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- [00:00]
Pablo Torre
Hi, this is Pablo Torre from Pablo Torre finds Out and today I want to talk to you about Boost Mobile because we spend a lot of time analyzing inefficiencies in sports, overvalued contracts, money tied up in the wrong places, and so on. But those inefficiencies aren't just on a roster. Sometimes they're in your own monthly expenses. Boost Mobile says switching to their $25 Unlimited Forever plan can unlock up to $600 in savings a year. That's $25 a month for unlimited data, talk and text when you bring your own phone. If that money is trapped in a pricey phone bill, it might be worth a second look. Visit boostmobile.com to learn more. After 30 gigabytes, customers may experience slower speeds. Customers pay $25 per month as long as they remain active on the Boost Mobile Unlimited Plan savings claim, based on a January 2026 Boost Mobile survey of 1,000Americans with single line unlimited plans, comparing average annual payments of major carriers to 12 months on the Boost Mobile Unlimited Plan. For full offer details, visit boostmobile.com Lunch
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Susan Glasser
was great, but this traffic is awful.
- [01:00]
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Susan Glasser
Are you alright?
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Unidentified Patient
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Unidentified Patient
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Susan Glasser
Hi, I'm Chef Franklin Becker.
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Pablo Torre
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Charlie Sykes
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Susan Glasser
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Susan Glasser
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- [02:29]
Charlie Sykes
I'm Charlie Sykes. Welcome back to the to the Contrary podcast. Donald Trump continues to bleat at a furious pace on social media, but not always about the war in Iran. And he's suddenly realizing that, hey, you know, maybe we do need some allies. At the same time, his war on dissent escalates as he calls for reporters who are writing things that he doesn't like to be charged with treason. What a way to start the week. And joining us to start this week, the New Yorker, Susan Glasser. Susan, it is always good to have you back. I hope you're, I hope you're surviving the weather, the, the apocalypse hitting all of us.
- [03:14]
Susan Glasser
Yeah, it feels like the weather is approximating our news cycle at this point, but
- [03:20]
Charlie Sykes
it does feel like it's all coming together. It does feel like it's coming. I wanna read something you wrote. You had a really brilliant column last week. The War Trump does not want to talk about, noting how frequently he continues to post to his base on Truth Social. But the message to his followers has strongly suggested that he is anything but consumed by the burden of commanding a conflict that has, in not even two weeks killed Iran's supreme leader, unleashed the largest supply disruption in the history of the global oil market, spread to at least 10 additional countries across the region and cost American taxpayers more than $11 billion and counting. So it is an interesting phenomenon that the wartime president who is always on social media is about 80% of his bleeds have nothing to do with the war. So talk to me about that. What does that tell you?
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Susan Glasser
Yeah, I mean, it feels like this is a very important moment, especially because, you know, ready or not, America now seems to have a president who has claimed such extraordinary unilater power to upend the global economy and to wage war. And so trying to engage in this exercise of Trumpology, unfortunately, it's really consequential. There are a number of observations that spring to mind. First of all, maybe Donald Trump doesn't want to focus on the war. Maybe he's not so interested in it. I think one of the most striking things, right, Charlie, is the cognitive dissonance of a President whose entire political Persona has been telling his most fervent followers that he's the guy who's gonna not get us into any new wars and end the ones that were there.
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Pablo Torre
Right.
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Susan Glasser
And so this self styled peacemaker, America first MAGA ism, he's requiring them to throw that all out the window because as he said repeatedly in recent days, I am maga. So whatever I think is what you must think. And, you know, I do think it's, it's a, it's, it's, it's a heavy load to bear for people for whom that was a big part of Donald Trump's appeal. And I think for his core followers, this idea of no new wars in the 2024 campaign, he's going all in on that with Kamala Harris saying she's literally going to get us into World War Three. She's crazy. She's going to, you know, create conflict in the Middle east again. So I feel like one of the explanations is simply his public platform on Truth Social is, is aimed at his most hardcore followers. That's one explanation. Politically speaking, he doesn't think it's good for him. Politically speaking, he thinks it's too much to bear. There's also, and we get this over the weekend, you mentioned this stream of, you know, angst and anger. There's also perhaps the sense that it's not going the way that he wanted it to. I, I do think the overconfidence, the hubris, the power tripping that informed Trump's communications at the beginning of the war. You now see less of that and more kind of rage and fury that it's not going exactly how he wanted it to.
