"Such is the fear of jail, bankruptcy, or professional reprisal, that most of these people insisted on anonymity," Luce explained. "This was in spite of the fact that many of the same people also wanted to emphasize that Trump would only be restrained by powerful voices opposing him publicly."
Trump's revenge campaign against his foes has taken many forms, Luce found. The most high-profile examples have been instances in which the president has personally pushed for officials at the US Department of Justice to criminally indict many longtime adversaries, including New York Attorney General Letitia James, former FBI Director James Comey, and John Bolton, Trump's own former national security adviser.
Luce also learned that the administration has been waging pressure campaigns on private employers to blacklist former Biden administration officials and other opponents from being offered jobs.
"Every employer says something along the lines of 'We’d love to hire you but it’s not worth the risk,'" one former Biden White House staffer told Luce. "All they offer me is apologies."
Former Biden national security adviser Jake Sullivan, who is now a professor at Harvard University, told Luce that he spends much of his time "trying to help former colleagues find jobs" because so few employers are willing to chance angering the president.
Military officials who spoke with Luce expressed fears that the US armed forces will not resist Trump, as they did in his first term, were he to give them illegal orders. One retired four-star general said he worried that Dan Caine, the current chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, would not refuse to carry out requests to have the military interfere with elections, as many officials did in 2020 when Trump tried to get the US Army to seize voting machines in swing states that he had lost to former President Joe Biden.
"Caine has the thinnest background to run the military at its most difficult stress test in modern history," the general said.
Many Trump critics who read Luce's reporting found it appalling that so many wealthy and powerful Americans were afraid to publicly criticize the president.
"When all this is over, we need to have a pretty serious conversation about the utter moral failure of the elite of this country," remarked Leah Greenberg, co-founder and co-executive director of Indivisible, on Bluesky.
Brendan Nyhan, a political scientist at Dartmouth, said that Luce's reporting shows "how much opposition we never see or hear because people fear reprisal" from the president.
Bradley Moss, a national security attorney who was one of Luce's few sources willing to speak on the record, wrote on Bluesky that more elites needed to start speaking out against the president and his authoritarian ambitions.
"I am disappointed in those who think keeping quiet will save them," he said. "It will not."
Ryan Enos, a political scientist at Harvard University, acknowledged the dangers outlined in Luce's column but also pointed out reasons for hope.
"This wannabe dictator is also extremely unpopular and those of us with the courage to stand up have the American people on our side," he argued. "It'll take courage and focus, but democracy can win."
The elites interviewed by Luce expressed their reticence to publicly speak out against Trump days after more than 7 million people gathered at thousands of "No Kings" protests condemning the president's authoritarian agenda—despite the administration's threats against protest movements. Residents in cities including Portland, Oregon and Chicago have also resisted federal agents carrying out Trump's mass detention and deportation campaign.
