The Munk Debates Podcast - Friday Focus: Trump takes a wrecking ball to America's governing institutions

Episode Date: November 21, 2024

Friday Focus provides listeners with a focused, half-hour masterclass on the big issues, events and trends driving the news and current events. The show features Janice Gross Stein, the founding director of the Munk School of Global Affairs and bestselling author, in conversation with Rudyard Griffiths, Chair and moderator of the Munk Debates. The following is a sample of the Munk Debates’ weekly current affairs podcast, Friday Focus. Rudyard and Janice open the show reflecting on Trump's eye-popping appointments to key positions in government. What happened to the importance of competence, merit, and experience when assigning the most important roles within the federal government?  Rudyard and Janice then turn to Elon Musk, who this week was taking calls with the Ukrainian president and meeting with senior Iranian officials. How can we make sense of Elon's role in the Trump administration, given that he is the largest single contractor to the US government? And finally, can other institutions outside of Washington hold the line as the Trump team takes a wrecking ball to everything in their path? To access full-length editions of the Friday Focus podcast consider becoming a donor to the Munk Debates for as little as $25 annually, or $.50 per episode. Canadian donors receive a charitable tax receipt. This podcast is a project of the Munk Debates, a Canadian charitable organization dedicated to fostering civil and substantive public dialogue. More information at www.munkdebates.com.Become a Munk Donor ($50 annually) to get 72-hour advanced access to the full length editions of Friday Focus and Munk Dialogues. Go to www.munkdebates.com to sign up. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to the Friday Focus podcast for the 15th of November. I'm Richard Griffiths, the executive director of the Monk Debates. I'm joined by Janice Gross Stein, the founding director of the Monk School of Global Affairs for our usual weekly debrief on all things global. Well, Janice, it's happened. The vaudeville circus is back. We've seen a week of Trump appointments, nominations across. He is soon-to-be government.

A lot of jaws dropping. I think that's that sound we've heard popping off in the media all week long. What do you make of this? You know, just to say, Roger, that I am talking to from London, where there was a conference among Canadian-Americans and Brits, as the conference went on and the appointments were announced, the jaws dropped lower and lower and lower. And these are all professional people.

There was, people were stunned, shocked, reaching for the right words to describe what we could say with the high, degree of exaggeration is the least competent group of people. And these people had, and some of them let me say this, Rudyard, are people who have some sympathy for Trump's agenda, so this is not partisan. I think the chagrin, I can't find the right words, frankly.

I really can't. I think the chagrin was focused, first of all, on the appointment for Attorney General, who has been investigated by the Ethics Committee in the House and resigned to preempt the publication of that report. But it spilled over into the appointment of the Director of National Intelligence. We'll come to that. the appointment of the Secretary of Defense in the whole field of national security writ large, there was, I would say fear is the best word. There was fear that if events go wrong, there was not the professionalism that would be necessary

to manage through something very difficult. It was a very somber group. Yeah, I mean, let's go through some of these nominations, just to remind our listeners who may now have been following every twist and term. There are a couple of more establishment candidates. Marco Rubio to Secretary of State, a longstanding senator from Florida was generally welcomed. Yes. Where the shocks came are some of the four.

following. Pete Higseth, a Fox News weekend personality who, to his credit, two combat tours in Afghanistan and Iraq, but has never run anything larger than a platoon, has published two ghostwritten books, and on his chest has a large tattoo often associated with the white supremacist movement in the United States. And he is destined to run the 900 billion, 3 million employee National Department of Defense. Homeland Security is going to Governor Christie. Hold on. Let's just stop over that one for a minute because I'm afraid our listeners will lose the threat.

We'll do them one by one. So this is absolutely stunning. when you think about it, a trillion-dollar department, right? Three million employees. You know, just think about the person who's leading that job, Lloyd Austin, really competent general who has overseen what's gone on in Ukraine for the last four years, hands on in the Middle East, especially during those times when a threat to spiral out of control. Now, who runs the department just underneath Lloyd Austin is, and sometimes people forget about this, there is a deputy, undersecretary of state.

