican party a great deal, because the language around abortion, Donald Trump significantly softened that. This Trumpian platform, but so make a comparison here with me, because as you keep saying, it makes sense to you that this third nomination around, that Trump has consolidated his power of the party so completely, that the process unfolded as it did.

But you also mentioned that Richard Nixon was the only other Republican presidential candidate to be nominated by his party three times. Was the third time around for Nixon, the party platform creation process, anywhere similar to what we're seeing with the 2024 GOP platform?

TROY: of all, Nixon wasn't three consecutive times, so there's a little less dominance.

Okay. But it's, again, a similar idea. You take outside ideas, you bring them together. And then you have a conversation. I don't particularly remember any very contentious moments at that '72 convention. Because it was really by acclamation that they were supporting Nixon and his policies. And as he not only won the nomination handily, but he won an overwhelming election victory against George McGovern.

CHAKRABARTI: You write in your National Affairs piece, we've just got a 30 seconds before we have to take our first break here, though that you say in recent years, we have seen the parties increasingly push the platform drafting process aside. In 2020, the GOP barely had a platform, that was by design.

And then you say its decision was a function of the degradation of the party apparatus and its role as an organizing institution of American political life. Tell me a little bit more about what you mean by that, and we only got a few seconds, but I'll let you complete the answer on the other side of the break, but go ahead and get us started.

TROY: Sure, parties have less power now, and the candidates are much more dominant, and that's just the fact of life in both the Democratic and Republican parties today.

CHAKRABARTI: Is that a good or a bad thing?

TROY: It just is. It's part of an effort to so called democratize small d, the parties, and it's had this effect of letting outsiders like Donald Trump come in and take over the apparatus.

Part II

Today we're talking about the 2024 GOP party platform, written by a small group of Donald Trump's innermost circle, edited by Trump himself and passed by the delegates of the Republican National Convention. Here's Senator Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee, co chair of the RNC's platform committee.

On the first night of the RNC, she assured delegates that the party is behind Donald Trump.

Our platform is a promise and President Trump will keep his promises just like he did the first time. So I've got one more question for you. Who should be the next president of the United States?

CHAKRABARTI: Senator Marsha Blackburn there on night one of the RNC. Tevi Troy, in a minute I'm going to want to talk about exactly what the promises are that are in the GOP platform this year. But respectfully, I just want to push you a little bit more on when you said that kind of where we are regarding how platforms are created.

It just is how the parties have been degrading, as you write in your piece, the importance of the platforms. Because again, in your National Affairs piece, you said, at their best, platforms connect different elements to show how the party hopes to tackle some problems.

Both the parties, the platforms both inform the public about its intent and gives incoming officials a policy roadmap. ... And then you say this degradation of the party apparatus and our perhaps lessening of the importance of a platform is quote, a function of our failure to grasp the historic role of a party platform and its potential to help build a broader coalition, and recovering that understanding is essential to reviving our ailing political parties.

Now I offer your words back to you because I think, I'm guessing you feel more than, we just are where we are regarding how platforms are made, right? You're saying these are important documents that should be taken seriously.

TROY: Yeah, absolutely. And I'm a huge fan of platforms and I was disappointed in 2020 that there wasn't really a platform.

And I think this platform is much better than 2020, in that there's some meat on the bones. It's not as detailed as the previous platforms of years past, but I also have to push back.

You talked about the small d democratization, the party process or the nominating process is more democratic in that it is selected by the voters. And the party has less say, you don't have a smoke filled room anymore. So that is more small d democratic at the same time if the nominee takes over. They have more control over what they do, once they have the nomination, and that is less small d democratic. So I guess it's where you want your democratization.

CHAKRABARTI: Oh, no point well taken. Yeah, I was specifically talking about the creation of this document, which is a statement of values of the party, right? And as you said, the roadmap that incoming officials of that party are expected to follow. And to me, it seems like the process that was undertaken this time around, and I haven't seen any reporting to the contrary, that such a small group of people, and really none of them, the actual sort of on the ground delegates that are usually part of this process were involved in creating the platform, that was the anti-democratic observation that I was making.

TROY: Yeah, it's always a small group of people that writes the platform. That's just a fact of life. The question is, how much say do the delegates have? And the delegates have more say if there's a controversial plank that people across the party disagree with. And looks like they didn't have that this time.

I know there wasn't an opportunity to fight over it. And I think that if they did open it up a little more, there might've been more of a fight over the abortion plank and the Israel plank. But for the most part, I think that the people who are at that convention agree with what's in the platform.

