Loading summary
Transcript95 lines
- [00:00]
Advertisement Voice
A better help ad. Hold on one second. I just need to. What if you had a room where no one interrupts, no notifications, no expectations, just space to talk with BetterHelp Therapy happens in a space that's yours. Visit betterhelp.com randompodcast for 10% off your first month of online therapy.
- [00:31]
If you work in university maintenance, Grainger considers you an MVP because your playbook ensures your arena is always ready for tip off. And Grainger is your trusted partner, offering the products you need all in one place, from H VAC and plumbing supplies to lighting and more. And all delivered with plenty of time left on the clock. So your team always gets the win. Call 1-800-GRAINGER visit grainger.com or just stop by Granger for the ones who get it done.
- [01:01]
This is a Monday.com ad, the same Monday.com designed for every team. The same Monday.com with built in AI, scaling your work from day one. The same Monday.comwith an easy and intuitive setup. Go to Monday.com and try it for free.
- [01:19]
Charlie Sykes
I'm Charlie Sykes. Welcome back to the to the Contrary podcast. The Strait of Hormuz is still closed. Apparently Trump is still at war with the Pope. And even though he's apparently is scheduled to be part of a marathon Bible reading, which will probably be the first time that Donald Trump has seen some of that. We have a lot to talk about, but we don't know a lot that we do know. Let's go. Well, what a way to kick off the week with our good friend Tom New Nichols, the professor, staff writer for the Atlantic magazine. How are you, Tom? How are you? This, on this beautiful Monday, Tuesday morning,
- [02:00]
Tom Nichols
it's Monday, it's cold, at least here in New England. And the Strait of Hormuz is either open or closed.
- [02:09]
Charlie Sykes
Yeah, it is.
- [02:10]
Tom Nichols
I say that confidently. It is either open or closed.
- [02:13]
Charlie Sykes
It is, depending on what your mileage is. Okay, so let me just read you a story that's maybe not totally on your radar screen, but.
- [02:20]
Advertisement Voice
Okay.
- [02:20]
Charlie Sykes
So I mentioned we were talking about AI before this and, you know, I'm, I'm actually, you know, wrestling with whether I could create an AI image of either you or me with our heads exploding. It would be like a good feature where you, you can actually do it very realistically, you know, instead of me just going like boom on this. So this would be. I would actually use this. If I actually do create this, I won't do it for you. I'll do it for me. But if, if I had an AI image of of Tom Nichols with the head exploding. This would be one of those stories. This is a Bloomberg. As measles takes toll on kids, anti vaxxers have a change of heart. Katie Jennings was scrolling on her phone last April when a headline stopped her cold. A second unvaccinated child had died of measles in her home state of Texas. It was a tipping point for the 40 year old stay at home mom who had grown up in a staunchly anti vaccine fundamentalist Christian community. What are we doing? She remembers thinking, why are we doing this? I want to protect my kids. Now, again, it's a tragic story, but if only they had been warned. So now we're seeing them. The anti vaxxers are going, wait. Kids might actually get sick and die if we don't vaccinate them. This like something, something, something. Death of expertise, Mr. Nicholson.
- [03:36]
Tom Nichols
That stove. Is that stove hot? Let me touch it again. Wait. Ow. Let me try one more time. Ow. Hey, it's still hot.
- [03:43]
Charlie Sykes
Yeah.
- [03:44]
Tom Nichols
I think, you know, one of the worst things about this period, this past 10 years, and I say this as someone who, you know, you. You had Easter two weeks ago. Mine was. Mine was only a week ago.
- [03:58]
Charlie Sykes
Orthodoxy.
- [03:59]
Tom Nichols
I was in. I was in church yesterday celebrating The Sunday of St. Thomas, my patron saint. And I hate, I hate this as a Christian that I have been so drained of empathy, you know, that I read stories where someone says, hey, you know, I read something stupid on the Internet and now my kids are all sick. And I hate that. Instead of saying, all right, let's get your kids better, you know, let's just get that. Let's solve. Let's just fix this, you know, that there's. That there is a part of me that the first thing I think is, well, what did you think was going to happen?
- [04:35]
Charlie Sykes
Well, exactly.
- [04:35]
Tom Nichols
And you know, you hate it's because it is. It's like watching people touch the hot stove. And finally, you know, you just sit back and say, no, go ahead, touch it one more. Maybe it's not hot this time. Touch it one more time. But that is not.
- [04:46]
Charlie Sykes
Maybe you'll learn this time that is
- [04:48]
Tom Nichols
not a decent human reaction. And so I'm trying, really, actually, let's. This is from Pulp Fiction, which we know Pete Hegseth loves. You know, I'm trying, Ringo. I'm trying real hard to be the shepherd here and to, you know, to be really more empathetic about it. But I hope, and I think the only way this tide turns and is not from people like me, you know, sitting Here in New England with a doctorate, you know, or some epidemiologist somewhere or Charlie Sykes, you know, well known talking head and author, you know, we're not going to get through. What's going to get through is that woman turning to people in her community and saying, listen, right, you know, this is bad, you know, my kid got measles. This could be a terrible thing. We've gotta, we've, you know, because it's very hard in for this. And I think this leads to a kind of broader point actually about the collapse of Trumpism and the Iran war and the corruption and all this, this shit show that's going on. It's very hard for people to climb down. It's very hard for the cognitive dissonance to get over the pain of cognitiveness.
