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Speaker 1: Very pleased to be joined today by one of the

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Speaker 1: most astute commentators on Western civilization, American politics, global events,

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Speaker 1: Canadian affairs, my former colleague David. From David Welcome, Hey,

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Speaker 1: thank you so much. We are celebrating a terrible anniversary tomorrow,

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Speaker 1: the anniversary of Crystal Knocked in nineteen thirty eight. Crystal

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Speaker 1: Knocked occurred five years into Hitler's reign, which occurred ten

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Speaker 1: years after Hitler's real appearance in German culture at nineteen

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Speaker 1: twenty three. The Nazis take power in nineteen thirty three.

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Speaker 1: They immediately begin putting into law restrictions on Jewish life.

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Speaker 1: The professors are kicked out of the university, Folks are

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Speaker 1: burning by may you have the Right Citizenship laws or

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Speaker 1: passed in nineteen thirty five, where Jews can no longer

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Speaker 1: be considered citizens, have no protections under the state, have

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Speaker 1: no ability to work in professional services, whether it be

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Speaker 1: university professor or a teacher. And then there is the

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Speaker 1: assassination of a fairly minor Nazi Party official in Paris,

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Speaker 1: and the German pogram begins. And there's exactly one paper

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Speaker 1: in America that captures it correctly. It's a Los Angeles Tribune,

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Speaker 1: and it says Jews, Jews will be annihilated in Germany.

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Speaker 1: Democracies are their only hope. What are we watching in

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Speaker 1: the world in this country with the explosion of any Semitism?

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Speaker 1: Within living memory of Schindler's List, within living memory of

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Speaker 1: l Visel addressing indifference at the dawn of a new

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Speaker 1: millennium at the White House, within the lifetimes of the

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Speaker 1: survivors of the camps. Where across America, whether it might

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Speaker 1: be in Florida or California or anywhere in between, there

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Speaker 1: are old men and women with tattoos on their arms.

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Speaker 1: We were supposed to never forget what has gone wrong,

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Speaker 1: what has happened.

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Speaker 2: You know.

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Speaker 3: It's a curious coincidence in German history that November ninth,

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Speaker 3: the anniversary of the Crystal Knocht, was also the day

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Speaker 3: in nineteen eighteen when the first German Republic was proclaimed,

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Speaker 3: or when the German Weimar Republic was proclaimed, And it

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Speaker 3: was the day in nineteen eighty nine when the Berlin

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Speaker 3: Wall opened and German democracy and unity were restored. The

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Speaker 3: Germans called November ninth the day of fate, and it's

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Speaker 3: reminder that everything is about choices. Because this day, which

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Speaker 3: is also one of the most terrible in German history,

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Speaker 3: is also one of the most inspiring in German history.

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Speaker 3: And there are other other coincidences around the November ninth

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Speaker 3: date as well. So as we see these terrible events

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Speaker 3: in the United States and other countries, I think we

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Speaker 3: need to be mindful that history is about choices, that

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Speaker 3: it's always at any given moment, you can choose one

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Speaker 3: path or another path, and that it's always possible to

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Speaker 3: make your November ninth the day that you remember for

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Speaker 3: the powerful and positive things in history, and not the

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Speaker 3: terrible and destructive ones. I think that that just put

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Speaker 3: reminds us that history isn't in our hands. It's not

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Speaker 3: something that happens necessarily to us. It's something that we do.

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Speaker 1: I look back on that day, November ninth, ten, nineteen

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Speaker 1: eighty nine, as an astounding moment. At age nineteen, in

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Speaker 1: an instant, the world changed utterly completely. The Soviet Union

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Speaker 1: was gone. We grew up in an era and in

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Speaker 1: a culture where Patrick Swayzee was a gorilla commander in

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Speaker 1: Colorado leading the fight back against the Cuban and Russian invasion.

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Speaker 1: We had the Rambo culture of the nineteen eighties, where

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Speaker 1: Sylvester Stallone is going back to Vietnam to get our

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Speaker 1: POW's out, and suddenly it's all at an end. The

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Speaker 1: war ends, and it begins this decade of optimism that

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Speaker 1: I'm now old enough at fifty three, when I talked

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Speaker 1: to younger people from a generation ago, it's hard to

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Speaker 1: explain that sense of American optimism at the turn of

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Speaker 1: the millennium. Millennium, this packs Americana. How do you contextualize

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Speaker 1: that moment twenty five years on? I tell a story

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Speaker 1: from my own life. I'm a little older than you.

