The Agenda with Steve Paikin (Audio) - David Frum: The Reconfiguring of American Democracy Under Trump

Episode Date: May 28, 2025

Is President Donald Trump really reconfiguring American democracy? Should Canada entertain the notion of becoming the 51st state? And has his definition of what it means to be a political conservative changed over the years? Former George W. Bush speechwriter and staff writer for The Atlantic, David Frum, joins host Steve for a wide-ranging discussion.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Probably dozens of times over the past few decades we have put out the call to one of the smartest observers of the American political scene. And fortunately for us, he has never failed to answer that call. Here's the Atlantic's David Frum, host of his new eponymous podcast and author of, I think, 10 books, including most recently, Trumpocalypse Restoring American Democracy. David, it's great to have you back in that chair. Good to be in the studio. Yes, indeed. Okay, let's start with, we're going to talk about a few things over the course of our time together here. Let's start with Canada-U.S. relations because

it's the biggest story in our country at the moment. The old relationship our Prime Minister tells us with the United States is now done. We are clearly not best friends anymore. We don't have a special trading relationship, it appears anymore. Canadians are canceling their trips to the United States. We're booing the Star-Spangled Banner when it's played at sporting events. What should a new modernized Canadian-American relationship in your view look like? Yeah well there's what you want and there's what you get because I can't imagine there's a person in Canada who was happy about the new situation.

Canada didn't choose it. Canada didn't want it. The relationship ought to be what it was. It ought to be excellent. It ought to be intimate. But the Americans and this president have chosen otherwise. And here's a very concrete example. Donald Trump has a new brainwave of a so-called goldenome, a new program of missile defense over North America. Canadian airspace is indispensable to the success of such a project. Canada and the United States have

worked on continental defense since World War II against air attacks since the 50s, against missile attacks since the 80s. And Canadians always took the view, of course. In the airspace, there was no price for that. That was just something you threw in. You would haggle about the Cost of building the physical infrastructure infrastructure, but the airspace there was no price and in today's context

Where Trump puts a price on everything maybe there needs to be a price on the airspace Do you think Mark Carney has completely put out of Donald Trump's head the notion of this country ever becoming the 51st state? When Trump talks in that way, I think the way to understand it, when he talks about wanting a third term as president against the Constitution, he's not telling you what will happen, but he's giving you a very important indicator of the malice of his thought. So I don't think even Donald Trump believes that Canada will become a 51st state. He must know there isn't a lot of demand in Canada to be a 51st state. But he is revealing a program of aggression.

And that's a very dangerous threat to the territory of Greenland, where Trump continues to contemplate military options against a territory of a NATO ally, Denmark. I don't think he's planning on rolling the tanks into Canada. But he's declaring his hostility, enmity, and malice. And that's something you need to take very seriously. You've lived in the United States, obviously, for a long time. And all right, let's just ask the question.

Do you think there are any circumstances under which Canada might actually benefit from being the 51st state? Well, you know, it's such a crazy way to think. Because Canada and the United States are so tightly coordinated. And there's cooperation on environmental issues, migratory birds, traffic of the bridges and crossings,

law enforcement, anti-money laundering. The legal codes are so similar. I don't know how many hours, but it wouldn't be days or weeks that it would take if you were a lawyer in one country to learn the law of the other country. The main effect of this fantasy, there would be, I think, two things that would be dramatic. One is to tilt the American politics away from Donald Trump.

The other is that Canada would lose control of its own currency. And that would make the prosperous parts of Canada more prosperous, but the less prosperous parts of Canada a lot less prosperous, because they would be on the American dollar, and that would probably lead to great loss of employment in the less prosperous parts of Canada a lot less prosperous because they would be on the American dollar and that would probably lead to great loss of employment in the less prosperous parts of Canada. Let me ask you just a bit of a personal question on this. You are a well-known Canadian living in the United States and people who know you in the

United States know about your Canadian roots. How awkward has the last five months been for you? Well, they're a little more than Canadian roots. I have a house in Canada. My daughter is buried in Canada and I will be buried in Canada with her. So that's a pretty deep commitment. But look, I think for most Americans and even for many who support Trump, this whole episode has been an embarrassment or worse,

sometimes a lot worse, that I think that Americans are as baffled as anybody by this flare up of hostility. People wonder, is there some deep cause? I don't think you can underestimate the amount of what Trump is saying that is caused by the failure of his hotels in Toronto and Vancouver to succeed.

