Raging Moderates: Why Progressives Won’t WIN in the 2026 Midterms (ft. David Frum)

Summary

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The Prof G Pod with Scott Galloway

Episode: Raging Moderates: Why Progressives Won’t WIN in the 2026 Midterms (ft. David Frum)
Date: October 22, 2025
Guests: Jessica Tarlov (Host), David Frum (The Atlantic)

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Overview

This episode of “Raging Moderates” explores why Democrats may struggle to win the 2026 midterm elections, the pitfalls of current messaging strategies, the political repercussions of Trump’s foreign policy in the Caribbean, and the challenges of candidate authenticity and party branding. Jessica Tarlov sits in for Scott Galloway and is joined by political journalist David Frum for a nuanced, centrist analysis grounded in realpolitik and a sharp sense of humor.

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Key Discussion Points

1. Democrats’ “Always Running Against Trump” Strategy

Time: 03:23–11:58

• Current Approach: Democrats continue to campaign against Trump even a year after losing the White House, focusing messaging on his unpopularity and autocratic tendencies.
• Effectiveness:
  • Frum argues that in midterms, running against the sitting president is logical, especially when the president is unpopular, citing, “Of course, you run against the President. Who would say otherwise?” (06:00)
  • He critiques Democrats’ fixation on needing a unified "affirmative message," suggesting it's often used by progressives to justify controversial candidates: “What is going to happen in 2016 if Americans are allowed to vote? … You’ve got a coalition here that spans Bernie Sanders to Ann Romney … the affirmative message is for the presidential election.” (09:14)

2. The Electorate and Winning Candidate Profiles

Time: 10:27–13:39

• Who Wins?: Moderate candidates—especially economically moderate, socially moderate/liberal—tend to succeed in swing districts. The narrative that only progressive candidates have energy is overstated.
• Shifts in Voter Appetite:
  • Jessica observes: “Candidates that are economically progressive and socially moderate, or even conservative, are doing well.”
  • Frum notes Democratic flexibility in midterms, allowing races to be tailored to local dynamics: “There is no formula … The analysis is: different things work in different places.” (12:33)

3. Messaging, Class Warfare, and the Role of Government

Time: 13:39–18:20

• Democratic Challenges:
  • Frum points out progressives’ penchant for class war rhetoric, cautioning, “It’s not gonna work through class war and antagonism. It’s gonna work through mechanics of bureaucracy in government.” (16:23)
  • Jessica underscores bumper-sticker simplicity: “You ask a Democrat, up to party leadership, what are the slogans—he’ll speak for 20 minutes. It has to go on a bumper sticker.” (16:59)

4. Trump’s Secretive Caribbean Campaign and Executive Overreach

Time: 21:25–32:49

• New Military Operations: Trump orders US naval strikes against suspected drug boats, mostly targeting those carrying cocaine or marijuana bound for Europe, yet not fentanyl heading to the US.
• Diplomatic Fallout:
  • Officials in Colombia and Venezuela decry civilian casualties, and Trump faces accusations of murder from Colombia's president.
  • Frum contextualizes: This is a “less dangerous” proxy for hawkish ideas floated by Trump allies about military actions in Mexico. It still undermines US credibility: “If you’re actually killing fishermen and it looks like the United States is, that’s a moral reckoning.” (25:18)
• Executive Power: The strikes exemplify Trump’s disregard for congressional authorization and balance of powers, with Tarlov calling it “basically a unitary state.” Rand Paul emerges as one of the few Republicans publicly pushing back.
• Policy Ineffectiveness: Frum relates historical anecdotes (re: Daniel Patrick Moynihan and George Shultz) to stress the futility of supply-side drug policy: “Blow up the boats. It’s going to accomplish nothing.” (30:46)

5. Candidate Authenticity: The Graham Platner Scandal

Time: 35:14–41:17

• Controversy: Graham Platner, a Bernie-backed Senate candidate in Maine, apologizes for offensive historic Reddit posts. The party is divided between “authentic” progressives and establishment-backed Governor Janet Mills.
• Authenticity vs. Accountability:
  • Frum doubts the sincerity of post-hoc contrition: “If you take responsibility after someone else finds you out, I don’t think you took responsibility. Accountability begins with you being the first to say…” (36:09)
  • Tarlov notes Gen Z and Millennials may face more “online baggage,” and that voters’ appetite for forgiveness is highly selective.

6. Gerontocracy: The Problem of Aging Leaders

Time: 41:17–46:19

• Aging Leadership: Democrats face a “gerontocracy” challenge—with both Platner’s and Mills's candidacies highlighting generational divides.
• Consequences: Frum ties aging in leadership to unintended shifts in governance, using Biden as an example: “Biden ran in 2020 as the last candidate of the Democratic center … When he became president, his age caught up with him and he was too feeble to resist the Democratic left.” (43:39)

7. School Closures and Repercussions from Covid Policy

Time: 44:54–48:00

• The School Debate: The episode highlights how school closures during COVID-19 became a pivotal political liability for Democrats, especially in suburban and swing areas.
• Long-Term Cultural Issues: Frum: “We think about little kids [missing class], but there are lots of people on the cusp of dropping out … And many of them got into trouble with the law. The spate of carjackings here in Washington …” (46:19)
• Tarlov: “Learning loss is astounding … smart Democrats are working on programs, like tutoring, to make up for that.” (46:33)

8. The Value of Public Service

Time: 49:22–49:52

• Frum’s Parting Encouragement: “State assembly, state senate, school board, city government—these are all intensely important callings. … Every job matters.” (49:22)

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Memorable Quotes

• David Frum

  • “Of course, you run against the President. Who would say otherwise?” (06:00)
  • “There is no formula … The analysis is: different things work in different places.” (12:33)
  • “It’s not gonna work through class war and antagonism. It’s gonna work through mechanics of bureaucracy in government.” (16:23)
  • “If you take responsibility after someone else finds you out, I don’t think you took responsibility.” (36:09)
  • “Blow up the boats. It’s going to accomplish nothing.” (30:46)