CHAKRABARTI: That is a good point. So let me bring Heath Mayo into the conversation now. He's a corporate attorney at Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen, and Katz in New York City, but he's also a founder of Principles First. It's a grassroots organization dedicated to championing conservative principles in politics. Heath Mayo, welcome to On Point.

HEATH MAYO: Thanks so much for having me. Glad to be here.

CHAKRABARTI: So respond to what Tevi Troy said, that the most of the planks of this 2024 GOP platform, at least there's broad agreement amongst delegates that those are the right values for the GOP to stand on.

MAYO: Look, I think that's probably, by and large, correct.

Trump, I think that's what we're seeing, that the party has been largely remade by Donald Trump, and I think the proof will be in the pudding as we go from here, in terms of how much dissent you actually see. I think you're starting to see it in the pro-life communities, some folks who on the committee, a lot of committee women and men that were on the platform committee were frustrated with the process and raise those concerns.

And, it's just now happened, you've seen some open letters come out. And I think there are pockets of disagreement, but look, I think I do have to agree with Tevi here that by and large, the foot soldier delegates that are in that room agree with most, probably not all. But most of these 20 all capitalized sentences that they have in this platform. So, there is disagreement here and there, but I don't think we should close our eyes to the fact that the party has largely been remade, and doesn't really stand for the same things that it had in the past.

CHAKRABARTI: First of all, those 20 points that you're talking about, yes, page four and five of the platform do contain twenty bulleted points written in all caps that are essentially the headlines for what Trump's GOP stands for now. Number one, seal the border and stop the migrant invasion. Two, carry out the largest deportation operation in American history. That's number two. Number three and inflation and make America affordable again, and it goes on and on. But Heath, you made pains to say that the foot soldier delegates of Donald Trump's party, beyond those delegates, do you think that this platform reads in any estimation, like the platform of the Republican Party that we once knew.

Is it a conservative document?

MAYO: I do not believe so. I think there is, to your point, a significant chunk of voters out there who don't think so. There's not much talk in this document, for instance, of moral virtue, moral values, moral leadership. And not just as policy, but also just as practice.

And you see this from the folks who are on the stage speaking. Folks like Mitt Romney, McCain even Condi Rice, Liz Cheney. These people are pushed out of the party for reasons we don't know. The idea of being a moral leader is seen as weak and passe. And so that concept is missing.

You all obviously have the shift from sort of Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall, the idea that America is the indispensable nation in the world, to now isolationism, this idea that we're going to end the conflict in Ukraine in 24 hours. On day one, you heard David Sacks from Yammer from the main podium of the stage say, it wasn't Russia, it wasn't Putin's fault for invading Ukraine.

It was actually the fault of the United States and NATO for making him invade Ukraine. So there's just a lot of confusion, I think. And then also, the big one that you see throughout the platform, that marks a real change is just, it reads like really a left-wing class warfare screed.

This idea that there's some Americans out there, by virtue of their job, their race, or the way they live their life, that they're the real Americans. And there's another set of Americans out there who are not as American, and we got to reject those people, their leads.

Maybe they work a desk job. They work a nine to five or something. They don't work the right type of jobs. And so there's a sense that we're gonna, we're pitting America groups of Americans against each other. We had the them, the first ever address by the head, a labor union boss, up there giving a screed about capitalism and how free trade and free enterprise have harmed Americans.

And that's just, thought I was listening to a Liz Warren speech. I was like, is this the Republican convention or the Democratic convention? I wasn't too sure. So there's a number of things in there that I think a lot of folks who have long been Republicans would say this isn't exactly what I signed up for.

CHAKRABARTI: Tevi Troy, did you want to respond to that or add to that?

TROY: Yeah, I think he makes a lot of good points. The point that he said though, about Liz Cheney, Condi Rice, not being in the party anymore, not why, you do know why. Donald Trump is the dominant figure in the party and they oppose him.

And so it's just, I know he doesn't like it, and I'm not a fan either of pushing people out, but that's where we are right now. That's why those people aren't getting to be on the stage. In terms of the party planks itself. I think there is a distinction to be made between what's in the platform and what they're saying on the convention stage.

I agreed with what he said about the convention stage. I was trying to look through the list and see things that I know Ronald Reagan would have disagreed with. And I found only three specific things that I'll point to, that he would disagree with. Number one is the largest deportation. Ronald Reagan did bipartisan immigration reform in 1986.

