Loading summary
Transcript71 lines
- [00:00]
A
The developments that we are seeing in
- [00:02]
B
AI, this would be maybe the most
- [00:05]
A
fundamental thing ever really to happen.
- [00:08]
C
What's next for AI and what does
- [00:10]
A
it mean for us?
- [00:12]
C
Values are getting exported through software. We need to have this conversation on how those values get exported.
- [00:18]
A
Join Atlantic CEO Nicholas Thompson for the
- [00:21]
C
most interesting thing in AI, brought to
- [00:23]
A
you by Atlantic Rethink, the Atlantic's creative marketing studio, now on YouTube and wherever you get your podcasts.
- [00:36]
C
One weird thing about last weekend's alleged assassination attempt. I was present at the event. It was very weird, was how it created a new scale of Washington prestige, a litmus test for status. Who was important enough to get whisked away by men in black and who had to fend for themselves. One of the more widely circulated examples was a video of Health and Human Services Secretary RFK Jr boxed in by Secret Service agents and rushed out of the room while his wife, Cheryl Hines, who's famous herself but not Secret Service level famous, stumbles behind him all on her own. And then there was President Trump's take on events.
- [01:23]
D
Well, thank you very much. That was very unexpected at the White
- [01:28]
C
House briefing that evening.
- [01:30]
D
Still in his talks, I've studied assassinations, and I must tell you, the most impactful people, the people that do the most, the people that make the biggest impact, they're the ones that they go after. They don't go after the ones that don't do much because they like it that way. I hate to say I'm honored by that, but I've done a lot. We've done a lot. We have.
- [01:56]
C
Now, usually it's the shooter who interprets the act as a reflection of his status. Like John Hinckley, who attempted to assassinate Ronald Reagan outside that very same Washington hotel 45 years ago to prove to actress Jodie Foster that he was worthy of her.
- [02:13]
B
Good evening. Ronald Reagan, 40th president of the United States, today became the eighth chief executive officer of this country to be the target of an assassin.
- [02:23]
C
But the president is in a very statusy frame of mind these days. Trump apparently has been thinking and talking a lot lately about where he stands in the pantheon of history's great men. Capital G, capital M. And maybe this line of thinking helps explain all the overseas adventuring, the wars, the rounds of international diplomacy. And at home, the monuments, the ballroom, the ark, his face on American passports.
- [02:56]
B
The move comes just weeks after the Treasury Department announced it's adding the president's signature to US Dollar bills.
- [03:03]
C
I'm Hanna Rosen. This is Radio Atlantic. Today on the show, staff writers Ashley
- [03:09]
A
Parker, thanks for having me back.
- [03:10]
C
And Michael Shearer, delighted to, who cover the White House on how Trump has been framing his legacy recently, from grandiose ideas to grandiose architecture, and why he started describing himself as, quote, the most powerful person to ever live. Ashley and Michael wrote a story this week called the YOLO Presidency that starts with a curious question. Was Trump actually reading the famous German philosopher Hegel?
- [03:44]
B
No.
- [03:47]
C
Okay, so maybe not. But this question came up when Ashley had heard from someone close to the president that Trump had begun comparing himself to three particular historical heavy hitters.
- [03:59]
A
Napoleon and Julius Caesar and Alexander the Great. And that's interesting to begin with. And then Michael is talking to someone asking about this, and then we start
- [04:09]
B
asking about it, like, that's a weird thing. We need a second source. Like, let's find out if this is actually happening frequently.
- [04:15]
C
You mean why these three men? Like, how did he come up with this triumvirate?
- [04:19]
B
And is this happening? Is this just happened once? Is this happening all the time? Let's figure out what this is all about. And I talked to somebody else in the administration who says, yeah, he read something, and this person didn't know exactly what it was that he'd read that had mentioned these three people, and that's why he had them in his brain. And then we talked to somebody else who said, well, there was this talk at his golf club about a year ago in which there was a lecture given in his presence in which he. The lecture was about whether or not Trump would be a great man. And these names were mentioned along with Genghis Khan and others. And it was sort of trying to put Trump in a world historical context. And so then, you know, we came back to the office and we started looking, okay, if there's a text that he was given, maybe we can find the text. We didn't know what the text was. Maybe we can find the text. And immediately we find Hagel mentions these three men.