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Speaker 1: My wife and I were married in nineteen eighty eight.

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Speaker 1: We took an extent.

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Speaker 3: We didn't take much of a honeymoon at the time,

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Speaker 3: so two years later we were both journalists when after

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Speaker 3: the coming down of the Wall, we took an extended

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Speaker 3: leave from our jobs and traveled through the newly liberated

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Speaker 3: countries of Central Europe. We didn't go to Russia, but

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Speaker 3: we were in almost all of the other countries that

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Speaker 3: had become free and nine in eighty nine, and what

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Speaker 3: I remember most vividly was taking a night train across

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Speaker 3: a border. If I remember right, it was from Poland,

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Speaker 3: into what was then Czechoslovakia. We crossed in the middle

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Speaker 3: of the night, and my wife and I had booked

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Speaker 3: an old fashioned sleeping compartment. The trains were all from

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Speaker 3: before World War Two, and in the middle of the

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Speaker 3: night we suddenly heard on the door bang bang bang

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Speaker 3: bang bang bang bang, like from a movie. Bang bang

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Speaker 3: bang bang bang bang bang bang bang. So I opened

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Speaker 3: the door and presented my passport, my wife's, my new

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Speaker 3: wife's and uh to the official who was wearing this

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Speaker 3: this suit and this this uniform man and of some

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Speaker 3: polystyrene fabric with little paper epaulets, and he ate a

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Speaker 3: leather box with a stamp or swung around his neck.

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Speaker 3: I presented our two passports and said, here we are,

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Speaker 3: and he said, your wife must present herself. So for

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Speaker 3: goodness sake, it's the middle of the night, and you

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Speaker 3: know she's not dressed. Uh just you know, I can

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Speaker 3: open the door a crack, but here, he said, your

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Speaker 3: wife must present herself. And then he began getting very official,

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Speaker 3: and I just said to him, I presented my business

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Speaker 3: card from my paper. I said, those days are over.

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Speaker 3: And he looked suddenly completely deflated because he knew it too.

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Speaker 3: Those days were over. Those days are back, he was

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Speaker 3: and I was wrong. Those days are back.

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Speaker 1: I'm reading the Washington Post this weekend, and like you,

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Speaker 1: I spend a fair amount of time in my day

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Speaker 1: reading over the weekends. I love reading books, I love

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Speaker 1: reading newspapers, I love reading opinion pieces, and I'm always

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Speaker 1: on the lookout for that thing that just captures the moment.

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Speaker 1: And I've been critical of a lot of the journalism

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Speaker 1: over the last seven years, the business realities of the media,

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Speaker 1: the billions that have been made in partnership with Donald Trump,

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Speaker 1: and the production of a reality show that's framed to

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Speaker 1: the American people's episodic television, where the previous day's events

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Speaker 1: are erased, today's events are offered without context, and tomorrow's

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Speaker 1: are framed as impossible to know, when in fact, it's

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Speaker 1: all part of one continuous, unfolding, worsening event in my view,

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Speaker 1: that's been going on since twenty fifteen. So it's in

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Speaker 1: that context. I'm reading the Washington Post this weekend, and

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Speaker 1: there it's just laid out.

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Speaker 3: As fact.

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Speaker 1: No anonymous quotes. About seven paragraphs. It simply report as

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Speaker 1: a fact matter Donald Trump's intentions on day one to

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Speaker 1: invoke the Insurrection Act to deploy the American military into

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Speaker 1: the American nation ostensibly against the American people, and his

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Speaker 1: desire to prosecute and lock up political opponents. And I

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Speaker 1: read that, of course, astounded that I had, realizing, of

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Speaker 1: course every word of it is true, shocked that seven

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Speaker 1: years on, it's really the first place I've read it

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Speaker 1: so dramatically stated in the drama in it is how

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Speaker 1: ordinary and understated The paragraphical formation in the language was

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Speaker 1: What do you think when you read that? Do you

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Speaker 1: take him seriously literally? I certainly do. And my question

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Speaker 1: is if that happens, the employs the Insurrection Act on

