The Age of the Strongman: Understanding Trump, with Anne Applebaum (Part Two)

Summary

Podcast Summary: Intelligence Squared

Episode: The Age of the Strongman: Understanding Trump, with Anne Applebaum (Part Two)

Date: October 27, 2025

Host: Gideon Rachman
Guest: Anne Applebaum (Pulitzer Prize-winning historian and political commentator)
Location: Royal Geographical Society, London

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Overview

This episode is the concluding part of a live discussion with Anne Applebaum, exploring the era of "strongman" politics—specifically, Donald Trump’s America. The conversation traces Trump’s legacy on American law, institutions, and alliances, his personal motivations and relationships with international autocrats, and the deeper dynamics within his movement and administration. Audience questions provoke further exploration of the future of democracy in the United States, the resilience of American institutions, and what may finally trigger significant public backlash against Trumpian politics.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Rule of Law in Trump’s America

• (01:19) Rachman sets the stage by contrasting America’s image as a “country of laws” with recent illegal acts by the Trump administration, noting public shock at institutions failing to check abuse.
• (01:41 - 02:33)
  • Applebaum: Acknowledges it's "not nothing"—some legal pushback does work (e.g., lawsuits have protected entities like Radio Free Europe).
  • The administration uses a destabilizing method: “break the law first, then wait for everyone to catch up,” which severely undermines trust in justice and the rule of law.
  • Quote: “That will have big repercussions down the road.” (02:31)
• Supreme Court’s Role
  • (02:43 - 04:04) Discussion turns to the Supreme Court as Trump’s "ace in the hole" after years of Republican court-packing.
  • Applebaum: Suggests conservative judges’ commitment to “originalism” may have limits if constitutional violations become egregious, but the test is ongoing.

2. Trump, Putin, and Autocracy Inc.

• (04:16 - 07:23)
  • Rachman references Applebaum’s “Autocracy Inc.” and curiosity about Trump’s relationship with Putin.
  • Applebaum: Emphasizes two explanations:
    • Admiration: “Trump admires him and wants to be like him.” (05:08) Trump has expressed similar admiration for Xi Jinping and Kim Jong Un—strongmen unconstrained by courts or checks.
    • Financial Ties: Trump’s long record of business in Russia, anonymous property deals, and pro-Russian rhetoric dating to the 1980s.
    • Quote: “He instinctively dislikes the rule of law. He dislikes checks and balances. He wants people to just do what he says.” (05:36)
  • No need for a “secret videotape”: The public record suffices to explain Trump’s affinity for Putin and his style (07:05).

3. Limits and Frictions in the Trump-Putin Relationship

• (07:23 - 09:46)
  • Rachman asks why, despite all this, Putin hasn’t “scored open goal” with Trump.
  • Applebaum: Trump aims to end the war in Ukraine, but “Putin doesn’t want to end the war.” Trump has made efforts to placate Putin, minimizing U.S. support for Ukraine, but Putin's goals—to destroy Ukraine’s independence and undermine Europe—remain unwavering.
  • Trump’s administration is willing to give ground, but Putin’s aims are far more maximalist and inflexible.

4. Learning from International Experience

• (09:46 - 12:15)
  • American diplomatic cycles: Each new administration “has to learn Russia policy from scratch.” (10:20)
  • Discussion of whether adversarial relationships with leaders like Putin and Xi are becoming unavoidable lessons for American leaders.
  • Anecdote involving Alexander Dugin at a conference in China: Dugin asserts there is no “conspiracy” against the U.S.—it is open, shared interests.
    • Applebaum: Underscores that autocrats are not plotting in secret—“it’s not a conspiracy... They have common interests... they imitate [each other].” (11:24)

5. The Fraying of Alliances and the “Free World”

• (12:15 - 15:09)
  • Rachman asks about Trump’s effect on America’s alliances and reputation as “leader of the free world.”
  • Applebaum: Trump has done “a lot of damage.” Trust is eroding, and many in Europe are distressingly uncertain about U.S. commitment.
    • “...just the degree of distrust now is high and will be very hard to overcome in the future.” (13:34)
  • Suggests NATO and other allies are likely developing “Plan B” contingency plans behind the scenes.

