← To The Contrary with Charlie Sykes
To The Contrary with Charlie Sykes
David French: Free Speech, Cancel Culture, and the Kimmel Moment
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David French
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Charlie Sykes
I'm Charlie Sykes. Welcome to the to the Contrary podcast and I'm joined today by my good friend David French. Now, David French was the first guest on the to the Contrary podcast and the final guest on a previous podcast. So that gives you some idea of how important he is to this particular enterprise. Hey, so welcome back, David. Appreciate it.
- [01:42]
David French
It's so great to be back and it was such a huge honor to be your first guest. I'm still honored that you did that. So I really appreciate that.
- [01:51]
Charlie Sykes
Well, it was my privilege. Okay, so here's an interesting data point and we're taping this about midday on Wednesday. But earlier this morning c CNN was running some numbers. So we're talking about mid mid morning on Wednesday. By mid morning on Wednesday, Jimmy Kimmel's monologue had racked up 9 million views on YouTube. 9 million views normally on a regular day gets about 240,000. So I think it's safe to say that Donald Trump's attempt to cancel him was less than a stunning success in many ways. I'm guessing that Kimmel is bigger than ever right now.
- [02:35]
David French
I think so. And we should have seen this coming, Charlie, because if there's one thing that we have learned from Cancel Culture is that it's actually, it's not just miserable and oppressive and terrible. It's also constantly backfiring. So it's both miserable, oppressive and terrible and stupid and counterproductive at the same time. So think about this, think about, like people on the right that the left tried to cancel. Like, notably Megyn Kelly. In many ways, she probably has more listeners, viewers than she's ever had in her life. And in fact, you know, canceling was a business plan for people on the right for a while, which is not to excuse canceling. Canceling is terrible. I do not like canceling. And we can talk about what that means and what that is. But how many people did you see in the 2000 and tens on the right early 2020 saying canceled by the left? If, if you were canceled by the left, that would put your career in the right on a rocket ship. The cancellations that really stuck were intra party cancellations, not inter party cancellations. So when left cancels left, that sticks. When right cancels, right, that is much more likely to stick. It's these right versus left that tends to take the person who's been, quote, canceled and puts them on a rocket ship.
- [03:58]
Charlie Sykes
Well, so let's talk about Kimmel's monologue again. Got these huge, huge ratings. As I was mentioning to you before we started, I did something I almost never do. I stayed up very late. I'm a creature of habit. But I did stay up late because I had to do some instant commentary on cable television about it. And I have to say that I had high expectations because I think Kimmel's, you know, a smart guy. He's, he's got good writers. Of course, you wanted to know, you know, was he, you know, is he going to grovel? Is he going to apologize? What's going to happen? So I had, but I did have high expectations that he was going to stick the landing. He actually, and I'm interested to get your take on this, he actually exceeded my expectations. I mean, he did not grovel. He was gracious. He addressed his comments, I thought, in a very thoughtful, in a thoughtful way. And then he turned to the issue and made his monologue into a really powerful case for the First Amendment, laying out what the stakes were, reaching out to people on the right who had spoken up for him. And I know it's an overused term, but it felt like a good night for the First Amendment, one of those inflection nights where we have to go back to basic principles that, you know, it's not about his show, it's about living in a country that allows a show like him. So I actually thought it was. It was an impressive moment. The fight's not over, but it felt like a win because it was kind of a win, but. Interested in your take?
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David French
No, I totally agree. If he's back on the air after the FCC tried to pressure him off the air, which is. And we can talk about the legality of that.
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Charlie Sykes
Yes.
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David French
According to most recent Supreme Court authority, it looked like pretty clearly a First Amendment violation. And then, you know, for all the people on the ride who are saying no, are you kidding? He was really canceled and pulled because of his declining ratings. Trump just opens his mouth and is like, removes any doubt that there was massive pressure from the administration to kind of try to cancel him. And so I sort of had two thoughts, Charlie. One is, I'm exactly in alignment with you, which is, you know, taking the position of trying to explain to people why free speech matters.
- [06:15]
Charlie Sykes
Yeah.
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David French
I feel like we've reached a point in this country where if you're not going back to first principles to sort of trying to re. Help Americans relearn liberty, none of this is going to stick. It's all going to stay partisan.
- [06:29]
Charlie Sykes
Completely agree.
- [06:31]
David French
If we can actually get back to fundamental, basic principles. That's why when Kimmel was fired. When. Or not fired. Pulled for a moment when Brendan Carr issued his threats, when Pam Bondi went on about hate speech and trying to force Home Depots to print posters, things like that, I wrote a long piece, way probably too long, but I really wanted to go back to Frederick Douglass's plea for free speech in Boston in 1860, because I think it is the best single argument for free speech ever put in the English language. And it's only about a thousand words or so. It's, like, pretty short. And so I wanted to go back to American history to say, like, this is foundational stuff, guys. This is not part of this stuff. This is foundational stuff. Now, the second thought is, I really hope everybody on the left who is celebrating free speech right now sticks to their guns when they're in charge. Because guess what? The right was celebrating free speech five, six years ago when cancel culture was mainly coming from the left. Never exclusively, but mainly coming from the left.
