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- [00:00]
Darina
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Charlie Sykes
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- [01:37]
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- [02:59]
Charlie Sykes
I'm Charlie Sykes. Welcome back to the to the Contrary podcast. By the way, congratulations on making it through year one of Donald Trump's second coming. We only have three years to go. Okay, that was kind of depressing to start. So I wanna talk about what's happening in the world right now, because many of you may have seen the fact that the President went to Davos. We'll talk about that at some later. But on the way there, he posted a little bit of what I call MAGA troll porn. For the rest of the world, you may have seen this image, an AI image of Donald Trump sitting in the Oval Office with a big map of the American flag covering the United States and Canada. And then all the leaders of the EU were sitting around the desk looking like a bunch of chumps. Well, hilarity, of course, ensued, because of course, ha ha ha. That's just hilarious. Except is not amused by this. And many of you may have heard about this, but the Prime Minister of Canada, Mark Carney, gave an absolutely extraordinary address at Davos. And I honestly think that history may look back on his speech as the moment when the west reached its breaking point. And here's just a little bit of what the Canadian Prime Minister said.
- [04:23]
Peter Wehner
Let me be direct. We are in the midst of a rupture, not a transition. Over the past two decades, a series of crises in finance, health, energy, and geopolitics have laid bare the risks of extreme global integration. But more recently, great powers have begun using economic integration as weapons, tariffs as leverage, financial infrastructure as coercion, supply chains as vulnerabilities to be exploited. You cannot live within the lie of mutual benefit through integration when integration becomes the source of your subordination.
- [05:03]
Charlie Sykes
Now, you ought to read the whole thing, because for someone like Mark Carney, to use the word rupture, not transition, is an indication of how the world is looking at us right now. So we have a lot to cover today. And joining me on the podcast today is our good friend, Peter Wehner. Peter, welcome back.
- [05:29]
Peter Wehner
Great to be with you, Charlie. It's always a delight to have a conversation with you, even if the topics are not always that bright.
- [05:35]
Charlie Sykes
No, not especially today. Now, Peter, as many of the listeners of this podcast know, is a contributing writer to the Atlantic and to the New York Times and a senior fellow at the Trinity Forum And Peter, I have to say I think I told you right before we started, I wouldn't think that this would happen since we have been talking about this so long, but your piece in the Atlantic that was published yesterday blew my mind. I'm sorry, Maga. Jesus is not the real Jesus. Trump is causing incalculable damage to the Christian faith, yet most evangelicals will never break with him. Now, that part we've covered. But I have to say, mind blowing piece about how Donald Trump has transformed the culture. And you know, you and I have talked about this before and I hope I'm not misunderstood at a certain point. I think, you know, the problem is not Trump. Trump is Trump. You know, Trump is who we thought he was going to be. What he has done to the culture and what the culture has allowed him to do is I think the truly most dispiriting thing, shocking development of the last decade. And I think your piece makes that very, very clear.
- [06:47]
Peter Wehner
Well, thank you. I appreciate, I appreciate that. I completely agree with you. I think you and I have been saying for a long time that analysis that you, that frame that you just put around Donald Trump, you know, is a malignant narcissist and he has a disordered.
- [07:07]
Momentus Representative
Yeah.
- [07:07]
Peter Wehner
And he has a disordered personality. So I think for him, and I have thought this really as far back as 2016, is that morality is to him what color is to a blind person. He just, he doesn't see it. He can't see it. So what he's doing, in a sense, is unexpected. This is what you would predict would happen if you had a person of sociopathic tendencies with the enormous extraordinary powers of the presidency. What would have been more difficult to predict? And what is dispiriting is precisely what you said, which is the American people, or at least enough of them, have seen this show run over and over again, and in 2024, saw it yet one more time and looked at it and said, yeah, this is the guy that we want to lead the country. And in a sense, that election, and even the previous election, but much more, I would say in 2024 was a cat scan on the morality and the ethics of the American citizenry, at least, again, a lot of them. And so he is the representative man for America. His ethics are essentially our ethics. And that's a difficult thing to acknowledge, I would say, especially for people like you and I who grew up in an era of conservatism, which was shaped by Ronald Reagan. And if anything, I would, looking back, it was an overly romanticized view that I had of America. But the notion of the shining city on the Hill has truth to it, has real truth to it, and it certainly had resonance in my heart and I'm guessing in yours too. And so to have been shaped at an early age by that view of America, and now to see what America's become under Donald Trump because of the choice in this case of 77 million people, it's a painful thing to name.