- [06:02]
Charlie Sykes
A lot of sunken cost.
- [06:03]
Tom Nichols
Yes. And that it's painful to say, well, I was had, you know, I was conned by Rob, by a guy who cuts the penises off of dead raccoons. So I think what we have to hope for is first we hope that their children are going to be okay and then that they talk to other citizens and say, listen, forget about owning libs, forget about, you know, loyalty to try just, just take your kid and get them vaccinated. It's not, you know, you're not, that's
- [06:34]
Charlie Sykes
the way it'll have to happen.
- [06:35]
Tom Nichols
You're not, you're not consorting with communists, right? You know, if you get your kid vaccinated before she goes to school and I think that could be the beginning. See, this was a mistake I made in the death of expertise, Charlie. I thought that the vax, I thought when the first few kids got sick years ago that the anti vax movement had sort of hit its high watermark. What I didn't count on was Donald Trump being reelected and, you know, making a complete crackpot the Secretary of Health and Human Services.
- [07:06]
Charlie Sykes
No, but also as you point out though, the fact that people become invested in these ideas and won't back up. I mean, one of the hardest things about being an OG never Trumper, I have to admit, is the temptation. Every single day I want to say, we told you so. We told you. We've been telling you for 10 years. There's a great scene at the end of Band of Brothers where, you know, it's the, you know what I'm talking
- [07:31]
Tom Nichols
about the private on the back of the truck, right?
- [07:34]
Charlie Sykes
Private on the back of the truck. And they're seeing the German POWs go by, you know, with horse drawn, you Know, carts and stuff. And what does he say?
- [07:43]
Tom Nichols
It's like, what, what were you thinking?
- [07:45]
Charlie Sykes
What were you thinking? What did you think you happened, you servile goons. Yeah, yeah, you thought, until finally one
- [07:54]
Tom Nichols
of the other guys, one of the sergeants says, okay, it's enough, it's enough.
- [07:57]
Charlie Sykes
You know, you want to take on GM and Ford and you have like donkeys and that's the way I, I, I feel. But, but you're absolutely right, you're going to have to have this, this term. Okay, so let's talk about one other
- [08:10]
Tom Nichols
thing about this, Charlie, which is I, I know that feeling. You know, there was a, years ago, after the Soviet Union fell, Robert Conquest, the great historian of the Stalinist terror. You know, he was going to write a follow on book because he wrote the Great Terror and nobody believe one of, apparently one of his colleagues said, your next book should be I told you so, you fools. But that's not useful.
- [08:36]
Charlie Sykes
Yeah, I want that.
- [08:37]
Tom Nichols
That's the thing. I mean, you know, it's like, okay, so we've been right for 10 years, it would be cathartic. But being right doesn't make kids with measles any healthier.
- [08:46]
Charlie Sykes
No.
- [08:47]
Tom Nichols
And so I, I, we have to resist that, that impulse. And as much as we've earned it by being consistently right, I mean, you know, we, we, we know that one of the reasons that the Trumpers hate the Never Trumpers is because we were more right than they could have possibly imagined. But that's not going to help this situation. So we just have to hope that people kind of find their way back to some sanity here. Unfortunately, they're finding their way back through very painful and dangerous things that involve the health of their children. And that as human beings we just have to not be happy about that and really hope that they kind of get past this and take care of their kids.
- [09:24]
Charlie Sykes
Well, and underlying your point, one of the real problems that I think that we learned is the power of, or the danger of contempt in politics. That moment in which people think that you're looking down on me, you despise me, then I'm not gonna listen to anything you say. And quite frankly, there was that, that was part of the elite problem, is that they regarded people with disdain. And the people who they regarded with disdain, they picked up on it, they understood that and it was devastating. So maybe we just need to keep it to ourselves.
- [09:55]
Tom Nichols
And I know we have to move on, but it's a weird dynamic where people said, like I had these conversations back in 2016 people said, I voted for Trump because you look, people like you look down on me. And I used to say, look, I didn't look down on you until you voted for Trump. It was a self fulfilling prophecy. Like I didn't, you know, I didn't think poorly of you for voting for, you know, Barack Obama or John McCain or Mitt Rom, whatever, each. But if you're saying, well, I think that you were judging me and looking down on me and I always say to people, I didn't feel that way until you voted for Trump. And then I had something to really feel contemptuous about, you know, and so I, you know, it almost became this self fulfilling prophecy that now none of us can get out of. And I think we're especially, this is where the issue of health really gives everybody an exit to just say, look, enough of the contempt, enough of the I told you so's, enough of the lib owning. Let's just get these kids healthy.
- [11:01]
Charlie Sykes
No, I agree. And you know, part of it is that if we are going to get back and we're never going to get back to normal, I mean, the world that we used to live in has been swept away. And I think that there's this, and I was talking about this on another podcast, this nostalgia for normal, that somehow we're going to go back to this lost world and that's just not going to happen. But if we're ever gonna get past this particular disease, we're going to have to like, take a deep breath and say, okay, if you've seen the light, you can come forward now. There are some lines that I have a hard time, I have to admit. So if somebody voted for Trump and they're willing to say I made a mistake, okay, you know, we have stuff to talk about. But if, you know, someone who says, not only did I vote for Trump, but I actually think that the shooting of Alex Preddy, you know, and Nicole Goode was justified. I'm sorry, there are lines that I'm not, I'm not able to cross and I, and I, you know what, and I'm not interacting and I'm, it's not being elitist. It's not looking down. It's like, I'm sorry, I'm just, we're just not going to have that conversation.