6. The Enduring Impact of Trumpism and Its Constituency

• (15:09 - 16:00)
  • Even if Trump leaves, the anti-alliance, isolationist constituency he galvanized will remain a “factor in politics for a long time.”
  • “[Trump] brought them from the fringes of politics into the center, and now they're in the White House. They have big platforms. They're building that brand.” (15:23 - 15:52)
  • Trump personally has few fixed ideas but strong instincts (e.g., "alliances are a waste of money, tariffs are good"), and cares most about being seen as a “winner.” (16:12)

7. Power Struggles and “Project 2025” within Trump’s Orbit

• (17:12 - 20:38)
  • Beneath Trump's personal brand, multiple factions vie to define Trumpism (e.g., the Bannon vs. Musk divide over immigration).
  • Major policy battles: Immigration (big business wants educated immigrants; hardliners want restrictive policies); Tariffs; U.S. world role (Rubio faction for alliances, Vance circle for "Fortress America").
  • The leaked Signal chat about bombing the Houthis (Yemen) revealed internal debates—some push to withdraw U.S. global commitments, leaving Europeans to handle security issues.

8. Audience Q&A Highlights

Who is Really Driving the Agenda? (Project 2025)

• (21:36)
  • Audience member asks about who’s architecting policy (Vought, Miller, Thiel, etc.).
  • Applebaum: Trump isn’t interested in governing or long-term change—the architects of "Project 2025" are the ones seeking to fundamentally alter the U.S. political system (e.g., Vought on government reformation, Miller militarizing ICE and pushing anti-immigration reforms).
  • It might lean towards a form of “competitive authoritarianism” (e.g., Turkey), or a more explicitly Christian or white-majoritarian system.

White Nationalism and Christian Nationalism

• (24:32 - 25:18)
  • Motivations in the movement include making the U.S. “more white” and “more Christian.”
  • Examples: Moves to give refugee status to white South Africans, and proposals for Europeans who reject migration in their countries to get U.S. visas.
  • The administration comes close to asserting power regardless of democratic norms, e.g., posting AI images of “Trump wearing a crown... dropping excrement on the protestors.” (26:21)

The Future: Internal MAGA Divisions and Possible Dynasties

• (26:52 - 28:08)
  • On potential infighting within MAGA movement: Applebaum thinks it's likely, with Rubio, Vance, and Trump’s own children all nursing ambitions.
  • “Assuming that Trump doesn't dream up some reason to run himself... there will be probably quite a bitter contest in three years.” (27:08)
  • Trump’s children, especially Don Jr., clearly have political ambitions.

Can American Democracy Survive?

• (28:18 - 30:40)
  • Question: Will U.S. democracy survive the next 39 months, and what could trigger public resistance or reversal?
  • Applebaum: The fragmented media environment means many Americans remain unaware of corruption or authoritarian practices. The biggest driver of discontent will likely be the economy or healthcare—rising premiums and hardship may be what finally prompts substantial public pushback.
    • Quote: “The best bet would be when people feel economic crisis or hardship... mostly I think... it’s the economy in general and maybe more specifically health care.” (29:30)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On breaking norms:
  • “The method of break the law first and then wait for everybody to catch up to you, you know, is very undermining of the rule of law and of people’s sense of fairness and justice.” (01:54)
• On Trump & autocrats:
  • "He instinctively dislikes the rule of law. He dislikes checks and balances. He wants people to just do what he says." (05:36)
• On foreign autocracy:
  • “It’s not a conspiracy. It’s not secret. There’s no secret room like in a James Bond movie... They have common interests... and they imitate it.” (11:23)
• On White House AI propaganda:
  • “One of the administration’s responses... was to create AI pictures of Trump wearing a crown... and dropping excrement on the protesters.” (26:22)
• On future of U.S. democracy:
  • “Because of the way that people now get the news... A lot of what we’re talking about tonight, many Americans either don’t know or have never thought about.” (28:54)
  • “The best bet would be when people feel economic crisis or hardship... that will drive home the message to a lot of people that something very different.” (29:30)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 01:19: The challenge to U.S. legal norms by the Trump administration
• 04:16: Trump’s international relationships and “Autocracy Inc.”
• 07:23: The limits of Trump's relationship with Putin
• 12:15: The erosion of U.S. alliances and global leadership
• 17:12: The internal battles to define Trumpism and the significance of Project 2025
• 21:36: Audience question on who truly drives Trump era policy and their endgame
• 24:32: Discussion of white/Christian nationalism and use of immigration policy for demographics
• 26:52: Will MAGA infight and self-destruct? Dynasty ambitions in Trump family
• 28:18: Can American democracy survive the next 39 months?

