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- [00:10]
Charlie Seitz
I'm Charlie Seitz. Welcome to the to the Contrary podcast. And because it's Sunday, it must be my good friend Tom Nichols. Tom, how are you?
- [00:19]
Tom Nichols
Hey, Charlie. I'm well.
- [00:20]
Charlie Seitz
Thanks.
- [00:21]
Tom Nichols
Thanks for having me.
- [00:22]
Charlie Seitz
You know, I was thinking about the fact that in a kinder, gentler, more innocent time, you wrote a book about the death of expertise. And it was kind of pessimistic with the word death in it, but quite frankly, it seems to be somewhat. I mean, how do you catch up with the reality of today, where we have Jeanine Pirro named the acting U.S. attorney for Washington, D.C. i mean, seriously. Or this Dr. Casey means, who is the new Surgeon General, and apparently Lord of Loomer is playing a significant role in the selection and the critique. I mean, I'm sorry, I think the producers of Idiocracy should sue our timeline for plagiarism.
- [01:08]
Tom Nichols
Oh, yeah. I mean, it's. It's creepy. I can't watch Idiocracy anymore. I mean, I used to really laugh at it, and now I'm like, it's just too on the nose. I can't, like at night when I'm watching ads, you know, and it's. And everything is about, you know, our many medical problems and, you know, mail order Viagra. And, you know, I'm like, oh, they, you know, they, they. Poor Mike. Judge must be feeling like the world just ripped him off. But, you know, the, the thing about expertise with, with Judge Janine, I thought, okay, she. She's a lawyer, she's a pro. It's a bad. I mean, you know, she's. She's just kind of a loopy TV presence who has said a lot of really repugnant things. But yeah, theory on paper, you could say, okay, a prosecutor. Casey means. I mean, I, I'm looking at this and saying, so your surgeon general is someone who can't actually practice medicine. You know, you've gotten to the point now, you know, that's my understanding anyway, is that she had a medical. She. That she had a medical degree but didn't fit. Finish her residency, doesn't practice anywhere. And it. And it's this emergence of the wellness community. I talk about this in the second edition of the book. It's this. These kind of spiritual wellness people and the kind of anti vaxxer, right? So it's kind of like this, this. It's a horseshoe. It's this kind of loopy left wing, you know, crystals and smoke. And the right wing, they're trying to stick, you know, they're trying to stick microchips in us. And they have now come together. And I admit it, I thought that the American system was, was more capable of resisting this kind of madness than I, than I gave it credit for. I mean, I just, I just thought that there would be. First of all, I thought that the US Senate would still had people in it who would say, look, we're partisan, we're hyper partisan, we want our guy to win, but come on, you know, there are things we're just not going to do well.
- [03:24]
Charlie Seitz
And, you know, given what they've swallowed so far. But it does seem that this, the, the, you know, you were talking about the, the death of expertise. The expertise seems to be the class enemy these days. I mean, I think that they have, they have picked out who, who is the enemy. And it is the academic experts, it's the establishment experts, it's anyone that actually knows anything. And that's the extraordinary thing about the Trump administration 2.0. And again, it's part of this paradox that they do have a plan. There are people like Russ Vogt who have a very, very concerted vision of where they want to go. There is a blueprint, they put it in writing, and yet they continue to stock the entire administration with people absolutely beyond the pale. The fact that you can even come up with a squint hard enough, and Jeanine Pirro, you know, and you mix your Quaaludes with your tequila and maybe it's like remotely plausible. This is an indication of how far we've come that we have all of these, I won't even say amateurs, but people whose disqualification unqualification is so manifest in one position after another, and I don't know what it will take, maybe planes start, have to fall out of the sky in, in Newark, we a vast pandemic when we realize we have complete morons running the health system. But I mean, it is, it is not just the death of expertise. We are living in an era of the anti expertise, aren't we?
- [04:50]
Tom Nichols
Yeah. And populism, even in its most innocuous form, populism, you know, which is that, well, the people. Wisdom resides in the people. And the people should decide, of course, our.
- [05:03]
Charlie Seitz
Have you met the people? I mean, I mean, honestly, how much time have you spent with the people?
- [05:08]
Tom Nichols
Well, if the founding fathers purposely designed a system that wouldn't be run that way because they knew that, you know, popular passions were not the way you govern a country. But even. It's, even in its kind of previous waves, you know, populism always hates Expertise. Because experts are the people who say, basically, ironically enough, your feelings, right. That, you know, some things are true, some things are not, some things are dangerous. Something, you know, they're the people, the experts are the grown ups who tell you no. And, you know, it's a. It's amazing that the same people who kind of trademarked that whole approach of saying, you know, screw your feelings, it doesn't matter what you think, are now the people who say, but what if I feel like, you know, vaccines are dangerous? What if it feels like raw milk? The raw milk, you know, raw milk is good for me. Exactly. And, you know, it's like, well, this.
- [06:09]
Charlie Seitz
Was a big issue in the before times. Yeah, this was. This was actually an issue in the before times when I was still on the radio here in Wisconsin because, you know, milk and everything. And this was the very first time, the first issue that I started getting callers, people calling in, saying, well, well, Charlie, I've done my research and here's the problem with pasteurization. It's like, no, nobody in the right. The reason we have pasteurization is because we realized it was a bad idea. But they're back, right?
- [06:38]
Tom Nichols
So, yeah, it's funny you mentioned that, because I was, I was watching an old, you know, when I need to escape and I will just tell people listening, unplug from the news, you know, when I'm up late, I am not watching endless amounts of CNN or Fox or MSNBC or whatever. Last night I was watching old reruns of Law and Order and I was watching an episode from the mid-90s about quack cures and, you know, people doing their own research and feeling like, you know, apricot seeds cure cancer and all of that stuff. And it was the same argument we've been having, you know, about raw milk. And here it is, you know, 30 years ago. We go through these cycles and they crop up in the popular culture about, well, what if I just want to try? What if I think it's safe? And one of the lines in it was, the detective says, this person isn't a doctor. And the other person says, yes, but neither was Louis Pasteur. And of course, what you need to say to these people is, you're no Louis Pasteur. You know, you're not pastor. You are not discovering something unique. You are endangering yourself. You're endangering. I actually don't care about people drinking raw milk as long as they don't give it to their children. Which is where, you know, well, they do. Which is exactly right. That's where I would, I would.
