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A
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B
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A
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C
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A
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C
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D
I'm Charlie Sykes. Welcome back to the to the Contrary podcast. Where can we start? Looks like we have the betrayal of Ukraine on fast forward. The Trump administration essentially asking Ukraine to surrender to Russia and it wants it to do it by Thanksgiving Day. Meanwhile, are we actually gearing up for a war with Venezuela that nobody really can figure out exactly what the war would be about? Maybe they're, they're working on that. We had this extraordinary split screen the other day and I want to talk about this, obviously, because I wrote about it. The, the funeral for former Vice President Dick Cheney at the National Cathedral. At the same time, the President United States, who was not invited, who was not there. Actually, MAGA was completely, you know, a no show look, if you want a future maga, you did not show up at a Dick Cheney funeral. But any case, there was that strange moment where everybody walks out of this absolutely gorgeous ceremony. And of course, they looked at their phones and what did they find out? That the President of the United States had spent the entire morning ranting and raving about the sedition of Democrats who needed to be put to death. Wow. The two Americas. A reminder of what politics used to be like, what it has become now, how everything is turned upside down. And who better to talk to about that? And our good friend Terry Moran. Terry, how are you doing?
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C
I'm good, Charlie. As you say, these are eventful days, but it's a beautiful fall day here in Frederick, Maryland, so it's all good.
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D
Yeah. Well, let's put this all in. In contrast, I know that you covered Dick Cheney. You know, what I wrote the other day was, this was not the Dick Cheney you thought you knew. I was really struck by the fact that Donald Trump's name was not mentioned a single time at this funeral. And the politics was very, very muted.
- [03:46]
C
We.
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D
But it felt like just simply as a celebration of a certain kind of American patriotism and a certain set of values. It felt like kind of an act of defiance. And then, of course, you had that weird moment where everybody steps outside the cathedral and realized that the President, United States was calling for the execution of prominent Democrats. So where do you want to begin? You want to talk about Dick Cheney? Just for a few minutes? Because I know that many of our listeners probably have very mixed feelings about the guy.
- [04:15]
C
Well, sure, his track record was. You know, it was what it was. But the one thing that that funeral celebrated. I'm so glad you were there. I thought about going down. I didn't get an invite, but I could have gotten a press pass. I had a friend who would have gotten me in. But I'm glad you were there because the note that it struck was true. This is a man who loved our country, who served it by his lights to the best of his ability. Honestly, without corruption, you might not have agreed with him, I mean, for a lot of reasons, and helped lead the country into a tremendous blunder, the war in Iraq. But you can't deny his patriotism. And I gotta tell you, Charlie, when I covered him, I covered him a few times on some of those long foreign trips that he would make. In fact, just before the Iraq war, He toured about 10 or 12 Arab states. And not every day, but many days, he'd call the reporters up to the cabin. He was flying Air Force Two, which is basically Air Force One with the vice President on it, open some whiskey, pass it around, and have a chat off. The record chat. And I felt something I didn't feel. I felt like I was stepping into an even older Washington. Right. That Washington 50 years ago and more, where there was a lot of people think it's too cozy, too insidery, that's for sure. But you got to know the person as a man and how he thought about things, and it wasn't the end of the world. If you covered him critically, he wasn't going to have you arrested or whatever. It's a different Washington. And that's what I remember about him. I felt lucky because he was an impressive guy with bad judgment in some ways, but also a guy from another age, and I was grateful for that.
- [05:59]
D
You know, it was somebody from a different age. And, you know, when you think about his 40 years of public service, all the things that he did, he. He was White House Chief of staff, he was a member of Congress for a decade. He was a CEO of a major corporation. He was vice president of the United States for eight years. And yet very little of that was discussed during his funeral. You know, you've heard people talk about your resume values versus your eulogy values. You know, how do you want to be remembered? What do you want to be in your eulogy? And what was interesting is Iraq was not mentioned. A lot of the political accomplishments were not mentioned. But there was really a lot of focus on the measure of the man, you know, his. His intelligence, his. His carefulness, his prudence, his sort of stoic philosophy. But. But really what came through was, you know, his role as a. As a husband, as a father, as a grandfather, his grandchildren gave very, very moving tributes to him. And I. And I thought that was very. An interesting choice, that instead of going for a hardcore political message, that you went for that more human message. But in many ways, I did feel that that highlighted the difference of our time that we're in right now, because thinking of him as a man and his American character, the contrast was there. Donald Trump was not mentioned. He was not present. But you got the sense that this was the moment. And when you stepped outside the cathedral and you looked at your phone and you realize the man who's sitting in the Oval Office, what he represents in terms of his character, in terms of his priorities, the language in it really was this sense of, you know, what used to be versus how everything's been warped almost beyond recognition.
