Ann Applebaum (2:38)

So, first of all, my instinct, which could be wrong, but it's one has to trust one's instincts some of the time, is that Steve Bannon is trying to attract attention to himself and trying to win favor with Trump by bringing up this narrative. My second feeling is that I am not sure that three years from now Trump is going to be able to run for president because he will be very old and possibly ill and possibly with dementia. And so I'm not sure it's not the number one thing that I'm most worried about. My worry and my fear, where Americans lack imagination is I'm much more worried about the midterms and the various games that might be played to affect them. And I'd rather like focus on that and get through that than worry about that 28 on the road like a distraction and a, you know, a thing that to get people talking about. It doesn't feel to me yet like the most serious thing on my list of things to worry about.

Charlie Sykes (3:43)

The only reason I brought it up was because it got me thinking in terms of just the sort of gaming out, if he did, who would stop him? And I think that that's a measure of the strength of our institutions right now. So let's say that he did do it. And then again, I want to switch to the more relevant topics. You know, do we think that Congress would stop him? Are we confident the Supreme Court would stop him? Would he pay attention to the Supreme Court? What would happen if he won a majority of the electoral vote? And I think this is one of those. And we've had so many stress tests of our, of our constitutional republic and the institutions and the and they failed, most of them. And I wonder at what point if Donald Trump announces he's going to defy the Constitution. I'm trying to come up with a list of Republicans in Congress who would oppose him. And I still have fingers left on one hand. So it's just a measure of how fragile things are that we can no longer count uncertainties. So let's talk about the question you raised. What is your main concern now about the midterm elections?

Ann Applebaum (4:45)

So there's a series of things. I mean, obviously we have federal pressure on states. Republican led states to gerrymander. And while there's long history of gerrymandering in this country going back many decades, I can't think of a previous moment when the president said we need to get lots of gerrymandering done so that my party wins. That seems to me like a new and different level. And obviously we have Gavin Newsom's response and maybe response from from other states, but that's new. And the immediate response of Texas to go ahead and do it is also seems new and ugly to me. The second thing is that the. And this is still a kind of work in progress, the federal government is demanding from some states access to their voter rolls. Another thing that's never been done before. You know, state elections in our country are run by the states. Each state has its own slightly different system. They have their own laws. The. That's part of our political system. It's been there for a long time. But the federal government is asking to see the voter rolls, have access to them. And this is going along with the process in a lot of states to create either to create the false impression that lots of illegal immigrants are voting, and therefore we need new rules about who can be on the voter rolls, which is not true. There's no evidence of that. I mean, absolutely zero. In fact, illegal immigrants have a huge interest in not voting because it's. Why would they want to attract attention to themselves or be on some kind of government register? So it's almost certain that that doesn't. Almost never. I mean, I can't say never, but almost never happens. And yet they're building a narrative that lots of illegal immigrants are voting. And something they did, by the way, last year in the run up to the presidential election, and I was pretty sure then that had Kamala won, had Harris won, that they would have used that as a way to try to undermine the legitimacy of the results. So they're playing that game again. There's also talk in some states of using new voter laws to restrict voting. So, for example, to require people not just to have proof of ID, but proof of citizenship. And that means either a birth certificate or a passport. So most Americans don't have passports. And your birth certificate may or may not be something you have lying around your house, particularly if you never needed one to get a passport. And it also creates a special problem for married women who have changed their names, because then they need not only proof of citizenship, but also they need a marriage license. It just creates an extra hurdles for people to vote. And that's another area. I mean, there's the third area, which is that Trump himself is talking about how Democrats will cheat. There was a truth Social post actually, in the last few days in which he talked about the elections are going to be unfair and they're going to be cheating. And that has me worried about what other things might happen if the Democrats win the House. Mike Johnson is refusing to seat a congresswoman right now. The congresswoman was elected from Arizona. Maybe he would refuse to seat other People, if elections are close or outcomes are close. I mean, I'm just speculating, but I'm worried about these things adding up. And then I think the final thing is it's not me who says that. It's Governor Pritzker in Illinois has raised the possibility of the use of soldiers or militarized federal police intimidating people at polling booths because that's one of his.