- [07:59]
Charlie Seitz
Have you watched the.
- [08:00]
Tom Nichols
In politics. Politics, okay, Authoritarians hate experts because they're the ones who say no, tariffs don't. Actually. Tariffs are attacks on the public. And no, trade wars aren't easy to win, and you know that. And, and we say that without, you know, partisan intent or rancor. And, and it's just infuriating to people, especially authoritarians, who want to say, look, my word is if I sit. Donald Trump is the classic case of if I say something, it is by definition true. And experts are really the only people with standing to say it's not true. And I can't help you there.
- [08:44]
Charlie Seitz
No, I was just going to mention in the, in the series, the Pit, which I strongly recommend, very near the end, you have, you have a woman who' who's in the ER and her son desperately needs a certain procedure and she's on her phone doing the research. And this is that the moment when the doctor, who has gone through an awful lot throughout the day, almost loses it because she's doing her research. And it is, it's, it's a great, it's a great moment. Okay, so speaking of things where it actually matters, whether, you know, stuff you had a piece about, you had a piece about amateurs and foreign policy. And I bring this up because of all the things that are going on. We have this confrontation between India and Pakistan, two nuclear powers, that in a different life, in a different world, the world would be on edge, holding its breath, what is going to happen? And now it's sort of like barely at the outer reaches of anybody's radar. And this is a moment where you would hope that you would have knowledgeable people in charge in foreign policy in the American government. So tell me about your piece. Talk to me a little bit about this, because I don't think that people have focused enough on how dangerous the world is and how dangerous the nuclear threat continues to be, and yet we continue to put these various completely unqualified chodes in the positions to make decisions.
- [10:08]
Tom Nichols
Well, first, let me start by saying two cheers for Marco Rubio, who, you know, I, I'm sorry. You know, for in this moment, it seems to be the only guy taking anything seriously. I mean, he's been on the phone, he's trying to call, you know, his opposite numbers. And I mean, it's just good for him. I mean, he was on the Foreign Relations Committee. He has some grasp of these issues. But, but, you know, in a. I mean, it tells you something that in this administration, we have to hang our hopes on Marco Rubio being the adult in the room because the rest of the administration. Well, first of all, there is no process, right, normally at a, in a crisis like this, and I tried to explain it in the piece that there is, there is something called the interagency process. People get together, State and Defense, you know, talk to each other. They talk to the national security advisor who starts directing traffic, starts pulling in experts from the National Security Council, regional experts, regional expertise and intelligence from CIA, dia, you know, through the, the Director of National Intelligence. And instead, I mean, does anybody really think that Pete Hegseth has a handle on any of this? That Tulsi Gabbard, you know, is sitting there getting briefings that she actually understands about, about, you know, India and Pakistan and Kashmir, and she might be getting.
- [11:34]
Charlie Seitz
Briefings from, from her cult or from the Kremlin. So you just never know, you know, who she's listening to, who can provide.
- [11:41]
Tom Nichols
And even if all these people could provide expert advice to Donald Trump, he is notoriously difficult to brief. He doesn't listen. And so this is no time to have this happen now, you know, I don't want to seem or, or come across like, well, they're going to fail. And I hope they, you know, because if they fail, if the Americans and other diplomats fail, the results are going to be catastrophic. But I wish, you know, that I, I used a line, since we're doing pop culture today, I used a line from Miller's Crossing where one of the guys says, you know, I'd be worrying a lot less if I thought you were worrying enough. And it just seems, as you say, that all this is kind of on the edge of their consciousness because this administration is so focused inward. It doesn't. Donald Trump doesn't care about foreign policy. He cares, cares about revenge and about being vindicated in some of his crackpot ideas and, you know, about making money. Now, could this thing in, in India and Pakistan explode into something terrible? Yes, but the odds are low. Nuclear powers tend to be very careful around each other. But the faster the long goes on, the more risk there is because no one ever really thinks that there's going to be. I shouldn't say no one, but most scenarios for a nuclear conflict don't involve somebody saying, well, I've had enough. Try. I've had enough of Charlie Sykes. Wisconsin's going down. You know, we put, and you push the button. It's. It, it's a series of accidents and misperceptions and unforeseen events and, and suddenly you have otherwise rational people.
- [13:25]
Charlie Seitz
That's what's scary for me. That's the scary part.
- [13:27]
Tom Nichols
Exactly. Saying I have no otherwise rational and, you know, scared human beings. Saying, I don't feel like I have any choice here. I don't know how I ended up, you know, in, in this corner. Much like World War I, when, when nuclear strategists get together, they, they don't talk about World War II, they talk about World War I. And that's what you have to. Miscalculations and little, little events that snowball into big events. And I just, I think this is exactly why when you're, when, you know, when those of us that were arguing that Donald Trump wasn't going to be a good idea this time, he didn't even bring a team with him. I mean, this, I'm, I'm nostalgic for the days of Jim Mattis and Rex Tillerson and, and John Bolton and, you know, Robert o' Brien.
- [14:15]
Charlie Seitz
Oh, my God.
- [14:16]
Tom Nichols
Yeah. These people seem to have some idea what they were doing.
- [14:19]
Charlie Seitz
Well, let me ask you this, because I had a conversation with Ed Luce, who's got out with a new, excellent biography of Zbigniew Brzezinski, and we were talking about the dangers going forward of nuclear proliferation. And he took a somewhat more optimistic view than I was presenting. I do worry, and I know you think about this a lot, but I do worry that now that America has gone from America first to America alone and other countries around the world are, are questioning and our allies are questioning whether or not they can rely on the United States, whether the United States is still on their same side. What are the dangers of nuclear proliferation? Because I can certainly imagine a lot of countries saying one of the lessons of Ukraine is do not give up your nukes. Do not count on anyone else to protect you. If you don't have your own nukes, the United States is not going to be a reliable umbrella for you.