- [09:06]
Charlie Sykes
So the part that blew my mind, in fact, you blew my mind in the second paragraph of your article. And again, considering that we have been talking about this for 10 years, I would have thought that I would have been immune to that kind of a reaction. I think many of us have been watching with horror the videos coming out of occupied Minneapolis. Just the cruelty, the overkill, the way in which the mask thugs of ICE have been beating people up, taking elderly, elderly men out of their house wearing their underwear. U.S. u.S. Citizens. I think people are familiar with this, but this is the part that caused deep in intake of, of. Of breath. The Department of Homeland Security, Christineau, has been putting out these videos, which I have not seen. These social media recruitment videos in which scripture verses feature prominently. They are using the Bible to recruit people to do this sort of thing. One video quotes from Isaiah 6, 8. Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, whom shall I send and who will go for us? I said, here I am. Send me. Yeah, because The Lord wanted ice. Okay. Another quotes from Proverbs 28. 1. The wicked flee when no man pursueth. But the righteous are as bold as a lion. But this is the sentence that got me, Peter. This is the sentence that got me the most recent DHS video quotes from Jesus's Sermon on the Mount. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God. Okay, Peter, just walk me, walk me through this. So these folks who are behind all of this, the Stephen Millers and the Kristi Nome, are very, very consciously using Bible verses. They're citing Bible. They don't.
- [11:02]
Darina
Okay.
- [11:02]
Charlie Sykes
They don't see the cognitive dissonance there. Jesus, Sermon on the Mount. People should go back and reread that and then watch a video of ice. So, Peter, what the hell?
- [11:11]
Peter Wehner
Yeah, it is extraordinary. I mean, somebody had sent me that video about blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the sons of God. And when you watch the video, what you see are these images of mass ICE agents, you know, guns drawn in all sorts of gear. And then there's the context, of course, in what ICE has done what we know that they have done. So what's going on here, this is a level of propaganda which we haven't seen before in this country and is actually sophisticated in a certain way. It's not simply saying that, you know, Christianity can tolerate what Donald Trump and his goons are doing. It is that what they are doing is validated not by, just by scripture, but by the Beatitudes, by the Sermon on the Mount. So it's, yeah, the transvaluation of all values. That is, it's the total inversion of what reality is. It's a total inversion of what morality is. And so to see this happen is really quite extraordinary. And they're smart in a certain way. I mean, they are targeting a certain group, demographic, young men who are either Christians or cultural Christians. And those verses, and this effort is to try and give purpose and meaning to their life. It's essentially saying, come join this crusade. But it's a crusade on behalf of, of, in many cases, wickedness in terms of what this administration stands for. So we're in areas that we haven't been before, other countries have been, so we can learn from them. But I just think it's important from time to time to be able to name what is going on. The level of gaslighting that we're seeing is really without precedent in American history.
- [13:16]
Charlie Sykes
So what's really extraordinary to me, Peter, is that these videos that you're describing that are citing the Beatitudes and everything are in these videos that are set to music with these militaristic images. They show the heavily armed agents in the tactical gear, weapons drawn, donning masks, looking through night vision goggles, zip lining from helicopters. See, this is not the resistance that is putting these images in juxtaposition to show the dissonance. This is in this DHS video. And as you point out, the message is not subtle that ICE is doing the work of God. Now, I think what's really been shocking the conscience of the nation is that a lot of people are looking at those images and are thinking, okay, this is not what Jesus would do. You are seeing the Catholic Church in particular being much, much more vocal about, you know, pushing back against the tactics, that this is not pro life, this is not Christian, this is not any of this. But it feel as if beneath the level or above the level of the secular debate that we're having, this is a real religious culture war trying to define the reality of Christianity. But I have to say, and again, this is what's mind blowing to me, that Anyone would think that this kind of brute force, these kinds of tactics, are God's work. And yet there's a constituency for this. And I think this is the part, again, that we need to confront, that there are people who think of themselves as Christians, as good Christians, who look at that and go, yeah, that's what God wants me to do. This is what God is in favor of.
- [14:58]
Peter Wehner
Yeah, that's exactly right. I mean, this is the human mind's capacity to rationalize things that are not true. And in this case, you're taking the words of Jesus and. And pursuing policies and arguments and saying things that are antithetical to that. And to understand why that happens, you have to move out from the realm of reason to the realm of human psychology. And I think, compared to where I was 15 years ago, I would say that I've come to learn that human psychology is much more important in understanding politics even than political theory sometimes and political science classes, because politics is where human psychology plays out. And in this case, I'd say what has happened is that Christians who may have come to Trump reluctantly in 2016, 2017, when the phrase that was used is his personality, the dark sides of his personality were a bug rather than a feature.
