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- [00:01]
Tom Nichols
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Tom Nichols
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- [01:47]
Charlie Sykes
Hey folks, it's Marc Maron from WTF Today. I want to talk to you about Boost Mobile offering reliable nationwide coverage backed by a 30 day money back guarantee. Love your service or get your money back, no questions asked. Boost Mobile offers the coverage, network speed and service you're used to, but at more of affordable prices. Why pay more if you don't have to? You can get an unlimited plan for $25 a month that will never increase in price, ever. No price hikes, no multi line requirements, no stress. Visit your nearest Boost Mobile store or find them online@boost mobile.com After 30 gigabytes, customers may experience slower speeds. Customers will pay $25 per month as long as they remain active on the Boost Unlimited plan. I'm Charlie Sykes. Welcome back to to the Contrary podcast. It is Black Friday so I decided to dress in Black Friday. I have to say that Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays of the year because we all have so much to be thankful for. Black Friday is my least favorite fake holiday of the entire year. Joining me on this Black Friday, our good friend, the professor, Tom Nichols. Tom, how you feel about Black Friday? I'm just not. I'm not. I do not leave the house on Black Friday.
- [03:18]
Tom Nichols
I am actually a shopping guy. So I. But I don't like big crowds. But I do love, like, I go shopping for electronics and clothes and things like that. So I'm kind of a, you know, a mall guy. But, yeah, Black Friday. Thing is, Black Friday brings out a lot of the worst in Americans after a day where we should be thankful for everything.
- [03:39]
Charlie Sykes
Well, and I also, I feel bad for the people who have to work on Black Friday. You know, when I was a very, very young reporter for a daily newspaper, the Milwaukee Journal, I remember I was. I was too junior to get the day off. And so they would, they would send me out because, again, bottom of the totem pole, you know, who draws the short straw? You know, go out and see whether or not shopping is busy. And you go out like, what, what is the story? Like, yes, there are a lot of people here. Yes. No, I mean, it's like, there's amazing raining.
- [04:08]
Tom Nichols
Go stand outside.
- [04:10]
Charlie Sykes
That's. That's, that's right. And so as a result of that traumatic experience, I have really made it a kind of a life rule never to work on the day after Thanksgiving. But in any case, okay, so we have a lot to catch up on, and I don't know that we'll be able to do it, but I did want to highlight what I think is the. Probably the most. The most interesting story of the entire week. And I'm sure you'd come up with the exact same one. The fact that I am going to read this here. The President of the United States, the person with authority over nuclear codes, the military, and the Department of Justice, is personally calling studio executives to broker the production of Rush Hour 4, not Rush Hour 1. Mike Brock writes, which was culturally relevant in 1998, the fourth installment of a franchise that nobody asked for. And he's using the august power of the presidency to try to revive the career of. And I haven't followed this, I have to admit, Brett Ratner, who left Hollywood after multiple women accused him of coercion and harassment as reported by the LA Times back in 2017. And all this is happening while, like, stuff is going on. So, yeah, the President of the United.
- [05:21]
Tom Nichols
States and Also, of all the franchises you're gonna rescue, like, the funniest part, Rush Hour, I will say, was actually a pretty good movie. I'm a Jackie Chan fan.
- [05:31]
Charlie Sykes
Yeah.
- [05:32]
Tom Nichols
Chris Tucker can be funny.
- [05:33]
Charlie Sykes
Get it?
- [05:34]
Tom Nichols
But the funniest part of Rush Hour are the outtakes. And Rush Hour 1, Rush Hour 2, Rush Hour 3, as sequels always do, got worse, immerse and worse. The outtakes are funny. Nobody, as you just said, nobody asked for this. But what is the President doing and who is running the country while the President is trying to, like, help out a pal in Hollywood?
- [05:57]
Charlie Sykes
Yeah, I mean, this is a little bit like, you know, you're on a, you know, jumbo jet flight across the Pacific Ocean, and suddenly you see that the pilot is sitting and he's doing wordle, you know, in the. In the front row. It's like, wait, wait, who's piloting the plane? There's stuff going on. We'll get to what's going on with Ukraine. On the revelations about Steve Witkoff coaching Vladimir Putin. We'll talk about the House gop. By the way, among the ironies. The more I think about it, the House GOP is very, very upset with the way it's being treated by Donald Trump. You saw these stories, the quote to Jake Sherman where everybody is like, they treat us like shit. They don't even let us make announcements. This is just awful. A lot of us are thinking of quitting, and it's like, geez, that's a little bit ironic, right? I mean, you spend the last four, eight, ten years gelding yourself, and then suddenly you go, oh, my God, I'm a castrati. I mean, it's just like, how did this happen to us?
- [06:56]
Tom Nichols
Yeah, that's the part I don't get. The constant look of surprise. You know, this isn't 2017 or 2018, you know, and I don't want to use the old, you knew I was a snake or a scorpion or whatever it was.
- [07:10]
Charlie Sykes
I'm okay with that.
- [07:10]
Tom Nichols
I'm with this guy before. This is not. This isn't your first day on planet Earth. And I think, I wonder if some of it is that they sense that he is wounded and vulnerable now.
- [07:22]
Charlie Sykes
Yeah, the lame duck thing.
- [07:24]
Tom Nichols
Yeah. And that they can kind of bitch and that he doesn't. It may finally be getting through to them that he cannot just snap his fingers and kick them out of office anymore, because he used to be able to do that.
- [07:37]
Charlie Sykes
Yeah. But he still has the ability.
- [07:40]
Tom Nichols
Taylor Greene, quitting. You know that I'm still trying to figure that one out. But maybe, maybe they know something terrible is coming and they don't want to spend their time being in the minority. Usually when you see a bunch of retirements, it's that it's because of that.
- [07:58]
Charlie Sykes
Okay, so I've said this on other podcasts. I actually think that the Marjorie Taylor Greene resignation is also a tell about the incentive structure and what politics has become, because basically she's decided, I just don't need to be a congressman to be relevant anymore. I don't need to sit here. I don't need to go through the bullshit of sitting in a caucus with Lauren Boebert and Mike Johnson, you know, and having to be primaried by, you know, some, you know, Trumpist candidate.