- [15:11]
Tom Nichols
Yeah, I'm a little more sanguine about nuclear proliferation only in the sense that most countries realize that even though it's tempting to say these are a security blanket, they also become a huge pain in the ass. They make you a target. I always say that nuclear weapons are like toddlers. They have to be cared for and loved and fed and clothed, you know, 24 hours a day. With that said, I'll tell you a quick story, Charlie. That about, let's see, it's 2025, so this had to be about 15 years ago. I was at a Conference in Europe. And one of my colleagues said, oh, yeah, I'm going to this panel. I said, where are you headed to? He saw, I'm going to the panel about the Swiss nuclear program. And I said, oh, that sounds interesting. What? Yeah, I said, excuse me. And it, you know, even. Look, countries do keep their powder dry, apparently. And I went to the thing because I was fascinated by it. The Swiss kept at least some infrastructure on paper, you know, for what if we had to build nuclear weapons? And they kept it right up until about 1987, 88. You know, people forget that the white South African regime before apartheid built six of the things and didn't tell anybody, you know, until the regime collapsed and they raised their hand, said, oh, by the way, before we hand over power, you know, we gotta. If, you know, we can't really leave these by the curb on fissile material day. So, you know, can somebody help us out here? So, you know, it is a real danger when people think that the only thing that keeps them safe is having this one last ace in the hole. And it doesn't help, for example, that the North Koreans have, you know, taunted Gaddafi. Well, see, we didn't give up our nukes. You. You gave up your nuclear program. That's why you're being torn to shreds. I will just. On Ukraine, let me. Just. Because I've been on this for a long time. I actually think if Ukraine had kept its nukes in the 90s, the Russian. Ukrainian war of some kind would have broken out sooner. I think the minute there was political instability in.
- [17:26]
Charlie Seitz
In.
- [17:26]
Tom Nichols
And there was a lot of political instability in Ukraine in the 90s and early 2000s, and I think the Russians just would have said, we're not having it. We're going to. You know, we're just going in and take. And I'll say this, I think the Americans. If that had happened, the Americans probably would have said, well, that's really bad, and look the other way, because most.
- [17:47]
Charlie Seitz
Well, they kind of did 2014. Well, I guess, okay, so you're sanguine about it, but I'm looking at it and you correct me as if. If I'm wrong, because you know a lot more about this than I do, that within the next decade, you not only have India and Pakistan with nuclear weapons, but Iran will probably have nuclear weapons. Saudi Arabia will probably a nuclear weapon or want one. Israel already probably has them. Right. If Taiwan could obtain one in any way whatsoever. Does anyone doubt that they would like to become a nuclear power at this point?
- [18:20]
Tom Nichols
Although, again, you know, think about the calculus. I mean, I think you're right about Saudi Arabia, Iran, you know, and who wants a lot. But every. But with every calculation about getting a nuclear weapon, remember that you then become a legitimate nuclear target. And, and so this is. Remember Kennedy, John F. Kennedy, once worried that by 1970, there would be somewhere between 25 and 30 nuclear powers in the world. That didn't happen. Now, the part of the reason it didn't happen. So let me go back to being Dr. Doom, you know, over with you for a moment, is that the United States was engaged in trying to make it not happen. I mean, we, you know, Sweden is a great cake. People, People think now Sweden is, you know, peaceful, Nordic, anti nuclear, you know, no nukes kind of country. Hey, in the 50s, Sweden was going to be like this nuclear porcupine. You know, they said we're. When we say neutral, we mean neutral. And, you know, they were going to be bristling with nuclear weapons, and we helped to talk them out of that. So, you know, what happens when people have these concerns and the Americans, you know, are nowhere to be seen, and we're saying things like, NATO sucks. They don't pay their bills, we don't care. We're gonna let Putin do the hell, you know, then if I were, you know, you mentioned Saudi Arabia. If I were Poland, you know, or.
- [19:48]
Charlie Seitz
Or Poland. Yeah.
- [19:49]
Tom Nichols
You know, I mean, frontline states with, With. With Russia, you know, I, I'd be worried. I'd be saying, what. What's it going to take if the United States won't come. Come in here.
- [20:01]
Charlie Seitz
All right, let's switch. Let's switch gears, because the other big story of the week, you know, I mean, there's so many big stories of the week. I don't know, you know, talk about the tariffs and China and everything. Looks like Donald Trump is going to blink on China, which everyone knew he was going to blink on China, you know, but just. I'm gonna leave that aside. So we have a new pope, and I have to say that I'm wrestling with a couple of things about the first American Pope. You know, he's an American pope, American Peruvian Pope. Very, very interesting choice, because up until about, you know, five minutes ago, the idea of an American Pope would have been completely unthinkable. We've never had one for a reason, and yet the College of Cardinals decided to appoint one. What I'm wrestling with, of course, is that for the first time in my lifetime, I am older than the Pope and I'm Having a hard time doing this. I mean, dealing with this. I'm just, I'm laying this out there. I'm opening myself here, that there comes a moment in your life when you're older than the Pope. And how many people have ever been able to say that? That's the thing. I'm older than the Pope. But this is an interesting choice, don't you think? What's your reaction to the American guy from Chicago?
- [21:06]
Tom Nichols
I was going through this when Barack Obama was elected, and I was like, well, I'm the same age as the president. That scared me. I'm bad now that, now that it was Biden and Trump, I'm back to, well, okay. They're old men, the old folks.
- [21:20]
Charlie Seitz
Yeah, yeah. Used to that.
- [21:22]
Tom Nichols
I mean, I'm sort of curious because I am not, as, you know, I am not Catholic. I'm Greek Orthodox. So, you know, I sort of watch this as an interested and fraternal friend of the court, you know, But I, I wondered, what does it mean to pick. Why did they pick an American Pope? I mean, that. I don't want to read too much into it, but that felt like symbolism to me. That felt like a message from the cardinals.
- [21:49]
Charlie Seitz
Oh, I, I, I, I, I, I think it was. What message do you think it was?
- [21:55]
Tom Nichols
I don't, I don't know. I mean, it felt like they picked someone who has been directly critical of people like J.D. vance and the policies and that, you know, there has to be an, there has to be someone leading people of faith and goodwill, you know, that, that there is still an American capable of doing this. But I didn't want to read too much politics into it. I mean, look, I, I'm not a Catholic, but I do believe in, in, I'm a Christian. I do believe the Holy Spirit moves through these kinds of organizations, like the, like the conclaves, you know, And I thought, okay, I don't want to, I don't want to think God, you know, or the Holy Spirit is picking sides here. But I, I also know it's political process. And it felt like to me, like this, that the world needs an American to counter the decline of America, if that makes any sense, to take over the leadership. Kind of like when, you know, this feels a lot like when John Paul was chosen.
