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- [00:10]
Charlie Sykes
Oh, I know some of you think that the intro music is a little bit too ominous, but I don't know that it's ominous enough. Welcome to the to the Contrary podcast. I'm Charlie Sykes, and once again trying to make sense of the tsunami of whatever it is you want to call it. And I'm really lucky to have Today's guest. Tim O'Brien, executive editor for Opinion for Bloomberg. Is that still your title? It's a really long title.
- [00:35]
Tim O'Brien
It is a long title. It's actually longer than that, but I'm not even going to bore you with it.
- [00:39]
Charlie Sykes
Okay, so. But the real reason that I wanted to have you on is that I don't know of anyone who has been covering Donald Trump for as long as you have or has spent as much time in his head as you have. So, you know, we could start with all the big stuff, Tim. We could start with the betrayal of Ukraine. We could start with the Eric Adams DOJ meltdown, which I really want to talk about in a moment. We know we could talk about the cataract of corruption or all of these things. Elon Musk. But I want to get your take on what's going on inside Donald Trump's mind. I compared it earlier this week to a bag of ferrets and the scorpions, because it's all over the place. So talk to me about his decision to take over the Kennedy Center. Let's just start with that. That Donald Trump, in the midst of remaking the world, fires the Kennedy senator board and names himself the chairman because he wants to be in charge of the programming. Tim, what's going on?
- [01:46]
Tim O'Brien
Well, Charlie, living inside Donald Trump's head, you. You discover there's not many things in there other than, you know, a putter, a cheeseburger, a porn video, and somebody else's credit card. And it, and it never extends very far beyond those items because he's focused always on the most basic and visceral of things. His various appetites, his various needs. You can usually understand him through two lenses, either self aggrandizement or self preservation, very little else. And, you know, the Kennedy center decision is not too out there when you consider the fact that he thinks cinematically about himself in the world. He has always had an interest in the trappings of celebrity and pop culture, not classic culture. Donald Trump doesn't read right. The only art hanging in his home is fake art. But I'm sure he's tuned in every time. The Kennedy center has honored Tony Bennett, who used to fly on Trump's plane and Paul McCartney and Bruce Springsteen. Anyone else that's interested in Kid Rock? Yes, that'll be next. Kid Rock will be honored at the Kennedy center along with Hulk Hogan.
- [03:07]
Charlie Sykes
But basically, though, what you're saying is he's always wanted to be like the executive producer of his own and now he's, is he making himself the executive producer of America? Is that part of the, that it is all the Trump show and he has to pull all the strings?
- [03:24]
Tim O'Brien
Yes. And what he's doing is he's grabbing a chokehold of every US Institution that touches on money, the law, international affairs, culture, public health, anything that he can do quite quickly and visibly, even if actually he's not going to run any of those institutions well or has any real interest in the, in the knitting of running an institution like that well. And so it's not surprising he goes to the Kennedy Center. What will be unpredictable and jarring is the people who get honored because of his role. And that will be all. As everything is around Trump, tragicomic.
- [04:05]
Charlie Sykes
It will be. Okay, so you mentioned money. Now, a more serious podcast would then immediately segue into the tariffs and whether we're gonna have a trade war. But because we're doing it this way. Tim O'Brien, explain the ban on pennies. The president is banning penny. We're not making any more pennies. What's with the pennies?
- [04:24]
Tim O'Brien
Well, so I'm gonna start with a pro tip. Anybody who really wants to keep the penny should just propose that Trump's face be replace Abraham Lincoln's and the penny would stay in circulation. There's a lot of it makes great sense, actually, to get rid of the penny. It costs the federal government more to produce a penny than the face value of the penny. It creates bonkers kinds of difficulties in transactions in stores and elsewhere. But again, you know, in a world full of material issues and very high level things, we should be concerned about in geopolitics and domestic affairs, going at the penny right out of the gates, I wouldn't rank that even in the top 100. But to him, again, symbolically, for him, it conveys getting rid of government waste and moving quickly. And that is the common denominator in everything he's doing right now.