- [16:09]
Charlie Sykes
And we're not electing a pastor.
- [16:11]
Peter Wehner
Exactly, exactly. So they wouldn't champion his immorality, they would simply overlook it, or they would rationalize, because they'd say, well, in the case of 2016, Hillary Clinton's policies were worse for the country than they believed Trump's. That was a legitimate argument to make. I think it was off and said so at the time. But there was an argument to be made for that, at least in principle. What has happened, I think, is day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year, Christians and others, but we're talking about Christians, made an accommodation with Trump. They began to accept what he did, and the worse he acted, the more they accepted it. And over time, that window kept moving. No, exactly. Overton window changes. Cognitive dissonance, which is the idea that you are living in contradictions to who you see yourself to be, is a very painful thing for most people. We don't live easily with it. And so what you have to do to quell that internal dissension and that feeling that I'm living at odds with myself is you have to reconcile, you have to rationalize it. And so you have these series of accommodations. And what happens over time is that what was that bug becomes a feature for Donald Trump. And then there's the psychic satisfaction There's a sense that he is hurting the people that we hate. And even if they themselves wouldn't be particularly comfortable in doing it, they're glad somebody's doing it. And Trump became, in a sense, their protector. And then they elevate. They say, look, this is an existential struggle. This is a kind of Nazi moment. This would be someone like Eric Metaxas who's wandered into the twilight zone over time.
- [18:09]
Charlie Sykes
Deep into the twilight zone.
- [18:11]
Peter Wehner
Yeah. And so I think that that stuff. One other thing, Charlie, I think would be interesting if you went back to a lot of Trump supporters who were Christians and had a conversation with them in 2016, and you said, look, just for the sake of the argument, let me stipulate some things. Donald Trump did the following 10 things. He'd light the fuse that led to a violent insurrection. He'd send out texts urging a mob to hang his vice president. He'd be found liable of sexual assault. And you went through 10, 15 things. And you said, if that had happened, let's just speculate, this would have happened. Would you, as a follower of Jesus, stick with him? And I would guess almost to a person, they would say, are you crazy? Absolutely not. He wouldn't do it. The first thing they would say is, you're suffering from Trump derangement syndrome. But they would have said, in all honesty, no. Of course, there would be a breaking point. Now you Fast forward to 10 years and there is no breaking point. And that has done enormous damage to the country, the politics of the country. But it's also done enormous, enormous damage to the Christian witness, which, because I'm a person of the Christian faith, it's a doubly painful thing to see.
- [19:26]
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- [20:50]
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- [22:04]
Charlie Sykes
You know, you mentioned in the article that several years ago you had a conversation with a theologian who told you that Christianity has in many cases stopped being the home to Jesus. Which I thought was really a striking thing. Because you know, a lot of the right wing populace as you write, don't view Christianity as a faith, but rather they use Christianity now as a cultural identity marker of the pure people against external others, while in many cases remaining completely disconnected from Christian values, beliefs and institutions. And so you know, a lot of the right wing populace who are completely secular are having success recruiting Christians to their cause. And this is again, I said that blew my mind. And rather than Christians leavening the secular right wing movements, making them more compassionate, those movements are prying Christianity further and further away from the ethic and teachings of Jesus. I guess the question is why is the church writ large allowing that to happen? Why are pastors allowing that to happen if they're seeing them? If they're seeing their flock being pulled away into something and the flock not leavening the right wing movements but in fact prying them Away from the teachings. Why isn't there a huge Reformation movement in the church, saying, no, you need to stop doing this. Ultimately, whatever your politics are, you cannot allow this to happen. Why is that not happening?