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Charlie Sykes
It was.
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David French
And you even had these really ringing declarations of free speech from Trump and Vance. Right. And then they get in charge and they throw it all out the window. And so then now we're seeing the left, which is in the crosshairs saying, free speech, free speech, free speech. Remember that. Remember those words. Stick with those words.
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Charlie Sykes
You know, I mean, for viewers of all of this, you know, this has been one of the through lines for your career. You were a former president of fire, the free speech organization. I have been a civil libertarian even when I was a conservative talk show host. And one of the things that was really distressing, I think, over the years was watching the hollowing out of support for free speech. And a lot of it did happen on the left. I mean, let's be honest about all this.
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David French
Oh, totally.
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Charlie Sykes
Do you remember when. When you had that. That very principled letter that was published in Harper's about cancel culture and about the need to tolerate diverse points of view, there was a lot of blowback against that from the left. Now, again, very cynically and hypocritically, the right jumped on and decided that they were going to be the supporters of free speech. But what I think is important about this moment is that it was so thin, I think it was revealed. Our support for free speech was very transactional. Maybe it was opportunistic. But now we have an opportunity to go back to those foundational principles and walk through why it matters. And I also thought that was important because this is a distinctly American thing, this idea that it is a fundamental right to speak, to write, to criticize, to say things that are offensive. My daughter lives in France, and we were talking about this yesterday and about the weird sort of reversal of tribal positions on this issue. And she says, you know, here in Europe, you know, it is illegal to say certain things, to write certain things. And, you know, as an American living in French, she has to explain to French, you know, the French, you know, what a bedrock value it is for Americans that we believe in free speech. But I do think there's that moment where you have to relearn it and rethink it and remind yourself.
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David French
Yes, yes. Yeah, absolutely. And I think here is one thing that's super, super, super important, Charlie, and that is we cannot look at free speech as a kind of an American quirk. Like, oh, this is something kind of interesting and cool about America that's different from Western Europe, that doesn't have the same free speech traditions. We have to look at this and say, this isn't an American quirk. It's indispensable to the whole thing. And let me just very briefly explain why that if you look at the United States of America from the beginning, like, it's kind of popular in modern circles, especially academic circles, to sort of say that the founding was not Diverse. I get their point. It was white dudes in Independence hall, right? Mainly white Protestant dudes. But by the standards of the late 18th century, that was a freaking diversity festival. And here's what I mean. From the standpoint of ideology, from the standpoint of religion, think of all the religious strains in American life up and down the eastern seaboard. It was all. All of these traditions had just fought hundred, you know, 100 years of bloody wars against each other. And it is. I mean, I. I can't even begin to tell you how bloody it was in Europe during the wars of religion. And you have all of these different competing faiths. And it's fascinating to go back and actually read some of the earlier American writers talking about the religious conflicts in the colonial era. Like, America was not this sort of unified home haven of religious liberty. People would come to America for religious liberty and then promptly turn around and oppress their neighbors.
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Charlie Sykes
Right, right.
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David French
So they knew the only way to make this stick together is if we created an environment where everyone could say and believe that they had the free mind and free speech. Free mind, free speech. You see the.
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Charlie Sykes
That.
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David French
That appeal to free minds and free speech all of the time in a lot of our founding documents. And so this is how we hung together. This is how we. We squared the circle. They never figured it out in Europe. Sort of all of that religious diversity they separated out. You had Catholic states, you had Protestant states. We couldn't do that. And so this whole thing hangs together because we have people of competing convictions that are given equal rights, and that's how we keep this country together. And you get rid of that and you place it under intolerable strain.
- [12:37]
Charlie Sykes
Well, yeah, this is the oxygen of the American idea, I think. And if you get rid of that, what is the alternative? Resolving your differences by force, by violence? We see where that leads. But I also think that as I'm watching this debate play out, there's some fundamental misunderstandings about the stake here. Do I have. Let me see. What did I do with Megan? I don't know. I don't know what's going on with Megyn Kelly. You know, you mentioned her before, that she's got. Okay, so she has a. She posted basically ripping Jimmy Kimmel, saying that he's not really a defender. Okay. This is what she writes here. Okay. Because I think it also has to do with the power of government. There's a confusion, I think, between people exercising judgment and criticism and the use of state coercive power to punish speech. And that's.
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David French
She's a lawyer. She knows this, by the way.
