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- [00:00]
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- [00:31]
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- [01:03]
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- [01:35]
Charlie Sykes
I'm Charlie Sykes. Welcome back to the to the Contrary podcast. It feels a little bit like Groundhog Day. The President is saying that peace is at hand once again. Meanwhile, Elon Musk becomes the world's apparently the world's first trillionaire. What could possibly go wrong? And of course, this is the weekend of Donald Trump's birthday, with a big UFC match scheduled for the White House. Let's dive in, All right, and try to make sense of all of this. Is tanned, ready and rested. Professor Tom Nichols, welcome back from Vegas, by the way.
- [02:18]
Professor Tom Nichols
Thank you very much. I like Nixon. In fact, I am tanned, resting and ready. Yeah, it was pretty. It was pretty nice week.
- [02:26]
Charlie Sykes
Okay, so I know that what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, but you just told me a story about how you scored massive marital points in Vegas, which by the way, is countercultural when you think about what goes on in Vegas. So can you just tell me that story again because, well, you kind of raised the bar for the rest of us.
- [02:49]
Professor Tom Nichols
I was sitting in a bar with my wife and there was a couple next to us and I said something about this lovely lady or something to that effect, and the guy said he leaned over and he winked. And he said, wife or girlfriend? And I said both.
- [03:07]
Charlie Sykes
And without the pause, and without the
- [03:09]
Professor Tom Nichols
pause, I said both.
- [03:10]
Charlie Sykes
This is good, Tom, because this is
- [03:13]
Professor Tom Nichols
probably his wife kind of nudged him, like, how come you never say stuff like that to me? And so his little joke backfired. But we all had a good laugh and my wife definitely appreciated.
- [03:26]
Charlie Sykes
Well, for all, for, for all of us who are experienced something similar to that, at least we have, we have the bar. Okay, so today's podcast is one of those where, let's confess right off the bat, it may age badly. We are talking mid morning on Friday. Donald Trump has announced that there's a, there's a peace deal that's going to be signed on Sunday. Now he can't make it because it's his birthday.
- [03:52]
Babbel Advertiser
Okay?
- [03:52]
Charlie Sykes
I want, get your head around it. He can't make it because it's his birthday and he has that UFC thing that he has to go to.
- [03:59]
Babbel Advertiser
Okay?
- [04:00]
Charlie Sykes
When I was 6, I wouldn't go someplace because it was my birthday. Okay, so this is what Donald Trump is saying. But then he's also saying that the 14 point plan that was rolled out by the Iranian media, this is, this is fake news. It's not real. This is, you know, so I mean, where are we at, Tom, on all this? This, by my count, which I've kind of lost count, this is either the 39th or the 40th time that Donald Trump says that peace is at hand. And of course every other time turned out to be complete bullshit. But is this the one? Is this the one?
- [04:34]
Professor Tom Nichols
I, I don't know. You know, by the time, dear listeners, by the time you see or hear this, we could be bombing Iran again for all I know. I mean, you know, who, who knows if the deal. So let's start from where we were at like dawn this morning on Friday and say if this is the deal, it's, it's, it's an incredibly amazing deal for the Iranians. You know, it's the JCPOA on gigantic steroids. A 24 bit. How much did Obama give up front? Like 1.6 billion. And you and I were like, you know, what a chump, you know, handing over a billion and a half dollars. This includes a. If this is the deal, we have
- [05:24]
Charlie Sykes
to keep saying that this is what,
- [05:25]
Professor Tom Nichols
you know, we've reached the point where. Yeah, yeah, well, but I realize I'm digressing slightly, but we also have to add, well, the White House said some stuff, but we have to wait for confirmation from Tehran because, you know, The White House has become such an unreliable source of information. If this is the deal, it's a $24 upfront payment plus something like what, another 3,300 billion.
- [05:54]
Charlie Sykes
Yeah, let's rate. I want to raise you on that one. You have an immediate transfer of $24 billion. Then we also have to promise that we will create a. This is the part that I'm like, okay, this is the deal. $300 billion slush fund for reconstruction. Apparently that was Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner's idea. We'll just build hotels, we'll build casinos or something. $300 billion. A lifting of all of the sanctions and a promise basically not to bother Iran again. And Iran gets to control that. So this document that was floated out on Friday. Yeah, go on.
- [06:32]
Professor Tom Nichols
And calling off the Israelis in Lebanon.
- [06:35]
Charlie Sykes
Sure. Good luck with that.
- [06:36]
Professor Tom Nichols
Good luck with that.
- [06:38]
Charlie Sykes
This didn't sound to me like a memorandum of understanding. It was sort of like a hostage negotiation note or. This would be the instrument of complete surren. The United States. So who the hell knows where we are at?
- [06:52]
Professor Tom Nichols
Who the hell knows? And now skipping ahead to. I don't know. Look, I'm looking at my clock. Skipping ahead to 20 minutes ago. The President has now said fake news. That's not the deal. You know the. The terms. I'm reading the President's truth here. The. The terms that Iran leaked out have nothing to do with the terms that were agreed to in writing. What they said. I feel like you have to say this kind of in Trump's ways, but they said in their weak and pathetic statement on having a deal. And I'm doing. The accordion hands bears no relation to the truth. Very dishonorable people to deal with. With them, there's no such thing as dealing as good faith. Amazing. Also, they're totally rebuffed. Drone attack. I mean, it just goes on. None. So, you know.
- [07:44]
Charlie Sykes
So we're not gonna have a birthday five minutes ago.
- [07:46]
Professor Tom Nichols
Who knows?
- [07:46]
Charlie Sykes
So he doesn't get peace for his birthday. This is so unfair.
- [07:52]
Professor Tom Nichols
Or maybe he does. Or maybe it's something else. Maybe Lucy's gonna really hold the football this time. Who knows, you know? But there is.
- [08:02]
Charlie Sykes
He's bored with the war. He wants to get out of the war.
- [08:05]
Professor Tom Nichols
He will.
- [08:05]
Charlie Sykes
Basically, I think the Iranians have figured out that we can make him eat almost anything.