- [08:26]
Tom Nichols
You know, I don't need it to be rich.
- [08:28]
Charlie Sykes
I'm liberated. Right?
- [08:30]
Tom Nichols
And I don't need it to be rich either.
- [08:32]
Charlie Sykes
That's. That's right. See, the incentive structure is. And she's realized this. And the story I told. I think I told this to, to Matt Lewis the other day. I keep thinking of that John Boehner story, you know, the former Republican speaker from the before times. You know, remember, you know, you and I are both old enough to remember when speakers were, like, important. It was an important job. They had actual clout. And, and back then, the. He tells the story of Michele Bachmann, who was kind of the nut job of the time. And she wanted, remember Michele Bachmann? Remember we thought she was crazy?
- [09:04]
Tom Nichols
This is taking me down Republican memory lane here, Charlie.
- [09:08]
Charlie Sykes
Well, he tells a great story where she wanted a major committee assignment. I can't remember which one it was, but he's like, it's crazy. This is an important job. I am not putting Michele Bachmann in this job. She comes into his office, he's the speaker, she's nobody. And says, if you don't give me this position, this is very, very sensitive committee job. I'm going to go to all the anchors of Fox News and I'm going to say that, you know, you are punishing me for being too conservative. And it began. Either it began to dawn on him or this was an exclamation point on the way in which power had shifted from elected representatives to the entertainment wing of the party. And I think Marjorie Taylor Greene has understood that. And again, I'm not praising her in any way whatsoever. Is that now she, you know, she's, she's in the wind now. She's free. She's liberated.
- [10:00]
Tom Nichols
You coined that phrase. And I think it's always been a really insightful thing to say to describe the entertainment wing of the gop because now people literally will change their politics based on watching three hours of Fox in a day. And everybody knows that. I wonder, too, with Marjorie Taylor Greene, if there was a part of her that says, David Frum had a great piece the other day where he said she was so close to getting the joke that in Washington, there are people who get the joke. This is an old Jack Abram out Abramoff quote, right? In Washington, there's only two kinds of people. Those who get the joke and those who aren't in on the joke. And the joke being, look, nothing really gets done. You're here to line your pockets and kind of make money and be powerful and have fun. And, you know, the people that aren't in on the joke think that ideas and things matter. Now, that's too cynical for me. But I wonder if it dawns on her, hey, I actually believed a lot of this stuff, and I went to the wall. Excuse me, I went to the wall for this guy, and I was a good soldier. And my reward for that is I got pushed out of running for statewide office. I got called a traitor, and I'm getting death threats. And you know, Marjorie Taylor Greene, like you. No, you don't have to hand it to her as the same guy.
- [11:29]
Charlie Sykes
No, you do not.
- [11:30]
Tom Nichols
But on the other hand, you know, she's not an irrational person. And I'm sure, like a lot of people, she said, what do I need this shit for?
- [11:36]
Charlie Sykes
Well, I've got everything I want.
- [11:38]
Tom Nichols
I've got influence and power and money. And now I don't. And now I won't be bound by government ethics rules and, as you say, have to sit in caucus with Lauren Boebert.
- [11:46]
Charlie Sykes
Well, and the reality is that she's got a good brand for Republican primary politics right now, which is even though Trump's turned has gone south on her being the maverick, the truth teller, she broke on the Epstein files. She's outflanking Trump on the right. And I keep emphasizing this. Trump has this reptilian instinct that he's willing to let almost anybody go if they are in the center or they're a rhino. But he does not want to be outflanked. He does not want. Which is why he would not denounce David Duke, why he would not separate himself from the far right, the proud boys, why he is reluctant to move away from Tucker Carlson. So this makes him nervous. This is one of the things.
- [12:35]
Tom Nichols
I mean, I think it's an Interesting, because what you're, you're kind of making me think about this. Why is it. And I think, let me try this out on you. He doesn't want to alienate the right. Because as those are the people that will always show up, those are the most reliable soldiers in the movement. Right. That the people who, if you say, listen, Joe Blow the dog catcher is, you know, a Democrat pedophile, they'll kick out the local dog catcher. You know, in a way, he seems to understand that building a coal, that keeping a cult is easier than building a coalition. And that's good because I'm always having this argument with Democrats with, well, how come Building a coalition? Yeah, I mean, you know, the Democrats are always kind of yelling. I'm like, look, you guys, you know, you have to moderate, you have to move to the center. You have to capture the independent voters. Why do we have. How come the Republicans can be extreme? And I keep saying, what works for them will not work for you because they're a cult and you're a coalition. And Trump seems to understand, keep the cult, even if it means at the cost of the coalition, because the primary environment is where that cultish always show up kind of party discipline really pays off now, as Trump learns the hard way every time since 2017. It doesn't work in a general election. So you get the people, you become a power broker in the primary sphere. Right? And then you say, well, all right, we lost the House, okay, we lost the Senate, but nonetheless, the people that are remaining are totally loyal to me and owe everything to me.
- [14:19]
Charlie Sykes
Right? And he knows that if he does get outflanked by somebody who's younger and selling the pure meth on the street, that he becomes yesterday's news. It's one more step toward being a lame duck to being the establishment, to being yesterday's story. That's what he does not want to be. He fears, I think, irrelevance more than anything else. You know, obviously he doesn't fear legal accountability. But since I started off with that whole Rush Hour thing raising, you know, who's running the country, I have not spent a lot of time talking about Donald Trump's age cognitive decline, even though I think that was obviously a big story during the Biden years, New York Times has this big deep dive. I don't know if you've seen this, where they, they sort of euphemistically say that, you know, he continues to show signs of fatigue, which is falling asleep now. I mean, on the one hand, you know, the Guy is, you know, pretty energetic, but there are, there's something going on here. And I don't, I don't know when you start to see, you know, some of his behavior. I'm always interested in the pundits who, you know, will attribute deep thoughts or strategy or tactical, you know, the tactical brilliance of Donald Trump when it's like, can you just kind of see that this guy sometimes just throwing shit against the wall that he's. By whim. He's exhausted. I mean, here's the President, United States with a peace deal with Russia and Ukraine out there somewhere. We'll get to that in a minute. And he's like calling about rush hour. I mean, give me your sense. I mean, I don't want to go down the rabbit hole of, you know, the guys losing it. But, Tom, this guy is losing it.