Charlie Sykes (8:24)

I mean, look, that's a solid prediction because at this point I don't think anybody should be surprised when you see many masked ICE agents or National Guard troops around the polling places in certain cities, in certain blue cities. I mean, I can imagine that they've signaled a willingness and an eagerness to do this over and over and over again. And everything you're describing again is plausible when you think about how huge the stakes are. This is an administration and a government that really does not want congressional oversight, that, that really, you know, has come to rely upon complete control of government so that they won't be held accountable. And so this is again, one of the reasons, I think, to begin gaming out what's going to happen in the future. You've talked about authoritarians for years. The one common thread through autocrats and authoritarians is they do not like to give up power, do they? Especially if they are especially corrupt.

Ann Applebaum (9:27)

No. And this administration has broken a lot of laws and has. The list of corrupt actions is extraordinary, involving hundreds of millions, billions of dollars. And they are not acting like people who are worried about it. You know, they're not acting like anybody's ever going to investigate them or ever going to care. And that has me worried because one of the things that has always constrained American politicians is, is the fear that they would lose. And this is good because they were afraid they would lose and then their political opponents would win and then whatever laws they broke would be. They would be held accountable for them. And this administration is the first that I can remember that doesn't act like that. And so that makes me think they have plans.

Charlie Sykes (10:15)

You do something very interesting, this Kleptocracy tractor, the White House edition. And what's amazing is as you go through it, there's just so much. It is a full time job just to keep up with them. And as you point out, you know, is this the way that politicians behave if they think they're going to be turning over all of this power and the authority to other people? I mean, just in the last few days, in case people have missed this, you know, Department of Homeland Security spends $172 million on private jets for Kristi Noem. Okay. When the government is shut down, you know, Trump's nominee to head the EPA's Office of Chemical Safety is a former chemical industry lobbyist, Fox News. Laura Ingraham is now joining Junior Trump Jr. As a director of this special purpose acquisition company seeking to raise $260 million. And it goes on and on and on. But you know, since we're talking about the headlines of the moment, I feel remiss if we didn't comment on the fact that, you know, you and I are talking at the beginning of the week. At the end of the week, Donald Trump put out yet another statement calling for the criminal prosecution of his political opponents. Moving up the ladder to former Attorney Attorney General Merrick Garland, talking about his own FBI Director Christopher Wray, LISA Monaco, Deputy Director, I mean, Dec, I'm sorry, Deputy Attorney General. It's, you know, it's a sign where we become kind of numbed, isn't it, that you have the President.

Ann Applebaum (11:44)

Yeah, yeah, it is accumulating. So I, the kleptocracy tracker is something I publish in my substack and I have a, it appears also on the Johns Hopkins website. This is the Agora snf Agora Institute. And I have people who help me do it. And it is, you know, every week there are more conflicts of interest. There are more inspectors general fired, there are more people pardoned under dodgy circumstances. There are more instances of the president or people around him making money from U.S. domestic policy or U.S. foreign policy. And there's so much of it that most, I mean, it appears in the news. I mean that's where we find it. You know, somebody reports it on Bloomberg or the Wall Street Journal or somewhere, but it's not, but it doesn't make headlines. And these are the kind of scandal that would have defined other administrations. Imagine Barack Obama demanding that his Justice Department pay him more than $200 million that he feels he's owed in compensation for some, you know, for past actions. And I mean that would be, that would be a huge scandal and we would all be talking about it, you know, or actually, or George W. Bush. I mean it' not, it's not a question of Democrats or Republicans. Any, any previous president would have been, there would have been non stop conversation about it. And yet Trump did it. It was reported, it made a few headlines and then it kind of drifts away. And will he get the, what is it, 230, $240 million? Yeah, he might get it. And Then that will be another story and then that will drift away. And the, their tactic is to violate the law and to, and to, and to, you know, commit these kleptocratic acts so, so quickly and in such fast succession that they aren't being held accountable for him. I mean, I think also Trump's basic assumption is that because the Supreme Court gave him this kind of blanket, yes, you know, presidents can't be prosecuted, you know, decision, he's assuming he'll get away with it. And people under him also seem to be assuming it. And again, that, to me, makes me think like they are a little bit overconfident about coming elections.