- [08:10]
Professor Tom Nichols
Anything.
- [08:11]
Charlie Sykes
He is bored with this. He doesn't want to do it anymore. He doesn't want to call it. He said it was over. By the way, the montages are splendid. Of all the times he said that the war was.
- [08:23]
Professor Tom Nichols
Was over.
- [08:23]
Charlie Sykes
I mean, even Fox News apparently is running these montages. And so here we had again now, yeah, let's go back from there.
- [08:30]
Professor Tom Nichols
But there is. There is a different. There is an international relations point to be made here, which is, this is why you don't negotiate in public.
- [08:38]
Charlie Sykes
Well, you don't blow.
- [08:39]
Professor Tom Nichols
This is why you don't do this.
- [08:41]
Charlie Sykes
The whole point of the madman theory is, hey, he might actually do it. But we're like, like several dozen Mad Men chapters in. And it's like when he put out that tweet on, on Thursday that he's gonna hit Iran very, very hard. He's gonna take Carg Island. My guess is that most people kind of rolled their eyes and said, hey, get back to me in a couple of hours. Because sure enough, once again, I mean, you know, stop me if you've heard this story before. You know, the, the threats, the fire and the fury, and this time I really mean it. No, I'm going to back off. At a certain point, people go, yeah, we've been to this play before. We know how it ends. And so I have to admit, by the way, I don't usually do this, but I was kind of pleased with my newsletter on Friday where I referred to Trump's war as Donald Trump's War of sitzkrieg. Remember the term sitzkrieg, not to be confused with blitzkrieg. It's a reference to a period during World War II, the phony war. Because basically we're in a sitzkrieg in Iran, right, where Donald Trump, despite all the all caps, threats and everything, basically nothing except for the wrecking of the world economy is going on, right? And it's like day after day, I think we're on day 106 of this now and pretty much sitting around from the God of war.
- [10:05]
Professor Tom Nichols
I'd like to say that I was prescient about this during the week. One of my colleagues sent me that, you know, fire and fury to we're going to invade Karg. We're going to do. And I said, this will be over by, by the end of the day. And my, the only place I was wrong is that I gave it too many hours because it was done by mid afternoon. Because there was also, you know, remember, Trump says these things, but people who live in the real world, who watch things like movements of troops, you know, the rhythm of work at the Pentagon, ship movements, there was no evidence that any of this was imminent. And had it been imminent, and this is, you know, few people called him out for this, but by the time they got to this criticism, it was over. If it, if it were imminent, if this were going, really going to happen, then maybe you shouldn't tell the enemy hours in advance. Well, that was that we're coming so that they can go to high alert and be ready and, you know, aim everything in the direction they know we're going to be. I mean, it's, it has reached a point of just lunacy and dangerous lunacy.
- [11:18]
Charlie Sykes
Okay, so from the tragic and ridiculous to the just simply. I don't know what you describe. This is the weekend of Donald Trump's birthday. 80th birthday, June 14th, they're having the UFC. And by the way, this is one of those. For those of us who live in the real world, honestly, every time I see the picture of that giant steel octagon on the White House South Lawn, I think this cannot be real life. Right. This has got to be. It's gotta be a trailer for, you know, idiocracy, too, right? That you're doing it. But it looks like it's going to be hot and buggy and steamy and maybe, you know, thunderstorms on Sunday. But real men will still fight in a steel octagon, even in the middle of a thunderstorm. Right?
- [12:05]
Professor Tom Nichols
Of course they're going to. Right, because to do anything less would be. Would be unmanly. You know, this is, you know, look, I, I don't want to. Well, I guess I will. You know, I was going to say I don't want to criticize anybody else's preferred form of entertainment, but then what am I saying? I do that all the time. Look, this is. This is trashy stuff. I mean, this isn't like, you know, a bunch of baseball all stars having a playing catch on the South Lawn. And, you know, in a nod to America's pastime or something, this is, you know, this is going to be a really trashy business. And, you know, it's a huge scar on the face of Washington right now. The other day, I was saying to somebody that when Trump first came to office, you could at least look at Washington. You know, when you fly in and you get that kind of Southern approach over Washington and you say, you know, there's a lot of bad people doing a lot of bad stuff and screwing up a lot of things down there. But it's still. There is. It's a reminder of the stately grandeur of the greatest, you know, cap capital of a democracy in world history. What Trump is Doing is he's just kind of gouging out scars all over the place, you know, trashing it up, because that's how he wants to leave his mark. He. This is.
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BetterHelp Advertiser
He.
- [13:34]
Professor Tom Nichols
He's even talked about leaving up the UFC thing, you know, and for what? As a monument to his, you know, to his aesthetic, to his creepy. Wait, you know, sort of.
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Charlie Sykes
He's gonna leave it up.
- [13:47]
OrderlyMeds Advertiser
He.
- [13:47]
Grainger Advertiser
There.
- [13:47]
Professor Tom Nichols
There was some talk. He. He said it, well, maybe I'll leave it up for a little while, you know.
- [13:52]
Charlie Sykes
Well. Oh, God. Well, just when you think it can't get worse. I mean, this is part of the problem of, you know, when you see things, you think it's gotta. Can actually get worse. It's not just the White House that he's in shittifying, you know, that they're having the weigh in for the fighters at the Lincoln Memorial. They're closing the Lincoln Memorial for this. And apparently the walkout, when they walk out, is going to be the walkout of the Oval Office. You wanted to just show that you have no, well, you know, whatever, no
- [14:25]
Professor Tom Nichols
class, no sense of history, nothing, and that, you know, then, look, I'll just say I would object to this if they were doing it with football players or boxers or, you know, anybody else. These are. These are national insofar as we have a national civic religion. These are our temples. The Jefferson, the Lincoln, the Washington. Yeah, you don't turn. You don't turn these into. You know, you mentioned Vegas at the top of the show. Charlie and I. Part of the thing I love about Vegas is that it's kitschy. I mean, look, Vegas is. It's kitschy. I've been there. I went there with my colleague McKay. Coppins wrote about us going together, and I took him and I was pointing at things and I said, it's good that there's a place called the Heart Attack Grill. It's silly, it's terrible, but it belongs in Vegas. It does not belong on the South Lawn of the White House. It doesn't belong in front of the monument to a slain president who kept the union together. This is embarrassing. And it's. And it's a denigration of everything that we hold dear, because it turns. It's all just into a spectacle for Donald Trump.