- [16:06]
Tom Nichols
I was, Look, I wrote a, I wrote a couple of days ago, president's losing. Excuse me. I wrote a piece called the President's Losing Control of Himself. And you know, I, I had some of the predictable responses on social media. Oh, he's always been out of control. He's always been like this. No, he hasn't always been like this. Yeah, there is a part of him, he has a circuit breaker in his head now. He has no inner monologue. But he, he knows better that, that even little things. Calling that reporter piggy.
- [16:41]
Charlie Sykes
Yeah.
- [16:42]
Tom Nichols
You know, that he, he's normally been kind of lizard brain smart enough to know that instead you say be quiet. Your, your network is terrible. You're fake news.
- [16:53]
Charlie Sykes
Yeah.
- [16:54]
Tom Nichols
This is almost like gut level, angry old man, you know, sort of quiet piggy, you know, and I think, I think you're for.
- [17:06]
Charlie Sykes
I mean, this is, this is. He's, he's got a little loop in his head about, you know, women being piggy or dogs talking about dogs or having blood come out of their whatever. I mean, there's, there's this, is this least there somewhere. And it's been there.
- [17:20]
Tom Nichols
Oh, it's always there. But he's, he's, he seemed first of all, this issue of fatigue that, that New York Times kind of by the by the numbers was very interesting that his day now starts at noon.
- [17:32]
Charlie Sykes
Yeah, noon to 5, basically.
- [17:35]
Tom Nichols
I mean, that's, you know, again, if that, if that. And I, I think, you know, everybody, every, not just Democrats, everybody in the pro democracy coalition has a right to be angry about the dual standard. The double standard of. Because that article, article had come out about Joe Biden, the election would have been over even before that. That disastrous first debate. You know, if it was, if it became public knowledge that Joe Biden's day begins at noon.
- [18:02]
Charlie Sykes
Yeah.
- [18:04]
Tom Nichols
Then, you know, things would have been over. So I think, you know, he's, he's pushing, he's almost 80. But I do think, and I, and I think it was the Epstein business, that his ability to hold himself together really got stress tested by, by the Epstein files and, and failed that those circuit breakers didn't click in that, you know, he really has become irrational and confused and cornered. So I mean, you know, I'm not a doctor, I can't say that he's losing it, but he is different now than he was even six months ago and it seems to be accelerating.
- [18:45]
Charlie Sykes
Well, I think, Sorry, but he doesn't.
- [18:47]
Tom Nichols
Seem to be a man in good health. I mean it just the press, you know, people, it's amazing how again the double standard in maga world we have every right to know about, you know, Lloyd Austin was getting a colonoscopy or a prostatectomy or whatever the hell he was doing, you know, getting surgery. We have a right to know about Joe, but, and then when we ask about the obvious mental acuity issues of a 79 year old man who blathers on about sharks, you know, we're basically told to mind our own business. Well, I'm sorry, this is the President, United States. He's the Commander in Chief and the steward of the, of a, of a massive nuclear arsenal. You're goddamn right. I want to know if he's healthy and competent and coherent and, and let's just throw in one more thing, Charlie. You and I, I'm sure at some point in our lives have had MRIs. It's not something where we go, oh yeah, I don't know what that was for.
- [19:40]
Charlie Sykes
Yeah, generally when they do stuff like that. Yeah. So I mean the irony slash tragedy is that this is now two presidencies in a row where we have to ask these questions in a nation our size, this size, you know, this vibrant that we are going through this again and it's a very, very difficult story to cover. Everything for the, for the media, you know, no White House reporter wants to write, you know, that the President is gaga, you know, after 4:00' clock in the afternoon. And you know, we've talked about this before. If you ever read, for example, a transcript of Donald Trump's, you know, some of his rambling rants, and then you compare that to the way the news media covers it, they kind of sane wash it. They kind of Take it down and make it sound. You know, pick out some coherent blocks. When you actually see it, you go, oh, my God, if this was anyone in your life, you would stage an intervention. I mean, his reaction to this New York Times piece about his signs of fatigue, just another just, you know, unhinged rant that, you know, frankly, if. If you're riding on a bus and somebody's in the back of the bus and they're yelling these things, you know, you're going to call 9 1.
- [20:53]
Tom Nichols
I was just going to say, you pick up the phone and say, listen, our next stop is G Street. Maybe you want to, you know, have a transit guy there. Yeah. And it's true. It's. You know, I know, I know some folks bristle at the term sane washing. You know, my boss, Jeff Goldberg, has a great line about this. It's. It's a bias toward coherence.
- [21:13]
Charlie Sykes
Yes.
- [21:15]
Tom Nichols
You know, which I think is a great line, right? That it says, look, it can't be. He must have meant something. He's the President. So you kind of go through this and say, well, he mentioned, you know, during the, during the big Las Vegas gibberish moment that he had, he did, he said, and we shouldn't tax tips. So you kind of push all this chaff away and say, well, here's the policy nugget that was in this giant pile of crap.
- [21:42]
Charlie Sykes
Right.
- [21:43]
Tom Nichols
You know, he said, well, he didn't want to tax tips. Yes, that's an important policy issue. He did say it, but it came in the middle of a gigantic diatribe about not wanting. About preferring to be electrocuted rather than eaten by sharks. You know, that's not that. That's not the main story, but it's that. I think you're right. It's very difficult for anybody to sit down and say, I went to a rally, you know, as an objective reporter, right. You know, I went to a rally, and I'm here to tell you the President, United States basically lost his mind for two hours. And so you, you pick these things out. It's getting. I think the. The important point about this is that it's getting harder and harder to do that now.