- [05:26]
Charlie Sykes
Okay, so I'm a little bit obsessed with this, another totally trivial story. But he is really locked in on this Gulf of America thing, that the Gulf of Mexico is Gulf of America. And, and for people who think that he's not totally serious about it, they have banned the Associated Press from coming into certain events, because the Associated Press will not use the government designated term. So, again, talk to me about the Gulf of America. And, but also, I guess, also part of it is watching people like Google cave in on all this, say, yes, Google, yes, Mr. President, we're going to change Google Maps. So what's with the Gulf of America?
- [06:09]
Tim O'Brien
We should say Gulf of Merca just to kind of get in the spirit of this move, the Gulf of Merca. I would note that I don't think the last time I looked was probably a day ago, but I think Apple Maps is still calling it the Gulf of Mexico. So it will be very interesting to see if Apple comes into Trump's crosshairs. Google, I think, completely did it. I think both to avoid Trump's wrath and because they say that their labeling mandates are determined by what the federal government does around all mapping labels. That may be true, but it's also part of a larger decision, I think, by corporate America and the diplomatic community to have a tactic that they think will be more efficacious in Trump 2.0 than it was in Trump 1.0, which is to kiss the ring rather than to bite the hand. And, you know, I think in Trump 1.0, you had Macron, who, when Trump visited Paris, he gave him a huge parade on the Champs Elysees and treated him like Napoleon. And then you had Tim Cook, who went to the White House and warmed up to him and successfully kept Trump from sanctioning the fact that Apple was producing iPhones in China. And I think members of both of those communities saw that and saw, you know, rather than get into fisty cups with Donald Trump, all you really need to do is kiss up to him. Now, what they're forgetting, though, what they're forgetting, though, Net Mix, is let's go back to the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee. Ron DeSantis. Yeah, well, because it's useful. I was, I was there. I think you were there, too, right?
- [07:53]
Charlie Sykes
I was there, too.
- [07:54]
Tim O'Brien
Trump was in the. Of course you were. We taught. Actually, you and I spoke. We actually did a live stream together there. And he was up in the, you know, up in the, like Nero, up in the stands, watching everyone come in. And both Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis came in after having campaigned against him, after having criticized him heavily and said, you're the best. We support you. This would be better for America. And Trump has not thrown either one of them a bone. In fact, he's gone out of his way to savage them publicly. In the Nikki Haley's case, Racially, and they didn't get anything for kissing up. So I think the people in this wave now, whether it's Google or anyone else, Amazon, are going to discover that simply bowing down isn't enough for him. Humiliation is part of the equation.
- [08:45]
Charlie Sykes
It is very much part of the equation. Okay, so I want to make two points about the Gulf of America. One snarky and one substantive. And I wrote this in my newsletter yesterday. I was thinking about the Buffalo Bills. Remember when they were in four consecutive Super Bowls and they lost them all? As you know, they always create the merch, though, of, you know, Buffalo Bills, world champions and everything. You know, they print that stuff up, and then, of course, when you lose, they ship it all around the world. So there are probably hundreds of thousands, millions of kids in Africa and Asia running around with Buffalo Bill World Champion T shirts. I would suggest that people might want to screenshot the Google map of Gulf of America, because I think someday it's going to be kind of an iconic little thing that people will look back on. How crazy was it back then? Look at this shit that we did. The more serious point, though, is.
- [09:39]
Tim O'Brien
Wait, wait. I don't think you're. I don't think you're thinking commercially enough. I think you should trademark that idea right now and start a side business. It'll. It'll fund you for the rest of your life. You know, the Gulf of America T shirts.
- [09:52]
Charlie Sykes
Well, I'm basically unemployed, so this is a good idea. So. All right. So my more serious point, though, is that Trump's demand that the news media use his terminology. It is a little bit Orwellian. So I wonder whether there's gonna be a moment, you know, sitting around the newsroom where everybody is, the. Whatever the name of the new press secretary says, which news outlets here will commit to always calling it the Gulf of America. And if you don't raise your hand, you get expelled. Because now the government must tell you. The government will tell you what language you can use and what language you can't use. So not so benign. Okay, now we're moving the ladder here. You mentioned the things that motivate Donald Trump and self aggrandizement and being the center of attention all the time. I think that's. You have to underline that. Now, I did warn you in my Friday newsletter, I began it this way. My friends, we have reached that stage in American history where you cannot write a weekend review without using the word booger. And I, we need to talk about that episode in the Oval Office where There's Donald Trump bored, slumped at the Resolute desk while Elon Musk is holding court and his four year old son X something or other is sort of wandering around, picking his nose, wiping it on the most famous desk in the world and telling the master of the universe, Donald Trump, shush your mouth. All right, Tim, going back into the mind of Donald Trump, what's going on there? What is happening with this Musk Trump relationship? And that, what would you think of when you saw that scene, that picture.