Charlie Sykes (14:00)

You know, there does seem to be a little bit of hubris there because, of course, you know, the Supreme Court's immunity ruling was talking about his actions, his official actions as president. But again, you're right, they are just simply flooding the zone with the kleptocracy and with the corruption and, of course, then using that to take over one institution or to dominate one institution after another by these relationships. So let's just talk about your most recent piece, which I cross posted over the weekend. Dislike and Disdain. Trump expresses his true feelings about America and Americans. And I think that this connects a lot of these dots. You know, the president likes to say that it is his opponents who hate America. They, you know, they hate God, they hate all the good things. But we had two rather dramatic, almost like metaphor on steroid stories in the last week showing the disdain and the dislike Donald Trump has for the American people and for its institution. So could we just talk about the. I know it's been a long time now. It's been a whole week. So it's like ancient history. Yeah, the whole week. I mean, I'm sorry, people probably forgot the fact that Donald Trump posted this thing where he's flying a jet as King Trump and dumps feces all over American citizens. And you wrote about why he turned to the sewer. Because this, again, is not just one off trolling by Donald Trump. There's a pattern of the dislike and the disdain and the smearing of opponents. So talk to me about why he turned to the dumping a load of shit on Mel on fellow Americans meme.

Ann Applebaum (15:31)

So this was. Yeah, this was an article I wrote for the Atlantic, but it also derives from. It's a. It's part of it. It's actually connected to a chapter in my book, Autocracy Inc. Where I talk about the ways in which modern autocrats get rid of their political opponents. So in the olden days, they would just shoot them, right? You know, they were. Or they would arrest them and they would be bundled off to the Gulag in the middle of the night. Nowadays, most of the time, they're more sophisticated than that because they understand that people can become martyrs. That, you know, if you shoot people, that gives you, you know, creates a kind of reaction. And so the, the attempt now is to make your opponents so unattractive, to mock them, to smear them, to accuse them falsely of corruption or of, I don't know, some kind of sexual deviancy. This is another common one. Or to organize your online tr. To attack them all at once, to sort of ruin their lives by. By harassing them online or in real life. And this seems to me that the Trump video was a continuation of that. You know, what he was saying was, you know, look at these disgusting people who dared to protest against me during these no Kings marches. You know, I'm going to show what I think of them by literally dumping shit on them. I'm showing you a plane of myself doing that. And the purpose of that is to make people who weren't at the marches feel, ugh, you know, you're right. Those must. People must be really yucky. They must have done something terrible. And to make people who were there feel also disgusting. I mean, the idea is to cast disgust and distaste over. Over people rather than. I mean, there was no answer to the language that was used at the marches or the. Not only was there no answer to the no King slogan, I mean, just the, you know, that the idea that Trump is usurping power and acting like a king, which we have tradition in America of checking them out. Not only was he not re. Answering that he was he. The video had himself with a crown on its head and there were some other pictures of himself.

Charlie Sykes (17:32)

That's his answer.

Ann Applebaum (17:34)

That's his answer. His answer is, yeah, I'm king, you know, and I'm pouring shit on the rest of you. And that is a. That is not a democratic reaction. That is not a. That. That's an autocratic reaction. It could be lifted directly from the, you know, like the kind of thing Hugo Sh would have done if there had been AI back when he was in charge of Venezuela, you know, or, Or. Or other leaders, or they do versions of it. And so showing disgust and distaste for your opponents is. Is. Is part of a. Is part of a long tradition. I mean, I saw that you. You posted that, too. I was surprised that that video didn't have More attention. I mean, why wasn't it shown on CNN or on Fox? Indeed. I mean, it was a, it was a real statement of how Trump feel, feels about Americans, how he feels about free speech and how he feels about any kind of political opposition. And the no Kings marches were, you know, I went to one of them in Washington. They were, these were pretty mild events. I mean they were not violent, they were, they were kind of carnival like, and people wore animal costumes and some people sang and it was very, it was about as mild a march as you can imagine and non violent and non insurrectionist and the idea that, that they represent something ugly and disgusting, you know, something is a new, new element in American politics.