- [22:57]
Charlie Seitz
Well, that's my take on all of this. And look, I mean, caveats are important. That's not all about Trump. You know, it's a mistake to see through the lens of American politics. There's a lot of other things that are going on here. But that was actually my very, very first thought, that the selection of the first American Pope kind of rhymed with the election of the first Polish Pope. You go back to 1978. Yeah. Who go back to 1970. Who would.
- [23:23]
Tom Nichols
Have thought and who, who at the time would deny that the Cold War had an influence on choosing JP2? Right. I mean, clearly there was a political, it's not a political program, but it was not, it was not a decision that was isolated from politics, I guess, is what I'm saying, to choose this Polish Pope while, you know, things are unraveling in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, you know.
- [23:50]
Charlie Seitz
Yes, exactly. Right.
- [23:51]
Tom Nichols
I feel like this, this did not happen in isolation from politics.
- [23:55]
Charlie Seitz
No. And, and, you know, you know, I, I, I, I, I mentioned, you know, Ed Luce's book on, On Brzezinski, and he talks about, and having dinner with him and Jimmy Carter and that Carter wanted to talk about morality and faith and everything. And the Pope actually wanted to talk about geopolitical alignments. And he said it really struck him that the Pope, Pope John Paul ii, was very much a statesman. And this is, I think, important to remember is the princes of the church are men of faith, but they are also statesmen. And so I think it would be naive not to think that they chose Pope Leo XIV to be the man of the moment. This is what I wrote in my newsletter on, on, on Friday, that my first reaction was, you know, history does not repeat itself, but sometimes it rhymes. And it's hard to overstate the significance, I think, of John Paul II in the decline and fall of the Soviet empire. And clearly the church saw that that was the focal point of, of where, you know, morality issues, society and politics were heading. And so you have to think that right now they're sitting down and they're surveying the whole world and deciding that the epicenter of this moral humanitarian challenge is in the Americas, north and South America. So they pick someone who is a bishop in Peru, a native of the United States, and they chose him to confront this moment, this moment of existential cruelty, the treatment of migrants. And they see that, you know, many of these trends are emanating out from the Americas, from the United States. And so they, it's not a coincidence that they chose an American who has been about as outspoken a critic of Donald Trump and J.D. vance as anyone out there. I mean, it seems like a statement and again, all the caveats that there are a lot of other issues that the church is involved with, but it did seem that they wanted to confront this, especially with Trump and Vance, you know, putting on that mantle of Christianity and posing as the champions of Christendom. And now, for the very first time, we have this remarkable set piece now. And I told the New York Times, and they asked me what I thought about. I said, you know, up until now, Donald Trump, you know, has been bestriding the globe as the ugly American, and now suddenly there is another American who is there as a counterweight to him.
- [26:29]
Tom Nichols
I thought of that as well.
- [26:30]
Charlie Seitz
I think it's a dramatic choice.
- [26:32]
Tom Nichols
I thought of that as well, with Donald Trump being the sun eater. And suddenly now it's like, no, there is now someone whose stature and kind of eruption onto the world scene really kind of overshadows Trump. And as you say, it's not all about Trump. But if. If you go back to John Paul II and say, look, the Church. And I'm. Again, I say this as someone who views the Church from. From a respectful but affectionate distance. If the Church decided that communism and the specter of nuclear war and all these other. Were the. Was a darkness that was encroaching on the planet, right? Because we all felt it back in those days. It was. There was this kind of approaching darkness. And they said, look, we need someone who can speak to that in Polish, you know, and, you know, someone who can speak to that moment. I wonder if the cardinal said, look, there is a darkness encroaching, not just in America, but in a lot of places. And it's going to take an American who understands that idiom, who understands that way of reasoning. It's. It's. You know, Francis was amazing in a lot of ways, but it was. You know, he wasn't going to go. It wasn't going to be part of a colloquy with the powers of the world. He was a different kind of guy. One question I had for you, Charlie, as a Catholic, what does it. What do you think it means? That because I, again, I'm not kind of inside that world, that he's an Augustinian.
- [28:07]
Charlie Seitz
You know what? Yeah, I really can't speak to that. You know, I used to be much more versed in all of that. But what it means, I think, is that. How do I put this? Is that he is going to lead the resistance to much of this cruelty in a different way than perhaps we expected, because he is reaching into really the heart of the faith, reminding Christians the roots of their faith and the roots of their humanity. And I think he's going to be able to do that. In a very forceful and eloquent way. So, you know, and look, I mean, again, more caveats here. I think, you know, some of our progressive listeners are, you know, should not be shocked to find out that he is still a conservative Roman Catholic in the sense that he's going to be staunchly pro life. He's going to be very, very skeptical of gender ideology. He's going to, you know, oppose things like abortion and euthanasia. He may not open the priesthood to women. So they're going to have to decide whether or not that means that he is canceled, that he is not an ally. But he could also, I think, shape the resistance against this by going at Donald Trump's strength, which is Donald Trump's claim that he is a man of faith. And what this pope can do as an Augustinian or whatever, is that he can appeal to the better angels. And this is something that has haunted me, the number of people that buy into the MAGA ideology that if only the angel on their shoulder said, no, you don't want to do that. You may want safer cities and a more secure border, but you do not want to separate children from their mothers. That's not who you want.
- [29:56]
Tom Nichols
And it's going to come from a guy who says it with a mild Chicago accent instead of a thick Spanish accent or Italian accent. And I think that actually, I think. I think that actually does make a difference in a world where English is now the lingua franca. And I. And I think, you know, as you were talking about this, I also wondered, you know, this whole issue of kind of challenging the faith. I mean, the Augustinians, they are very much about reason, you know, and that. And I think that's going to be a response coming from this pope that is going to be more difficult for, for people who want to be critical to deal with, because I suspect he's going to be a better advocate and participant in the international environment, kind of, again, kind of in the way John Paul was, you know, but who. And, oh, your point, by the way. That was the other thing I was thinking, you know, the progressives are going to kind of shrug. He's still, you know, I remember I was having, when I was in graduate school, um, we were talking, we were having a discussion about the Pope. This was at Columbia, so take it for what it's worth. But one of my fellow students said, you know, I said, well, of course he's going to be anti empor. He's a Catholic, you know, well, he doesn't have to be so religious about it. And I, I was like, okay, he's the Pope. You know, it's his job description. But, yeah, interestingly enough, he chooses Leo the last. Leo is the guy who writes Rerum Novarum, which, you know, is pretty, you know, worker friendly. It's. It's socialistic, even. So, you know, there was. I think there might have been some kind of. I mean, I assume that he chose Leo in part because of Leo the 13th, who had, yes, absolutely, pretty progressive ideas about stuff like this.