- [22:24]
Charlie Sykes
Like it is.
- [22:26]
Tom Nichols
The, the crazy to policy ratio is now like 98 to 2. It used to be like 70, 30 or 80, 20. It's now like. It's all gibberish all the time. I was thinking when you were talking about old presidents, you know, Charlie, part of the problem is we've become a country that's static and only Wants to stay with stuff we know. That's why we want to make Rush Hour 4. We didn't need a connection.
- [22:51]
Charlie Sykes
You connected the dots. That's brilliant.
- [22:55]
Tom Nichols
It's like this is. This is how even 30 years ago, we were getting TV movies like the Beverly Hillbillies, because people said, well, it worked once. And, and you know, in 2008, we took a chance on a young guy. But beyond that, it's always, well, I. I know the brand. I've seen this guy on tv. I'll trust that. And it's like this administration is like the worst sequel. Just like all bad sequels, the writing got worse, the plots got more incomprehensible, the stunts became more improbable. I mean, it's just. But it's how we are. And I think the next election around has to end this gerontocracy. But we'll see.
- [23:41]
Charlie Sykes
Yeah, I think so too. I think if there's ever going to be an election where people are going to want change, it's going to be that. Of course that's what they wanted in 2016, and God knows they got the rerun. So I would like to talk to you about Cash Patel being in the barrel. But you and I, here's the problem. You and I are recording this on Wednesday. People are gonna hear it on Friday. And with the speed of the news cycle, who knows whether Cash Patel is going to be. I just find it incredibly ironic that in the most corrupt, fetid administration in American history that there are people in the Trump White House who said, you know, that Cash Patel seems to be ethically tone deaf. He's like, what's. What's with Kash Patel? How did Kash Patel, you know, decide that he could use taxpayer funded jets to hang out with his hot country western singer girlfriend who apparently requires FBI SWAT teams? I don't know. It's like how you look. You look at what Kristi Noem is doing. You look at Pam Bondi, you look, you look at Hegseth, you look at RFK Jr. And it's like they're going, okay, that's okay. It's Cash Patel.
- [24:47]
Tom Nichols
Yeah.
- [24:48]
Charlie Sykes
You know, any, any quick take on this, because, I mean, it could be all over by the time people hear this. So.
- [24:53]
Tom Nichols
Well, I will say that I am surprised that in the Cash Patel, Tulsi Gabbard, Pam Bondi Thunderdome.
- [25:01]
Charlie Sykes
Yeah.
- [25:01]
Tom Nichols
Where three go in and only one walks out. That I just didn't think it was going to be Cash Patel that was going to get turfed Right away. Because the thing about Patel, you know, the Atlantic did a profile of him a while back. Atlanta plotted this. You know, so basically, this is the guy that will do anything for anything. Anything. He has no inner compass. He has no direction. He will do whatever he's told. And apparently, you know, he's rumored to have told these FBI agents he was gonna fire. Look, I don't want to do it, but I got to do it. And you gotta fire you. You know, so you would think that of all the guys, that someone would say, he's my guy. But I wonder if, you know, like, when you were talking, I too, thought of Gnome, because that was the first name you went to, was Kristi Noem. But Kristin O. Manages to keep things on the down low most of the time. Well, okay, but compared to Cash Patel, she does. You know, because bar is going down.
- [26:02]
Charlie Sykes
So fast here, Charlie.
- [26:04]
Tom Nichols
You know, that's. Yes, the bar is. The bar is reaching subatomic levels that to limbo under this bar, you have to be a quark or a, you know, a proton to get under it. But what. I think the other thing is that Patel, in a. In a. In an administration of very weird people. Patel is even weirder than most.
- [26:29]
Charlie Sykes
Yeah.
- [26:30]
Tom Nichols
You know, and so does. Maybe he just doesn't have that natural constituency of being, you know, young, attractive female, socially gifted in some way. I mean, you see what you want about Pam Bondi or Carolyn Levitt, but they're smooth. They know how to talk on television. They do their thing. Tulsi Gabbard. You notice that Tulsi Gabbard is not smooth, but she has been just off the radar. Whatever happened to her, practically in witness protection at this point, because she's in a fight with Patel about who will control counterintelligence issues. Now, the FBI would. In any other era, the FBI would die rather than give up counterintelligence. That's what they do. There is no. There's no real apparatus for that at the. At the Director of National Intelligence level. You know, they don't have. I mean, the DNI, it's not like. It's not like the man from U.N.C.L.E. where they just go, you know, dragon spies from all the great places and then send them on missions. The FBI does this, and they've been chasing. The FBI has been chasing Russians and other bad guys in our country for decades. They know how to do this. So. But, you know, Gabbard, I think wisely, has said, I'm not going to get into a public, you know, shit, flinging exercise with this. Let, let Patel hang himself. And interestingly enough, they, they felt the need to do a photo op with Patel the other day, you know, where they did the thumbs up thing in the Oval. And normally to me, that's like the mafia kiss of death. That's, that's, you know, that if the President says come on in and we'll do a photo op, that's like, that's like saying, you're among friends here.
- [28:14]
Charlie Sykes
We have some real substance here. But, but I'm going to take a trivial digression here because trying to understand this Cabinet, you know, that Donald Trump is obsessed with the absolute loyalty, the willingness to do anything. He's also concerned with optics, which you can obviously see. And I don't need to go into great detail about all of that. You know, what it could come down to why Patel and not anybody else, is that Donald Trump is looking at those pictures of those weird goggle eyes and going, this is not from Hollywood central casting. This is not central casting. How did that guy get into the FBI? I don't know. I mean, you never know how Donald Trump's mind works. But listen, in terms of like, why Patel and not any of these other guys?
- [28:58]
Tom Nichols
Charlie. One, the first thing I thought was, you know, Patel is not a young, attractive woman.
- [29:05]
Charlie Sykes
Yeah.
- [29:06]
Tom Nichols
You know, is that, does that he's.
- [29:09]
Charlie Sykes
Not white in the way that Donald Trump defines it.