• Jessica Tarlov

  • “Are you a baseball fan? Because your Blue Jays won the pennant last night.” (02:11)
  • “You ask a Democrat … what are the slogans? … He’ll speak for 20 minutes. It has to go on a bumper sticker.” (16:59)
  • “Learning loss is astounding … We need real accountability and transparency.” (46:33)

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• Opening Banter, Introduction: 01:23–03:23
• Democratic Messaging & Trump Focus: 03:23–11:58
• Moderate vs. Progressive Candidates: 10:27–13:39
• Party of Government vs. Class Warfare: 13:39–18:20
• Trump’s Caribbean Operations: 21:25–32:49
• Candidate Authenticity & Platner Scandal: 35:14–41:17
• Gerontocracy & Its Consequences: 41:17–46:19
• Covid, Schools, & Political Fallout: 44:54–48:00
• Final Thoughts on Public Service: 49:22–49:52

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Notable Moments

• Baseball Banter: Light opening between Tarlov and Frum about the Blue Jays’ win, highlighting the episode’s casual yet incisive tone. (02:11–03:23)
• Historical Anecdote: Frum’s story about Moynihan and Shultz illustrates the futility of drug interdiction efforts—but with wit. (29:21–30:46)
• Frum’s “Dark Joke” on Political Aging: “If Ruth Bader Ginsburg had smoked, the whole history of this country would be different.” (42:09)
• Candidacy in the Digital Age: Tarlov’s musings on how candidate opposition research will change now that an entire generation has grown up online.

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Conclusion

Jessica Tarlov and David Frum engage in a sharp, lively conversation, challenging simplistic narratives about party strategy, progressive enthusiasm, and the realities of governance. By dissecting campaign tactics, the dangers of executive power, and the nature of authenticity in modern politics, they paint a complex—but ultimately hopeful—picture of the American political center.

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Transcript

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[Jessica Tarlov]

Welcome to Raging Moderates. I'm Jessica Tarlov. Scott is out today, but we have a fantastic replacement, someone that Scott is actually obsessed with. So it's always good when that works out. I have the Atlantics David from here. David, it's so good to have you.

[David Frum]

Thank you. I didn't know I had this virtual relationship with Scott.

[Jessica Tarlov]

Oh, he has a virtual relationship with a lot of people. And he tells me. Well, he says it publicly. But if you don't listen to every Scott podcast, which frankly would require you to quit your job and only consume Scott Galloway content, you would know that he uses your line from your 2019 piece, if liberals won't enforce borders, fascists will.

[David Frum]

Yes.

[Jessica Tarlov]

Constantly.

[David Frum]

So. All right, well, thank you. I'm honored. Okay.

[Jessica Tarlov]

Oh, if you're uncomfortable with the praise, I can move on to.

[David Frum]

No, I'll.

[Jessica Tarlov]

You want more?

[David Frum]

Oh, pshaw.

[Jessica Tarlov]

Are you a baseball fan? Because your Blue Jays won the pennant last night.

[David Frum]

So my son is a Blue Jays obsessive.

[Jessica Tarlov]

Okay.

[David Frum]

And this has actually been a kind of. My late father was a sports fan and I was such a disappointment to him. So I would go to games and read a book and it just broke his heart. But God has judgments in store for people who break their father's heart, which is my son. I have three children, but my son was a sports fan and I had to take him. And with your son, you can't read a book. Isn't this great, dad? Oh, yeah. Loving every uncountable second of this unending spectacle. Anyway, he is so into the Blue Jays. He is so crazy about this. So, yeah, big day.

[Jessica Tarlov]

Yeah. My favorite line about it, I'm not a tremendous baseball fan, but I was thinking about, you know, we've never met, we just messaged a little bit. So how can I connect with David Frum in the banter section? So I was like, oh, Blue Jays, you're from Toronto. But it's the first time that we'll have a World Series with teams from two cities that the president has threatened to invade. That was my favorite commentary on the situation.

[David Frum]

That's very good. If the Blue Jays win, the United states becomes the 11th province. I think that's that there should be a little, like, action on the table.

[Jessica Tarlov]

Is that how it works?

[David Frum]

I think. I think that should be how it works.

[Jessica Tarlov]

Yeah. I'm sure Carney has something funny going for how he'll react. I think we nailed it in the banter section. So I'm going to get into the. The meat of the pod. In today's episode of Raging Moderates, we're going to talk about why Democrats are still running against Trump, why Trump is creating chaos for our Southern neighbors. And we're checking in on Graham Platner's race and his controversial Reddit posts.

[David Frum]

Yeah.

[Jessica Tarlov]

So it has been nearly a year since Democrats lost the White House. I'm still sad, but you wouldn't know it from watching their campaign ad. From Virginia to New Jersey to California, candidates are still running hard against Donald Trump, warning voters that the Republican opponents are just extensions of the presidency. Strategy may fire up the base, and it looks like it does based on this weekend's no Kings protest. But critics say at risk sounding stale at a time when voters are looking for something more forward looking. I want to start with Democrats strategy right now. What do you make of the, you know, running against Trump all the time approach?

[David Frum]

Well, can I just say something as someone who does this for a living.

[Jessica Tarlov]

Yes.

[David Frum]

About the construction of the New York Times story that we're talking about. So there you are, a Democratic pollster going about your business, polling for mayors and governors and so on. And the New York Times calls up and they say, what do you think about the future? What do you think the Democratic message should be. And maybe you're caught off guard and maybe you don't want to give away stuff for free. So you say, I think elections are about the future, the most anodyne, boring, meaningless thing. And I think the Democrats need an affirmative message as they campaign for the future. So that's all you've said. You've said nothing. But the New York Times reporter who's responding to different constituencies that say, you know this guy Graham Platner, you progressives foisted on the party, he's a disaster, and you shouldn't have done that. So what you do is you take the completely anodyne quote from the Democratic pollster and you plug it into a story that is to say, my progressive friends who foisted Graham Platner on the party and Mamdani and all the others, that was not a disaster. That was a good idea. Because you see, elections need to be about the future. So you don't have an evidentiary basis. It's a pure opinion piece of a kind that you're seeing in some progressive places. Because Graham Platner was a disaster. And they're trying to build this into something. And when you sort of add up the article, you think, okay, Donald Trump is the President of the United States. He's a president who said he intends unconstitutionally to stay for a third term if he possibly can. He completely controls his party. He's raising taxes without Congress. He's imposing spending without Congress. He's demolishing the White House without permission from Congress. He's quite unpopular. There are important races head in Virginia, New Jersey and New York soon, and they're midterms that may or may not be free and fair next year. Of course, you run against the president. Who would say otherwise? And the only people who say otherwise are the people trying to convince their nervous followers that Graham Platner was not a disaster.