- [31:47]
Charlie Seitz
Right. But rejected the extremes of, you know, communism and, you know, unfettered capitalism, well, within the. Now the Catholic tradition. But clearly he is somebody who's going to emphasize social justice. But what I think is obvious from his commentary is how deeply he cares about the issue of migrants and immigration. I mean, this is the. And this is why it's hard to think that they did not consciously think, you understand, how this is going to be received by the American political regime. And he has spoken out very, very directly, very critically, very specifically about Donald Trump's policies and what he has done and the language that he uses. So, I mean, this is something that is, you know, at his core.
- [32:37]
Tom Nichols
He didn't delete his tweets.
- [32:40]
Charlie Seitz
I mean, who would have thought that we'd have a Pope with a social media history? I mean, honestly, we're an uncharted. We're in uncharted territory here. So, again, you don't know what's gonna happen. I mean, maybe he will disappoint, maybe he will back off. But what I think is interesting is that, is that now you're going to have a very, very powerful voice that I'm not sure that Donald Trump is going to be able to bully or intimidate. And we've had a lot of moral leaders who have been reluctant to speak out. I don't think this new Pope is going to be reluctant to speak out.
- [33:13]
Tom Nichols
I love the theory, by the way, Charlie, that the Pope. That this new Pope is a never Trump Republican, you know, because people say, well, he was registered as a Republican and he voted in the primaries. Yes, but we don't know how he voted in the primaries.
- [33:28]
Charlie Seitz
Well, I mean, I think it's probably going too far to say he's the never Trump Pope, although I've been doing it a little bit, a little bit myself. So I'm interested. I mean, I do sense that there's a growing coalescing of the opposition, that this is really a time of. Of real clarification where the churches have to decide what do we believe. What do we stand? What are we prepared to do? You're seeing that in the universities, where it took a while, they were back on their heels. Now they are thinking, what is a university? What is our role? How do we defend academic freedom? You're seeing it from the legal profession as well. And I've talked about this extensively. I am really struck by the way the conservative judiciary is now. I think, again, you get that, coalescing that, no, we may be conservatives, but what you are seeing from the Trump administration crosses the line. And we are the, we may be the last check on all of this.
- [34:29]
Tom Nichols
What we're seeing, we are conservatives, these judges are saying. And what we're seeing from the Trump administration is not conservative.
- [34:35]
Charlie Seitz
Right, right.
- [34:36]
Tom Nichols
And they're saying, I mean, the Trump. Yeah, it's amazing to me that Trump, when you listen to him these days, he sounds like a Soviet central planner. You know, I'll decide what, you know, we'll, we'll.
- [34:50]
Charlie Seitz
$2 for you.
- [34:51]
Tom Nichols
We'll, we'll decide how many dollars you can have.
- [34:53]
Charlie Seitz
Five pencils.
- [34:55]
Tom Nichols
I mean, it's incredible. And, and so I, it's not surprising to me that the, that the conservatives who genuinely believe in, you know, the division, the, you know, the separate. And that's not to say that liberal justices don't, but that conservative justices probably recognize this. And I've been saying this, you've been saying it as well for a while. This kind of judicial activism is exactly the stuff that we used to criticize the left for.
- [35:21]
Charlie Seitz
Yeah.
- [35:22]
Tom Nichols
You know, like, well, we can't get it at the ballot box and we can't get it through Congress. Let's just, let's just throw it to a judge and have a judge do it, you know, or issue an executive order and find a friendly judge in Texas somewhere. I think it's understandable that conservative judges are saying, we're not doing that now.
- [35:40]
Charlie Seitz
This may be premature. And we've done this before. And look, I never expect that congressional Republicans are ever going to break with Trump. So I'm not that naive. But I am getting really the sense that his attempts to bully and intimidate the judiciary are backfiring badly. This is the thing about a lifetime tenure that's very, very hard to bully. And in fact, the insult continue to mount. Let's go back to Jeanine Pira. She is now the acting U.S. attorney for Washington, D.C. what do you think the judges in that circuit now think of the representation from the Department of justice, from the U.S. attorney's office. If you want to be credible. Do you make appointments like this? The judges. There's been this long tradition that there is sort of an assumption that the government is telling you the truth. And quite frankly, on a daily basis, the Trump administration is undermining its own credibility in front of these judges. And unless they think that, screw the judges, we're simply going to ignore them, this is going to be a problem, I think.
- [36:48]
Tom Nichols
Well, part of the problem is that Donald Trump is not interested in effectiveness or governing or any of that stuff. He's interested in shocking people and owning the libs and being transgressive for its own sake, you know, to. It's. I mean, he really is like a little kid with oppositional defiance disorder. You know, people say, listen, you know, Ed Martin isn't going to fly, and hey, say what you want about she's better than Ed Martin, which, you know.
- [37:15]
Charlie Seitz
No, no, no, no, no. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Okay, so Ed Martin is really as horrible as you get. But then it is almost as if, you know, Trump says, well, I don't get to give Ed Martin, well, here's my big fuck you. I'm going to grow.
- [37:29]
Tom Nichols
That's what I was going.
- [37:30]
Charlie Seitz
Toxically unqualified. Just so you know, if you kill one of my really bad appointees, you're going to get somebody maybe even worse. And he's done this several times.
- [37:41]
Tom Nichols
That coalescing you've been talking about, I think, is that three months of shock and awe has finally worn off. Yeah, you know, he came in, you know, you know, I used to teach strategy and military history, Right. This is, you know, this is like Pearl Harbor. Right? Where, by the way, Pearl harbor, which apparently Secretary of the Navy can't figure out when that is. But, you know, the. The. The Japanese can have this massive, you know, surprise attack and then a series of small operational victories, and then there's nothing. There's no second act. And then it's all. After Midway, it's all just backing up. And I think, you know, to make that military analogy, Trump came in and sort of shocked everybody and said, no, I really am. I mean, I still remember saying, Pete Hegset, is this a joke? Yeah, I really am gonna do this, and I'm gonna. I'm gonna bully the Senate. And finally, it just kind of wears off to say this. These are unserious people. This is an unserious business, you know, that I imagine there are. Republicans are saying, great, let. Let Piro, you know, be the acting. Because as you say, the other judges and lawyers are going to say, okay, this government is not a serious government. We don't have to be afraid of anything going on here. These people are clowns. But I think it's because Trump thinks in terms of this is a TV show.