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Charlie Sykes
Yeah, well, she should. She says, okay. Megyn Kelly, who clearly has not gotten over her firing at NBC, says, remember when I was canceled and held back tears on the air and Kimmel stood up for me saying all she did was ask a question about blackface Halloween costumes. Whereas I, Jimmy, have actually worn blackface many times and still have a show. This is wrong. And then she writes, me neither. Fuck him and his self pity. Okay. The difference, of course, is that you do not have the President of the United States and the Chairman of the FCC tell NBC nice network you have there. We can do this the easy way or the hard way. Either get rid of Megyn Kelly or the FCC is going to have work to do. That strikes me as a fundamental difference and a distinction that we need to emphasize here that we are talking about the use of government power, which is the essence of the First Amendment that says that the Congress shall make no law.
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David French
So I have two main objections to this. So main objection number one is exactly the one you outlined that look, there is a giant difference between a private decision to fire an employee because.
- [14:44]
Charlie Sykes
Right.
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David French
For reasons legitimate or illegitimate. And we can discuss that. They believe that person is a threat to their business or is they don't want to hire them, they don't want to be that person to be their colleague, and the government telling you you've got to do that or else. Those are right. It's a category error to conflate the two at the same time. Also, I said there are two things. Let's go with three things at the same time. Also, this sort of idea that was. She, you know, is completely indifferent to Jimmy Kimmel because Jimmy Kimmel didn't stand up for her or she didn't see him as a perfect avatar of free speech before he was canceled. No, no, no. That's not how free speech works. You don't sit there and wait, I'm. And say I'm going to defend the free speech rights only of people who have defended free speech. No, you just defend free speech rights. I mean, I've been a civil liberties lawyer for so long, Charlie. I'm getting old. I'm getting old, Charlie. I've been a civil liberties lawyer for.
- [15:42]
Charlie Sykes
So long, it's worse.
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David French
And I, I don't think I ever defended. Well, maybe one or two. Who. Clients who had some sort of pristine view of free speech. Most of them were not lawyers that I defended. Many of them were very angry partisans. Some of them were illiberal themselves. You know, that's not how this works. You defend free speech of people who don't have great views of free speech. And I'm not saying that Jimmy Kimmel's views of free speech, you know, until this moment, I didn't know what his, you know, full idea was and we'll see what it is over time. But, but to say, well, you have to be a free speech defender before I'm going to go to the ramparts for you, that's no, no, no. And then the last thing is, I think it's really important to actually have a serious conversation about private cancellation. That takes two things into account. Thing number one is, it is absolutely true that we do not want companies like banks, airlines, whatever, policing the political expression of their employees. This sort of idea that if I work at bank of America, there is a, and bank of America has come out in favor of abortion rights, that if I'm a pro life employee, I can't post anything about abortion rights or I'll be fired. That's oppressive and terrible at the same time. Private employers have free association rights. And this sort of idea that a, a small community, let's say it's an insurance company and you find out that somebody is posting one of your colleagues is posting neo Nazi content like actual neo Nazi content, and then is like posting burning crosses. I'm taking an extreme example. And he works in a company with that's half black employees, half white employees. And that's awful scary stuff. And you sort of say, and maybe at the workplace he doesn't do that. And you say, well, wait, there are some, should we tell them no, insurance agency, you cannot do anything about that. Even if your customers are leaving your company because they don't want to do business with a company, you can't do anything about that. And so I wrote a long thing in the Washington Post years ago and I said, look here, how about we try this? What about a rebuttable presumption of good faith? In other words, give a lot of grace, err on the side of free speech. But there are times when you just got to say as a private company, I don't want this kind of expression being tied to me in any way, shape or form. And, and I said professionalism and decency, yes. Indecency and unprofessionalism. No. And draw that. And look, I know there's gray areas, but most of it's actually pretty clear. Like when Roseanne Barr tweet something completely racist. Nobody is going to argue that she was making some sort of good faith contribution to arguments about race in the United States. Nobody's arguing that. But if James Damore from Google Blast from the Past Name writes a really long thoughtful thing about, hey, how can we increase diversity without engaging in race or sex discrimination? And he's fired for it after Google sort of solicited, what are employee ideas about this? Well, he engaged in good faith and with decency and he got fired. Roseanne engaged in bad faith in an indecent manner, and she got fired. Those are not the same things. And so can we have conversations where we have a. The presumption of free speech is there. You're going to give grace to your employees, but there are still lines. I think that that's sensible. I think that before the whole cancel culture thing got started, that was where we were.
- [19:36]
Charlie Sykes
Hey, I think that's completely sensible, but also requires a certain amount of nuance and not sure that nuance is always welcome in this particular environment here.
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David French
So, I mean, that's, that's even an insult, Charlie. It's an insult in MAGA evangelicalism. If you engage on nuance, they call you a nuance, bro.
- [19:57]
Charlie Sykes
And oh, God, no. Seriously?
- [19:59]
David French
Yeah.