- [05:10]
A
And so then once we're like, we have it. Trump was given Hagel. He read it. Like, that's it. We go to the White House with our theory, and just about every person we talk to laughs us out of town. Right? People say, yes, he has compared himself to these three men, and he is not a Hegel scholar.
- [05:31]
C
Yeah, yeah, Okay. I have talked to my friends who know from Hagel. Hagel is incredibly dense and complicated. You two lovely people went to college, so maybe you are somewhat familiar with that. So in this conversation, we're not actually talking about Hagel. We're talking about? Yeah, we're talking about Hagel as filtered through the mind of Trump. So what did you discover it means to him? Is it just the recitation of these three names? Does it have any other qualities that he's thinking through?
- [06:03]
B
I think the way to explain it is to back out, not to go deeper into these specific three names, because you have to understand the whole of Trump's psychology, the whole history of Trump. The whole history of Trump has been one in which self aggrandizement, making himself the best, the prettiest, the biggest, the most successful, all those things has been his ticket to everything. So he is always, at every step of his career, been about self aggrandizement, about making himself the best of any situation he's in. And he happens to be President of the United States right now. And as we write in the piece, he's in his you only live once moment, his YOLO time. Everyone around him says he's very aware that his life is not going to go on forever, that his presidency is not going to go on forever, that he's trying to do as much as possible. And the defining fact of this term has been he's doing things that are not politically rational, but it makes sense if you're looking at it through a broader frame. And so I think that's where we ended up going with this story. I mean, the Hegel thing is interesting and you don't want to get into the details of it, but I think we should just describe Hegel's theory quickly here. So Hegel, in the early 1800s, gives a series of lectures about world historical individuals. Napoleon has just come on the scene. Hegel's very impressed with Napoleon, and he argues that there's something called the world spirit that sort of drives our progress as a people.
- [07:28]
C
Excellent. That is an excellent summary.
- [07:31]
A
No, and he then says he's not yet done.
- [07:34]
B
Yeah, no, I'm not.
- [07:35]
C
No, no, keep going. Okay.
- [07:37]
B
It is a long form podcast.
- [07:38]
A
I love it.
- [07:39]
C
Yeah, keep going.
- [07:39]
B
So he then says that, you know, there are certain individuals in history, rarely who come along and who tap into that spirit and who are very disruptive in the moment, who, you know, offend the people around him, who do things that are very disruptive, who may even cause violence and wars and things like
- [07:54]
A
that, who do things that society views as morally reprehensible, who are bo enough to trample some flowers. Even if Trump is not a Hegel scholar, these words in many ways apply to modern day Trump.
- [08:07]
C
And your impression is that Trump processed that like, because what that requires processing is the things I'm doing are unpopular. Nobody really likes them. Like, it allows you to create a narrative which includes the American people. Do not like what I'm doing.
- [08:23]
A
No, I do not think Trump read this. I mean, we were told by people close to him and people in the White House, he did not read this. I do not think he processed it the way Michael so aptly summarized it. But what I think Trump liked is to consider himself in the long scope of immortal history. I think that's the part he likes. And another part of our story gets into this idea of him really remaking, physically remaking Washington in his image, all of these physical, tangible things. And that has long been in Trump's deep DNA. Right. He's a developer, but he also, I will add, he was president then, he was out of power for four years, and now he's back in power. And so he saw in those four years how Congress, how a different president, how a different party can undo some of your signature achievements, especially a lot of his, which were not laws that went through Congress. Right. But he understands physical, tangible, if he gets that ballroom built, the next president, no matter how abhorrent they view it, is not going to tear it down again.