Charlie Sykes (19:01)

And I thought that that was quite a dramatic refutation of all the comments that these Hate America marches are going to be dominated by antifa and Hamas supporters and all of that. And so I, you know, I think they were very, very successful marches. But I have to say that over the weekend I am watching pictures out of Hungary, these mass marches, mass demonstrations against Orban and thinking about some of the mass demonstrations we've seen throughout Eastern Europe and even in Israel against the Netanyahu regime. And it did occur to me, you know, the world is not seeing those kinds of, you know, mass movements, opposition in the United States. I guess I'm, I'm kind of struck by that, why it's happening in other countries and here in the freest nation on earth. We had the no Kings rally, but it felt like kind of a one off and did not, does not have the energy of these pictures if people have not seen this because it hasn't gotten a lot of coverage, you know, the hundreds of thousands of people that turned out in, you know, to protest Orban in Hungary. Your thoughts?

Ann Applebaum (20:04)

I had exactly the same feeling. I saw the Orban pictures too. And it is, it is a, these are huge emotional marches and people are carrying torches and it's a, it's a they. It was on the anniversary of the 1956 Soviet invasion of Hungary, which is when the march was held. And there was a moment of 56 seconds of silence. And it's very moving to watch. It has to be said that that's of course after many, many more years of unfair elections and twisted media and really vulgar government attacks on the opposition. And so it's a, you know, the downfall is further along in Hungary and so, you know, people are much angrier. But it's true. I mean, if you think of the, I don't know, the Maidan in Kiev in 2014, or you think of, you know, even, even the, I don't know, maybe there were, in Poland, there were big marches after. There was an assault on the judiciary here in, I mean, in Warsaw in, in 2015 and 2016. And the biggest ones would have, you know, there would be. There were some with a million people in Warsaw. And so they, they, they, they did have, there was a little bit more anger, but it was, these, were, these maybe felt. Felt farther along. Maybe it was because you have more people concentrated in the capital city. I mean, I don't have a, I don't have a good explanation, but I just don't think Americans are angry enough yet, or they don't. Haven't, they haven't felt the impact yet. I mean, Hungarians are, Hungarians are much poorer than they should be because of the corruption in their country. And they've now made the connection between the kind of corruption you and I were talking about a minute ago and their own personal lives. Like, they are poor because their leaders are stealing from them. And I don't know that Americans have made that link yet. Maybe, maybe they will.

Charlie Sykes (21:53)

Now. That's such an interesting point, because I'm pretty sure that I heard you actually make the point which I found very, very powerful, is that it took Orban about 15 years to consolidate his authoritarian power. And it's happened so much faster in this country. Orban, and correct me if I'm, if I'm paraphrasing this incorrectly, Orban was actually kind of careful. Orban was in the sort of the. I'm going to boil the frog slowly because I don't want to provoke a reaction. We're seeing a very, very different scenario in this country where it feels like we've compressed 15 years of authoritarian drift into nine months.

Ann Applebaum (22:32)

Yeah, no, well, yes, absolutely. Orban was very careful. Most of what he did was legal. Like, I mean, he, It's a long story, but I mean, he manipulated the law in such a way that he, he legally took over these various institutions and he legally changed the rules. And that was partly because he didn't want to counter reactions, partly because Hungary is inside the European Union, which has rules and so on, and he didn't want to, he didn't want to create problems for himself. And we, of course, don't have any of those constraints in the US But I also think we have a. This is not so much Trump as the people around him have studied what Orban did and what Erdogan did and maybe what Chavez did very carefully, and they are you know, so they were prepared to do, you know, in, they weren't experimenting when they arrived in January, and they had a list of things they wanted to do and a list of institutions they wanted to destroy. And so they had a, you know, they were prepared in advance for, to carry this out. And they may also, I mean, and they may also have thought, they may also have been conscious of the, the coming midterms and the possibility of, of loss and the need to move quickly so that they could have enough control to make sure, you know, that, you know, the, the US Political system with, essentially with votes every two years and with such close votes. I mean, even the, the election last year was very, very close. I mean, I guess it doesn't look like that on the, on our electoral maps, but it was a few percent, you know, not even whole percentage points apart. And the difference between the House, you know, the House is just a few seats difference. The Senate is just a few seats difference. You know, these margins are very, very small. And so I guess they felt they needed to change the system as much as possible before the midterms. And that's why I keep coming back to the midterms as a really, really, really important turning point, really.