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Charlie Sykes
I haven't gotten over your discussion of how they decided that empathy was a bad thing. I want to come back to that. Okay, so sticking with Kimmel for a moment, I want to just read you Donald Trump's bleep. That came out even before it aired. This is the President of the United States who put this out on the same day that he spoke to the United Nations. I think one of the worst embarrassments ever met with the Ukrainian president and maybe did a 180 turn. I mean, here is the, you know, a world leader, but he takes time out to talk about the comedian and he writes, I can't believe ABC Fake News gave Jimmy Kimmel his job back. The White House was told by ABC that his show was canceled. Something happened between then and now because his audience is gone, all in caps and his talent in quotes was never there. Why would they want someone back who does so poorly, who's not funny and who puts the network in jeopardy by playing 99% positive democratic garbage all in capsule. He has yet another arm of the dnc and to the best of my knowledge, here comes another threat that would be a major illegal campaign contribution. Bullshit. I think we're going to test ABC out on this. I think we're going to test ABC out on this. The President of the United States, who controls the Justice Department, who controls the Federal Election Commission. Does he actually yet. Or the Federal Communications Commission? Let's see how we do. Last time I went after them, when he sued them for libel, they gave me $16 million. This one sounds even more lucrative. A true bunch of losers. Exclamation point. Let Jimmy Kimmel rot in his bad ratings, which were outstanding last night. David, first of all, it's not a thinly veiled threat. It is a pretty overt threat. It is another reminder that capitulating and paying off Donald Trump does not buy you safety, it just emboldens him. And. And he seems to be pretty much confirming that. Yeah, he was very much involved in ABC's decision to suspend Jimmy Kimmel. I mean, it seems like the confession and the threat in broad daylight.
- [22:15]
David French
I mean, isn't this always the pattern, Charlie?
- [22:18]
Charlie Sykes
It is.
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David French
It's always the pattern. It's like Trump's defenders run around trying to squint and jam and jam into, like, you know, square pegs into round holes and say, no, no, this wasn't really government coercion. They were. They were going to pull him anyway because of his ratings.
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Charlie Sykes
Yeah.
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David French
Then Trump goes and says, nope, I did it. And then it's crickets. It's cricket. Similar Pam Bondi. Pam Bondi says, you know, hate speech. Talks about going after hate speech. And you had conservatives thundering against Pam Bondi. And I'm glad for it.
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Charlie Sykes
Yeah.
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David French
I'm not denigrating that at all. I'm very happy they did that. Trump says it more aggressively. Crickets. Crickets. Except, like, from people like my friends at National Review who've been consistent in calling him out, you know, but from the sort of the political class and the MAGA class and all of that, total crickets. It's. It's the same pattern. When it's a Trump underling. You'll see MAGA tear itself apart. You'll see Republicans disagree with each other. But then when it gets to Trump, he. It's like he is Bender Bernice, and he comes down, you know, from the mountain with the tablets that are his ravings, and then that settles everything.
- [23:34]
Charlie Sykes
Well, speaking of the ravings, let's talk about the Charlie Kirk Memorial service, and you had a really interesting point. I want you. I. Look, I've confessed to you in the past, we've been doing this for a decade, and there are still things that I just cannot get my head around, including what you put your finger on. How is it that Christian evangelicals can cheer hate and love at the same time? So they're Moved by Erica Kirk. And then Donald Trump gets up there and says, yeah, I'm not about forgiveness. I hate my enemies. And you have Stephen Miller get up there and do his, you know, his goblet imitation. They are nothing. We will crush you. So again, help me us understand what is going on. How do these Christian evangelicals applaud and cheer, hate and love at the same time?
- [24:31]
David French
Okay, before I answer that question, Charlie, can I just say on a less serious note, when. When I watched Stephen Miller, I didn't feel like I was watching. Watching Goebbels or Mussolini so much as I was watching Dwight Schrute.
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Charlie Sykes
Oh, good. I do know. I do know. You're talking about.
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David French
Where Jim Rewites rewrites part of Dwight's speech to. To quote Mussolini, and he gets up in front of a, like a paper salesman convention and starts quoting Mussolini, and it was just absurd. And I.
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Charlie Sykes
Right.
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David French
Oh, they love. They loved it.
- [25:08]
Charlie Sykes
Yeah.
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David French
Now I know it's a lot more serious. It's a lot. I'm not making light of it. I know it's a lot more serious. But that.
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Charlie Sykes
The way the Dwight Schrute comparison, you know, because I know. I know Stephen Miller would hate it. I know that he would hate it.