- [29:13]
Tom Nichols
Well, you know, in any other administration, you'd say that's, that's a pretty trivial observation. And nobody really makes decisions that way. Not in this. This guy picks people because of his. I think it's, I think it's really interest. Interesting that we're in this second administration, we're getting even more of a, of evidence that Donald Trump lives his life mediated through screens, through television, through visuals, you know, and that's also a sign of decline. I'm sorry, but when it gets to the point where grandpa just watches a lot of TV and then angrily types thing into his phone, you know, it's time to take away the jitterbug.
- [29:51]
Charlie Sykes
Okay, so one thing before we get into the Mark Kelly story, which is really what I wanted to talk about today in terms of Trump losing the plot or feeling out of touch and some of the things that Marjorie Taylor Greene said, it is interesting that among the issues that he's struggling with, I mean, rather dramatically right now is affordability. And he's in denial about inflation. And he just doesn't seem to figure out a way to pivot on this issue. And he's Usually pretty good about all that. And I think part of that is think about his world, that almost all of the input he gets is from the sycophants around him or the rich folk, rich eccentric folks with, with Botox down in Mar a Lago, because every once in a while there'll be these ideas that just, like, fly out. And you think, is it some. Some millionaire billionaire who was sitting across from him at Mar a Lago who said, you know, we really, you know, ought to, you know, call the Gulf of Mexico, the Gulf of America or something like that? In other words, what I'm saying is that in his world, he does not interact with people who had to go out and buy turkey or have seen what's been happening to the price of groceries. He doesn't really know that that is not what comes up, you know, at the, at the Great Gatsby themed parties. So, you know, here's the guy who at one point, I think, had kind of a. That reptilian instinct of being, you know, the voice of populism. And I think that, you know, as his world shrinks down to the screen and to his cronies is that weird collection of cronies. He's more and more out of touch with what people in the real world are experiencing.
- [31:28]
Tom Nichols
I'm. I'm actually not. I'm not going to slam him for that, because remember, you and I both voted for George Bush, who, you know, was like, oh, scanners in a supermarket.
- [31:39]
Charlie Sykes
W. Bush.
- [31:40]
Tom Nichols
Yeah, George H.W. bush. Right. Scan. Fascinating. Scanners. Amazing. I'll buy these socks. Anybody got a credit card? You know, I mean, that was a really ugly moment. Rich guys don't understand what it's like to have to go out and, like you say, buy a turkey. What I think is more important here is that Trump doesn't care about it. That's why he can't grasp it. I mean, George H.W. bush cared about. Because Bush once worked for. I mean, you can say, you know, born into A rich family, Bush 41, went out to Texas, made his fortune, did his thing. You know, Trump never cared about that. And I'm gonna say it again. Trump ran for office for three reasons. Stay out of jail, get revenge on his enemies, and line his pockets. And when you say to him, Mr. President, you have to talk about affordability, you know, this is the equivalent of telling him, you know, like, I was talking to. I was. I was doing a segment yesterday on TV where we were talking about the losers and suckers moment where he stands in Arlington and says, I don't get it. What was in it for them? It's the same problem. He's like, I don't get it. Grocery stores are open, they have turkeys in them. What's the problem? Why are people bugging me about this? He doesn't care. He doesn't understand it. He can't parse the problem in his head. You know, George Bush 41, cared. He just hadn't been in a grocery store in years. That's, that's the difference. No, I think it's one other thing about populism. When you said Trump, Trump's lizard brain, he, you and I understand, I suppose many of his handlers, we understand populism as health care is expensive, college is out of reach, housing's gotten really high. You know, I suppose you saw the James Carville piece the other day. You know, gonna run as if it's the Great Depression, even though it's not even remotely the Great Depression, but, you know, run on that economic platform. When Trump thinks of populism, he says he thinks of it as, hey, filthy masses. I am the rich, powerful guy that hates the people you hate.
- [33:42]
Charlie Sykes
Yes.
- [33:42]
Tom Nichols
He doesn't think of populism as quality of life cost.
- [33:46]
Charlie Sykes
This, this is a very important insight. This, this.
- [33:49]
Tom Nichols
None of those things matter to him.
- [33:52]
Charlie Sykes
No, they, they don't. Okay, so let's now pivot to what I really wanted to talk about. And in the most extraordinary, one of the most extra stories of the week, the Trump's decision to go after Senator Mark Kelly. Apparently all of the six Democrats who appeared in that video telling members of the military that they should not obey illegal orders. But with Kelly, who is a decorated, a decorated captain, a former astronaut, the Pentagon has announced that they're having an investigation. This would apparently involve, correct me if I'm wrong, recalling him to active duty and then court martialing him. You had wrote a piece about the split screen between Pete Hegseth and Captain Mark Kelly. I have to say that again, normally Trump is pretty good with his reptilian instinct in picking the enemy. This is not the split screen that he wants. He does not want cadet, bone spurring, you know, American hero, side by side. Let's debate patriotism. But give me your take on the whole Mark Kelly thing and the decision to go after him.
- [35:03]
Tom Nichols
Well, this is part of the losing control problem. This is where somebody in the first term would have walked in and said, okay, Mr. President, first of all. And it would have been the Secretary of Defense, by the way. It would have been Someone at the Pentagon walking in saying, Mr. President, first of all, you're not going to recall Mark Kelly to office because the. That he can't be a serving officer and a senator at the same time, and you don't have any legal way to force him to resign. So this whole thing is never going to happen because it's stupid and it's going to make you look bad, okay? It's going to make you look like an idiot. So he outsources it to Pete instead of the SEC def. Telling him that this gets outsourced to Pete Hegseth, who has no compunction about looking like an idiot ever. You know, Hegseth comes across as a kind of of, you know, petty online troll trying to, like, drag some kind of reaction out of Kelly. And that split screen doesn't work either. You know, the tatted up dude, bro, you know, who, who made it to major in the National Guard is, Is, you know, carping at a bona fide war hero with 39 combat missions and four space shuttle flights under his belt. I mean, it's just. It's stupid and it's. It's politically stupid. And the way you and I would think of anything in a campaign is stupid. But it's also just. It's just dumb. But it tells you how freaked out, you know, I'm gonna. I want to give a shout out to my colleague John Chait, who made a great point the other day. He said, look, in any other world, if Congress came forward and said, guys, don't. Don't obey illegal orders, right? A savvy, A savvy president would step forward and say, well, of course, I agree with that. What are you people on about? I would never give illegal orders. What kind of hysterics are you people? And instead he steps forward and says, you seditious bastards, I'm gonna have you all executed. I mean.