- [09:29]
C
Okay, so he's got this big idea, this narrative, which is allowing him to make sense of himself at this moment, however imperfectly. He's understanding the narrative, but he's got it. I do want to talk about some of the real world consequences of that. We'll get to the architecture. But what about what else? Like, how does Iran fit into this? How do the wars and the kind of overseas adventuring, Greenland, for example, like, what are bigger consequence examples of this?
- [09:57]
B
So the 2024 election, which we all lived, was not about remaking Latin America. It was not about resetting the global world order. It was hardly mentioned at all during that campaign. Maybe NATO came up a couple times, but really that election was about the record of Joe Biden and prices. But when Trump gets into office, and we see this initially in his inaugural address, he has much bigger ambitions for his second term than his first term. And it is. I mean, he's referred to it and his advisors have referred to it as sort of a global reset. And so there is a dramatic set of adventures the US has undertaken here. Venezuela supporting elections in Argentina, threatening NATO over Greenland, threatening the Cuban government twice, basically launching bombing raids against Iran, involving himself in a bunch of other global conflicts, trying to cut a deal in Ukraine, that sort of revolution aligned the US government in that war that are very dramatic and very big. And there are things he embraces. I mean, if you remember just a few weeks ago when he was threatening to destroy the civilization of Iran, right before he agrees to a ceasefire, he says in those true socials that this is one of the greatest moments in the history of the world, and that's the level on which he's playing.
- [11:21]
C
A year ago, you talked to Trump in his office. The quote that became the COVID was, I run the country and the world. Does this moment have a slightly different quality? It feels maybe like it has a recognition of mortality, nostalgia. It just feels slightly different. And I'm wondering if I just am reading into that.
- [11:41]
B
I think from his perspective, he comes into office with a hot hand and he's gonna ride it. And that first six months, he had a hot hand. There was really nothing obstructing him. Congress sort of laid down, the courts were moving slowly. They did push back at some times, but they weren't moving quickly. He was dismantling huge parts of the federal government. He's doing all this foreign policy stuff. The Venezuela mission happens in the beginning of January, and that is by all accounts, apparent, really surprising success. I think what's changed now is in the last two, three months, I think his view of himself was the same, but he is now, for the first time in his second term, confronting the limits, the realities of his power. And the Iran war has not gone well. He is sort of in a stalemate here that is clearly hurting economies around the world, including the U.S. including his voters. It's hurting him politically at home. And we're in this new moment of not unlimited potential, and we're gonna see how he responds to that.
- [12:43]
A
But simultaneously, he is unburdened in a way that he has never been before because he will not face the voters personally again. And so there were earlier iter where he would be doing something and his aides could go to him, even if it was on foreign policy or whatever, in his first term, and now and show him domestic political polling, right? And say, if you do this, you're losing your voters, you'll lose this coalition, and they won't elect you president again. And, you know, someone put it to us, they are hoping to get Trump focused on the midterms. They think intermittently he does care. And a senior official said, essentially, God help us, what the final two years will look like when there's truly no guardrails like the midterms terms.
- [13:31]
C
When we come back, I talk to Ashley and Michael about how Trump will shape American politics after he's gone. That's after the break. Let's get into architecture and politics. This is a college class. We'll do Hegel, Architecture and politics. One of the things you both reported on was the details, particularly the interior design and architectural details. Actually. Do you want to just list some of the things that you learned Trump was redesigning?