Charlie Sykes (24:24)

Oh, I agree with you. So let's talk a little bit about again, you know, the ancient story from, like a whole week ago, the teardown of the East Wing. And I guess I want to go in terms of the symbolism. And then before I forget, I want to get your take on the fact that the Washington Post editorial board praised it, really praised his aggressiveness, which I think is important to talk about, too. So first of all, give me your sense, your reaction to watching Donald Trump literally take a bulldozer to the White House without any permission, any permits, any discussion, any votes. Nothing. Just.

Ann Applebaum (25:03)

I had two separate reactions. One reaction is exactly your point. I mean, that it's a symbolic assault on a shared national symbol. We didn't have that many national symbols that really everybody feels some attachment to. I mean, the flag, I didn't know, the national anthem, a few other things. We're divided by really quite a lot now in our country. And the White House, which has been inhabited by Republicans, by Democrats, we've all seen scenes there. We remember things that happened in the Rose Garden. We remember pictures from parties that were held there and events that were held there. And the Situation Room, we've seen the photographs from there. And so it's a place that we all know, and we know that it belongs to us. And what Trump did was to say, I don't care who owns it or who thinks they own it, I own it. And I'm making the decisions unilaterally to knock down this part of the White House that has, by the way, historically been where the First Lady's offices are, presumably because he doesn't care what this first lady does or says or thinks or. I don't know whether she had any role in this or whether she minds. She doesn't have that much to say. And he was saying, I don't care. I can do it. I can change head how I want to. I can build a vulgar ballroom, just like I can cement over the rose garden and put Mar a Lago style tables on it, which is, in its way, just as shocking. And I'm just imposing my taste. And I'm not going to consult the National Capital Planning Commission or I'm not going to consult any art historians, and I'm not going to talk to historians of the White House. And I'm not going to respect the tradition of the White House, which is that it's supposed to be proportional and elegant and to match a certain. Actually, the White House is not a gargantuan building. It's not a huge castle, it's not a big mansion. It's actually quite an elegant, you know, 18th century house. And that was for a reason. It was supposed to be rather modest by comparison to the, you know, Buckingham palace or Windsor Castle. And to change it unilaterally, to change the nature of it and to change the look of it and to take, away, you know, debris from it without telling anybody what you're doing or making any preparation for it, is it, it's just an attack on the few, one of the few things that, that, that holds us together. And, you know, there have been changes to the White House before, and changes are legitimate, but in the past they've been negotiated, they've been flagged in advance. They've been agreed upon again with historians and planners and, and, and, and, and other people who are, you know, who care about what the White House looks like.

Charlie Sykes (27:43)

Yeah.

Ann Applebaum (27:43)

And they've been consistent and they've been within this, the, the historical style. This is completely different. This is a wrecking of one of the things. You know, the White House is symmetrical, so this will make it asymmetrical. It's the construction of this vulgar Florida style ballroom that has no place in Washington and there's no need for it. All these things are well out of line with any tradition or anything that's ever happened before. And I think it's just Trump's, it's like the AI video, you know, I don't care what any of you think. I don't care what your traditions say. And I'm going to knock it down. The second point that has been, was made a couple of times by my colleague, but I, David Frum, but I would also, I would also repeat is this is another piece of kleptocracy.

Charlie Sykes (28:29)

Rob's gonna ask you about that next, right?

Ann Applebaum (28:31)

Private donors who are donating to build this thing that has, that again, is supposed to belong to all of us. What are they getting in return? What rights do they, you know, what, what favors are they seeking by doing so? And of course, one of the people who is one of the donors is Jeff Bezos, whose newspaper has just said this was a great idea, as you said. So it's another ugly piece of the financial and commercial elite of this country who are by far the biggest cowards. I mean, I'd say they compete maybe with the Republicans in the Senate. These are all very powerful people, very rich people should be who have decided to go along with things that they all know perfectly well are illegal or immoral. And they've decided to support this thing even though it's, you know, even though there's no, you know, there's no public agreement to it. So that's the other half of the, of the story that as David Frum.