- [15:34]
Charlie Sykes
Well, and of course, imagine the split screen if, in fact, there is this peace signing, which I am skeptical about in Europe, but Donald Trump can't go because he's too busy going to the UFC fight. Now, I know this feels like kind of a cheap shot But. So he has time for that. But he didn't have time to go to Don jr's wedding. I'm. I'm sorry. I know that that's. You know, Jimmy Kimmel keeps bringing that up, but there's just some weird shit here going. I mean.
- [16:01]
Professor Tom Nichols
I mean, he doesn't. Everything is about him. If it's not. Look, you know, why would you go to your son's wedding that's not about you? But I think there's one other thing we could say about the signing in Europe. If it happens. Charlie. Of course. If this deal is anything like the thing, by the way, the Iranians have just released a draft and they've said, well, this is. You know, we haven't agreed to this either. Well, okay, fine. But if the deal is anything like this draft, of course he's gonna send Vance to sign it. He's not gonna be caught dead signing that one. He's gonna make Vance eat that shit sandwich.
- [16:38]
Charlie Sykes
There are some things that break through, and I think the 300 million, the $300 billion slush fund, the $24 billion payoff, all of that stuff, people can. People will get that. Okay, so let's. Let's move on to things that are, in fact, maybe even worse long term. I always think that, you know, we're focused on this thing. This is the greatest tragedy or the greatest threat that we face when it may be, you know, history is going to look back and say, what were you guys even talking about when AI was coming down the road? So, speaking of in that area, Elon Musk becomes the world's first trillionaire. Now, this is the Space X ipo, which everybody thought was going to be big. There are a lot of experts who say that, you know, this may be an overvalue. What really strikes me about this is, number one, you know, we have a trillionaire. It happens to be Elon Musk, who is the world's richest bigot and overt racist, who is becoming more unhinged and more extreme, and yet there are no consequences for his behavior. So, you know, somebody writing in the Guardian said, you know, this is the. Not just the age of trillionaires, it's the age of impunity, where these trillionaires will act with impunity and are creating an oligarchy that is not irrelevant. We're not talking about, like, the fate of democracy over here and then what's happening in the market over here. Elon Musk will now have more power than many nation states. So your thought about this because we had this debate about millionaires and billionaires. Now we have trillionaires who have made it very clear they are prepared to use their wealth and their power to topple governments, to influence public opinion, to shape the public debate and to inshidify the public square. To use that word again.
- [18:31]
Professor Tom Nichols
Well, I'm going to steal a line that Bill Kristol used a few years back that these people are triggering my inner socialist. I always prided myself on being something of a conservative libertarian about economic issues, which is, if you want to get rich, you build a better mousetrap. God bless you. You know, when back in the day when people were complaining about Bill Gates being one of the richest people, I would say, listen, you can be one of the richest people in the world too. If you develop the operating system that all computers, you know, are running on. If you, if you develop something that's really incredibly useful and people pay you for it, you know, there's not a lot of room to say, well, you shouldn't really have that money. But I think at some point we start talking about not capitalism, but some sort of deformed or corrupted form of capitalism where you're making money simply because you already have money to say, well, I'm going to be incredibly rich because of this IPO on a company that last year lost something like $5 billion because of the way that all of these funds trigger to buy this stuff. And I also think that, yeah, there is, at some point human beings are not capable. There's a certain level of wealth beyond which human beings are simply not capable of functioning. I mean, you've seen it turn people from maybe bad people into worse or ordinary people, into terrible people. But none of these people have seemed to have been improved by this wealth. Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk. And I think there becomes a compelling public interest to say, listen, the example I always use is the Greeks building the Parthenon, that at some point the treasury has accumulated so much money that you just have to put this money back into circulation, right? You have to do a huge public work. You build the Acropolis and you say, okay, fine, it's not doing us any good to just sit on piles of gold, you know, here in Attica. And, and I think that, that, I don't think that we should live in a world where there are trillionaires. I mean, maybe this. But I can already hear our former colleague saying, aha. We always knew that you were a secret Marxist. Well, if, if saying that you should be able to get as rich as you want to on your own talents should be. Should also have a limit placed on it by your ability to manipulate things like zero interest loans and government payments and government investments and mechanisms within the stock market into a trillionaire simply by drawing, you know, exchanging oxygen for carbon dioxide, then yeah, okay, fine, I'm a Marxist. If that's what. If that's what being a Marxist is, guilty as charged, comrades.
- [21:21]
Charlie Sykes
But see, no, I see. I think these categories don't necessarily apply anymore because this is a corruption of certainly the function of the free market. But also, look, the entire history of the west, including the conservative west, is this suspicion of the concentration of power, the need to preserve the rule of law, constitutionalism, democracy. The fact is that this kind of concentration of power is a threat to the rule of law. It is a threat to constitutionalism. It is certainly not what the founders thought of in terms of the distribution of wealth. Look, it's one thing to say you want a free market operating what I think is. And no. Okay, so, you know, being a trillionaire is going to distort his personality beyond his already distorted personality. That doesn't bother me that much. It is this rise of the oligarchy and it is the distortion of the marketplace. Because I'm guessing that the average American, if you asked him, you know, do the rules apply? Does you know, is the market free or is it ruled by your favor and for the benefit of the rich and the super rich and the mega super rich? You know, do the same opportunities apply? And also, what are the implications for constitutionalism, the rule of law and democracy, when you have this much power concentrated in this few hands? And I think that leaving aside liberal, conservative, Marxist and everything, you know, this is something that I think that people have been talking about for thousands of years, going back to the Greeks and the Romans, that when you have this arrogant oligarchy that operates with impunity, then.
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Professor Tom Nichols
But I want to push back, though, Charlie.