- [12:03]
Tom Nichols
You know, it's a very difficult thing because you don't, you need to put the country back together. We need to be, you know, we are one country. We are 50 states where, you know, we were once a family, a fractious A fractious. You know, I say this as an Irishman, a fractious Irish, big Irish family, yelling at each other all the time. Okay, fine. But yes, there are, I think, you know, the way I, I used to describe this is people say, well, you know, you shouldn't hold it against people if they voted for Donald Trump. And I think that's true. There are a lot of people who I think just, you know, either poorly informed or in the heat of the moment or whatever it is. It's the. But I said, what if they had voted for David Duke? And they said, you know, look, I'm a good guy, I love my family, you know. Yeah, I know, but I, but I like David Duke. I like what he stands for. There, There comes a point where friendship and fellowship and, you know, that fellow feeling has to be rooted in some kind of shared value, shared values. And, and I don't know what to do with people who, that I once knew who say things where I feel like I'm talking to a Martian instead of an old friend who say things. And I, and I've said it, I've said, I, I, I've said to old friends, this is not the you I knew 10 years ago. What, what do you, what is this? I, and I think again, instead of saying, I told. Because they know, look, that. Charlie, part of the reason, I think there's so much rage and, and the reason that the Cabinet's melting down and Trump is melting down and the mag movement's melting down, they know and the whole thing came apart. They just wanted to prove they could reelect him. That's it. And they didn't think about what happens after that. And the whole thing is coming apart. And I think there's just, no, there's no point now in saying, you know, I want, I want you to, you know, one lesson the never Trumpers can take. Think about it. When we made common cause for the sake of the Constitution and democracy with liberal Democrats, right, The people you and I have been criticizing for 40 years, we said, okay, you know, we still have our differences, but we're going to agree on the Constitution. And some of those people said to us, not until you repudiate Ronald Reagan, not until you repudiate capitalism, not until you atone for, you know, the 1980s. And I mean, it just, it's like, no, we're not doing any of that. You know, I still, they still do
- [14:34]
Charlie Sykes
that, by the way. I mean, on any, on any, on literally any day, there will, will be somebody on Blue sky, who will say, you know, I would take Charlie Sykes or Tom Nichols more seriously, you know, when they apologize and atone for having done X, Y, Z, for having voted
- [14:49]
Tom Nichols
for Ronald Reagan, which I always.
- [14:51]
Charlie Sykes
The last 10 years don't matter. The last 10 years of all of the things just doesn't matter because you are stuck on your grievance and you're just gonna, you know, I just stay with that. Good and hard.
- [15:04]
Tom Nichols
I just had a few days on Blue sky where people were like, yeah, you know, you need to apologize and atone for voting for Ronald Reagan. And I'm like, look, I'm sorry, but I would do it again. If it were 1980 and my choice were Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, I'm going to vote the same way again. So you need, you're really going to have to get over this. But I think, but I think we could learn a lesson from that of not turning to people and saying, you know, we want some ritual self denunciation of this. If you, you know what, by God, get your kids, as long as you get your kids vaccinated, we can, then we have stuff to talk. Get your kids vaccinated and, you know, stop getting your news from crazy websites that tell you that, you know, that I don't know, you know, what's your, what's the favorite, you know, stop using expressions like the Biden crime family. We can have a rational conversation, but it's going to take a while. It's going to take a while and it has to happen from within.
- [15:58]
Charlie Sykes
So, okay, so Jimmy Carter has entered the conversation, which is really interesting because you saw that deep dive piece in the Wall Street Journal over the weekend about how Donald Trump has been waging the war with Iran and in secret, how he's been raging and fearful and erratic and all the things that we kind of knew. But I thought it was interesting that somebody was quoted as saying that he's starting to worry that he could end up like Jimmy Carter, that that destroyed his presence. And it's like he. And so in Donald Trump's brain, something penetrated in there where suddenly the master of the universe is thinking, wait, could I be Jimmy Carter? Which I thought was rather extraordinary.
- [16:37]
Tom Nichols
Yeah, that Wall Street Journal piece was really something because it shows you how deeply he's panicking while he's out there saying, no, you stupid panicans, and you've all got to calm down. And I've got that. No, behind closed doors, he's screaming at people and they are trying to keep him out of the way. They're Entertaining him with film loops of explosions like he's a six year old. You know, this is, I mean, it's, I find it all kind of terrifying.
- [17:06]
Charlie Sykes
Grandpa, go, go watch your screen over here while we actually do stuff with the grown ups that there was one time when they were doing the op of rescuing the airmen, they actually had to sideline him because he was so erratic. So they, they gave him his screen and his Diet Coke and they said, just go in there and watch the loop. Right?
- [17:25]
Tom Nichols
It's like putting on cartoons and giving him a bucket of popcorn, you know, I mean, it's. But remember, I spent most of my life studying Moscow and Russia and the Kremlin, and I, I am just filled with anxiety that somebody in the Kremlin is watching all of this, you know, and turning to their comrade and saying, are you kidding me? You know, we lost to these guys, you know, I mean, and, and I, I'm sure that the Chinese and the Iranians and others are sitting there saying, you know, we have an op. The America is being run by an attention, you know, limited six year old. Because that's what that story really, really told us. And it suggests too that Donald Trump, it's finally sinking in that he has gotten himself into something that he can't just bully his way out of. He's done that twice now. He's done that with the war in Iran, which he lost control of within days because he just didn't expect it to go on. And with this feud with the Pope, he cannot internalize that. The Pope does not work for him. And in both cases.