No tax on tips. Ronald Reagan did a bipartisan tax reform also in 1986 that cleaned up the tax code and didn't have these kinds of special breaks for specific groups. And then fight for and protect social security with no cuts, no changes in the retirement age. Ronald Reagan had a bipartisan social security commission that extended the life of social security for a generation that included some tough changes, but it was bipartisan and it was widely held as a good thing. And it really did help social security. I think those are the three things. And to say, and I'm with the Reagan side on all of those.

And I would say for the most part, my position, or the Reagan position is to the right of where Trump is. So I guess that fits in with what Heath is saying, in that there seem to be things that are no longer conservative within the the Trump coalition.

CHAKRABARTI: So Heath, I'd love to hear your response to that. Because do you think that those three things that Tevi pointed out are the only things that the past iconic head of the Republican Party, Ronald Reagan, would disagree with?

MAYO: I think in the platform. Yeah. I think it's a question of how central or how important this platform really is to informing what the party and what Trump is going to do once he gets into office.

I think the party has changed in that way, as well. You spoke about some of the process issues with how this was put together. I'm not very convinced that the politicians, once they're elected, are going to be held accountable to this thing to any degree. But I think he raises good ones.

I don't know, Tevi, if he mentioned it, but I also would think I would also put trade in there. The idea that we're going to somehow increase tariffs on all goods coming into the United States by 100%, 200%. And that's going to somehow reduce the income tax.  I don't know any economist, conservative or liberal that would say that's a good, reasonable idea that's rooted in free market, common sense principles that will help the economy.

So I think there's a number of things in here, but I think the core of the Reagan disagreement would be with something that you really can't put on a page. And that is the abandonment of moral values. The complete short selling of any types, the idea that our leaders should reflect who we want to be as a nation, our better angels, to lift our eyes as a country, being happy warriors, to be role models for our children and our folks who are coming up, how should they behave in public?

How do we want our leaders to behave? I think that there is a sort of a shrug. And, we're not electing a priest. You'll hear people say they've gotten very comfortable saying that. But when it's happening all the time, and the way that President Trump talks about women, for instance, and other marginalized communities, it's just not, I think that's one that doesn't come up on the platform, but it has become such a core component of the way the Republican Party speaks and conducts itself on a daily basis.

CHAKRABARTI: Tevi, we'd love to get your response to that.

TROY: Yeah, I think there's two issues here, the style and the substance, and there's definitely style changes with Trump, including the fact that the Reagan party did talk more about moral values and moral virtue. And stylistically the platform with its weird capitalization and its bullet points and, as you said, the direct quotes from Trump's speeches, is very different stylistically.

And then there's the issue of the substance. And I think there's some here that hearkens back to a Republican party, even earlier era. And there's some, as I pointed out, that doesn't.

And I think this is, in some ways, a normal thing, that parties change all the time. When I worked in the George W. Bush White House, the President Bush used to say all the time that I'm against nativism, isolationism, and protectionism. Those were things he was against. And I stood with him. The party is not necessarily in that place right now. Also, the voters have changed. When I was in the Bush White House, white college educated voters were pretty much Republican voters that they looked to and they could count on.

And now Republican voters are not the college educated and they tend to be the more non college educated. And I think that is reflective of what has happened in terms of the change in the policy positions that the party takes.

CHAKRABARTI: I just wanted to say that I was looking back at the 1980 platform, since obviously we're doing so much comparison between the party of Ronald Reagan and the party of Donald Trump.

And it's interesting, because many sections of that 1980 platform actually, again, if not in style, in substance, do sound a lot like, in a sense, what Donald Trump is saying. There's peace through strength language in the 1980 platform. There is a really interesting, a section on what they call ethnic Americans, saying that people, Americans of Southern European, Eastern European, and European heritage in general have, quote, far too long seen their values neglected.

The time has come to go beyond the ritual election year praise given to ethnic Americans. We must make them an integral part of the of government. And then it says the Republican Party will take positive steps to see to it that these Americans, along with others, too long neglected, have had the opportunity to share power.

So on those points, Heath, is there? That as much daylight as you're saying that you see?

MAYO: Look, I think there are probably through lines, right? I think you probably raised a couple there. I think it also raises another good point that the Republican Party of Ronald Reagan wasn't free of its own spots, right?

I don't think that there's a lot of Republicans out there who don't think necessarily the answer is to take a straight back to Ronald Reagan either. Yeah. There's certainly probably through lines there. Another one, though, that I was just thinking, as you were listing the points of the 1980 platform, and I'm sure if you look through there, you'd probably see this word or these words in there a lot more than in the most recent one in 2024.