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Charlie Sykes
The people are in trouble. And that this would happen during an age of quote, unquote, populism.
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Professor Tom Nichols
Oh, no, populism. Populism is one of the greatest cons that certain circles of elites have ever run on the public. I mean, populism, especially in our modern era, populism is almost entirely a creation of elites, which I think is a great irony. But I want to push back on you about one thing because I agree with you. You know, I don't mean to be a moralist, right? It's like, well, great wealth turns you, makes you decadent and stupid. Well, fine, that's between you and God. But it becomes everybody's problem if it makes you decadent and stupid and mildly evil, and then you cannot be restrained.
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Babbel Advertiser
Or.
- [23:57]
Professor Tom Nichols
Or there is no accountability, you know, to say, look, I'm a gazillionaire. Fine. Well, I own a newspaper, and I'm going to write about, you know, what a shit you are. Fine, I'll buy your newspaper and all the three newspapers around it, and maybe I'll just buy all the property in your city and I'll buy all your, you know, I'll buy your. Your local sports team, and I'll buy, you know, and I can just buy everything. And at some point, there is no accountability because everybody work. It's a company working for the same guy. That's what I worry about is the dual. Because you're right to point out that this creates a dangerous oligarchy. I think, I think it's also, you know, if it weren't so scary, it would be funny that it creates a dangerous oligarchy of disgruntled nerds. Right? I mean, it's like we're being run by gazillionaires who clearly, I mean, when you think about the story behind Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg creating Facebook because a bunch of, you know, frustrated guys talking about ugly girls that date them, I mean, you know, it's terrifying now that these guys are running, you know, giant chunks of the economy, but again, but that's between them and their conscience and the Almighty. When they reach that level of wealth and, and corruption or personal decadence, and then there's nothing we can do to restrain their worst impulses, then we are. Then we are in trouble. Then we're not a democracy, and then we're not a government of laws because you can simply buy out the government and its mechanisms, including the press, including the media, you know. Exactly.
- [25:37]
Jake Stauch
Right.
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Professor Tom Nichols
I mean, you know, we're. We're cnn, cbs, the Washington Post. You know, when you can simply say, huh, I don't like the way these people write about. I've never understood this. I know you and I have talked about this before, that when Trump gets mad at Bezos. I've never understood why Bezos didn't pick up the phone and say, not only do I have more money than you, not only am I younger, and I will be here long after you're gone, but I own a newspaper. And I don't just buy ink by the barrel, I buy it by the. The. The container ship, you know, at a Time. Instead it was, nope, okay, fine. Sorry. Didn't mean to offend you. And we're seeing the same thing now with the fall of CBS in 60 Minutes. And when it gets to that point, then I think you do have a public interest to step in and say, listen, nobody should have this much money and that much power concentrated in so few hands.
- [26:30]
Charlie Sykes
Well, I mean, let me make. I think I can make three points here. I had a really interesting conversation with Justin Wolfers, the Economist, where he was saying, do we really need billionaires? And his point was, just imagine having $100 million. That if you had $100 million, is there anything you can't buy? Is there anything you can't do? So beyond $100 million, what do you have to buy? You can have as many houses as you want. You can have as many girlfriends as you want, as many cars as you want. You can have butlers, and they can have butlers. $100 million is going to satisfy almost anybody. So beyond $100 million, what can you buy? And the answer is power. And so you go from a billion to a trillion. And by the way, let me just read you something from the Guardian just to understand this, because it's very hard to wrap our heads around how much money a billion is, let alone a trillion. So it's worth pausing to just get the obscenity in context. We're talking 12 zeros. $1 million million dollars. If you spend $1 million every single day, it would take you more than 2,700 years to spend a trillion dollars. Another way of looking at it, if you are worth a trillion dollars, as Elon Musk apparently is, then $1,000,000 is 0.0001% or 1,10,000 of 1% of your net worth. The median net worth in the United states is about $192,000. So in other words, $1 million. $1 million has the same value to a trillionaire as $0.19 has to the median net worth American. To a trillionaire, $100 million feels like about $19. To the median American about the cost of a large pizza. So Elon Musk says, I can spend, what, $500 million electing whoever I want, any office I want. I won't even notice that. That's number one. Number two, you mentioned the sort of the nature of these spoiled brat narcissists, nerdy billionaires and trillionaires. You notice what we're not seeing? We're not seeing an Elon Musk hospital in every city in America. We are not Seeing the Jeff Bezos libraries, we are not seeing the Mark Zuckerberg operas, ballets, schools, nursing schools, any of those things. There was a time when the robber barons thought, hey, you know what, we ought to improve our image a little bit by giving some of it back into the world. We are not seeing that, that anymore.
- [29:05]
Professor Tom Nichols
You read my mind. Yeah, you read my mind, Charlie, because the word that went through my head while you're talking was robber barons. And you know, these are people who said, you know, not, let's be a little bit fair to, you know, somebody like Andrew Carnegie to say it wasn't just to keep the, the peasants with the pitchforks and the torches off his lawn. There was some sense of, you know, I should really build something here. I've gotten all this wealth, I should leave something behind. I should, there should be some kind of legacy. And as you said, you know, they can do right and do good, they can fulfill their self interest and do good at the same time. So they're going to build a library, they're going to endow a university and by the way, endow university and then leave it alone. Yes, that's, you know, like, just say here, here's a, you know, back when I began in the think tank world, when I was a, you know, we're talking 40 odd years ago, those were still times when people would donate to think tanks and say, here, here's a gazillion dollars. Just go, go think, go go figure stuff out, write books, reports, tell us what you're, Obviously you have to tell us what you're doing with your money. But they weren't trying to buy something, right? We're trying to buy a product that then would benefit them personally. The robber barons would endow, like you said, theaters, libraries, cultural institutions, hospitals. These guys don't think about that at all. They're, you know, Gates now to, to, to some extent, give them credit. There is a Gates Foundation. I mean me, if, if you gave me a hundred billion dollars, if you give me a hundred million dollars, first thing I think of is, well, I need to open a philanthropic. I can't, there's only so many yachts I can ride on at once, right? I mean, you know, I can't conceive of having $100 million. I can conceive of sitting here and saying, where can this money do the most good? Who's, you know, whose life can be made better? Musk seems to think in terms of what judge can I buy? You know, these are the kind of
- [31:03]
Charlie Sykes
guys, can I Birth?