- [18:41]
Charlie Sykes
And the Pope is not going to back down.
- [18:43]
Tom Nichols
Right. He's getting frustrated because he doesn't know how to deal with people that don't answer to him or don't want anything.
- [18:49]
Charlie Sykes
So remind me, I want to talk about the Pope. And I also want to talk about, I mean, it seems pretty obvious that the big winners in all of this with Iran, the big winners are Russia and China, and they are watching very, very carefully. In fact, Axios had a really interesting piece about all the weaponry that we have burned through, you know, all the ways in which we have weakened the country and really expanded the power of both China and Russia. But let's talk about this confused, the land of confusion that Donald Trump inhabits, because, okay, so last Friday, he announces to the world and everybody seems to think we have a peace deal or a peace, at least during the trading day, he has like a dozen tweets or bleeds, all in caps, talking about a great Day for humanity. The Strait of Hormuz is open. The trading day comes to an end, and everybody realizes that almost everything that Donald Trump said about that quote, unquote deal turns out to be false, turns out to be a lie. And the Iranians are like, what? We didn't agree to this, we don't agree to that. And what's more, we're actually going to start closing the strait. We're gonna start shooting at ships. And Donald Trump is back to, I'm gonna blow up the whole country. So where are we at here? It feels part of it. As I said, it feels like deja vu, like we're back to where we were two weeks ago. And yet, because we've gone through the cycle, people are going, yeah, we've heard this before. I mean, in poker, you can't be caught bluffing like six times in a row and figure it's gonna work again, right? I mean, it's like, where are we at here? Does he even know what he's doing?
- [20:26]
Tom Nichols
You know, a couple of things, really. No, he doesn't know what he's doing. I mean, let's just dispense with that one right off the top. He doesn't know what he's doing. And neither does Pete Hegseth, who you would think, you know, you would want a steady hand on the. If the President's unstable and emotionally scrambled, you would at least want a steady hand on the tiller at the Pentagon. And instead you have a guy who's like doing the non musical version of Mean Girls and trying to fire everybody he thinks is, you know, has a burn book on him. So that's, that's part of it. The other part of it is you can't trust the statements of the President of the United States anymore.
- [21:06]
Charlie Sykes
Right?
- [21:06]
Tom Nichols
You just can't because it's. There's obviously some kind of, you know, eventually all of this will come out, I'm sure, but there's some kind of market manipulation going on. Somebody's putting, you know, big trades that someone who knows what the President's about to say, you know, is clearly making big trades somewhere. But it tells you if you watch the markets, they're starting to price in the right. They don't take huge dives or big jumps. There's sort of this, well, you know, we're going to bet, kind of think we're going with it or maybe against it. But the market is starting to say, yeah, well, the President says a lot of things, son. And the problem is that means the rest of the world is starting to price in the bullshit, too, and that means that's devastating. Now, I think, as an optimistic comment, this ends when Trump is gone, right? The next, you're going to get a president. I doubt it's going to be a Republican, but you're going to get a president of some kind. Excuse me. Who's going to stand up there and say, and remember to use the line from the Godfather, and remember, I ain't no band leader. You know, I am not that guy. Do not mistake me for a whole other person, a whole other body here. So, you know, that will probably end, but for. For as long as Trump's in office, you literally cannot trust anything that comes out of the President of the United States, because either he doesn't know what he's saying, knows what he's saying and he's lying, thinks he's telling the truth, but has no idea what's going on, or he's just trying to manipulate the global market situation so that things don't look bad. But, but all of those options are bad at a time when what we need is steadiness. You know, we're in this war whether we like it or not, so we need steadiness, courage, stoicism. And instead we've got, you know, crazy grandpa at the end of the bar. You know, I, I always think of Trump as the guy at the end of a bar in the dark, you know, ranting until the bartender comes over and say, too, keep it down, Gramps. You know, and meanwhile, at the Pentagon, we've got a drama queen losing his stuff because he thinks he's about to get replaced by some. By. By a friend of J.D. vance. I mean, this is a. This is an incredible shit show in front of our enemies and our allies alike.
- [23:34]
Charlie Sykes
So let's talk about the, The. What we've learned about war. There are some of the, the, you know, defenders of, of Trump or of, you know, you know, the people who are, you know, touting the success of the war, who are equating the number we have dropped with war. And in fact, I think you may have tweeted out somebody who wrote that we have this extraordinary moment where we have all of these military successes that do not add up to victory. And it's something that's sort of dawning on people that you can drop a whole lot of munitions and win a whole lot of things and create a whole lot of sizzle reels, but at the end of the day, that doesn't actually win the war. This seems to Be a surprise to some of the people that we've been talking about.
- [24:16]
Tom Nichols
I wrote a piece after the first week of the war warning that this could happen because you could see it. You could see it coming out of the Pentagon. You could see it coming out of the White House. Hey, look at all this stuff we broke. And I wish I could take credit for this line, but as someone said at one of these briefings that every time they talked about how much stuff they destroyed, it was always numerators and not denominators. Which I thought was a great line.
- [24:42]
Charlie Sykes
Right.