Kathleen Hicks, very, very accomplished professional. It's a political appointment, Rudyard. Who do you think he's going to be willing? First of all, who will be chosen and who with really extensive. It's an managerial experience of a very large budget and very large personnel. Who is going to step up to do that job under somebody that you've just described? Yeah. Next up, Tulsi Gabbard, another Fox personality.

I think Fox is going to have to, you know, go on a recruiting drive here as all of its TV voices end up in some role in this administration. Tulsi Gabbard, former Democrat Congresswoman turned MAGA. She, again, a effective performer on TV, ran for the Democratic nomination in the 2020 cycle. But in terms of experience, she's now the National Director of Intelligence. So this is the role that coordinates all, I don't know, 16, 19 U.S. intelligence agencies. And it's seemingly yet again an example of form over substance to put it as politely as I possibly could. Richard, you missed the highlight, though.

Okay. Kelsey Gabbard traveled to Syria and was escorted. boarded in Syria by Syrian intelligence officers. She has an interest in Syria. Telsie Gabbard, in addition to her appearances on Fox Network, appears on RT. RT for our listeners is the Russian network, which is... It's a propaganda network. Let's just call what it is, a state propaganda network.

It's a front propaganda network for... Russia. Can it be a coincidence that she was escorted by Syrian intelligence officers and that she appears on RT? Can you imagine just for a second? I mean, again, I'm having trouble keeping my voice even, a director of national intelligence. And by the way, let's add one more thing here, Roger. Trump has said no background checks on these people by the FBI.

They are going to use a private security company to do the background checks. There are all kinds of allegations about her connections, and those are going to be verified one way or the other for that role, which requires the highest degree of confidentiality by a private security company. Yeah. I hope your job's dropping. Oh, well, no. I mean, a few others will go through.

them quickly and then I want to try to get us to analyze what the heck this all means. Christine Nome, the MAGA governor of South Dakota, who famously ended up in the press recently with her autobiography revealing that she shot her dog. Yes. Because it was kind of, I don't know, an annoyance to her sheep herd. I forget the exact details of that little chestnut. But this is a, again, a kind of fox manufactured MAGA personality who really, uh, I think has had a completely indistinguishing career as a governor of a small state.

And we'll now take on the important role of Homeland Security. We have to, though, talk about a couple of other big ones. You know, Gantz, it's just no other way to describe Gantz as a possible attorney general, Matt Gantz. I mean, this is someone, as you said, has had all kinds of horrible allegations, swirling. around him, being involved in a Florida sex ring with minors. As you say, a house investigation that was culminating. Someone of the most dubious moral character announced into this critical role of Attorney General. And then just add some more, I could go on and on and on.

Robert F. Kennedy, who has a long history of statements about vaccines and other. chlorinated water. Charitably say capital A alternative health treatments will now be the Secretary of Health. Janice, what do you think is driving this? I mean,

it is so off the charts in terms of a break with convention, a break with competency, a break with within a sense, like a culture of I won't say excellence,

maybe that's not necessarily a fair standard to measure any government in the U.S. against because the political appointments are so deep and so wide and politics plays a big role here. But there was always, I think, up into this point, some sense of merit that people had to evidence, experience, insight, and ability to take on these major institutions

and major roles from defense to intelligence to the judicial system and on and on and on. And it just looks like all of this is being kind of torn down, pushed aside, and kind of kick to the curb in some orgy, some festival of egos and, I don't know, YouTube, TikTok video personalities who seem now to dominate the majority of the, offices, high offices in U.S. government. I mean, it's deeply, deeply worrying. And I think it's no coincidence, Roger, that every single one of these that you mentioned except for Robert Kennedy has a national security file, okay? Because Homeland Security has very much to do with domestic security and counterterrorism and disinformation.