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Charlie Sykes
I want to go back to the rage and fury in a moment, but you mentioned Trumpology and let's dive into the Trumpology because you made a really interesting point how we are parsing through his various comments, which are often contradictory. And as you point out, the level of, the need for this level of Trumpology itself is a sign of how swiftly America's democratic institutions have declined. Congress has opted out. The weaklings around Trump can do nothing other than agree with him. The Israelis may have a plan, but they know that this mercurial president can drop out. So it really is this moment that we engage in this Trumpology because he is the decision maker. There is no other institution or organization that is as consequential. I thought that was really an interesting point, is that we, we keep, we're parsing through all the voluminous comments that he's bleeding out there. But we have to, because all power is at the moment concentrated on this stable genius.
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Susan Glasser
Very stable genius, Charlie. Yeah. I mean, for me, that is the most profoundly kind of un American part of all this, is that we have a leader who claims for himself not just kingly powers, but unchecked kingly powers in a way that is so remarkable. Can you imagine vesting this much unaccountable unchecked power in someone who cares so little about understanding the consequences of what he does, who's blown up the process that does exist? I mean, that's the thing. I know we here in Washington tend to probably overestimate the importance of process in these institutions, but the truth is, over decades since the end of the Second World War, presidents in both parties have evolved a very sophisticated apparatus, national security apparatus, for managing this vast government that we have with these incredible capabilities and to basically just launch a war and not even let any of them know. We're still getting reporting. Lots of good work. Of course, it's been done by many colleagues in the press, but the reports that are emerging in just the last few days, Charlie, make it very clear that this was so close hold that even senior American officials and diplomats who were responsible for relations in Middle east were not read into the plan in advance. So what happens? Okay, well, here's an obvious thing. Tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of American citizens are left stranded at risk. And I mean, that is sort of garden variety incompetence. That is a very clear example of needless trauma and crisis inflicted on a very large number of American citizens due directly to the flouting by Donald Trump and his advisors to any basic notions of preparation and process. And so like, oh my God, we're working now on this book that goes all the way back over the last 20 years of us dealing with Russia in preparations for Y2K, an event that, as you know, didn't really happen. There were unbelievable, minute, detailed preparations by the State Department for evacuating embassy staff and Americans in Ukraine and other countries, the former Soviet Union. Weeks and weeks of planning. And here's the emergency power backup, and here's the buses that will take the people from Kyiv to the Polish border in case all of the things fail. And imagine just launching a war, what the hell, in the Middle east and not even caring about the hundreds of thousands of American citizens who are going to get caught right in the middle of it.
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Charlie Sykes
Yeah, I mean, the fact that this was such a surprise attack. I actually wrote something yesterday about the attack on the girls school and the fact that nobody had any warning, nobody thought you were at war. There was no declaration of war. There was no. The parents who took those little girls to school didn't think that they were under attack. Days before, they had been reports that negotiations were ongoing. Negotiations were scheduled for the next week. So not only were the Iranians taken totally by surprise by this unannounced attack, but as you point out, all of the Americans now in terms of what we know and what we don't know. And again, it comes down to the mind of Donald Trump. And there was this report in the New York Times. New York Times, David Sanger, you know, who talks about, did Trump see this crisis coming? Does he actually understand it? At a meeting in the Oval Office last week, a frustrated Trump pressed General Dan Kaine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, why the US Couldn't immediately reopen the Strait of Hormuz. And the answer was straightforward. Even one Iranian soldier or militia member zipping along the narrow neck of the straight in a speedboat could fire a missile right into a slow moving supertanker or plant a mine on its hull. So not only did he not anticipate it, but clearly now that we are embroiled in this, he doesn't seem to understand the basics of what he has gotten us into, which is disturbing.
- [11:47]
Susan Glasser
Certainly that was a very important story, but here's a couple takeaways from it. Number one, and the most important one is that is a conversation that needed to have occurred before the war and not in the middle of it and not as a reaction to it. So I noticed that in part because there have been some accounts from sources at the Pentagon and elsewhere saying that in the lead up to the war that Chairman Cain had in fact raised concerns with Donald Trump. In my view, these are somewhat incompatible accounts. So is that just ass covering by the Pentagon? And he didn't really raise it in a way that registered with Trump before the war. That's one possibility. Another possibility is that he, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, did raise the issue of the Strait of Hormuz with Trump before the war and was dismissed, or, and I think it's not either, or by the way, that Donald Trump failed to absorb the information he was given before the conflict. That, to me is very likely in doing reporting about President Trump and national security issues in Trump's first term. And again, this is a number of years ago, he's obviously that much older. It was very clear. He did not absorb and does not absorb information. He doesn't really read. So that's one issue. So he. It's all kind of oral briefings and video that he's taking in or looking at maps. He's a visual processor of information. It doesn't stick as much in that manner of consumption, first of all. Second of all, Donald Trump, he doesn't like to listen to information that contradicts views that he has or he rolls right over it. And we were told this again and again by the most senior officials who worked with him in his first term, that he did not absorb the contradictory information or new information of any time. So he might, in a meeting, engage with you if you told him, well, sir, you know, the Strait of Hormuz is going to be affected. But if he disagreed with it or it wasn't important, by the very next day, you know, he was no longer going to have that. And I think that's what we're seeing here. And the other thing is, let's look at the people who are around him, including this chairman of the Joint Chiefs, who never would have been selected as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs by anyone else. I do think that Trump was inaccurate when he called Dan Cain, you know, a MAGA general at the beginning. You know, Kaine's friends and supporters strongly have pushed back on that said, that's not accurate. However, it is true that Kaine was never in line to be the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, was not prepared for such an assignment, and that his personality is very different than, for example, the general whom Trump himself personally chose in his first term to be the chairman. Mark Milley and Kaine may have raised issues like consequences, like closure of the Strait of Hormuz, but did anyone, including him, push back on Trump when he chose to glide over that? I think the answer is very clearly no. And it is therefore the responsibility of Marco Rubio and Pete Hegseth and Dan Cain. It's their fault as much as Donald Trump's, I have to say.