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Speaker 1: January twentieth, with Stephen Miller by his side, and who

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Speaker 1: knows who else does the military file the order? What

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Speaker 1: is the magnitude of the American constitutional crisis in that

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Speaker 1: in that moment, I certainly know I will be on

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Speaker 1: the streets.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, I think it'll look like Tel Aviv three months ago,

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Speaker 3: and not in just one city, but in many. As

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Speaker 3: you say, people will be out. The attitude of the

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Speaker 3: military will become very important, and the question will be

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Speaker 3: does Donald Trump have the capacity, the technical capacity, the

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Speaker 3: legal authority to remake the military? So I have two

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Speaker 3: reactions when I read that story. The first is, like you,

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Speaker 3: I often speak in front of audiences and the question

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Speaker 3: I am often asked is are you an optimist or

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Speaker 3: a pessimist? And I always refuse to answer that question,

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Speaker 3: not because I'm scared to make a guess about the future,

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Speaker 3: although you know, we ought to be humble about that.

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Speaker 3: But I said, but you know, when you ask that

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Speaker 3: question optimism or pessimism, you treat the future as a

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Speaker 3: thing that exists about which statements can be made. And

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Speaker 3: the whole point of the future is is it doesn't exist.

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Speaker 3: It's what we make. So when people ask what's going

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Speaker 3: to happen? I said, that's the wrong question. The right

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Speaker 3: question is what are you going to do? What are

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Speaker 3: you going to do, sir man? What are you going

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Speaker 3: to do in this eventuality, on the way to this

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Speaker 3: eventuality and after this eventuality? And then the other thing

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Speaker 3: I take from that is I think there are In

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Speaker 3: the first book I wrote about Donald Trump, I had

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Speaker 3: a chapter which I said, this is strange thing about

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Speaker 3: Donald Trump, which is their gifts from Donald Trump. There

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Speaker 3: are things he's done for this country that in some

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Speaker 3: ways make it better. Not things, maybe things we'd rather

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Speaker 3: have skipped. It's like you go through a serious disease,

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Speaker 3: and if you survive, you say I learned some things

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Speaker 3: from this experience. It would be better not to have known.

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Speaker 3: But my point is having gone through the disease, and

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Speaker 3: I wish I hadn't, but had I done so, I

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Speaker 3: did come with some wisdom that I wouldn't have had

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Speaker 3: but for the disease. And one of the things. And

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Speaker 3: since you open started with Germany, I think this whole experience, teacher,

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Speaker 3: is American. Some humility. There has for a long time

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Speaker 3: been an American attitude of Americans. Other countries suffer these things.

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Speaker 3: America is exceptional, America is spared. There's something in the water,

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Speaker 3: there's something in the air. You know that we're different

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Speaker 3: from the common ruck of humanity. We don't face these things.

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Speaker 3: And Donald Trump was sent, perhaps by God, to teach

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Speaker 3: us a little humility. Say, you know what what other

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Speaker 3: countries have done, You've done, and if whether how bad

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Speaker 3: that turns out to be, is also going to be

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Speaker 3: a test for you in the way that other countries

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Speaker 3: have been tested. So you know, don't be so superior

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Speaker 3: towards those Germans and those French and those checks and

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Speaker 3: those Hungarians. We all belong to the same humanity. We're

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Speaker 3: all vulnerable to the same temptations, we all meet the

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Speaker 3: same tests, and we all are evaluated not as nations,

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Speaker 3: but one by one by one as to how we

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Speaker 3: meet the test.

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Speaker 1: Perfectly said, and we want to come back to that

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Speaker 1: in a minute, but I wanted to because you raised

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Speaker 1: it up. I think you have a unique perspective on

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Speaker 1: the United States because you will always see it at

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Speaker 1: some level, or first saw it through Canadian eyes. And

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Speaker 1: you know a Canadian who has served at the highest

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Speaker 1: level in a White House, who is as astute a

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Speaker 1: student of American history and culture as any as any person.