The Constitution, the rule of law, the fact that no one is above or below the law, that's an uncomfortable topic for the Republican Party of today. And it was even the Tea Party movement, even before that, the Constitution and the rule of law was like a calling card. You would go to party gatherings, the convention, and you wouldn't see people with bandages on their ear mimicking Trump or the party leader.

You'd see people dressed as James Madison and the framers. We, the party used to idolize, I think the founding documents in a way that isn't as prevalent today in the party. And the rule of law generally, it's a foundational commitment that I think you see it in President Trump, you see it.

And the platform, I think, in terms of this weaponization idea, this blaming the courts and juries and judges and prosecutors for being a deep state. There's some kind of conspiracy that they're looking for Republicans to go prosecute, even though we obviously have Senator Menendez now, who was recently convicted in New York for bribery.

But all, I think that one is one that is also taking a back seat, because it's hard to square a commitment to the rule of law. Commitment to the constitution, when you're nominating for president, someone who has called to suspend parts of the constitution that are inconvenient and obviously has been convicted of felonies.

Part III

CHAKRABARTI: Heath, just because you mentioned this, I did do a quick search in the 1980 platform just now. And you are right, the word constitution does appear at least ten times as far as I could find with a quick search in the 1980 GOP platform. And interestingly, three of those ten references to the constitution have to do with the 1980 Republican Party's support for constitutional amendments if they were to be offered for restricting abortion rights, and for limiting federal spending.

So that's quite interesting. But you made a really strong point about do the words rule of law appear in the 2020 platform? And as you noted, they don't. They do appear, yes, in the 1980 GOP platform, and it's really interesting because it says that basically the United States has learned, quote, time and again that nations and individuals have been subjected to extortion and murder at the hands of extremists who reject the rule of law, civil order, and the sanctity of individual human rights.

And because of that, because of the example that other countries have, when the rule of law collapses, that GOP '80 platform says the United States must provide the leadership to forge international consensus on the global order, essentially, that language is very starkly missing from the 2024 platform, in terms of foreign policy.

MAYO: That's right. I think that gets to the core of what I see is as a major difference in the shift of the party. Is, you know, that language that you read in the 1980 platform, it comes from a sense that America is an exceptional nation. The Republican Party used to be criticized for this by the left, for talking about America as if it were an exceptional outlier, that it was destined to lead the world and be an indispensable force on the world stage. And sometimes that idea has led us to be too bold in certain circumstances and has gotten us into trouble. But by and large, I think it is a solid one. I think our leadership in the world is a good thing and we shouldn't back away from it.

That point is saying, look, if America loses and forfeits its commitment to the rule of law here, even when we apply the law to folks that we agree with, the world is going to take a step back from the rule of law. And we're seeing this now. People are starting to question even the Republican Party. And it's starting in the Republican Party, but abroad, our enemies, they realize that we are starting to question the secret sauce of what makes America truly great.

Our commitment to the rule of law. Individual rights, the equality of all Americans. And I think the fact that the Republican Party is also starting to question those fundamental commitments and saying maybe we should be, maybe our government should be a little bit more of a strongman type government like Hungary.

Maybe we should try to enforce certain ways of life through government action, through the states, through the use of state power. The fact that we're questioning that is what I think turns off me as a longtime card carrying Republican, a lot of other Republican voters now, whether it's going to be a controlling percentage of the party moving forward.

I don't know, that question remains to be seen, but I do think that is a big step back from what was a very fundamental principle of the party in recent years.

CHAKRABARTI: Let's listen to what House Speaker Mike Johnson said about what he sees right now as the core values of the Republican Party.

He spoke on the second night of the Republican National Convention, and here he is.

MIKE JOHNSON: What do we stand for as Republicans? They want to know. I think it boils down to a few things. Individual freedom, limited government, the rule of law, peace through strength, fiscal responsibility, free markets, and human dignity.

Indeed, those are the seven core principles of American conservatism, but they're actually the core principles of our republic itself.

CHAKRABARTI: So Tevi Troy, we've touched on repeatedly, this sort of the divide between the values espoused by a party platform, and whether or not that platform actually has concrete impact on Americans lives.

Here, when we hear House Speaker Johnson talk about those seven tenets as he sees it of American conservatism, Heath has made quite a powerful argument that several of those tenets don't even exist in this current platform. In terms of, there's no free market in the platform when Donald Trump wants to raise tariffs on all imports into the United States.