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Charlie Sykes
Yeah, no question about it. And this is part of this dynamic. So as one of the nation's leading Trumpologists, could you explain this to me? It seems as if there's contradictory, you know, impulses were, you know, clashing in Donald Trump's mind. We know that Donald Trump, you know, has. Has had skepticism about endless wars. He doesn't want to put boots on the ground. He is often prone to simply declare victory. He's already declared victory, like, what, four times in this particular war? Declare victory and say that it's over. He could easily extract himself from this or take the word easily out. It would be Trumpish to simply just say, I've accomplished everything possible. It's been the world's greatest victory. Nobody's ever seen a victory like this. We're done, we're going home, let's have a parade and I'm gonna build an arch. He could do that. On the other hand, there's also the Donald Trump who never wants to admit that he's wrong, never wants to apologize, never wants to look weak. It strikes me is that those are in conflict right now because I think a lot of people are looking at him and saying, why have you not tacoed out on this? Why have you not basically just simply said, we've done it, we've accomplished what we going to do in this thing. Because it is metastasizing, it is creating all kinds of problems. The political fallout could be great. The logic is so strong, strongly in favor of Trump extracting himself and yet he's not doing it. So give me your sense of how those conflicting forces are playing out right now. This is the ultimate Trump ology, by the way.
- [16:44]
Susan Glasser
It really is. And sadly, I actually think I came up with the term Trumpology back in
- [16:52]
Charlie Sykes
the well, you own it now of 2016.
- [16:55]
Susan Glasser
I did not believe at that time or many days since that this would be an actual thing as opposed to a tongue in cheek thing. And also that we would still be doing it a decade later. Yeah, here we are. I agree with your, your analysis of these two main impulses of Donald Trump. However, I've always been uncomfortable, frankly with the taco framing in this second term of Donald Trump. I think it's a misreading that gave the markets and these Wall street people who by the way, have been wrong about Donald Trump again and again and again. If you hear that somebody on Wall street is like saying something about Trump and predicting this, like, don't listen to them. You know, these are the people, they have a vested financial interests and personal interests. It seems to me at this point in under valuing the consequences of Trumpian chaos and disruption, in part because they've made a lot of money in betting. Essentially that's what they're doing is betting on the ups and downs of Trump. But the reason I've resisted the taco framing is this. It originally came about by this notion that Donald Trump had performed chickening out over the tariffs when the bond markets reacted. That's true in a narrow sense, but I think what it misses is that Donald Trump has never given up on the idea of tariffs, that it's much more. His negotiating style is the style of a real estate guy who has a lot of potential deals in the work. He has a lot of priorities. He pushes and pushes and pushes on something to see as far as he can go if he finds an obstruction. It's not that he's given up on that project, but that he moves on and focuses on a different project. Look at how Donald Trump is fulminating just this weekend once again about the Supreme Court's decision on the tariffs. And Donald Trump reimposed tariffs immediately, which will now be tested as far as their legality. That's not a man who tacoed out. That's not a man who chickened out on tariffs. It's a man who's never given up on that as the foundational belief to the extent he has any foundational beliefs about the economy. And he's still finding ways and pushing to see how far he can go with it. And I think that is true here on the international relations stage as well. You know, that Taco suggests that, you know, you just have to have a little bit of a freak out in the bond market and Donald Trump is going to give up on an idea. I just don't, I don't accept that. But I do agree with you that his inclination is to be very wary of land wars on the ground type conflict, you know, what he considers to be real war. He has become enthralled by the fantasy of the kind of the air war, the quick strike, the performative display of militarism by the world's most powerful military. And I think that's, if you look at how much war Donald Trump has started. And in his first year back, the president of no new wars has launched military attacks on now I believe eight different countries. Right. But they all more or less fall into the vein of quick lightning strikes.
