David Frum
Appearances
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Sociopaths and Political Tribalism
But for all intents and purposes, they're cooperating. Trump is, as we saw with the argument over H-1B, is a much more openly oligarchic figure than he was in the first term. The populist economics are out the window except for the tariffs, and they're not very populist. In this case, populist means, is code for people don't understand how they work, not that they represent the popular will.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Sociopaths and Political Tribalism
And the party's going to cover for him on more things, that there will be no more Trump is not making any pretenses to separate himself from his business. It's not making any pretenses that there isn't going to be a massive looting of the public treasury. And not making any pretenses that the public policy of the United States is not up for option. See the TikTok ban. See the H1Wii.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Sociopaths and Political Tribalism
He who pays gets what he wants. So, now the cabinet. I grouped them into... four main types. The first types are the more or less normal appointees. These may be desirable, they may be not desirable. I don't think of Marco Rubio as a man of great principle, courage, and integrity, but it's not crazy that a senior Republican with an interest in foreign affairs would be Secretary of State.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Sociopaths and Political Tribalism
You have to know a lot about Rubio to know that this may not be an ideal appointment, but on its face, yeah, seemingly okay. So you have the more or less normal people. Then you have, I think, the sad, weak broken people, like the Pete Hegseths.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Sociopaths and Political Tribalism
I think deep down, Pete Hegseth is probably not an unpatriotic person, but he's got these dependencies, he's got these bad habits, and he's attractive to Trump because of his weakness and brokenness. Plus he's on TV, but there's something that Trump has this kind of predator sense for who is someone he can work through. There's a danger to that. Oh, yeah. They're dangerous, for sure.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Sociopaths and Political Tribalism
But they're a different kind of danger. They're dangerous because they're tools. They're not dangerous because they're co-authors. Then you have the people who have really radical, serious personality flaws. These may not even be super ideological people, but they are people who are full of hatred and rage, and they want to work with Trump.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Sociopaths and Political Tribalism
And then you have the people who are actually outright committed to ideologies that are hostile to the existing institutions of the United States. That's where I put the Kash Patels and the Tulsi Gabbards. So you have a different set of problems. It also depends a lot on how big and powerful the agency is that the person is appointed to head.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Sociopaths and Political Tribalism
The primary mission of the uniformed military is not having to listen to what the civilians who think they're in charge of the Pentagon tell them to do. And what the Pentagon dreads above all things is an intelligent, well-informed, committed, hardworking civilian, a Bob McNamara or Donald Rumsfeld.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Sociopaths and Political Tribalism
They're just going to have lots of ideas that the military doesn't like, and they're going to have the clout to impose them on the military. But the military loves is an absentee landlord. And Pete Hagseth is going to be that. So the information won't flow. The Pentagon will win any fight they have with Pete Hagseth. I'm guessing the Pentagon wins.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Sociopaths and Political Tribalism
But director of national intelligence, that's a tiny little bureaucracy. And the director is going to be able to impose a lot of her will, including she can do a lot of harm just if she talks too much to the wrong kind of people.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Sociopaths and Political Tribalism
I would say Kash Patel is the most alarming, because the FBI, although it's bigger than the Directorate of National Intelligence, it's still a relatively small agency compared to the Pentagon. And it is full of people who are predisposed to like Trump. The FBI director has a lot of small benefits in his face. He can move you. Your wife gets a promotion to another town.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Sociopaths and Political Tribalism
The agent comes in and says, could I be moved to that town? The director can make that easier. The director can make that hard. The director can bring people to Washington and send people out of Washington. Congratulations, Mr. Constitutional Stickler. You're the new head of our Albuquerque Border Patrol office.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Sociopaths and Political Tribalism
And we're taking Mr. Mega from Albuquerque and bringing him here to Washington and putting him or her in charge of investigating political opponents of Donald Trump. So the ability to remake the FBI without outright firing people is pretty large.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Sociopaths and Political Tribalism
And in American criminal law, it is the investigation that is the punishment because the investigation ties up your life. Investigation costs. I mean, if you are investigated and no charges are ever brought, I mean, if you're acquitted, you might have some way to get some help with your legal fees from the government.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Sociopaths and Political Tribalism
But if they investigate you and say, you know, you know, we spent three years, we cost you $200,000. You're right. There was nothing to see here all along. You're free to go. You don't get the $200,000 back and you don't get the hours of your life that were taken away from you back.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Sociopaths and Political Tribalism
It's a violent society, more violent than peer nations. And there are reasons for that that Americans, I think, probably do not want to change, which is the country has just got weaker interior policing than its European peers do. I remember being in Britain at the time of one of the Conservative Party conferences and going into the police control room that was monitoring the safety of the city.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Sociopaths and Political Tribalism
Yeah. Well, she's also obviously cultish and gullible, which is not something you want in a director of national intelligence. And one of the challenges of these top jobs is the United States is at the center of everything. So it's surrounded by threats. Radical Islamic terrorism, domestic and international, very, very serious danger to the United States, needs a lot of attention.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Sociopaths and Political Tribalism
You cannot respond to that by saying, and therefore we pay no attention to the actions of Hindu nationalist groups, even though they have carried out assassinations on Canadian soil and plotted assassinations on British and American soil. That's also a threat vector and maybe a less large and important one.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Sociopaths and Political Tribalism
But every threat vector needs to be taken on its own merits from a point of view of a general idea of the American national interest, rather than because you're a partisan for some threats because you've been radicalized in favor of them because of your dislike of others. So if you say Islamic terrorism is the only thing I'm going to be worried about, you're going to miss a lot of things.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Sociopaths and Political Tribalism
And as you say, the pattern that you described of this seeming pattern of the New Orleans killer,
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Sociopaths and Political Tribalism
There are a lot of people with that, a lot of men with that life situation who, depending on the cultural influences upon them, will choose one or another ideology to express the rage that they began by torturing cats when they were a child and ended up by oftentimes killing their wife or partner and harming their children before going on to the mass killing because they're dealing with, again, this constant seething volcano that erupts in a certain number of souls.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Sociopaths and Political Tribalism
In government, no one ever sends you bonbons to thank you for the bad things that could have happened but didn't. All the terrorist plots that are thwarted, maybe there's a quiet medal bestowing ceremony for those, but the public doesn't know or care. There's something ironic when you say you're too focused on this thing that didn't happen. It's in the Bible.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Sociopaths and Political Tribalism
Do you remember when Jonah is sent to preach to the city of Nineveh and he doesn't want to? And when God confronts him, why didn't you want to do it? He said, because God, I know you're a very forgiving God. And when I bring this message of doom to the people of Nineveh, they're going to pray and you're going to change your mind.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Sociopaths and Political Tribalism
And I, Jonah, will look like a moron because I told them you're going to smite them and you didn't smite them. And what does that do for my prophetic reputation?
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Sociopaths and Political Tribalism
And looking at the feeds from all the closed circuit TV cameras that fed into the police station, they could say, you could pick out somebody that the camera wanted to follow and just follow him over the whole course of his itinerary for as long as you wanted to follow that person through one camera after another. Americans don't want to live like that. Americans are also very attached to guns.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Sociopaths and Political Tribalism
So what you see here is Andreessen taking an ignorant but not stupid point and converting it into a genuinely stupid point. So Andreessen's making the point that industrial growth was faster when tariffs were high. which is wrong, but you have to know a little something about the subject to know that it's wrong.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Sociopaths and Political Tribalism
Trump converts that to saying that America in 2025 is less wealthy than it was in 1890, which is just obviously moronic. If you showed the American living standard of 1890 to a typical lower middle-class person in Taiwan, they would recoil with horror. I mean, there isn't a bathroom in the whole tenement building. Not one.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Sociopaths and Political Tribalism
Obviously, there isn't like one per child, but not one per house, not one per floor, just like zero in the whole tenement, not a single bathroom, not a single bathroom in the whole tenement. So that's crazy. So let me address the Andreessen point.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Sociopaths and Political Tribalism
Because this is a point you hear from a lot of people who think they know something about tariffs, which is the United States appeared to industrialize very fast between the Civil War and the First World War. The tariffs were generally high in the period from the Civil War to 1913. Therefore, one must be causing the other.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Sociopaths and Political Tribalism
So a lot of people actually are interested in this subject, which is a pretty recondite one, but have looked, why is this not true? So the first thing was tariffs mattered a lot less to the United States in the 19th century because for two reasons. One is shipping costs were very high.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Sociopaths and Political Tribalism
So the tariff actually did not do that much to keep out many, many goods because the shipping costs already did the job. You're not going to bring a lot of things that were low margin. We're not going to move from England to the United States because they couldn't overcome the burden of the shipping costs.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Sociopaths and Political Tribalism
The second thing to remember is the reason tariffs are bad is because they disrupt the efficiency of having a large market. Well, the United States in the 1890s was already the largest internal market in the world.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Sociopaths and Political Tribalism
So even though it could have been more efficient had it traded freely with Britain and Germany and other major industrial products, Belgium, Northern Italy, the United States was already the largest internal market. So it was capturing many of the benefits.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Sociopaths and Political Tribalism
Finally, the United States appeared to industrialize factor because economists distinguish between what they call intensive growth, that is squeezing more productivity out of the existing factors of production, and extensive growth, which is just adding more factors of production.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Sociopaths and Political Tribalism
The United States in the post-Civil War period was adding enormous numbers of people through immigration and developing huge new iron ore fields and other sources of natural resources. A lot of that growth...
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Sociopaths and Political Tribalism
was real but it was extensive that is by adding more factors of production not intensive by getting more value out of the factors you already have so it's just not true and what people forget when they look at they see the industrialization between 1965 and 1913 they don't see repeated severe depression after severe depression radical populist movements uprising because
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Sociopaths and Political Tribalism
The tariffs enriched some and impoverished others. If you were a southern cotton farmer in the post-Civil War period, the tariffs made you really poor because a tariff functions not just as a tax on import, but mathematically, it also taxes the export.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Sociopaths and Political Tribalism
That's not the murder weapon in New Orleans. But it is a deep national commitment. And to those – I grew up in Canada. It seems unreasonable to me. I understand why if you're a farmer trying to protect your chickens, you need a shotgun. I understand why if you're a hunter, you need a rifle.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Sociopaths and Political Tribalism
If you're in an export-favored sector like cotton, you lose on the one hand, and then you lose again because you have to pay more for your clothes and your yarn and so on. Sorry for that last lecture, but Andreessen is not a fool. He could read a book on this subject. He really could. He could talk to some economists and know what they're talking about.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Sociopaths and Political Tribalism
Trump is on this subject just a fool, so there's no helping him. But they're both wrong. And if you start putting the tariffs back in place now, you will do enormous damage. Can I say one more thing? I know this is a long lecture.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Sociopaths and Political Tribalism
Okay. So tariffs represent a very small fraction of government revenue. That's true. But where the tariffs are still in place – They impose very large costs on the people who pay them, who are typically the poorest people in society. I've written about this for The Atlantic, and Ed Gresser at the Progressive Policy Institute has done some work.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Sociopaths and Political Tribalism
If you are buying a pair of Prada loafers, the tariff is a negligible factor in the cost of Prada. There are still tariffs on shoes. But if you're going to Walmart and buying three pairs of the cheapest sneakers for your three children, the tariff actually is quite a substantial component of the price.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Sociopaths and Political Tribalism
And there is this weird pattern where tariffs on women's clothing are higher than tariffs on men's clothing. Tariff on plastic plates is going to be higher than the tariff on China plates, which is less than the tariff on fine China, that you can just see there's a sex and class bias. Probably not that anyone put there on purpose, but it's more that why does the tariff get taken off?