Does it matter that a platform may not actually, or let me rephrase, how much do you think a platform actually guides specific policies that a party would seek to enact if it wins the White House?

TROY: Yeah, a couple things.

First of all, kudos to Mike Johnson. Sign me up. I'm all on board with all of his principles. Second of all, I do want to make clear that the platform does, the GOP24 platform does mention the Constitution. It says defend our Constitution, our Bill of Rights, and our fundamental freedom. It's not that the Constitution has completely gone away.

The third thing is the platform is not a list of what the party is going to do. But it's an expression of what the party wants you to think it's going to do. It's trying to tell the American people, this is what we stand for. And I don't think, like I said in the intro, that it's a checklist of these things are going to happen, but this is the perception that we want to put out there.

I got this from my old friend and a mentor, Ben Wattenberg, who was a Lyndon Johnson speechwriter. He was a big fan of platforms, but he said they're not agendas, they're expressions of what the party is trying to convey to the American people.

CHAKRABARTI: Is that true anymore? Because I'm going back to what you said earlier about it makes a lot of sense that this platform reads like Donald Trump, because Donald Trump is in control of the party.

He's not just the party leader. He's basically defining the Republican party now. And with that in mind, I feel like Donald Trump in his first presidency absolutely approved that he will try to do what he says he wants to do. Because he talked frequently in the 2016 election about, remember, of shutting down U.S. borders from immigrants from Muslim countries. And that was his first executive order when he got into office. Now, granted, it went through the court systems for quite some time before that executive order found legal language that it could settle on, but he did try to follow through on that policy that he promised.

TROY: Nobody said that they don't do anything in the platform. I'm just saying that it's not a checklist where everything that's in the platform is going to happen. It's absolutely true that a lot of these policies that are in there, they are going to pursue. I think there is going to be a tighter curtailing of the border.

Actually, I think there should be tighter curtailing on illegal immigration. So I think that's going to happen. He probably will try and do some legislation on not taxing tips. I don't think it'll happen. And I think it's against what I was saying earlier, with the Reagan approach to clean up the tax code and not to give special favors in the tax code.

So there are things that they're going to pursue that are in the platform, but I'm just saying it's not a checklist like the agenda that I know transition officials hand to cabinet secretaries when they go out there at the end of the transition. And say, these are the things you're trying to do. I've seen those checklists and those are more reflective of what they're going to do than the platform itself.

Nobody goes to an executive agency with a platform and says, this is what we're doing.

CHAKRABARTI: But I'm a little confused here and forgive me, maybe I'm just missing your point. And please feel free to tell me that I am, but in reading your National Affairs piece, I came away with a different opinion, a different sense of, because you said it also provides not a checklist necessarily, but maybe a blueprint of what a party might expect its members to follow if they're in office.

So how's that different?

TROY: A checklist is much more, much less theoretical and much more practical. This, we are going to do this regulation at this time. We're going to do this piece of legislation at this time. And a platform has more aspirational language. Now, I understand that this one is a little more bullet pointy and filled with all caps than your typical platform.

But what people who write platforms, and I've spoken to them, try to do is they try and create a narrative that gives you a picture of what the party stands for. And that narrative is supposed to attract new voters and excite existing voters about voting for the party, but it's not necessarily supposed to be a checklist.

CHAKRABARTI: Heath, what do you think about that? This idea that platforms and look, obviously focusing on the 2024 platform, won't necessarily translate into specific policies that Trump, if he wins again, or GOP elected officials would try to pursue.

MAYO: I think that's right. I generally I agree with what Tevi is saying.

I think it's more of a communications document. It's meant to be a signal to, I think, the party rank and file that, hey, we're not just getting together because we like this person. We're getting together because we believe in these specific ideas. And it's meant to give the rank and file some sense of, hey, we contributed to this, which I think is why there's so many problems with the process of how it was developed.

But fundamentally, I think, look, here's the issue. This platform could change tomorrow. If Donald Trump just woke up and tweeted out that, take an issue. If he said, if he woke up and he tweeted out or he began saying, actually, we really need to support Zelenskyy, like actually Putin is evil, he could change his policy tomorrow.

And I think the Republican Party, even regardless of what this platform says today would absolutely begin parroting whatever he said. And I think it gets back to is the platform really doing what it should be doing, which is being a baseline to hold elected officials within the Republican Party accountable to those ideas.