And all those that are, of course, connected internationally as well as domestically, You need confidence. You need minimal competence. You need some exposure to these issues in which you accumulate some knowledge. Because one of these jobs ultimately about, I can sacrifice the management for, you know, expertise. Because you can get really good people to help with that. But it's about judgment. That's what it's about, Rudyard.

It's about judgment. and it's frankly, and I will go out on a limb here, it's inconceivable that they will not mishandle a crisis when it comes. There is no experience, there's no competence, and every one of them, maybe not known, but everybody else has displayed total lack of judgment in their personal life or in the things they've done professionally. Nome shot or dog. Yeah.

Okay. Maybe suggest some kind of personal demons there that maybe best not be visited on the American people as the head of Homeland Security as Donald Trump attempts to deport, you know, 10 to 15 million people. I haven't talked about his so-called border czar who when asked, what do you do when you do when you're separating children and parents and deportations said to a six, I believe it was. a 60 Minutes host, well, you just deport the children with them. Yeah. I mean, there's a certain, there's a certain kind of cruelty to all this. And what I'm, I guess I'm trying to understand, Janice, is, is there any method to the madness? Some people have hypothesized that behind all this is the realization that Trump and the people

around him have 24 months until the midterm elections, where we're. most parties who have swept like this end up losing one or both houses at the midterm. And that their calculation, again, we're trying to impart to this some kind of rationale is to effectively go for broke, to try to have a defenestration, a complete, like, overturning of what they would consider as a corrupt insider swamp, like kind of, culture in Washington, D.C. and in the federal government, and they're simply going for it. What do you think of that analysis? You know, look, I think there's a lot of truth to that, rhetoric.

They certainly realize they have 18 to 24 months. That's all they do. 18, because then you start campaigning for them in terms. In other than you lose control of one, because there's always a price for incomeancy. But I would bet you they're Americans who have buyer's remorse already. Yeah, yeah. There must be Americans who stayed home or were undecided and who see this cabinet and understand how reckless this is, how radical it is. You know, you describe it as tear down government.

It is revolutionary. We have not seen a government like this, frankly, in modern American history. There's no counterpart to this. And it is a very radical agenda, and they're going for it. Essentially, and this is why look how quickly these announcements are coming. They're coming very, very quickly. It's unusual within a week of a campaign. to have this. This is planned. This is not accidental. I think, you know, when Kelly Kraft,

the former ambassador to Canada, was here recently in Ottawa, she said Donald Trump is going to get what he wants. Buckle up Canada. I think she's absolutely right. This is going to be the wildest ride. If we're lucky, we get through it. And I don't mean Canada. I mean everyone will get through it without some catastrophe, but you can't count on the confidence of the people in this government. If you have an attorney general like this, there's no words to describe him. No, no. A sinister, uh, sinister character.

Yeah. Janice, I'm going to forego our usual break because I think this is discussion is too important to, uh, to take it behind the curtain of our paid membership. So I just hope our curators and supporters, um, yeah, we'll just play along with us. this week. We want to make this whole show available to all of our community because it is, I think, an important moment that we're in to try to understand. There's a couple other dimensions of this that I want to explore with you. The first is what we're seeing with Elon Musk. This is getting, again, into completely unprecedented territory. He seems to be living in

Mar-a-Lago with Donald Trump. He was on a call. The phone was passed to him when President Trump was talking with Zelensky. And Musk had some of him. kind of conversation with Zelensky. It's then later reported in the week that that Musk has been meeting with with Iranian officials to to see I guess if you know, what U.S. policy will be with regards to Iran. I guess in the past presidents have used surrogates to to have discussions, but this all seems so out in the open, so in a sense brazen. And is Musk freelancing here?