- [11:47]
Tim O'Brien
That two things, it reminded me of the Kanye visit in, in Trump's first term where a man who was, you know, emotionally troubled was sort of just giving court in front of the national media, in the Oval Office, at the Resolute desk. And for someone like Trump who cares as much about language as you noted in symbolism and pageantry, it, it stains the character of the office to display it as something less than sophisticated, honorable and law minded, law abiding. My second thought was Musk doesn't care about that either. And, and they both are essentially frat house boys. Musk was, you know, he had his dark MAGA outfit on and Trump had his trademark uniform of a, a red tie and a dark jacket. But, but they both like breaking the china and they don't really care what the outcome is because shock and pain is the point. They like keeping people back on their heels. I think the third thing we shouldn't forget is as Musk's son is wiping boogers around the Oval Office, the real lesson of Musk standing here is that there is this horrible financial conflict of interest at work in Elon Musk's relationship with Donald Trump. And again, I don't see this as an ideological right left, Republican, Democrat issue. It's a good government issue. We are meant to have barriers between the government and business, so policy is made without feathering the nest of powerful people. And while Elon Musk is alternately going across the government through Doge looking for cost cuts, wasteful government spending, the abuse of taxpayer dollars, he just got a 400 million. His company Tesla just got a $400 million federal contract to buy Tesla trucks for the Pentagon, which are the ugliest.
- [13:39]
Charlie Sykes
Fucking trucks in the world. I mean, on top of this is.
- [13:43]
Tim O'Brien
A White House that's anti ev. And how long are EV is going to also last in the desert sun unless you have charging stations traveling with them? It's just right now there's impracticality to some of it, but it also flies in the face of the idea that Musk is there simply to cut costs and protect the taxpayer. He's also engaging in self dealing.
- [14:07]
Charlie Sykes
Well, and the conflicts of interest are so huge, they are so epic, they are so out in the open. I mean, we talk about corruption and you know, the appearance of corruption. This feels, Tim, like it's off the charts. The potential for, for all of this, this, the self dealing and, and they're not even really making any effort to, you know, even put lipstick on it. You know, they're asked, why? Well, how will you deal with Musk's conflicts of interest? Well, Donald, I mean, Elon Musk will police it himself. Like what?
- [14:38]
Tim O'Brien
Yeah, yeah. And meanwhile, Donald Trump is talking about making crypto a Federal Reserve currency and franchising crypto as a vehicle for commerce, which in the abstract you could talk about embracing the future and adopting innovative approaches to commerce and relying less on the dollars of fiat currency, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. When in fact, Donald Trump has an investment in a crypto platform and there are Trump meme coins that jump up and down in value. He has a direct, again, financial stake in the outcome of any federal policy around crypto. And frankly, crypto is in a development stage right now. It's just a gambling chip. It's not going to replace the dollar. And once he decides to have no boundaries around his own self dealing, why should Musk, or ultimately why should the head of any other agency. And then what is the federal government doing other than self dealing?
- [15:41]
Charlie Sykes
Well, also on Thursday, at some point, Elon Musk and his children sat down with the Indian prime minister. Is that his hell, the Prime Minister, Modi Modi. And Trump was asked like, do you know what they're talking about? Is Elon Musk meeting with the head of state of India as a representative of the US Government or as the CEO of his own companies. And Donald Trump didn't know. He didn't know about the meeting. He didn't know what they were doing. He said, I'll ask him about it. Which again is another just reminder that Elon Musk is not only the most powerful man in America right now, the most unaccountable man in America, but he's also freelancing. And this is the thing that's interesting to me, that he's freelancing.