- [39:03]
Charlie Seitz
Oh, absolutely. And I think that it's really impossible to understand many of the things he does without understanding that thinks it's a TV show and that he goes to win a. You know, every day, every single cycle.
- [39:15]
Tom Nichols
Sweeps week, every week.
- [39:17]
Charlie Seitz
So, yeah, so. So that the tariff UK thing is just performative, you know, does he win the day? Yes. Does it actually make a difference? No. Etc. But there's another thing, and just since we're sort of the big picture, and there was a piece in the New York Times that I thought really captured this, which is that in the beginning, people thought it was like the Prisoner's dilemma, you know, do you give in or do you not give in? And many of them made the wrong choice, which was to surrender to Donald Trump, because that, you know, that way they would be safe, right? That they would be protected. What they're finding out is that, no, number one, you're not safe because it emboldens them. They are more aggressive. And then, number two, Trump keeps changing the deal and he keeps, you know, these law firms thought. We thought we had an understanding what we were gonna do. And Donald Trump is basically saying, no, I have you by the balls. You're gonna do exactly what I want you to do. You're in my receivership. Same thing with the universities. So now the institutionally, they're saying, maybe it's not better to cave in. Maybe we will not be safer. Maybe that's the most dangerous thing to do. And so you're starting to see the collective action, the reality that if we stick together, we might be able to have a united front, whereas if we go our separate waves, he will pick us off and then he will fuck us anyway. So, yeah, and I. I mean, I've.
- [40:34]
Tom Nichols
Been surprised by that because, you know, I. I mean, I wondered, for example, with the LA Times and the Washington Post and others, you know, it seems to me, excuse me, that if you have billions of dollars and you own a newspaper, you call Donald Trump and say, you should be afraid of me, not the other way around. I have all the money in the world and I have my own newspaper. And of course, back in the old days, that's exactly what a newspaper baron would have done, right? We called the President and said, listen, I buy ink by the train load, pal. And I Don't you know, I don't care about your money or the, or your power. I have plenty of money and I have plenty of power. But again, I think there was that initial shock and I think that a lot of these, that, you know, Columbia and the law firms and the others said he has, I think they were counting on something that wasn't a completely irrational prediction, Charlie. I think they said, look, he is distracted by shiny stuff. His attention. Spanish is, is measured in nanoseconds. We buy the guy off, we give him some money, we go, blah, blah, blah, sure, pro bono work for whatever you want. That'll never happen. You know, you'll be long gone before any of this ever comes around and we make you go away. The problem is that there are other people in this administration who are going to make sure it doesn't go away. Trump may have. Well, I mean, I, I imagine that this consent decree that they're, that the administration is trying to force on Columbia, Donald Trump probably has no idea that's even going on or what's in it. The problem was to take another great David from quote. Because you use the one about tequila and Quaaludes. I still think David said classics lately. Right. But his other was, look, this time around, the Velociraptors have learned how to work the doorknob. And so it was, it was a good bet in the first term to say, here, here's some, here's, here's the Dane Geld. Go bother somebody else because you're probably going to lose the election, you know, but now with nothing to lose and a bunch of people like Vought and others, you know, embedded in this administration, it was a dumb bet to make that you could just buy them off. I, But I think that's what they were trying to do and to say, if we just sign something, give him some money, he'll go, he'll get fascinated by something else down the line. Well, that, that was probably the right bet in 2018 or 2019, not a good bet in 2025.
- [43:04]
Charlie Seitz
No. So I think you are, you are seeing a shift. But then again, who knows? Everything is moving so quickly. So let's talk about something controversial, actually. Okay. I mean, sure. Okay. So I'm wincing. Joe Biden. Joe Biden is, has decided now he's going to reemerge and make his sort of his legacy tour. I thought it was a good thing that he spoke out against Donald Trump. There had been that norm that the former presidents kept silent, which was a ridiculous norm. So he gave a good speech about it, but now he's doing the View and others. And clearly he's doing this in order to counter all of these books that are about to come out that are talking about his age, his cognitive decline and whether it was covered up and whether or not he opened the door to the return of Donald Trump by insisting on running for reelection. So your thoughts about the Joe Biden rehabilitation tour now? I think may.
- [44:11]
Tom Nichols
So let me just, you know, as a statement of principle here, I thought Joe Biden was a good president. I thought generally he did a good job. I think Joe Biden on his worst day would have been a better president than Donald Trump. My big concern, and I wrote about it at the time was after the debate that he couldn't sustain a campaign and win. And I think that the appearances he's making out there are just confirming that he's not really, you know, people say, well, look at him now. He's, you know, he's on the ball. No, he's coherent, he's having a discussion. But it is painful because he's just not. A campaign requires, you know, really sharp reflexes, a lot of energy. And I just don't think, I think he had another, and I know, you know, people on the right get mad hearing this because, because they're now saying, you know, cover ups and these books are going on. I think he, I think he had another term in him as president. I don't think he had another campaign in him as president. I don't know if it would have been, you know, I just don't know, Charlie. I think, you know, his, at that age, and I'm thinking back to Ronald Reagan, you know, which was issue large policy directions and then let people figure out how to do it. On the other hand, I admit, you know, we were just talking about a crisis in India and Pakistan. Would I be comfortable now with Biden handling this, you know, looking and, and being as diminished as he is? Yeah, I'd be uncomfortable.
- [45:43]
Charlie Seitz
Well, well, but also he would, he would have more qualified people around him.
- [45:47]
Tom Nichols
That's where I was going. He would have a better team. He would issue, I think his instincts would be right, you know, but is, are you going to wake him up at 3:00 in the morning? Problem is, if my only other choice is Donald Trump and who I'd rather wake up at three in the morning, I would still take Joe Biden. But to go back to your point about this tour, I don't see what it's accomplishing. I Don't think it's dispelling any of the concerns people had. I think it's confirming them. And I don't get. I mean, I don't get it. I don't get.
- [46:16]
Charlie Seitz
Well, is it go.
- [46:18]
Tom Nichols
Is it just. I have to vindicate myself.