The Toronto hotel, he just leased his name. But the Vancouver project, he really worked on, that was his, and it was a flop, and went bankrupt, and it's no longer a Trump hotel, and the Toronto Hotel is also no longer a hotel. He takes that very personally, and of course, some businessmen would say, I had a failure, let me analyze that, what did I do wrong, how do I do better? Trump's assumption, of course, is all those customers, they're to blame. What's wrong with those Canadians?

What's wrong with those Canadians? What's wrong with those Canadians? Don't they understand the nature of my genius? Exactly. Okay, following up with another sort of personal question here. You've invested a great deal of your time, your brain power, your career, your sweat equity, everything. You've written books, you're doing podcasts,

you're on television, you're writing for the Atlantic. Much of it in the service of trying to tell books, you're doing podcasts, you're on television, you're writing for the Atlantic. Much of it in the service of trying to tell your readers, viewers, listeners, etc. how awful this president is, and yet he managed to get re-elected despite your efforts. Does it make you question the value of what you've been doing? Well, no good comes of not listening to me. I can say that. Look, there was a saying in the early part of the Trump

phenomenon when he was running in 2016, LOL, nothing matters. Meaning he would say some crazy thing. It wouldn't kill him politically. And people would say nothing matters. But I believe everything matters. There's just a lot of everything. And there are strange gifts to Donald Trump. And one of them has been that established democracies

in the years since the war have been very successful places to live. And the success was made by the previous generation and enjoyed by the present generation. And perhaps there was a mood of complacency and Donald Trump has, and those like him in other countries, because he's not just an American phenomenon, they're, they're, look, this kind of fascistic politics is on the rise everywhere. It's on the rise in the continent of Europe.

It's in the rise in South Korea. And it has to be met everywhere. And so we have a job to do in the way that previous generations did. we met everywhere and so we have a job to do in the way that previous generations did and maybe it kind of like to miss it and have an easier time but it's also kind of an honor to be called to do it. Have you ever come close to saying to hell with it we're going to leave the United States and I'm moving back to Canada permanently? Um, yes, but for personal reasons. I would, I, there's a poem that Churchill used to quote called,

Say not the struggle not availeth. It's not up to you to decide not to do your part. But there are times when, like any human being, I've had crisis in my life and I want to lay down burdens. And I'm sure that time will return. But that's a personal matter. That's not because the problem's too hard. I mean, it's going to be... It's a big work. And we all have our part to play. And it's dangerous to be arrogant and to think oh you know so this is all about me and I you know they didn't listen to me so I'm quitting. It's also dangerous to be excessively humble and to say well it doesn't matter

what I do. You never know which is the particular pebble in the mountain that is going to be the one that makes the difference. I would like to just take a few moments here and explore the nature of your conservatism as it has reflected itself over the years. I remember in the days when you were writing speeches for George W. Bush, and we would occasionally have you on this program, we would catch H-E double hockey sticks every time we had you on.

It's funny, we don't get that anymore. People seem to be okay with you more nowadays. You used to, back in the day, write books with titles like An End to Evil. And your conservatism seemed pretty muscular. And then in 2016, you voted for Hillary Clinton. Who'd you vote for in 2020? Oh, I have not cast a Republican ballot since Trump has been.

Biden and Kamala Harris. And I also don't believe in these sort of luxury boutique ballots like you write in your dog. It's a binary choice in the United States. Canada is a multiparty system. The United States is a two-party system. So if you reject one, you don't want to just subtract one vote from one column.