- [24:42]
Tom Nichols
So we destroyed 10,000, you know, launchers. Yes. I'm sorry. Out of how many? We've destroyed 95% of their minds. Okay, but if they had, you know, 100,000 of them, then, you know, that's still thousands of minds. I mean, what does that mean? Give us context here. But these Pentagon briefings, and I think General Kane did the best he could in the situation he's in, but the Secretary of Defense. These briefings are not meant to give information. They're performances. They're, they're, you know, Pete Hegs, the Pete Hegseth show for, for 20 minutes. And I think this has been the. This is like running the war. This would be like the Japanese admirals, you know, heading to Midway after showing themselves footage of Pearl harbor over and over and over again. Yes, you had a good day at Pearl Harbor. You destroyed a lot of stuff. You killed a lot of Americans. But what. You know, that's not. You're still in trouble here. You're still. And I think Trump and Putin both, you know, I think you and I have talked about this. They both made the same mistake of not understanding that if their opponent, if the enemy regime survives, that's a win for them. You know, both of them launched wars of regime change. And when the regime doesn't change, you're stuck just trying to kill a lot of people. And of course, Putin, whose military is not like ours, it is unconstrained by the laws of war or basic human decency, has resorted to slaughter. Trump, meanwhile, has ordered operation after operation that breaks a lot of stuff and kills Iranian leaders and blows up military stuff, but that's. It's not adding up to what he wants, which was. Can we just remember from the second week or first, second week of the war, unconditional surrender. That's not going to happen.
- [26:43]
Charlie Sykes
Unconditional. Yeah, Unconditional surrender, a regime change. That's not going to happen. And the end of the nuclear program. He's Talking about the nuclear dust and everything that has no relationship to reality. Okay, one other thing in terms of just the strategy, because I know that you're, you have been a scholar of nuclear theory and nuclear war. What the Iranians seem to have figured out is that, okay, you know, there are very few ways to deter someone from attacking your country. There's a reason why we're going after Iran, not North Korea, not after Russia. Right? North Korea has the bomb. Russia has the bomb. So they are now exempt. If you don't have a deterrent, you are a target. They have figured out that they may not have a nuke, but they have the Strait of Hormuz. And the Strait of Hormuz has really become, in effect, their nuclear deterrent, hasn't it?
- [27:35]
Tom Nichols
They have figured out that choking the international economy might even be more a better option than having a nuclear weapon. If you have a nuclear weapon, the world turns against you. I mean, you know, North Korea is still one of the most sanctioned regimes on earth. They have a nuclear bomb, but, you know, you can't eat a nuclear bomb. The Iranians, I think we, and we did this, we did this to ourselves, Charlie. We have proven to them it's like a proof of concept, right. Hypothetically, if there was, if a war broke out, could they close the straits, would that affect. You know, it's ironic too that Trump and his people were just so ill prepared for this, because this is what I, as a former War College professor, I can tell you this is one of the most thoroughly war gamed scenarios in history. You know, I mean, in the past 40 years, I mean, this has been something that people think about all day long. And what was, unless you're Donald Trump
- [28:37]
Charlie Sykes
or Pete Heth, apparently, except for, well,
- [28:39]
Tom Nichols
certainly except for Pete Heth. And in. We've now gone from, you know, notionally, they could probably get out of a war by choking the Straits of Hormuz to proving that they can get out of a war by choking the Straits of Hormuz. And on that in a year earlier, you said we're never going back to the old days. I'm a little more optimistic that we can at least get back to some kind of normal world, but certainly not in the middle. Donald Trump has helped the Iranians with a proof of concept that the Strait of Hormuz is the most valuable thing they control. They don't need a nuclear weapon. They didn't have one. They weren't. This, this nonsense about, well, they were two weeks from a bomb, you know, well, sorry, that that's just no serious person. I'll even use the word expert because I know it triggers a lot of our, you know, a lot of our critics, but no serious person, no expert really thought the Iranians were two weeks from a, from a nuclear bomb. And Trump now is trying to rest everything. You know, in a way, he's become, he doesn't want to be Jimmy Carter, but he is being kind of like George W. Bush while it was a nuclear bomb. You know, we had to stop the nuclear program. Well, that's just not going to, that doesn't carry that weight anymore.
- [29:55]
Charlie Sykes
So let's talk about Donald Trump's other war. You had a piece in the Atlantic last week. Pope James David Vance, the first, not only had Donald Trump waging war with the Pope, but then, of course, everybody has to come. Like they, you know, all of the Trump acolytes have to come and, you know, support, you know, grandpa when he's having a fight. So let's talk about that, because that's also not a conflict that appears to be going very well for not only not for Donald Trump, but for J.D. vince, who has a book coming out about his deep Catholicism and he wants to posture himself as a deep thinker. And this will be center to his presidential bid. And, boy, what a shitty week he had. Right?
- [30:41]
Tom Nichols
Yeah. I was asked about this on TV segment and about, about Vance and the, and his upcoming book. And I said, worst book launch ever. You know, let me launch my new book about my Catholic faith by picking up with the, with the Vicar of Christ on Earth. But, you know, it just goes to show you that everything must be subordinated to supporting the Dear Leader. You cannot be the first comrade to stop clapping. And Vance got out there and dutifully got in. You know, imagine, imagine a real, not even a cradle Catholic, a relatively recent convert to Catholicism, saying, you know, the Pope ought to be careful when he talks about theology. This, the staggering. I mean, it's been a hell of a month for the death of expertise, that's for sure. I said this, this vaults Vance right to the top of the hall. The death of expertise, hall of fame, telling the Pope that he should be careful about theology. You know, normally that's the Pope's wheelhouse, I'm going to guess.