- [46:21]
Charlie Seitz
Yeah, I think that there is some of that, understandably. I think there's some lingering bitterness. I mean, look, given what Donald Trump is doing right now, the last thing on earth we need to do is relitigate the last four years. The last thing we need to do is reopen some of those wounds from 2020. And so he goes on the View and, quite frankly, throws Kamala Harris under the bus. He's saying he was not surprised that she lost. Then he's asked, would you have won? He says, yes, I would have won. So there he is, and again in May of 2025, trying to get attention, by the way, which is a tremendous gift to Joe. I'm sorry, to Donald Trump. And he's wielding that kind of, you know, that kind of knife in the back of Kamala Harris that he was not surprised that she lost.
- [47:08]
Tom Nichols
And I don't think he's right. I don't think he would have.
- [47:10]
Charlie Seitz
No, no, he's not. The evidence is overwhelming. He would not have won. People sometimes forget how deeply underwater he was before that debate. And I think that there's, you know, these books that are coming out, they're not just hit jobs. I think that they are deeply reported pieces that ought to lead to certain introspection. And I think this is the one thing that kind of frustrates me among some Democrats who say, don't bash Democrats. Never ask any hard questions. Look, if we're ever gonna get through this, then we have to engage in that kind of. Kind of introspection. And if, in fact, there was something disqualifying or apparently disqualifying that was covered up, we need to walk through that so we don't make that mistake again. I'll throw another controversial issue out. There are people who are suggesting that the stories about John Fetterman are motivated by ideology because he has become aggressively pro Israel or because he turned out not to be Bernie Sanders. And the reality is, no, sometimes the story is the story. Sometimes there are real problems, and you can't again, you know, pretending they don't exist or trying to paper them over seldom works. And it's very, very dangerous in this environment.
- [48:32]
Tom Nichols
Anybody who thinks Ben Terrace went out there, you know, to take down Fetterman because of Israel or something, Just doesn't, has never read Ben Terrace. You know, he's just not that kind of, he's not that kind of writer. And with the, but with the Biden thing, I'm going to push back on one thing.
- [48:47]
Charlie Seitz
Charlie.
- [48:48]
Tom Nichols
I get it. You know, hey, did, did the, did the media really do it? Did they really understand, you know, that Biden, you know, was, I mean, did they break through the protective veil around Biden and all of that? I just wish there were a couple of book length studies taking the same approach to being, you know, chapter and verse about Donald Trump's mental institution. Yeah, I mean, the double standard, you know, is Joe, I look at Joe Biden and I see a guy who's 82 years old, missing a lot of steps, didn't have the energy, I'll take your point. Didn't have the energy even to get through another term, certainly not to get through a campaign. The problem is that every time, as you say, every time you start re litigating this, where are the articles that say, you know, the talk about people protecting Donald Trump by constantly sane, washing and imposing order on things? You know, I said recently, if you really want to get a sense of where Donald Trump's mental acuity is, don't watch him because that's a performance. He's very good at that. Take what he says, write it down and read it as if it were a presidential amazing. And you find yourself reading this and saying these are the ravings of a guy that's just kind of lost it. And yet here we are still arguing about Joe Biden.
- [50:15]
Charlie Seitz
Well, and yet we also are living in the second Trump term because somehow Democrats for the second time have failed to defeat him. And there's a problem there and I wish they would confront it more directly. But again, this is the last thing that we ought to be talking about, even though we're talking about it now, because Joe Biden, I mean, if there's any moment where Joe Biden should be either recusing himself or focusing solely on what you just described, you know, what's happening on a daily basis with Donald Trump, it would be that as opposed to now doing what he's doing. And again, I have to say, the more he talks, the more, the more disillusioned I am about the choices that he made. But again, let's, let's, let's leave this aside.
- [51:05]
Tom Nichols
And the bigger problem is that 77 million people lived through four years of Donald Trump, watched him on the stump, watched him say things that were completely bonkers. Un American, anti constitutional, you know, threat. He's. He carried out every threat to pardon all the J6 people. He has let seditionists out of jail. And somehow there are still millions of people saying, yeah, I'm okay with that. That's the problem. Not that Joe Biden was being protected by the media. The problem is that 77 million people got a full snootful of Donald Trump and said, I like this TV show. I'll watch this one again.
- [51:42]
Charlie Seitz
Well, but it's a reminder that in American politics, it's not an up or down vote. You don't have to bite. Yes or no. You have to choose. And if the Democrats cannot put somebody up that is more appealing than Donald Trump, you get Donald Trump, which is appalling to you and me, but it's happened. It is the reality. And, you know, this is a. This is a moment of history again. This is something that I think the historians are gonna have to deal with, media critics are gonna have to deal with. I would rather not be dealing with it in May. And so I watched clips of Joe and Jill Biden on the View, and it was. I'm sorry, it sort of just cringe. The sort of brought back all the memories of the times when those of us who have been very open in our disdain for Donald Trump were saying, you know, this Joe Biden thing, this is a problem. It feels like we're sleepwalking into a disaster, and there was so much pushback. Stop talking about it. Stop talking about it. Stop talking about it. Anytime that you find yourself saying we should not talk about something that might be a problem, then maybe that's part of the problem, too.
- [52:49]
Tom Nichols
And I'll just pile on with you here, Charlie, and say many of these are the same people who, when Nancy Reagan would intervene and toss an answer to Ronald Reagan, I remember there was a great, you know, clip where he. Either he didn't hear the question because his hearing was going and. Or he didn't. He just didn't grasp what he's being asked. And she kind of looks down and says, we're working on it. And he goes, we're working on it. And he picks up the cue. And Democrats at the time took that as he has to be. He has to go, he's not capable. He's not functional. Well, you know, you can't say that then and now say, stop talking about it again. But as you say, and I think this is a great place to end the Biden discussion of all the things we could be talking about. Relitigating Joe Biden's fitness. He didn't lose the election. Kamala Harris did.
- [53:39]
Charlie Seitz
Yeah, yeah, yeah, she lost the election. Well, we could again, I don't want to do it. The other topic story that we ought to be talking about, and every single day I actually feel kind of guilty that I'm not talking about this or writing about this more is because the zone has been flooded with the shock and awfulness. The naked nature of the Trump corruption, the, the, the crypto scams, the, the fact that there are some estimates that he's increased his, the family net worth by billions of dollars just in the last 100 days. It is breathtaking. But it's also an indication of sort of how Donald Trump has succeeded in numbing us, that he succeeded in not just creating an alternative reality, but just numbing us to the pure outrage of what he is doing. And the fact, and I think part of it is the sense that, well, why be outraged about it? Because nothing's going to happen. There is no accountability. And he has in that first hundred days coast that I think on that sense that he is immune, that resistance is futile, I wonder if that's going to change. But I'm still not sure that he's not going to get away with the corruption. But it's hard. But this is, there's, there's no, there's no scale that, historically speaking, that comes even close to what's happening in broad daylight on a daily basis.