- [23:35]
Peter Wehner
Yeah, that's such a good question, Charlie. Essentially, what you're asking churches to do is a version of what the confessional church in Nazi Germany did, which was to rise up. It was a minority within Germany at the time because there was a movement, Deutsche Christen, as they referred to it, German Christians, in which the church had been captive, made captive by the Nazi party and supported it. And there was a confessional church led by Martin E. Moller and particularly Dietrich Bonhoeffer, that stood up and said, we can't allow that. Why is some version of that not happening in the United States right now? First thing I'd say is actually apropos what you said earlier. In the last week, the Catholic Church is beginning to speak out. There were three bishops who released a statement which clearly had the blessing of Pope Leo in the context of international affairs and the acidic erosion of moral foundation of American foreign policy within the evangelical world. It's complicated. I've had this conversation with a lot of pastors, and I've asked them, and I've had this conversation with people who were not Trump supporters and who would see the world more or less as you and I do. And I've asked this question very directly to them. At what point do you, as a pastor or your church that you lead, do you speak out? What is the line? What's the red line here that Donald Trump has to cross before you speak out? The answer I've heard is several fold. And how I understand this, I think the first thing, just from their perspective, is a lot of these pastors are not political, have never been political, and never used their pulpits for politics. They're not comfortable in doing it. They got into the ministry to bear witness to Jesus, to give sermons on Philippians and Luke and Isaiah, not to weigh in on ice or other things. So I'd say there's a preexisting instinct not to get involved in politics. Secondly, if you're dealing with the evangelical and the Protestant world, you don't have authority like you do in the Catholic Church. It's much more diffuse, the authority. There are denominations like the pcusa, Southern Baptist and so forth, but they tend to give a lot of latitude to denominations. Third is that I think pastors would say, if I speak out, what good would it do? And what would be the cost and the cost may well be that I divide my congregation, that it just becomes inflamed, that if I speak out against Donald Trump on Sunday, January 11th, then when I speak out on Philippians 2 on January 11th, 18th, then I will have lost the congregation and they won't listen to me.
- [26:34]
Charlie Sykes
It's pretty much the same kind of rationalization you get from Republican congressmen. Right. I mean, it's just like there's always these rationalizations. Why take the right stand if the cost. And of course, Christianity is really all about the cost of doing these things.
- [26:51]
Peter Wehner
Yeah, No, I think that is right. The other thing that I said to them is, look, an awful lot of pastors who are not shy about speaking out have weighed in as the personification of the MAGA ethic. Right. If they are doing that and many pastors who don't share that MAGA ethic are silent, what is the picture that is being shown to the watching world? They're looking at it and they're saying, look, look, all these people. Well, number one, white evangelicals vote in overwhelming margins, more than 80% for Donald Trump. So there's that. So they're making the connection, which is this individual is the choice of the vast majority of white evangelicals. And then you get people like Robert Jeffress and Ralph Reed and Eric Metaxas and on and on, and they're saying, well, they're making the case for the maga ethic. They're saying, Christianity should be conjoined to this malevolent movement, and the people who disagree are silent. And so that is ceding the ground and to the world. They're saying, okay, well, then Christianity must actually be represented by this movement and by these people. That's part of the reason, honestly, why I've written, why I have it. I just feel like it's important for some people who consider themselves to be followers of Jesus to say, wait a second, this is not what our faith stands for. And look, I don't know at what point, what is it that Donald Trump can do at this point that would catalyze ministers and denominations in the evangelical world to speak out? Would it be martial law? Would it be suspending an election? I suspect not. I think that they have made their own inner peace. And let me say one other thing, Charlie, that I think is important to this precisely because I have had these conversations. The reality is that a lot of these pastors will speak out on politics. They'll speak out on abortion. They'll speak out on homosexuality. They'll speak out on transgenderism and they'll speak out in some cases on legislation or court decisions. When there's pro life Sunday every year, they'll say something about abortion. They're not virgins on this issue. They have already tossed their hat over the wall. So what they're doing is they're saying, well, look, I'll speak out on some of these issues because 95% of my congregation agrees with me. But if the congregation doesn't agree with me, I won't. And then I ask them, if you were a white pastor in Birmingham in 1958 and most of your congregation were racists or believed in segregation, would you look back now and say, I'm glad that those ministers had the courage to speak to their congregation with what is the gospel truth when they were veering from it. And a lot of them, I think, would look back to the civil rights movement and say, I wish more pastors had spoken out. But it's a lot easier to do 50 or 60 or 70 years after the fact than it is in real time.