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David French
You know, he's a, you know, can you say this? He's a powerful person. He's not a serious person, but he's. Yes, you can say he's powerful and he's dangerous. He's not serious. But as far as a. A person in. In dealing with honesty, integrity, communication of ideas, holding ideas of any value, worth or merit. I mean, but anyway, the. When you were looking at what happened, this is the way. And this is all over Twitter, and I've heard this argument a lot and that. No, no, no, wait. We were not contradicting ourselves when we cheered Trump saying he hates his enemies or Miller saying that they are nothing, and also cheering Erica Kirk's forgiveness because. Yeah. What you don't understand is that individuals and governments have different spheres of responsibility. And when you read the Beatitudes in the sermon on the mount, Matthew 5, where Jesus says to love your enemies, that's an individual obligation. So Erica Kirk was upholding her individual obligation. And then when you turn around and you ask, what's the government supposed to do? Well, that's Romans 13. And Romans 13 says that the government is essentially an instrument of wrath. Some. Some against wrongdoers. Okay. Some will even say. Some translations, I believe, even say avenger. An avenger against wrongdoing.
- [26:47]
Charlie Sykes
Okay.
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David French
And so Erica Kirk was in the individual capacity forgiveness. Trump and Miller were in their governmental capacity as sort of the Avengers. And so you can cheer both. You can cheer the individual compassion and the government retribution. Now, there's lots of problems with that, Charlie. There's lots of problems. But let me begin with, like many dangerous ideas, it has a kernel of truth. So, for example, in the Charlie Kirk assassination, the fact that Erica Kirk forgave her killer does not mean that Utah should drop the charges against Charlie Kirk's killer. The government should still impose justice, if for no other reason than to protect the public against dangerous people. But justice is necessary, even as Erica Kirk forgives, or put it in War and Peace. How many times have we seen, for example, a North Vietnamese soldier and an American soldier coming together after the war, and there's a spirit of forgiveness and reconciliation, or Christian. I've seen testimonies in churches of Christian POWs forgiving their captors. But that doesn't mean that America shouldn't defy and defeat Imperial Japan. Right.
- [28:04]
Charlie Sykes
Right.
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David French
But what they're getting so incredibly wrong are, are two things. One, the obligation of the. The government's role is not, in fact, to avenge. Avenge you against your enemies. The government's role is to uphold justice. Okay. And what it. And so that. And implied in all of that, implied in all of that is that the government's. What the government is wielding the sword for is to defend the innocent, not to punish your enemies. And what is justice, by the way? And I'm going to read this from. This is the book of Jeremiah. And tell me. I'm going to read this and tell me if you think this sounds like the Trump administration.
- [28:49]
Charlie Sykes
Yeah.
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David French
Charlie. Do what is just and right. Rescue from the hand of the oppressor, the one who has been robbed. Do no wrong or violence to the foreigner, the fatherless or the widow, and do not shed innocent blood in this place or here it is in Deuteronomy. God is not partial and takes no bribe. He executes justice for the fatherless and the widow and loves the sojourner, giving him food and clothing. Love the sojourner, therefore, for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt. And so when you're talking about what the government.
- [29:24]
Charlie Sykes
No, that does not. No, in answer to your question, it does not sound like the Stephen Miller, does not sound like Tom Holman, does not sound like Donald Trump. Little bit of a gap between those messages. No.
- [29:36]
David French
And then the other question is, who's the ruler here, Charlie? Who's the ruler In Romans 13 he's referring to a Roman emperor. Guess who the ruler is in the United States of America. It's us.
- [29:48]
Charlie Sykes
It's not the emperor.
- [29:51]
David French
When you, when you actually extend Romans 13 to the actual governance of this country, we actually have an obligation to exercise justice against the wrongdoer. And in that case, I say that's Donald Trump. He should have been impeached and convicted twice. Twice. So the ruler in the United States of America did not do its job. We did not do our job. And it still remains our job, I think, to execute justice, you know, to do justice against wrongdoers. And in this case, you know, Trump on multiple occasions has shown that he is a wrongdoer, that there was, that there was overwhelming evidence of his criminal criminality. And I'm sorry, but the American people failed to use the justice system or the political process to do justice to Donald Trump.
- [30:45]
Charlie Sykes
That is great. Of course, Donald Trump didn't talk about justice at that event. He talked about hate. And hate is not the same thing as justice, is it? I mean, imagine take Donald Trump standing there and saying, she forgives, but I want justice. Totally different message. He didn't say that, though, did he? That was not what. What. What he. What he said. So, yeah, the cognitive dissonance is pretty loud there. Speaking of cognitive dissonance, I know it's early days and I really try to avoid having instant opinions about things before they play out, and this has not yet played out. What did you make of Donald Trump's absolute head spinning 180 degree flip on Ukraine or the appearance of it. Now, my initial take was, get back to me in 24 hours. Get back to me when he put some hardware behind it. Otherwise it's Lucy in the football. Been there, done that. But what do you think? I mean, it was kind of jarring to see him sitting there with Zelensky, who he'd be rated a few months ago, a couple of weeks after he was sucking up the Vladimir Putin, saying, yeah, we ought to shoot, you know, Europe ought to shoot down those missiles. Maybe Ukraine can win. Maybe Russia's a paper tiger. What's going on, David? Help me here.
