The David Frum Show — "Why Do Billionaires Go Crazy?"

Original Air Date: June 25, 2025
Host: David Frum
Guest: Tina Brown
Produced by: The Atlantic

Episode Overview

This episode confronts two seismic topics: the political implications of the United States' sudden military strike on Iran under President Trump, and a deep-dive conversation with Tina Brown on the psychological and social roots of billionaire eccentricity and the transformation of American public life. The show explores why extreme wealth distorts personality, how power affects leaders’ sanity, the role of culture in shaping aspirations, and the loss of charismatic leadership in today's political landscape.

Part 1: David Frum’s Monologue on War, Democracy, and Dilemmas for Principled Conservatives

(00:38–14:27)

• Context: New War in the Middle East

• The US has struck Iran’s nuclear program in support of Israel, under President Trump, moving the country into a new era of military conflict.
• Frum recorded the conversation with Tina Brown prior to these events. He addresses the audience specifically in the context of this new reality.

• Dilemma of the Center-Right and Never Trump Conservatives

• Frum grapples with the fact that Trump, a president he views as unfit and anti-democratic, has finally taken a decisive action (the Iran strike) that aligns with traditional principles of American leadership—principles that Frum himself supports.

“A president whom we fear and reject … has this one time done something in line with established Republican values, established conservative principles, established principles of American leadership...” (02:28)

• The Dangers Ahead

• Frum warns of the expansion of presidential and emergency powers in wartime, particularly in the hands of someone like Trump.

“If the powers that Donald Trump has asserted in peacetime were unprecedented and large, think of what he will do during war.” (04:43)

• Fears increased attacks on due process, suppression of free speech, and abuse of government powers.

• Moral Ambiguity: The James Thurber Parable

• Frum reads and reflects on a James Thurber story: “You might as well fall flat on your face as lean over too far backwards.”
• He uses this to illustrate the need for balance: not letting mistrust of Trump cloud necessary support for decisive action when warranted, nor being blinded to Trump’s ongoing dangers.

“We don't want to let our mistrust of Trump … lead you to reject this very necessary shutdown of the Iranian nuclear program...” (11:07)

Part 2: Tina Brown on Billionaires, Power, and the American Psyche

(14:27–45:10)

1. Introduction & Anecdotes

• David Frum introduces Tina Brown, recounting her legendary career across major publications and their personal history—including her unique "management secrets." (14:27-16:48)

“...she offered me a job ... and she said, and name your price. … And Tina, you then said, would you consider Y, Y being $10,000 a year more than X?” — Frum, (16:35)

2. Why Do Billionaires Go Crazy?

• Private Planes & Social Isolation
  • Tina Brown theorizes that luxury—especially access to private planes—'breaks' people, detaching them from normal life and fueling entitlement and delusion.

  “Once they've experienced this, they can never go back. … It sort of starts to dominate the life.” — Brown (18:00)

  • Corporate negotiations and social lives revolve around retaining this luxury.
• The Billionaire Bubble
  • Mergers, corporate settlements often hinge on “the social issues”—mainly, private plane access.
  • Even presidents miss their 'wings': “Obama won’t even kind of cross the road without a private plane at this point.” (19:46)

3. The Madness of Digital Age Wealth

• Size of Digital Fortunes
  • The sheer scale of 21st-century digital fortunes surpasses past riches, driving envy and instability among even the wealthy.

  “A billion dollars is no longer a sort of an attainment. It's got to be double digit billions to feel that you're remotely in that class...” — Brown (22:20)

• Social Media & Billionaire Resentment
  • Despite unimaginable wealth, billionaires crave status on social platforms—envying journalists’ followers and blue checkmarks.

  “When they've made unimaginable amounts of money ... what do they want to do? They want a shit post on Twitter.” — Frum (23:51)

  • The Elon Musk “blue checkmark revolution” is cited as an ego-driven disaster. (24:15)

4. Effects of Wealth on Relationships & Self-Perception

• Money Changes Social Dynamics
  • A billionaire friend describes the real pivotal change: not how money changed him, but “it changed them”—meaning, how others suddenly want things from the rich.

  “Now everyone I meet wants something from me...which is not just my conversation, my company ... it's, I really want you to give me money...” — Brown (25:11)

• Billionaires and Expertise
  • Billionaires tend to dismiss real experts if they don’t share their wealth-based status, leading to dangerous, uninformed decisions (Trump as prime example).

  “You got the world's leading expert on gravity in front of you … Nonsense. You don't have a billion dollars, your opinion is not worth hearing!” — Frum (28:26)

5. The Erosion of Talent Empires

• Lasting Damage of Leadership Disdain
  • Scientific and creative talent lost during a hostile administration may never fully return (“You don't just blow a whistle and say, okay, Trump era is over. Come back, reassemble...it’s very hard to rebuild them.” — Brown, 29:34)

6. Donald Trump’s Transformation: From Fun to Vindictive

• Trump’s Earlier Persona
  • Brown and Frum jointly recall Trump as once entertaining and “fun”—a brash, comic New York character.
• Descent into Darkness
  • Turning points: business reversals and media ridicule, particularly Obama roasting Trump at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner.