- [31:51]
Charlie Sykes
Yeah. So this is, this is the Cliff Clavin version of the vice presidency. Right. You know, who just knows the Pope
- [32:00]
Tom Nichols
got a little, a little over his skis there. Run the Council of Nicaea. You know,
- [32:07]
Charlie Sykes
that's pretty good. That was actually, that was Value added. No, I appreciate that also. I mean, when you have. It descends into farce when Sean Hannity says, I am uniquely qualified to talk about this because I used to go to Catholic school or something like that. And as of today, Sean Hannity declared I am out of the Catholic Church because when the Catholic Church conflicts with Donald Trump, my faith goes under the bus. And of course, Sean Hannity has been dumb as a box of rocks. But see, think about Vance is, he's got pretend, you know, he's pretentious. I mean, he's got, he's got, he wants people to think that he's serious. And by the way, that whole thing that the, I think the full paragraph was something like the Pope needs to be very serious about theology, just like I as Vice President need to be very, very, you know, serious about what? In control, careful about what I, what I say. And people are going, wait, wait, you're the guy who was, you know, spreading the shit about the Haitians eating the cats and everything. When has JD Vance and prudent and careful about his approach to things.
- [33:09]
Tom Nichols
And also, what a comparison the Vice President, right. The office once compared to. Not worth a bucket of warm spit. The Pope and I are much alike. He is the leader of a billion and a half Catholics and the successor to St. Peter. And when he speaks on theology, it's just like when I, with my two years in the Senate and my one year as Vice president, talk about politics and we both, we both have this great burden that we have to, I mean, it is just so pompous and self aggrandizing and, and it would be comical except that it's, it's shameful. And it also puts American, A lot of Catholics in the Maga movement, again, they, this, I think the theme of everything we talked about today, Charlie, is they did it to themselves. You cannot, I think it is deeply, profoundly wrong to tell Catholics as, as the Birchers tried to do, you know, when Kennedy ran. Right. Hey, you can, yeah, either you're with us or you're with the, with the papists. You know, in Rome you can either support Donald Trump or you can support the Pope, but you gotta take sides. And all the Pope's saying, by the way, is he's not telling you to vote for, he's not telling you. He's saying war is bad. Okay? That's what Popes do. That's normal Pope 101 stuff.
- [34:40]
Charlie Sykes
Peace is a good thing, right?
- [34:41]
Tom Nichols
Peace is good.
- [34:42]
Charlie Sykes
Which Donald Trump was saying like a few months ago when he Wanted the Nobel Peace Prize. Alternative universe. Donald Trump actually got the Nobel Peace Prize. He might not be invading all these countries and everything. He might actually have thought of himself as the peace president. Remember when he wrote the, what is it, the prime Minister of Norway that, well, since you won't give me the peace prize, I am no longer interested in peace. Like, you know, you don't give me that prize, I'm going to go out and I'm going to like burn down so whole civilizations. It's like, okay, give them a bauble, you know, maybe give him the FIFA. So walk into the Oval Office and say, boy, that's cool, that FIFA Peace Prize. You know, that's because you're the peace president. It doesn't seem to work. No, this fight. Okay, so let me get a sense though, of how this plays. This puts conservative Catholics in a very difficult position. Especially, you know, I think the Catholics no longer think of. I think the memory of anti Catholicism in American history has kind of been glossed over. I mean, there was a period, the know nothing era, where, you know, Catholics were, were really, you know, shunned by much of the rest of the faith. And I think that we've gotten over, we've gotten over that. But Donald Trump does seem to be, with all of his performative religiosity and appearing, doing these Bible readings and everything. He's wrapped himself in the cloak of, you know, defender of Christianity, that it's a kind of Christianity that excludes Catholics. I mean, it's the kind of thing that I would think that the church would recognize this as like, wow, you know, it's not just the Pope. He is really defining this civic Christianity and we're not invited to the table.
- [36:18]
Tom Nichols
It's by the standards of, I mean, I, I say this as, you know, east an Eastern Orthodox Christian. I mean, not only that, but he's, he's engaging behavior that is blasphemous and saying things that are heretical. But he's setting up a conflict here to say, but look at all these Christians who, I mean, what he means. And your, this goes to your point, Charlie. These evangelical Christians who have not yet abandoned him, but who. And, and the sects within the evangelical community that are some of the most extreme, like the, like the guy that Pete Hegseth happens to follow or Paula White, you know, or Paula White, right. Gospel, prosperity and saying, you know, this is Christianity. And I'm. But, you know, this is not. First of all, these are parts of Christianity that do have no love for Catholics. I mean, they may be bound together in their support, you know, Catholics and, and these evangelicals may find some common ground in thinking they have to support Donald Trump for, you know, whatever it is, pro life reasons or culture war reasons or whatever it is. But innately, as you point out, there is a streak of anti Catholicism in that, in, in that evangelical tradition, you know, that, that is, I think a lot of Catholics are going to find out about sooner rather than, than later, you know, and it, and it tells you where we are, that the Pope preaching The gospel of St. Matthew is inter. That's interpreted as an attack on the President of the United States. And really, I think that the only way you can get there is, and accept that is with that kind of malleable Western America, you know, that kind of Americanized evangelical approach that says, you know, that, you know, Trump's an imperfect leader, but he's the guy that's going to bring us to the promised land. It's a lot harder to make that argument to yourself if you're Catholic or orthodox or one of the more mainstream, you know, religions that way.