Charlie Sykes (29:30)

Says, they, they, they want something for it. They're, they're not giving this money because of their love for ballroom dancing. I mean, there's a quid pro quo because that's the way this kleptocracy works and it on such a huge scale. Okay, so the Washington Post thing, you know, Jeff Bezos, who's been bend knee for some time, this was, and I don't know, at this point, I should say I'm shocked about anything anymore. But to watch the editorial board of the Washington Post basically say, you know what we really admire, we kind of admire that sort of, you know, autocratic swagger that Donald Trump brought to the tearing down of this. And it kind of reminds you that there is a certain, there's a certain element out there that's actually thrilled by this, you know, you know, will to power from Donald Trump the way he will, he will bulldoze over rules and norms and institutions. But to see the Washington Post basically say, yeah, you know, he could have gone through and gotten permission for the plans but then never would have, it wouldn't have been done. It's that you could tell that they actually kind of admired the raw arrogance we've been talking about. And to come from them again, it feels like incrementally, but. But that felt like just one more brick on this road. How did you read that? I was amazed.

Ann Applebaum (30:50)

I feel bad for the good journalists who are still there and who are still doing reporting. I'm still finding things that I want to read in the Washington Post. But it is explaining why so many people are leaving. I mean, there's been a flood of people away, including a lot who've come to the Atlantic. I mean, I was a Washington Post columnist for, I think, 17 years or something. Sixteen years in an era when it was impossible to imagine the editorial board behaving like that. It was, you know, that was fiercely independent. It was independent of Democrats. It was independent of Republicans. It was. It had a. It criticized everybody and it. And it had. That was how it was run in that era by Fred Hyatt, who was one of the great editors in Washington in. In modern times. So, yeah, I mean, I find it. I. I find it ugly. And of course, it makes me wonder what they think they're going to get for it. You know, what are they going to receive? But on your bigger point, I mean, yes, people find autocracy appealing. Yes, they are attracted to Caesars. Yes, the founders, the people who wrote our Constitution, knew this. There's a famous Alexander Hamilton quote about someday someone coming along who. Who charms the people and is a demagogue and tries to overthrow the system. The fact that we got used to the idea that we became complacent, that we thought our system was set up to resist it. And of course, it was built to resist. That doesn't mean that Americans are immune from the same emotions that you can see in other countries. Autocracy is the norm. That's what most human societies have always been, whether they were called monarchies or whether they were run by warlords, it doesn't matter. The exception, historically, have always been democracies. But democracy is a hard system to maintain. You have to have people who care about it and who feel invested in it and are willing to protect it. And it's true that a lot has happened in the last nine months. It's also true that there have been signs that the system was becoming corrupt and unviable from going back much longer, long before that. So, you know, in a way, it's not just the last nine months. It's accumulated effects over the last decade or so. But, but, but once again, we need to have more imagination. We need to be not surprised. We need to understand that America's accepted in many ways, but American, the Americans can be attracted to autocrats and to vulgarity just like everybody else.

Charlie Sykes (33:35)

Well, let me ask you about something else you wrote because, you know, pulling back the lens a little bit from, because it's so easy to get overwhelmed by the day to day, you know, you wrote a really powerful kind of haunting piece about when the light goes out, you know, that America has been this beacon of freedom and democracy, you know, and I spent some time watching old Ronald Reagan videos, you know, over tariffs over the weekend, you know, but, you know, remembering, you know, when he talked about America being a shining city on a hill. And let me just read you something that you wrote, which for our listeners, American culture is no longer synonymous with the aspiration to freedom, but with transactionalism and secrecy. The algorithms that mysteriously determine what you see, the money collected by anonymous billionaires, the deals the American President is making with world leaders that benefit himself and maybe others whose names we don't know. America was always associated with capitalism, business and markets. But nowadays there's no pretense that anyone else will be invited to share the wealth. USAID is gone. American humanitarian aid is depleted. America's international medical infrastructure was dismantled so quickly that people died in the process. The image of the ugly American always competed with the image of the generous American. Now that ladder has disappeared. The only Americans anyone can see are the ones trying to rip you off. The impact of this change around the world will be profound, far reaching and long lasting. You know, so what we have lost is so dramatic and the rest of the world, this will have. It's not just what our image is, but also the example we set for the rest of the world. I mean, I took away from that. The scope, the blast radius of these failures is not just in our image, not just here, but the rest of the world. People yearning to breathe free or looking for models of prosperity. So, so what does happen, Ann, when the light goes out?