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Speaker 1: But you know we as someone who's married to a

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Speaker 1: Canadian now and spends a lot of time in Toronto,

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Speaker 1: was in your neck of the woods in Edward County

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Speaker 1: and on the Loyalist Parkway, and you read the story

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Speaker 1: of the Loyalist Parkway. The Canadian history is these are

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Speaker 1: the pioneers who escaped America in seventeen in seventeen eighty

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Speaker 1: three after Yorktown and came north, and the Queen dedicated

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Speaker 1: the Parkway in nineteen eighty four, expand on this moment

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Speaker 1: through that Canadian prison. But I when I go to Canada,

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Speaker 1: this is a dynamic, vibrant society, tremendous amount of immigration,

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Speaker 1: almost a buzz of energy. Uh in the airports when

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Speaker 1: you when you land and you come through customs. How

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Speaker 1: does a Canadian grow up in our generation looking at America,

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Speaker 1: come to America and seeing it today through that unique prism.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, well, first welcome, you know you you're spending a

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Speaker 3: lot of time in Canada and and your perspective on

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Speaker 3: Canada will be a way to enrich Canadian self understanding.

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Speaker 1: I grew up.

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Speaker 3: In a very provincial Toronto. It was that a much

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Speaker 3: smaller city and it was then not yet the dynamic

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Speaker 3: global center it is today.

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Speaker 2: And my.

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Speaker 3: Parents are both Jewish, of course I'm Jewish. My father's

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Speaker 3: family have arrive in Canada in nineteen thirty just for

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Speaker 3: economic reasons. They couldn't make a living in Poland and

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Speaker 3: they were able to.

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Speaker 1: Get to Canada.

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Speaker 3: And because they did that, they lived almost all of

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Speaker 3: their relatives on both sides were murdered and my father,

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Speaker 3: had his parents made a slightly different decision, he would

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Speaker 3: have been murdered around the time of his tenth or

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Speaker 3: eleventh birthday, So that was always in the air. It

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Speaker 3: was never spoken about, it was always thought about. And

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Speaker 3: I grew up understanding both that tragedy and also that

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Speaker 3: Canada enjoyed this extraordinary security that it did as a

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Speaker 3: gift from the United States. Canadians didn't do it themselves,

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Speaker 3: and Canada, it has this strange interlocking relationship with the

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Speaker 3: United States, where Canada lives, doesn't pay for its own defense,

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Speaker 3: it doesn't pay really for even its own policing. It

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Speaker 3: borrows all of that from the United States, which is

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Speaker 3: projecting so much security that of course it includes Canada,

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Speaker 3: whether it intends to do so or not. But there

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Speaker 3: is also an experiment here, which is the countries had

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Speaker 3: very similar foundings. I mean the American Civil War, the

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Speaker 3: American Revolution was also civil war. And the part of

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Speaker 3: Ontario War I spent so much time now was settled,

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Speaker 3: as you said, by the losers in that civil war,

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Speaker 3: who then got they were supposed to be compensated by

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Speaker 3: the new post revolutionary government. That never happened. So they

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Speaker 3: got land grants from the British government instead on the

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Speaker 3: other side of Lake Ontario, and they settled the area

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Speaker 3: where I now live or much leer. So there's been

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Speaker 3: a long winning experiment was what if you take very

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Speaker 3: similar societies that share a long history of being part

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Speaker 3: of one entity. You know, in seventeen fifty Boston had

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Speaker 3: a lot more in common with Halifax than Boston had

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Speaker 3: with any place in the American South. And by the way,

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Speaker 3: places in the American South had a lot more common

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Speaker 3: with Barbados than they did with Boston. The one time

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Speaker 3: George Washington traveled outside of Virginia before he became General

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Speaker 3: of the Armies, he went to Barbados. He had never

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Speaker 3: been to Boston until the Revolution broke out. So you've

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Speaker 3: done this experiment. What happens if you put slightly different

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Speaker 3: institutions in place in these two countries. You know we

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Speaker 3: were talking about growing up in the Reagan era. It's

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Speaker 3: it's if the United States had the Canadian constitution, Ronald

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Speaker 3: Reagan would never have been President of the United States,

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Speaker 3: would have been governed by Prime Minister Tip O'Neil. You

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Speaker 3: know that the presidential system produces different results from a

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Speaker 3: parliamentary system. And of course Canada doesn't have, or until

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Speaker 3: very recently did not have a formal Bill of rights.

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Speaker 3: It only got one in the nineteen eighties, and it's

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Speaker 3: a much and the role of the courts and of

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Speaker 3: legal rights are much more vague in Canada than the

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Speaker 3: the United States. There's no gun. That's why there's you know,

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Speaker 3: there's no gun. There're guns in Canada, lots of them. All.