You want to add the vote to the other column. But I've definitely changed my mind about some things over the years, for sure. And I've written about that where it seemed relevant. But other things I haven't changed my mind about. But the nature of politics is it's an exam where the question keeps changing. And so people find themselves in different alignments,

partly because they change, but more because the circumstances change. Politics is the business of finding collective answers to collective problems. The collective problems in one 20-year period are going to be different collective problems from the collective problems in another 20-year period. And one of the things that has been very true in the Trump years is a certain kind of conservative, those of us who believed in American leadership, in the muscular, if necessary, military defense of democracy against its threats, in free trade, in markets, those beliefs where I continue to feel exactly the same way as I did 40 years ago, those pull you in a different direction.

If you see the war in Ukraine and say there is a emerging, flawed, but still vibrant, vital democracy, and it needs to be defended against military attack. And the West has the means and the ability to do it in a way that won't turn into a nuclear war, but could save the Ukraine. And anyone who doesn't want to go along with that program is missing something important. That's something I would have thought in 1980, in 2000,

in 2020, 2025, free trade too. But other things, there are things I've changed my mind about. Well, I do remember, I think one of your book launches in Toronto, your former senator sister got up and said, my brother's getting in touch with his inner moderate these days. Yeah. And that got quite a good laugh. Yeah, but it's also true that you can be a little bit,

depending on the question, you can be lampooned. When I was in the George W. Bush White House, there's a paper that will show up someday in the archive search. I don't actually have a copy of it anymore, to my regret. One of the things before 9-11, we were looking at what should be on his agenda. I wrote a long memo about the importance of improving conditions in American prisons. I'd spent some time in prisons, not as an inmate, but it always struck me as crazy.

Why is the food so disgusting? Why is there no policing and protection of inmates against sexual abuse? If those who are there for extended times and who have their relationships, why can't they have a visit from their partners and have a conjugal visit? So I wrote and Bush was quite interested in this idea now 9-11 overtook it But that was something I thought about in 2000 in 2001. I've always had environmental interests. I I was a proponent of

Vigorous responses to carbon jet Climate change in carbon. I wrote a book about that before the Great Recession. But sometimes some things are to the fore, and other times other things are to the fore. Let's do a little walk down memory lane here, shall we? 15 years ago on this program, Barack Obama was the president at the time. And we talked about how you thought

the Republicans could potentially deprive him of a second term. Yeah. Sheldon, if you would. You have to understand the Obama method. The only way to beat him is to be more reasonable. And what is instead happening on the right is that we're having this explosion of anger theater where you have these talkers on the radio and TV who think that their job is to get their shrinking minority of supporters

ever more agitated against Obama. Meanwhile Obama is soothing implicating a larger and larger center of gravity in the country. You have to be more like him in order to defeat him. More like him to defeat him. Yeah. That was 16 years ago actually. That was good advice.

Well, I was going to say the Republicans have not taken your advice. Instead of going for the approach you suggested, they seem to have opted for the most narcissistic, kleptocratic, disgraceful alternative on option. Well, what I was saying there about the electorate, one of the things that has happened, and this is a sort of a meta-change that has happened in every democracy. What we're seeing is the people, the dividing line

between so-called right and so-called left is increasingly becoming one of faith in institutions versus non-faith in institutions. That the people who don't believe in institutions migrate to what used to be the parties of the right, and the people who do migrate to the parties of the left, what used to be the left. And so this is one of the big problems

Republicans have in the midterms that are coming up, is the people who don't believe in institutions, you can rev them up to participate in the giant circus of the presidential election, but you can't count on them for school board, and you can't count on them in the off-year elections. But it's a reason that things that didn't used to be political, like should you

vaccinate your children, have become political. Because the people who don't believe in the institutions of democracy and trade also don't believe in modern science and medicine. Is there any argument that you would entertain which goes something like this? The old Republican Party that you preferred did get involved in too many foreign wars. It was too close to, I was going to say Bay Street, Wall Street at the expense of Main Street. It did not give much voice to the people who consider themselves voiceless. And Donald Trump has come along and changed those aspects of the party.