- [07:43]
C
Yeah, Cheney's America is gone, but ours is too, Charlie. I mean, that's. It's not just the old 60s, 1960s, 1970s America. It's the America of 10 years ago. That's gone, at least for now. And that contrast says it all. We need really desperately. I never thought I'd hear myself say this, but to get back some of what Dick Cheney was able to bring to governance. Tough minded, tough partisan, tough political operator and a patriot. Put country first and could talk to the other side, could talk to reporters. Right. We gave him a hard time and he knew that was part of it. He didn't much like it. But there is no way to govern ourselves unless we can do that again. And Trump is the opposite of that. He must obliterate the slightest syllable of opposition, of disagreement, of criticism, because his psyche can't take it. And, you know, I mean, Dick Cheney, he was the dark lord of the last 20 years and deservedly so. It was a huge blunder, but. And he was the driver of it. George W. Bush had very little experience. He was less than a year into his presidency when 9, 11 happened and they all kind of freaked out. But he nevertheless could pursue his political goals with fellowship, American fellowship. And we have to get back to that because at the end of the day, it's either going to be a kind of authoritarian rule or a democracy again. And you have to be able to persuade each other if you're gonna have a democracy.
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D
Well, and also, I mean, you know, as you looked around the cathedral, you realize was also shaped by the choice that he made and Liz made to break with the Republican Party to denounce Donald Trump after January 6th and to the fact that he endorsed Kamala Harris. So you had there in that front row, you had only had two former presidents, United States. You know, we had President Bush, President Biden, bipartisan and every living vice president. What an interesting club that was. They were all there. You had people like Mitch McConnell, but then you also had those. And it was a little bit discordant. There's Rachel Maddow sitting there, you know, a few feet away from John Bolton. And you realize this is, this would not be happening if it weren't for the moment that we're in right now. And I think that many of the people in that. And again, I'm not a wash, I'm not part of the Washington village. I assume that there were a lot of Bush people, there were a lot of Cheney people, but there are also a lot of people there who were there because of that final chapter of his life, the way he stood with Liz Cheney, her courage. And as you listen to the stories of the family, you got the sense, you understood who Liz Cheney was as the daughter of Dick Cheney, and how when it really came, you know, push came to shove, they were going to lay down their political careers, if necessary, to stand up to what's going on here. And that was really, again, they didn't pound it. There was just like one quote, really just one line from Liz Cheney's tribute where she said, he was a Republican, but he knew that the bonds of party must always yield to the single bond we share as Americans. For him, a choice between defense of the Constitution and defense of your political party was no choice at all. And that's why, frankly, a lot of us were there. Okay, so let's talk about the other part of that split screen. Your reaction to the death threats from the president. How else? You describe that you had a group of Democratic veterans, all have military backgrounds. They record a video telling members of the military, do not obey. You do not have to obey an illegal order. Which, by the way, is very much part of the military. You do not have to obey an illegal order. And this triggered Donald Trump. I mean, he went on. I mean, when he's, when he talks. Let me just read this. Just, you know, again, you walk, you walk out of there and you get seditious behavior. All in caps. Punishable by death. All in caps, exclamation point. Another post. Hang them. He declared George Washington would. All in caps. By the way, I kind of wonder how, you know, maga, which who is, you know, really very, very upset about, you know, any commentary about Charlie Kirk's murder, you know, how they've reacted to this. But, but, but your thoughts? The enthusiasm with which the President of the United States is calling for death explicitly, all in caps, about Democratic senators and representatives recording a video.
- [12:35]
C
It was horrific. When I, when I saw it, it was, I thought it was a low point in a series of low points. And, you know, I also thought that it shows how intoxicated Trump is at this moment. He feels he's riding high, although the public is tiring of the shtick, and they want to see some practical, pragmatic results in their lives that they aren't getting. He's got to worry about that unless he succeeds in imposing a kind of authority, authoritarian rule on the country. But what is most striking to me is that he feels free to do that because for two reasons. He sees the military as his military. And once again, he brooks no disagreement. His military. Remember when General Mark Milley would not shoot the protesters in the streets of Washington? He hated that. You know, he wants to give an order and see it. And see it obeyed right away. You know, as for what it means, you know, it was a simple restatement of the basic principle of the Uniform Code of Military Justice. Our troops obey lawful orders and lawful orders only. And I have to tell you, I've got a friend who spent a long time in the military and told me the story after these tweets came out of how he felt at one point in his career that he needed. That he needed to disobey an order or not. Not abide by it and do so in the proper way. It does happen. And remember that Donald Trump asked if he would be able to declare martial law in the seven swing states in 2020 and send the troops in to govern a revote.