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Sociopaths and Political Tribalism
Is it somebody has the clout to get it taken off and they didn't? But in general, in the life of the poor, tariffs are an important cost. And if you have more tariffs, they will be an even more important cost of the lives of the poor.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Sociopaths and Political Tribalism
I think Andreessen is for real because I can see this spreading in the Silicon Valley world where they're very upset and mad at China. There has been this interest in sort of glib, no one's going to read the real articles or the real history of tariff policies in the United States. They're too important to work.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Sociopaths and Political Tribalism
They employ people to do the work for them, who summarize what's in the work and tell them what they want to hear anyway. So I think Andreessen really does believe that higher tariffs led to industrialization. I mean, he might get they're not efficient, but the idea that that's not true either, even his own more sort of upmarket version of the Trump point, it's not true either.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Sociopaths and Political Tribalism
And it's just uninformed to say such a thing.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Sociopaths and Political Tribalism
I don't understand why if you're an urbanite, you need to carry a personal arsenal that would impress an Afghan warlord. But – A lot of people seem to disagree with me on that. And there has been no move, if anything, over the past 20 years, gun laws have become more permissive, not more restrictive.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Sociopaths and Political Tribalism
Well, you don't have to make it personal. So one of the great writers about trade was a man named Henry George, who wrote 150 years ago. And he has a wonderful image. He said, to introduce a tariff bill into a Congress or parliament is like throwing a single banana into a cage of monkeys. Soon they're all screeching and stamping for it and demanding one of their own.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Sociopaths and Political Tribalism
This is just the universal nature of tariffs. Tariffs make politics oligarchical because everybody is lobbying to get their tariff taken off. This happened to the Biden administration too. President Biden put on heavy tariffs on electric vehicles to keep out Chinese tariffs.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Sociopaths and Political Tribalism
Our allies and friends in Europe said, wait a moment, BMW, Mercedes, Jaguar, they all make electric vehicles and we're helping in Ukraine. Can you do something for us? Biden didn't want to create an exception. So what he did was he introduced, or his administration introduced an exception that said, if your electric vehicle is leased, the tariff doesn't bite.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Sociopaths and Political Tribalism
Now, high-end cars tend to be leased, the Jaguar, BMW, and Mercedes. So that was a little special favor. And not one person in a thousand knows about it. Not one person in probably a million knows about it. But it's just a little special favor that was done for friends in Britain and Germany. And those are the kinds of things that the tariff system invites. Whenever you have a law that is...
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Sociopaths and Political Tribalism
generally oppressive. You unleash a scramble for favors. Even a generally clean administration like Biden's will, they will listen to strategic arguments like, hey, we're helping you in Ukraine. Can you do something for our electric vehicle? Trump will respond to more crude and direct incentives, but it will be the same process. The answer is don't put on the Blinken tariff.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Sociopaths and Political Tribalism
I'm going to forget now the writer who said this, that it's a big, raw, rough, unpoliced country and violence is the price Americans pay for it. But that seems to be, that's the verdict. And there are enough different kinds of violent people that whatever sociological or political conclusion you want to draw, you want to draw that rednecks are bad, Muslims are bad.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Sociopaths and Political Tribalism
What's happening in Canada is a very familiar Canadian process, which is Canadian federal governments tend to last six months or 10 years. It's very rare to get a four-year Canadian government. After year 10, the roof falls in. And that process is happening to Justin Trudeau. Now, the roof falls in for different reasons. Every time, your 10 years are up.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Sociopaths and Political Tribalism
So his reasons are special to him, but he's generally falling into 10 years. Yeah, it will be 10 years next year, the roof falls in. So what's ailing him are... an inescapable everywhere problem, a profoundly deep problem, and then a special little spicy irritant. The thing that is really crushing him is housing costs.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Sociopaths and Political Tribalism
Canada is a much more urbanized society where the job markets are really, the biggest job markets are four cities, Vancouver, Calgary, Toronto, Ottawa. Vancouver is oceans on one side, mountains on the other. Building is hard. Toronto is flat, but it's surrounded by a green belt. Plus, eventually, when you get big enough, the city chokes on its own traffic.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Sociopaths and Political Tribalism
So you can't extend in all directions because people don't care about how many miles they are from the center. They care about how many minutes they are from the center. Same thing is happening in Ottawa and, to a lesser degree, Calgary. So where the jobs are, housing is not being built in sufficient numbers. Plus, Trudeau dramatically expanded immigration to Canada.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Sociopaths and Political Tribalism
Canada has had a successful immigration policy where the immigrants tend to be higher end, better educated, more affluent. But guess what? That means they're more effective competitors and bidders in the housing market. So there's this national housing shortage where the jobs are, and it's making everybody crazy. Young people can't move out, and that's a big problem.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Sociopaths and Political Tribalism
Underlying that is a deeper problem, which is that Canadian productivity growth has – fallen far behind. American productivity growth in this gap has been widening over the Trudeau years. I won't take time to speculate about why that's so. Then the last thing is the special extra spicy seasoning.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Sociopaths and Political Tribalism
Trudeau put himself at the heaven of the parade about these alleged mass graves found at Indian residential schools, lowered the fags for the longest period of public mourning in Canadian history. The story was known then by experts. It is now known by everybody to have been
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Sociopaths and Political Tribalism
if not a complete hoax, exaggerated to a point where they took things that were tuberculosis deaths that happened in 1895 and made them seem like mass murder that happened in 1985. And Trudeau's role in publicizing this act of defamation, the Parliament of Canada unanimously adopted a resolution self-accusing Canada of genocide.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Sociopaths and Political Tribalism
I don't think that's why he's in trouble, but that's like the last sprinkling on the cake. 51st State. Canada's 40-plus million people over 4,000 miles. Got to be at least five states. I'll take it. Yeah. Chuck Schumer would take it. You got a deal, Mr. Trump. So what happens to the United States Senate? If you admit five Canadian states, at least. British Columbia, two Democratic senators.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Sociopaths and Political Tribalism
Maybe the Prairies would send one of each, but Alberta and Saskatchewan are kind of conservative, but Manitoba is very progressive. Ontario is Bush conservative country. What are you going to do with Quebec? I don't think Trump likes the press two for Spanish. How is he going to like it when French is press one? Yeah. For English press, too.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Sociopaths and Political Tribalism
You want to draw schoolchildren are bad, schoolchildren are good. You want to draw any conclusion you want. There is a crime, a mass crime, a horrifying crime that will support whatever theory you want to propound.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Sociopaths and Political Tribalism
There's an old Canadian joke about what does Quebec want, which is an independent Quebec within a united Canada. So you can now deal with this Michigas because they want to be leaving, but they don't want to actually leave.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Sociopaths and Political Tribalism
Yeah, I think, as I said, if the roof falls in, whoever is the leader of the opposition steps into the job. And this is a familiar pattern, and often with very big majorities. He did do some Trumpy things during the pandemic. He was in the vicinity of vaccine skepticism. He was very anti-lockdown. He has kept a broad church for some of the more radical elements of the Canadian right.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Sociopaths and Political Tribalism
But he himself is a highly intellectual and well-informed person with deep knowledge of policy. He's been in politics his whole life, starting as an intern. He knows absolutely how the system works. He's the single best debater in the House of Commons. That's why he became leader of the Conservative Party. He would be very much in Camp Normie in American politics.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Sociopaths and Political Tribalism
Definitely a conservative person, more conservative than, say, Brian Mulroney, the last long-term conservative prime minister, maybe as conservative as Stephen Harper, but very much team normal, not team Trump. And not going to be an ally on the Trump fortress America economic policy.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Sociopaths and Political Tribalism
Canada lives, breathes, depends on open trade, and not just open trade with the United States, but open trade with the world.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Sociopaths and Political Tribalism
I think the Scarborough people got whipsawed by... two things, each of them very, very sympathetic. And I want to stress, I am completely sympathetic situation. Trump watches the show. He doesn't read The Atlantic, but he watches The Scarborough Show. And everyone involved in that show is subject to a level of violent threat that most of us can hardly begin to imagine.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Sociopaths and Political Tribalism
And at the same time, for reasons of dignity and self-respect, but also for reasons of caution and prudence, they don't want to go public with the degree of violent threat that they're under. So they're trapped between those. They are under threat in a way that I'm not. And they can't talk about it in a way that I can hardly begin to imagine. And so that's what leads to the impulse to be careful.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Sociopaths and Political Tribalism
And again, I want to say I am not in any way criticizing them for this because I get occasional disobliging comments on social media. I've had the FBI come to my house because my name appeared in a list with many, many other people. It was some – person was arrested, but a specific stalker coming after me personally, I've never experienced such a thing. And many people on television do.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Sociopaths and Political Tribalism
And you shouldn't have to be a superhero to be a TV journalist. I think they're called on to be quite brave, but what has happened since 2015 is different. But you can see media organizations are baffled at a time when the media industry is in crisis. You can see the Atlantic has made a couple of hires from the Washington Post because, again, I don't want to
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Sociopaths and Political Tribalism
make any specific comment about the Washington Post, but obviously the place is in turmoil. And we need all of these institutions. And so I think generally the lowercase d democratic camp needs to have a policy of sympathizing with each other's troubles, solidarity in the face of threat, and not being quarrelsome.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Sociopaths and Political Tribalism
Look, how do journalists find out things? It's very rare that Deep Throat shows up under your window with the flower pots and gives you a government secret for free, if that story was even true in the first place.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Sociopaths and Political Tribalism
Most things you find out is because somebody in a position of power engaged in a quarrel with someone else in a position of power, recruited the journalist as an ally in an internal squabble. And the journalism is not, he's not trying to serve the public. He's trying to get revenge on journalists. the person down the hall. And so that's why the information comes out. And in Trump won.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Sociopaths and Political Tribalism
I mean, I think it's now pretty notorious that some of the people most close to Trump, Bannon, Conway, these were the most important leakers. And they were doing it in the course of bureaucratic warfare against other people in the Trump administration. So the journalists have to work those angles.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Sociopaths and Political Tribalism
And they don't have the option of only talking to nice people because the nice people often don't know things that they need to know. And so, the New York Times, the Washington Post, other kinds of institutions like that, they're all based on a series of transactions, which means they can't be entirely a voice of conscience because their work would not be possible. So, yes.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Sociopaths and Political Tribalism
It is not by having pure attitudes that you can protect the society against what has been and what is coming. This is the presidency. This is the executive branch of the government backed by House and Senate, backed by the courts. What is going to happen is really bad. And they have the point of leverage in the bigger lever to make it bad for everybody.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Sociopaths and Political Tribalism
Yeah. Well, as you know, because we went through this literally together on the day it happened, I've had a very terrible event in my life, and it's forced me to rethink a lot of things. A thought that kept me working through 2024 was I insisted to myself that Harris was going to win, and so I had this tape. If I could just run through the tape in November...
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Sociopaths and Political Tribalism
I'd break the tape and then I'd be free. And then I would write about other things I was interested in. I would not be dealing with all of this stuff. And it was a promise I made to myself. And I was so, I really persuaded myself that it was going to happen, admittedly, because I wanted it so badly. Not because I cared so much about Harris. I wanted out. I just wanted out.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Sociopaths and Political Tribalism
And God didn't give me that. So now, like everybody, I have to think, what do I do? And given the
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Sociopaths and Political Tribalism
problems in the media given the weakness of many of our institutions if you if you have the good fortune to be at an institution that is not so subject to pressures uh if you personally have no more ambitions left um so there's there's nothing anybody can take away from you then you've got some duties here and so i'm going to try to live up to those i figuring out how to do it is going to be difficult and finding the spiritual strength to do it will be difficult but
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Sociopaths and Political Tribalism
In an attic somewhere, we've got an old World War I recruiting poster that belonged to a relative of my wife's. We framed it and put it upstairs. It's a picture of the British Commander-in-Chief General Kitchener in the First World War saying, basically it says in fancy language, are you going to wait to be drafted or are you going to volunteer to do the job you know you should do?
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Sociopaths and Political Tribalism
I guess I'm not going to wait to be drafted.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Sociopaths and Political Tribalism
I contemplate it all the time. And I contemplate it all the time. I'm not here with answers. I'm here with some struggles. Yeah. Okay.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Sociopaths and Political Tribalism
And we can't let the fuckers win. Haven't the fuckers won already? They think they have, but... Remember, there's a line of T.S. Eliot's, there's no such thing as a lost cause because there's no such thing as a one cause. There's a poem that Winston Churchill quoted during World War II, and people remember little snatches of it. And I recommend it to people if they are online.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Sociopaths and Political Tribalism
It's called Say Not the Struggle Not Availeth. And it's a dialogue by someone who's written to somebody in despair. And the poet is saying to him, you think that you failed and you're losing. And what you don't see is it's just immediately in front of you that you're losing. And that while you can't make any progress against the waves, behind you, the currents are running.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Sociopaths and Political Tribalism
And that's the poem from which ends, and this is the thing Churchill quoted during World War II, and not through eastern windows only when daylight comes into light. In front, the sun rises slowly, but westward look, the land is bright.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Sociopaths and Political Tribalism
We will walk through the streets of that city
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Sociopaths and Political Tribalism
If it's not too soon for this joke, it just also reveals this problem of Trump of constantly running America down. What do you mean American criminals are not the greatest in the world? I think if there was a mandate for anything for Donald Trump, it was that he would be someone who would talk up. American criminals are the best, the biggest, the most violent.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Sociopaths and Political Tribalism
Everyone else is at best second, a distant second. Why are we importing Mexican criminals when our criminal? Anyway, that's too simple. I would say there's a social media effect. And I was thinking about this with the murder of the United Healthcare Insurance Executive. I am sure that the proportion of the human race that is born sociopathic is just a biological constant.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Sociopaths and Political Tribalism
Go back to caveman times, it'll be the same percent as it is today. And I'm sure when the great Chicago fire erupted in the 1870s, that there were people who came down to watch the scene and cheer for the fire. There's always a certain... predictable number of human beings. But what used to happen is they didn't have a way to get easily in touch with one another.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Sociopaths and Political Tribalism
And although they enjoyed carnage, they were aware that their neighbors thought differently. Many of their neighbors thought differently. And so they were a little more circumspect when something sad happened to pretend to feel it in the way that a normal person would feel it.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Sociopaths and Political Tribalism
The internet and social media especially have created these immediate artificial communities where everyone who would once have had the thought, I hate health insurance, I'm glad that assassin murdered a health, would have had that thought in silence somewhere or maybe shared it in a saloon with other disreputable people. Now they can all find each other. And I think they activate.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Sociopaths and Political Tribalism
There must be people who are sort of like near sociopathic, who have a little bit more of a conscience or at least a little bit more sense of etiquette and the appropriate, who would refrain. And now you get these movements of exaltation. And social media is mostly a good thing. The internet is certainly a good thing. But we've paid a price for it. One price is the return of measles.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Sociopaths and Political Tribalism
And another price is the empowerment of the sociopaths.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Sociopaths and Political Tribalism
So first, police do often have an impulse to minimize the severity of what's happened because they're trying to avoid public panic. They're also often trying to, if there was a police lapse, to minimize the police lapse that enabled it. So the natural instinct of police at a press conference is always to say it's a less big deal than it looks. And that's...