You prepared to give him any of that? Look, demagogues don't become demagogues by talking about things that people don't care about. And I think there is some truth to each of those critiques. But the question of politics is, are you trying to solve those problems, or are you trying to use those problems? So all the question of the care and concern for the ordinary person who's not super wealthy,

Trump is going to abuse them. I mean, the tariffs are an abuse. This pending tax mess that the Republicans look like they are about to pass, as we speak. It may fail, which is a massive redistribution from poorer to richer. The tariffs are a massive redistribution from poorer to richer. Joined to cuts in Medicaid that are going to leave millions of people uninsured. This is not exactly a program for the everyday person. Trump tosses them stupid and empty promises like no tax on tips. I don't know that that could be

there could be a more insulting thing where we're gonna tariff you, we're gonna take away your health care, but here's a tip and you know what? No tax on your tip. There you go. See, spend it, my good man. I mean, it's just a repellent way to do things and condescending. But yes, there's some truth to the critique, but there's no truth to the response. What would have to happen for the Republican Party

to become more like the Republican Party of before or that you would like it to be? I don't think that's the way politics are going to go. I don't think things return. Everything is always new. Everything is always in flux. The one law of politics is constant change. And I make a lot of my predictions

about what's happened in American politics by doing comparisons to other comparably developed countries. So I think the loss of faith in institutions is a general trend it's not a good trend and it's not a reasonable trend, but it's a trend and Where that trend is broadly based across a lot of countries and you can see those people are flowing into the parties of the right I Have to imagine that for some time that trend will continue and that the people who do trust institutions many of them former conservatives

they do Who do believe in vaccination who do believe in modern science who do believe in? Elections and that the loser should graciously accept the outcome They're going to be pushed into the parties of the left and the parties of the left will change I mean you see in Canada you see that example I mean the Carney liberals are Canada, you see that example. I mean, the Carney liberals are a very different item from the Trudeau liberals. And Carney got the support of a lot of people who probably would not normally have considered a Liberal Party vote,

but looked at him and said, you look like an individual responsible choice. And he made that choice may change the people who made the choice, but it may also change the nature of the Liberal Party of Canada, that it can indulge some of the crazier things it did over the past decade. How much trouble do you think the Canadian Conservative Party is in, in as much as it got the highest percentage of the total vote since the 1980s, and yet still came second? Well, second is,, second is pretty good. Not when you got a 25-point lead four months earlier.

No. They have a problem that the Republicans had 15 years ago, which is that the Canadian conservatives remain, most members of that, most voters, remain institutional-minded. Some are non-institutional-minded. And straddling those two groups is a very awkward dilemma. And I think one of the things that hurt them,

one of the things that made the Trump pressure break the conservative coalition and strengthen the liberal coalition was because the conservative coalition included the institutional and the anti-institutional. And there is a lot of gravity that will pull the conservatives as it has pulled the British conservatives and the American Republicans in an anti-institutional direction. That can lead to very bad choices like Brexit and like Trump.

But there's also, I think, there's a kind of ballast in Canadian life. Canadians are very non-ideological people, non-extreme, that may pull the institutional majority into greater prominence and greater strength. You've known, I suspect, every conservative leader since Brian Mulroney, probably, right? Yeah. Maybe even, well, Joe Clark, too. He was before Brian Mulroney. Do you think Pierre Poliev has what it takes to become prime minister of this country?

Pierre had a great understanding of the problems that are facing, especially younger Canadians. He talked a lot about things that were very, very real. The cost of housing, the difficulty of forming a family. It should be possible for... People don't ask for the moon, but they ask for reasonable things. I want to fall in love, I want to have a family, I want to have a house, I want to raise them with some security, I want to see things gradually getting better and better. And I shouldn't have to be a titan of industry for my condition to be better at the end of

30 years than it was at the start. And he spoke about those things and he spoke about them in a compelling way. But the question got changed. And the question got changed to this one of, there's this attack on the sovereignty and independence of the country. It comes from the American Republicans. And you lead a coalition where there's

a faction who are kind of sympathetic to what Trump is doing. And you have to find some way to speak for the majority of your own collusion and the vast majority of the country that is not sympathetic without alienating the faction who is and that that was that was the pressure under which the conservative vote imploded. That is the definition of being between a rock and a hard place.