- [16:25]
Tim O'Brien
And in the meeting he was asking for a favorable trade regulations, products for himself.
- [16:32]
Charlie Sykes
Yeah.
- [16:32]
Tim O'Brien
And so this is meant to be a diplomatic meeting. He's talking about his wallet. And Trump doesn't know what's happening, he says, or what's being Discussed. This is, this is not good management, so to speak.
- [16:45]
Charlie Sykes
So how long does this last? I mean, this is, to me, this is like the Shakespearean Greek tragedy drama. Of this, there can only be one. But I mean, so far they're locked together. But you've watched Donald Trump. You know what his ego is like. How long does, how does this end, Tim?
- [17:07]
Tim O'Brien
Well, I guess I think there's two things. I think that the Trump Musk, you know, pairing, I can't imagine that last lasting very long, but I could be proven wrong. But I think when the Time magazine cover came out recently that showed Elon Musk sitting at the Resolute desk in a, in a depiction, an illustrated cover, and all of the useful and frequent references to Musk as President Musk, Trump notices those things. It doesn't matter how close you are to him. Steve Bannon fell by the wayside in the, in the first term, in the first administration, after he was on the COVID of Time. Right. Having said that, he has given Musk so much more leash and so much more attention than he's ever given anyone around a big show. And I think part of it is that he doesn't want to do the stuff that Musk is doing. Trump is, is, is, is a, is a very lazy person at his core, and he doesn't care also about minutia or the machinations of actually bureaucracy or corporations. And, and Musk is, is, is sort of his sledgehammer inside the federal bureaucracy, and he's focusing on things I don't think Trump authentically wants to take on himself. Well, but how does he.
- [18:29]
Charlie Sykes
Yeah, yeah, but I mean, I guess part of the problem is how does he, how does he extricate himself from Elon Musk? And I've talked about this before. He, he can fire anybody else. He can destroy anybody else's political future with a single post. Not so with Elon Musk. I mean, Elon Musk, he's got his tentacles in deep. He's got his own cult of personality. He's the richest man in the world, is Donald Trump. I mean, again, what do you do with Elon Musk if you're Donald Trump?
- [18:55]
Tim O'Brien
Well, I don't think he's in a rush to do anything because I think he's benefiting from it. Around the idea of moving quickly and breaking things. The classic Silicon Valley calculation. The other thing to remember is that Musk turned out in 2024 to be a significant funding force for candidates, particularly in Pennsylvania, but elsewhere in the 2024 election and I think Trump is probably also thinking of Musk as someone who can regulate candidates within the GOP long term. And then I think there's a Musk Vance intersection that is also involves some long term planning though. Having said that, Trump has never been a long term thinker, so I think Musk is useful to him now. I don't know that this will continue, though.
- [19:45]
Charlie Sykes
Okay, so let's switch gears to one of the most important stories near the end of the week, the Thursday Night Massacre, where the acting U.S. attorney in Manhattan, Danielle Sassoon, not only refused the order to drop the criminal charges against New York Mayor Eric Adams, but she resigned. And it had a domino effect. The way the New York Times recounted this, the serial resignations represent the most high, high profile public opposition so far to President Trump's tightening control over the Justice Department. They were a stunning repudiation of the administration's attempts to force the dismissal of the charges against Mr. Adams. And what they highlighted and is this young woman who's, you know, at the beginning of her career and everything, you know, obviously has the most important job of her life and she's willing to walk away from it. I'm going to get back to this. While so many other folks are bending the knee and are being afraid to stand up, she base and she's a conservative. She used to, she used to clerk for Justice Anton Scalia. She's a federal society member. And she just basically said, bullshit, I am not going to be dropping these charges. And points out, really highlights the fact that when she was ordered to drop the charges, they basically said it's pure politics. It has nothing to do with the law. This Emil Bovey had argued the investigation would prevent Adams from fully cooperating with Trump's immigration crackdown. He made a point of saying that the Washington officials had not evaluated the strength of the evidence or the legal theory behind the case. So in other words, they just didn't, they just had no fig leaf on this. It's basically like, he's our guy, we want to do him a political favor. So talk to me about this pushback, how significant you see it.