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D
Well, exactly. And, you know, look, these death threats, this. I mean, he's got a fetish for this. He's got a fetish for these kinds of threats. You mentioned Mark Milley. Do you remember there was that time when he suggested that Mark Milley be tried for treason for a phone call that he made? I mean, this part of his DNA. But I thought it was really important what they did. And I was. I have to admit that I was impressed with this. And I just want to make sure that I give credit where credit is due. You know, Alyssa Slotkin shared this video. You had Mark Kelly from Arizona, Representative Jason Crow, Chris d', Aluzio, Chrissy Houlahan, Maggie Goodlander, all of whom are veterans of the military or the intelligence community. And you know, when they're basically saying, don't give up the ship, don't disobey these orders, this is really important because one of the first things that Donald Trump did when he came into office was to fire all of the lawyers, right? To get rid of the judge advocate, the JAG corps, I mean, the people who would have advised the generals and the colonels, you know, is this a legal order? I mean, this is. Again, you are obligated to follow a lawful order, but who's going to tell you that, you know, the extrajudicial murder of somebody is illegal? And so this is. Actually, I've been asking this question. I was on a panel with General Mark Hertling about this, and he was talking about how, you know, it's imbued into the military that you do not have to follow an illegal order. And my question was, well, who tells them it's illegal? And secondly, we're seeing the boats being blown up on a regular basis. So somebody is issuing the order. Somebody's following the Order. And somebody's pulling the trigger. I'm not reassured by all of this. So I was heartened when I saw the Democrats came out and made this point. But you want to talk about an escalation of rhetoric, and this is not just a one off. I mean, we've gone from violent rhetoric here to violent rhetoric up here. You know, gone from, you know, crowds chanting hang Mike Pence to the President of the United States saying, hang these senators and congressmen.
- [16:27]
C
Yeah. And that is now part of his governing style. He wants people to be afraid, not just, you know, that they. That they might get fired, but they might get put behind bars, that they might be sentenced. I think he's always had a fantasy of getting Barack Obama tried and convicted for treason and sentenced at least to prison. I think he.
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D
Yes, let me put out a video of that. Yeah.
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C
Yes, that's right. He needs that because it affirms him somehow. We're all living in this broken megalomaniac psyche right now, and yet, as you point out, it's very, very serious. You know, the. The threat of violence intoxicates his followers, too, and the unhinged will act on that. He has just painted a big target on each one of those members of Congress who made that statement, and they know it. And I'm sure they have enhanced security now. And that is the way he governs. He wants people to be afraid. As for the JAG Corps, what he's done, he and Hegseth have done have broken a consensus across administrations. The JAG Corps is one of the sterling parts of our military. My father in law was career jag, and there's no question that it tries to get the law right under the Constitution, under the traditions of our military.
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D
And.
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C
And they don't want that. They want somebody. Right. You can get a lawyer to say the sky is green and the grass is blue, and they want a lawyer to do that for them when it comes, when they want to. When they want to use violence, when they want to do whatever on the streets of the United States in the Caribbean or beyond.
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D
Well, what's interesting is also, you know, that words have consequences where we're in this business. His enthusiasm for describing any kind of dissent as treason or sedition has consequences because it is dangerous. That, you know, it is one thing to. I mean, look, this is a fundamental American value, right? We speak truth to power. We criticize people in office. Isn't it interesting how often he describes that as being, you know, treasonous or seditious? Because, of course, you talk about the targets on the back. If you're saying Alyssa Slotkin is committing treason, you have certainly raised the ante for what? Patriotic America, how patriotic Americans should treat her. I'm not saying that it's a call to kill her, but she is getting those threats, and that is inevitable. Okay, so a little digression here because you mentioned his fantasy of throwing Barack Obama in jail. He had a horrifically bad week on one of his favorite cases, throwing Jim Comey into jail. The Comey case, former FBI director, they go into court. He basically has this, I mean, is it unfair to say this marginally qualified beauty queen, very attractive young woman, but apparently not that great at law now, and she goes in front of a judge and basically has to admit, yeah, we didn't show the grand jury the entire indictment. I mean, what the hell, Terry? This was ordered from Donald Trump. You have to go indict this guy. They, they, the person who said there's no evidence is pushed out of the way. They bring her in. And it sounds like this thing is completely falling apart.
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C
It is falling apart. I mean, she's, she's an insurance lawyer. She was third runner up in Miss Colorado 2010. And she worked for Trump a little bit. And one of the reasons she got stuck with this, if you remember, there was a handpicked Republican U.S. attorney in that district who looked at the evidence, said, there's no there there. We really can't bring this case. He got fired. Trump put her in, and none of the prosecutors in that office would go to court to make the case to a grand jury. So she's standing there clueless, rinky dink, you know, she just doesn't have this kind of experience and basically tries to pull a fast one on the judge. There was a three count indictment. The jury rejected one count, she had that one signed and that should have been presented to the judge. And then she kind of went back, redrafted an indictment without the one they rejected, had the four person sign it, but did not present any of the second indictment to the grand jury. It was covered the same evidence, but still it was, I think, more than amateurish. It was a little sleazy. It was a little, let's, you know, let's just get this thing done. No one will know.