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Conclusion

The episode provides a grounded yet sobering portrait of power politics and institutional decay under Trump, featuring Applebaum’s sharp insights on the complex, and often contradictory, forces shaping American and global politics. With Trump positioned as figurehead more than strategist, the true direction of American governance is shown to be contested among hardline ideologues and opportunists, all while traditional alliances and democratic norms are visibly strained. Ultimately, Applebaum suggests that only tangible economic harm is likely to break the spell for many Americans, with institutional and media fragmentation insulating much of the public from the realities of democratic backsliding.

Transcript

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[Mia Sorrenti]

Welcome to Intelligence Squared, where great minds meet. I'm producer Mia Sorrenti for this episode. We're rejoining for part two of our recent live event with Pulitzer Prize winning historian and political commentator Ann Applebaum. Applebaum joined Gideon Rackman recently at the Royal Geographical Society in London for the final installment of our Age of the Strongman series, Understanding Trump. If you haven't heard part one, do just jump back an episode and get up to speed. But now let's rejoin the conversation live at the Royal Geographical Society.

[Gideon Rachman]

I think that one thing that has shocked people probably on both sides of the Atlantic, though, is you describe all these acts which are manifestly illegal. You know, whether it's bulldozing bits of the White House or corruption. And America is meant to be a country of laws. It's full of lawyers, it's full of checks and balances, and yet nothing's happening.

[Anne Applebaum]

So it's not nothing. Some things have been stopped. I have a friend who works for Radio for Europe, which is one of the US Foreign broadcasters that the administration has tried to shut down and they fought back in the courts, they're still open, and so on. So there are pieces of the one thing that is working is there are some lawsuits that work and so far with some exceptions, they've been sticking. The administration, I don't think, hasn't yet wanted to defy the law in a grotesque or obvious way because that would also be, I think, unpopular. But you're right that the method of break the law first and then wait for everybody to catch up to you, you know, is very undermining of the rule of law and of people's sense of fairness and justice. And that will have big repercussions down the road.

[Gideon Rachman]

Yeah, and. Well, actually, let's talk about the Supreme Court then, because I guess one of the concerns is that eventually all of this will make its way to the Supreme Court, or a lot of it will.

[Anne Applebaum]

Yes.

[Gideon Rachman]

And that, that is Trump's ace in the hole because the Republicans have been passing, packing that court quite successfully, ruthlessly, but legally, for a decade now. And they seem to have a majority there, a pro Trump majority.

[Anne Applebaum]

So we'll see. I mean, that might be true. One of the oddities of US Constitutional law is that at least until now, what it meant to be a conservative judge who believed in conservative jurisprudence was that you were something called an originalist, which is that meant that you read the Constitution unbelievably care, and you argued about what the founders meant when they wrote this line or that line. And if you've ever seen the Supreme Court make arguments, I mean, sometimes they go back to, I don't know, English antecedents. You know, what were the precedents in common law before the Dec. The Constitution was written. So it's very focused on the document itself. And so there is some reason to think, and you've seen some of this in the lower courts, that they grotesque violations of the Constitution will be too much even for them. But we'll see. I mean, the question is, are they, how do those judges identify themselves? Are they really constitutional lawyers who believe in the Constitution, or are they political partisans? And we will soon find out.

[Gideon Rachman]

Okay, what's your bet?

[Anne Applebaum]

I think it may depend on the case, and there's clearly some people on the court who are feeling uncomfortable, but we'll see.