Ann Applebaum (35:32)

So as you say, the consequences are so far reaching that I'm not even going to make predictions. I will just say that I travel a lot, I live part of the time in Europe. I talk to a lot of different people. I was in London last week. I was in Portugal a few weeks ago. Almost everywhere I go, the one thing people want to talk about is what's happening in America and how will it affect us. Like us in London, us in Warsaw, US in Belgium. US In Portugal, both because the example that America sets, so the example of populist nationalism, the example of destruction of institutions, I mean, of course, other people are looking at how that's happening and reacting to it, in some cases against it, in some cases trying to imitate it. The question of what role the US now plays in its alliances, which is both a security question but also an economic question for everybody in the world, is now suddenly important. The role, a question of what role the US Plays in international institutions. Small things. I mean, there was a. The International Maritime Organization some days ago was about just to finalize an agreement about climate change arrangements and emissions. And the US Together, I think with some other countries from the Gulf, came in and smashed it up because they don't want that agreement to be made. And it's very shocking for people who were expecting that to happen. All kinds of international institutions, organizations that you don't think of, shipping, climate change, international trade, people who are used to the US Playing a constructive role suddenly have to deal with the fact that the US Isn't going to play a constructive, constructive role. And assumptions that people made about how, whether they could trust Americans or American companies, all of that begins to fall away. And I, you know, the, the implications are so far reaching that it's hard to, you know, it's hard to, it's hard to cast too far in the future. I mean, right now people are just guessing about what it will mean. And of course there will be implications for us. I mean, we as Americans benefited from a stable, predictable world where there were rules that we helped to write. We benefited from free trade, as Ronald Reagan famously said, you know, in those, in the videos that Canadians published in their advertisement. And actually, you know, a host of presidents who followed him agreed. And we were, we were the beneficiaries of being at the center of an international system that we helped to build and on and on and on. And we will also be eventually, I mean, it might take some time and maybe it will happen after this administration is long gone, but we will also be the, we will be the victims of its destruction. We will suffer economically and maybe in other ways from, maybe in terms of security, maybe in terms of climate change, maybe in terms of new pandemics that we are no longer helping to put out. I mean, we'll suffer in other ways, too. But it's, you know, it's so big and so broad that it's hard to, it's hard to, I guess it's hard for people to grapple with.

Charlie Sykes (38:56)

No, it is hard to grapple with and in part because as we've been talking about, it's all happened so quickly. And if I was going to grasp for one straw, it would be that, you know, maybe we have been broken out of our complacency. Maybe we had taken things for granted. We did think we were immune to history. But as you also point out, Americans are not angry enough yet. You know, they're not prepared to, to have the kind of mass opposition. We don't know when that's going to happen. One of the things about authoritarianism, which you've written about before, though, is they often make bad decisions because particularly when you have a narcissistic autocrat surrounds himself with, yes. People that won't tell him that, you know, Mr. President, doing this, you know, A, B or C is really stupid. It would be a mistake. So there is an inherent flaw in it, unfortunately, up until now, and this is hard for me to admit this, there have been some very smart, focused people, maybe malign actors who have been running the agenda. But also, you can see that as Trump becomes more hubristic and more addicted to government by whim, there can be some significant mistakes. So talk to me about the dangers of hubris and what this might mean for authoritarian decline or dismantling.

Ann Applebaum (40:13)