- [21:35]
Tim O'Brien
There's so many interesting things around this. I think I honor Sassoon for standing up in the same way I honor Liz Cheney. As you noted, you know, she's a rock ribbed conservative, as was Cheney. But in both cases, they're saying, we stand up for the rule of law and for the Constitution. It's also worth pointing out that the Justice Department attorney leading the charge for Trump, Emil Beauvais was his lawyer during the hush money case in New York. And Trump, I think, gave him this role as the thank you note. And he knows what his role is supposed to be. And it's not dispassionate law enforcement. It's using the Justice Department to settle Trump's scores. The, the broader problem with this, it's, it touches on the same thing we've talked about with the financial conflicts of interest, is this is a raw legal conflict of interest, and they don't care to hide it any more than Elon Musk cares.
- [22:35]
Charlie Sykes
Don't care to hide it.
- [22:36]
Tim O'Brien
You know, they, they feel so empowered that they're willing to simply flout the law or flout convention or civil society openly and without apology. And I think that is ignited by what Trump has overcome. Two impeachments, a whole series of state and federal prosecutions, a number of them meaty and probably airtight, and an election loss coming back to win again the second time. All of this stuff, I think, makes him and those surrounding him see him as invincible and not bound by the rules or the law. And we're going to get more of this. When you think about the fact that we're only a month into this, there is a reckoning coming for the American public about what Donald Trump can do and what he's capable of.
- [23:28]
Charlie Sykes
Well, on this particular case, I would urge people, by the way, to go and download her letter, Danielle Sassoon's letter to Pam Bondi, where she lays all this out and she even talks about, in this, she talks about the fact that Adams attorneys sat down and offered a quid pro quo, saying that, look, you drop these charges and I will help you with immigration enforcement. And Bove apparently saw somebody taking notes of this kind of negotiation, and he said, stop. You know, we don't take notes on a criminal conspiracy here.
- [24:02]
Tim O'Brien
So that's not judging this of our wrongdoing.
- [24:05]
Charlie Sykes
Yeah. From the wire. But the judge will have some, I think, interesting questions to ask the DOJ about this, about the details of all of this. And I think that the, it is the naked cynicism of it. On Friday morning, Eric Adams sat down on, was on Fox and Friends with the immigration czar. And really, they've got a hammer over his head. I mean, this is exactly the way the justice system is not supposed to work. Right. Say, oh, okay, you know, we have dropped these criminal charges for now, but if you do not do everything we want, we can bring them back. And they're actually, like, joking about that on, on on the couch. So I think it's part of the nakedness. So you had a cascading series of resignations. Maybe as much as I might count six attorneys.
- [24:56]
Tim O'Brien
Yeah.
- [24:57]
Charlie Sykes
So that would be more than the Saturday night massacre from 1973. So I was talking about this with somebody last night and said, well, this, you know, Trump probably likes this, that every time one of these attorneys quits, it solves a problem and they'll put in their own people. So I don't know, Tim, it's like half glass, half full, empty. It is good to see people standing on principle. On the other hand, they are now gone. What should people. I mean, and people are making this decision, you know, do I stay or do I go? Can I do any good, or do I do more harm by staying? What do you think?
- [25:30]
Tim O'Brien
You know, it's so interesting that you invoked the Saturday night massacre of 1973, which Watergate was seen as such a seminal political scandal and an episode of malfeasance. That gate ended up attached to any number of subsequent government scandals. And all of it seems so quaint now, you know, given the scale of what Trump is doing, you know, and it is quaint. It's really like Trump does that kind of stuff every day and doesn't get held accountable, you know, doesn't hold. Isn't held accountable for it. I think it. I think the only thing people in an era of chaos and pain can do is stand up for what they believe in and rely on the process to try to move forward. But I think that means, at the earliest, the midterm elections. So two years from now, if there's going to be enough leverage from voters to change the complexion of the Congress. I think thus far, state courts in particular, but federal judges as well, have stood up to things like birthright abandonment, Trump trying to ban birthright citizenship so far. Or freezing the funding or payments out of federal agencies. So far, some of this will go to the Supreme Court. I don't have a lot of confidence, frankly, that the Supreme Court will do the right thing in some of these cases, given how they've ruled previously. But right now, it's voters and law enforcement. You know, you and I, as journalists, pundits, observers, can make people think about things, but it'll probably only change things around the margin. It'll make a record of what's going on, but there's going to be this continued assault on the bedrock of democratic foundations and civil society themselves for it.