[Gideon Rachman]

Yeah, the other thing, I think I want to turn to the international aspect of this. And I should say, incidentally, you will all get a chance to ask questions.

[Anne Applebaum]

Every single one of you will get it. We'll be there all night.

[Gideon Rachman]

In 20 minutes or so, we've got hand the mic over. But on the international aspect of it, you wrote this book, Autocracy Inc. About how these autocrats help each other. And there's been enormous curiosity about the nature of Trump's relationship with Putin. A number of people who've said to me, you're a journalist, you must know what Putin has on Trump. Answer, I don't. I have no idea.

[Anne Applebaum]

We spent four, you know, years trying to get to that.

[Gideon Rachman]

And, well, I wondered whether it's actually just simpler that he doesn't have anything particular, but that just Trump admires him, would like to be like him.

[Anne Applebaum]

So this is, I have the two obvious Occam's Razor explanations. One is that Trump admires him and wants to be like him. And he has said that. And he said the same about Xi Jinping, you know, he said, look how powerful he is. You know, I really admire that. He's, you know, he, in the previous administration expressed his great admiration for the dictator of North Korea. You know, these are the people who he's attracted, your strongmen, the people you write about in your book. So he's, this is the, this is very obvious. You know, I think he's also, he's instinctively dislikes the rule of law. He dislikes checks and balances. He wants people to just do what he says. And so that means that he's attracted to these dictators who have that ability. I mean, Xi Jinping doesn't have to worry about the Supreme Court, you know, and so I think he, you know, I think that's part of the explanation. The other explanation is financial. I mean, Trump was in business in different ways with Russians over many years. For 30 years, since the 1980s, he's been talking about the uselessness of American alliances. In 1987, he made a trip to what was then the Soviet Union. He came back and he took out these ads, full page ads in US Newspapers saying that our alliances were costing us too much money. In his first book, he wrote about, he talked about the money we'd wasted on these useless European wars, meaning World War II. So he's been saying this for years, years and years. He had, when he was in, you know, in real estate, his, I think the number is 20% of the condos that he sold were sold to anonymous companies. So people whose, whose real owners aren't known. And this was at a time when most of the people who were buying property in America with anonymous companies were from anyway, the former Soviet world, probably Russia. And famously one of his sons said, well, most of our business nowadays comes from Russia. This is back a couple decade ago. So he has a very, very long business relationship with Russia and Russians. He sees them as having helped him in his career. He sees Putin as a kindred soul. I mean, I think all of that is enough without there being a secret videotape.

[Gideon Rachman]

And yet Putin seems at times to disappoint him. I mean, they've just had to abandon this summit in Budapest. So, so why, I mean, if Trump is like this open goal for Putin, why hasn't he been able to score and just manipulate Trump to do what he wants?

[Anne Applebaum]

I don't know the psychology of it. I can't look into Trump's head. I mean, Trump's aim is to somehow end the war, and Putin doesn't want to end the war.

[Gideon Rachman]

So that Is a slightly.

[Anne Applebaum]

It seems like that seems to be the problem. I mean, Trump has bent, it's pretty straightforward problem. Trump has bent over backwards to, you know, we know that they're negotiating business deals, that Steve Witkoff, who's Trump's representative in Russia is negotiating, openly negotiating business deals with Russia. We know they're doing that. We know that Trump has bent over backwards not to be too critical, not to be too overtly helping the Ukrainians. You know, he's sort of done everything he can to make it easy for Putin to have a ceasefire, to. But the thing is that Putin doesn't wanna cease fire and he doesn't want to end the war. And I think Putin is still calculating that. Putin's goal remains the same as it was at the beginning of the war, to destroy Ukraine as an independent country, to make sure there's a pro Moscow government there. If he can't occupy the whole thing, to prevent Ukraine from having any kind of sovereignty or any kind of foreign policy and to show Europe that he doesn't care about Europe's rules and he doesn't care about, you know, the post war settlement and that he can defy whatever he wants and get away with it. And those goals are really, really important to him. And Trump hasn't quite gone along with it yet. But I think Putin is assuming he can wait Trump out. Trump is weak. He won't, you know, he can't concentrate on anything. It's very hard even for his. Trump has appointed negotiators who aren't sure, like which part of the Donbas is which and made some mistakes already. And so Putin is just waiting for Trump to get bored and do something else. I assume that he's thinking he can wait out the us he can wait out Europe and if he just sticks to his guns, he'll win the war. I think that's his logic.