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Speaker 3: My neighbors in rural Ontario have shotguns and long guns

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Speaker 3: to protect their their chickens. But you don't have a

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Speaker 3: lot of handguns, and you don't have a lot of

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Speaker 3: pretend military rifles.

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Speaker 1: McKenzie King, the Prime Minister of Canada, was a confidant

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Speaker 1: Franklin Roosevelts, and it was very cognizant that Roosevelt was

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Speaker 1: the world's historical figure. He would spend weeks in residents

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Speaker 1: at the White House like Churchill did. And they're talking

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Speaker 1: late into the night, and Roosevelt is talking about the

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Speaker 1: architecture of the world to come, his vision for the

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Speaker 1: UN Declaration of Human Rights, his vision for the United Nations,

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Speaker 1: the collective security agreements, decolonialization, the rights of self determination,

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Speaker 1: all of these things that become really the American led

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Speaker 1: liberal world order. Small l and he says to King

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Speaker 1: that his ambition is that nothing lasts forever, but he

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Speaker 1: hopes that this will endure for as long as everybody

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Speaker 1: is alive on the day that hopes it will last

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Speaker 1: for as long as everybody who is alive on the

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Speaker 1: day the war is won is still alive. And those

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Speaker 1: people are seventy eight years old now. And you look

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Speaker 1: at Donald Trump talking about coming back, and the very

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Speaker 1: first thing he would do is withdrawal the United States

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Speaker 1: from NATO, which I'm not sure as a legal architecture

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Speaker 1: that he can formally do, but he can effectively do

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Speaker 1: through executive action in a number of different different ways.

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Speaker 1: I view that as a calamity for world peace, catastrophe,

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Speaker 1: probably without precedent, and what comes behind it will.

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Speaker 3: Be will be chaos.

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Speaker 1: But when you think of what I just said about

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Speaker 1: FDR and Mackenzie King, do you see the order of

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Speaker 1: the world that we grew up in, though it has

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Speaker 1: changed and shifted, its parameters have mutated, expanded and shrunk

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Speaker 1: and grown. We've seen great power competition now rise again.

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Speaker 1: But do you see the end of that world order

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Speaker 1: at hand? Or do you see it's evolving at hand?

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Speaker 3: I'm I think something very powerful has been created. As

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Speaker 3: you say, it's changed a lot since nineteen forty five.

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Speaker 3: But the central idea that Roosevelt had and people who

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Speaker 3: has supported him in many different countries, was before nineteen

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Speaker 3: thirty nine, strong countries had tried to find their security

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Speaker 3: through domination. Your France, your Germany, or the two strong

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Speaker 3: countries on your you each try it. You do this

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Speaker 3: step ladder competition, each to gain military supremacy over the

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Speaker 3: other and to find security through supremacy. And that explodes

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Speaker 3: in the First World War, and then it has a

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Speaker 3: second blood bath in nineteen thirty nine. And the idea

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Speaker 3: of the new world that comes to being after nineteen

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Speaker 3: forty five is what if we find our security not

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Speaker 3: through supremacy and domination, but through cooperation. Your security becomes

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Speaker 3: my security, My security becomes your security. And that idea

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Speaker 3: is the foundation of institutions that become the European Union

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Speaker 3: half a century later. That's the foundation of NATO. Donald

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Speaker 3: Trump always talked about it. It was some defect in

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Speaker 3: the system that Germany would no longer have a big army,

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Speaker 3: in Japan would no longer have a big navy. No, no, no,

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Speaker 3: that was the plan. You guys, concentrate on what you

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Speaker 3: do best and we will concentrate on providing you more

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Speaker 3: security than you could ever get for your health for

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Speaker 3: very little money. So it's a great bargain for you.

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Speaker 3: But the bargain that the rest of the world gets

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Speaker 3: is we are spared the negative consequences that come from

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Speaker 3: your clamber after the security through domination that you are

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Speaker 3: never going to get on your own. And I think

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Speaker 3: that idea is now tested in the Ukraine War. That's

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Speaker 3: why that war is of such global significance because it's

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Speaker 3: an example of a very large and potentially very important

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Speaker 3: country staking the lives of its people in its future

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Speaker 3: on joining this system.