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D
I thought the most interesting thing was, was in, there were many interesting things in, in the, the accounts of all this. But when the New York Times is reporting, you know, one of her colleagues is, you know, trying to argue in front of the judge and they, they use the word unnerved to describe his. That he has to admit. Yes. They told me not to tell anybody that there had been a memo saying that there's no evidence and that we're not going to prosecute this. I was told not to say that. They described me as unnerved. I kind of wish I could see this.
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C
Like, what does that look like?
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D
Imagine being in front of a federal judge and you basically have just been caught with your pants completely down and it's like, you know, it's not just a case you're blowing. You know, your whole legal career is kind of like twisting in the wind there.
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C
Yeah, this, this magistrate judge there, you know, we're all concerned about life tenure for various reasons, but life tenure does predict, protect judges. And they are able to say to talk sternly to federal lawyers like this. And the indictment itself is riddled with problems because it is clear it was pushed publicly by the President privately behind the scenes by higher ups at Justice Department. All that is on the record. That memo will come out. I mean, they'll try to claim privilege, but he basically confirmed that it exists. That's grounds for dismissal of this indictment. They wanted to get Comey. They couldn't shoot straight at him. And they screwed up their own case. It is likely to get dismissed with prejudice. Mean they won't be able to bring it again. And they deserve it because it was corruptly ordered by the President of the United States and incompetently brought to the judge.
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D
Okay, so since we're on the kind of a no screw up role here, let's talk about the Epstein files because, you know, again, you know, this is like, things have moved very, very quickly. It was a little bit more than a week ago that there was a full court press, you know, from Trump world, you know, do not sign that discharge petition calling, you know, members of Congress in browbeating them in the Situation Room. This split with Trump and Marjorie Taylor Greene. You're a traitor. Why was she a traitor? Because she signed the discharge petition to release it. And then it fails. Trump has to do this embarrassing, humiliating climb down, says, yeah, I don't care. Vote for it. They almost unanimously adopt this in the House. Mike Johnson says, yeah, well, we'll fix it over in the Senate. The Senate says, screw that. We're just, we're not getting, you know, we're going to get, you know, we're getting out of the way of this boulder rolling downhill. And now Trump has signed it. So where are we at on that? Are we, Terry is There any part of you that thinks that we're actually going to get the Epstein files, as promised, released? Because I'm a little skeptical about this.
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C
I think that's a very healthy skepticism. We aren't going to see the whole file. We're going to see things that embarrass Donald Trump. They may be able to still deep six it because he ordered, once again, corruptly. The President's not supposed to do this, but go investigate the following people who are mentioned there. And on the basis of that investigation, you could claim these are investigative materials and can't release them. You know, Biden didn't release them because the Epstein conviction was on appeal. And so you never know. If a conviction gets overturned, you want to retry it. So they didn't release it during his tenure, but now there really is no excuse. And it was. It was so telling and such a moment, I believe, to see the entire Republican Party, except for one person, rush to vote to release the Epstein files, because this is an issue that cuts across party, class, everything. Epstein is one of the darkest public figures of my lifetime, and he spun this web among the most powerful people in the world. Princes and sheikhs and emirs and corporate chieftains and university presidents and American presidents and peddled girls to them. I mean, it's just. It's just nightmarish. It unites the country in outrage about the evil of it and about the class of. You know, these are guys who get away with everything, and I think they want to see the truth of it because they're tired of that kind of. That kind of society. But they need to protect Trump because he's all over it. He was a friend of Jeffrey Epstein's. There's just no doubt about it. And that's going to be a problem.
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D
Yeah, it's going to be a problem. Yeah. I think it's kind of a measure, and I'm not saying whether it's fair or not at this point, but as a measure of how toxic it is, here's Larry Summers, former president of Harvard, who hasn't been accused of any illegal activity at all. But he was obviously chummy with Epstein, and now he's having to. He's, you know, bailing from, you know, corporate boards and leaving Harvard and obviously had really, really bad judgment. But it's not just. If you engage in illegal activity, anyone who's caught in that blast radius is right now being destroyed. And so as that goes on, I think this is. Trump's gonna try to cover this up and fudge this and do the whataboutism and point the fingers. But the fact that you and I are still talking about it is kind of amazing, isn't it? Given the news cycle.
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C
Yeah. And it's not good for him. And I was struck also, Charlie, and this comes as no surprise, but every time you see it, it's depressing. The vast majority of Republicans in the Congress wanted to vote to release the Epstein files. They knew it was the right thing to do. But they would not cross Trump even on this until Marjorie Taylor Greene and a few other people stood up. Thomas Massie, Lauren Boebert, Heartland maga. Right. I mean, people right at the heart of the MAGA movement. And at the end of the day, that was enough. But their entire soul is controlled by what Donald Trump wants. And when Donald Trump said okay, they completely turned on a dime. All of their arguments against releasing them completely vanished. And this happens on issue after issue after issue. They've got no mind. It's like he's an alien that's invaded their mind and stolen their soul and whatever, literally whatever he says, including on the Epstein files. For goodness sake. How do you look your kids in the face when you can't stand up for what's right on that? And I think most, yeah, they got.