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Charlie Sykes
He likes wars that are like video games. Right. I mean, this is something else that we've seen the memeification of this. If you can have like a sizzle reel, you know, with music playing in the background and spongebob, whatever, he likes that, that's the kind that apparently appeals to him. Right?
- [20:30]
Susan Glasser
I think you're exactly right. It's the, you know, there was one of these horrible videos from the White House last week that had the war gamified into a quick round of bowling in which the guy just pulls a strike and boom. You know, the Iranian regime, figures, I think they called it in this video are knocked out in, you know, it's as simple as that. Just bola strike. And part of the rage that you're seeing from Trump right now is that he can't just do what many of us assumed that he would like to do if he ran into trouble in this war, which is declare victory and walk away. Because the Iranians have now got unbelievable leverage over him and the entire global economy, and they've chosen to use it. And he did not anticipate that they would use this leverage. I do believe that he was told about this, but he, you know, chose to disregard that. And also, the other assumption that he must have had going into this, that has not proven to be the case, is that the Iranian regime itself would crumble if you knocked out a few of its top figures.
- [21:37]
Charlie Sykes
Right.
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Susan Glasser
And that has not proven to be the case. Again, is, is that the failure of the American intelligence community, or is that the failure of its leader and its commander in chief? I await history's verdict on that, but I'm pretty sure a lot of it rests with Trump personally and his own assumptions.
- [21:55]
Charlie Sykes
Yeah, it would be rather surprising if they did not warn him about. Okay, among the various geopolitical risks of going to war with Iran is that they would shut down the Strait of Hormuz. I mean, I'm guessing that US Planners have been talking about that for decades, that that sort of thing was possible. The dangers of to the world marketplace, all of those things, it's almost inconceivable that someone at some point did not raise that poss. Or did he add some access to it?
- [22:21]
Susan Glasser
Yeah, of course they did. I, in fact, I was just on the phone right before our conversation with a former very, very senior US national security official who was, of course, reflecting on how many years of effort had gone into our very, you know, smart and nonpartisan analysts to prepare for war in the Gulf and war with Iran. And of course, Trump has made everyone look like fools here. But this has literally been the life's work of many smart, capable people whose work has been disregarded. Now, so that's first of all. But to finish your Trumpology question about Trump right now, I think, again, what happens when someone with a psychology like Trump is thwarted in this way? He is very reluctantly coming to terms with the idea that he cannot simply announce that he's won and walk away. So now you see him very almost in public view, trying to construct an alternate path out of the conflict. And this shows you the incredibly flexible morality, because for Donald Trump, everything is personal. He's the ultimate narcissist. And so even his survival here is so important that he's even willing to go hat in hand to the Europeans, despite having the last year bashing them and even threatening military action against one of their members of NATO. To me, people might say, wow, this is, you know, hypocritical or a climb down by Trump or whatever. I think it's so revealing because it shows when Donald Trump's in trouble, when his survival of any kind is at issue, he will do and say anything. So it doesn't matter what his views of Europe are, he's still going to go and try to beg them to help him out of this mess of his own creation. Interestingly, we don't know for sure, but we're having this conversation on Monday, midday. Initial indications are that our allies, who have been with us for decades, but that key allies in both Asia and Europe are basically saying, screw you.
- [24:42]
Charlie Sykes
This is an extraordinary moment. Okay, so, number one, Donald Trump realizing suddenly we need allies. As you point out, he'll say or do anything. But it is interesting watching as suddenly the value of the NATO alliance becomes clear, because it was just a few days ago that Keir Starmer, the Prime Minister of Britain, offered to provide some help, and Trump said, we don't need it. We've already won the war. Okay, so apparently we've unwon the war and now we're back. But, I mean, who would have imagined? Who knew we would actually need allies and that the allies, having been insulted and threatened for the last year, are reluctant to come to our support? I mean, you know, we've talked about the possibility of America first, you know, morphing into America alone. This is kind of feeling like we're seeing America alone in real time.