Is Trump effectively running a dual presidency with Musk as a kind of deputy president who will assume a role that's much larger than the one that's been granted to him on paper, which is to reorganize government, which alone is shocking, considering he's the largest single contractor to the U.S. government. and there has been no discussion about him recusing himself from his businesses as he goes about remaking American government into something that I presume fits his tastes and preferences and inclinations. It just again seems to be that we have departed from some kind of basic norms that one would expect in any society, let alone the so-called leader of the free world. So let me just start by saying, Roger, this is illegal, okay? There's a piece of the legislation called the Logan Act,

which prohibit. There is a long transition in the United States, far longer than Canada. We do it in 10 days. It takes them from November 5th, really, until January the 20th. That's a very long transition. So there is a legal prohibition of an, a regime of a president-elect from engaging, particularly in any kind of foreign-related activities.

There's only one president. Donald Trump doesn't care. And he, so people are going to Mar-a-Lago first, and then they come to Washington to see Biden. Yeah, Ron Dermer, Netanyahu's key advisor has been also in Mar-a-Lago, presumably negotiating with president directly. He did. And there was an announcement from him. You should have a statement afterwards saying that Israel would have a surprise gift for Donald Trump on January the 20th. There's withholding until that time in order to celebrate Trump's inauguration. So this is illegal. It's unprecedented. And again, it undermines entirely the president who's in office.

office and his whole team. Now, what is this? Elon Musk, let's go to that one. He, interesting, the two calls, the two issues on which he's been told to involve himself. We know he was in one case because Donald Trump passed the phone to him. Well, that's Ukraine, which is for many the biggest national security worry that people have with his president. Elon Musk is very important to the landscape because his Starlink system, his satellite system, is what allows the Ukrainian army to function to communicate internally. There was a large controversy about it when Elon Musk threatened to withdraw early on because he wanted the Pentagon to pay for it. What's the speculation? The speculation is they're already negotiating for a deal, which they will be able to announce,

very shortly after, and that Elon Musk, with his extensive diplomatic qualifications, is negotiating behind the scenes. Has to be deeply worrying to the landscape, but also deeply worrying to the Biden administration, that somebody who is coming to this. Elon Musk, let's not take anything away from him. is a genius in some of the companies that he's built SpaceLink. It's just extraordinary what he's been able to accomplish. But those skills don't transfer over into geopolitics and diplomatic negotiations. And that's what we're literally seeing happen. Again, no Senate approval, no discussion,

no structure of accountability. No structure of accountability. That's right. Now, what's the bet what's the betting money private these are two men to them with very large egos and there is probably there's probably less concerned about Elon Musk than there are about that list of candidates you or you know you you you read to all of us at the beginning reggie first of all there's competency there uh Elon Musk has managed three very very large businesses and he's done so with considerable success. But technically, that's all fine, but he's,

you know, he's contributed tens, possibly hundreds of millions of dollars to this president, to his reelection through super PAC. And there's a conflict. I mean, there is. They conflict. Let's just call it what this is. This is oligarchy.

This is, this is the rule of the rich. Okay. This is not what's supposed to happen. No. In the city on a hill, the, you know, the American Republic, mountain head of the American Revolution, the beacon of light for the world. Let's be honest what this is.

This is oligarchy. And it's oligarchy, but it's visible oligarchy. It is a terrible conflict of interest that Elon Musk reorganizes national security in the Department of Defense when the contracts that are going to Space Lake are hundreds and hundreds. There are billions of dollars, frankly. There's no way under any regime that he would not have to recuse himself, frankly. What kind of example is that?

And by the way, notice no economic portfolios in this. No, because I'm sure all the serious economic people that they've reached out to have taken one look at this, this merry band of lunatics and has said to themselves, I don't want any part of this. I'm not going to besmirch my reputation. I'm certainly not going to spend the next, you know, 18 to 24 months locked in a room with these maniacs. But, Janice, in the remaining moments,

I want to try to bring this all together into like, how do we think about this? And the last few days, I've come up with something that I think kind of helps me. I don't know if you remember, or in around the time of Joe Biden's disastrous debate, Neil Ferguson wrote a usual Neil Ferguson kind of punchy commentary piece, kind of calling America late Soviet. And what he meant was that the leadership class,

especially Joe Biden, kind of evidence that, you know, the decline of the Soviet Union at the end there, with Brezhnev and a drop-off, and these other kind of sclerotic late Soviet kind of leaders. And I think many people felt that, yeah, this was in some ways symptomatic of a lot of where America was at.