- [14:13]
A
Sure. I mean, we learned when you mentioned the piece we did in the first year for the Atlantic when we were invited into the Oval Office for an interview, and the first thing Trump says to us is we're sort of walking up to the Resolute desk to shake his hands is, do I do a chandelier? Right. I mean, that is what is on his mind. And I will say the answer was no. He did not do a chandelier because of the weight. It seemed as if the only way to get it, the chandelier, would kind of have to hang directly through the bald eagle's beak on the dome ceiling. So he decided against it. But he has brought in all of these portraits of past presidents. He is gilding essentially everything in the Oval Office that can possibly be gilded. He brought in, you know, as we reported in the Atlantic last year, a copy of the Declaration of Independence, which is supposed to. There was a lot of concern because it is supposed to be kept away from light. And so there's this curtain that they have, but he is always opening the curtain to show it off, because why else do you bring it in but to show it off? And then in this piece we reported, this is a kind of fun detail. It's tiny, but there are these challenge coins that are very big in law enforcement circles that you kind of pass out to people. And Trump is really into them. He has a Presidential challenge coin. It's golden color, about palm size. And he has now begun basically super gluing his challenge coins to the door of the Oval Office. And, you know, one aide told us they expect at some point the entire West Wing to be covered by challenge coins. And then there are the things he is building and doing. So he is now, you know, painting the bottom of the reflecting pool blue. He has tore down the East Wing to build this big ballroom. He wants to build Arc de Trump, as people jokingly call it, a huge 250 foot arc that will basically stand right at the entrance of Arlington National Cemetery. He happens to be president on America's 250th birthday, and he is using that to sort of host a number of Tributes to the country, but really to himself, including a mixed martial arts fight on the South Lawn on his birthday. You know, that will include weigh ins at the Lincoln Memorial and pyrotechnics and light shows. The Mint is putting out a new special coin to commemorate this anniversary with his likeness on it. We just recently found out there may be a new edition of the passport that has Trump on it.
- [16:51]
C
I'm trying to understand the psychology of this. Is it like a small child is walking down the National Mall and 100 years from now and Trump pops into their head in the same way that Roosevelt or George Washington or something pops into the head? What are all these changes about?
- [17:08]
B
There's two ways of answering that. One is the psychology of Trump from the beginning of his career has been consistent. I mean, the Palm Beach Airport, the road going up to Mar a Lago, is now renamed for him. He's trying to get Dulles Airport named after him. I'm sure there will be a lot
- [17:22]
A
of schools, which will also be confusing when you fly from Trump to Trump. Trump to Trump. Yeah, right.
- [17:30]
B
But to go back to the thesis of our story, I mean, what Ashley just described all fits into a world historical frame, like, who makes coins with their faces on them while they're alive? Roman emperors. Who builds arches, victorious arches that started with the Romans. Who puts gold filigree all over all the rooms they're in? That's Louis XIV in France building for Versailles. The innovation here is he's not behaving like an American president. He's behaving like one of these ancient leaders who is going to literally hold a gladiatorial combat celebration on the White House lawn this summer when the UFC comes to do a fight. So I think a lot of this has to do with his own frame and his own conception of himself and his disregard for the modesty that has sort of been traditional in the American presidential history.
- [18:27]
C
Do you think this is anomalous? I think sometimes we have this idea that history builds greatness slowly and in retrospect. But then you read about George Washington, and the hagiography of George Washington was in full swing by the time he dies.
- [18:41]
B
I mean, the tradition is that, like, supporters of the president do that. I mean, Reagan Airport is just across the river here. It was named for Ronald Reagan by his supporters. But I don't think Reagan proposed renaming National Airport after himself. You know, Washington is famous also for. There's a lot of hagiography about him, but he was famous also for saying, this was not about me. Not seeking the presidency. I mean, like, there was a lot of performative stuff he did to sort of broadcast a modesty, to demonstrate the form of government we have. And I think presidents since then, it's not that they're not full of themselves and, you know, self aggrandizing, but they've done it within that context. And Trump is just not interested within
- [19:23]
A
the faux modesty that Americans appreciate and expect, frankly. And then also one I forgot to mention was Trump putting his name on the Kennedy center, which was very offensive to a number of people, including traditional Republicans. But. But I will also say, in certain ways, this is Trump just being who he has always been. Right. Like plastering his name on buildings, whether it's the Kennedy center or Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue, is just being what he does. That's branding for him. And aides have told us that these are also things even before he became president, that he is really in the minutia and in the details of landscaping and tiling. And they told us stories of him looking out the window of the Oval or looking out the window of Mar A Lago and stopping a meeting on an important topic to go outside and say, well, wait a minute, should we move the ceramic a little over here? That tree's bending the wrong way. Let's prune it back this way. This is what he's truly passionate about.