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Sociopaths and Political Tribalism
I mean, just as they shouldn't dial the dial up, they shouldn't dial the dial down. Just the facts, ma'am, as they say in the old police drama.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Sociopaths and Political Tribalism
Second, I think FBI people do sometimes operate with a very specialized definition of terrorism that is narrower than the one that would, I mean, for most of us, you see a man who has an ISIS flag, is killing people in a way calculated to spread terror, terrorism. But the FBI may have some more technical definition they have in mind, and they're talking police talk rather than normal talk.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Sociopaths and Political Tribalism
But when people say this makes the case for Cash Patel, it would be interesting to hear them spell out exactly what that means. One of the things that I think a lot of the MAGA people mean is if we had fewer black and women police officers.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Sociopaths and Political Tribalism
I did. And as Trump said in a police event in his first term, and if the police go back to cracking the heads of suspects on car doors, if we could go back to policing the way it used to be, where the police knew which kind of people were to be protected and which were not, who was to be respected, who was not. We knew what a police officer looked like.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Sociopaths and Political Tribalism
He should be, you know, ideally a Mormon, failing that a Catholic, but certainly not anything else. Right. And if that's the message, is that the offer from Kash Patel? Or if it's what we need is a police force, a national police force that answers directly to the head of the government.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Sociopaths and Political Tribalism
Although I think we have to take, since you're in New Orleans, a moment of horrified silence for this terrible incident. More details are known, but just the carnage just looks horrifying. And what a terrible thing for your city.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Sociopaths and Political Tribalism
Perhaps it might have greater levels of secrecy, a secret police force that answers directly to the head of the government and that goes after the enemies of the head of the government. Is that what you're spelling? Why exactly does this? I mean, because if it means what we need is more smart people in policing, that's the case against Kash Patel.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Sociopaths and Political Tribalism
If it means people who follow the facts wherever they go and do their job and without fear of favor. That's the case against Kash Patel. He's been very clear. What he is offering is a politicized police force to answer directly to the head of the government. That's the offer. And with fewer minorities and women in it. That's the offer.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Sociopaths and Political Tribalism
So spell it out and explain how such a force would have done a better job. My guess is they would have been so busy wiretapping people at Washington 501c3s that they wouldn't have any time to follow terrorists or would-be terrorists, but who knows?
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Sociopaths and Political Tribalism
As the Daniel Penny story reminds. And again, I'm going to say something Canadian here. In my mind, one of the great evils of American life is that local prosecutors are elected. And so, of course, it is going to be true that in very liberal jurisdictions, there's going to be a strong liberal bias toward certain kinds of prosecutions. And in conservative ones, the opposite.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Sociopaths and Political Tribalism
Because the district attorney is... thinking, I need to show some scouts, some heads on pikes of the kind that will please the voters who will matter to me, especially in my party primary. My great danger is I lose the Democratic or Republican primary to someone else who wants to be DA.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Sociopaths and Political Tribalism
So yeah, it's probably true that in a different jurisdiction, Daniel Penny would never have been charged, but New York is not going to change its jurisdiction. So the way you deal with this problem is to say, you know what, the DA of New York There should be a professional prosecutorial service. And if you do a good job in Des Moines, you get promoted to be New York.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Sociopaths and Political Tribalism
That's like the premier job and people from all over the country get it. And you have very little to do with New York politics. And don't get me started on the election of judges.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Sociopaths and Political Tribalism
Well, let me say a preliminary thing, which is I've been thinking very hard about how to cover, how to write about, how to do my work during this second Trump term. As I look back on the first Trump term, I think my overwhelming perception, assumption, was a feeling of wrongness. That here was someone who had lost the popular vote, and not narrowly, but lost it decisively.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Sociopaths and Political Tribalism
Lost it by two and a half points, something like that. And who had been helped into office by a foreign intelligence operation. So that made the Trump presidency a very sinister and dangerous thing. But it also let the voters to a great deal off the hook. You could say this is something that was done to America, not done by America. And I think that assumption influenced a lot of the way I wrote.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Sociopaths and Political Tribalism
And it made it easy to get drawn into a kind of atrocity, outrage, atrocity, outrage cycle. Because can you believe what these interlopers have done next? So I think with Trump, too, there's just no getting around this. The country's implicated. You didn't do it. I didn't do it.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Sociopaths and Political Tribalism
But we play by rules where the majority gets to speak as if they were the country and for all functional purposes they are. And the majority was not deep enough but broad enough to houses of Congress that this is some kind of – if there is such a thing as a popular voice, this is it. And so that means – You have to respond to that in a different way than Trump won.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Sociopaths and Political Tribalism
And that means, for my case, it means sort of taking longer, being less rapid, being more deep and not responding to everything and being more discerning about which are the real emergencies. Because one more thing has happened. But Trump won was kind of an outside hostile takeover of the Republican Party. There were lots and lots of Republicans who didn't like what Trump was doing.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Sociopaths and Political Tribalism
Maybe they weren't very courageous about it, even electeds. Maybe they weren't very courageous. But if you knew them a little, you could talk to them and you'd hear plenty of dissent. What we now have is a friendly merger, which is not to say that there isn't a difference between Trump and the people around him and the more institutional elements of the Republican Party.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Both Pro-Jesus and Pro-Sex Trafficking
He would tell story after story about how you're driving the car in the Mario Kart video game and the rocks are falling and you don't know whether the swift turn to the left or the swift turn to the right is the right move. And a lot of people are just as smart as you make the swift turn to the right and the rock falls on them.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Both Pro-Jesus and Pro-Sex Trafficking
You happen for reasons of dumb luck to make the swift turn to the left, the rock misses you and you get another chance to play the game. So for the entrepreneurs, I think that Entrepreneurs are people who are not necessarily the most highly analytic people. They have a kind of nerve and courage and self-belief that drives them.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Both Pro-Jesus and Pro-Sex Trafficking
And as we're seeing with Elon Musk, I mean, you can be a great entrepreneur and not be an ordinarily intelligent person, which he seems not to be, at least not now. Maybe he was different 15 years of drug use ago.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Both Pro-Jesus and Pro-Sex Trafficking
But a CEO is different. A CEO is not an entrepreneur. A CEO is more like a politician. than like an entrepreneur. And so the CEO has to manage all kinds of expectations. And let's say you run the 14th biggest financial firm on Wall Street. Your scope from freedom of maneuver, especially in political matters, is quite limited. You have investors who have beliefs.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Both Pro-Jesus and Pro-Sex Trafficking
You have regulators, you have your peers, you're trying to be not too unconventional a person. And when you have a bad quarter, you don't want to have a bad quarter in some freakish individual way. You want to have the same bad quarter that everybody else did. And then you have an excuse.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Both Pro-Jesus and Pro-Sex Trafficking
So Democrats are hesitant to blame the president for something that's obviously not his fault. In 2022, the price of beef ran up. And it ran up for because during COVID, there had been people in the beef processing plants that had to sit farther apart from one another, reducing the efficiency of the plants. There was a drought. And so beef cattle were arriving at slaughter less heavy than usual.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Both Pro-Jesus and Pro-Sex Trafficking
And so it's not surprising to me that CEO types, especially in the financial industry, who are mad at Biden for a host of reasons, would say, ah, we're going to bet on Trump because that's what all our friends and buddies are doing. No one ever got... No one ever got fired for giving money to the Republican candidate. So we'll do that. And we'll hope for the best.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Both Pro-Jesus and Pro-Sex Trafficking
And we'll hope that some wiser heads of Treasury stop the tariffs. And now they're confronting the fact that, no, it's wrong. And the tariffs may really be coming. And that's not just a tax. That could be the end of all kinds of efficiencies that make a real difference to American production.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Both Pro-Jesus and Pro-Sex Trafficking
Yeah. Here's why the immigration piece is important. The United States had this extraordinary burst of productivity growth in the 1990s, but that productivity growth has slowed. The reason the American economy has continued to grow as well as it has is is not just because there's intensive growth that is using each factor of production more efficiently as we did in the 1990s.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Both Pro-Jesus and Pro-Sex Trafficking
So there's extensive growth. In a country that would otherwise have a shrinking population, it has a growing population because of immigration above all. And whatever the merits of that from a social policy point of view, if you start not only stop the immigration, but send it into reverse, yeah, that's going to have an effect both on costs and consumption.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Both Pro-Jesus and Pro-Sex Trafficking
It's going to have an effect on cost because you're taking people who were doing work taking them away. The MAGA people are very clear. They want price of landscaping services to go up. They want the price of construction to go up. But half the people in the construction industry in the fastest growing states are immigrants.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Both Pro-Jesus and Pro-Sex Trafficking
And I assume a lot of them, especially in the most dangerous work like roofing, are illegal immigrants. So again, I'm not endorsing any of this. I'm an immigration enforcer. But understand, it makes costs go up. And also, every immigrant is a buyer. They buy houses and shoes and cars. And all of that is being subtracted for the economy. And yeah, it's a shock.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Both Pro-Jesus and Pro-Sex Trafficking
Well, every country, including the United States, has programs where they do sell visas in exchange for a certain amount of investment. You don't pay it directly to the government because this is or was a free market country. Is that a golf club with dues where you pay to Bedminster?