- [30:04]
Charlie Sykes
It is. Well, here's an example of that. I've been reading a lot about the Catholic Church's decision back in 1933 to strike the deal with Adolf Hitler. 1933, early on, the Catholic Church had a concordat. Is that the way you pronounce the word? A concordat which gave a great deal of legitimacy to the Nazi regime. But the church at the time rationalized it in a number of ways. They said, it will protect our institutions, it will protect our schools, it will enable us to keep doing what we're doing, even though now we have given a thumbs up to the Nazi regime in Germany. But also, and there's a very, very powerful factor here that as distasteful as we might find the Nazis, we think that they are less of a threat than the Bolsheviks. And there's always the other. So what I hear from many of these conservative Christians is, okay, this is bad. I am legitimately troubled by this. But the other side is much worse. That they are at least going to be some sort of a guardrail against the godless communists, the transsexuals, the people that invade churches, the abortion lobby. I can't tell you the number of times someone has said, no matter what Donald Trump does, if he prevents a million abortions, then I'm with him. So you will always find that either or world, that the other side poses a great. And I think that the Catholic Church has been haunted by what it did in 1933. I think it's been haunted by that memory of, of that rationalization, that appeasement, that enabling. And you can sort of feel that the Church is really seeing itself, particularly with the new Pope, in light of the historical moment, that we are not going to go back and make the kinds of mistakes that we made with such horrific consequences back then.
- [31:53]
Peter Wehner
Yeah, no, I think that's a good analysis. I think that the Catholic Church has learned from that, from that dark, the dark period. And all of us should, I suppose it's important to get in the necessary caveat, which is that America in 2026 isn't Nazi Germany in 1936 and Trump isn't Hitler, Nobody is. And the Nazi regime was sui generis in its wickedness. On the other hand, that doesn't mean that there aren't lessons to learn from that time or from any other time. And what I think people should be able to do is to draw certain kinds of lessons and recognize the echoes or the parallels. But you do see what happened. And it was true of the Catholic Church, it was true of the German Protestant Church. And the rationalizations that they made at that time are ones that again are sort of through lines in human nature. Look, we gotta go with them because the other side is worse, or as you said, we need to protect our institution, or, and again, this is something you and I have heard ad nauseam among Republican congressmen. We've got to maintain relationships with the regime in power so we can mitigate their worst tendencies and point them in the direction of doing good. And that just hasn't happened. I just want an interesting data point because I've heard this argument a lot too on Donald Trump and abortion, and therefore you can support him for anything. The reality is that under Donald Trump's first term, abortions went up 7%. There are more abortions at the end of Trump's first term than at the beginning. And they were actually at a historic low water mark, at least in modern times, at the end of the Obama administration. And in addition to that, Donald Trump, because abortion has now become more of a loser politically since overturn of Roe v. Wade, he himself has been, is moving the Republican party in a more pro choice direction. So even that argument, which was used so often by evangelicals, actually in reality doesn't cohere.
- [34:08]
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- [35:28]
Darina
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- [36:28]
Charlie Sykes
So you've touched on something but didn't address it in great length in the piece. There's a real danger of this melding of this right wing populism with Christianity. Real danger that it morphs into antisemitism and you talk about Again, we're not Germany, but it is worth pointing out that you know that during the 20s and the 30s you did have this German church that promoted the idea of the heroic Jesus who was like the Aryan Jesus who fought against the Jewish influence in German life and they were encouraged by the anti Semitic writings of Martin Luther. In the Martin Luther Memorial Church in Mariendorf, built in 1935, a wood carving on the pulpit depicts Christ preaching to a small group that includes a helmet wearing Wehrmacht soldier. The church included other Nazi imagery including an iron cross on the church's chandelier. So there is an historical background that if you keep pushing this specifically Christian identity and the warrior Jesus, the pure Jesus, that it could contribute to this, this ugly and continually shocking to me. Resurgence of right wing. There's left wing anti Semitism too. I want to make it very clear that that's a real thing. But the resurgence of the kind of right wing Holocaust, denying Hitler fanboy antisemitism people like Nick Fuentes.
- [38:04]
Peter Wehner
Exactly. That is right. Even compared to five years ago, the rise of antisemitism on the right is, is quite arresting. And once again, there has been a validation that Donald Trump has given to that in this respect. I don't blame Donald Trump alone. I think there are other factors that have been catalyzed and unleashed. But it was Trump that met with Fuentes in 2022 at Mar a Lago and reportedly said that, I like this guy. He gets me. And I'm sure Nick Fuentes did get Trump. But, but since then, and I know you've talked about this and covered it, but you do have figures like Candace Owen, Tucker Carlson, and to me, maybe the most illustrative and worrisome is Megyn Kelly. To see her begin to wander into that fever swamp, why she's doing it, I don't know the woman, so I don't know what her motivations are. And she had a very bad exit from NBC. But, but the fact is that she was a serious journalistic voice during her time at Fox News. She was the most independent voice, I would say, during that era. In the 2010s, up until the election, Donald Trump famously attacked her during the debate. And to see her join Tucker Carlson, join Candace Owen, at least implicitly so, is an indication of how rapidly this antisemitism is spreading on the right. You're absolutely correct. Anti Semitism on the left is a real danger. The roots are deeper. But when you and I were pre Trump Republicans, I don't recall antisemitism being an issue. Pat Buchanan, he was probably the figure that you would, you would look to. And William F. Buckley famously kind of excommunicated him from the.