- [25:35]
Susan Glasser
Well, what you will see, and we don't know the end of the story here yet, is Trump is escalating his threats, escalating the bullying. He does have a lot of leverage and coercive power at his disposal. If you were a European leader, I could imagine that you would say to him, well, Donald, no more tariffs. I could imagine that you would say to him, well, Donald Trump, you know, what are you doing for Ukraine right now? You know that Europe now has leverage that Trump had previously traded away. But you'll see him blustering, threatening. He does have tools at his disposal because of America's very strong both economic and security relationship with Europe and with key partners in Asia. And so we don't know, in the end, will he succeed in, you know, kind of bullying and blustering his way through. He's done that before. I think it's a revealing moment as well. I want to see, in effect, the European leaders, to a certain extent, their bluff is being called. Many of them have spent the last six weeks telling every American interlocutor that they could that the threats to Greenland were a breaking point and this is it. And Europe has finally woken up. Well, I'm really interested to see if that's the case or not. And so we have a pretty quick case study of whether Greenland really was a breakpoint in the way that I have heard directly from very senior European officials or not, you know, whether Trump manages to coerce them. But, you know, I covered, I was here in Washington for the run up to the Gulf War, one that was right when I graduated from college. You know, I remember covering, you know, in Congress the very long, very serious, somber debate about authorizing that war. I remember the months of lead up. You know, in our, our biography of Secretary of State James Baker, we detailed the extensive efforts by George H.W. bush to create a coalition to bring other Arab countries into it to expel Saddam Hussein from Kuwait back in 1991. I remember the lead up to George W. Bush's war in Iraq and remember it followed and was contemporaneous with a war in Afghanistan in which our NATO allies joined us. You know, it was the only time in history that Article 5 of the NATO treaty, which is mutual self defense, was invoked, was to defend the United States. And even with the preemptive war in Iraq, Bush did not do what Trump is doing now. He made an extensive case, flawed and wrong and untrue as it turned out to be to both the American people and our allies. He sought votes in Congress. He sought hearing and airing out in UN Security Council, although he did not get a vote of support in the UN Security Council. And I think it's a measure just of, again, how Trump's disdain for all of the lessons learned by his predecessors, you know, is, is, is coming to bite him. But, you know, frankly, the guy has been unbelievably lucky also, you know, and he's benefiting from this incredible competence and power of the US Military. Just. We'll see. Is this an example of where Trump's luck may be running out To a certain extent?
- [29:01]
Charlie Sykes
We will find out. Now, you mentioned Ukraine in our discussion over the last week. Again, there's so many things that are going on. This is rather extraordinary that Donald Trump lifted oil sanctions on Vladimir Putin even though we have intelligence indicating that Putin is helping the Iranians actually target Americans at the very time that Ukraine is offering to help us. What does Donald Trump do? He lifts the sanctions on Russia, which obviously will give a tremendous windfall to Vladimir Putin, which will enable him to continue to fund his war of aggression against Ukraine. European leaders, at least what I was able to say, were pretty united in condemning that action. So talk to me about, you know, once again, this weird Trump Putin dynamic and the fact that the Europeans are saying this was a terrible decision on his part.
- [29:56]
Susan Glasser
Absolutely. Once again, Trump did not consult with our European allies before taking this action. Did not consult, as far as I can tell, with Congress in any meaningful way, even though these sanctions are part of laws that were passed by Congress in part to make sure that Trump could not unilaterally lift things. Now, he can do so on a time limited basis, which is what he's done so far. But I do think that the European response here is indicative of why they're not inclined to help him open up, reopen the Strait of Hormuz. And you saw that very clearly, for example, already on Monday from the German Minister of Defense, Boris Pistorius, saying, no, absolutely not. Well, the immediate precursor was on Friday, the chancellor of Germany coming out very forcefully, and this is something Germany does not. Very forcefully, yes, saying we reject the lifting of these sanctions on Russia. And, you know, why would you give a windfall to Russia? I mean, we're basically, it's like Donald Trump just wrote a check for billions of dollars to Russia and said, go kill a bunch more Ukrainians, while at the same time he's been repeatedly in public statements in recent days disparaging, once again, Zelensky disparaging Ukraine, even though Ukraine's knowledge and expertise in drone warfare against the Russians and Iranians is so in demand that our allies and partners in the Gulf and in Israel are begging Zelensky to come and to help them and to, you know, make contracts with the Ukrainian drone industry while Trump is out there publicly saying, oh, we don't need their help, when in fact we do. And I just think one thing that's important is will this finally be a moment? And I, I, I'm, it's rhetorical because I think the answer, alas, will not be but enough already with people pretending that there's any mystery about whose side Donald Trump is on. Oh, yeah, in this war between Russia and Ukraine, he's not on Ukraine's side.
- [32:10]
Charlie Sykes
He's on no. And people keep grasping for straws. And no, there is no question about it. This feels like a Slight digression, but actually it's not. One of the strangest political dynamics right now is there are Hungarian elections looming and there's a possibility that Trump's bff, Viktor Orban, who kind of wrote the playbook for authoritarianism, although at a much slower pace than Donald Trump, has implemented it. Viktor Orban has the support right now both of Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin. We are on the same side in the Hungarian election. I mean, that's one of those things where, you know, the world turned upside down, that here you have this fascist adjacent or fascist curious leader who is supported by both Russia and the United States against the democratic opposition. That's also a rather extraordinary moment and a tell.