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Both Pro-Jesus and Pro-Sex Trafficking
The old idea was that if you made a $5 million investment in something that wasn't personal real estate, this is not a new thing. And many, Singapore has it, Canada has it, the United States has it too. So it's not a completely outrageous idea, but the Trump gold card comes, CNBC reported this, with a special loophole.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Both Pro-Jesus and Pro-Sex Trafficking
The United States has a regime of taxation where if you are a high net worth individual, a high income individual, and you come to the United States, you are taxed on your global income. So you don't just get taxed on what you make in the United States, you get taxed worldwide.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Both Pro-Jesus and Pro-Sex Trafficking
And that's one of the reasons why the United States is not a haven for the international criminal rich in the way that, say, the United Kingdom is, because it has this global tax system. CNBC reports that the Trump gold card is going to come with a proviso that you only will pay tax on your U.S.-based income if you get one of these visas. which is a loophole unavailable to U.S.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Both Pro-Jesus and Pro-Sex Trafficking
It wasn't Biden's fault. Did that stop the Trump people? It did not. There is a great novel about the rise of the Nazi, published in 1934, very prophetically, called The Operments. And I recommend it to you. And at one point, one of the characters says, our opponents have a great advantage over us, and that is their absolute lack of any sense of fairness.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Both Pro-Jesus and Pro-Sex Trafficking
citizens, unavailable to normal green card holders, unavailable to anybody except these Trump oligarchs. And it's exactly the kind of thing that has made London the haven for all kinds of bad actors that it is because you can have your money in Russia or wherever it is and not be taxed on that. You're only taxed on whatever you earn on your U.S. savings bonds. So why Trump, who is America first.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Both Pro-Jesus and Pro-Sex Trafficking
And so anti-foreigner is going to give a certain subset of foreigners a unique tax benefit unavailable to America's own indigenous rich. That's a remarkable thought.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Both Pro-Jesus and Pro-Sex Trafficking
Look, and if you need to raise $5 million each from rich people, The United States has a lot of billionaires. You could just raise their taxes by $5 million each.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Both Pro-Jesus and Pro-Sex Trafficking
Again, I'll quote my late father's business acumen. In the days of handwritten cafe bills and European cafes, he had this line. He would say, if they were just bad at math, you'd expect half the mistakes to be in my favor. So Trump is bad at math. I mean, he's really bad at math. And it's not true that half the mistakes are in the customer's favor. All the mistakes are in his favor.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Both Pro-Jesus and Pro-Sex Trafficking
And whether he's lying about how much aid was provided to Ukraine, whether he's lying about the impact of these things, that, I mean, he's a con artist and he sells these cons. But I think the back in mind is there is somebody who said to him, I would like to come to the United States. I will pay $5 million for that privilege if I don't have to pay tax on my global income.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Both Pro-Jesus and Pro-Sex Trafficking
And Donald said, and Don, there'll be something in it for you too. And Trump said, that sounds good to me. But everyone else in America pays tax on their worldwide income. If you tax the golden visa people on their worldwide income, you're not going to sell all those millions of golden visas. They want the tax benefit that comes with the visa.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Both Pro-Jesus and Pro-Sex Trafficking
The crypto industry is at bottom. It's a regulatory arbitrage bet. What is crypto? American law says if you're a security, you're regulated by the SEC, who have lots of expertise and a kind of a very tough attitude to fraud. If you're a currency,
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Both Pro-Jesus and Pro-Sex Trafficking
you're regulated more lightly because I mean, obviously, you know, if the Dominican Republic wants to issue a new currency, that's not going to be regulated by an American financial. And if you want to trade Dominican Republican cruiseros or whatever they are, you know, they're, they're issued by the Dominican Republic.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Both Pro-Jesus and Pro-Sex Trafficking
And I think you see in the beef versus the eggs, that dynamic at work. The Trump people knew it wasn't Biden's fault. It was, you know, there was a pandemic. The people in the processing plants had to sit farther apart. A lot of the processing workers got sick and there was a drought. So the beef cattle were less heavy. It wasn't the president's fault that the price of beef went up.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Both Pro-Jesus and Pro-Sex Trafficking
That's, that's your, so it's, it's regulated not by the SEC in a more lightweight. So the reason it's called cryptocurrency is so that it's not regulated by the SEC, but nobody who invests in crypto is investing in it in order to go to another country and buy things. They're investing in it because they think it's a security. It's an investment. It's a store of wealth. Unless they're criminals.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Both Pro-Jesus and Pro-Sex Trafficking
They are using it for currency if they're criminals. But if they're non-criminals, they are buying a security. And they were afraid. The reason that the crypto bet so heavily on Trump against Biden was they were afraid the Biden administration was going to say, you know what, this is obviously security.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Both Pro-Jesus and Pro-Sex Trafficking
And it needs to be regulated with proper kinds of disclosures and statements of risk and conflict of interest statements by management. And all the fancy things that got us into trouble in 2008 have to do. Now, crypto should have to do it. And the crypto was, no, no.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Both Pro-Jesus and Pro-Sex Trafficking
While we want the United States government to bail us out and buy vast quantities of crypto, we do not want to tell people the things that we would have to tell them if we were regulated as a security.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Both Pro-Jesus and Pro-Sex Trafficking
And tragically, the president of Argentina on whom so many hopes rested. I had a lot of time for him and I think he may have been suckered in this Libra coin thing he got mixed up in.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Both Pro-Jesus and Pro-Sex Trafficking
But, you know, it may be the economic reform in Argentina fails again this time because somebody got I think in this case is the president's relatives who are behind it, got got him involved in a dubious meme coin venture and discredited him.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Both Pro-Jesus and Pro-Sex Trafficking
I think there's also something, which is the very thing that makes him such an outlier in Argentina. in Argentinian politics is he's a little crazy. And until now, it's worked for him that he wasn't trapped in the usual self-destructive patterns of their politics. But the same thing that makes him a little crazy makes him unable to do the mea culpa.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Both Pro-Jesus and Pro-Sex Trafficking
Or to put some discipline on his relatives and say, you know, this is a chance to turn this country around. You will all behave yourselves. And if I succeed, believe me, you will all be sitting on the board of the Chase Manhattan Bank and making a lot of money in very respectable ways. Just cool it.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Both Pro-Jesus and Pro-Sex Trafficking
That didn't stop them. Democrats know it's not the president's fault. The price of eggs is up, but it does stop them. I don't know how you do politics in a country where people respond to price cues so intensely. And one party says, we're going to be responsible about economic causation. And the other party says, the hell with that. No, we're not.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Both Pro-Jesus and Pro-Sex Trafficking
my line on it was the strategic Bitcoin reserve was as a device to respond to the looming greater fool shortage in the United States, because these coins are sold to greater fools. Eventually you run out of greater fools and people ask, what can I do with this thing? And the fact that Warren Buffett has always said, stay away is, is a warning that maybe you should stay away.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Both Pro-Jesus and Pro-Sex Trafficking
Right. And also the fools in this case, don't get a choice that if you can The people who will make this decision are probably not fools. They're probably in on the con. Yeah, that's true. So if you can infiltrate the government with people who have large crypto holdings themselves.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Both Pro-Jesus and Pro-Sex Trafficking
Which has happened. Not only make favorable rulings like the SEC will not regulate our industry. I think it's so telling that Trump is about to reenact the plot of Goldfinger at Fort Knox. And meanwhile, what he's actually going to do is give away, not the gold, but the actual money of the United States to buy these stupid Bitcoins. Yeah. For what?
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Both Pro-Jesus and Pro-Sex Trafficking
What is the problem to which a Bitcoin is a response? The strategic response. The United States holds reserves of gold and euros and yen because in case there's suddenly a fluctuation in the movement of the dollar and you need to go buy dollars, you need to buy the dollars with something. So you buy it with gold.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Both Pro-Jesus and Pro-Sex Trafficking
But the idea that you're going to do this with something as mercurial and unpredictable as Bitcoin is it's not a currency because currencies don't move up and down by a thousand percent.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Both Pro-Jesus and Pro-Sex Trafficking
It's getting pretty high because he has understood the elements of power. in a way that he didn't in the first term. And I think he's also come to grips, as he did in the first term, that he's not a hugely popular president. So a lot, in term one, he was lying. You think so? Yeah, I think so.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Both Pro-Jesus and Pro-Sex Trafficking
Hey there. I'm just back from almost a month in Austria, so now catching up with the world.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Both Pro-Jesus and Pro-Sex Trafficking
Because otherwise, in term one, when he was doing all that, he didn't bother making sure that the military and the FBI were on board. Because he had that big map of how, you know, of the 3,000 counties in the United States, all the ones with tumbleweed voted for him. And all that stuff about the crowds. That was, I think, a lot of the narcissist reassuring himself that he is beloved.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Both Pro-Jesus and Pro-Sex Trafficking
And if you're beloved, then you don't need the violent seizure of power. His plan to corrupt the 2020 election came up really, it was done very much at the last minute. He didn't start working on that on the first day in office, like a different kind of, you know, Putin started working immediately on destroying Russian democracy. Trump,
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Both Pro-Jesus and Pro-Sex Trafficking
postponed and postponed and did it at the end in a very careless way. I think you're now seeing a much more systematic effect with buy-in, grudging or not, from Republicans to say, what are the power ministries? How do you secure them? And the FBI is the most extreme. I mean, it's incredible they confirmed Kash Patel.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Both Pro-Jesus and Pro-Sex Trafficking
Dan Bongino is now up and he, I mean, I've had run-ins with him and I'm sure you have. I mean, you wouldn't hire him to be Deputy Sheriff of Mayberry. He's erratic.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Both Pro-Jesus and Pro-Sex Trafficking
Yeah. I mean, I've personally witnessed him lose his cool. And I won't tell too much about that because my colleague Jonathan Shade is writing that story for The Atlantic. It'll be up shortly. But I've personally witnessed it. He's not someone who should be in charge of men with guns. And the other thing about the FBI as compared to the military is it's a relatively small bureaucracy.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Both Pro-Jesus and Pro-Sex Trafficking
And the FBI director has a lot of power to ruin people's lives in his work for him. Because as Pat Hill is doing, when you say we're moving 500 agents to Huntsville, Alabama, what you're really giving is of the 500 agents, suppose 400 are in serious relationships or married, you're forcing a large proportion of the 500 to make some important career choices as to whose career will be followed.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Both Pro-Jesus and Pro-Sex Trafficking
And by sending people to Huntsville, you can put a lot of pressure on them to leave the agency altogether and create vacancies and for you to hire more politically malleable people. And I think that's a big part of what Patel has in mind.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Both Pro-Jesus and Pro-Sex Trafficking
Let's hope that that's a romantic relationship, because if not, this was a long ago, but there was a serious scandal in the District of Columbia when I first got here, that the chief of police was living in this 3,000 square foot condo in a fancy building of the Navy Memorial that belonged to somebody like this. And they were not romantic partners. It was just a bribe.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Both Pro-Jesus and Pro-Sex Trafficking
And eventually the whole thing came down and this chief of police had to resign. But The head of the FBI should not be accepting free stuff from people.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Both Pro-Jesus and Pro-Sex Trafficking
You have to separate Cain in one way from some of these other people, because he did have a very distinguished career. And he does seem to have been, unlike Kash Patel, where, again, you wouldn't let him run a store. This guy, he was a very admired three-star general. It's also true that being a three-star general is a very different job from being a four-star. general.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Both Pro-Jesus and Pro-Sex Trafficking
A four-star general is managing this giant global supply chain. We assume that they are personally courageous because they were once one stars, two stars, and three stars. But four-star work doesn't take a lot of personal courage and shouldn't. I mean, you're sitting in an office building, you know, moving billions of units of stuff around the planet. And it's a political job.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Both Pro-Jesus and Pro-Sex Trafficking
What you want in a four-star is, you know, there's a reason that they never made Douglas MacArthur chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. brilliant and brave as he was. He was unstable. They made George Marshall because, you know, he was stable. And those are important qualities.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Both Pro-Jesus and Pro-Sex Trafficking
And the most important thing in that job is the ability to look at the president and say, no, sir, that would be illegal. Sir, may I have your order in writing? And then I will give you my resignation in writing, sir.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Both Pro-Jesus and Pro-Sex Trafficking
I would encourage people to watch that clip. where Trump is asked, did you call Zelensky a dictator? And he said, did I? I don't remember. Did I say that? Because that story is being played as if he's senile. But when you watch his face, he's like daring the media to call him on it. Like he knows perfectly well what he did. He is toying with somebody. He's enjoying power without responsibility.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Both Pro-Jesus and Pro-Sex Trafficking
He's enjoying the cruelty of what he said. And Trump, I think, is in some ways mentally deteriorated from the man he was 30 years ago. But he is not out of his mind. And you need to take that seriously into account. The deal, it's so shocking and upsetting. Because now the Ukrainians have done a good job of rewriting this deal, so it doesn't mean very much and it's not as predatory.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Both Pro-Jesus and Pro-Sex Trafficking
But when this war is won, it will be the responsibility of the developed world to collectively find ways to finance the reconstruction of Ukraine. And that's going to be the World Bank, I think, estimated the other day more than a half trillion dollar project. Over many years, but a half trillion dollars. And so some of the money will need to come from frozen Russian funds.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Both Pro-Jesus and Pro-Sex Trafficking
Some of it will come from the European Union. Much of it will, but some will have to come from the United States if we're to get the Europeans on board. And the thing everyone needs to understand as they gird for this is this is going to be a fantastic investment, as Marshall Aid was, as the reconstruction of Eastern Europe was in the 1990s. You get the money back immediately.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Both Pro-Jesus and Pro-Sex Trafficking
in richer customers, better trading partners, secure allies. You get it back. So you get it back to the point where if you were to tell people how much the Marshall Plan costs, they wouldn't believe how little it was and what you got. In return, the safe, secure world where, by the way, Americans don't have to learn foreign languages because all their allies learn English instead.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Both Pro-Jesus and Pro-Sex Trafficking
Thank you very much. And we can use Visa in Bangkok. It'll be worth it because wise countries have a generous long-term view of their economic interests, not a predatory view. Trump thinks like a bandit out of the Middle Ages. You go in there, seize the stash of coins, and run out again. And the idea that real...