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D
Out of the way. That's, that's what. As soon as he opened the door, it was like there was the jailbreak. So what do you make of the Marjorie Taylor Greene divorce from Donald Trump? I'm, I'm also, since I have a little bit of extra skepticism left over, I'm a little skeptical about all the strange new respect because she basically just didn't, hasn't seen the light. I mean, this is still Marjorie Taylor Greene. What do you think?
- [27:35]
C
Well, I'm curious about it because she's running for Senate. Looks like she's going to run for Senate in Georgia. Right. And you can't. And I look, I guess I'm a glass half full guy. And also you love a convert. And I'm not talking about convert to Democratic politics or what I believe or anything. I'm talking about a convert to decency. That apology she gave on the View was about how she spoke to the nation. She said, yeah, I was wrong. I, you know, that kind of brutish, mean spirited, nasty, boundary busting, way of address, public address I.e.
- [28:12]
D
Trump, which was entirely her brand. Entirely.
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C
Now, I don't expect her to go back and say the 2020 election was not rigged or whatever policy change, opinion change, you know, might satisfy, you know, a Lot of people. But if she actually changes her tune, if she changes the way she speaks to the country and it gets back to the Cheney discussion, I don't know, I'd welcome that. You don't hold a person's beliefs against them. If the, the goal is to get people being normal Americans again in public office and being able to not, not demonize the slightest difference, got to be able to talk to each other.
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D
I agree with that. But I don't think that the road to normality runs through Marjorie Taylor Greene. I mean, that's, that's, that's my concern here.
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C
Yeah, that's serious ways.
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D
Right. Look, you and I are having a conversation. So like we live in an age when there are strange bedfellows. Okay. I want to just keep sticking with this kind of screwing up thing. I'm not, I have not followed this as closely as I should have. And part of me wants to be again, not get involved in the irrational exuberance of some of it. But I did see this analysis in, I think it was the tilt in the New York Times about the redistricting wars, that this may be backfiring on Republicans in kind of a big way. Now, their big play was in Texas where they did all the redistricting. A three judge federal panel has now said, no, that's unconstitutional. You know, caveat, big asterisk now goes to the US Supreme Court. Part of me thinks they're going to bail them out. But if Texas, if that gets thrown out, the Indiana Republican Party legislature apparently is standing up to Donald Trump and saying, no, we're not going to do this. So the plan in Indiana has fallen apart. Texas is facing this legal challenge. And so at the end of the day, it might turn out that the Democrats tell me whether this is bullshit or not, that the Democrats might actually have won this redistricting war that no one thought was going to turn out this way. What do you think? What is your read of the landscape?
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C
It feels exactly like that to me. And it really is a moment. That Indiana vote is a moment for two reasons. First, they're worried, as all politicians are, about their own political survival. And if you keep slicing those Republican districts up and adding some Democrats in, it just takes a huge switches on the Hispanic vote. Those elections a couple of weeks ago have startled Republicans and all of a sudden your own seat is up for grabs and you don't want that. And I also wonder if there is a kind of local pride coming back. You can't, we're, we're hoosiers we govern ourselves. You don't, you don't get to tell us how you know what to do. We don't jump every time you do in Washington and around the country, for the most part. But there is, there is a slight scent in the air of lame duckery. Yes, there is going to be a life after Trump. And if you are the one who mangled the congressional districts of your state or let Trump trample all over you, that's not gonna be good for you. And the last thing, Gavin Newsom, he looks like a hero to Democrats right now.
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D
Yeah, no, that. He pulled that off. But again, anytime the US Supreme Court gets involved, I guess I've gotten to the point where every time you see federal judge blocks Trump here or there, it's like, hey, get back to me in five minutes. We'll see whether or not how that does on appeal. Okay, so the big story, and I don't want to leave imply that. I just wanted to get those other things out of the way. We have two big stories involving foreign affairs, Venezuela and Ukraine. Let's start with Ukraine, because this one is actually breathtaking. It's one of those where I have to read the stories two or three times to realize is it really is really totally awful as it sounds. Sounds like, you know, Trump's utterly unqualified emissary. Is it Witkoff?
- [32:22]
C
Yes.
- [32:23]
D
Cut. Cut this secret deal with the Russians. The Ukrainians were not consulted. They were not at the table whatsoever. And it sounds like, like worse than absolute surrender. I mean, it, it, it cedes territory, Ukrainian territory, to the Russians. They have not even conquered militarily, would limit the size of their military, would limit the size of their weaponry. Some people have described it as essentially asking Kyiv to give up all national sovereignty. But Trump is putting the squeeze on, and he's demanding that they agree to this by Thursday, next Thursday, by Thanksgiving. Otherwise, they're going to cut off all the military. I mean, we have talked in the past about Trump's betrayal of Ukraine or his appeasement of Putin. This strikes me as being off the charts, I mean, absolutely breathtaking in its sort of world historical act of appeasement. Your take?