- [33:03]
Susan Glasser
Absolutely it is. And by the way, it's not just in Hungary. In Germany, the Vice President of the United States outright endorsed the AfD in Germany, which is a radical, far great group that again, you know, has been helped by Russian disinformation campaigns in recent years and the like, and, and other far right parties in Europe supported by both JD Vance, Marco Rubio, after going to speak this year at the Munich Security Conference, where basically because he didn't use a snarling tone like J.D. vance in Europeans said, oh, well, he's meant better. But if you actually look at what he said, he also endorsed this European far right and flew immediately from Munich to Hungary to explicitly endorse Orban in his reelection campaign and to back him. And so it's not just a little weird quirk of Donald Trump personally. It's actually his entire administration and MAGA team, including the allegedly and often misrepresented more mainstream Marco Rubio, who is not in any way actually reflective of what the old Marco Rubio used to believe. And so Putin and Trump have had coinciding interests. And it's really notable to me that you had Putin's personal envoy, Kirill Dmitriev, once again meeting with the two basically architects, aside from Trump himself, of this war with Iran, and that is Trump's son in law, Jared Kushner, and his golf buddy, slash real estate developer friend, Steve Witkoff, who were the ones that Trump has publicly said were advising him on the timing and nature of the launch of the war that Israel and the United States would launch against Iran. So again, what, you know, what is the nature of the advice that Donald Trump is getting? It's the same people who are, you know, spending hours and hours with Trump's money man who are advising Trump on the conduct of the war.
- [35:14]
Charlie Sykes
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- [36:33]
Pablo Torre
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- [37:33]
Charlie Sykes
Well, you know, and again, this is sort of a side issue, but what you're describing with the JD Vance getting involved in German domestic politics, you know, getting involved in Hungarian domestic politics, we are seeing the globalization of maga. I mean, and they have written about this, the willingness to actually go into other countries and engage in political interference. I'm trying to imagine how our country would feel if a foreign leader or foreign regime was to do the same thing. But they've been quite explicit about the fact that they want to support right wing politicians around the world, whether it's in Brazil or El Salvador or whether it's in Poland or Hungary. And this is rather extraordinary that we're seeing this again. Internationalization of the Trump movement or the right wing MAGA movement.
- [38:21]
Susan Glasser
Yeah, I mean, this was sort of a fever dream of Steve Bannon in Trump 1.0 was not really pursued in the way, in the, you know, very explicitness in which they are doing, you know, basically putting actions with words. And it highlights another thing, Charlie, that I think has been really striking to me and to other people who spent a long time observing Russia over the last quarter century that Putin has been in power. If you look at many of Donald Trump's statements about this conflict, they are remarkably similar in tone and even in content at times to the way in which Vladimir Putin has spoken about the conflict that he launched in an unprovoked way in Ukraine. Now, of course, Iran has a very different history with the United States than Russia and Ukraine. So that analogy does not apply at all. And I think a lot of Americans, in fact, were predisposed, had Donald Trump chosen to make a case to them about the pernicious nature of the Iranian regime, the terrorism campaigns that have been launched against the United States and Western targets and Israel and Iran's neighbors throughout the region. I mean, look at the horror and havoc he's wreaked on Lebanon and Syria over the years and Yemen and elsewhere. So, you know, there was a case to be made that's very different from Russia invading Ukraine. Very different case. But Donald Trump didn't make it. And, you know, there's a very interesting piece that Anton Troynovsky of the New York Times wrote, who covered was the Moscow bureau chief of the New York Times wrote about this, comparing the, the rhetoric of Putin and Trump. I, I felt the same way. It was interesting to see him write that piece. It was something that we had been discussing here in my household. And, you know, I just think it all tends to circle back and to underscore Donald Trump's view of his own power as essentially the unchecked power to rewrite the map of the world. And I, I think that goes back to your original question about what's going on in this man's head. One of the big differences for me in this Trump 2.0 versus 1.0 is the idea that Donald Trump is really in legacy mode this time. He's writing his name on the map of the world. He's writing his name into history. He's literally physically putting his name on buildings all over Washington. And I think that is the context in which we should also probably look at why he chose to make a very risky decision that was presented to him in different versions in his first term. And he always said no to no.