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Both Pro-Jesus and Pro-Sex Trafficking
wealth is built by investment and long-term contracts and building rules of law and from products that don't exist yet, but will in 30 years. Some Ukrainian entrepreneur who's like in a cradle is going to invent and sell to the world. Like whoever in Denmark invented Ozempic, you know, that's billions and hundreds of billions of dollars of wealth created by some Danish chemist.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Both Pro-Jesus and Pro-Sex Trafficking
The test of any Trump deal in Ukraine. is, are there not just meaningful security guarantees, but foreign bodies? And whether that's couched in NATO terms or not. There's an old joke that was told about the Cold War, but it actually dates back even earlier. It's before the 1914 war. The British and the French were doing defense planning.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Both Pro-Jesus and Pro-Sex Trafficking
The British general asked the French, how many British soldiers do you need to defend northern France? And the answer was, just one. We'll get them killed in the first five minutes. the same way. That was how many Americans did it take to defend Germany from the Soviets? Just one. Just one. But we need to know you're there.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Both Pro-Jesus and Pro-Sex Trafficking
So whatever the guarantee is, this idea of British and French troops in Ukraine, that is the test of success. And backed by
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Both Pro-Jesus and Pro-Sex Trafficking
some American presence to say, you know, the Russians aren't there for territory, but whatever the ceasefire line is, whatever the line of control, whatever is free Ukraine, that part of Ukraine needs to be a place where investors can invest hundreds of billions of dollars in security.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Both Pro-Jesus and Pro-Sex Trafficking
And that means they need to know there is a tripwire there, backed by Britain, backed by France, backed by the United States. If the Russians ever try this stunt again, They're going to feel the wrath of the world, not indirectly, but directly. Yeah, I'm sorry. You said the Russians aren't there for territory. The Russian attack on Ukraine is not the Trump fantasy that they want.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Both Pro-Jesus and Pro-Sex Trafficking
This is about taking control of some one fifth of Ukraine. That's nonsense. They were there just to destroy Ukraine as a sovereign entity. So if Ukraine keeps sovereignty over 80% of its territory, that's a win for the West.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Both Pro-Jesus and Pro-Sex Trafficking
If Russia can find ways to sabotage and corrupt Ukrainian sovereignty by, for example, saying that Russia insists that Ukraine have an election, that is not a Russian decision to make when the Ukrainian, if they are able to write that into the schedule and they have corrupted and weakened Ukrainian sovereignty. And that that's, that's a loss when you say, can I be optimistic?
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Both Pro-Jesus and Pro-Sex Trafficking
I think there are things you can say about the Trump administration that are going to be positive. I've always believed that there are gifts of Trump, that he forces, he's forcing a deepening commitment to democracy in the United States. He's, you know, we are having to think about institutions in a way we never did. Why did Congress give all that power over trade to the president?
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Both Pro-Jesus and Pro-Sex Trafficking
Years ago, an acquaintance of mine who is a literary person, hard up for money, as a gag, wrote a kind of romance novel under pseudonym and sent it to one of these generic pulp Boone and Mills kind of things. And he was hoping to pick up $1,200. And he sent it to the company. And he got back a rejection letter that said, if you want to write this stuff, you have to believe in it. Right.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Both Pro-Jesus and Pro-Sex Trafficking
People have been warning that that was a danger for a long time. Now we can see. Maybe we'll fix it. Should Europe have a more serious approach to its own security? Yes. Yes. And they're going to be forced to do that. Those are inadvertent gifts of Trump. But it can't be at the expense of the brave people of Ukraine who have sacrificed so much for their freedom and who are winning this war.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Both Pro-Jesus and Pro-Sex Trafficking
Well, this is based on the sad career of someone who's not well-remembered now, but Richard Nixon's Secretary of State William P. Rogers. So Rogers was a very distinguished lawyer, both in public life and private life.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Both Pro-Jesus and Pro-Sex Trafficking
And Nixon enticed him to be Secretary of State with the promise that he would have large authority over the two most important issues of the day, the Vietnam War, winding it down, and peace in the Middle East. And then Nixon... created a secret channel via his national security advisor, Henry Kissinger.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Both Pro-Jesus and Pro-Sex Trafficking
And so while Rogers thought he was negotiating the end of the Vietnam war, Henry Kissinger really was negotiating the end of the Vietnam war. And, The war had not gone well. Kissinger didn't get very good terms. And so the final agreement meant basically the death of South Vietnam and the abandonment of the American commitment. And guess who got to sign that agreement?
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Both Pro-Jesus and Pro-Sex Trafficking
Not Henry Kissinger, but William P. Rogers. The guy who had had no power became the fall guy for the disaster. And the peace said, this is going to be the fate of Rubio. What Rubio is doing with Lavrov is not the real negotiation. The real negotiation is being done by, I don't know, Donald Trump, Donald Trump Jr., Tucker Carlson. Barron, maybe. Barron, Elon Musk, some sinister shadowy figure.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Both Pro-Jesus and Pro-Sex Trafficking
So, if you're Rubio, who is, for whatever his weakness of personality, you know, who is a patriot and has had an amazing career and does stand for good and important principles or does articulate. Yeah. Does articulate good and important principles. Yeah, there you go. Let's not overdo it. Yeah. But does he want to be the man whose signature is on the cellar of Ukraine?
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Both Pro-Jesus and Pro-Sex Trafficking
Yeah. PEPFAR, it originated in the Bush administration. One of its leading advocates was someone who's now deceased, Michael Gerson, the head of the speechwriting office. You may have known him. Very devout and committed person. And Bush is entangled in the Iraq war. It's not going well.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Both Pro-Jesus and Pro-Sex Trafficking
And it's one of those moments where the president, who's always described as the most powerful man in the world, doesn't feel very powerful at all. He can't make things happen. And this small cadre in the Bush administration said, let's just do something good. hundreds of the penny in the national budget, a figure that no one, it won't even show up.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Both Pro-Jesus and Pro-Sex Trafficking
It's not even a rounding error because it's too small even for that. But let's go save tens of millions of lives from the HIV epidemic in sub-Saharan Africa. It will cost us nothing in relative terms. It's a good thing. It's an exercise of presidential power. And when George W. Bush goes to meet his maker, And God says, what did you do with this power?
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Both Pro-Jesus and Pro-Sex Trafficking
He can say, well, this is the thing that's going to head the list. This is what I did. And here are 10 million souls beside me to testify that I made a difference. Like, how can you begrudge that with the vast wealth and power of the United States? It's nothing. And yet it means so much.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Both Pro-Jesus and Pro-Sex Trafficking
But there's just a structural infirmity because event in the past 24 hours that Trump people have done this big rollout of the so-called Epstein files, which are, of course, things that have been available on the Internet for a decade. There are no revelations. You know, we know that Bill Clinton flew on Epstein's plane. We know that Trump and Epstein were very close friends.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Both Pro-Jesus and Pro-Sex Trafficking
We know nothing today that we didn't know 48 hours ago. There's a big hullabaloo of some of the revelations. most shameless people in Trump world. But I don't want, that's not my point. My point is this happened on the very day when thanks to high level intervention by people in the Trump administration, the two Tate brothers, uh,
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Both Pro-Jesus and Pro-Sex Trafficking
The worst kind of sex abusers, sex traffickers, were released from a legal process in Romania to fly to the United States as political asylum. They're both US citizens, so they have a right to enter the United States, but they were under a travel ban in Romania because they were facing trial for so many charges. They also have charges pending against them in the United Kingdom.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Both Pro-Jesus and Pro-Sex Trafficking
Good. How was the ski snow quality? We were very lucky with the ski snow quality. But we were escaping the month of February and on a ski hill, my wife and I and two little dogs.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Both Pro-Jesus and Pro-Sex Trafficking
They got their freedom because of a personal intervention by Richard Grinnell, who met the Romanian foreign minister at the Munich Security Conference and said, I, meaning the United States government, take a great interest in the fate of the Tate brothers.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Both Pro-Jesus and Pro-Sex Trafficking
This is the same Richard Grinnell, by the way, who's now president of the Kennedy Center, where he's planning a big Christmas extravaganza to put the Christ back in Christmas. So Christ, sex trafficking, we can have both. So the point is not that the Epstein thing is a hullabaloo. The point is the same people who think that Epstein is the worst criminal in America believe that the Tate brothers...
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Both Pro-Jesus and Pro-Sex Trafficking
who did the same and worse because Epstein, at least as far as I know, was never violent. The Tate brothers were. I think the girls were younger.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Both Pro-Jesus and Pro-Sex Trafficking
Yeah. Okay. But the Tate brothers involved minor girls too. And direct personal violence, which they talk about, they used beating as a tool of control, not just mind games. And you're right. We are splitting hairs and they're both bad. But there's no one who defends Epstein. There are people who defend Tate. And the Tate brothers escaped justice because of this.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Both Pro-Jesus and Pro-Sex Trafficking
And by the way, when they arrived in the United States, one of the Tate brothers, I forget which, told reporters that they gave credit to the personal intervention of Barron Trump in their case. Which, if true, and it may not be true, they're big liars, if true, is even more astonishing.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Both Pro-Jesus and Pro-Sex Trafficking
And step back to something you said a minute ago. You're right, no one cares any about hypocrisy. You just have to do it. So in this vast country, parties need complicated, they don't need complicated messages, but they need complicated message groupings. Look, I confess, I'm an out-of-touch East Coast elitist. I know the price of eggs because I looked it up on the Walmart site.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Both Pro-Jesus and Pro-Sex Trafficking
I don't even like eggs that much. So that's not a message that's actually going to change my vote. I'm about democracy. I'm about Kash Patel and anger management problem, Don Bongino running the FBI. I'm about the predicates being put in place for what looks like some kind of military backing of the president if he defies a court order. That's my issue. And me and my neighbors here in
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Both Pro-Jesus and Pro-Sex Trafficking
Ward 3 of the District of Columbia. We're going to be motivated by that. And we're going to get to the polls at 5 a.m. and stand in the queue. And we're going to vote for school board, too, while we're there. You talked to us one way. The people who decide this election care about the price of eggs. And you have to talk to them.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Both Pro-Jesus and Pro-Sex Trafficking
And this is a thing that the Trump people did with a lot of people for whom English was not their first language. New to the country. They did actually kind of politics in some ways the right way, which is, you know, we're going to go into this neighborhood.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Both Pro-Jesus and Pro-Sex Trafficking
People weren't born here, may not have English as their first language and want to talk to them about what they care about because their votes count, too. That's like democracy done right if it weren't done for such evil ends, ultimately. But the process is done right. And that's something that those who want to save democracy have to do, which is, you know what?
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Both Pro-Jesus and Pro-Sex Trafficking
Yeah, there are people in Ward 3 in D.C. who know that it's not literally the president's fault the price of eggs is up, but the people who feel the price of eggs don't know that and don't care. So you just go there every day and you say, when will Trump eggs reach a dollar an egg? Because right now they're 50 cents an egg. They're on their way to a dollar an egg.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Both Pro-Jesus and Pro-Sex Trafficking
Trump, Trump, egg, egg, Trump, Trump, dollar an egg.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Both Pro-Jesus and Pro-Sex Trafficking
I guess dealer's choice on which one you want to start with. Let's talk about eggs, because I have a serious point to make about that. It goes to a big structural problem in American politics. The price of eggs has almost quadrupled since fall. If you're in the restaurant industry and you're buying high-end eggs, you're looking at $8 a dozen.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Both Pro-Jesus and Pro-Sex Trafficking
I'm not a Christian. I'm moderately, but not super religious, but I've had the privilege of knowing some intensely religious Christians and the ones who really mean it have always responded to revelations of bad behavior in high places by saying that the Christian response to that is to not talk about it, to say, what have you done? What have you done? Search your soul and you will find there
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Both Pro-Jesus and Pro-Sex Trafficking
greed and hate and envy and resentment and anger and lust and all all the things that are christian sins we're not here as the morality police for others jesus talks a lot about this right like uh you know cast the first stone you know like the whole point of the jesus teaching is you do not criticize others you criticize yourself and so if they were saying look this is that bill clinton or donald trump or the tape brothers these are occasions to remind people to improve their own behavior
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Both Pro-Jesus and Pro-Sex Trafficking
and just check their own stoles and understand, by the way, that their behavior necessarily is going to be imperfect, disrefallible. That would be a very holy thing. On the other hand, if they're going to be police, then you have to be... The rule can't be that if you... Give us free parking for our megachurch and give us the zoning abatements we want. Then you get to do what you like.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Both Pro-Jesus and Pro-Sex Trafficking
That doesn't seem like a great combo. No, I think that's right. I think that is good dispassionate analysis of those factors. The tariffs, I think, are the most important. Well, you'll notice that the stock market, which briefly went up, the U.S. stock market is now has given up all of its post-Trump gains as the stock market. It doesn't want to believe that Trump could be serious.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Both Pro-Jesus and Pro-Sex Trafficking
If you go to Walmart in the DC area, it's about $6 a dozen. There are some at $5.97, but a few at higher than $6. Now, Everybody listening to this podcast, every Democratic politician in Congress knows this isn't exactly Trump's fault. There's an avian flu. The herd of egg laying chickens has been culled and there's a genuine economic shortage.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Both Pro-Jesus and Pro-Sex Trafficking
I mean, tariffs, the tariff policy is so stupid. So destructive. The stock market and the people on it don't want to believe that any of this could be real. And when Trump talks about it, he sounds like such a moron to educated people. And they think, oh, even if he says these crazy things, the Secretary of the Treasury will throw his body in front of the tariff train and save us all.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Both Pro-Jesus and Pro-Sex Trafficking
And maybe that will happen. Trump did a lot of tariffs in first term. He started late. He started in 2018, not right away. This time he's starting from the beginning. And of course, the economy reacts not just to the imposition of tariffs, but to the threat of tariffs. If you have a $10 billion investment to make in a new facility, how hard are you going to look at Mexico?