[Jessica Tarlov]

Well, I definitely want to get into the Grand Platner of it all, but in the piece that we're talking about. So this was Shane Goldmacher's big piece from. It was published on the 19th, and it was one of the articles that was most texted around, I would say, in Democratic circles. And it, I think part of it was that it came off of the high of the no Kings protest, which felt like, hey, we're alive. And then Shane was like, not really, or like, you're alive, but you've been saying the same thing on loop. And I totally get your point that when you have an opponent that is so unpopular and there are so many different things, threads to his unpopularity that you could pick at that it's smart to run against it. But Shane also had spoken to Chris La, who's Donald Trump's pollster, who said that this was a one dimensional strategy.

[David Frum]

And wait a minute. Donald Trump's pollster thought it was not a good idea for Democrats to run against Donald Trump.

[Jessica Tarlov]

No, no, no, no, don't.

[David Frum]

Oh, okay. I guess we should follow your advice, sir.

[Jessica Tarlov]

There is more to this. Like isn't that they figured out something that we. And I have listened to many interviews with Chris lisavita and some of it I find super annoying and detestable. And some of it I think like he got something that we didn't. And I'm not saying that we won't. Democrats won't win the midterms. I'm not saying that special elections haven't been going in our direction. But there are a lot of people who voted for Donald Trump in 2024 who gave him a shot again. Right. Who voted for him in 2016, then Biden 2020 and went back.

[David Frum]

Yeah.

[Jessica Tarlov]

And also I'm thinking about younger people where the same kind of messaging doesn't resonate. They actually do need a positive view of what the future is going to look like or candidates that are talking about something that feels different from Donald Trump has autocratic tendencies.

[David Frum]

Can I dissent from that? It's not just the autocratic.

[Jessica Tarlov]

That's why you're here.

[David Frum]

Okay. So once there is a Democratic nominee for president, that individual person will need an individual person's message. That's a bit off. What is upcoming are the 2026 elections, which may or may not be free and fair. And I keep saying that. And people say, yeah, yeah, but like that's a really important *.

[Jessica Tarlov]

JB Pritzker was here a couple weeks ago saying the same thing.

[David Frum]

But if they are free and fair, the Democrats will not win those elections. Trump will lose them and there will not. There cannot be a message because the message that works in one place is not the message that works in another place. And one of the reasons the out party does well in midterms is the out party has the possibility to run different races in different places, whereas the in party has to run the same race everywhere. So if you're a Republican anywhere, you have to defend the tariffs, you have to defend Americans being forced to pay more for everything. You have to defend Trump raising taxes without permission of Congress, you have to defend the spending, you have to defend the wars in the Caribbean you have to defend everything. But if you're on the other side, you can attack where your constituents are most likely to be impressed by the line of attack. And you can emphasize different parts of the incumbent's record. When people try to sell you a vision of you need an affirmative message in a midterm election, what they're usually trying to do is bootstrap into the party discussion an argument that would not succeed on its merits. I mean, the no Kings rally demonstrated, you know, who is very responsive to the anti Trump message. Not super ideological middle of the road boomers who normally. Alex B. Keaton. Remember him?

[Jessica Tarlov]

I do.

[David Frum]

He was at the no Kings rally. I'm sure he's a fictional character, but he was there with his wife and daughters and they're very upset about different. He's upset about the tariffs and the Weiss.

[Jessica Tarlov]

These are your NPR listeners, right?

[David Frum]

That's not so much npr. These are your Atlantic subscribers, actually. These are the people who vote in for pta. These are the people who show up all the time. These are people who don't move around that much, who have homes. That is your midterm electorate. And it's not that progressive. And so a lot of the progressive energy in the party is trying to bootstrap. Well, we need an affirmative message. Here's an affirmative message. Let's do this. When in fact, what is going to happen in 2016 if Americans are allowed to vote? They're going to vote. Some will vote against the tariffs and some will vote against the the wars in the Caribbean, and some will vote against the autocratic tendencies, and some will vote against the mass roundup and detentions and everybody will have their own reasons. And you've got a coalition here that spans Bernie Sanders to Ann Romney, and you have to talk to all of them and get them all motivated. And the affirmative message is for the presidential election when you have an individual person who can make individual decisions.

[Jessica Tarlov]

Okay, I'm putting Chris Lavita aside. You've made him no longer relevant. But you did say something about how the no Kings crowd. No, I listen. This is fun. This is like lively right off the bat. You know, sometimes when you meet a new podcast friend, you don't know how it's going to go, but I'm thoroughly enjoying it so far. This feels not quite like the Five, but we're alive this morning, which is great. And you said something about how the no Kings crowd wasn't that progressive and there was a big look into the candidates who have been winning their elections that the Times did pretty graphics as well. And they were emphasizing how it's usually the moderate candidates that end up winning these elections. And one of the things that came out of it that flies a bit in the face of what people had been thinking for a long time is that it's actually the economically progressive and socially moderate or even socially conservative candidates that are doing well. It had always been, at least for me, in kind of the circles that I run in, this idea that you had to be socially liberal and more fiscally conservative in order to win votes. But that doesn't seem to be the case anymore. If you look at like a Ruben go. And the way that he talks, right, he's unabashedly, you know, Medicare for all tax, the billionaires always talking about corporate greed. John Ossoff is doing the same thing. And you're seeing that all over the country. But then they're shying away from being as socially liberal as certainly the reputation for the party has been. What do you make of that? Do you think that is the secret sauce to Democrats being able to win?