- [55:06]
Tom Nichols
I don't think he's going to pay. Excuse me. I don't think he's going to pay a price. Because, you know, lawyers can sometimes tell you bringing in, sometimes when you've got somebody dead to rights on corruption, bringing in forensic accountants, you know, goes over like a lead balloon with, with juries who just don't understand it, don't care. They, they want to. They. What they want is a picture of some CEO taking home a briefcase full of, you know, even then, I mean, look, Menendez, right? The, the Robert Menendez case, people were able to get their arms around that because the guy was literally keeping gold bars in his closet. People get that. But, you know, the other problem is that, as you say, Trump has numbed us to it. I think back to, hey, you know, the first term isn't a violation of the emoluments clause if people stay at the hotel.
- [55:57]
Charlie Seitz
Oh, my God.
- [55:58]
Tom Nichols
My God, that's quaint by now, isn't it? It's like quaint. What a lovely, almost, you know, charming concern to have about whether that constitutes an improper payment to the chief executive.
- [56:11]
Charlie Seitz
And yet, you know what? If somebody would have said, then, yes, that is a violation of the emoluments clause. If that had been taken seriously, everything that's flowed since might have, probably might have happened anyway, but it would have been slowed down. But it's like once you open the door to these guys, as you say.
- [56:31]
Tom Nichols
The Democrats, on the one hand, Trump's critics are like they've absorbed this defeatism. What does it matter? I wrote a piece the other day, and I kind of lashed back at some people on social media. They said, why are you even writing this? Nothing will happen. It doesn't matter. I'm like, well, okay, but I'm going to keep saying it because somebody should keep saying it. On the other side, I think what you, what you have are people who might have been appalled or might have even been a little itchy on the conservative side in the first term about this, who have said, listen, I have doubled down and I'm in so deep that I cannot criticize anything Donald Trump does at this point.
- [57:12]
Charlie Seitz
Right.
- [57:13]
Tom Nichols
That doesn't matter anymore. I mean, they are but such a revealing story someone was telling me, and I haven't seen this report, but a friend of mine told me he saw in the news that there were guys who owned gas stations, and I can't remember what state this was in, who lowered the price of their gas to A$88 so that Donald Trump wouldn't be wrong. When he said that, I thought, why? What does it do to your brain? What, what has happened to your brain when, when you say, I will deprive my business and my family of, of profit just so that the guy I admire can't look stupid by saying something wrong. And, and so when you've reached that point to say to people, well, you know, this guy shouldn't. The President of the United States should not be shilling crypto. People are like, oh, that's your worry now? You know, it's, we're so far gone from that.
- [58:12]
Charlie Seitz
Well, you know, okay.
- [58:14]
Tom Nichols
And yet the people who are buying it, Charlie, are losing money. I mean, on top of it. It's not like he's even lifting. It's not like he's like, I'm running this scam and you guys are going to get rich with me. I'm running this scam. You're going to lose money and you're going to thank me for it because I have, because that's how this works. That's, you know, and I don't know how you reason with anybody at that point. I don't know what you say to someone.
- [58:39]
Charlie Seitz
No, I mean, and it is so, it is so blatant. I mean, again, a lot of this is, we're repeating ourselves. But, you know, the, the man of the people, the populist campaign that now has led to a government that is dominated by the bligarchy and billionaires who are so ridiculously out of touch, who think that if, you know, grandma doesn't get her Social Security check, she won't know, she won't know her that, that you only need two dolls and five pencils. But within, deep within the recesses of Donald Trump's degrading reptilian intellect, I think he senses that maybe he's got a little bit of a problem because the fact that he's on the phone talking about raising taxes on millionaires, it's kind of a tell that he, that he wants to have a talking point. What do you mean? I actually raised tax. Now, the Republicans may not go along with that, but it is an indication that President perhaps he realizes that some of the Marie Antoinette let them have two dolls thing is perhaps a little.
- [59:35]
Tom Nichols
Bit off brand and yet crows about, I got a great deal with Britain that lowered the tariffs on Rolls Royces.
- [59:43]
Charlie Seitz
Yes. At the same day when he's threatening to raise the tariff on Mattel toys.
- [59:49]
Tom Nichols
It just, yeah, you know, I think he has, you know, he has internalized first, he's not running for reelection. And so he, and you know him, he doesn't care about other Republicans. He cares about whether or not the House and Senate survive simply because it's his personal, his skin. I mean, why did he run for president again in the first place? To stay out of jail. But this is true, you know, can't help him. So I mean, watching, you know, Musk and Lutnick and Vicent and all these guys, I still am, it still blows my mind to see working class folks saying, these are my guy, they care about me. But, you know, I don't know, how do you break that spell? Maybe Christmas, maybe when the shelves are empty for back to school shopping or for Christmas. But even then, I imagine, you know, when you've got people saying my wife was deported, but I'll still vote for Donald Trump. You have reached Vyacheslav Molotov. Levels of, you know, slavish devotion to a president. So I, you know, I hate to.
- [60:55]
Charlie Seitz
End on right when those people note.
- [60:57]
Tom Nichols
But I think that's a depressing note.
- [60:58]
Charlie Seitz
Well, except that, well, here's a less depressing note that that they are not the majority and they are not enough to determine the future of the country. There's a large portion of them but I think that he's alienating some of the soft people. But again, we're going to see. I feel like we've been through this so often in the past and at a certain point there's so much sunken costs, right? You are so deeply invested. You've made so many moral compromises that how can you possibly break with them on something as trivial as not being able to afford a doll for your daughter for Christmas? Tom Nichols, it is always great to talk with you. Thank you so much.
- [61:35]
Tom Nichols
Thank you Charlie. Good to see you.
- [61:37]
Charlie Seitz
And thank you all for listening to this episode of to the Contrary podcast. I'm Charlie Sykes. We do this every week because it is so important to continually remind ourselves that we are not the crazy ones.