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Both Pro-Jesus and Pro-Sex Trafficking
Because you're going to you're going to think, you know what? OK, they haven't laid heavy tariffs on Mexico yet. But Trump's made clear that he is not going to abide by the terms of the trade treaty with Mexico that he signed in his first term. He now says that treaty was signed by the stupidest people in America. And he's man, that's the point. Broken clocks and all that.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Both Pro-Jesus and Pro-Sex Trafficking
So your $10 billion investment decision is going to be held hostage to the risk that these tariffs might be coming next week. You certainly won't make that decision hastily. I don't think people understand that a tariff is a tax, but it's a tax with much greater potential for harm than other taxes. Because other taxes just take money out of people's pockets. Surprise demand.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Both Pro-Jesus and Pro-Sex Trafficking
Tariffs go to the efficiency of the productive process.
The Bulwark Podcast
David Frum: Both Pro-Jesus and Pro-Sex Trafficking
Okay, let me try this two ways. So first, like you, I'm not an especially successful economic actor, but my late father was. And he started with literally nothing and built a considerable business before he died. One of his sayings was, God blesses you by making you lucky, and then he curses you by making you think you're smart. And
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1000: David French: Trump Admits He's Violating the Constitution
Yeah, yeah. So I said this on Morning Joe because it is such a gobsmacking element of this case. So I litigated, as I said, 20-plus years in higher education and other places where I was litigating these cases that were First Amendment retaliation cases. And in a First Amendment retaliation case, what you're saying is I engaged in free speech,
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1000: David French: Trump Admits He's Violating the Constitution
And because I engaged in free speech, I'm now being punished. But never would universities say, you did free speech, now we're punishing you. Never would the government say, you engaged in free speech, now we're punishing you.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1000: David French: Trump Admits He's Violating the Constitution
We had to prove that their reason that they stated, it might be, well, we actually terminated you for poor job performance, or we actually terminated you because you were late all the time. That their reason that they put forward just a pretext, that they were making it up, In this circumstance, you don't even have to do that, Tim, because they just say it in the document.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1000: David French: Trump Admits He's Violating the Constitution
It's because you spoke, because you're teaching or promoting DEI, because you represented that he's a Democratic client and engaged in activities in support of your clients. That's why we are taking action. It's unlike anything I've ever seen. They're just right up front confessing to the constitutional violation.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1000: David French: Trump Admits He's Violating the Constitution
Oh, for sure. I mean, you make it very difficult. Let's put it this way. Let's suppose you're somebody who is a dissenter or a whistleblower in the Trump administration and you're looking for legal representation. So if the order against Perkins Coie would be allowed to stand, you couldn't go to Perkins Coie. Right. You have other firms that are now... Can't go to Covington. Covington and Burling.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1000: David French: Trump Admits He's Violating the Constitution
Are they going to work with you after what's happened to them? Revocation their security clearances. So it puts a pall. It has a chilling effect. On really one of your most fundamental elements of participation in the legal system, can I get a lawyer? And so I will fully acknowledge that a lot of elements of Donald Trump are he's incompetent and ignorant in a lot of areas.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1000: David French: Trump Admits He's Violating the Constitution
But after we've watched 10 years of him dominate the American political scene, you can't say the man isn't politically shrewd. And one thing that he does that is very politically shrewd is he picks the right targets.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1000: David French: Trump Admits He's Violating the Constitution
And so just as there's not too many people who are really worried about the fate of white shoe law firms, the American elite higher education, it does not exactly have a lot of defenders right now. Foreign aid that Trump has gone after. Historically, Americans have had really mixed feelings about foreign aid. So he's taken a lot of targets.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1000: David French: Trump Admits He's Violating the Constitution
I'm sure we'll end up talking some about Mahmoud Khalil in Colombia. Let's just do it right now. Yeah, let's go right to that. Yeah, not a sympathetic target to millions and millions and millions of Americans. Because this was a guy who was a leader in student protests in Colombia. Some of the groups he belonged to were actively sort of pro-Hamas.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1000: David French: Trump Admits He's Violating the Constitution
You know, the encampments in Columbia were uniquely terrible, more so than many other universities. They had a takeover of Hamilton Hall, you know, an illegal takeover of Hamilton Hall. So this is a guy, to the extent that he participated in all of that, is not somebody that most Americans are looking at and saying, we need to protect this guy at all costs. And not an American citizen.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1000: David French: Trump Admits He's Violating the Constitution
He's a legal green card holder on top of that.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1000: David French: Trump Admits He's Violating the Constitution
Right, exactly. And what's interesting, my colleague Michelle Goldberg had this really good column where she was talking about the Red Scare and this moment. And she said something that I think is really, really important. One of the things that made the Red Scare sustainable for so long was the targets. They were targeting communism at the height of the Cold War. Okay, well...
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1000: David French: Trump Admits He's Violating the Constitution
a communist or somebody who has who's far far far left they possess first amendment rights just as much as a republican or a democrat but they're much less sympathetic and so that helps sustain this sort of frenzy in american life for years and years and similarly here you have a situation where the trump administration is taking on institutions and people that are not sympathetic
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1000: David French: Trump Admits He's Violating the Constitution
Sometimes for good reasons. Like, I can't think of a single thing Mahmoud Khalil has said about the Middle East. I mean, there are a few things he said that I, when he condemns anti-Semitism, obviously I agree with that. But when he's talking about Israel and Hamas and Palestine, I disagree with him. I thought the... The encampments were out of control. They were violating the rights of others.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1000: David French: Trump Admits He's Violating the Constitution
There was a wave of anti-Semitism on campus that still hasn't fully abated. All of those things are dreadful. I disagree with Mahmoud Khalil, but also I know the constitutional issues that are at stake. And you defend the Constitution not through the popular voices, because they don't need defense. That's when the First Amendment isn't really necessary. You defend the First Amendment...
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1000: David French: Trump Admits He's Violating the Constitution
by defending the unpopular people and voices and defending their fundamental rights.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1000: David French: Trump Admits He's Violating the Constitution
I think they're making the weakest form of what could be a strong argument imaginable. Okay. Here's what the strong argument would look like. The strong argument would be he's here on a student visa and
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1000: David French: Trump Admits He's Violating the Constitution
And that we are deporting him because he is a threat to the foreign policy and national security of the United States for reasons A, B, C, D, E, and F detailing illegal activity or material support for terrorism. Then they're golden. That's not what they did here. What they did here.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1000: David French: Trump Admits He's Violating the Constitution
No evidence.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1000: David French: Trump Admits He's Violating the Constitution
Right. There's no evidence of it as yet. And part of what seemed to have happened is they thought this was going to be a much easier case because they thought he was just going to be, that he was just here on a student visa. Learn later he's here on, he's here with a green card.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1000: David French: Trump Admits He's Violating the Constitution
And so the strong version of the case is you take somebody on a visa who has done things you can point to that are unlawful. and you say deport him, that's a very strong case. They would win that case. Here, you have a green card holder, so a lawful permanent resident. They have not articulated a single thing that he's done that is illegal.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1000: David French: Trump Admits He's Violating the Constitution
Their notice of appearance that requires him to show up only listed as the grounds that Secretary of State Marco Rubio has deemed that he's a threat to the foreign policy of the United States. There's no reasons listed for that. It's just the conclusion.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1000: David French: Trump Admits He's Violating the Constitution
And so what they're doing is the weakest possible version of what could be, in other circumstances, a strong argument that foreign non-citizens cannot come to the U.S. and engage in disruptive protest.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1000: David French: Trump Admits He's Violating the Constitution
Now, instead, what they've done is they've essentially said that a green card holder can be summarily detained, isolated from his family, isolated from privileged conversations with his own attorney, And not because he's engaged in any illegal activity at all, but because the Secretary of State, in his wisdom, has determined that he's a threat to the foreign policy.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1000: David French: Trump Admits He's Violating the Constitution
A student protester is a threat to the foreign policy of the United States.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1000: David French: Trump Admits He's Violating the Constitution
besides cruelty? The argument would be, well, we don't want him hiding. We don't want him hiding. But there are ways to deal with that, right? And also, yeah, this is something, Tim, a lot of the things you just articulate are just gratuitous. So, for example, detaining him in Louisiana, not allowing him to have a privileged phone call with his own lawyer. I mean, a judge had to order that.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1000: David French: Trump Admits He's Violating the Constitution
A judge had to order that they get a privileged phone call. Look, if I am accused of murder... I get to talk to my lawyer on a privileged basis. I mean, this is where that malice comes in. They're trying to do everything that they can while they have them in custody. to punish this guy, to make his life miserable. And so this is where it just starts to get even more cynical.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1000: David French: Trump Admits He's Violating the Constitution
They're self-righteously wrapping themselves in the flag of combating anti-Semitism, okay? However, at the same time, this is a movement that if you're the right kind of anti-Semite, you can get jobs and you can get favors. Like look at some of the hires in this administration. Some of the hires in this administration include people who've engaged in just unbelievably anti-Semitic speech.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1000: David French: Trump Admits He's Violating the Constitution
And then, you know, there's this, they're bringing the Tate brothers back in to the United States. So the Tate brothers, these guys are grotesque anti-Semites, just grotesque. It's not even, It's not even close.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1000: David French: Trump Admits He's Violating the Constitution
And so if you're an anti-Semite and you're on the right, you can get hired by the administration, like this person Kingsley Wilson, who's the deputy press secretary in the Department of Defense.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1000: David French: Trump Admits He's Violating the Constitution
He nominated a guy named Amir Ghalib to be ambassador of Kuwait. This is a guy who is a mayor of a Muslim-majority town in Michigan that passed the strongest version of the Boycott, Divest, Sanction resolution. that liked a Facebook comment that referred to Jews as monkeys, declined to discipline an appointee who suggested that the Holocaust was cosmic punishment for October 7th.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1000: David French: Trump Admits He's Violating the Constitution
And he's ambassador to Kuwait now because he endorsed Trump. He endorsed Trump. And you can do this all day in the larger right. I mean, look at what Joe Rogan has been doing with some of his recent guests, Candace Owens. Trump dined with Nick Fuente. I mean, you can just do this all day long.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1000: David French: Trump Admits He's Violating the Constitution
I don't like to say no chance, but I would fall out of my chair in shock if they,
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1000: David French: Trump Admits He's Violating the Constitution
It's been a long time. It's been a long time. Yeah. But I would be completely, utterly shocked. In fact. The case is so one-sided that I don't necessarily think the court – they may. They may just decide to take it right now and to deal with it right now.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1000: David French: Trump Admits He's Violating the Constitution
But the court may just decide to let it wait and percolate because there's no court in the country who's upheld so far this birthright citizenship order. It's on pause. It's on hold. And so I don't know they may. I don't know that they'll even choose to hear it now. I think they'll hear it. I do think this is a case that they will hear. I just don't know that they're going to hear it now.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1000: David French: Trump Admits He's Violating the Constitution
So, yeah, I might even be over under seven and a half, Tim. I'm getting aggressive here. Okay, all right.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1000: David French: Trump Admits He's Violating the Constitution
So essentially what happened is there was a little bit of discontent, but it kind of got lost in the maelstrom, the literal maelstrom of January 6th. There was a little bit of discontent that you could feel in MAGA that none of the three Trump appointees had helped him out during the election contest.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1000: David French: Trump Admits He's Violating the Constitution
That the Supreme Court was nowhere to be found in helping Donald Trump in the election steal effort in 2020. And that would be in deep MAGA. Like deep MAGA was upset that the Trump appointees didn't help. But then you began to have a series of cases that were decided when Biden was in office. where MAGA legal initiatives were defeated, were turned back.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1000: David French: Trump Admits He's Violating the Constitution
So voting rights, you had other cases, the independent state legislature theory, the various different kinds of cases, Barrett was consistently voting with, say, Roberts or Kavanaugh, but then also, interestingly, would write her own opinions that were very independent-minded. You could tell that she's her own person, right?