[Gideon Rachman]

Yeah, I mean, I was just in Asia last week and met rather to my relief, a really very good American diplomat who's still in place.

[Anne Applebaum]

There are some.

[Gideon Rachman]

And he said, yeah, well, you know, Trump's instinct was to pal up with these guys with Putin and xi, but he's discovering by trial and error that they are actually adversaries of the United States. And there's no getting around that. So he's going to end up, this is this guy, I think, trying to look on the bright side. But he said so he's going to end up in the right place. He just has to learn.

[Anne Applebaum]

Maybe, yeah, maybe. I live some of, you know, I Live part of the time in Poland. And the polls have this thing of saying, well, you know, every US Administration has to learn Russia policy from scratch. You know, so it's just a question of how long it takes them to learn once again that Russia doesn't want a special relationship with the United States.

[Gideon Rachman]

Yeah. Actually, one more anecdote from China. I was in this very bizarre thing where I was in the same conference as Alexander Dugin, the famous Russian nationalist, and he was interviewed on stage by a Chinese academic who said, we just had this massive parade in Beijing with Kim Jong Un and Putin and President Xi and Trump said that these three leaders are conspiring against the United States. And he said to Dugin, are we conspiring against the United States? And Dugin actually rather subtly said, no, because it's not a secret. He said, if it was a conspiracy, it would be in secret. But this is open.

[Anne Applebaum]

This is what I wrote in my book.

[Gideon Rachman]

Oh, well, there you go. You should meet him.

[Anne Applebaum]

You'll get on. It's not a conspiracy. It's not secret. There's no secret room like in a James Bond movie where bad guys sit around the table. It's not like that at all. They have common interests. They have common financial interests. They have common military interests. They have common interests in producing similar kind of narrative about the strength and stability of autocracy and the weakness and divisiveness of democracy. And they watch what one another is doing, and they learn tactics from one another, and they pay attention to how this country or that is suppressing dissent, and they imitate it. But they don't have a. It's not the common turn. It's not like a. It's not an organization. They don't need that.

[Gideon Rachman]

He said, it's not a conspiracy. It's strategic planning.

[Anne Applebaum]

Yeah, I don't even know if it's planned. I mean, they have common. Several common. I mean, there are many.

[Gideon Rachman]

So how much do you think Trump is helping them? I mean, to put it another way, how much damage is Trump doing to the network of alliances, which has been called the free world, so that I'm.

[Anne Applebaum]

Afraid he is doing a lot of damage to. So the idea that the US Is the leader of the democratic world, that it's a, you know, somehow, you know, with mostly European and Asian alliances, is one that we all took for granted for a long time. And it's not an idea that there's some. Again, there's nuances inside the administration I'm not sure everybody agrees with. Everybody's on the same page, but there are certainly some people there who don't see the US in that role and don't want it to play that role. You heard the vice president is one, and there are others. And so I spend a lot of time traveling in Europe especially, and I hear a lot of people expressing distress about. I mean, often it's business people and it's just to do with tariffs, but it's also politicians worried about the language that the US Uses. Is the US still. Does it still believe in international institutions? Does it still, you know, does it still see itself as an important part of different kinds of alliances, not just NATO, but other alliances? And I worry that the. Just the degree of distrust now is high and will be very hard to overcome in the future. I mean, I have to. I give credit to NATO leaders who have been very careful about saying they don't say that in public. You know, they. Quite the opposite. Most are very flattering about Trump and they, you know, they invite him to have dinner with the king here and so on. But I suspect that behind the scenes, people are making. Are working on Plan B, or I hope they are.