- [40:12]
Charlie Sykes
But he had the moral authority to do that.
- [40:13]
Peter Wehner
Exactly.
- [40:15]
Charlie Sykes
There's no one like a William F. Buckley that could now say to Pat Buchanan, do Pat Buchanan types be gone? None of them. In fact, if anything, the incentives seem to be moving there. And J.D. vance has made it very clear that he's going to run interference for any of those folks. I mean, the door is wide open now, that's right.
- [40:35]
Peter Wehner
And J.D. vance is significant in the sense that he obviously knows where the wind is and he is afraid to stand up to anti Semitism. We're a long way away from a nominee for 2028, assuming Trump steps aside. But he's obviously a significant political figure. J.D. vance, he is the vice president, and he's. He's setting himself up as the de facto head of the MAGA movement after Trump. So the fact that he's not willing to speak out about this, that he's sort of playing footsies with the Nazi sympathizers and the American right, tells you a very, very great deal. And this is a warning sign. I mean, this is what happens when you make accommodation after accommodation. And, you know, it's the Niemel or line. They went after Jews and I said nothing. They went after Catholics, I said nothing on and on, and then they went after me and there was nobody left. That's playing itself out in real time in the United States right now.
- [41:41]
Charlie Sykes
Well, the article is maga Jesus is not the real Jesus. To which a lot of people will go. Well, no kidding, except our government is apparently spending a great deal, you know, quite a lot of tax dollars in convincing people there are. So let's pivot now to this moment in world history that we have. Okay, Peter, because you mentioned something a little bit earlier, which may sound like a cliche to some of our listeners, but actually meant something to us, that America was once that shining city on the Hill, that people look to us in a certain way. And what is really striking to me right now is the way in which the world is looking at us in a completely different light, the horror with which they are regarding us. You know, I. Mark Carney's speech about the rupture, the fact that the Canadians. I didn't mention this. The Canadians are actually apparently gaming out what would happen if the United States invaded them militarily. I mean, the fact that they're even thinking about this stuff, we were thinking the unthinkable. And of course, a lot of the people in the west are thinking that the. There's the possibility that the Western alliance may move on without the United States. There was a really compelling piece in Puck about members of Congress. I don't know whether you saw this. Members of Congress who visited Denmark last week. And I think they added that to their itinerary just to reassure, you know, the Danes, hey, you know, we're not all like that. He doesn't speak for us. And they were shocked and appalled by how rattled the Danes were. The Danes used to take pride in the fact that they had the largest fourth of July celebration outside the United States. And they are feeling so incredibly betrayed. And I wanna play for some, for people because there are so many of these speeches that you're hearing from around the world where our former friends are expressing their shock. And I wanna just play this one. This is a conservative member of the British Parliament named Ed Davy and he's talking about what's, you know, the fact that Donald Trump has been threatening Greenland whether, you know, using force or not. Let me just play this because this is the way people are talking about this country and this president. Now, these are people who, you know, have probably regarded us as the best friends they ever had. But listen to Ed Davy. On the floor of British Parliament, President.
- [44:00]
Ed Davey
Trump is acting like an international gangster, threatened to trample over the sovereignty of an ally, threatening the end of NATO altogether, and now threatening to hit our country and seven European allies with outrageous damaging tariffs unless he gets his hands on Greenland. This is an incredibly grave moment for the United Kingdom, Europe and our world. Without provocation or justification, the President of the United States is attacking our economy, our livelihoods and our national security. Trump has put British businesses and jobs on the front line in his unprovoked aggression. The only people cheering him on are Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping. Only a few months ago, Trump hailed the special relationship at Windsor Castle. Now, thanks to his actions, it is nearly in tatters. So how do we stop Trump's damaging trade war? For a year now, Madam Deputy speaker, the Prime Minister has tried a policy of appeasing Trump, flattering him, fawning over him, refusing to to stand up to him because he argued otherwise Trump would hit us with damaging tariffs. Well, the Prime Minister has tested his approach to destruction. It has failed. It is time for the government to change course. We have to finally be clear eyed about the sort of man Trump is and treat him accordingly. He is a bully. He thinks he can grab whatever he wants using force if necessary, and he is corrupt.