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1000: David French: Trump Admits He's Violating the Constitution
So even before now, at the end of last term, last summer, you began to see some pieces circulating in the legal world that were like, Amy Coney Barrett is her own person. She is just not a... automatic, you know, an automatic joiner. And so you began to see that.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1000: David French: Trump Admits He's Violating the Constitution
And then it really kicked off just a couple of weeks ago when Roberts and Barrett joined with the three more liberal justices, the three Democratic appointees, to uphold an order that was ordering the Trump administration to disperse about $2 billion in in aid funds. And so that's what kicked it off.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1000: David French: Trump Admits He's Violating the Constitution
It wasn't just previously appropriated. It was previously appropriated funds where the work had been completed. Right, okay, yeah, yeah.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1000: David French: Trump Admits He's Violating the Constitution
Well, in defense of the four on that, on that five to four, the case had a little bit, a few more quirks than a lot was widely reported. And one of the quirks was that one entity sued, and I think they were owed, and I may be off on this a little bit, they were owed a few hundred million dollars.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1000: David French: Trump Admits He's Violating the Constitution
The order granted them their money, but it also granted the rest of the two billion to other parties who were not parties to the case. Okay, so some of Alito's disagreement in his dissent was related to that point. And I think that's fair. I think that's fair. Normally, you have to be a party to the case or a member of a class in a class action to receive compensation in a case.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1000: David French: Trump Admits He's Violating the Constitution
And so I do think that there is a fair critique of the five there. Being in the four is not some sort of sign that they are in Trump's back pocket.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1000: David French: Trump Admits He's Violating the Constitution
I kind of put what I expect to see from the Supreme Court into three categories, or to use AO, advisory opinions terminology, three buckets, where I think you're going to have to see at the end of the day, some sort of Supreme Court resolution. Like, for example, I think we're going to have to see a Supreme Court resolution on birthright citizenship.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1000: David French: Trump Admits He's Violating the Constitution
And I think it's, I'm virtually certain Trump is going to lose that one. I think you're going to have, you're going to end up seeing some sort of resolution on, from the Supreme Court on The employment rights of members of the civil service. And so I think you're going to see the Supreme Court there.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1000: David French: Trump Admits He's Violating the Constitution
I also think you're going to end up seeing the Supreme Court make definitive rulings maybe on impoundment and the impoundment control, the constitutionality and application of the Impoundment Control Act. Also, that's my three. I'll add another bucket or two. I think you also might very well see the Supreme Court make definitive rulings about independent agencies.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1000: David French: Trump Admits He's Violating the Constitution
Under what circumstance can these independent agencies continue to have any sort of autonomy? from the rest of the executive branch. I think you're going to see that. And then you might see something around some of these college or university cases.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1000: David French: Trump Admits He's Violating the Constitution
The independent agencies, I think, is where you're going to see, because it has long been, you know, as a conservative lawyer, old school conservative lawyer. I'm classical liberal conservative lawyer and originalist.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1000: David French: Trump Admits He's Violating the Constitution
We've long had beef with the way these independent agencies are structured and run because they're kind of- Like such as explain to listeners, like which are the independent agencies? So, for example, when I say an independent agency, that means an agency where the head of the agency is protected in some way from being hired or fired by the president.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1000: David French: Trump Admits He's Violating the Constitution
In other words, that there's some tenure or some ability of the agency to have some autonomy from direct control. presidential control. And there have been cases along these lines talking about, wait, no, hold on. The president runs the executive branch. And if this is an executive branch agency, the Congress can't shackle the president too much in how he's able to run the agency.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1000: David French: Trump Admits He's Violating the Constitution
And so that's been a long running fight. In my view, that question is resolved by saying, These agencies are part of the executive branch. The president can hire and fire. If the Congress doesn't want an agency to be in the executive branch, they can create legislative agencies. There are ways to deal with this that are not exactly by placing something within the executive branch.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1000: David French: Trump Admits He's Violating the Constitution
So I think that is an area, because this is something that's a legacy legal issue that's been sort of overhanging for decades. That's an area where I see that Trump could win. I also think that the employment cases get tricky, Tim.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1000: David French: Trump Admits He's Violating the Constitution
I'm bearish on the real-world short-term outcome. I'm somewhat more bullish on the longer-term legal outcome. So in other words— They'll win their cases eventually. Yeah, exactly. So I think there will be cases, especially dealing with lower-level employees. If you're a policymaking employee, then the court's going to say that the president has the power to hire and fire you.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1000: David French: Trump Admits He's Violating the Constitution
If you're a lower-level employee, I think what you're going to end up seeing is the court saying, no, you know, civil service protection— is lawful it is legal you have to comply with it now you can fire an employee a lower level employee if they don't do what they're told to do and it's lawful but you just can't sort of say well the deep state's against me so i'm getting rid of all of them right
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1000: David French: Trump Admits He's Violating the Constitution
And so I think you'll end up having that. But to get from A to B, you're just going to have an enormous amount of disruption in people's lives, some of which will not be fixed by the legal system. And you'll have disruption in government that won't be fixed. It's not like you can go back in time and undo the chaos that's happening right now.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1000: David French: Trump Admits He's Violating the Constitution
Will, I don't know if you saw there was a post. Do you follow Jessica Riedel from the Manhattan Institute?
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1000: David French: Trump Admits He's Violating the Constitution
Yeah, I interviewed Jessica about Doge a couple weeks ago. Jessica is cutting through the BS on this like nobody else. And there was a post just a day or so ago saying Doge may well end up costing the government more money, in part because by gutting enforcement in the IRS – That has hundreds of billions of dollars of consequence going down the line.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1000: David French: Trump Admits He's Violating the Constitution
Well, here's what's crazy, Tim, because, OK, you can a Trump administration say we're not going to be prosecuting white collar crime or we're deemphasizing it or whatever. Or it can sort of say, as seems to be happening, like if you're a MAGA businessman right now, it's hard to imagine like an aggressive criminal enforcement against you. Yeah. Go ham. This is your moment. Yeah. But you know what?
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1000: David French: Trump Admits He's Violating the Constitution
You don't repeal the law when you don't enforce the law. And a lot of these statutes of limitations will not have run by the time there's a new administration. You could very well have a situation in which there's this sort of legal holiday, this sort of perceived legal holiday for a few years that really comes back and bites people hard.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1000: David French: Trump Admits He's Violating the Constitution
2029 is coming, Tim. But this does raise a really interesting point, which is. These guys are governing like they're never going to lose power.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1000: David French: Trump Admits He's Violating the Constitution
But I think that here's where I think a lot of that's coming from. So here's a prediction I'm going to make, Tim. If the Republican nominee loses in 2028, the Republican Party, many members will not accept the results. Oh, okay. I think that's a safe bet.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1000: David French: Trump Admits He's Violating the Constitution
Easier money on that one. So my bold prediction. So that's what I think of when I say these guys, that's one aspect of these guys believing that they're not going to ever be out of power. They just deny it when they lose often. The other element here is it's hard to overstate, and I'm sure you see this kind of in the MAGA circles that you connect with,
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1000: David French: Trump Admits He's Violating the Constitution
It's hard to overstate the extent of the confidence that they feel that they have cracked the code politically, that 2024 was an absolute massive turning point in American political history. I saw a sort of a Christian nationalist figure a day or two ago post that he thinks the Democratic Party is just going to dissolve. It's going to go away.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1000: David French: Trump Admits He's Violating the Constitution
that it's going to be replaced by the Republican Party is just going to become so big and powerful it's going to kind of split in two.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1000: David French: Trump Admits He's Violating the Constitution
And that's the kind of triumphalism that I see is that essentially we've cracked the code, it's over, and so they're running the country like they are the Republicans post-Civil War or they're the New Deal Democrats, that they have generational control is the way they're running the place.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1000: David French: Trump Admits He's Violating the Constitution
Feels hubristic, but I am very much worried that the major strain is, wait, I don't know about music. I'm about to just totally major chord, minor chord. Like the major chord is we're going to win forever because we've cracked the code. But there's a minor chord of we're never going to let them take power again.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1000: David French: Trump Admits He's Violating the Constitution
Oh, man. Well, I mean, I don't think there's any question at all that Ukraine faces military challenges, which we exacerbated, by the way. Big time. Big time. Big time. But at the same time, Russia is facing massive losses in equipment and personnel. So there is a situation where with competent leadership, you might be able to engineer a ceasefire in some way. Right.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1000: David French: Trump Admits He's Violating the Constitution
Both parties are suffering in this war. But the problem that you have is when Trump begins to switch over and instead of sort of saying to Putin, this is exactly the time you say to Putin, yeah, Ukrainians are suffering and now we're going to really backstop them. Yeah, right.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1000: David French: Trump Admits He's Violating the Constitution
Instead, the message has been much more Ukrainians are suffering and we're going to be we're going to have an off on switch on aid. And when I'm ticked at them, the switch turns off. And when I'm not angry at them, the switch turns on. And all that tells Vladimir Putin is to keep pushing, to push the troops harder, to push harder and harder. And it's deeply demoralizing if you're Ukraine.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1000: David French: Trump Admits He's Violating the Constitution
It's deeply invigorating if you're Russia. I mean, the dynamic here is unbelievable. But at the same time, there is a need for for serious talks about a ceasefire. They're needed.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1000: David French: Trump Admits He's Violating the Constitution
And so we're in this terrible position where we need to have talks about a ceasefire, but the most powerful country in the world has essentially switched sides, occasionally dabbles back with Ukraine by turning intelligence sharing back on. It is an absolute mess, Tim. And don't think that Vladimir Putin isn't trying to capitalize this. He's very clever.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1000: David French: Trump Admits He's Violating the Constitution
The way he responded to the ceasefire proposal was essentially, well, no, because the proposal doesn't deal with the root causes of the conflict. Which causes all the Putin sympathetic people on Twitter to go, yeah, look, Putin wants to deal with the root cause. You know what the root cause is? Your invasion. That's the root cause of this war, is you decided to invade.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1000: David French: Trump Admits He's Violating the Constitution
Tim, we have to, with eyes open, realize who our enemies are and are not. Russia is no Canada. Oh, right. The real foe. I mean, the real foe here. I mean, Trump's got another whole fight on his hands right now.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1000: David French: Trump Admits He's Violating the Constitution
Constantly makes my hands sticky at Waffle House. Darn you, Canadians. But the... There is a very real trend here, which is very bullying and aggressive to our friends, our historic friends. He's trying to make them not our friends. He's very bullying and aggressive towards our friends, and he's very obsequious in many ways to our foes. And to understand, it's not even hard to understand why.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1000: David French: Trump Admits He's Violating the Constitution
I mean, it's really a couple of things happening at once. One is... Trump personalizes everything. And he knows that the Europeans did not want him to be president. He knows Zelensky did not want him to be president. He knows all of these people. preferred that Kamala Harris would win. And so in his mind, that means that they are in the category of enemy. And his enemies are America's enemies.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1000: David French: Trump Admits He's Violating the Constitution
And then when you add on top of that, that he genuinely, at his core, as we are now seeing, this isn't, you know, it was reading tea leaves in his first term early. Now it's just like reading Dog whistles have become bullhorns, right? And he sees himself as that kind of bullying strongman.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1000: David French: Trump Admits He's Violating the Constitution
And so in that circumstance, the way he treats Russia and Ukraine actually has a lot of resonance to how he's treating Canada and Mexico. He sees Ukraine through Putin's eyes, a smaller, weaker neighboring country that I can bully towards my own interests. He turns to Canada. He looks at Mexico. That's our Ukraine. Smaller countries, less powerful that he can bully.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1000: David French: Trump Admits He's Violating the Constitution
And so he doesn't see anything necessarily. I mean, remember going back to some of the early invasion, he complimented the brilliance of Putin. So he wants the same sort of rights to dominate our neighbors that Putin is exercising through blunt military force.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1000: David French: Trump Admits He's Violating the Constitution
Their demands are utterly unacceptable. Essentially, what they're saying is, oh, great, we're going to try to accomplish in the negotiating table what we haven't been able to accomplish on the battlefield. They have been able to take territory, absolutely, at horrifying cost. They've been able to take territory. But they know that if we continue to support Ukraine, they cannot.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1000: David French: Trump Admits He's Violating the Constitution
They may make continued incremental gains, but by sometime in late 2025 this year or early 2026, they just won't be able to sustain this level of offensive combat. So On the one hand, they know they've taken territory, but they also know the sands of the hourglass are running out for them and their ability to continue putting all these men and all this material in the meat grinder.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1000: David French: Trump Admits He's Violating the Constitution