[David Frum]

We're talk in congressional elections. It depends where. So that's not Abigail Spanberger's formula. That's not the formula in New Jersey. That's not Lizzie Fletcher's formula in Texas. 7. So in 2018, Democrats made their breakthroughs in House elections in places that were kind of upscale. I keep pointing out in 2018, they won what had been George H.W. bush's district that had not gone Democratic since before the civil rights era. They won Newt Gingrich's district that had not gone democratic since the 70s. They run Eric Cantor's district, and in every one of those cases, they were winning with economically moderate women who are mildly socially liberal Bizats. Those are affluent areas where that message worked. And so the whole point to a midterm election is if you're the out party, you get to be flexible. And there is no formula. And I think what happens is I think a lot of. There are a lot of Democratic strategists who don't just want to win, but they want to win a certain way. And they start with, we need an economically progressive message. How do we do that? Well, normally, economically progressive messages are quite hazardous and even toxic. But it may be if you find someone with plaid shirts and tattoos, then you can sell an economically progressive message. But I think, like, who's pushing this? Is this truly an analysis of where your district is, or is this something you want to do anyway and you're looking for a way to get it done. And I don't. Look, people have come into politics because they have views. I don't criticize that. But you should always be, when you're talking to consumers of information, be clear in your own mind and be clear to them what is advocacy and what is analysis. And the analysis is different things work in different places. And there are a lot of places that are going to be on the map in 2026 where economically moderate and socially moderate is going to be the formula and where the attempt to have one more go at the Bernie Sanders campaign is going to not work.

[Jessica Tarlov]

Yeah, that's. I mean, I've kind of felt, I have a bit of a. It's like a 10 year bone to pick with Bernie Sanders, basically. And I feel like he gets a free pass for a lot of the things that he advocates for. And also in the age discussion. And we're going to talk about Graham Platner and Janet Mills towards the end of the show. But yes, Bernie Sanders politics obviously don't work everywhere. But as someone who works in conservative media, I know how important it is that you have the branding right for the party. So, yes, everybody goes out and they run their races. And the people who are running races that don't fit the stereotype of AOC or Bernie Sanders, they get ignored by the right. Like, no one wants to talk about Pat Ryan. Yeah, right. That's very boring. They want to talk about Bernie and AOC and Graham Platner. So I'm thinking of this from a communication standpoint as well as the practical kind of on the ground of how you're doing it. And that's why I think I was drawn to this idea of really emphasizing how much you can have a through fair argument about, you know, pushing back on the quote, unquote oligarchy, if you want to use Bernie's terms about it, but making sure that you are not as socially liberal as Democrats have been in the past.

[David Frum]

Yeah, well, you definitely look if socially. What does socially liberal mean? The Democratic weak points are crime, immigration, and to a lesser degree, trans. And those are not messaging problems because being soft on crime in particular was the great unifying message of the Democratic Party from 2014. The carceral state defund. The police was maybe on the extreme edge, but there are lots of people who wanted to release people out of prisons. And indeed there were something like, I now forget the exact number of reductions in the number of persons held in prisons, but it was measured with six digits, not five. So that was a real problem because Crime went. I remember writing about this for the Atlantic in 2014, saying Democrats are making a huge gamble here. And look, 2014 is one of the low points in crime in the United States. There's nothing wrong with making a little experiment. What if you reduce incarceration a little, but you don't, on a gamble and a hunch and a whim, reduce it massively all at once. Because then you're going to get a crime wave as indeed followed, partly because of the pandemic, but continuing after. But one more thing that needs to be said about the Bernie Sanders problem. Look, Democrats are the party of the state, they're the party of government. They have things they want to do. And if they are the party of government, you have to elect people who know what they're talking about. Now if you're the party of the anti state, then it doesn't matter. Then you can elect all kinds of Ron Johnson types who don't know how anything works because you're not trying to make something work. But if you're trying to make things work, you need politicians who understand how things work. You need responsible people. And I think there's a lot of chafing that Democrats look at Republicans and have envy and say, well, why can't we have our own Ron Johnson? Like why can't we have one of those fools? Well, you could if you didn't want to run the state, but since you do, you'd better get into someone who knows how things work. And that's the problem with the oligarchy message. There's nothing wrong with saying if you're, I mean, I'm not a social Democrat, but I'm not a liberal. But if you were, you know, we want to have a more redistributive, nothing wrong with that. How would it work? And you know what? It's not gonna work through class war and antagonism. It's gonna work through mechanics of bureaucracy in government. And you better understand them and better understand what the trade offs are and what kind of revenue measures work and what kind are going to be counterproductive. You need a real concern for the mechanics of government if you're going to be a Democrat.

[Jessica Tarlov]

Well, that doesn't fit on a bumper sticker. And that's something that we struggle with constantly. You know, you ask a Democrat, you know, even to up to the leadership of the party, like Takim Jeffries, you know, what are the slogans? And he's like, you know, speaks for 20 minutes or something and you say no, it has to go on a bumper sticker, right? Like, no tax on tips, build a wall. And Ruben Gallego in particular. I'm on a Ruben Gallego trip right now, so be warned for the rest of the podcast. But he was talking about how damaging equity, or the concept of economic equity has been to the party and that people don't hate the rich. They want to be rich themselves. Or they at least want to be able to buy a home and a big effing truck. That was his messaging. And I was like, we could run on let's get a big effing truck. I think for sure.

[David Frum]

Yeah. I mean, look, everyone runs on the same slogan in every election. More for you. That's everybody's slogan. And then the question is, what is more? And who's you? And that's where the footnotes come in. And then the question is, well, why haven't you got more? And the different parties have different explanations, but it's just, look, the Republicans have a structural problem, which is Americans care a lot about healthcare. And what does the Republican answer on healthcare less for you?

[Jessica Tarlov]

Yeah.

[David Frum]

So the Democratic fate is they are the party of governance, and that means they have less room to nominate people who don't care about governance.

[Jessica Tarlov]

We do. We need to do some change, I think, in that reputation. But overall, you're right, which is a pretty consistent theme with you. And we're gonna take a quick break and then we're gonna talk about wars in the Caribbean.