- [33:18]
C
Absolutely. Witkoff basically was a messenger boy. He took the Kremlin's plan and Trump okayed it. Because what this is is not just Trump saying, I don't want anything to do with Ukraine anymore. He doesn't want anything to do with the transatlantic alliance because Europe won't take a syllable of this. They will not stand for any of this because they Recognize the threat that Russia poses to them. And if you give him total victory in Ukraine, which this is it, it would leave Ukraine broken, a broken nation that no one would want to invest in. It would essentially end their ability to join the west, which is what this war is all about. And it would be, you know, Putin likes these fragmented countries. He's done it to Georgia, he's done it to Azerbaijan, he's done it to Moldova. You have kind of a rump part of the, of the country that has some insurgency or some rebels or some bogus independent government that's basically a Kremlin stooge. And no one wants to invest in them, no one wants to put money in them because of the uncertainty of what is at. What the country actually, what its borders are. And all Putin will do, all the next Russian dictator will do is lick their wounds. The Ukrainians have given them a good bloodying, outnumbered, whatever it is, four to one.
- [34:41]
D
Amazing.
- [34:41]
C
And, and just rebuild, rebuild the drones, rebuild their strategic missile missiles that they've been using against Ukraine and now are almost out of. And go after him again in five years. Trump knows this. He doesn't care about it. Europe knows it. They do. This is actually the break, not de facto, but de facto break between Europe and the United States. The Europeans will not go along with this.
- [35:08]
D
Well, they're getting together to come up with a counter proposal, but I think that there's been a certain amount of, you know, delusional thinking that somehow they could jolly Trump along, that, you know, that if you just suck up to him enough that, that maybe he won't completely switch sides in the Cold War, but we're seeing this. By the way, speaking of sucking up, and I don't wanna finish this podcast without talking about this. What did you. What was your gut reaction to watching the royal welcome for MBS in the White House? The way that Trump went out of his way to downplay, you know, Prince Bonesaw's role in the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, et cetera. I mean, and the utter complete, you know, Melania wearing the, you know, Saudi green to the state dinner and all the beautiful people like, oh, we don't care about you being a murderer. I mean, give me your thoughts on that.
- [36:06]
C
Yeah, it was gross. It was disgusting. It was. It was watching. It was. Was revolting. He basically. I actually shouted at one point while I was watching. I was like, get off your knees. Right? You know, he was bowing down. I know that Saudi Arabia is an important country, has a lot of oil, okay? Great. He wants to make money.
- [36:28]
D
Norway.
- [36:30]
C
Exactly. So do we. But for some reason this, this now century year old relationship between the United States and the Saudi royal family, which really isn't the nation, it's a brutal dictatorship. And one family, it's the only country in the world named after a family because it's theirs. And this guy's a murderer of an American. I'm sure Trump didn't consider him an American because of his ethnicity, but he was. And he has him, you know, murdered clandestinely and chopped up and brought back. And this is the guy that you grovel to. You know, all the, all the MAGA people are upset that Barack Obama went on an apology tour and that was, I thought, I didn't think that was a great, a great thing for Obama to do. But this isn't an apology, this is an abasement. He's on his knees before the, before the Saudi Kingdom, I don't think any. Even in the tightest relationship years of the United States and Saudi Arabia, do I remember a fawning over a kind of smallness of the American President with the Saudi king or in this case the Crown Prince. There was growth.
- [37:41]
D
Well, that also led to that rather remarkable moment in the Oval Office where you had the ABC reporter Mary Bruce who asked a really, really tough question. I mean she was, she really, she brought, she brought the hot sauce. And Trump's reaction was, and I'm sure you picked up on this was to, you know, obviously, you know, it's, you know, ABC's fake news. You know, ABC should lose its license. I was struck by, whatever you think about abc, I was struck by just his instinctive reaction. I've gotten a critical question from a tough reporter and my reaction is how can I use the cudgel of government power to punish this news outlet? And he specifically mentions the FCC chair who obviously is, you know, his puppet is going to do it. But again, this internalization of I am going to use the power of the federal government to, to bring all of the news media to its knees. Just where are we at in that cycle? Because I was heartened by the toughness of the question. But then it's like right out there in front of the world press, in front of this dictator, showing that in the United States of America this is the way we treat journalists who ask tough questions.