- [20:27]
C
Let's talk about how all this affects upcoming elections. It feels to me, Michael, like this is in lieu of running for a third term, which is something we've talked about him possibly doing.
- [20:39]
B
Yeah, I mean, I've written a story about, you know, some of the liberal fears about a third term and trying to game out what it would look like. But I've never thought the evidence was there that he's moving in that direction. I mean, starting with his top advisors all being consistent that he's not moving in that direction and probably would not support him if he did because it would be unconstitutional. And then going to the fact that he loves to troll. But, yeah, I think his behavior, I mean, there are two things going on there. One is the political end of his career, and the second is he's aware of his age, he's aware of how long he's lived. I mean, we talk in the story about a moment during the transition when Carter's funeral was happening on television, and he sort of looks at the television screen and makes reference to the fact that one day that's gonna be me, too. And I think he's also survived an enormous amount. I Mean, not counting just the assassination attempts, but the. I mean, if he hadn't won the last election, there's a very good chance he would be in jail or at least convicted at this point. I mean, the stakes were very high, and he's come through that, and so I think he wants to do something with it.
- [21:48]
C
All right, now let's get into the midterms. Ashley, I imagine that this version of Trump pulling away and thinking on this mass historical stage is causing chaos and disruption at the election level. So what are your sources say about how he's behaving around the midterms? How interested he is, what he actually cares about?
- [22:07]
A
Yeah, his team, his political team. When we went to war with Iran, and I remember, we, like everyone, we're trying to report on how it happened, what the people around him were saying. One of the first things I heard was that his political team was deeply dismayed. They thought that this would hurt them politically, that their job is to elect Republicans in the midterms and going to war with Iran is not going to help. And this was before Iran realized they could close the street of Hormuz and skyrocket oil prices. And so talk to Republicans, they're unhappy. Right? They wish he was more on message. They wish he was more focused, and more than anything, they wish his policies were helping them politically. Going back to what Michael said earlier, the entire election with Biden was on Biden's fitness and prices and cost of living, and Trump promised to bring those down. Voters believed him. And now, not only have they not come down, but in some cases, you know, the cost of gas has skyrocketed. You know, some of his aides. There does seem to be something where, you know, they almost hope, as if by saying it, they can will it into existence. Right. That, you know, Trump, Trump, Trump is concerned about the midterms. He does care. He is focused on this. You know, there was one recent foreign trip that Trump went on where Susie Wiles, the chief of staff, came back to talk to the press and said, you know, I just wanna let you know this is really gonna be one of the last foreign trips, just because he's so focused on traveling the country and there have been a lot of initiatives of. He's gonna be out there once a week in key swing states, and they have not quite come to fruition.
- [23:45]
C
And Michael, what about his successor? This is just interesting to think of Trump as, like, kind of not so much a factor in the midterms in the next election.
- [23:55]
A
Oh, he'll be a Factor in the next election.
- [23:57]
B
Yeah, I think he's. I don't know whether he's gonna back Vance or Rubio or somebody else, but he, I think, clearly will want to be the kingmaker through that process and will maneuver himself to be that person. And so it'll be a very. Like Trump will oversee that whole nomination process. I think the other thing to mention here is that Democrats are sort of amazed at their luck here. They have been doing focus groups since last year that basically show every time you mention the ballroom, the response of voters, swing voters, is why is he focused on that? Like, why that after the Venezuela operation, even though it was a success, the polls and the focus groups said, wait a minute, why is he doing that? Like, why isn't he worried about me? I elected him to worry about me. I'm hurting here. And then he does Iran on top of it. And mortgage rates were coming down. Now mortgage rates are back up. So there is a clear hit here. And I've been calling around Republican strategists and you'll get different dates. Some will say it's gonna be Labor Day, some will say it's gonna be the beginning of August. What's it that there has to be a dramatic economic pivot or this is gonna be a wipeout?