[Gideon Rachman]

Yeah. I mean, I think. I don't know, but I fear that a lot of them are just saying, we can just hold our breath for four years and then he'll be gone.

[Anne Applebaum]

So that would be a mistake. I mean, he might be gone in four years or three years now he might be gone. And even if there's a completely different kind of president next, that constituency is now a part of US Politics, and it's not going away. So the constituency that doesn't like NATO, doesn't like alliances, doesn't want the US to play that kind of role in the world. Once again, it's not the majority. And I have actually recently looked at polling on this, so it's not the majority at all. Even most Republicans like the idea of US Leadership in the world, or that's what they say. But there is a very clear minority who really doesn't want any U.S. involvement anywhere. Really.

[Gideon Rachman]

Yeah.

[Anne Applebaum]

And so, as I was going to say, in any. They will be a factor in politics for a long time.

[Gideon Rachman]

Yeah. Trump has changed the debate probably forever. I mean, he's pushed certain ideas out there that were marginal are now central.

[Anne Applebaum]

He's changed it. And as I said, he's attracted to him, all of those people. So those people, you know, there's been isolationism in US Politics forever. You know, there have been people who don't like Europe forever. There have been people who don't like military spending forever. What he did was galvanize them. He brought them from the fringes of politics into the center, and now they're in the White House. They have big platforms. They're building that brand.

[Gideon Rachman]

Yeah. I mean, Trump, on the other hand, can be all over the place. He's in favor of something for a while, and then he's against.

[Anne Applebaum]

So I would distinguish between Trump and his entourage. So Trump himself doesn't really have strategies, so this is more important.

[Gideon Rachman]

Does he have fixed ideas, though?

[Anne Applebaum]

He has a few fixed ideas. And he also has one very strong interest, which is in any given situation, whether it's a press conference or he wants to be seen as the winner, and he cares a lot about that, and this is why he keeps talking about the Nobel Prize. I think, actually this may be the source of the problem with Putin, is Putin's not letting him win, and he's giving Putin all this stuff to encourage him to let him win, and Putin's not doing it. And that's distressing. And so that's. He's really. He's really interested in that. And he's fixed ideas. Alliances are a waste of money, tariffs are good and so on, that. He's been saying these things for many decades. Maybe they. Who knows where he got them originally, but those are his ideas. But he doesn't have a, you know, a strategy to destroy NATO and create an alliance. He doesn't have an. He doesn't have a. A kind of grand strategy of how the world should work and what the US Role in it should be. That's not how he thinks. There are people around him who do, but he doesn't.

[Gideon Rachman]

That's what I wanted to ask about, because it seems to me that given that Trump is a sort of mixture of ego and a few instincts, there is beneath him people who are trying to define Trumpism for him. And their ideas often seem contradictory. I mean, the most obvious one is the Bannon Musk clash, where Bannon has, I think, said Musk should be deported.

[Anne Applebaum]

Maga versus the tech fascist. Yeah.

[Gideon Rachman]

So if you could, like, briefly describe what are the central battles and who's winning?

[Anne Applebaum]

Well, I mean, almost every policy is a battle. I mean, so immigration is an interesting battle because actually, for people who run really big companies, they want immigrants, and especially they want.

[Gideon Rachman]

And that was the Banon Musk argument.

[Anne Applebaum]

They want educated immigrants who come. There's a special visa for people who have higher education and can be hired in particular for particular jobs by companies. And actually, they wanted that because it's good for their companies and so on. And Bannon was against it because a lot of those people come from places like India, and he doesn't want more people like that in the United States, to be clear about it. And so that's one area. They have different feelings about immigration. They may have different feelings about tariffs. They even have probably different feelings about the US and the world. I mean, there's another battle inside the administration, which is. I mean, this is a cliche, and it probably doesn't. It's probably more nuanced, but, I mean, there's a Rubio faction which wants the US to go on playing a role as a leader of democracies, continues to use that kind of language, wants to strengthen U.S. alliances, at least in some ways. And they're, again, very roughly opposed by a circle of people around J.D. vance who want, really, U.S. withdrawal, who want U.S. troops to come home from Europe. It's still fairly vague. There's a school of thought that said we shouldn't have any US troops in Europe or in Asia, and. And we should focus everything on the Western Hemisphere, which is our home hemisphere. And this is where we should concentrate all of our efforts. And this is, you know, Hexis, for example, sounds like this some of the time. If you remember the famous Signal Chat. Everybody remember the Signal chat. Yeah.