There was a kind of lassitude and drift and certainly a kind of crisis of leadership, obviously, that evidence itself around the Biden administration with his withdrawal from the race. I kind of think right now with the transition to Trump that we've gone from late Soviet to new Putinism, that if you put this all together and you think about this administration and these early appointments, how it was elected, the things that it cares about. There's an awful lot in here that kind of rings with Putinism. There's a glorification of strength and vitality and masculinity. There's a fascination with spectacles of organized violence,

UFC and cage fighting and the president, you know, having Dana White, the head of the USC at his victory party in Mar-a-Lago. There's the rise of the oligarchs, these powerful figures like Musk and others that have now just permeated the blood-brain barrier, blood-brain barrier between commerce, the state, and government. There's a complete disregard for the international liberal order, the rules-based order in international institutions. And beneath it all, above it all, is a kind of complex of the strong man, an idea that one figure, representing the will of the people could and should enforce his will directly on the institutions of his government on the people of his government. And I know many people that we've had on the Monctabate podcast over the years, I think of

Ann Alpabom and Gary Kasparov and others have articulated this. And I guess I always discounted it a bit. I kind of thought, you know, this is a bit of hysteria. It's not that bad. This isn't really where we're headed. And I even felt that way up until the election. And then this week, seeing these nominations, seeing how Trump was elected, you know, the fascination with controlling women's bodies. I mean, the whole thing just goes on and on and on.

And to me, I think what we have to think about is, is America in the grips of a kind of not a late Sovietism, but a new Putinism? So, you know, it's really interesting, Rudyard, because I would shade it a little differently from you. I think it's revolutionary, the regime, but it's a revolution of the radical right. Here's all the things that you mentioned are true. Worship of masculinity. Cruelty. A kind of a relishing cruelty of like these immigrants. We're just going to build these massive camps.

Right. Hold them in them. We're going to deport children with their mothers and parents. There's a toughness that they're venerating and celebrating. Here's what's different from Putin. Okay. Putin comes to power out of the powerful security services, number one, very competent, very, very competent. Years of experience.

Two, he wants to rebuild the state. What drives Putin was the breakup of the Soviet Union and the breakdown of the Russian state. His whole agenda is to rebuild the state and to make the state strong. Trump's agenda is directly the opposite. It is to tear down the state to the target for Trump or the elites, except the ones he likes. And it is to tear down government. and refashioned government in a way that he never really talks about. There's no positive vision here, but it is a radical revolutionary regime that is coming into place.

I guess why I struggle with the word revolution, Janice, in my mind, it connotes some, something, and again, as much my bias, but something in a sense positive, something that is energetic. Whereas, I don't know, I think, I think this, I just think there's a lot of venality and corruption and self-dealing and, you know, lusting for power. Yes. And domination. So to me, it feels more neo-authoritarian than it feels revolutionary. Yeah, you see, I think it's more than neo-authoritarian, Roger. And that's why I think that you're just a bigger argument in what you're saying. It's more than neo-authoritarian.

There is an enemy. Is it nihilistic? Is it nihilism? No, it's got an agenda. That's what I mean by revolutionary. We just don't like the agenda, but it's got an agenda. Enemies list, right? A willingness to take the institutions of the state and turn them against enemies.

that is not, you know, that's not authoritarian. That's much, much deeper. You know, one of the things we didn't talk about is just for a moment is Mark Gates, the nominee for attorney general said explicitly that Jews are enemies because they kill Christ. That is not an administrative state of the kind that Putin built. to restore its former competency and capacity to execute. This is something that is. And you know, there's a...