- [45:54]
Charlie Sykes
Peter, that is so powerful when you have members of Parliament saying that the special relationship is in tatters. And I could play you dozens of similar speeches in the European Parliament and the Belgian Parliament, the Danish Parliament, the Norwegian Parliament. Never imagined that we would be in this moment as Americans.
- [46:16]
Peter Wehner
Oh, gosh, yeah, it's painful to hear that. I think those words are stirring. I think everything, every single word he said is true. And I'm just so sad that it's true, but it has to be said, it has to be named. What Donald Trump is doing. He is on the verge of destroying the greatest military alliance in human history. And a military alliance that overwhelmingly did good for the world and that stood for aspirations and ideals that were central to the American founding. And even though the United States at various points has obviously wandered away and in some cases lived in contradiction to those ideals and those values, it never jettisoned them as an aspiration or as an ideal. And that meant that we were able to judge ourselves and judge other people by those aspirations. But not Donald Trump and not the MAGA movement, not anymore. The United States. It is now saying not only that we can't live up to those ideals, but that we reject them. In fact, we embrace the opposite. We embrace the will to power. We embrace the ethic that might makes right. We embrace the ethic of thrasymachus. In the republic, which is injustice is really justice, that the powerful do what they can, the weak do what they must. That has never happened. And to be living through it and seeing it is an extremely poignant thing. But I do want to also underscore that this is a mega moment in international affairs and even, I would say, in human history, because to have the United States take actions that is severing its alliances with its closest allies is breathtaking. And it's going to catalyze things that we can't possibly anticipate right now.
- [48:25]
Charlie Sykes
No, I think you're absolutely right. I mean, a couple of points there, that whatever happens with Greenland, that ideology, that will to power, that has been articulated by the administration, that has been embraced by the administration, and that taste is going to be in people's mouths for a very, very long time. The second is that maybe this, maybe this does mark the end of appeasement. There is this broad consensus, at least for the moment, that, okay, we tried truckling to Donald Trump, we tried bribing him, we tried sucking up to him, we tried giving him fake prizes and everything, none of it actually works. Now we actually have to confront him on his own terms. That would be an extraordinary moment. But also, I think if you're looking for a little bit of good news, it is possible that we have just seen a little bit of deterrence. Again, this is all happening in real time. Donald Trump rattling the saber about Greenland. What did Europe do? What did Denmark do? They actually, and I was a little bit surprised by this, they actually put in tripwires. They actually sent troops there, not because they were going to defeat the Americans, but because as a deterrent. And this is what triggered Donald Trump. I mean, he was very triggered by that. That's why he threatened the tariffs. That's deterrence number one. Deterrence number two. The one thing that Donald Trump pays attention to, the markets. So when it suddenly dawned on everybody that he's serious about this and he's serious about, you know, potentially creating another trade war, the Dow, Joe, draw. Dow Jones dropped by, what is it, like, 871 points the other day, and Donald Trump. Those are the signals that Donald Trump at least temporarily pays attention to. I stress temporarily because he is who he is and he's created this vast infrastructure around him that's gonna continue to do exactly what he wants to do.
- [50:25]
Peter Wehner
Yeah, I think that's right. And I agree with you that trying to placate Donald Trump hasn't worked. And so Europe and every other country in the world has to adjust accordingly. And I think what the Europeans did as it relates to Greenland was very impressive. And now it's the European countries that are standing up as models. As models to the world as sort of shining cities on a hill, if you will. I'd also add Charlie, and I'd be curious about your thoughts on this, because in some respects, Donald Trump is weakening politically. There's no question about that. There's been a drop very much in support. And one can feel that there's an unease now more broadly in the country. The Republicans are set up for a disastrous midterm election. Once in a while, you'll see a Republican speak out now and then, and that can be grounds of hope. Here's what I worry about with Donald Trump, and I wonder if you do the same, which is. And these points are conjoined when malignant narcissists, people of his personality type, feel that the walls are closing in. It can catalyze desperation out of them. So he has no restraints, but he can become even more unrestrained, more unhinged. And I worry that the circumstances for a person of his personality, combined with the obvious deterioration in him mentally, I don't know exactly what's the disinhibition if, if something is happening at his age. Somebody made an interesting point to me, which is, if you know people, late 70s, 80s, you can notice that during. During the day they're more engaged, but at night they begin to detach from reality. And if you notice some of what Trump does, some of his most unhinged tweets, they're in that sort of 2am kind of zone. And that combination of his pre existing deformed personality, that malignant narcissism, with his age coming together, it worries me. I'm not exactly sure what to do about it, but that he might want to really go out in a so called blaze of glory. And that then raises the issue, what can be done by the institutions of the United States, Whether it's the military or the Supreme Court or the Republican Party, of course they haven't stood up to him once. If that scenario comes to pass, I don't know that it will. Lord knows I hope it doesn't. But I just think we have to be alert to it.