[David Frum]

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[Jessica Tarlov]

Welcome back. Trump says he's taking the fight to quote narco terrorists ordering US Forces to blow up suspected drug boats in the Caribbean. But officials on the ground, including in Venezuela and Colombia, say those vessels aren't carrying fentanyl to the US at all. They're moving cocaine and marijuana bound for Europe and Africa, which you know better than fentanyl, but still drug trafficking. Now, after a Colombian fisherman was killed in one of those strikes that followed a spiraling Colombia's president is accusing the US of murder. Trump's cutting aid and threatening tariffs, which he loves to do. And even some inside the Pentagon are questioning whether this campaign is really about drugs or regime change. What are your top line thoughts on what's been going on over these, you know, last several weeks? We have 32 dead now in seven strikes, I think was the latest count.

[David Frum]

I've been obsessing over these subjects for a while, dating back to the Biden administration, because one of the things that happened during Biden was a lot of Republicans rallied around the idea that the United States needed to conduct strikes inside Mexican territory. That's where the fentanyl comes from. And Ron DeSantis, when he was running for president, talked about having a kind of naval blockade of the Mexican Pacific coast, potentially intercepting Chinese vessels carrying precursors. JD Vance endorsed rocket strikes. And these are. Dan Crenshaw, who is in a different world, would be a very important Republican leader who is by no means a hothead or not a very intelligent person. He endorsed the idea of strikes on Mexican territory. Now this is not a war on the Mexican state, but this would be war on Mexican territory with or without Mexican permission. A very dangerous situation. Trump was always less hot headed on strikes inside Mexico than some of his other people were. And once president, he's backed away. And I think the Venezuela campaign is a way to give the people who wanted strikes inside Mexico something, but something less dangerous than strikes inside Mexico. It's on the high seas, it's not on Mexican territory. These are controlled incidents. But it is again, even though it's less dramatic and dangerous than what they wanted to do inside Mexico, it still has dangerous implications. And the story about Colombia is an example of this. So Trump can't even spell the country Colombia correctly. He spells it like the university.

[Jessica Tarlov]

That is confusing though when you've gone after the university so much. Right?

[David Frum]

Yeah, maybe it's like spellcheck, but I.

[Jessica Tarlov]

Don'T think truth social has spellcheck. Sorry. Now carry on with your very smart point.

[David Frum]

No, no. The United States has a very important relationship with Colombia dating back to the Clinton years. Colombia was a major source of cocaine to the United States. Crack cocaine was a big killer. And Presidents Clinton, President Bush, President Obama had a series of programs to facilitate security cooperation with Colombia that became a very, very important partner. And the Columbia's paid a heavy blood price to clean up their act. And as part of the price, the United States helped Colombia to redirect its economy away from cocaine. If you go to the supermarket and buy cut flowers, those are probably from Colombia. And cut flowers need to move with incredible speed. They perish rapidly. Everyone knows that. And so Bush negotiated and President Obama signed a free trade agreement with Columbia. That's one of the last free trade agreements the United States entered into before the era of protectionism began. So this is an important relationship. Now the current president of Columbia is kind of a loudmouth and he's quite unpopular and he's at the end of his term. So he's someone, the relationship proceeds around him. He can be kind of an isolated figure and he's very on the far left side of Colombian politics and Colombia tends to tilt toward the more conservative side. He was the first, Petro, was the first left wing president in like 35 years. But when he says the Americans killed a fishing boat, if that's not true, that would be a very big lie for him to tell because the United States could easily refute it. And there are a lot of people inside the Colombian political system who would want to make him pay a price for making the relationship with the United States even worse than it is. So without having a lot of confidence in Petro, I'm going to guess that was not a lie. And if it's not a lie, then you really have to think, well, what about the next strike? This is not as hermetic. And although all the strikes are illegal, if you actually are killing narcos, probably the American political system won't give you too hard a time about it. It's illegal, but these are people who deserve something. But if you're actually killing fishermen and it looks like the United States is, that's, that's a moral reckoning.

[Jessica Tarlov]

Yeah. Well, there's also the story. There's a name attached for the first time to a person who's a from Trinidad and Tobago who has disappeared, that his family is claiming was swept up in this. Someone who is also not a drug trafficker. And then we have repatriated two Venezuelans that survived these attacks instead of trying them, which would indicate that we didn't have the goods to be doing this in the first place. And you already mentioned that this would be illegal. But if you get a narco trafficker, probably people will turn, you know, a blind eye to it. And I think Rand Paul has been doing a very good job out there advocating as much as he can for the fact that, you know, there are procedures you're supposed to go through when you do this, especially if it's not just a one off. Right. This has been 32 people dead, seven strikes thus far. And Trump has been asking for authorization if, if he wants to go into Venezuelan land, which obviously has big implications. And the Mexican connection is very interesting there, do you think? You know, I guess looping back to what we were saying about the authoritarian tendencies of this administration, one of the biggest ways that they've been doing that is subverting the role of Congress. Right. I mean, we basically have a unitary state. Right. Is that what you would say, where the executive is all that matters? And, you know, there are a lot of members of Congress that are hot and bothered about this, you know, Congressman Adam smith, Jim Himes, etc. But so far on the Republican side, I've only really been hearing Rand Paul screaming about it. Because you're supposed to be able to get authorization, especially if you think that the administration has something like regime change on the mind. Do you think that they have that on the mind? And do you think there's any chance that there is some sort of discussion within Congress about what's going on?