- [27:35]
Charlie Sykes
And as you pointed out, I think the worst is yet to come. Because they will continue to test the limits and including the possible defiance of court orders, which JD Vance has talked about. So I want to get to the big story in just a little while. You know, the betrayal of Ukraine, Donald Trump's relationship with Vladimir Putin. But you mentioned Congress and you know, in part, this feels like an old, old story, Tim, something you and I have been talking about maybe for eight or nine years, the collapse of the gop. But this week we saw the complete capitulation of the Senate GOP confirming some of the most wretched and vile of the nominations. Tulsi Gabbard and RFK Jr. I said last night on the show that when Donald Trump named Tulsi Gabbard to be the Director of National Intelligence, it was shocking. When he named RFK Jr. To be to run the nation's health system, that was genuinely shocking. But in many ways, watching the Republican senators look at them, know everything about them and still go, yeah, okay, we're going to vote to confirm them. In some ways that's more shocking, although no one should be surprised about this at all. And the weirdest thing of all is that the voice of conscience, the lone voice of conscience in the Republican caucus is Mitch McConnell, sitting there in the twilight of his career, willing to say no to Tulsi Gabbard, willing to say no to RFK Jr but he is absolutely alone.
- [29:11]
Tim O'Brien
I wish that I'm glad that Mitch McConnell finally stood up in the RFK Jr example. It's unfortunate that it, I think, was inspired by the fact that Mitch McConnell values vaccines because he's a polio survivor.
- [29:28]
Charlie Sykes
Yeah.
- [29:29]
Tim O'Brien
And one thing we want in our leaders is enough empathy that they care for other people's struggles, even if they haven't gone through that struggle themselves. But nonetheless, he stood up. And I think it's so smart to place this, as you just did, around the leadership itself and not simply on the nominees. Kash Patel is another shocking, shocking nominee who's now going to be running the FBI. This is the ultimate capitulation of the GOP that I think started to take form in the, in the McKinley administration, 1896, when he became president and, and reached its kind of, I think, height, probably, you know, the Reagan to Bush years. And it's been taken over by someone who is against most classic conservative principles of limited government, engagement with the world, judiciary, restraint and a sense of propriety, broadly defined. And he has replaced that with a cult of personality that is so anti government that he will sweep away such basic things as disaster relief. Oh, my God, science, vaccine construction work go on and on. We could go down the list. You can argue whether or not a federal agency is efficient and measures for making sure it ends, whether it's properly staffed, don't waste taxpayer money. But that's not the calculus they're using. They're simply saying, I don't like it, I'll take a sledgehammer. And, and between, you know, the, the, the people that are going to take over these federal agencies with, with, without the only one a casualty of the process being Matt Gates and the fact that Trump is also convincing that GOP to abandon Ukraine and the long term instability that's going to introduce in Europe if Vladimir Putin's Russia is now enfranchised to be more aggressive on Europe's eastern borders are time bombs.
- [31:57]
Charlie Sykes
Let's talk about that. Let's talk about that. Because this is on all the things that have happened in terms of just the historic significance. A lot of these things can be reversed. But the, the dismay, it feels like taking a sledge, that Donald Trump is taking a sledgehammer to 70 years of post, of the post war, you know, Western alliance turning its back on NATO. But it all comes down to Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin. When, when Donald Trump looks at Vladimir Putin, what does he see? We have been talking about this again, four, eight years probably and again, remember back in, was it 2017 in Helsinki when how shocking it was when Donald Trump stood next to Vladimir Putin and said that he trusted Vladimir Putin more than U.S. intelligence agencies. And people were really, really shocked about that. But now that appears somewhat quaint because now there are real world consequences. The breakdown of the Western alliance, essentially the surrender of Ukraine to Vladimir Putin. So Tim, going back into Donald Trump's mind, when he looks at Vladimir Putin, what is it that he sees? What is the bond there? What is the dynamic?