- [32:02]
David French
So, Charlie, it is not every day you hear something that is unbelievably prophetic. But right at the start of Trump's second term, I was talking to somebody, a senior person in Washington who has absolutely followed this Ukraine war from the beginning. And that person told me that there are two things that are different now from Trump. 1.0 he said, number one, Trump, in dealing with Zelensky is going to be dealing with somebody who has spent his entire career dealing with vain autocrats. He knows how to do it. And so in other words, the Ukrainians having been living under the shadow of Putin for a very long time, Ukrainians having to overthrow their own vain autocrats more than once, that, that they have a kind of almost instinctive understanding of how to navigate those waters, that they're, that they're just better at it than we are, sadly. And number two, that Donald Trump is going to be encountering a very different Vladimir Putin than he encountered in the first term. And I was very curious about that. He said Vladimir Putin in the first term, he had spent years getting what he wanted with a really interesting combination of mil of, except in the second Chechen war. But if you go to Georgia, if you go to Syria, if you go to the first phase of his Ukrainian attack, he was accomplishing a lot with a little, that it was small outlays of military force, that he was really able to get a lot done on the cheap. And then, and so he sort of had this conception that he can finesse things, that he has this ability and power to used the combination of diplomacy and very judicious limited use of force to kind of get, get what he wants. He was always pressing on an open door is one way to think of it, until the invasion of Ukraine. And, and it was often open when in 2022, when he invades Ukraine for the first time, he's actually pushing on a door that slammed shut. And the Ukrainians, much to the surprise of a lot of people in the world, rallied wholeheartedly. And now Putin is a very different. He is now committed to absolute, total force. He has now, he has a million casualties in the rear view mirror of Russians. He has totally geared up Russia as a war economy. He is, this is a different version. And so what the, you know, one of the interesting things was, wait a minute. Trump dealing with Putin is going to be like dealing with a brick wall. Trump dealing with Zelensky is going to be dealing with a very deft diplomat who knows how to play this game. And time and time again you have seen that play out because Trump's, this might be his most dramatic flip flop, but he's kind of done this before, you know, and so, yeah, so we don't know how permanent this is. I think his natural inclination is to sort of see Ukraine is in. Trump is in Putin's sphere of influence. Putin has rights over Ukraine. I think that's his natural inclination. But he also has an enormous amount of personal pride and belief that he can settle anything, he can do anything. So he is at war with this natural inclination to sort of hand Ukraine over to Putin with this other thing that says, I can't allow Putin to humiliate me. And I think what's happening is the Ukrainians are consistently able to highlight and show how of all of the people here, only Putin wants to humiliate him.
- [35:38]
Charlie Sykes
And.
- [35:38]
David French
And they do not. They want to work with him, they want to work with him, and Putin wants to humiliate him. And so it just, you get in the seesaw, which strategically is still terrible for Ukraine, like, if Ukraine needs a steady ally, not a mercurial ally. So it's still bad for Ukraine, but it's not as bad as if we just did what it seemed like we're going to do early in Trump's first second term, where he was just going to switch sides, basically, like start doing business with Russia while he cuts off Ukraine. So we're in a much better position, not as good as we need to be, but much better positioned for these 24 hours at least. But it's so fascinating, that conversation that said Zelensky knows how to do this, and Trump is going to run against a brick wall with Putin, and I feel like that's played out month after month in the second term.
- [36:28]
Charlie Sykes
Well, yeah, we will be able to see it. I mean, it is interesting that, you know, that Donald Trump claimed that this war would never have started if he'd been president because he would have deterred Vladimir Putin from doing it. And yet what's very obvious is that Trump as Trump 2.0 is not deterring Vladimir Putin from anything, including these forays into Europe. Is this Vladimir Putin testing to see whether doors open when he flies the drones into Estonia and Romania and Poland? Because it seems reckless that if you can't handle Ukraine, you sure as hell aren't going to be able to handle NATO. So what's going on?
