The Very Worst Trump Cowards Exposed: Author

For some of America’s most powerful business leaders, bending to President Donald Trump isn’t about politics. It’s about advancing their own interests.

But that willingness to accommodate Trump can have consequences far beyond the bottom line—which is where the real threat to democracy lies, according to author and journalist Jacob Weisberg.

Using Amazon’s Jeff Bezos as an example, Weisberg—author of the forthcoming book Profiles in Cowardice: A Study of Collaboration in the Trump Era, explained to host Joanna Coles that Bezos bows down to Trump to advance his goals in space.

“What Bezos cares about, if you look at the long arc of his biography and his career, is colonizing space,” Weisberg explained, adding that the Amazon boss has a “kind of utopian vision,” noting, “he’s had that vision his whole life.”

Weisberg said one could even argue that Bezos started Amazon to fund his true dream of conquering space. He explained that during Trump’s first term, however, Elon Musk got far ahead of him with SpaceX, and Bezos realized the benefits of having the administration in your court.

“With Trump coming back into office, it’s not the fair awarding of government contracts—it’s favoritism,” Weisberg said. “It’s corruption of all kinds. You have to be in with the president, and I think Bezos thinks that space is his contribution to humanity.”

“Bezos thinks he’s going to build these colonies in space or help us get there. And when that was jeopardized, I think he knuckled under,” Weisberg continued.

Coles asked, “Could you argue then that actually Bezos isn’t a coward at all? He’s a visionary, and this is expedient to get to the next level of space exploration? I mean, in a way, that’s a very American story, isn’t it?”

To that, Weisberg said, “Giving up our constitutional principles here on Earth and here in this country on a speculative basis for... what vision that may or may not be realized. I mean, look, you know, someone once said that there’s nothing that dates people more than their visions of the future.”

The Daily Beast has reached out to Bezos’ representatives for comment.

Weisberg also mentioned the impact Trump’s return to office has had on Bezos, including giving Blue Origin government contracts, especially after Trump’s public falling out with Musk. He also pointed out Amazon’s capitulation to Trump amid his erratic tariff policy, during which Amazon said it would show customers how much prices were being impacted by tariffs, which the White House did not like and prompted them to call on Bezos to stand down.

“I don’t think that by itself is an attack on democracy,” Weisberg explained. “But in terms of Trump and Bezos having the kind of relationship that keeps the president happy, I think that does endanger democracy.”

“When you have a president who’s not a normal Republican president, he’s a would-be king. He’s a would-be autocrat,” he added. “He’s exercising power that doesn’t belong to the presidency. And people are letting him get away with it. And that’s what the danger is.”