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Speaker 1: And it's a little bit what's at stake in the

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Speaker 1: Middle East right now.

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Speaker 3: Because among the people who reject the system, you know,

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Speaker 3: the ideology that is espoused by Hamas is an important part.

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Speaker 3: I mean, there's a rejectionist block that has many ideas.

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Speaker 3: The Chinese rejected for their set of reasons, other countries

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Speaker 3: rejected for Theirs, these Islamic radical groups rejected for Theirs.

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Speaker 3: And we're testing again and again can we extend this.

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Speaker 3: And there were always big parts of the planet when

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Speaker 3: the system didn't operate. It never operated in Africa, it

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Speaker 3: didn't really operate all that effectively or fairly in Latin America,

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Speaker 3: and it's been a challenge to apply to Asia, which

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Speaker 3: is where's there's so many of these powerful states with

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Speaker 3: deep histories that are going to be very important factors

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Speaker 3: obviously in our time. But it's not just the American guarantee.

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Speaker 3: It's the American idea find security through cooperation and the

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Speaker 3: mutual sharing of security, not through domination and supremacy and

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Speaker 3: the race to impose your will on others.

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Speaker 1: What is the deficit of being able to communicate that

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Speaker 1: in the manner that you just have in a way

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Speaker 1: that the American people can understand that we are seeing

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Speaker 1: out of America only pro democracy party right now.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, I think Americans do understand it at an intuitive level.

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Speaker 3: You know, when you watch in Ukraine an Israel, you

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Speaker 3: see the American reaction to that, you realize there are

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Speaker 3: two things in the American character that really explain how

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Speaker 3: Americans react to every conflict, which is Americans hate bullies

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Speaker 3: and Americans love winners. And so the America, I mean,

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Speaker 3: the American mind is like the kids in the is

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Speaker 3: the kid in the school yard who watches the bully

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Speaker 3: swagger in try to dominate a smaller kid, and then

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Speaker 3: the smaller kid musters whatever reserves of courage and bravado.

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Speaker 3: That kid has got any punches the billion the bully

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Speaker 3: in the nose, makes the nose bleed, and the bully

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Speaker 3: runs away, and Americas that that kid is our hero.

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Speaker 3: That's the person we want to be with the Americas.

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Speaker 3: This is the teacher, I guess in this analogy, because

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Speaker 3: they're the wrongest presence in the whole school yard. But

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Speaker 3: they're a little busy and distracted, and there are a

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Speaker 3: lot of rules about how governing how they can intervene

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Speaker 3: in the matter. But that's what the Ukrainians did, and

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Speaker 3: that's what these reelies. They've always been outnumbered in a gun.

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Speaker 3: But and they get pushed and they push, push, and

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Speaker 3: then they push back and they push back with courage

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Speaker 3: and success. And so I think people and I think

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Speaker 3: people understand that the Ukrainians and the Israelis are fighting

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Speaker 3: for something bigger than themselves. They're they're they're fighting for

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Speaker 3: a world in which intimidation and bullying are repelled. And

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Speaker 3: Americans find that I think it speaks to them, not

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Speaker 3: in the abstract way I spoke a few minutes ago,

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Speaker 3: but in a deep psychological way, you.

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Speaker 1: Know, I will saying, you say that, it's so true,

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Speaker 1: and it just made me think of the movie The

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Speaker 1: Christmas Story with Ralphie and Farcas, Right. You know the

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Speaker 1: iconic scene, right, the bully and the puppy jacket, and

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Speaker 1: you know Ralphie hits him back defending his brother. It's

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Speaker 1: such an iconic aspect of the American character. Right, you

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Speaker 1: know that you just that you just laid out there.

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Speaker 1: Let let's turn to politics. Could you ever have imagined

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Speaker 1: at the beginning when Trump came down the escalator and

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Speaker 1: I say this to people, everybody had my position in

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Speaker 1: the Republican Party, what one hundred percent of every person

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Speaker 1: I knew. He's a disgrace, He's disgusting, he's maliced, he's awful,

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Speaker 1: he's terrible. Trump credits me with being the first person

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Speaker 1: to say on television he could win, would win, and

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Speaker 1: was winning at various at various stages, which obviously gave

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Speaker 1: me no pleasure, no pleasure in saying, how do you

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Speaker 1: account for the fact that overwhelmingly every person we've almost

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Speaker 1: ever known in politics, not everyone, but an overwhelming number

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Speaker 1: in the Republican Party, whether they acknowledge who Trump is

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Speaker 1: in private or public? You know, I mean, in private

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Speaker 1: doesn't matter, but in public they're behind. And how do

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Speaker 1: you account for that? Does it surprise you?