Or is it just a document that the leader of the party gave the rank and file to say, Hey, this is what I think today. Stay tuned. I might have more ideas later and fall in line when I do. I think it's much more the latter. The dynamic right now is much more the latter in the party than the former.

And I think that's really the issue. So while they may have designs now to do some or all of what is in the platform, I don't know that the party is set up today. You probably talked about it earlier in the show, just about how much Donald Trump and his orbit have come to dominate the entire apparatus and institution of the Republican Party.

It isn't an institution that works towards accountability of its leaders. And because of that, I don't think we can put much faith in the platform, put much trust in the ability of this document to hold the leaders in the party accountable. That's really up to Donald Trump.

CHAKRABARTI: And by the way, just as a quick but important aside, if I recall correctly from, for example, things that you've tweeted out before, Heath, you've been very critical of Donald Trump's views on Ukraine, for example, and now I'd presume J.D. Vance's as well.

MAYO: That's correct. Ye, no secret that I am very critical of that idea. I think it's completely ludicrous that we would be able to end this conflict in 24 hours without giving Vladimir Putin everything he wants. I think it's ludicrous to suggest that as Vance has, that could care less what happens in Ukraine.

This is a European country, independent European country that was invaded for no reason by Vladimir Putin. He's committing war crimes. His mercenaries are raping and killing innocent women and children. That's not something you do over a simple territorial dispute. I think the Republican party has really unfortunately lost its moral compass on this issue and it's really going to have grave stakes for freedom in Europe, unfortunately if they don't get this one right.

CHAKRABARTI:  I have to say that it seems that I hear both your points about this is the 2024 party platform or any party platform in the pas, that it's not a specific checklist, of this is exactly the laws that we want to pass. That this is the blueprint of how we want the next four years to go step by step.

I take your point there, but I think for many voters, that's a distinction without an actual difference, because if we're talking about this is the vision for the values that a party stands for, and then, Heath, to use your words, and these are the values to which we will hold elected officials accountable, for members of the party.

It just seems to make logical sense that, therefore, it's laws within that set of values that party members will pursue. So that's why I say it just doesn't seem to me to be an important distinction that it's not a clear checklist. And that's why I want to offer a really interesting perspective from a surprising source.

This is Bhaskar Sunkara. He's founding editor of Jacobin magazine, which is a socialist magazine. He's also president of The Nation magazine. And he says that the language in this year's Trump GOP platform is actually trying to appeal to moderate and swing state voters.

BHASKAR SUNKARA: The party seemed to be moderating on two key issues, abortion and guns.

And it does seem like Trump is being uncharacteristically careful. It seems to me this is a man who's not afraid of his own party and who's going to take it into a profoundly new direction, which means moving to the center or towards Biden on some of these big economic issues, like a national industrial policy and jobs and trade, but also moving a little bit more to the center when it comes to issues like abortion.

CHAKRABARTI: Tevi Troy, your response to that.

TROY: Yeah, I pretty much agree. I think as someone who's been a Reaganite conservative, I've looked at Trump and said, here's a guy who's more in the Nelson Rockefeller wing. Now, obviously he doesn't have the Nelson Rockefeller panache, or the grace of a Rockefeller. But he's more to the left of where the Reaganite party was.

He's changed the position on abortion. He won't touch Medicare or social security. He's not as a staunch a cold warrior as Reagan is. I know the cold war is over, but we were having some real problems with Russia like he was pointing out. Yeah, I do think that the kind of noise around Trump and the way he tweets and the way he tries to divide people makes people think that he's more to the right than he is.

But in some ways I think he's more moderate or more left wing than if you're a Reaganite Republican.

CHAKRABARTI: Heath, I'm going to give you the last word here. We've got about 30 seconds left. Taking all that we've discussed into account, does this platform even matter if the party is so much the party of Donald Trump?

It's his party. As you said, he can change his mind tomorrow and what's written in the platform just vanishes. So does this platform matter in its substance?

MAYO: I think it matters in its substance, in so far as it is an indication and a signal to voters in the lead up to November of what Donald Trump is thinking today. And what, where the party feels like it's going, the things that it thinks is important and that most energizes it.

I think it's important as a signal. I do not think it is important as a tool for holding officials in the party accountable. As I said, I think the process that the platform was, the process used to develop the platform was very opaque. It did not involve the rank and file members of the party. This is a document that was handed down by the Trump campaign to say, this is the ideas, get on board or get off and then we'll change it if we need to.