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Professor Tom Nichols
Yeah. How many babies can I make? And then when you get into trouble, say, I'll give you a million dollars to go away. No, that's not enough. About 10 million. How about 100 million? How about 200 million? Because to them, that's cow. That's change in the couch cushions, as you just pointed out. You know, they. It doesn't mean anything. And when you are able to make stuff just go away with money, you are no longer an accountable member of society. You are basically, you are a little sovereign nation living within a democracy and bending its rules so that you can do anything you want. And that is not a healthy society.
- [31:42]
Charlie Sykes
No. And particularly, we don't need to speculate about some of the damage that Elon Musk can. Can do. Ed Luce from the Financial Times wrote a piece about Elon Musk saying, you know, he really is a Bond villain. And he talks about what Elon Musk is doing right now in Great Britain. I know people, you know, have lost track of this, but it is striking to me that, you know, Elon Musk has gone on these really vile, racist, anti Semitic screeds, and there are no consequences anymore. There was a time not that long ago, and I'm not talking about cancel culture, political correctness, where if you lost your mind in that particular way or you went into those dark circles, you know, those dark recesses, that there would be a pushback, that people wouldn't want to do business with you, people would regard you as a pariah. There's no price to be paid for that. And there was, you know, a couple of tragic murders in Britain, and Elon Musk is actively fomenting some of the violence that is going on. It is incredibly ugly. So this is the man who is not just the world's richest man, but is redefining what wealth and power looks like. Okay, let's switch gears a little bit.
- [32:51]
Professor Tom Nichols
I just wanted to riff for one minute on your notion that they're Bond villains. They would be, I mean, Musk and Thiel and the rest of these guys if they were more disciplined and less weird. You know, when I think about Bond villains, you think of somebody like Hugo Drax, you know, disciplined, you know, men of industry who are going to build space stations so they can destroy Earth. You know, I think it's a cautionary tale to think of them as Bond villains, to say, how much worse would they be if they weren't so weird and so unfocused and they are launching these things.
- [33:28]
Charlie Sykes
So, you know, I was thinking about this that in popular culture. I'm trying to think of the. In what movie or what part of popular culture is the narcissistic billionaire trillionaire not portrayed as the villain? The only one that I can think of is Iron Man. And trust me, Elon Musk is not Iron Man.
- [33:47]
Professor Tom Nichols
He is not Tony Stark.
- [33:48]
Charlie Sykes
He is not Tony.
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- [35:19]
Charlie Sykes
Speaking of somebody else who is not Tony Stark, let's talk about Pete Hegseth. Because you I'm a little obsessed with Pete Hegseth. Like, you know, every time I see him it's like can this guy really be this bad? I mean, is he really, really this bad? You know, is everybody else not seeing how really inappropriate this guy is? You had a piece in the Atlantic. Pete Hegseth, Cornball in Chief. The Secretary of Defense is a fountain of corny performances and rhetoric. I thought cornball was a very kind word that you used there because Pete Hegseth talk about your kind of your performative. I don't know how to even describe how absurd this man is, but the damage he's doing is incredible. So talk to me about. I understand that Pete Hegseth is not happy. They're not, not happy with your piece.
- [36:08]
Professor Tom Nichols
No. Hexa Hex fans are, you know. Yeah, they're, they're, let's just say they're, they're, they're mildly upset. But, you know, it's, it's funny because the, as you just pointed out, the criticism I'm getting from the other direction is cornball was, I was being Tacoma. Cornball was too, too nice. You know, my. Although my, my brother sent me a message this morning. Yeah, I just read your piece. And he said, he said, geez, you know, this will kind of go on after the guy, like. And then he said. But then I read the rest of the piece, and I realized that you probably took it a little easy on him because I think people don't realize, you know, most people aren't sitting through his press conferences. I genuinely believe he has press conferences at 8 in the morning so that no one will see them. But, you know, when you kind of take the totality of this and you see the stuff he says, you know, the Secretary of Defense talking about, you know, lethality, not legality, yo, you know, I mean, he does. And so I, I thought it was important to point out that it damages the country to have a secretary of Defense who is a complete cornball. The Sec def should be somebody that other nations look at and say, that guy worries us. This is a guy who knows what he's doing. Presidents are elected. They come and go. This guy, I want to see a guy. I admit it. You know, I, I think these gray eminences, even Rumsfeld, who I think is one of the worst secretaries of defense in history, you know, come to come out there and say, here's what's going on. You know, you better take me seriously because I'm kind of a scary guy. Hegseth comes out and says, hey, watch me do 39 reps, you know, with the guys at Gitmo. And, you know, it's, it's, it's corny, it's unserious, it projects on seriousness to the country and to the world. And also, it raises the question, while he's doing all this cornball stuff, don't you have a job? Like, shouldn't you be at the Pentagon doing things instead of, I mean, some of those things that he said. And I made it a point to, to bring up the business about legality, not lethality. You know, he practiced that.
- [38:29]
Charlie Sykes
Legality. Yeah.
- [38:31]
Professor Tom Nichols
Somebody. Somebody.
- [38:32]
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- [38:33]
Professor Tom Nichols
Lethality. Maximum lethality, not tepid legality. Somebody workshop that you spent government Time writing this and practicing it so that you could drop this so bad.
- [38:45]
Charlie Sykes
So. No, you mentioned that. Because, you know, when I was reading through his D Day speech, where he lashes out at the Allies and everything and then talks about and, you know, invading the beaches of Europe now, or, you know, these terrible immigrants, and I'm thinking, wait, in your analogy, you're equating, you know, the Allies landing on Omaha beach with these migrants. You really intend to do that? Made me think that he writes this stuff himself or somebody. Writers are dumb. Yes, exactly.
- [39:17]
Professor Tom Nichols
With a baby. Dumb. With a b.