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Speaker 3: Well, I was less perceptive about his rise than you.

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Speaker 3: I remember very vividly on the Sunday night before the

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Speaker 3: Tuesday vote, my wife and I had a small dinner

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Speaker 3: with Andrew Sullivan, who I think is also a friend

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Speaker 3: of yours. And Andrew, Andrew's a person of great mood,

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Speaker 3: swings from optimism to pessimism, and he was on a

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Speaker 3: down swing that night, and he said, Trump's going to win.

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Speaker 3: Trump's going to win. And I should have listened to

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Speaker 3: Andrew had predicted that E was going to win, which

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Speaker 3: I also had thought would not happen, or had wanted

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Speaker 3: to believe would not happen. I suppose because I didn't

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Speaker 3: know enough about British politics. Make I never predicted. I

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Speaker 3: didn't know enough, but I just it seemed so dumb.

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Speaker 3: How could they do it? But I was quite sure

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Speaker 3: that Trump wouldn't do it. And Andrew was on this

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Speaker 3: passionate explosion of passionate pessimism, and I remember just saying,

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Speaker 3: going through all the groups that were going to stan

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Speaker 3: unite against Donald Trump. I was being a little funny.

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Speaker 3: Women who own cookwear with French words on it, they're

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Speaker 3: going to come out. But he was right, and I

435
00:28:40,640 --> 00:28:47,360
Speaker 3: was wrong. Most of the people who were our colleagues, partners, friends,

436
00:28:47,480 --> 00:28:50,240
Speaker 3: most but not all, did just as you say, and

437
00:28:51,000 --> 00:28:53,160
Speaker 3: in one way or another. And there were for a

438
00:28:53,280 --> 00:29:00,760
Speaker 3: variety of motives. Opportunism yes, negative partisanship yes in some cases,

439
00:29:00,880 --> 00:29:04,480
Speaker 3: vanity and arrogance that they thought they could steer this

440
00:29:04,880 --> 00:29:08,320
Speaker 3: this beast. I'm just reading right now, Mickay Coppins's excellent

441
00:29:08,360 --> 00:29:09,440
Speaker 3: book on Mitt Romney.

442
00:29:09,800 --> 00:29:12,600
Speaker 1: Can't wait to can't wait to read it. It's really it's.

443
00:29:12,520 --> 00:29:16,120
Speaker 3: Really worthwhile, and because Romney's very honest about himself in

444
00:29:16,160 --> 00:29:18,560
Speaker 3: a way that few politicians are ever able to be

445
00:29:18,840 --> 00:29:22,280
Speaker 3: at any stage in their life. And Romney's last temptation

446
00:29:22,480 --> 00:29:25,040
Speaker 3: is Trump offered him, or sort of offered him the

447
00:29:25,040 --> 00:29:29,240
Speaker 3: secretaryship of State in twenty six sixteen, and I think

448
00:29:29,680 --> 00:29:31,720
Speaker 3: in retrospect it was really a trap that the deal

449
00:29:31,880 --> 00:29:35,400
Speaker 3: was you retractor with your criticisms of me, and you

450
00:29:35,440 --> 00:29:37,480
Speaker 3: can be you can have this job. And then Trump

451
00:29:37,480 --> 00:29:39,640
Speaker 3: would have renegged on the deal, which Romney sort of

452
00:29:39,680 --> 00:29:43,080
Speaker 3: figured out, but he did take it very seriously, included

453
00:29:43,160 --> 00:29:46,480
Speaker 3: partly because both George W. Bush and Hillary Clinton telephoned

454
00:29:46,560 --> 00:29:49,680
Speaker 3: him to plead with him to take the job. You know,

455
00:29:49,840 --> 00:29:52,520
Speaker 3: that's that's you know, you got both those calls and