And so this is exactly the time where you go in and look, I'm also quite realistic. I know the odds of Ukraine taking back that territory are very low. Yeah. Very low. This is exactly the time when you come in and you make your own demands and Because you know the situation Russia is in. And you try to reach something that looks more like that Korean armistice.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1000: David French: Trump Admits He's Violating the Constitution
And the thing about the Korean armistice that was so key were a couple of factors. One, North Korea has no say in South Korean politics. So South Korea is fully independent, right? Putin wants a say. Make Zelensky run for election or whatever. Putin wants a say in Ukrainian politics. Number two, and this is the most important thing. There were security guarantees. There were U.S. troops.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1000: David French: Trump Admits He's Violating the Constitution
Now, there shouldn't be U.S. troops in Ukraine, I don't believe. Not yet. But France and Britain have already stepped up to say they're troops. They're willing to put their boots on the ground. And it's so key it's those two countries because those are the two European countries with their own nuclear deterrent.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1000: David French: Trump Admits He's Violating the Constitution
And so if you could have an armistice with French and British troops on the ground, guarantee Ukrainian political independence, that is worth pursuing. That's what you bargain towards. You don't preemptively concede all your bargaining chips in the meantime.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1000: David French: Trump Admits He's Violating the Constitution
Yeah, Hexeth has long had. So you have to look at this in totality. So it's the JAG generals and key leader, you know, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, other key leaders, the JAG generals. And the reason why you look at that in total is a couple of things. One, it becomes very clear when you include the JAG generals in the firings that this was a more of a political purge.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1000: David French: Trump Admits He's Violating the Constitution
than a classical military firing, which is for corruption or incompetence. So, you know, all these people who go, hey, you can't criticize Trump for firing generals. Presidents have fired generals throughout American history. Well, the pattern has been
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1000: David French: Trump Admits He's Violating the Constitution
they're corrupt or if they have failed on the battlefield so you know for example abraham lincoln changed generals like he was changing clothes for a while because they kept losing battles to the confederate trying to win a war he's trying to win a war obama fired the general who was running the war in afghanistan because it wasn't going well and then when he replaced him with stanley mccrystal mccrystal's team
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1000: David French: Trump Admits He's Violating the Constitution
was insubordinate, openly so. And so those are classic reasons why you fire generals. This is, by all appearances, including the JAG generals, really is the tell here. It's a political purge. It's a political purge. He doesn't like that the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, for example, put out a short video after the George Floyd murder.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1000: David French: Trump Admits He's Violating the Constitution
He has a bone to pick with what he calls the Jagoffs, the Jag Corps, which he thinks is responsible for handcuffing warriors in the field. The reality is Jag officers don't make the law. Right.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1000: David French: Trump Admits He's Violating the Constitution
The law is what the law is. And so what we are is legal advisors. I say we because I'm a former JAG officer. We're legal advisors who advise commanders of their existing legal obligation. We help them accomplish the mission lawfully. So we actually, in many ways, facilitate the American military mission in very important ways.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1000: David French: Trump Admits He's Violating the Constitution
Right. I agree with you. And the other layer to this is, again, if you look at how Trump views himself, he views himself as a Putin figure. And what do Putin figures demand from their military? Political loyalty. If you have political loyalty as a criteria in a military, that's death for the competence of the military.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1000: David French: Trump Admits He's Violating the Constitution
Yeah. I mean, this goes back to what I was saying earlier about what is, quote, DEI. It's funny how many people will send you a note online and say, DEI is illegal. What? No. There are circumstances where explicit race-based preferences are illegal. But DEI, in other words, like acknowledging the accomplishments of women and of black citizens, of Latino citizens, I mean – That is not illegal.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1000: David French: Trump Admits He's Violating the Constitution
And I'm going to have to upgrade my definition of DEI or woke. It used to be anything one millimeter to the left of MAGA would be DEI or woke. Now it is not just, as you were saying, it's not nothing to do with the spectrum at all anymore.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1000: David French: Trump Admits He's Violating the Constitution
It is anything that acknowledges, not just on a spectrum of left or right views of race, it's now getting towards anything that acknowledges that America is this diverse country with diverse communities and That is now out.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1000: David French: Trump Admits He's Violating the Constitution
No, no, no. Was that the golden rule? No, no, no. That's lex talionis, eye for an eye. Like, that's not the golden rule. And this is, you know, a senior leader at... one of the largest Christian universities in the United States that's become, but that's MAGA theology right there.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1000: David French: Trump Admits He's Violating the Constitution
Yeah, yeah. This is something, and you don't just have to know about sort of Christian theology. The golden rule, you know, sort of do unto others as you would have done unto yourself or love your neighbor as yourself, sort of that formulation is kind of a common theme from a lot of religious perspectives. And so this idea that he would mistake eye for an eye for the golden rule is amazing stuff.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1000: David French: Trump Admits He's Violating the Constitution
Can you rule out a recession, even a temporary one?
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1000: David French: Trump Admits He's Violating the Constitution
Look, everything good is Trump's. Everything bad is Biden's fault, Tim. Okay, that's easy. Like, let's just understand this. And so if you have a long-term concern, that's all going to be good because Trump is in charge. If you have a short-term alarm, that's all fine because that's Biden's fault. Which fundamentals are we talking about there, though? The fundamentals. Like our dribbling?
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1000: David French: Trump Admits He's Violating the Constitution
The fundamentals. Bounce passing is still strong? It's the fundamentals, Tim. Everybody knows the fundamentals. One thing that I look at when I'm looking at, okay, is something happening that is sort of unique to American political circumstances versus part of bigger trends? Because we do live in an interconnected world, interconnected economies.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1000: David French: Trump Admits He's Violating the Constitution
What is, say, our stock market doing compared to other stock markets in pure countries? And if they're having big downturns while we're having big downturns, maybe there's something really deep and systemic. But what we're seeing right now is this stock market correction that is unique to America in the moment.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1000: David French: Trump Admits He's Violating the Constitution
So you are seeing some America-specific things that you can watch in real time be tied to Donald Trump's actions and statements. And Trump knows this better than anybody because it's one of the reasons why he keeps yanking back the tariffs. He'll impose them and the market goes down. Because he sees the market is sort of like his only focus group that he pays attention to.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1000: David French: Trump Admits He's Violating the Constitution
But if it keeps going down, he'll have to tell MAGA to stop paying attention to it. But we know in the short term, he has paid close attention to market moves. And we also know in the short term that the market has moved as a direct result of his actions. You can see it right in front of your face. You know, I think Vance is right to sort of say...
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1000: David French: Trump Admits He's Violating the Constitution
look, long-term, we don't know how things are going to shake out. And a lot of that is because the American economy has its own independent strength. We often overestimate the influence of presidents on the economy. We're always overestimating. So the American economy is kind of a wonder all its own.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1000: David French: Trump Admits He's Violating the Constitution
The economist wrote about this in the run-up to the 2024 election, that the American economy in 2024 was... kind of the wonder of the world. Like the rest of the developed world was saying, how are you guys doing this? And so there are some elements of the American economy that I think are just very, very strong that are not directly related to who's in Washington.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1000: David French: Trump Admits He's Violating the Constitution
But to the extent that who's in Washington matters to the economy, and it ultimately does a lot, what's happening right now is entirely negative in my view.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1000: David French: Trump Admits He's Violating the Constitution
Well, and look at his targets. His main targets have not been the countries that are our chief manufacturing, say, competitors. The Canadian manufacturing base is not what's gutted the heartland. This is... What are we doing here?
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1000: David French: Trump Admits He's Violating the Constitution
If the confrontation goes down, we got to do something about it, Tim. There's got to be a bat. There's got to be something because I'm going to back my Grizzlies to the hill.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1000: David French: Trump Admits He's Violating the Constitution
Let's just start with free speech. I mean, this is the area that I litigated in for 20 plus years before I became a journalist. And Tim, it's just kind of funny that- that J.D. Vance goes to Munich and lectures the entire European world about free speech and then comes back home and the Trump administration just says, Europe, hold my beer on censorship. Just unbelievable stuff unfolding.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1000: David French: Trump Admits He's Violating the Constitution
Tim, there are so many incidents in the last 10 years since Trump came down the escalator where he does... exactly the thing that a lot of conservatives were warning the government might do in the future, right? Except it's coming from the Republican president.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1000: David French: Trump Admits He's Violating the Constitution
No Sharia law. Who knows what the rest of the term will hold. The feds are going to try to dictate your curriculum. They're going to try to dictate higher education. This kind of thing has been something that conservatives have been worried about for a while. And Georgetown is just particularly egregious, Tim. I mean, but it's egregious in much the same way so many other things are egregious.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1000: David French: Trump Admits He's Violating the Constitution
So it begins with this letter from Ed Martin, who's the acting or interim U.S. attorney in D.C. This guy's hardcore MAGA zealot fanatic. But it begins with him sending a letter that says, it has come to my attention reliably. What does that mean? Anyway, it has come to my attention reliably that Georgetown Law School continues to teach and promote DEI. This is unacceptable.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1000: David French: Trump Admits He's Violating the Constitution
Now, the letter does not define DEI, which, Tim, you and I know the definition of DEI in MAGA land is not simply unlawful race preferences. So, for example, I fully supported the Supreme Court's decision in the Harvard Fair case where it eliminated race-based preferences from university admissions.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1000: David French: Trump Admits He's Violating the Constitution
Okay, if a letter was saying that the university was engaging in unlawful race-based preferences, that's one thing. But this was teach and promote DEI. But we know that the definition of DEI isn't just unlawful race-based preferences. It's anything on race that is one millimeter to the left of MAGA. So if you celebrate the achievements of women in science or sports or whatever, that's DEI.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1000: David French: Trump Admits He's Violating the Constitution
If you celebrate the achievements of a black athlete or a scholar or a thinker or a pilot or a war hero, that's DEI. It's all – everything one – ounce, millimeter to the left is DEI.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1000: David French: Trump Admits He's Violating the Constitution
I mean, in their view, it's even evidence of, quote, DEI when they see that somebody is black or a woman being hired. Right. Or having a job. I mean, this is the kind of thing that, you know, whenever there's a disaster or something terrible that happens, they want to know was the pilot or the driver or whatever, you know, a woman or were they black or were they Hispanic?
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1000: David French: Trump Admits He's Violating the Constitution
And you immediately get into this demographic game looking for DEI. It's even beyond that because it's talking about what he says. It's not, it has come to my attention reliably that Georgetown Law School is engaged in illegal conduct. It says that continues to teach and promote. That's expression. That's just free speech right there, teaching and promoting.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1000: David French: Trump Admits He's Violating the Constitution
And then he said he's begun an inquiry and he demands to know if DEI is found in your courses or teaching in any way, will you move swiftly to remove it? Again, this is about expression, Tim. It's just about expression.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1000: David French: Trump Admits He's Violating the Constitution
And then he says that nobody who is affiliated with a law school or universities that continues to teach or utilize DEI will be considered for their fellows program, a summer internship or employment. What are we doing here? Even if you're MAGA and you disagree with Georgetown, the mere fact that you went to Georgetown is going to disqualify you.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1000: David French: Trump Admits He's Violating the Constitution
So this is not the kind of thing where you need to be a legal scholar to understand that this is bad. The federal government cannot dictate the viewpoint and curriculum of a private Christian school. They can't even do it entirely with public schools, Tim. But this is just one. We could literally talk about how bad this case is for an hour, but it's just one instance.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1000: David French: Trump Admits He's Violating the Constitution
So this case really does kind of hit all the parts of the First Amendment. Yeah. You're talking about the full spectrum of First Amendment rights at Georgetown. Go to Perkins Coie, which I haven't even gotten into Perkins Coie.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1000: David French: Trump Admits He's Violating the Constitution
That's free speech where this is the government issuing an order, a mandate, barring a law firm from access to federal buildings, barring employees or former employees of the law firm from employment in the federal government. Why? Why? Because they represented Democrats and were opposed to Donald Trump. I mean, so...
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1000: David French: Trump Admits He's Violating the Constitution
You're actually going instance after instance after instance where there's a direct explicit, and this is the key, Tim, it's very explicit attack on free speech. They're saying it right up front, like in the Georgetown letter. They say it right up front. It's because you're teaching DEI. with Perkins Coie.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1000: David French: Trump Admits He's Violating the Constitution
It's because you engaged in these constitutionally protected legal and political activities.