- [53:28]
Charlie Sykes
Well, okay, I mean, first of all, I know people say, what about the 25th Amendment? The 25th Amendment is a dead letter in this respect. So let's set that aside. So let me answer this in two ways because I think it's important to keep two thoughts in our minds at the same time. Number one, he is politically weakening. He is moving into lame duckism. Chris, Eliza made a point the other day that the imposing tariffs in Greenland is so politically dumb, it's hard to even get your head around it. I mean, the public does not want adventurism in Greenland. To the extent that affordability is a problem by imposing tariffs, he makes it actually worse, which is again why the markets are freaking out. So he has about a 37% approval rating. What does that mean? It might mean that you will also have more of the institutions that have been caving into him now emboldened to take a stand. I think this is one of those key things. Will the Supreme Court be more willing to say we need to draw some significant red lines? Will other institutions who had rationalized appeasement, will they suddenly discover the value of backbones? So there may in fact be more checks on him, more resistance? That's the one thought. The second thought is exactly the same as yours, which is that for Donald Trump, being a lame duck is just another way of saying nothing left to lose. And I think he becomes extraordinarily dangerous. I think that the powers that he have. He has will be largely intact. He's made it very, very clear that he is unconstrained not just by norms and tradition, by law, but by our understanding of morality. And therefore. And we have three years to go. So I do think that on the one hand, he has been weakened. He does become more vulnerable. There will be more opportunities to push back and resist him. But he is, as you point out, we have a sundowning president who has lots of resentments, who has lots of hatreds. Who really does think of the government as an instrument to punish the people that he dislikes or that have offended him. And so I think that, yes, it's going to get. It may get better in one respect and more dangerous in another respect. And both of those things are true, at least I think.
- [55:47]
Peter Wehner
Yeah, no, that's a good analysis. It's helpful and I think it is how I see things. And you're right. I mean, he's unconstrained, you said, by laws and customs. He's unconstrained by morality. He's also unconstrained by reality. Not just laws and not just morality, but reality itself is not anything that that's going to constrain him. And that's just a dangerous place.
- [56:17]
Charlie Sykes
Okay, so Ann Applebaum made that point that he's living in a reality of his own. I mean, the fact that much of his justification for Greenland was the presence of all these Russian and Chinese submarines, which apparently are completely mythical. His obsession with weird conspiracy theories. So you have somebody who is divorced from morality, from law, from morality and reality at the same time. This is why there were those of us who suggested it was an extremely bad idea to give him access to the nuclear button. This is why we argued that this was a imprudent choice for a democracy to put him back into power. This man who is beyond. I thought it was interesting Barry Weiss's publication, the Free Press said that what's going on with Greenland is something like what's going on. It's like some never Trumper fever dream. Okay. At some point would you acknowledge that those warnings were accurate and that we've been doing this for 10 years and yet you're looking back and saying, yeah, this is like the craziest thought of the Never Trumpers. Well, maybe the craziest thought of Never Trumpers was not crazy enough in describing this guy. Peter Wehner. Peter, thank you so much for your time and your insight and for this article which I admit blew my mind. I strongly urge people to read it in the Atlantic Maga. Jesus is not the real Jesus. You may think that that is self evident, but trust me, unfortunately there are folks who do believe that it is the same Jesus and your tax dollars at work. You have to see these videos and see some of the propaganda coming out from ice, from dhs. You have to see it with your own eyes, otherwise you will ever believe it. So anyway, thank you, Peter, for all of this.
- [58:06]
Peter Wehner
Thanks a lot, Charlie. Appreciate it.
- [58:08]
Charlie Sykes
And thank you all for listening to this episode of to the Contrary Podcast. I'm Charlie Sachs. We will continue to do this for the duration because every single day we need to remind ourselves that we are not the crazy ones. Thank you.
- [58:35]
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