[David Frum]

Yeah, Well, I don't think President Trump tends to have plans the way other kind of people have plans, concepts of plans. He has kind of instincts. Think of him as like an ooze that oozes wherever it is not met with a blockage. He's got various kinds of authoritarian and corrupt and sinister projects, sometimes just egos, sometimes making improper money. And he's just looking for, where's a place where I'm not going to get a check? And killing drug dealers is a place where he won't receive too much of a check. But there are only so many things you can do in the realm of counter drug. You can control demand, and that means punishing Americans, which is always unpopular. You can control supply, and that means getting involved with foreign countries in various ways, and that's difficult. Or you can say, we'll control neither supply nor demand, and we'll have some kind of legalization. And then you get a lot of victims inside the United States. So it's a triangle. There are only three choices controlling supply. The United States has been working with that project since the 1970s. And the basic problem is violence doesn't work. If you want to control supply, you need a as happened in Colombia, you need to create new opportunities for people who are involved in the drug trade, not all of whom want to be criminals, to grow cut flowers instead of growing coca. And it turns out cut flowers were more profitable. They were often like serfs to the drug lords. Cut flowers were a more profitable business, but you had to protect them because the former serf holders would say, well, we'll kill you if you grow the cut flowers. So you needed to protect them. But the idea that you're going to say, okay, the way we're going to stop drugs from flowing into the country is every time we see a $40,000 powerboat with crew who are making a couple of dollars a day carrying a load of cocaine that cost dozens of dollars to manufacture, whatever its street value. And we're gonna send naval vessels and jet fighters and we're gonna blow them up with a missile that probably costs more than the entire project of the boat, just the missile. That's a losing project. I'm reminded very much of one of the great stories from the World of drug lore that Daniel Patrick Moynihan told in his memoirs. It's 1971, and the United States has just made the largest heroin bust in the history of the world to that point. This is the bust that was the origin of the movie the French Connection. Have you seen that?

[Jessica Tarlov]

Yeah.

[David Frum]

Okay, $5 million in 1970. Dr. Evil, 1970. $5 million.

[Jessica Tarlov]

Inflation has been wild.

[David Frum]

So at the time that this happens, Daniel Patrick Moynihan is the drug czar, the man in the White House with drug control responsibility. He's enormously excited, and he's so excited that he summons up a helicopter to go to Camp David to meet President Nixon and tell him that they have intercepted $5 million worth of heroin. And as he gets on the helicopter, who is also on the helicopter? George Shultz, who was then secretary of labor, one of the great, great figures in American government over the 70s and 80s. And Shultz has got the big helicopter headphones on. He's reading the Wall Street Journal, and he greets Moynihan. Moynihan is burbling with excitement, and he says, george, I have to tell you what I'm gonna tell the President about. We just had the biggest drug bust in the history of the world. $5 million. Schultz looks up from the Wall Street Journal, says, good. Congratulations. Not interested. Moynihan is a little hurt. George, you don't understand. This is the biggest drug bust in the history of the world. $5 million. Good. Congratulations. And then Moynihan thinks. And then he remembered, George Schultz used to teach economics at the University of Chicago. George, I imagine you think that so long as there's a demand for drugs inside the United States, there will be a supply. At which point, George Shultz folds down the Journal, interested for the first time, and says, dan, there may be hope for you after all.

[Jessica Tarlov]

That's a great story.

[David Frum]

So blow up the boats. It's going to accomplish nothing. You're serious about this. You have to rededicate yourself to plan Colombia. You have to give people opportunities in the producing countries that are better than drug making. You have to protect them. You have to work with local authorities. You have to do foreign policy. You can't just do hegseth policy. Just, let's blow up something and see what happens.

[Jessica Tarlov]

Well, the administration is not big fans of doing foreign policy that way. And we saw that the head of Southern Command, General Alvin Holsey, resigned. He was only a year into the job, and there's reporting that he was pushing back against whatever this plan is. And that Pete Hegseth didn't like it very much.

[David Frum]

Yeah.

[Jessica Tarlov]

Do you think there will be more pushback from within the rank and file and ultimately, does anything come of this back and forth with Colombia and whatever tariffs they're going to levy and the aid that they're going to cut off?

[David Frum]

Yeah, I think with Columbia. So Petro's out of office early next year, the right will return to power in Colombia. And I think probably the situation will get easier. I think a lot of people there will be pressure in Congress against the Columbia tariffs because they will recall that the reason there's a free trade agreement with Colombia is to keep Colombia out of the cocaine business. And if you blow up the free trade agreement, you kill cut flowers. I forget how many minutes you've got to move them from place to place. Yeah, but you don't have much time. And if you put a lot of barriers on cut flower, you can kill the cut flower industry as fast almost as you kill the cut flowers themselves. And then what do the farmers grow? You know, there's a pretty obvious replacement crop. And there are people who are. And the remains of the drug industry and the left wing insurgency inside Colombia are still there, ready to come back to life. My guess is they'll blow up some more boats. Eventually there'll be an undeniably innocent person and it'll be a scandal. And then at that point, it will also be undeniable that this whole project is a failure because you cannot blow up your way to a drug interdiction. It's not going. It's just not. As George Schultz would say. The problem is the demand inside the United States. It will summon forth supply from somewhere. And I think the thing will probably tend to fizzle out.

[Jessica Tarlov]

Okay. I hope that you're right. That's less scary than, you know, that we're suddenly doing regime change and God knows where. I can't even imagine what that looks like with our White House.

[David Frum]

Well, yeah, Colombia and Venezuela have been scenes of guerrilla war going back to the early 19th century. It's just, it's not a good place for certainly not a foreign power to try to impose control on the country by controlling the capital city.

[Jessica Tarlov]

Yeah. Well, they also, at least in the case of Venezuela, are so natural resource rich that it's a very different estimation than it seems like based on the actions or what they're purporting the actions are about. And Petro said that as well, which I'm sure pissed the administration off too, that he just said this is about oil, right? This isn't and gold, I think he mentioned. Okay, we're going to take a quick break. Stay with us.

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[Jessica Tarlov]

Welcome back. And before we go, we already talked about Graham Platner a little, but we're going to do more plaid and tattoos. Main Senate race just turned into a headache for Democrats. Graham Platner, the Bernie backed oyster farmer once seen as the party's next working class hope, is apologizing for years of offensive Reddit posts about race, police sexual assault. Platner blames the comments on post war trauma and say that he's changed. He also did take responsibility, which I am always appreciative of and talked about his PTSD too. But the scandals dividing Democrats, progressives defending him as authentic party leaders backing Governor Janet Mills as the safer choice. I interviewed Janet Mills last week. She was definitely on message talking about, you know, I'm the tested candidate and the seat is winnable if you have someone opposing Susan Collins who actually has a record to run on. You know you already previewed your thoughts, but what are you thinking about the race.