Okay, well, let me try one other way for me to figure this in. Let me put it there. Let me finish. One second. Yeah, bad Roman emperors, Nero, okay? He sat there with his violin while Rome bird. That's one type of leadership. The other was Caligula, who got on his horse and attacked Neptune in the sea.

He sold all the Senate's wives into prostitution. What kind of Roman emperor, if we're going to use, you know, that, I mean, is it a Caligula? Is it a Nero? Is it? Yeah. You know, I think the person who got it most right so far is Robert Pax. Robert Paxon is a truly great historian of the Vichy regime in Paris. And he wrote an article, and everybody resisted the description of soft fascism, right? It's a big difference between a soft fascist and authoritarian. Thorntarians are conservative. Soft fascists are radical.

They have an activist agenda. Part of it is tearing down. Look at the language they used to talk about immigrants. There is a soft fascist tone. And here's what Robert Paxton said, which I thought actually was so self-disciplined and so smart. he had originally, in his own writing, rejected that label for Trump. He recanted as he watched Trump go through the campaign. But he said two questions.

Is Trump a soft fascist? Yes, he is. Is it useful to talk about him that way as we think about what everyone else needs to do over in the next two to four years? No. Okay. Well, I'm still, I think, confused. I would take Nero any day right now, Richard.

I would take Nero any day over this. There's a bit of a waft of Caligula, though, this week with some of these appointments. So I wonder, and I just, I wonder if, I mean, yeah, I think you're right about buyers' regret. I would think there were a lot of maybe more moderate people or people who voted for Trump simply because I didn't want to vote. for Harris or the, again, the inflation issue, push them. I just, I think you're right. I think there might be a sense here. We've gone too far.

And, but boy, they don't seem constrained by that, do that? No. They seem to be leaning into crazy. Because they know this is their one chance. This is their chance. These next 18 months, that's why all this work was done before, roar out of the gate, which is what they're doing, and get it done. Yeah.

But what's the it, right? And it's not Trump necessarily. He has that coherent vision. It's the Stephen Millers and the Steve Bannons behind. Because almost all the people that you mentioned, Roger, certainly all the Fox people have connections to Steve Bannon. There's no question about it. Well, and a lot of these people are MAGA,

like Matt Gates is part of, I mean, the Freedom Caucus and the really radical. radical elements in the party. You know, here's the big question that you and I will probably be talking about for two years. Can other institutions in the United States outside of Congress and the judiciary, can other institutions hold the line? Yeah, and when you just shatter all these norms over and over again, at a certain point, Humpty Dumpty ain't getting put back together again. Not the way it was.

No. No. So, wow, what a week. We'll continue to watch it for our monk community. Thank you so much, Janice, for your time today. I know it's late there in London. So wing your way back here to Canada and we'll do this all again next Friday. See you next Friday, Red. Bye, bye. Thank you for listening to this edition of the Friday Focus podcast. I'm Rudyard Griffiths, the chair of the monk debates. I was joined on this program as I am each week by Janice Gross Stein, the founding. director of the Monk School of Global Affairs. Janice and I would love your reactions to what you heard on the program today. Also, your suggestions and ideas about future topics that we should cover on Friday Focus. Please send us your suggestions now to podcast at monkdebates.com. That's MUNK Debateswithan S.com. This podcast is produced by Aidan Moscovich and generously underwritten by the Peter and Melanie

Monk Charitable Foundation. Please visit our website, triplew monkdebates.com, to access hundreds of podcasts, dialogues, and debates on all the big issues and ideas shaping our world. Again, you can do that right now at triplew monkdebates.com.

While you're there, consider if you're not already becoming a free monk debates member. You get all kinds of great benefits and perks as a complimentary monk member. You can grab yours right now at triplew monk debates.com forward slash membership. Thanks for listening to this program. We'll do it all again soon.

Bye bye.