[Gideon Rachman]

Involving your entity.

[Anne Applebaum]

Yeah, My editor. So this was the leaked Signal chat between a group of leaders inside the White House included. Vance was on it, Hexith was on it, and. And others. And it was accidentally and bizarrely leaked to the editor of the Atlantic, who was, I don't know, one of the few people in America who was really genuinely equipped to understand what it was and what they were talking about. But it's how that happened, I'll never fully know, but one of the people were caught up in the scandal of the leak itself. But actually, what was said in the chat was interesting because they were talking about bombing the Houthis, the. The terrorist group in Yemen who are backed by Iran. And, you know, and there was a part of the conversation where I think it was Vance who started it, saying, we shouldn't really be doing this. This is really a European problem. The Europeans should defend these shipping lanes. It's not really up to us. And that, to me, was the most interesting thing about it. I mean, so that they're pushing very hard to pull the US out of as much as possible.

[Gideon Rachman]

Yeah. Okay, we've got about half an hour left, so let's have some questions from the AUDIENCE hi.

[Audience Member 1]

I think we got to it towards the end when we started talking about winning. I've lived in the States and unfortunately during the time of the first Trump. And it strikes to me that this is a man who does like winning and he's quite greedy. It's all about. It strikes me as he likes the grift and he's too chaotic and lacks discipline to create the change on his own. And we know he hasn't changed his own. And it seems to me that it's the architects behind Project 2025 which have really got everyone on their toes to make the change. And what I'd like to know is who you think it is. Is it Teal, is it Vought, is it.

[Anne Applebaum]

Miller?

[Audience Member 1]

What is their end game? What do they want to get out of this? Because he seems to be trying to take the money out the front and they're happy to let him play, but there's something going on behind it.

[Anne Applebaum]

So I think that's basically right. I don't think he's that interested in the future of the US Government or what kind of a political system we have. And there are different, as we've just been discussing, there are different power centers. There's Ros Vought, he wants to change the way the US Government works. There's Stephen Miller, who's very, he's the Trump advisor who has pushed very hard for the creation of ICE as a kind of paramilitary force, has militarized ICE and created a, you know, completely different kind of police that we've never had before. So they have, you know, they have different goals. It's hard for me to look into their hearts and say what it is that they want. But I think you have to assume from what they're doing that what they want is a very different kind of political system, you know, one based on different set of values. Whether it will be a, I don't know, Turkish style competitive authoritarianism, or whether it will be a Christian state, which is what some of them want, when it be more explicitly Christian, favoring Christian people and so on. I can't, I don't know exactly what their end game is, but the instinct is to take apart what exists. And a lot of them have spent a lot of time thinking about where are the weaknesses in the system.

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[Gideon Rachman]

Do you think, I mean, Miller, for example, who I think you rightly brought up. It seems to be very important. I remember again at the Republican convention, people waving these banners saying mass deportation. Now, do you think that's a big driving force really trying to change the demography of the country?

[Anne Applebaum]

So. That's right. So there is a. There is a. Some of them believe. Exactly. I should have said that earlier. There is a. In addition to the people who want the US to be Christian, there are people who want the US to be more white, to put it very bluntly. And so that means deportation. That means changing the rules about who can immigrate to the United States. This has just come up recently, in the last couple weeks, actually changing who can get refugee status. There's now a move to let white South Africans claim refugee status. And there was even. And I didn't know that this was something that was floated, and I don't know what legality it has yet. But Europeans who dislike the migration policies of their countries will be invited to emigrate to the United States.

[Gideon Rachman]

Okay, there you go. That easy? Really?