- [37:01]
Charlie Sykes
This is the heart of it. This is the heart of it right now. I mean, first of all, this is something. And you know, you taught at the War College for many years. This is not a controversial point that, you know, you cannot use the Nuremberg defense. I was just following orders again. Any normal politician would say, well, of course, all of my orders are legal. I would never issue an illegal order, right? And then it would go away. Trump's reaction was nuclear. You know, the sedition, the execution. They should be hanged for saying all of this. And it was kind of one of those moments where you go, okay, why is he so. Why is this lawless president so upset about this. Well, because he's a lawless president who's got, I'm sorry, he's got a fetish for war crimes. He's got a fetish for these things. He's said this over and over again. But again, he has now elevated Mark Kelly and this issue much higher than it ever would have been before. I mean, in terms of.
- [37:58]
Tom Nichols
He doesn't understand the Streisand effect.
- [38:01]
Charlie Sykes
Exactly. And again, he does not understand the Streisand effect. So let's talk about going back to that original video. Six Democrats, all of whom were veterans or veterans of the intelligence community, telling members of the military not to obey illegal orders. You have taught this sort of thing or you've been in that world. So just talk to me about that video and what your reaction was even before the Trump blow up.
- [38:32]
Tom Nichols
You know, as a, as a guy who, in the before times, a conservative like you, I would have said, listen, president has a lot of latitude under Article 2, you know, Congress, if you really want to be involved, pass a law, you know, and, and if a bunch of congressmen had come out and said, I just want to remind the military to obey, not to obey illegal orders, I would have said, al, that's okay. You know what? That's a straw man. Who's going to do that? You were talking about my teaching days at the Naval War College. We had discussions in class about, you know, what are the constitutional limits. And of course, you know, if it's torture a prisoner, kill an unarmed man, you know, violate the Geneva Conventions. But in this case, it. I think I felt like they needed to say it because I think Trump is already giving illegal orders. I think that that's part of the problem. And I think that what you saw and what these legislators achieved with this video was kind of pulling back the curtain a little bit on the debates that are clearly happening within the DoD and the executive branch about the legality of killing people at will on the high seas, about the legality of sending military forces into American streets to make them act like cops. You know, some of these orders, I think are, and I'm not a military lawyer, but, you know, he's lost a lot of cases in court, and I think a lot of these are potentially illegal orders. And I think the amazing part was that they didn't say, now, you know, the President's bad. Don't obey him if he tells you to do bad stuff. All they said was they said, you remember your oath and remember that the Congress of the United States understands your oath. And they freaked out. That that was like an admission. It was a tell. Exactly. It was a, it was a tell. And I think the idea that, you know, again, they're a savvier. Trump would have said, well, you know, these are just, you know, weenies who don't understand military stuff. Of course, I would never give that order and ins. And the new Trump is because. And again, Charlie, I still think it's because they're. Because of the strain of the Epstein files that now he turns the dial to 11 on everything.
- [40:55]
Charlie Sykes
And I, this was way beyond 11. I mean, I mean, you know, and I've written about this. It was just so weird, you know, coming out of the National Cathedral after the Cheney funeral and seeing everybody with their phones and what is the first thing they're seeing? President calls for, you know, death penalty for Democrats, execution. Hang them all in caps, you know. But again.
- [41:16]
Tom Nichols
And then Carol Levitt makes it worse, by the way. She's asked, does the President want to kill members of Congress? She says no, as though like, okay, fine, no. And then the next thing she says is, but let's think about why the President reacted this way, almost as if to say, well, no, but if it happens, they had it coming. I mean, it's like they can't just cover. They can't just deal with the mess and move on. It's all they, they are so insecure and so angry that they constantly have to rationalize and justify the craziest stuff.
- [41:53]
Charlie Sykes
Yeah. And they'll continue to do this. Well, let's just go back to understand, you know, when I, when I say that Donald Trump has had a fetish for war crimes. This goes back to 2016. You remember that, that incident where I can't remember whether what the forum was when he was saying that, you know, when I'm president, I'm going to tell the military to go out not just to kill terrorists, but to kill members of the families of terrorists. And there was pushback. People would say, well, you know, would the military do that? That's a war crime to, you know, to just target a civilian who has not committed any crime or suspected of committing any crime. And he says, if I'm the president, they will do what I tell them to do. Eventually, I think there were grownups who said, no, you can't, because the Nuremberg defense doesn't work anymore. But he has been very, very consistent. He has pardoned or commuted the sentences of people who have been committed, who have been convicted of atrocities in the military. He's openly mused about extrajudicial murders. I flash back to right before January 6th, when every single living secretary of defense signed a letter saying, by the way, the military has no role to play in American elections. And this felt like this again, members of Congress saying, just a reminder to the military that you are not obligated to follow an illegal order. The problem is, how do people know what's legal and illegal anymore, since one of the first things they did was fire all the lawyers. So, Tom. Well, how do they deal with that?
- [43:21]
Tom Nichols
First of all, that's a great poll, Charlie. You know, the secretaries of defense sending a letter to the current secretary of defense saying, remember your oath. Basically, same thing. That's just. That's what just happened with these Democratic legislators saying, and just remember your oath. Your oath tells you what to do. Your oath is your guide in this. The thing about legal and illegal orders, and I am not a military person. Mark Hertling had a very good piece about oaths and a good explainer about officers and enlisted people and the different responsibilities. They have gotten rid of the senior jags in the services and those. And it doesn't mean there aren't jags. It doesn't mean there aren't military lawyers. But the message was clear. You're in an acting position. You're a junior guy that's been kicked upstairs because your boss has been fired. That is not a recipe for telling people to be bold and make a stand. Right? That's a way of saying, you say.