- [39:20]
Charlie Sykes
Not many people know that. That the word.
- [39:22]
Professor Tom Nichols
Not many people. I didn't know that. I. I have a doctorate. I didn't know that until last week. But you know, that it really was a. It was a remote, like, let's be dramatic and let's talk about these immigrants washing up on shore, and we're defending the beaches. If you're defending the beaches, you're the Wehrmacht. You're the bad guys.
- [39:41]
Charlie Sykes
Yes.
- [39:42]
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- [39:43]
Professor Tom Nichols
You know, nobody. There was nobody in that room that kind of raised their hand, said, secretary, can. Can we just think about this for a moment? But that's not the. I mean, everything about him screams. And this is. I mean, obviously, I had. I had a little fun with the guy writing about how corn. And by the way, I'll tell you, the genesis of this article is I was watching him with a colleague, and we're just shaking our heads, and I said, he's so. It's so. And we kept coming with it. Embarrassing. And I said, he's just corny. And one of my friends went, that is the word. And I said, I just gotta write this up. And so I had some fun with it. But I also really was trying to make a serious point.
- [40:24]
Charlie Sykes
That's me.
- [40:25]
Professor Tom Nichols
What's that?
- [40:26]
Charlie Sykes
I would go with assholey, but that's me.
- [40:29]
Professor Tom Nichols
Listen, I already dropped that one on J advance. There's only so many times I can go to that. Well, but I wanted to make a serious point that when you walk out on stage trying to, you know, move your shoulders in these two tight suits. I love the guy online, by the way, who critiques men's fashion, points out that all these suits are, you know, meant to be flattering. And they look. They just look terrible with your little American, you know, hanky and, you know, pointing into the camera and doing that, you know, that used car salesman. Hey, brother, you know, buy one of these Trump ships today. It. It really damages the country. It damages the. The sense that there is somebody Responsible. Because, you know, one thing presidents do, if you look at through history, if you care to study history, as many of these people don't, presidents can do things, and then secretaries of defense kind of lurk behind them and say, you know, presidents say stuff, but don't. I'm actually making sure that all the nukes work and the tanks are gassed up. And, you know, you know, presidents come and go, but the Pentagon is a. Is always here. This is not hexa. Is basically like looking into the camera and speaking to Trump and saying, how am I doing? How am I doing? I'm doing great. Right?
- [41:47]
Charlie Sykes
Literally all he does, like a little boy.
- [41:49]
Professor Tom Nichols
And, you know, the problem is when he does that, it's not just Trump watching television. It's the. It's the Russian Ministry of Defense, the Chinese mod, the Iranians, you know, every bad guy in the world, and then all of our friends saying, these are the guys that we're, you know, gonna do joint exercises with. And, you know, this is the guy that we have to negotiate with about bases and weapons.
- [42:14]
Charlie Sykes
The fact that Pope has to call him out for invoking God, you know, the other thing is that, you know, yeah, he's corny, but also, I mean, the damage he's doing. You know, you talked about the lethality, not legality, his pension for war crimes, you know, downplaying the significance of war crimes. The fact that we continue to. It certainly feels like it commit war crimes, you know, targeting, you know, drinking water facilities in Iran. We've almost become numb to all of that.
- [42:42]
Professor Tom Nichols
And, yeah, we should just execute everybody at Gitmo.
- [42:45]
Charlie Sykes
Well, and also, what, yeah, what, what,
- [42:50]
Professor Tom Nichols
you know, or, or. Or blowing up boats that may or may not have had innocent people on them. That's, you know, that's how it goes.
- [42:58]
Charlie Sykes
We still don't know. I mean, they've never. I would think that at some point they would try to justify or, you know, the kinds or what's going on within the Pentagon. There have been reports recently about, you know, how he's destroying them around the Pentagon, firing really senior, really respected generals for no reasons. I mean, his not no reason.
- [43:18]
Professor Tom Nichols
He's afraid of them.
- [43:20]
Charlie Sykes
Well, I mean, it feels like, you know, I don't know. He's, you know, is Barry Weiss looking at Pete Hegseth and saying, I would like to have his personnel approach to getting rid of people without telling people why. So it is incredibly damaging. Okay. And so in the time that we have, people should read this piece on Pete Hegseth, because if you can't laugh at this guy. I don't know what would. And like every day, every week I'm thinking, should we talk about Pete Hegseth some more? Should we talk about Mark Wayne Mullen talking about, you know, shutting down the blue state airports from international travel? Yeah, that's not a.
- [43:57]
Professor Tom Nichols
You saw my reaction to that, which was do it.
- [44:01]
Charlie Sykes
Yes. See what happens there?
- [44:02]
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- [44:04]
Charlie Sykes
And honestly, you know, I struggle to think that. Okay, this is a parody, right? The latest video of RFK Jr. Catching snakes, his obsession with catching snakes, and one hopes that he's not doing experiments on them. But it's like every member of the Cabinet has something, some just weird ass thing going on here. And it's like, what are we talking about? Okay, so let's switch gears here because I know that listeners of this program and readers of yours hate this next question. Like, are Democrats about to blow it in Maine with Graham? I have written about this and I have to say the reason I introduced it that way is I still have the experience of, you know, the MAGA blowback. How dare you, you know, raise these questions about it. And I'm sorry, I know people hate this phrase, the blue maga, like, shut up about Graham Platner. You need to go along with Graham Platner. You need to accept everything. It doesn't matter what he does because we're not electing a pastor in Maine. So give me your take on all of that because the stakes seem so incredibly high for control of the Senate and Democrats seem to be going down the lesser of two evils road that you and I have seen in the past. Your thoughts, Mr. Nichols?