- [38:30]
Charlie Sykes
Look, if you're like me, you're thinking a lot more about what you wear day to day and are looking for pieces that feel easy, comfortable and still look put together. It just makes getting dressed simpler. Quince has been my go to. Their fabrics feel elevated, their fits are clean, and everything just works without needing to overthink it. And I definitely do not want to overthink what I wear every day. I actually bought two of their pullovers, one dark colored, one gray color. And they're just amazing. I mean, they're comfortable, they fit perfectly well. The quality really kind of surprised me. It's been on constant rotation. In fact, if you watch the podcast on YouTube or my live streams, you'll often see me wearing one of them. And those are Quints pullovers. So refresh your everyday with luxury. You will actually use head to quince.com contrary for free shipping on your order. Order and 365 day returns. Now available in Canada too. That's Q-U-I-N-C-E.com contrary for free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince.com contrary.
- [39:37]
Advertisement Voice
If you work in university maintenance, Grainger considers you an MVP because your playbook ensures your arena is always ready for tip off. And Grainger is your trusted partner, offering the products you need all in one place, from H vac and plumbing supplies to lighting and more. And all delivered with plenty of time left on the clock. So your team always gets the win. Call 1-800-GRAINGER visit grainger.com or just stop by Grainger for the ones who get it done.
- [40:11]
Charlie Sykes
In my newsletter yesterday, I linked to something that Christopher Hale, he writes letters to Leo. He had written a piece for the Catholic Herald called A Letter to My Conservative Catholic Friends. And it's really, really well done. And he said, let me say this to my conservative Catholic friends, something I'd wanted to say for a long time. Your movement has been hijacked by a celebrity populism that puts evangelical grievance ahead of Catholic conscience, and only you can take it back. The faithful who built the American Catholic conservative tradition did not sign up to be silent partners while the Pope is insulted. And I think this goes back to where, you know, in the beginning, saying to people, okay, you may have thought that you were gonna support Donald Trump because of abortion or because of school choice or a variety of things, but you need to really ask yourself whether or not you are really part of this movement, what you have given up when you don't. And Trump is not just insulting the Pope, he's insulting the Catholic Church. So I don't think this is going particularly well for him or for the Catholic Church. Speaking of anti Catholicism, I know there's been a lot of talk about anti Semitism. You've seen the polls as well, the collapse of American support for Israel, especially on a generational level. This is one of the most remarkable things that I've seen in the last several decades. And when all of this is over, I don't know that you're gonna be able to put that back together again. Your thoughts about that, what Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu have done, Because I think this is extremely dangerous for, I think, the future of Israel and their relationship to the United States, not for a
- [41:51]
Tom Nichols
long time and not while Netanyahu is in power. You know, it was not good for Israel that Bibi Netanyahu is now basically the face of Israel to so much of America. And I think going into a war, a major Middle Eastern war, where your only ally is Israel, where you literally can call it, you know, used to be that propagandists would talk about US Action as, you know, the US Israeli axis in, you know. Well, the problem is we're. We're now fighting a war. We're the only other country we're fighting, fighting with us is Israel. This is exactly everything George H.W. bush tried to avoid in the first Gulf War, where he put together a coalition of everybody but Israel and to ask the Israelis, please stay out of this. You know, just, we get it. You know, you're being bombed. Saddam's throwing Scuds. He's trying to bring you into the war. But the last thing that, you know is going to help you is to have, you know, the Star of David flying over Iraq side by side with, you know, Americans and British and French. And instead, Trump did the complete reverse of this. He told all of our traditional allies, all of our friends in the region, screw. Go screw. You know, all we need is us and the Israelis. And that was. That is not a great look when you're trying to explain that you're doing this for, you know, international peace and order and the protection of the United States.
- [43:30]
Charlie Sykes
And this does feel like it's going to be heavy, generational. You know, I mean, this seems like a random thought, but when you think about how Iran was pummeled in the first few days and the damage that it has sustained, there was a huge, very, very mobilized opposition to the Iranian regime. They would come out in huge numbers. We know about what happened to the demonstrations. You would think that this would be the moment where you would have this mass uprising. And yet the Iranian people, I think, have very, very mixed feelings now that, you know, in an alternative world, the Iranian people, you know, much of the world would have been on our side, the Iranian people would have been on our side. And yet somehow we've managed to alienate, discourage, dispirit them. I mean, this is kind of like the dog that doesn't bark, right? Is that. Is that you would think. We kept thinking, you know, we will be greeted as liberators. And, I mean, maybe we don't see everything that's happening inside Iran. We don't have much visibility, but it doesn't seem to be not happening, is it?