- [44:21]
Charlie Sykes
No, you're done, you're out. Right?
- [44:23]
Tom Nichols
I mean, I turned your boss, and he was a lot more powerful than you, pal. And so you're already seeing it clearly. There's something going on in southcom. The admiral in charge of southcom has resigned early. You know, like just months into his tour. He's. He's put in for his retirement. The top jag in southcom apparently raised these issues, and that's caused a kind of a shitstorm. That's that they've tried to put a pillow over and, you know, muffled down, something is going on. And of course, you know, a lot of these officers have to think, well, the president, you know, the president's been made a king by the supreme Court. I'm not. I don't have that immunity. There will be investigations one day, and people are going to have to answer for what they've done. So, I mean, what constitutes legal and illegal? First of all, any treaty to which the United States is a signatory is the law of the land. I think a lot of Americans don't realize this, that when America signs a treaty and it's. And it's ratified, it becomes effectively the same as domestic, International. Domestic law. Because they. People say, well, you know, international law. And we don't have to pay attention to that. And, yeah, the U. N. And blah, blah. No, if we're signatories, those treaties, including the UN Charter, including, you know, the Geneva Conventions and the Hague Conventions and all that stuff, they are equivalent to being the law of the land of the United States. And for you, you know, every, every international relations grad student always has to know by heart, Missouri v. Holland, the, the migratory birds case. So there, there's the nerd citation, 1922. And so there's a, There's a quick and dirty right there. If you are violating some tenant of international law to which we are a signatory, you are violating the law.
- [46:22]
Charlie Sykes
That's.
- [46:22]
Tom Nichols
That's why when Trump said, well, you know, they'll torture. I'll tell them to just torture these guys or desecrate the bodies or kill whatever it was. Well, you know, you can't do that. Now, what he's done, as you pointed out, was issue pardons and rehabilitate people who did stuff like that. So he's sending a clear message, do these things, and I will cover you. The problem is, you know, will he. I mean, the problem for people have to carry out these orders. Will he. But clearly, I, I think part of the reason they reacted with such hysteria is they know they're doing something wrong. I mean, everything is a confession with these people. And I think that that reaction, you know, is really. I was thinking while you were talking about this, if I had walked into a classroom with the name of work on. All right, I want to begin today by saying you are all obligated not to. Not to obey illegal orders. I think, you know, my 14 or 15 men and women in that seminar would have said, duh, you know, thanks for, thanks for the pointer about not sticking our head in a blender, professor, you know, can we move on now? But clearly they're up to something. And the Hexath. You know, we keep talking about Trump's stability and acuity and emotional condition. The number two guy in national security, the Secretary of Defense, is clearly unglued. I mean, there's something wrong with the guy. The behavior, his behavior has become erratic and adolescent and kind of bonkers. And I think, you know, it's really a tell here that the guy negotiating with the Russians is the Secretary of the Army. Yes, we didn't send the Secretary of Defense. Normally, you know, the Russians are conducting the biggest war since Hitler. You might want to send the head of the Pentagon to tap the table and say, listen, I'm here to tell you what's going to happen and what's what. Instead we send the secretary of the Army. Why? Because who would trust Pete Hegseth in that room? I think that's a real tell from the administration that, you know, Hegseth is kind of losing his grip on things. But what's really scary is thinking of a national crisis where the two most important people in the room trying to figure out what to do are Donald Trump and Pete Hegseth. Yeah.
- [48:38]
Charlie Sykes
Did you see the movie House of Dynamite?
- [48:41]
Tom Nichols
I was, I not only saw it, I visited the set and I spoke times with Catherine Bigelow. And yes. You know, she let me just tell you because I think Bigelow took some arrows over this of people saying, well, it's like a parable, you know, Bigelow started making this movie a couple of years ago. Yeah. And purposely did not make it a political screed. I, I, you know, she said this is about the process. And, you know, because she makes those kind of movies. Right. The TikTok of, you know, Zero Dark Thirty and the Hurt Locker. But if you watch it. Yeah. You can't help but think, dear God, what would happen in this movie?
- [49:24]
Charlie Sykes
Yeah, it's scary enough. I mean, it's about no spoiler alerts, but it's like the decision making and the crucial decisions that people have to make. And you cannot watch this without thinking, oh, my God, can you imagine this particular group of misfit toys, you know, sitting in that room making those decisions?
- [49:46]
Tom Nichols
Oh, I mean, the movie, for people that haven't seen it, the movie is about a missile attack, a single rogue missile attack on the United States. And it's, it's basically the, the entire frame of action only takes place within about 20 minutes, told from different perspectives. But the point of the movie was, look at how intelligent, competent, professional people can get dragged down the road to disaster.
- [50:12]
Charlie Sykes
Yes.
- [50:13]
Tom Nichols
Simply by exigency and by the process. And, and that was really, you know, like, I guess she was kind of steel manning the case. Right. Here's the best possible circumstance of very competent people dealing with this. And as you watch it, nobody's. A lot of other people just had that same reaction of, Jesus Christ, what, what would it be like with these people in charge?
- [50:36]
Charlie Sykes
Okay, well, speaking of idiots in charge and clown cars and again, it's Always risky to talk about something that we're talking about on Wednesday that people are going to hear on Friday. The Russia, Ukraine, Witkoff, Rubio, just clusterfuck that we have gone through. But let's just start with the revelation that Steve Witkoff, who is Donald Trump's buddy, who's been engaged in these negotiations, apparently was coaching the Kremlin on how to suck up to Donald Trump. Now, my first big question was, is not about Steve Witkoff being an idiot. It's like, where do these phone calls come from? Who's leaking in them? Who is trying to send up a flare that this is like, fucked up beyond all recovery here. What do you think? What's your take on this whole thing? Because it looks like a total message.