- [41:12]
Charlie Sykes
I think that's clear. I mean, when you're actually coining money with your face on it and taking the olive branches off of the dime. I thought that was a parody at first. It turns out that's true. Well, in the few minutes we have left, I want to go back to something else that's going on here which is impossible not to. Impossible to ignore, which is the gamification of this war, the memeification of the war. It's part of this cognitive dissonance of the great gravity of the war and the unseriousness of people like Pete Hegseth or the White House communications staff, which is continuing to put out these videos, these game videos, which apparently they think are absolutely hilarious. And Brian Stelter posted the other day, the White House videos are the most visible expression of a broader phenomenon. A country that has built an entire ecosystem around the consumption of war as content. And you then posted shocked to find that a country which pretended that it was totally fine to hook our children on violent, murderous war games is now celebrating actual violent, murderous war in this way. And boy, that one made me stop because it realized that they're tapping into something. This cultural rotation was so often with Trump, it's also a pre existing condition. I mean, they are making it worse, they're exploiting it, they're spreading it. But we were sort of ripe for this. Talk to me a little bit about that. We actually have an entire culture built around making killing and bombing and destroying fun and entertaining. And now we're surprised that that has seeped into our politics.
- [42:52]
Susan Glasser
Exactly. I mean, you know, right. We look in the mirror. The problem is usually. And they wouldn't be making these horrific, really disturbing and disturbed videos unless they believed that there was an audience for them. And that's always the sort of push pull between Trump and Maga. Right. You know, it's a kind of the chicken or the egg question of the. The Trump era in many ways is who's leading whom. And you know, in Some cases like with, with his support for Russia and Putin, it's, it's Trump pulling the party clearly to a place that, that someone else might not have done so. But in, in this case, you know, or like with the vaccine denialism during COVID it's the opposite, right? Donald Trump wanted the COVID vaccine. He was the first in line to get it, you know, even though he wouldn't admit it and wanted to tout that as a great success until he got booed by his own fans in the, in the spring of 2021 when the vaccine came out after he had left office and realized oh, you know, Maga Bass is not in the same place that he is. I think the video game is unfortunately this sort of revolting case study in, in that, that there's an audience, a pre existing audience for this. It's part of the sort of caricature bro macho culture that Trumpism has always sought to exploit. From the very beginning. Saturday Night Live I think has done an indelible portrait of you kind of hopped up parody of a Secretary of Defense Pete. He, you know, getting out there shoot screaming at people to do push ups and you know, like, you know, going to rain down fire and fury. We're going to be lethal for lethal sake. I mean, you know, and that's the thing about it, right? It's content free. It's content free. And it is very much connected with the fact that Donald Trump so disdained the American public, he thinks they're a bunch of freaking idiots and that they don't need to know why he launched this war. And so all he's doing is celebrating the violence that is surrounded by war without in any way justifying why he's even doing it. And I think to me the most depressing thing is that they think that this works. That they think that there is an audience who might believe that that tells you that we're, if they're right, you know, America's in big, big trouble if, if those videos would land with anybody.
- [45:27]
Charlie Sykes
And I'm not reassured.
- [45:30]
Susan Glasser
You know, I gotta tell you, you know, as a mom of a son, you know, I, I recognized when my son was little it's always pushing against the tide. But I was like, no, you know, if you celebrate killing people, why would you want your child to do that? And you know, I remember having an argument with a, you know, friends, very liberal, you know, politically not, you know, not gun owners, not, you know, but they were like, well what's the harm? You know, it's just Little boys. And I, you know, I said, you know what, you know, why would you want your child to celebrate killing? That's my question.
- [46:08]
Charlie Sykes
That is still my question. And especially in the new world of virtual reality and AI, I mean, these things have an effect on the way brains are developed, how our brains are wired, what triggers the dopamine. This is not a one off issue. Okay, so in our Trumpology here, the other big question we always ask is do we take this seriously or literally? And probably should have gotten to this earlier. Over the weekend. We were talking about his Sunday night crash out where he is on social media. And again, not about the war in Iran, about other things. And he's ranting and raving about the Supreme Court, ranting and raving about federal judges and Jerome Powell, but he's also escalated his attacks on the media. Again, not a new thing, but clearly, when the President of the United States says that reporters who are reporting negative things about the war should be charged with treason, is that just him venting or is this a warning about how this president might actually use the power of the federal government to crush dissent and to crush an independent media? I mean, so this, you know, again, how do we balance this out? How serious, how literal do we take it?