And I'm not going to point to specific, I'm not going to make specific predictions. But obviously the impact of tariffs is unknown and could have, you know, because rolls through the economy in different ways. You know, a company that makes, I don't know, locks might discover that it needs some little metal screw that comes from China. You know, the, you don't really know how, how that's going to change prices and change relationships and create bankruptcies. And Trump doesn't seem interested in finding that out. But they're also, you know, once you eliminate the statisticians, which of course, he's also done, then government begins acting in the dark. Once you have Trump surrounded by yes men, as you say, then he makes decisions without considering the consequences or without hearing other points of view. I mean, this seems to me maybe a part of the explanation for what's happened in his conversations with Russia. You know, he sent someone to negotiate with the Russians who didn't have any background and didn't understand the circumstances on the ground. This is Steve Woodkopf and who thought he was there to negotiate some business deals and seems to have completely misunderstood what the Russians were saying and what messages they were sending and what was the situation on the ground. And so actually, what you've had is that the Trump administration has probably prolonged the war and drawn it out further through this, this, so far through this negotiation that produced no, that produced no results. So, you know, you can see, you know, he doesn't have information. He's in the dark. He's cutting himself off from, from reality. And also he's creating false reality for his followers, and that will eventually affect them, too. And people will begin to make bad economic decisions and bad personal decisions based on, on mistakes. I mean, you know, why do we care what's true and what's not true in the first place? Because knowing what's true means that we, We. We go through life, you know, with a better sense of, you know, you know, what will be good for us, what will be bad for us. Yeah. So, so, so he's, he's seeking to shape reality for his followers. He's shaping reality for himself and the people around him. And sooner or later, reality might catch up with him. It might take some time, but it will happen.

Charlie Sykes (42:32)

Yeah. Speaking of reality, have you seen the, the new movie House of Dynamite yet?

Ann Applebaum (42:37)

I have not, but I understand it's very good.

Charlie Sykes (42:40)

It's very, very good. But, but, but my, my advice is whatever your most favorite, strongest drink is, have it before you see that. And I won't give any spoiler alerts. But the scariest part about this is who the decision maker is ultimately. And what might that be? By the way, do you think we're going to go to war with Venezuela? It almost seems like a side note. It used to be when we were about to go to war with somebody, it would be like a big story. I mean, this is a big story. So, right. So far, he's been content just blowing up boats with maybe drug dealers in them. No due process whatsoever. The extrajudicial killing now seems to be just a part of the normal news cycle. And it certainly seems as if he's about to launch a war against Venezuela for. We're not quite sure.

Ann Applebaum (43:27)

So he said, he, he's. He said there will be action in Venezuela. And I have talked to Venezuelans who expect something. I didn't know exactly what, and I, you know, I didn't think he wants to send troops there, although there are a lot of American troops now in the region on boats and in Puerto Rico, in the air, in the area near, near, near Venezuela. So they're planning something. I mean, the. I have different lenses that I look at it through. I mean, one is the lens of the Venezuelan opposition who really do want their leader to go and really are that this, this, whatever the administration does persuades him to leave. And I'm not going to blame them for thinking that, because the situation there is such a. So catastrophic and there's real hunger and real starvation and there's a huge refugee crisis, people trying to leave Venezuela, and there's, you know, very heavy political repression. So I, I understand why they think that. The thing that worries me about it, and this maybe even brings us back to the beginning of the conversation about the midterms. I worry about the Trump administration's reasoning because I don't think that they're doing this because they want freedom and democracy in Venezuela. And I worry that their reasoning is that they want the US to be at war with somebody so that they have an excuse to declare an emergency and I don't know what else. A need to mobilize, a need to push back against their critics. Maybe they need some extra, an extra sense of emergency or some. That seems to me the best explanation. Plus, this idea that we're going to war against terrorists and drugs, maybe that can be true.

Charlie Sykes (45:05)

And there's a lot of oil there, right?

Ann Applebaum (45:08)

There's a lot of oil.

Charlie Sykes (45:09)

And Donald Trump has a long history of saying, if we're gonna go into a country, we should just take all their oil. Oil. So, you know, it might appeal to the transactional nature.

Ann Applebaum (45:19)

Maybe that's the motive, too. I mean, so I worry about what it means for us domestically. And then also there are so many. There are a lot of things that could go wrong. I mean, the, you know, there's a long tradition of people in South America not wanting to be invaded by the United States, and it could create all kinds of reactions elsewhere on the continent. I mean, it, it. Especially if there's no legal or even moral justification for it.

Charlie Sykes (45:48)

Ann Applebaum, thank you so much for your time. I really, really appreciate it. There's so much to talk about. I think we've covered at least some of it, at least 10% of what we needed to talk about. So, again, thank you for joining me. I appreciate it very much.

Ann Applebaum (46:00)

Thanks a lot. Thanks so much.

Charlie Sykes (46:02)

And thank you all for listening to this episode of to the Contrary podcast. You know, why we do this, why we continue to do this? Because more than ever and for the duration, we have to keep reminding ourselves that we are not the crazy ones.

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