- [44:31]
Tom Nichols
No. And, you know, again, think about it from the point of view of being the Iranian opposition. First of all, we've. We're not going to go in there and, you know, there is no army we can offer them right there. There's nobody they can march behind on their way to, to Tehran or, or to take over, I don't know, Isfahan or Mashad or Tabri, whatever, right? There's no, there's no regional militias. There's nothing. And it's not going to be us. And again, because of the fact that we have exactly one ally, what are they going to do? Get out there and say, we support BB and Trump instead of saying, look, the whole world is against you. This was something, I think that was very important in that first Gulf War, basically saying, even the Communists, even your friends in Moscow, aren't going to save you. And then in the second Gulf War, to say, we don't, you know, you've been so degraded and your capacity so low, you know, we, we're basically just going to walk in and knock you out of power. But we still had four other three other countries with us and the declared support of, like, 35 or 40 nations, including many of our allies. This, you know, to, to topple a regime, that regime has to feel like we have no friends. We are up against it. There is nobody that's going to save us. Like, how did Bashar Assad fall in Syria? Right. Literally gets to the point, you know, he's calling Moscow, you know, and here, I'm, I'm sorry, but the number you've dialed, you know, this person's voicemail is full. You know, please call back. When he realizes nobody's going to save him, nobody can help him, the whole world's against him, and he has to leave power. That doesn't happen. And when the Americans go in and say, this is a joint US Israeli operation, you are instantly going to lose a lot of support you may have had, which is not. Look, in a way that's unfair to the Israelis, right, Because they are the ones that are under the most threat from Iran, hands down. And, you know, to, if, if, if the Iranians were about to attack Israel and the Americans had said, listen, we don't care who's going with us or doesn't go with us, the, the Israel must exist. Iran cannot wipe it out. You know, then I think we'd have had a. But none of that. This was a war of choice. And the fact is, the, the argument that, you know, Bibi kind of, I, I, I hate the arguments that they, that the, that the Israeli government dragged us into war.
- [47:10]
Charlie Sykes
They didn't.
- [47:11]
Tom Nichols
But Bibi definitely sold Trump a line of bullshit. We know that, you know, from the reports of that meeting in the Situation Room.
- [47:19]
Charlie Sykes
Again, even some of the Trump people thought that it was a line of bullshit.
- [47:22]
Tom Nichols
Yes.
- [47:22]
Charlie Sykes
I mean, that's what's interesting about that New York Times account is they came back and said, you know, a lot of what Bibi just told you, that's bullshit. That's not gonna happen.
- [47:28]
Tom Nichols
John Ratcliffe, of all people, saying, you know, saying what BB Just told. Farcical literally says farcical.
- [47:35]
Charlie Sykes
Yeah.
- [47:37]
Tom Nichols
So that, you know, but again, Trump, I think in Trump's mind, it was yeah, yeah, I get all that. I know all that. But this thing's gonna be over in four days. And who's gonna remember? All they're gonna remember is the size of the victory arch that I'm gonna put up with, you know, with the Ayatollah's head on a pike, you know, over Route 50 in D.C. and. And that didn't happen. And again, when things don't go to plan, when Donald Trump's plans get upended, he is like an angry little boy who, you know, wants to wish you into the cornfield, and. And it's just not going to happen.
- [48:11]
Charlie Sykes
But we are going to get the victory. We are going to get the victory, the Trump victory Arch, though, aren't we?
- [48:16]
Tom Nichols
I hope not. And I hope if it's built, that it's one of the first things torn die. I mean, I really, on this, I admit it, I will be. You know, there's going to be a lot of important work to be done when Donald Trump is gone, repairing our constitutional order, repairing our alliances, repairing the world. But as a purely kind of petty thing, I want the East Wing rebuilt and I want any of these stupid arches torn down, and I want to see his name chiseled off the Kennedy center, because that's not the American word.
- [48:47]
Charlie Sykes
That seems modest. I think that's a modest ask. Tom Nichols, staff writer for the Atlantic, good friend of the show. Thank you so much for all your time today. I appreciate it very much.
- [48:56]
Tom Nichols
Thanks for having me, Charlie. I appreciate it.
- [48:58]
Charlie Sykes
And thank you all for listening to this episode. Welcome to this episode of to the Contrary Podcast. I'm Charlie Sykes. We do this because every day we have to remind ourselves that we are not the crazy ones. Thank you.
- [49:23]
Advertisement Voice
When you manage procurement for multiple facilities, every order matters. But when it's for a hospital system, they matter even more. Grainger gets it and knows there's no time for managing multiple suppliers and no room for shipping delays. That's why Grainger offers millions of products in fast, dependable delivery, so you can keep your facility stocked, safe, and running smoothly. Call 1-800-GRAINGER Click grainger.com or just stop by Grainger for the ones who get it done.
- [49:53]
High interest debt is one of the toughest opponents you'll face unless you power up with a SOFI personal loan. A SOFI personal loan could repackage your bad debt into one low fixed rate monthly payment. It's even got super speed, since you could get the funds as soon as the same day you sign. Visit sofi.compower to learn more, that's s o f I.com P-O-W-E-R loans originated by SoFi bank and a member FDIC. Terms and conditions apply. NMLS 696891
- [50:25]
Tom Nichols
acast powers the world's Best Podcasts Here's a show that we recommend.
- [50:33]
Liv Albert
The world of ancient Greek myth and the wider history of the Mediterranean is and always will be incredibly relevant. Whether you have a casual interest in myth or are a dyed in the wool nerd for the ancient world, you will find your fix with let's Talk About Myths Baby. I'm Liv Albert and together with my amazing producer Mikayla Pengoish, we bring the context, intricacies and the stories of ancient Greece and sometimes the wider Mediterranean to life. Let's Talk About Mitts Baby has something for everyone. Listen to let's Talk About Myths Baby wherever you get your podcasts, new episodes every Tuesday and Friday or find more
- [51:14]
Tom Nichols
information@mythsbaby.com Acast helps creators launch, grow and monetize their podcasts everywhere. Acast.com.