- [47:31]
Susan Glasser
Yeah, I mean, the answer is you should take it seriously and literally. And there is ample evidence already that that again, people have been a little bit reluctant to confront, but that Donald Trump has taken the anti media rhetoric of his first term and enemies of the people, and he has begun implementing and trying to execute on a revenge and retribution agenda in his second term that is very much driven by a series of actions, not just words. And the erosion of First Amendment rights is not a theoretical thing. The fact that he's not yet succeeded in putting any of his enemies in jail simply for the thought crime of opposing him, he has pursued that. And including the case that you mentioned that he was very angry about over the weekend, involved the effort by the justice department and the U.S. attorney in D.C. to investigate, criminally investigate, the chairman of the Federal Reserve. And what was so notable about this opinion by Federal Judge Jeb Boasberg was that he used Donald Trump's words against him on social media, which again, I think was a very straightforward and incisive way of doing it. But a lot of people haven't done it. He said, basically, Donald Trump has no pretext for this except that he has a policy disagreement with the chairman of the Fed who he wants to lower interest rates, and that Donald Trump has ordered basically an investigation that has no basis or merit for even a reasonable question that would warrant even issuing subpoenas in the case. So, fascinatingly, this judge said not only can you not indict Jay Powell, you can't even proceed with his investigation. You can't issue subpoenas. Those subpoenas are not with merit. And he cited Donald Trump's words as the proof that they weren't meritorious. But what I see is that we already have a long list of people that Donald Trump has demanded be criminally investigated this time. That's very different than what he did in Trump 1.0.
- [49:56]
Charlie Sykes
Well, again, media outlets reporting the war in the wrong way should be brought up on charges for treason. Okay, this. You know, I did a rant in a previous livestream about the decision by the White House Correspondents association to invite Trump to their dinner.
- [50:13]
Susan Glasser
Absolutely.
- [50:14]
Charlie Sykes
Given the fact that he is now talking about bringing reporters up on charges of treason, I don't think that decision ever looked good in the first place. But if you were talking to one of the White House correspondents about whether or not Trump should still, whether they should all get dressed up in their tuxedos and treat it like it was sort of a normal social event, what do you, what is your take on that? Because I'm thoroughly disgusting.
- [50:41]
Susan Glasser
This is a great example to me, Charlie, of something that's actually very straightforward. It was always a mistake. And, you know, the man who threw the Associated Press, the backbone of our nonpartisan media all over the country and red America and blue America and all over the world, threw them out of the White House press pool because of not calling the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America. That man cannot be the headliner at a press freedom dinner, which is what?
- [51:16]
Charlie Sykes
The White House Correspondents Press Freedom Dinner. Right?
- [51:18]
Susan Glasser
Yeah.
- [51:19]
Charlie Sykes
A press freedom dinner that features Donald Trump.
- [51:22]
Susan Glasser
Yeah, No, I know, and it's great.
- [51:24]
Charlie Sykes
This is not normal. They're doing it because this is the normal way of doing it. This is the traditional way of doing it. Well, folks, you know, haven't you noticed that there's nothing normal about what's happening right now?
- [51:34]
Susan Glasser
Charlie, Donald Trump has sued ABC and cbs. He's currently suing the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, the AP he's still in litigation with. He threatens almost every day to jail and criminalize First Amendment protected activity of journalists and everyday American citizens. As we saw in Minnesota, for example, the lawsuit against the New York Times. I have a personal stake in this one. It's for $15 billion. And in addition to the Times itself, One of the name cleanups is my husband, Peter Baker. Needless to say, we don't have $15 billion to spare, nor does the New York Times. You can contribute to the GoFundMe, I guess. But look, this is unbelievable that you would.
- [52:31]
Charlie Sykes
Well, and the FCC threats over the weekend that they will take away the lights if you buck the administration. We are going to, we're going to basically put you off the air. Brendan Carr openly threatening to use the power of the government to retaliate against. So I mean the list of attacks on free speech in the independent press is awfully long and robust list and yet everybody's going to get all tuxed up and party with the guy. I'm not dropping an F bomb here because I dropped too many F bombs last time I talked about this. I'm very restrained. I want you to know that it
- [53:05]
Susan Glasser
is a decision that was really bad at the time and looks even worse now.
- [53:10]
Charlie Sykes
I totally agree with you. Susan Glasser, thank you so much for all your time today on a consequential week. But then when has it not been a consequential week? Thank you so much.
- [53:19]
Susan Glasser
Thank you Charlie.
- [53:20]
Charlie Sykes
And thank you all for tuning into this episode of to the Contrary podcast. I'm Charlie Sykes. We do this, we will continue to do this. We are not bending the knee, we are not shutting up. Because somebody needs to remind ourselves that we are not the crazy ones. Thank you.
- [53:51]
Susan Glasser
Lunch was great, but this traffic is awful.
- [53:54]
Unidentified Patient
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- [53:56]
Susan Glasser
Are you alright?
- [53:56]
Unidentified Patient
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