- [45:21]
Professor Tom Nichols
I was hoping, I mean, there was no way he was going to lose that primary. But you and I both know, first of all, let's look at this as cold eyed former Republicans who know how these things are going to work. The Republicans are going to drift, rip oppo out, suck more Democrats into supporting him, drop another oppo bomb, suck more Democrats into having to run to his defense and by October, you know, drop one more. Just blast that will, you know, I mean, look, Susan Collins is a survivor. She has been counted out before. She never was topping Sarah Gideon in any poll until the last minute and then she beat her by like five points. So just the idea that somehow Platner is going to cruise through this giving Bernie Sanders like speeches in between apologies for having been a kind of creepy trust fund guy who went into the military to seek adventure, that's not going to fly. So whether you like Grant Platner or not. He has so much baggage that the Democrats in Maine have probably handed this seat back to, to Susan Collins. Now, the question is, should you try to stop that? Should you say, no, we've got to defend Graham Platner Personally, I don't, you know, I had a lot of arguments with good friends about this. I don't, I don't want to say who they are. Okay, Steve Hayes, you were right. Steve and I had a long, over many martinis, butted heads over this. And I think, you know, at some point someone asked me on lend, they said, yeah, but aren't you a kind of like Democrat? You know, the only way to beat Trump is Democrats, no matter who they are. And I said, yes, but I didn't expect you to challenge me with a candidate who had a Totenkopf on his chest for 18 years. You know, I mean, there are, there has to be a floor somewhere. Now, with that said, you know, is that is putting this guy who is not qualified to be a senator, you know, he's as qualified as John Fetterman or the guy he's most compared to or a lot of other, you know, I mean, he's just not, he doesn't have the background, he's not qualified. He doesn't have the right temperament. He carries all this baggage. Is that better than letting Donald Trump have a one vote margin in the Senate? And I, I used to say, I used to say, no, he, you have to take the Senate away from Donald Trump no matter what. I'm not sure that the amount of moral damage that you do to yourself by supporting Graham Platner is worth that one vote margin. Especially because, going back to putting my kind of realist goggles on here, especially because the Democrats are going to control the House.
- [48:10]
Charlie Sykes
Okay, so there's a couple of things there. Number one, this, you know, going back to 2023, 2024, you know, this reminds me of, of the argument that we had about Joe Biden, which was, and I kept saying, look, the Prime Directive here is not reelecting Joe Biden. This is not about Joe Biden. The Prime Directive is keeping Donald Trump out of power. That should be the focus. No individual is more important than that. So I think the Prime Directive is taking the Senate away from Donald Trump. Does Graham Platner make that more likely or less likely? I think the answer is less likely. To your question about the moral price of Graham Platner, people are saying, well, based on these stories, I'm still gonna vote for him. And they will, despite all that, but you don't know what the moral price is going to be. And we've seen this with Trumpism. I think it's really important to go back to your point. Republicans have made it clear we have a lot more. We have more oppo Rezu, but we're not going to drop it now until this thing is signed and sealed and he's on the ballot. We don't want you to be able to Biden him. They actually one of these top Republican strategists told this to a reporter in Washington, D.C. look, you know, we're kind of afraid that if we drop too much of this oppo research early, you will swap them out like you did with Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. So we don't want you to do this. So the question is, you know, people may think, okay, we're going with lesser of two evils. I'm willing to take, you know, the, you know, he's, you know, you know, treated women badly, he said these terrible things about rape, but I'm willing to swallow this. Well, how much more are you willing to swallow? Because you're gonna find out between now and October. And I also think that in a way I mentioned Blue maga, this blowback. You know, this is a debate that people need to have. You know, do you, you know, do you uphold principle by abandoning principle? You may do that on occasion.
- [50:05]
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- [50:06]
Charlie Sykes
Winston Churchill was willing to, you know, make these alliances, but understand what you're doing and have a discussion about it and go in with clear eyes. Do not try to shout down all of the critics who are raising warnings about this. This is what happened in the Republican Party. Don't even talk about this. And so each step, well, I've accepted this. I have to accept this. I have to accept this.
- [50:30]
Professor Tom Nichols
Not accepted. Defended. Defended, Charlie. Not accepted. That's the problem. And you know, I could, look, I could, I could, if there, if there isn't much worse about him or if he manages over the next three or four months to say, listen, I, I get it, I was a bad guy, you know, but I'm not that guy anymore. Fine. To say this is not the ideal candidate. He's really flawed. Nobody I would ever put in the Senate in a million years, but under these circumstances, this bad guy is, but accepting that, accepting, as you said, clear eyed to say, this is just a, this is, this is an in extremist existential situation. And I'm just going to kind of swallow that. What's, what's killing me are the people saying oh, he's speaking to the real concerns. And he's a, you know, fine man. And, you know, all these hussies that are talking shit about him. And, you know, it's like, don't do this. You know, this is how Republicans lost their souls, by saying, I only have to double down once. Well, I gotta double down one more time now. I gotta triple, quadruple, until finally you're out there actively defending Donald Trump. You know, you turn into somebody like Doug Burgum or something. But the worst of all worlds, Charlie, and you, this is what you're warning against. You sell your soul for pennies and you lose the seat anyway.
- [51:52]
Charlie Sykes
Right? That's certainly possible. And for people who are. Spent the last 10 years saying, well, how can Republicans. Why would Republicans go along with Donald Trump knowing everything about his character? Why would they support someone like Ken Patchy? Which I think is a legitimate question. I mean, it is shocking. It ought to be shocking. But I think maybe people can understand it now that if you make every single election this existential choice, that they. Flight 93 election, I, you know, I don't care if XYZ has raped women. I don't care if he was once a Nazi. I don't care any of those things. I don't care if he was feeding cocaine to baby seals. It's so important for us to beat xyz. I'm willing to accept that this is what Republicans went through. This is how they rationalize it, that the other side is so malignant. Now, the problem in Maine, and there's several problems. First of all, this should have been an easy pickup for Democrats because Democrats have been winning even though Susan Collins. Collins is a survivor, but Susan Collins is a survivor. And her voting record, I mean, she's not Josh Hawley. She's not Ted Cruz. She did vote to remove Donald Trump in the impeachment. I mean, so she's got that. She's got enough for centrists to go, ah, you know, maybe I just can't swallow this now. Can I read you something, though? And this is a little bit unfair because this is one guy on social media. But Tara Palmeri, you're familiar with her work. She's done a lot of stuff on the Epstein file. She actually dipped her toes into asking questions about Graham Platner. I mean, when you spend time with the Epstein victims, you begin to become a little sensitive about people who say, you know, these women are lying, or we care about some women, but not other women. So she asked some questions about Graham Platner, this gentleman responded. She was on my show. She says, this guy named Rip Holmes, maybe his real name, I don't know. Ms. Pelmari, your Instagram with Charlie Sykes criticizing Graham Platner tells me now this is all in caps. You are part of the conspiracy to commit genocide of some 700,000 innocent children in Gaza. You are as much of a danger to children as Jeffrey Epstein. Why would anyone ever follow you after realizing you were aiding and abetting the, the genocide? You are a monster. Okay, this is. Okay, people need to calm down because if you're going to go along with Grand Platinum, do so understanding that there are some political downsides which you may experience in November, but also some moral downsides. And that's, I guess that's kind of my main point.