[Anne Applebaum]

That easy. So anyway, I don't know what the status of that is. That was just something that leaked. But yeah, so the idea is to make it a more white country, a more Christian country, and maybe a country with a different kind of political system. I mean, it's again, nuanced because I don't think even people who voted for Trump thought they were voting against American democracy. I mean, they're not going on stage and mostly saying, we want to destroy the Constitution. Nobody says that, but they are. They're coming quite close in some ways. I mean, so after the march that was held last weekend was called the no Kings march in America, we don't want kings. I was very amused to see there was a British edition of the march that was no tyrants. You have a Very nice. Constitutional monarchs are okay. But one of the administration's responses to that was to put up, create AI pictures of Trump wearing a crown. So kind of.

[Gideon Rachman]

And dropping excrement on the protest.

[Anne Applebaum]

And dropping excrement on the protesters. That was another little video that was made. So they're coming quite close to saying, we don't care what you think, we don't care what voters think. We're gonna do this anyway. And so there are some people who are pushing in that direction. I don't think that there's, as I said, I don't think there's a kind of secret plan with, you know, with an end game that everybody's agreed on, but there are definitely people pushing in a particular direction.

[Gideon Rachman]

Yeah. Gentleman. Just here. And then I'll go to the back next.

[Audience Member 2]

There is the thinking that the MAGA movement might start infighting or they might self destruct, because Marco Rubio has ambitions, JD Vans ambitions. And promp wants a dynasty. He wants one of his sons to succeed him. Do you have any thoughts on that?

[Anne Applebaum]

So it's highly possible that they will quarrel. I suspect they quarrel already. And there will be. Assuming that Trump doesn't dream up some reason to run himself or some way he can run himself, there will be probably quite a bitter contest in three years from now.

[Gideon Rachman]

Do you think the Trump family might have political ambitions? Because, again, that is something that's very, very characteristic of these strongman leaders. The kids come in, I suspect they have ambitions.

[Anne Applebaum]

I mean, whether they could win a primary. I don't know at this point whether Don Jr. Could win. But he clearly has political ambitions. I mean, he appears on political shows, he appears on political podcasts. He has political views that he shares with us. So, no, I think they do. And, yeah, I mean, you could, you could see an argument. I mean, you will see. I mean, it happens. I suppose it's happening behind the scenes already. You will see a dispute. Whether that will end the MAGA movement, I don't know.

[Gideon Rachman]

Yeah. So there go. There's lots of hands. There's one over there. I can see in the light just about.

[Audience Member 2]

We have 39 months more of the Trump administration. So to ask the question to Mr. Applebaum that do you think America, democracy, will survive beyond the 39 months? If so, in what form? And what could be something that finally disgusts Americans? Will it be the blatant corruption, the attacks on democracy itself, or the deprivation of social benefits? So which factors do you think might really lead to the change, if at all?

[Anne Applebaum]

So because of the way that people now get the news because we live in these siloed different compartments. A lot of what we're talking about tonight, many Americans either don't know or have never thought about. So the scale of corruption, for example, I didn't know how many people fully understand it or the little videos we've seen of masked men kidnapping people on the street streets of Chicago. I don't know if most people have seen that or not. The best bet would be when people feel economic crisis or hardship, whether it's from the tariffs, there's a long term decline that will happen. I mean the rule of law, when the rule of law is undermined, it always eventually undermines business, I mean, everywhere and standards of living. But that takes a long time. So I can't predict that that would happen in the next three years. Certainly that will begin to affect people's decisions about whether to invest in the US for example, and that will over time have an impact. But mostly I think, yeah, I think it's the economy in general and maybe more specifically health care. So again, as you may know, we don't have the NHS in the United States and quite a lot of people are about to see their health care premiums go way up because of the big piece of legislation that Trump passed earlier this year. And that will drive home the message to a lot of people that something very different. So I would say those are the things that are most important because not everybody sees other things.

[Mia Sorrenti]

Thanks for listening to Intelligence Squared. This episode was produced by Connor Bole and it was edited by Mark Roberts. For ad free episodes and full length recordings. You can become a [e-mail] membership and to join us at future events, head to intelligencesquared.com attend to see our full live events program. You've been listening to Intelligence Squared. Thanks for joining us.