- [33:16]
Tim O'Brien
He sees a crown and he sees money and he envies both of those things. Trump has always been fascinated with autocrats because I think that's how he believes he should govern and that's what connects Putin to Kim and, and Modi and, and Trump want, likes authoritarians. He wants to nuzzle up to them, he wants to see how they rule. Orban is, is another person who fits into that mix and he's fascinated by it in a deeply childlike and unsophisticated way.
- [33:50]
Charlie Sykes
And he's emulating them right now, isn't he? He's trying.
- [33:53]
Tim O'Brien
He is. And he likes the idea that you have your own army and they just do what you tell them. To do. And you tell all of your agencies exactly what to do, and they're not independent. And you do what you want with the funds you bring into your government, including feathering your own nest financially if you'd like to. And that's the other thing. That's the money. He realizes that Putin has become Russia's biggest oligarch. After spending years in the shadows criticizing oligarchs and the privatization of the Russian economy, Putin has now become one of them. And, and, and Trump, Trump admires that deeply. He tried to do business deals in Moscow in the 90s. I think he's always had a financial interest in, in, in projects in Russia. It would not surprise me if Trump's sons or Jared Kushner sometime soon get business deals in Russia as a result of this. But meanwhile, Trump envy for the crown and for the money has left Ukraine abandoned.
- [35:02]
Charlie Sykes
So what does this mean for our. Yeah, what does this mean for our place in the world? Because pulling the lens back, he has been, you know, insulting some of our closest allies, threatening trade wars with Canada and Mexico and eu, mocking them at this point, how does the rest of the world look at the United States and what are the long term implications? Because it's one thing to say, okay, we'll wait out four years of Donald Trump, but I have to think that many of our allies are thinking, you know what? We have to come to grips with the fact that the United States is no longer trustworthy, no longer a reliable ally long term. So what does that mean?
- [35:44]
Tim O'Brien
That the United States is predatory and self absorbed. And everything that the United States puts in front of you, whether you're an ally or an opponent, is about self interest. And that the country that defeated Germany in World War II and sacrificed blood and fortune in the service of defending Europe and defending democracy in a time of authoritarian predation, is now a country that doesn't defend the little, a little person that cozies up to the aggressors and that transacts solely, solely on the basis of what's good for America. And that is not, never works for anyone. That's not Ronald Reagan's party, You know, that's not John Kennedy or FDR's party. It's not Abraham Lincoln's party, either Democrat or Republican. Yeah.
- [36:37]
Charlie Sykes
So do they have to go their own way now? I mean, does this, I mean, how did the alliances line up? Will other powers go? Okay, we can no longer rely upon the, the United States to live up to its treaty obligations, its defense. Do we need to get nukes what does, what does President Xi think? Does, does anyone in China think that Donald Trump would defend the territorial integrity of Taiwan? I mean, I just wonder long term, you know, these things, you know, people are going to make, make, make, make adjustments. And so Donald Trump will not be around forever, but I have a sense that the damage is going to be, you know, will be around for a.
- [37:16]
Tim O'Brien
Very, very, very long time and Trumpism will outlast him because it's worked. Even if, you know, you know, DeSantis tried to do a different version of Trumpism and he couldn't pull it off. But I think that's because DeSantis wasn't a great candidate, you know, as a, for a variety of reasons, terrible candidate. But Trump's GOP has learned that you don't have to be honest on the campaign trail. You can sensationalize public issues, you can appeal to people's emotions rather than their minds, and you can propagandize willy nilly, and that's an effective path to power in the age of social media and short attention spans. So we're going to live with Trumpism for a very long time. I think across Latin America, across all of Latin America right now, they're seeing what's happening to Mexico and they're, they, they are understanding that if you need funding and if you need corporate partnerships, you might as well look at, to China rather than the United States. So in that case, ironically, it, if, if our idea is to, is to push China back on its heels globally, we're taking steps that actually will encourage other countries to form alliances with it, depending on where they're based in Europe. I think the European countries now have to know they're responsible for their own defense. And that trade relations and a shared history and diplomatic relationship with the United States is not a guarantee that the US Military will protect them from an aggressor like Russia. So you're going to see a militarization of Western Europe and I think a turning away from a common mission. I also think that's going to have bad consequences for the country.