- [37:07]
David French
Okay, so. So I have a kind of. I think that the top line is he's absolutely testing NATO responsiveness. So there are a lot of reasons why, you know, in the Cold War, you had this constant process of probing reaction times. You know, you had. You would have flights of Soviet bombers near American task forces or Soviet bombers near Alaska. You know, so you had this constant, how quickly do I scramble our jets? Like, a lot of this was testing and probing of defenses and sort of testing and probing of reaction. You know, one of the most gripping things, you know, one of the most interesting things about these really gripping Tom Clancy novels was they kind of lifted the veil on, for example, how much the submarine forces of Russia, of the Soviet Union in America were engaged in almost like a pretend war at all times. Yes, they were constantly trying to track each other, constantly getting sort of into this position where they're trying to be in a dominant position, jockeying the whole time. So part of that is just like a continuation of that. And I, and, but in much more dangerous circumstances because we've got an actual shooting war going on in Ukraine. The other one is that I'm curious, and I floated this by some, some folks in the know, and, and they have, they've been very intrigued by this idea. It's not just testing whether NATO responds, it's testing who responds within NATO. So, in other words, you know, in previous administrations, if you had had a significant danger on the eastern flank of NATO, the lead forces on the eastern flank would have been American. And for a couple of reasons. One, America is the strongest force in NATO by far. So you're demonstrating right there that the strongest force is on the front lines. And second, because we were the strongest force, we were also often able, the ones who had the resources to immediately respond. And so, but what's interesting about this, and I haven't had a complete picture of the responses, it seems as if most of the early responses have been Polish, Swedish, Dutch. So in other words, I think Maybe one American, F35, might have been involved in the Polish incursion. Maybe, I can't remember. But. So what he's seeing is, as he probes, NATO is responding, but it is responding with the forces of its lesser powers. Now, when I say that, I say that with the full qualification that it could be just an accident of, of, of troop rotations. Maybe it is the Dutch turn or the Swedish turn. But my thought would be, if you have extreme danger on the eastern flank, the tip of that spear should be American because we have the sharpest blade. And so I do worry that even in this probing, while NATO forces have responded with alacrity, you know, the, the Gripen fighters intercepting the MiG31s, that is still the lesser NATO powers. And so that. What is that? What does that tell? What does that tell Putin? At the end of the day, Putin is not super scared of Sweden. I think he has, especially while locked in, while locked in combat with Ukraine, he has a healthier respect for the Polish military. But even the Polish military, no, not super scared of that. And it's bulking up Big time. So I'm not denigrating the Polish military. Russia is just a big, big power. But he's looking at that. And even if you take the Swedish and Polish and Dutch and all of these militaries at their apex, they're a fraction of our power. And so I am worried about that.
- [41:07]
Charlie Sykes
Yeah. America, you know, being absent there. By the way, just as a digression before I. In the time we have left, I want to talk about TikTok and something you wrote about that. You know, we can connect the dots. I always love connecting the dots. We can connect the dots between Zelenskyy and the Kimmel story that we were talking about and why they are so similar. I don't know whether you've ever seen it. Have you ever seen Servant of the People, which is the sitcom, the Ukrainian sitcom starring Volodymyr Zelensky when he was an actor and a comedian and he plays the role? No. It will blow your mind if you can find it online to realize that this is a guy who once was in a sitcom about this guy, this teacher who then becomes president of Ukraine, and he plays the role on the show, and then it happened in real life. And so where did Volodymyr Zelenskyy come from? He was once a satirist, he was once a comedian, he was once an actor. So again, all things, I think all things connect at a certain point. Okay. In the time that we have left. This story is so big and so bizarre. Donald Trump is cutting this deal for the future of TikTok. He's carving in, you know, many of his oligarch buddies into it. But as you point out, recently, you know, Congress passed a law banning TikTok. The Supreme Court upheld it. 9 Nothing. So talk to me about the legality of this, because it certainly just appears that Donald Trump decided that he was going to ignore the law completely, and there are no consequences whatsoever, as far as I can tell.
- [42:56]
David French
You know, we've had so many outrages, so many scandals. They just all blur together, Charlie. It's sort of like, you know, it's almost as if the sheer multiplicity of the scandals is a defense. It works a certain kind of political magic. So that, in essence, if everything's a scandal, it just washes over people. You know, it's that old incredible. Everybody's super. Nobody is. If everything's a scandal, nothing is. But if you were going to pin down to me what are the most important, what are the worst, most important, most consequential things that he's done near the absolute in the top five, sort of in the Mount or the top four. Like the Mount Rushmore of awfulness would be the turning the DOJ into his personal law firm. In essence, that's right up there. But this is on the Mount Rushmore. The Tick Tock. And here. And here's explain why a lot of people are like, why are you talking about TikTok? It's just dancing. No, no, no, no. So here's what's happening. Congress passes a law banning Tick Tock unless it's sold to, you know, US concerns and for national security reasons. This wasn't because people disliked TikTok. It's not because people thought the dances were inane and corrupting American youth. No.
- [44:20]
Charlie Sykes
Right.