- [38:54]
C
Now it is, and there are two things about that. First, he can't stand tough questions and he can't stand tough questions asked by women. Right. Earlier in the week was the quiet piggy to a Bloomberg reporter who's a woman. And, and he's always had this visceral reaction how, how dare you. And he trashes them. You're a terrible person. He spits at Mary Bruce, who's, you know, I love ABC News. It's my alma mater, I think. Did I leave there under great circumstances? No, but I'm not gonna badmouth them. They, they do their best within the limitations they have. And one of them is that they can't describe what you just did. Really, that what we're looking at is a personalized power. It's about what I want to help me get rich, get revenge, whatever that we have never seen in the presidency that in any other country would properly call authoritarian. He wants to be an authoritarian leader and is getting there.
- [39:49]
D
No, I think it's pretty obvious and there's less and less subtlety, you know, and if, and as I've said before, if we had predicted a year ago, half of the things that he's already done, we would of course have been accused of Trump Derangement Syndrome. The only real Trump Derangement syndrome are the people who go along with this. Okay. So meanwhile, while all of this is going on, he appears, you know, the, and again, part of the cognitive dissonance of Donald Trump is he can't decide whether he wants to be a war president or whether he wants to win the Nobel Peace Prize. So apparently he's putting the Nobel Peace Prize on the back burner temporarily. And we're, we might go to war with Venezuela maybe even between now and the time this, this actually airs. So give me your thoughts on all of this. Sometimes he talks about we're going to go to war with Venezuela because of the drugs. Sometimes it's because of the thuggish left wing government there. Sometimes it's because of immigration. You know, where does America first in war with Venezuela. How do you square the circle?
- [40:53]
C
You can't. And I'm shocked and alarmed right now by the forces that we have readied for what could only be some kind of kinetic action, some kind of attack on Venezuela. There's our largest aircraft carrier, the Gerald R. Ford. It's Associated Forces. There's a special forces unit there. There's all kinds of, there's 20,000 troops now that have been. That's probably not enough. I don't expect an invasion. But I've also noticed, Charlie, the Venezuelan opposition sweet talking Trump. You can hear their welcoming of him. And is there a back, a back channel agreement that, you know, they'll launch Something in Venezuela will give them air, power and all kinds of other things to support them. We'll chop off the head, make sure we get rid of this terrible leftist government and we'll install or the opposition will become the government of Venezuela and we'll take half the oil revenue. That sounds very trumpy to me and very dumb because I was in the White House and I remember being told we will be greeted with sweets and flowers. Liberators.
- [42:09]
D
Yeah.
- [42:12]
C
It looks, it feels to me similar.
- [42:14]
D
Well, you know, again, as General Hertling wrote in another publication, you know, people should, should not assume that Venezuela is a small country that's gonna roll over like Grenada. I mean, this is complicated. It obviously has other implications for South America. Colombia is becoming increasingly disillusioned and outspoken about what Donald Trump is doing. And it's one thing to overthrow a bad government and, you know, Maduro left office. The world would probably be a better place. But then what happens? What is the stability? What fills the vacuum? Do we have a long term plan? Does anybody think that Donald Trump thinks past the next news cycle? And what happens to destabilize the region if the rest of them look at the United States doing this? And again, what's happening with Colombia ought to be a warning that not everyone's going to be greeting us as liberators. So that story, you know, just continues to be just extraordinary. You know, you mentioned earlier, I want to circle back to something because I agreed with what you said, but I also think it's kind of paradoxical. Donald Trump acts as if he does feel as if he's unstoppable. He's got the wind at his back. And yet you look at the most recent public opinion polls and he is hemorrhaging support in key demographic groups. Republicans are freaking out. They're showing a little bit of independence that we've not seen before. More of a willingness to not give him everything he wants. His economic policies look shaky. He's obviously extremely worried about the Supreme Court. So in some ways it is very Trumpian that he projects this incredible confidence. But the reality is that he has not had a great 30 or 60 days, has he now? So how much of that is just bravado and how much of it is isolation? He doesn't quite understand that he's getting some problems.
- [44:16]
C
I think he wants to forge a government where those problems don't matter, a truly authoritarian rule where elections. He said we won't have to have elections anymore if we get these, if we get these election laws right and the Redistricting light. Right. I think the mistake that he made, the category error is to think that Americans weren't Americans, that we would sign on, that a majority or even a strong minority would sign on to a kind of Third World, nationalist, populist, authoritarian movement. Some have. But most Americans are still very pragmatic. Unless you're solving their problems. You could have all the parades, you can have all the. All the shows of force around the world. You can have all the bluster, you can have all the ballrooms and gold you want, you got to solve people's problems. And unless you stifle dissent, and I'm not talking about liberal dissent, I'm talking about MAGA dissent, not just on Epstein, but on the cost of living, on health care, on things that are going to matter to people, you are going to be in trouble. I think he's. I think that day of reckoning is coming to him because I think he came in with the sense, move fast, break things, take over, don't let the other side have a voice, and manage the elections so that, like Orban did, like Putin did originally, so that you don't have to worry about them.