- [39:07]
Charlie Sykes
So the world is more dangerous and we are less safe. And I'm glad you made this point about China, because all over the world, as Trump withdraws American soft power, who is going to fill that void? Who's going to fill that vacuum? This is a great opportunity for China to step in all over the globe.
- [39:28]
Tim O'Brien
Which is doing, by the way, those belt and road initiatives. It's made huge inroads into Africa and Asia. It's present in Latin America already, you know, it's just sort of ceding that kind of soft power to China unnecessarily.
- [39:46]
Charlie Sykes
Okay, one last, one last question. The one through line in Donald Trump's career, other than sucking up to Vladimir Putin has been his fascination with tariffs and his disdain for international trade. And so he's threatened all kinds of trade wars, but he edges up to the line and then he kind of backs off. Now I was on the other night with Stephanie Rule and she said, well, maybe the one guardrail that Donald Trump still respects are the markets. And if the markets tell him don't do this, that he will back off, I said, maybe. I'm not sure. I'm going to ask my friend Tim O'Brien about that. So what do you think the markets are telling him? Don't do this. This would be very disruptive. The world economy is very complex and interlocked and if you start throwing around these, these tariffs, like throwing ball bearings into, you know, into, into a rotary fan. So what do you think will happen with the tariffs? Will, will he bluff or will he do it?
- [40:51]
Tim O'Brien
I think he'll do it. And I don't think he cares about the markets really. I, I, interesting again, Again, I think I just, I could be wrong and I would be happy to be wrong. You know, when Liz Truss got schooled in, in, in the UK when she proposed a preposterous fiscal plan that, that sent UK gilts into a tailspin, she was gone as Prime Minister within the blink of an eye. It became a meme and a joke. I, you know, Donald Trump won't be gone if markets spiral. Other people will get hurt if markets spiral. He doesn't care if other people get hurt. And he is a deep believer in, in, in, in the power of tariffs as a regulatory device on other people's behavior and other countries conduct. And he's in a bad place in his own mind in terms of his neediness and desire for revenge. And it's just an unpredictable witch's brew. And he will have people in his ear like Scott Besant or Howard Lutnick. Seeing this is bad for the economy, it's bad for business, it's bad for markets. But the reality is both of those men have already been publicly extolling the virtues of an aggressive, painful terror policy. They have to, and I think they're going to learn if they decided to stay in private, say to him something other than what they said in public, they will be shown the door because Trump didn't like that about his advisors in his first term. And back then it was largely around military issues, you know, people like Jim Mattis. So I don't know how much the markets are going to reign Donald Trump in. It may require a sell off in the bond market or for it to come home to him, but he may go up to that point.
- [42:52]
Charlie Sykes
I think it was interesting that the Wall Street Journal editorial board basically said, does Donald Trump even understand money works anymore when he's talking about inflation and interest rates? There is this weird disconnect, isn't there, between the image of Donald Trump as a successful businessman and a savvy negotiator and the reality of listening to him and going, do you actually understand how interest rates and tariffs interact with one another? It's just pure gibberish.
- [43:20]
Tim O'Brien
He doesn't. He doesn't. I was in his office once, this is 20 years ago, and were talking about cash flow. And he's a real estate investor. Need to understand what cash flow is. And not everyone needs to know what cash flow is. But it's like, it's like a common, it's a common, just sort of, you know, calculated tool that, that people in the real estate community do to decide what the value of a property might be. And, and he really struggles with basic math. I am not kidding. And he doesn't read. So anyone who's who. You know, there's a great Howard Stern video that's still out there on YouTube of him asking Donald, Ivanka and Don Jr. To do basic math and they can't do it. So people shouldn't be shocked that he doesn't actually understand the interplay of higher tariffs and escalating inflation. He'll find out. He's going to get schooled by the real world if he stays in the city. But right now he doesn't care. We'll all find out.
- [44:15]
Charlie Sykes
We'll all find out. Tim O'Brien, thank you so much for joining me. Tim O'Brien, you can find his work on Bloomberg Opinion. And thank you all for listening to to the Contrary podcast. And just remember, you are not the crazy ones. We'll be back next week.