- [44:21]
David French
It's because there were two things going on with tick tock. You had 170 million Americans use this app. That's about half of America. And the algorithm is in the hands is by Chinese law. Okay, By Chinese law. The algorithm is ultimately under the potential control of the Chinese government. So the Chinese government can use it to flood us with disinformation. It can use it to try to divide us. It can. I've painted scenarios where like imagine there's a defense buildup outside of Taiwan and we recall troops, sailors from on leave, we start to mobilize the military and then all of a sudden TikTok starts turning into why is America doing this? Taiwan is just like Puerto Rico. Taiwan is just like Hawaii. This is Chinese territory. Or this is disinformation. Many of you might have been receiving call up orders. Disregard them. It's a scam creating confusion about call up orders, you know, you name it or. And then the other thing they do so the algorithms in their hands so they can. They have potential by law, sort of direct control over what 170 million Americans are viewing on their phones. And then here's the other thing. They're vacuuming up information about Americans location data, use things that interest us. So then imagine in this scenario that at the same time TikTok is being flooded with disinformation in advance of a Chinese attack on Taiwan. All of a sudden public officials are getting blackmailed because TikTok has. You've seen these videos, you've delivered this message. This is what you. And so the national security concerns are obvious. It has nothing to do with the First Amendment rights of the TikTok creators. Has everything to do with the fact because they can go to Instagram, they can go to Twitter, they can. Right. It has everything to do with the control of a hostile communist government over an app that reaches 170 million. So that's a big national security issue. Supreme Court upholds it 9, 0.
- [46:25]
Charlie Sykes
Another law that was passed by an overwhelming bipartisan majority.
- [46:30]
David French
Bipartisan majority.
- [46:31]
Charlie Sykes
In fact, people like Marco Rubio and other conservative Republicans had been among those who were sounding the alarm that you just articulated. This is not a partisan issue or was not a partisan issue at all.
- [46:44]
David French
Oh, and guess what? Was the first administration to try to ban TikTok? The Trump administration by executive order in 2020. So Trump figures out, and as near as we can tell, because we don't know all of the motivations, Trump figured out that he's doing well on TikTok, that he has a big presence, that his allies are doing well on TikTok. And suddenly he feels like his self interest changes or either that or, I mean, we don't know all the motivations. But the bottom line is he just says no to a law passed by Congress. No. That was passed for significant national security concerns, goes out and independently negotiates a deal that. Guess what, Charlie? If the reports are correct, it's going to hand control over an app that reaches 170 million people to a coalition of his strongest political allies.
- [47:33]
Charlie Sykes
Right.
- [47:33]
David French
And so he defies the law passed for national security reasons. A bipartisan majority. Why? For what purpose? Not for American national security, Charlie, but to hand over control of that app to a coalition of his allies. Now, in that way, you can't separate this from the effort to pressure Jimmy Kimmel or the lawsuits against the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. It's all about the conflict, consolidation of control and power over American information. And he will disregard national security to do it. He'll disregard acts of Congress to do it. I mean, this is serious, serious stuff. And so the sort of idea that he's this great patriot.
- [48:13]
Charlie Sykes
Well, even with the New Deal, handing it over to his supporters, do the Chinese still have that access? Is it still a national security threat or has he washed it?
- [48:23]
David French
Well, we haven't seen all the details. So the. I do believe the deal, at least as I understand it, will address some of the concerns about information security, in other words, about Americans information. The big question is the algorithm, because that was. That algorithm was Chinese technology. And China has been very reluctant to try to sort of hand that over. And so a Republican member of Congress put out a statement saying if this deal doesn't decisively deal with the algorithmic issue, it isn't satisfying the national security concerns. And then the other Thing is, Charlie, think of it this way. Every single day that this TikTok ban is delayed, there is a certain amount of damage being done to American national security. On both fronts, there's more information being gathered. And on the other front, there's more ways in which China is influencing the American national conversation. And there was some interesting research done in showing that the difference in the way Instagram deals with the oppression of Uyghurs and TikTok is pretty substantial. And also there's the fact that if there is an app in America that is extraordinarily divisive, it's creating American division. I mean, I would put Twitter number one, of course, I'd put Twitter number one on that, but Tick Tock is right up there. So already, every day that this thing is operating with potential Chinese control, they are subtly putting their thumbs on American discourse every single. So we're dealing with months of damage being inflicted while Trump does all of this.
- [50:01]
Charlie Sykes
You know what I think I'm going to do? I'm going to. I'm going to go back and, and get all the quotes from Republicans, Senators and Representatives about how dangerous TikTok is. You know, comparing that to what we're doing. You know what I'm gonna do is for people who are listening to this podcast, I'm gonna provide links to the articles that David wrote about all of these issues on the newsletter, the to the Contrary newsletter. David, once again, thank you so much for your time and for your insights. I always appreciate it. Thank you.
- [50:32]
David French
Thanks, Charlie. This was so much fun. Well, fun might be a strong word. It's always great to see you. Our topics were super fun.
- [50:40]
Charlie Sykes
It's always fun talking to a smart person. So I enjoy doing that. I mean, I love spending time with the dogs, but it's also time every once in a while, I want to talk to a smart adult, Billy. Seriously. And thank you all for listening to this episode of to the Contrary podcast. Do I need to remind you why we do this, why we're going to continue to do this? Because now more than ever, we have to remind ourselves, really on a daily basis that we are not the crazy ones. Thank you.
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