- [25:08]
C
This is important because what it suggests is that this thing you're reporting on, his framework is actually shaking up a lot of things in the actual world. Like it actually is driving both the next set of elections and the global order and a lot of different things. It's interesting. Okay, so then here is my final speculative. It's speculative question. I'm asking for your opinions here. You can each give one. What's the likelihood that he is correct? That he is in fact a great man of history? Like, he is actually committed. He is a norm defying world historical figure.
- [25:48]
B
Yes. I don't ascribe to Hegel's view that there is this spirit that drives us towards some predetermined destination. But I think if you look and compare President Trump in his two terms to all the other presidents I have lived through, maybe since Reagan, his impact on politics and on the global order is more pronounced. And whether it's more lasting or not, I can't say. I mean, we may be headed into a historical period where whoever comes after Trump is even more disruptive than Trump was. And we look back on it like we look back now at George W. Bush and say, oh, he was just a tame Republican.
- [26:26]
A
I mean, there is even something that's a yes. Okay, so there is even something. I will answer, but there is even something funny happening now with Trump's first term, where you're hearing Democrats sort of, you know, half jokingly, but kind of genuinely pine for the good old golden era of, you know, when all he was doing was changing the route of a hurricane with a Sharpie on a Noah map. Right. Like that. Sort of benign chaos. I will say. You know, Michael says he doesn't subscribe to Hegel's theory. I don't even purport to begin to understand Hegel's theory.
- [27:01]
C
Fair. Fair.
- [27:02]
A
But I think by the definition of someone who is just absolutely upended American and global politics, Trump will be remembered for this 1000%. And regardless of what happens, whether there's a bigger disruptor or the pendulum swings back, you know, the other way wildly, whatever happens will all be in response to really these 12 years of Trump we've lived through, which is another thing. You're limited to two terms. But because Trump lost and came back, he never disappeared. We are essentially going to. His presidency is going to end 12 years of Donald Trump.
- [27:42]
B
Let me propose one other thing that's possible. I don't know if it's going to happen, but if you remember from 2006 to 2008, George W. Bush was really an afterthought. He was sort of like the heel of every political joke. He didn't have power. He wasn't doing anything. Democrats were on the move, Republicans were in retreat. It is possible that a year from now, we can gather around this table again and look back at this moment as a real pivot point too do. It's not that Trump will change. It's that his ability to exercise power could dramatically diminish going forward. And that's because politics does matter in this country. He is incredibly unpopular right now. The midterm elections will happen. The Supreme Court recently threw out his tariffs. There's other cases that he looks like he's going to lose going to the Supreme Court. And once he becomes a lame duck in those last two years, it's possible the Republican Party will start looking out for itself again in a way it just has not been able to. And so he could lose a lot of allies. And so we don't really know how this story's gonna end. And I think I just wanna leave that open there.
- [28:47]
A
Then the flip side is, if Michael is right, the president could also essentially begin playing on tilt. Right. Republicans are distancing themselves from him, and suddenly Canada becoming a 51st state looks a lot more appealing.
- [29:03]
C
Right. Okay. So chaos. Ashley, Michael, thank you for joining us.
- [29:09]
A
Thanks for having us.
- [29:14]
C
This episode of Radio Atlantic was produced by Janae West. It was edited by Kevin Townsend, Erica Huang engineered and Sam Fentress fact checked. We had music by Rob Smirciak and Breakmaster Song. Claudina Baid is the executive producer of Atlantic Audio, and Andrea Valdez is our managing editor. Listeners, if you enjoy the show, you can support our work and the work of all Atlantic journalists when you subscribe to The Atlantic. At theatlantic.com listener, I'm Hanna Rosen. Thank you for listen.