[David Frum]

So let me say Something about people who take responsibility. I would have so much more respect for you if what happened is someone like this in their announcement speech said, now I have to tell my followers something, which is when I came back from war, I was very disturbed and I put a lot of things on the record that I'm not proud of. And I'm sure my opponents will eventually find them. You know what? Here they are. Here they are. Let me disclose to you what I said and let me tell you why I've changed my mind about this. If you take responsibility after someone else finds you out, I don't think you took responsibility. Accountability begins with you being the first to say, and by the way, you owe this to your backers to say to them, you know, here are my vulnerabilities. I'm not trying to steal a yard here. You know, one of the things that made Barack Obama so invulnerable as a new candidate with an exotic name was he'd written this big autobiography. You wanna find a bad story about Obama? It's in the book he wrote.

[Jessica Tarlov]

It's in the table of contents. You can look up like drug use, anti American sentiment.

[David Frum]

Yeah, all there. And he works it through. So it's lost its power because he said, this is who I was. This is not who I am. This is who I was. This is why I was. This is why I changed. Okay. And you told us, so I guess the change of heart is sincere. So that's my question is if you've got these things in the record and you want to be forgiven after they come out, you have to tell people and you especially owe that to your supporters. Not just as an act of strategy, but as an act of moral authenticity. That's moral authenticity. If you're sorry after you're caught, that's you're not authentic.

[Jessica Tarlov]

I mean, for some benefit of the doubt, I think, you know, Graham Platner, I think we're the same age, so we're both 41. I am less terminally online than majority of my peers, but certainly, you know, I, I don't know, I doubt I could run for office based on whatever old tweets or something. Not like racist anti police stuff. Actually, that's not true. I could run for office. Maybe I will. But you should. You know, there's this discussion now about what it means to be a millennial or a Gen Z candidate and that they are going to come with a lot more baggage than a Barack Obama who had even, you know, written a lot of this stuff in his book does, and that people are a lot more forgiving of things that they find offensive or that all of society finds offensive. I mean, we've elected Donald Trump twice, right? And his stuff is on tape. For someone who doesn't use a phone, or I guess he does now, but, you know, famously didn't used to, you know, ever email or text, like, you know, he's on tape talking. We could still grab her by the. You know what? And I think that young people are so desperate for something different than what the establishment has been feeding them for so long that they are willing to, to forgive these kinds of things. Now, Janet Mills's campaign feels differently about that, obviously, but what do you make of, you know, what the new era of candidacy looks like with people who have been online their entire lives?

[David Frum]

Look, I think there are people who forgive in a very selective way. So J.D. vance forgives you. If you say Nazi things, he doesn't forgive you. If you say non Nazi things, he's very harsh. If you say, I don't think Charlie Kirk was all that, then you have your visas yanked and be deported. But if you say Hitler was right and put more people in gas chambers and you're 42, that that's a use indiscretion that is to be forgiven even if you did it 10 minutes ago. I think just generally, when George W. Bush, who had kind of a troubled past, alcohol and maybe other things too, when he ran for president, he talked about it. And in his acceptance speech, he talked about it in a very eloquent way. And I had nothing to do with this because I'm not praising my own work, but he talked at one point about his life and he wasn't specific, but he said, I understand forgiveness because I have needed it. That once you say, I'm not going to go into every sordid detail, but I'm letting everyone know there are things I'm not proud of. I'm not going to be shy about them and I'm going to acknowledge my remorse. That's a different message than someone unearths it and holds you to account. And then you have a story, have the story first. And not just as a matter of strategy, because that's also how we genuinely know. That's how we know you're remorseful. Is that you, you bring it to light yourself.

[Jessica Tarlov]

Fair enough. I mean, he obviously not even told even his, you know, highest level advisors about that because there were people who left the campaign once they saw this and, you know, found it obviously to be incredibly disappointing. That he had spoken about that even if he was in the throes of ptsd.

[David Frum]

You know, one more thing. The people leaving. So if you are someone who in your 20s, had substance abuse problems, had rage problems, sexual misconduct, and you've talked to your staffers about it, and you truly are a different person, they will die in the last ditch to defend you. They will not quit because they will say, yeah, that was the guy I wouldn't have voted for when we were all 20, but now we're all 40, and this is the guy or woman I would vote for. And they have taken response. Everyone's got something, and this person has faced it and taken steps to correct it. I believe in him or her even more than I would have if they were someone who'd never known the temptation to do anything wrong. If people are leaving, it's because you haven't been straight with them. And if you're not straight with your staff, you're not straight with anybody.

[Jessica Tarlov]

That makes a lot of sense. And it feels like there's definitely energy shifting away from Platner. We'll see how the next few weeks shake out, because he has been, you know, he's raised like $4 million already and has been a big source of excitement across the state. I wanted to get your thoughts on the gerontocracy problem writ large, because the Democrats in particular are obviously struggling with this. You know, Janet Mills is 77. Bernie, who's older than she is, is like, you know, it' time for a change. But this is happening all over the country, and we did have a few representatives who passed away in office just since Donald Trump came back in. And, you know, there were seats left open where we could have, you know, taken key votes and needed that. So what are your thoughts about when it's time to go?

[David Frum]

I. I have a rather. I have a rather dark joke about this, which I hesitate to say in a public place.

[Jessica Tarlov]

Go for it. This is a Scott Callaway podcast. Like you. You say all the dark things.

[David Frum]

If I were like this, a Democratic senator quizzing a judge, or certainly a Supreme Court justice, my first question would be. Mr. Justice, Madam Justice, I have one question for you. Do you smoke? No. Forget it. If Ruth Bader Ginsburg had smoked, the whole history of this country would be different. She would had a distinguished career and been intensely mentally acute until age 68, 69, 70. And then to the great sadness of all who loved her and to herself.

[Jessica Tarlov]

But she would have been taken.