- [51:29]
Tom Nichols
Well, first of all, the leak could come from anywhere because they're not using secure communications. There's some reason that people use secure communications specifically so that this won't happen. I mean, it's just astonishing that this administration, the laxity around security. And again, the Atlantic knows a thing or two about that after, after, you know, the whole plans were leaked to Jeff Goldberg on a signal chat, you know, for strikes in Yemen. But so my point is, it could come from anywhere. Who would have the incentive to do this? Almost anybody who's concerned about what's going on could be a foreign actor, could be people within the American government, could be people, could be third party actors. Once you're on an open phone, it could be anybody. But, but here's the amazing thing. Witkoff, I mean, in a sense, Witkoff is just so such a babe in the woods about some of this.
- [52:35]
Charlie Sykes
Yeah, right.
- [52:36]
Tom Nichols
He says, well, I don't think Putin's a bad guy. Wow. Hey, listen, 30 years ago I wrote pieces saying, I don't think Putin's a bad guy. He came into office, I said, it looks like he's gonna do some good things. We're not sure. I was able to get over that about 25 years ago. Witkoff's a little behind here on the update, but also the amazing idea that you have to tell the Russians how to manage Donald Trump as if they don't have an entire organization within their intelligence community, as if Vladimir Putin has figured it out. Trump.
- [53:12]
Charlie Sykes
Yeah, let me just read this. This point in the transcript that's been released, Witkoff advises Ushakov, who is one of the the Kremlin bigs, to help arrange a call between Trump and Putin and coaches the Russian side how to win over the US Leader by flattering him sucking up to him about the Gaza deal. Here's a direct quote. I would make the call and just reiterate that you congratulate the President on this achievement, that you supported it, you supported it, you respect that he is a man of peace, and you're just, you're just really glad to have seen it happen. So I would say, I would say that I think from that, it's going to be a really, really good call. So your sense of where we're at as you and I speak midday on Wednesday, on the talks, I see a lot of the, this optimism, this sort of irrational optimism out there because apparently the Europeans and the Ukrainians have talked Trump, you know, back from the ledge of adopting the completely pro Russian deal. But every account that I'm seeing is that the Russians are going, you know, we're not going to agree to anything. It's. Anything that's acceptable to Ukraine is going to be unacceptable to us. At least that's the way it looks. Now, I could look completely wrong by the time people hear this, but what is, what is your sense of where we're at at the moment?
- [54:25]
Tom Nichols
Well, first, don't you miss the old days, Charlie, where we could record on a Wednesday and say, you know, probably nothing insane will happen in the next 48 hours. The next two days are probably going to look pretty normal, but. But we have no way of knowing. Second. Oh, dear God, what an amazing revelation to tell the Russians that the way to get to Donald Trump is to flatter him. Boy, nobody in the Kremlin ever thought of that. You know, you can just imagine, you know, Putin sitting there saying, is that what it was going to take? God damn.
- [54:55]
Charlie Sykes
That the magic. Is that the magic sauce?
- [54:58]
Tom Nichols
10, 10 years of it dealing with this effing guy, you know, and nobody told me this. All you got, you kgb, you're all fired. Get me that Woodcock guy. So, okay, that's the other problem. I mean, look, Zoran. Mum, Donnie figured out how to manage Trump and he's only met him once, so, you know, everybody has Donald Trump's number. You know, pat him on the back, scratch him down the air, tell him he's great, do the Twilight Zone episode. It's good what you did, Anthony. You're a good boy. It's the best TV we've ever seen and you're fine. I don't think, I think my, my guess all along has been that the way this, the Russians finally get out of this, and this being the meat grinder and the economic collapse that they're facing, is to say, we're going to agree. Oh, yeah, let's have a big 28 point program, and we're going to agree to 25 of those, except for the ones that matter. Like, you know, if point 28 is stop invading and bombing Ukraine, well, we'll agree to the first 27. We won't agree to that one. And then get everybody to the table, because America, Americans love process. Right. We are legalistic culture. We love to negotiate. And Donald Trump is going to want to say, I got a deal, right?
- [56:15]
Charlie Sykes
He.
- [56:15]
Tom Nichols
Donald Trump wants nothing more to say, I got a deal. Wash his hands of this and go back to making money with the Russians. Like, this is all about deals and who profits and who's going to get richer from this. And I think that was always going to be the Russian approach. Now, the Europeans, I think, think are playing a very savvy game here of saying, yeah, you know what we'll agree to here, we'll replace five of those things. You know, 23 of them are great. Here's five different ones. And of course, they're things that the Russians cannot swallow, like stop killing Ukrainians. But also, I think the Russians are trying to take advantage of the fact that Zelensky is going through a political crisis, that there's a lot of. Of upheaval in Kiev about corruption, and, you know, his government is having internal food fights. Witkoff, of course, doesn't seem to understand any of this because he has no background in it. This is amateur hour. And again, in a way, whether or not they get a Ukraine deal is beside the point. What they, and Kushner, everybody else seems to want is let's get this to a point where we can start making money with the Russians. You know, let's get to the point where we can start making deals and do stuff in the Arctic and extract resources and sign contracts. But I don't think that in its current form, any of this is. Is going to fly, because as you keep saying, the Russians. The Russians will agree to a bunch of stuff and then violate it. We should have learned this with Minsk1 and Minsk2 and all the other things that we've been doing with these guys for years.
- [57:50]
Charlie Sykes
Yeah, I mean, a security guarantee, that's a piece of paper. We've kind of been there, kind of done that. Don't see it happening. Tom Nichols, it is always a pleasure to talk with you. I really enjoy it. Thank you so much for joining me today, and have a happy Thanksgiving.
- [58:06]
Tom Nichols
Yes, Happy Thanksgiving to you, Charlie, and all the best.
- [58:09]
Charlie Sykes
Thanks for having me and hopefully we can get through the entire holiday season. Thank you for watching this Black Friday edition of to the Contrary podcast. We do this because. Well, you know why we do this. We need to con. You know, we need to constantly remind ourselves that we are not the crazy ones.
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Tom Nichols
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Charlie Sykes
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