  “I saw his kind of neck go from, you know, salmon to sort of flaming magenta ... there’s a real wound in Trump when it comes to humiliation.” — Brown (33:54)

• Trump’s Political Evolution
  • Trump channeled personal grievance into a political movement, exploiting the humiliation his base felt at the hands of elites.

7. The Triumph of Entertainment Culture in Politics

• Change in Aspirations and Star Power
  • Trump’s family projected aspirational star power—an “entertainment culture” replacing substantive leadership.
  • Brown argues that entertainment value is now more important than policy expertise or even decency for political success.
• The Scarcity of True Political Charisma
  • Brown laments the lack of current American political figures with “real charisma” outside of rare cases like Yulia Navalnaya—contrasting with Bill Clinton or even past international figures.
  • Star power is essential: “If you can't get up there and get that room, you know, magnetized, just don't even consider it.” (41:54)

8. The Illusion of the “Private Self”

• Frum points out the fallacy that a political leader’s private decency matters if their public persona is dishonest or harmful.

“If, in your public role, you have behaved in an unethical way ... that's who you are, not the person in private.” — Frum (42:30)

9. The Performative Age and Real Heroism

• The demands of modern leadership: must be a skilled media performer, but also have genuine courage and “see things” as a journalist or leader.
• Brown’s wisdom:

“I can teach you to write a lead, I can teach you to write an ending, I can teach you how to edit, but I can't teach you to see.” — Brown (44:23)

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Presidential Authority in Wartime:
  “A presidency that was dangerous before becomes more dangerous still.” — Frum (06:14)
• On Private Planes as Corrupting Influence:
  “There is no one that I wouldn’t bribe, betray, sleep with to be freed from the armpit of mass transit.” — Brown (18:19)
• On the Social Costs of Extreme Wealth:
  “It wasn't that money changed me, it changed them.” — Brown (25:14)
• On Billionaire Frustration with Social Status:
  “He looks at your 525,000 followers and says, that guy, guy, he's the problem.” — Frum (24:02)
• On the Shift to Entertainment Culture:
  “This is an entertainment culture. So if you can't get up there and get that room magnetized, just don't even consider it.” — Brown (41:50)

Key Timestamps

• 00:38–14:27 — Frum’s monologue: U.S. at war, the Trump conundrum, Thurber’s parable
• 14:27–17:42 — Frum’s introduction of Tina Brown and her management “secret”
• 17:42–20:44 — Brown on private planes and how they transform billionaires
• 20:44–23:48 — How Covid, social media, and digital fortunes have created new forms of madness among the super-rich
• 24:49–26:35 — The power of social status, public envy, and billionaires’ fixation on profile and respect
• 28:26–29:34 — Trump, expertise, and the cost of disregarding institutions and talent
• 31:35–36:54 — Trump’s shift from “fun” to grievance, the psychology behind his transformation
• 36:54–39:09 — Politics as entertainment, star power, and cultural aspiration
• 39:09–45:10 — The scarcity of charisma, performative leadership, heroism, and “the ability to see”

Tone

The tone is both intellectual and irreverent—a mixture of serious warning (Frum on Trump and wartime powers), psychological insight (Brown on billionaires), cultural critique, and dry humor (discussions of private planes, media/worldly status, “shitposting” billionaires).

Summary for Non-Listeners

David Frum opens by wrestling with the paradox facing never-Trump conservatives: supporting a necessary act of American leadership (the Iran strike) executed by a dangerous president. With clear-eyed realism, he warns of the risks of expanded executive power during wartime and the enduring threat posed by Trump to democratic norms. He counsels his audience not to lose sight of either truth: the rightness of decisive action and the ongoing peril of unfit leadership.

In conversation, Tina Brown offers biting, first-hand observations about the billionaire psyche. She sees the private jet as a key corrupting force, detaching the super-rich from accountability and reality. The digital era, she argues, has created fortunes so colossal they destabilize even the wealthy, turning mild-mannered CEOs into paranoid, status-obsessed eccentrics. Brown and Frum agree that many billionaires, for all their riches, are consumed by envy—especially of journalists and public figures with more influence or followers online.

Brown laments the cultural shift toward entertainment over substance in American political life. The charismatic star power that once propelled figures like Bill Clinton is vanishing, leaving a vacuum where serious, media-savvy, and genuinely heroic leaders are more needed than ever. She warns that performative skills and public perception now outweigh real talent or expertise.

The episode is as much a window into the pathology of power as it is a reflection on the dangers and opportunities in American democracy at a moment of grave uncertainty.

End of summary.