Yes. And what do you do? You know sometimes the rock is just too heavy to lift. Sometimes you are defeated by problems and the political obligation then is to say that your supporters have to say are you the man to come back from this disaster and the leader has to think well what do I learn how do the because the question will not be presented the same way again there will be another election the questions will be different but I'm I'm guessing that three or four

years from now it will not be a whole lot easier for young Canadians to buy a house and form a family than it is today and so if that's the thing you talk about it may become more relevant in three or four years time than it was in this last election memory lane again shall we okay here we go this was really quite something 15 years ago this time I think I've got the math right, you were on this program, and out of thin air, you picked a random year in which to look forward and think about America's future.

Sheldon, if you would, let's roll it. Obviously, the United States in 2025 will be a richer, stronger, more successful country than it is today. However, as between April and now, you know... Who knows? 2025, we're here. Is America richer and stronger today?

Yes, it is. And what year was that taken? That was 15 years ago. 2010. Yeah. Okay, so America's share of the planet's output is higher in 2025 than it was in 2010. In 2010, we were counting down the years until China would overtake the United States as the world's largest economy. In 2010, most people, if I remember right, would have guessed that will happen by the 2030s.

I think today in 2025, most people say it's not going to happen before the end of the century if then. So the COVID, there was a tend here anyway, but COVID accelerated. The American economy came out of COVID like a rocket. Everyone else's economy faltered, including the Chinese economy. America met the COVID test. Others did not. Inflation was the unfortunate price for meeting the test. So that's all true.

a price for meeting the test. So that's all true. If you pull up the tape 15 years from now, what we will ask is, but given this extraordinary achievement, given the strength, the terrible choice of leadership the United States made in 2024 raises questions about whether the trajectory will continue. Because Donald Trump's tariffs are going to make the American economy less efficient. His reckless fiscal policy, massive debt, is going to make the American household less wealthy.

His alienation of allies is making the United States more isolated in the world. And his lack of attention to problems like climate and the public health of individual Americans means that the world could be a poorer and sicker place, and Americans are, of course, part of that world. So choices made today, let's see how we are in 15 years. I want to, I mean, I do believe in the strength of American institutions, the dynamism of the American economy. I think Canada has benefited from its intimate relationship with the United States. But the choices being made now are so bad and not so easy to reverse. Well, let's finish up on that. America, for whatever reason, seems

to have a great fascination these days with electing people who are in their 70s and 80s to take on their biggest jobs. Who is in the next generation that intrigues you? Intrigue in a good way or intrigue in a bad way? Well, let's start with a good way. Well, there has been a tendency toward aging politicians. And frivolously, I would say, part of that is the end of smoking.

I mean, politicians used to be removed from the scene whether they liked it or not. Part of it has been the way the American fundraising system works, is that politicians like, why can no one replace Chuck Schumer's leader of the Democrats in the Senate? Because he's built over a lifetime a fundraising network that is not so easy to match. And people want to rival him, you know, they just need, they have not built a network over all those decades that he has built.

But I think you see at the state and national level, you do see some interesting people. You see Ruben Gallego, or Gallego, I should pronounce it correctly, who's the senator from Arizona. You see Andy Beshear in Kentucky. The biggest problem for the Democrats is their talent or their stars tend to come from deep blue states who have never faced a true general election challenge. So you get this is what happened to Kamala Harris. She was like a college football star who had never, who's then brought into the major leagues and didn't know women. They never hit that hard in college because she had been campaigning in California where she spent her whole life in California

where the problem was to be a moderate Democrat and hold the left at bay. She had never had to worry much about anything to her right. And when she did, she had no reflexes. And that's true, I think, for a lot of the national Democrats. They don't know how to compete in a world in which there is territory to the right of them as well as to the left of them. I'm going to sneak one last question in. Have you ever wanted to run for office?

I think everyone in journalism believes that, boy, I could do it better than the people actually do it. But when you've published as many words as I have, you know you can't. Gotcha. Well, as we said off the top, every time we make the call out to you, you answer the call, and you've been on this program dozens of times, for which we are truly grateful. David Frum, thank you so much. Thank you.

Thank you for making the call in the first place.