[David Frum]

She would have gone to meet her maker and gone to a just reward, but the seat would become vacant at an appropriate time. So I think one of the things that has happened is we've had this extraordinary public health revolution that the baby boom generation and just before have benefited from, and people are not adapted to it. And what also happens, I think this is more true for men than for women. You can go off the cliff quite quickly. You can be a very vigorous and healthy 77 and then a very sickly and feeble 79. And so it surprises the they go into that last race at age 77 feeling I'm more or less the person I was at 67. Maybe I need a little bit more rest in the afternoon, but I'm basically the same. And then bang, two years later, it's gone again. I think this is more for men than for women. There's a lot of luck of the draw in how this goes. John McCain's savagely beaten, every bone in his body broken, it seems, and yet he was vigorous to the very, very end. Other people don't have that kind of good luck in general, society is living longer. And so you should expect the politicians probably will age. And there's certain advantages to being there for a while. You build more networks and, you know, it's something for voters to think about. But it's not the only factor. And I think some Democrats are over learning the Biden lesson and not understanding that the reason Biden's age was such a problem was because Biden ran in 2020 as the last candidate of the Democratic center, and he won as the last candidate of the Democratic center center. And then when he became president, his age caught up with him and he was too feeble to prevent to resist the Democratic left. And so he ran a much more left wing administration than he had promised both his party and the country that he would deliver in 2020. In 2020, he promised normal. And what you got in 2021 was basically a Warren Buttigieg administration. And that's not what Biden had promised, that's not what he thought he would deliver. And I think if Biden had been more vigorous, that's not what would have happened.

[Jessica Tarlov]

Yeah, there certainly could have been more pushback, I think, against the more the activist groups or consultants that were pushing things. But you know, I think even purely on immigration, if he had sounded like the Biden of the election, we would not have had those first three years, which clearly could have been avoided with just the laws on the books, because they were avoided in the last year of the Biden Presidency as a source of great frustration.

[David Frum]

And one of the other things that was a big problem was, look, this probably the single most consequential, most difficult decision Biden faced was whether to push for schools to reopen in the fall of 2021. And in retrospect, we can see that the right. There's a balance of risk here, because, I mean, there really were dangers associated with opening the schools early. Kids may not get sick, but teachers get sick, and kids. Parents get sick. You had to make a really tough moral choice. What is more important here, the future of the next generation? Because we know these kids are suffering from not being in school or genuine risks to older people. How do you balance that? And the Biden administration basically acquiesced, as many of the blue states said, we're gonna let the teachers unions make this call. And I think that is an underestimated fact in why Democrats lost in 2024. And it's an underrated fact in understanding what's happening to American society, because we think about little kids. But there are lots of people on the cusp of dropping out of high school or not in 2021, 2022, and the closure of the schools meant they dropped out of high school. And many of them got into trouble with the law, the spate of carjackings here in Washington. A lot of the people who did that, those were not people who had to be criminals. They were people who are marginal in school. The schools were closed, they went out, their parents were working. They got into trouble, and they did terrible damage to others. And many of them will be in prison for a long time and never, ever get their foot back on the ladder that they would have kept their feet on had the school stayed open and they've been able to finish their degree.

[Jessica Tarlov]

Absolutely. I mean, the learning loss is astounding. And smart Democrats and some Republicans. But pay more attention, I guess, to the. The advice the Dems are giving are, you know, working on programs like tutoring programs to make up for that.

[David Frum]

And I don't want to make this sound like it was an easy call.

[Jessica Tarlov]

It definitely wasn't. And there were some Republicans who went along with this as well. But it is the dividing line in society. And I've noticed that, you know, when I'm talking about whatever authoritarian thing Donald Trump is doing, that I get a lot of pushback. Like, well, you're the ones who shut down society. You're the ones who told us that your kids couldn't go to school. And New Jersey, the governor's race for Murphy's second term being within three points or that we have a Governor Youngkin in Virginia. I think you can draw a straight line between that and what happened with the management of our school systems.

[David Frum]

And you want to know that when the call was made, the President of the United States really thought hard about it and heard advice from all sides and balanced the decision. And of course, look, I have very little sympathy for Covid second guessing. People will say things like, well, the scientists said a different thing in September than they said in May. Yeah. Called science. You have a completely new problem. You know what, month by month you know more about the problem. So of course your answers change. I mean, religion doesn't change, but science does. So I have tremendous. For the imperfect information, for the real time pressures, for the balancing of interest because teachers and parents lives, those matter too. But the President of the United States of the United System has to be the one to say, you know, what the next generation counts most. And if we're going to have, if we're going to impose burdens, we want to have fewer burdens on the rising generation and more burdens on those who've already been able to enjoy more of their lives.

[Jessica Tarlov]

Yeah. I think also, you know, as a nod to the importance of the transparency of everything and you know, I'm a New Yorker, we had the Andrew Cuomo daily press conferences. Having that kind of access or feeling like someone was actually puzzling it out in front of you would have made people feel a lot more secure in those decisions because there were, you know, huge balance of factors. And Randi Weingarten hasn't actually, I haven't read her new book, but I have not heard that it was a massive mea culpa. So I doubt that that's the case. But she hasn't done that either, you know, come out and really said, I, I understand how disappointed parents were in these decisions. I think we could have done X, Y or Z things differently. We could have built, you know, outdoor tents or recruited a bunch of younger teachers to come in for a couple of years and put our older teachers on zoom classes and made it more of a hybrid model. Coulda, woulda, shoulda, I guess. I don't know if that's an uplifting note to end on, but it is the note that we are ending on. David Frum, thank you so much for joining me.

[David Frum]

Thank you. And I wanted you dropped a hint that you were thinking about running for office. Is that something?

[Jessica Tarlov]

Oh, I don't know. Not really, no. Maybe it is a sad reflection on the state of our politics, but I think that you can actually affect more change on the outside than you can on the inside, at least the way that our politics works today.

[David Frum]

Well, I hope, I hope if there are people who are within reach of your voice, they will think about it and understand that office doesn't mean there's something weird about people say if I'm not a United States senator, I'm nothing. That state assembly, state senate, school board, city government, these are all intensely important callings. And I hope people who are, who follow you will be inspired by your thoughts to take up that burden, because every job matters.

[Jessica Tarlov]

I love that. That is definitely an optimistic note to end on. I hope that you'll come back again. This was such a treat.

[David Frum]

Thank you. So kind of. Thank you.