- [45:34]
D
Well, I agree with all of that. And I think this is what's interesting, is that they get elected because people, you know, want to upset the establishment. They're concerned about the cost of living. And this happens. I mean, this happens so often in politics that the extremists then see, oh, see, we have been empowered. So what they have done is he has turned over, you know, the king's keys to the kingdom to Russell Vogt and to Stephen Miller, these extreme ideologues. That's not what people voted for. They voted for the kinds of things that you're talking about. But what are they getting? They're getting this pure, undiluted Stephen Millerism and Russ votism. And these guys think they have the wind at their back or they think that they have a, you know, a compressed time period. But because some of the stuff you're seeing, you would think that a normal presidency would go, we need to pivot, we need to slow our roll a little bit. But I don't see any evidence of that.
- [46:30]
C
Yeah, that's not. That's not Trump. So what stops him, really? The Congress isn't going to stop him. It would be the midterm elections. But even that, you know, does seem that he wants to make sure those elections come out right by his lights. And, you know, never forget, he's one of the first executive orders he signed was to launch a criminal investigation of Christopher Krebs, mid level bureaucrat who confirmed that there was no tampering in the 2020 election. Right. He said, this is the cleanest election we've ever had. We've taken a look at everything. I'm the expert. My staff, they know how all of the voting machines, how all the counts work, and it's clean. And he wants them behind bars for saying that. So I'm not sure the midterm elections are going to be able to do what midterm elections were designed to do, which is course correct by the voters themselves. I think they want to find a way to make sure they manage those elections.
- [47:29]
D
Well, what makes that plausible is every conversation about this, every single conversation has to make at least some reference to the fact that this is the first president of the United States who tried to derail the peaceful transfer of power. You know, this is a man who actually tried to overturn the election, who incited a mob. You know, it's interesting. I was watching a movie about January 6th, God Forgive Me for my sins, I have to do this. And I turned to my wife and I said, you know, this actually happened. The country saw this with our eyes. We experienced that. And so if there's any. If people think that it's like, oh, it's a little paranoid to think that this guy might actually interfere with elections. Excuse me, I know that we have short attention spans, but how do we possibly forget that Donald Trump actually has already tried to do this? And you mentioned how he wanted to, you know, perhaps declare Marshall, or at least there were voices around him. Well, who are the voices going to be around him next time? Who are the grownups going to say? No, you can't do that. You got a room full of, you know, mypillow guy and Mike Flynn and Steve Bannon telling him what he can do and what he should do. Holy shit.
- [48:40]
C
You know, yeah, that's, that's, that's real bad news. And there are signs, you know, there's this thing that, that a contact of mine in the National Guard has noted that the Guard has been given an order every state National Guard to have a. Oh, yeah, yeah, this, the, the kind of anti protest unit, I can't remember what they call it, but 150, 300, whatever it is, units designed to, to quell death, domestic disturbances. Okay, now the Guard, that has been part of its role, but this seems more proactive, more pointed. And every single guard unit has been told you have to have that special trained, specially Trained anti unrest unit. And that has alarmed some people in the Guard. What do you want to use that for? And as I say, the Guard has been asked to do that, obviously, 1968, 1992, the Rodney King riots. And Trump loves the fact that you can do that. And he sent them around the country. They can't really find any unrest, but he's inclined in that direction. So every time I see something like that, I'm suspicious.
- [49:50]
D
Well, and also, that's why it's so important to remind members of the Guard and members of the armed forces that you do not have to obey an illegal order. I mean, that's kind of a warning. I keep coming back. Speaking of Dick Cheney, again, you Remember right before January 6th, Dick Cheney and his daughter played a key role in getting all of the living secretaries of defense to sign a letter saying that there was no role for the military in the presidential elections. Which, the more you think about it, it's like, holy crap. Why did they feel it necessary to write that letter back then during the first Trump presidency? That something alarmed these guys, and these are serious guys. Secretary of Defense signing a letter saying, yeah, absolutely, don't think of it. Don't go there. So, again, let's just remember what Trump has already done, what he's already talked about doing, what he's already attempted to do. When we think about the future. Terry Moran. Yeah, yeah, go on, go on.
- [50:48]
C
Well, just the last thing I'd say, the most destructive thing he's done to the democracy is persuade tens of millions of Americans that they cannot trust the Count no matter what, unless they win. And that would give him grounds to go further.
- [51:01]
D
Yeah, no, I think that that's absolutely true. Terry, thank you so much for all your time. I appreciate it. Have a great weekend.
- [51:06]
C
Thanks, Charlie. You too. Happy Thanksgiving.
- [51:09]
D
Yeah, Happy Thanksgiving. And thank you all for listening to this episode of to the Contrary podcast. You know why we do this and kind of think about it over Thanksgiving, that when you gather around the turkey or the ham or whatever you might be doing, where you take the cousins walk, you read about the story in the Wall Street Journal about the cousins walk. Go look it.
- [51:48]
C
We will answer your call as soon as we can.
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