- [54:35]
Professor Tom Nichols
You're not gonna, you're not gonna reason with people who think Biden was supporting a genocide in Gaza. I have crossed, you know, crossed paths with those people on social media many times. They're just bonkers and they're beyond rational discussion. And I, I think we, it's important to stipulate that whatever my, you know, I think I have a lot of thoughts about Graham Platner. I do not think he's a Nazi. I don't, I just don't. And I don't think he's great. He's Ken Paxton, you know, a man with a demonstrated record of corruption and, you know, really horrible views. I think he's, you know, to me, from a distance, I mean, he's up in Maine, I'm in Rhode Island. But to, from a distance, he seems kind of like a, you know, spoiled brat who kind of went on, you know, went from prep school to the Marines and sort of, you know, bumbled his way through life saying and posting a lot of stupid things and getting ill advised tattoos. And now the worst thing about it, and this is, this kind of goes back to the way I felt about Kavanaugh. You know, it's not what he did in the past, although that's, that's a problem. It's. As a grown man, his reaction to it now is to lie and attack and punch. And, you know, it's like this is just not the temperament that you'd want to see in a senator. But your advice to people, I think it really is well taken. Go in clear eyed. Understanding the political risk and the moral price. Now you can argue that the political risk and the moral price are worth paying because of the existential threat, not of Susan Collins, but of Donald Trump's control of the United States Senate and his. And the possibility that he will put many more judges on the bench like Eileen Cannon and others. Okay. You know, politics and ugly business. We're grown ups. There's a part of me, I still don't know what I think about this. I wish people listen to David, my friend David Frum who said, cut Platner loose, do it now, stop the bleeding. That's not going to happen. But at least go into it like adults instead of self deluding children to say that, because this is my guy, therefore he is a good guy and great. No, he is the ally you're stuck with for now. Like your Churchill reference. And I think your point about the Republicans is so well taken. They went from, I can remember talking to people in 2015, 2016, saying, Listen, I'm gonna vote for Trump. I hate Donald Trump. He's a ghastly human being. But if that keeps Hillary Clinton from being in the White House, this is all, this is what I'm left with. And I hate it. Those, some of those same people eight years later are like Donald Trump. You know, they're like, it's like the Manchurian Candidate. He's the kindest, most honorable, gentlest man I've ever known. Because you've just, you've had to keep defending him so many times that there's nothing left of you anymore. There's no core, there's no moral core. I mean, think about it, Charlie. You and I have talked to so many of these people, particularly from our own side. So few of them are left saying, listen, I really hate Trump. But he's just, you know, I had to do it because of Harris or I had to do it because of abortion. I had to do it because. No, those are 10 years ago arguments. People, people now are saying, you know, he's not a bad guy. I like him. I like a lot of what he does. I don't like his style, I don't like his tweet. They're back to this. So I don't like his tweets. And, and I wish he were less bombarded. I mean, once you sell your soul,
- [58:16]
Charlie Sykes
once you start going down that, once
- [58:18]
Professor Tom Nichols
you go down that road, you don't get that.
- [58:19]
Charlie Sykes
And also, it will set a precedent in the future. The next time that you have a member of the United States Senate who has, you know, been physical with women, abusive with women, what's the standard now? Okay. I mean, I'm willing to, I'm willing to concede that, that the, the Al Franken thing was an overreaction. I, I'm willing to go there. But the next time somebody is found, does it. Does. Do people actually care about these things or does it. Do you just care about it when it's on the other side or when it's on your side? And it actually might have real consequences? These decisions will come back 10 years from now, 20 years from now, 30 years from now, as, yes, well, and sooner. But it will linger a very, very long time. Which is why, you know, don't go into complete denial. Don't go into the. Shut up about this. Don't talk about this. Because first of all, by the way, the. Don't just shut up about this. But you don't think that the voters in Maine are not going to hear absolutely everything about this when they drop $100 million worth of negative ads like, yo, you shouldn't talk about this on Instagram, you shouldn't talk about this on your podcast or you're not from.
- [59:26]
Professor Tom Nichols
My favorite is you're not from Maine. You're not from Maine. You don't get a say. Really? Well, he's gonna ask a lot of people who aren't from Maine for money.
- [59:34]
Charlie Sykes
He's gonna get a lot of money from people who aren't from Maine.
- [59:36]
Professor Tom Nichols
You know, I'm sorry.
- [59:38]
Charlie Sykes
Yeah, well, we've done the least popular thing on social media right now, which is try to engage in nuance, which is always, maybe a bad business decision, a good, good personal decision, but a bad business decision. Tom, I hope you have a great weekend and thanks so much for all of your time today.
- [59:57]
Professor Tom Nichols
Always great to hang out with you, Charlie. Thanks.
- [59:59]
Charlie Sykes
And we'll find out whether we have a peace deal. I feel like I should check my phone. Like the peace deal. No, wait, the peace deal is off. Well, no, it's. Well, stay tuned, stay tuned and thank you all for listening to this weekend's episode of to the Contrary Podcast. I'm Charlie Sykes. We do this because we try to remind ourselves, despite the fearsome odds, that we are not the crazy ones.
- [60:37]
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- [61:07]
Professor Tom Nichols
Par le Tu francais hablas espanol Parle italiano.
- [61:11]
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