Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) tore into former Biden official Susan Rice last week after she issued what amounts to a warning shot at every corporation, law firm, university, and media company that has cooperated with President Donald Trump's agenda.
Rice, who served as domestic policy council director under President Biden and as U.N. ambassador under President Obama, made the comments during a February appearance on a Vox media podcast. Her message was simple: companies playing ball with Trump are making a mistake, and Democrats will remember.
When it comes to the elites, you know, the corporate interests, the law firms, the universities, the media, it's not going to end well for them.
She continued, warning that these institutions would be "held accountable by those who come in opposition to Trump and win at the ballot box." Rice urged companies to "play a long game, not this short game that has been so detrimental."
Kennedy did not mince words about what he was hearing.
What Ms. Rice is talking about is payback.
There's a certain clarifying honesty in what Rice said, even if she didn't intend it that way. Strip the diplomatic veneer, and what you're left with is a former senior government official telling American businesses that cooperating with a duly elected president will carry consequences when the other party takes power. That's not political commentary. That's a protection racket with better vocabulary.
Kennedy framed it in sharper terms. He pointed to what Rice's words actually mean when you follow the logic to its conclusion:
What Ms. Rice seems to be saying is that it's okay in America today to use the law to prosecute and harass your political enemies. I find that astounding coming from a person of her stature.
And the Louisiana senator isn't wrong to find it astounding, Fox News reported. Rice isn't some fringe commentator on a Substack with forty subscribers. She held two of the most powerful policy positions in two different Democratic administrations. When she speaks, she speaks with the full weight of the party's institutional class behind her. This wasn't a slip. It was a signal.
Kennedy placed Rice's comments in a longer arc of political weaponization that he traces back through the Biden years. He pointed to Attorney General Merrick Garland's appointment of special counsel Jack Smith in 2021, who then launched investigations into whether Trump interfered with the transfer of power after the 2020 election and whether he mishandled classified information. Kennedy also referenced Department of Justice investigations touching figures like former national security advisor John Bolton, New York Attorney General Letitia James, and Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell.
The senator recalled his reaction at the time:
And I remember thinking at the time: They have unleashed spirits they cannot control.
That line carries more weight now than when Kennedy first thought it. The "spirits" he described have not dissipated. They've evolved. What began as government-level legal action against a political opponent has now spread into a broader posture of institutional intimidation aimed at private actors. Rice's comments are the next phase: not just targeting Trump himself, but targeting anyone in his orbit. Anyone who does business with his administration. Anyone who doesn't resist loudly enough.
Notice the framing Rice chose. She spoke of "accountability." She spoke of a "long game." These are words designed to sound reasonable, even principled. But accountability, in the Democratic vocabulary, flows in only one direction.
When the Biden DOJ pursued Trump through multiple simultaneous investigations, that was accountability. When Democratic attorneys general like Letitia James built careers on prosecuting a single political figure, that was the rule of law. But when those same institutions face scrutiny, suddenly the system is under threat and norms are crumbling.
Rice wants corporations to understand that compliance with the current president's lawful policy agenda is a form of political sin that future Democratic administrations will punish. Think about what that means for a functioning republic. A law firm that takes on government work is supposed to worry not about whether the work is legal, but about whether a future administration will retaliate for it. A university that cooperates with federal policy is supposed to calculate partisan risk before following the law.
This is the environment Rice is openly advocating for.
To his credit, Kennedy didn't turn his criticism of Rice into a blank check for anyone. He acknowledged the counterargument head-on:
And I know some are going to say, well, 'President Trump is doing the same thing.' If that's true, I don't like that either.
Two wrongs don't make a right. It was wrong then when President Biden did it; it's wrong now.
That's a principled position. It's also one that highlights a crucial difference. Kennedy is willing to state a standard and apply it consistently. Rice, meanwhile, isn't arguing against political weaponization. She's arguing for better-targeted political weaponization, wielded by the right people, meaning her people, at the right time.
The most revealing word in Rice's entire statement might be "long game." She's not reacting to a news cycle. She's laying infrastructure. She's telling the Democratic coalition's institutional allies to hold firm, resist cooperation with this administration, and trust that loyalty will be rewarded and disloyalty punished when Democrats return to power.
This is how you build a parallel enforcement regime outside of government. You don't need subpoena power if corporate America is too frightened of future retaliation to work with the sitting president. You don't need legislation if the threat of political punishment keeps law firms from taking certain clients, keeps universities from following certain federal directives, keeps media companies from covering certain stories without the approved framing.
Rice said the quiet part out loud. Kennedy heard it. The question is whether the companies she's trying to intimidate heard it too, and whether they'll fold or call the bluff.
Fear is only leverage if people comply with it.