456
00:29:52,520 --> 00:29:54,080
Speaker 3: your Mitt Romney, you are going to take it pretty

457
00:29:54,120 --> 00:29:58,920
Speaker 3: seriously that that past president and former Democratic past Democratic

458
00:29:59,000 --> 00:30:01,719
Speaker 3: presidential nominee both say you have to do the country

459
00:30:01,840 --> 00:30:05,440
Speaker 3: needs you to do it. But the problem they had

460
00:30:05,960 --> 00:30:10,720
Speaker 3: was you can't. You can't control this piece. I wrote

461
00:30:10,720 --> 00:30:15,080
Speaker 3: a piece for The Atlantic in that transition period, and

462
00:30:15,200 --> 00:30:17,360
Speaker 3: it had begun as an email from a friend of

463
00:30:17,400 --> 00:30:19,360
Speaker 3: mine who'd been offered not Secretary of State, but a

464
00:30:19,800 --> 00:30:23,400
Speaker 3: medium important job, and I offered my advice as to

465
00:30:23,720 --> 00:30:25,360
Speaker 3: what you should do. I said, look, if you've got

466
00:30:25,440 --> 00:30:27,640
Speaker 3: it expanded to the piece, if you're offered an independent

467
00:30:27,680 --> 00:30:31,720
Speaker 3: commission FCC something, if I Federal Communications Commission or something

468
00:30:31,760 --> 00:30:33,760
Speaker 3: like that, yeah, of course you take it. You don't

469
00:30:33,800 --> 00:30:35,960
Speaker 3: answer to the president. You're doing your role for the public.

470
00:30:36,160 --> 00:30:39,400
Speaker 3: The answer is yes. If you're offered a military role

471
00:30:39,920 --> 00:30:43,360
Speaker 3: sentcom commanded, well then you must take it because you

472
00:30:43,480 --> 00:30:45,120
Speaker 3: have a duty to the country and these jobs have

473
00:30:45,280 --> 00:30:48,240
Speaker 3: to be done. But if you're offered anything where you

474
00:30:48,400 --> 00:30:52,520
Speaker 3: report to Donald Trump, just keep in mind the reason.

475
00:30:53,120 --> 00:30:56,120
Speaker 3: The only way you can justify taking this job is

476
00:30:56,280 --> 00:30:58,480
Speaker 3: if you are confident you will be able to say no.

477
00:30:59,800 --> 00:31:02,680
Speaker 3: And then bear in mind that if Trump shared your

478
00:31:02,760 --> 00:31:05,320
Speaker 3: opinion of yourself, he wouldn't have offered you the job

479
00:31:05,400 --> 00:31:08,400
Speaker 3: in the first place. That the job his premise was,

480
00:31:08,480 --> 00:31:12,600
Speaker 3: I can bend this person. Because Trump has this feral ability,

481
00:31:13,200 --> 00:31:17,040
Speaker 3: like some kind of carnivorous beast to scent human weakness.

482
00:31:17,320 --> 00:31:19,560
Speaker 3: He's got some skills, and that's his greatest skill. He

483
00:31:19,600 --> 00:31:23,080
Speaker 3: can he can see the person of integrity he just

484
00:31:23,200 --> 00:31:28,600
Speaker 3: instinctively recoils from, and the person of with any crack,

485
00:31:28,960 --> 00:31:35,040
Speaker 3: any fission, where selfishness and cowardice and greed can trickle in.

486
00:31:35,440 --> 00:31:38,760
Speaker 3: Trump can see that and he finds those people. So

487
00:31:40,480 --> 00:31:42,760
Speaker 3: a lot of the people were led into the Trump

488
00:31:42,840 --> 00:31:45,680
Speaker 3: can't buy vanity by their overestimation of their own ability

489
00:31:45,720 --> 00:31:48,880
Speaker 3: to direct affairs. And I think in almost every case

490
00:31:50,560 --> 00:31:53,040
Speaker 3: they paid a terrible price for it, including very good

491
00:31:53,120 --> 00:31:55,680
Speaker 3: like the John Kelly's of this world. They paid a price.

492
00:31:57,160 --> 00:31:59,720
Speaker 1: Do you see any scenario where he is not the

493
00:32:00,000 --> 00:32:01,640
Speaker 1: public nominee at.

494
00:32:01,520 --> 00:32:06,720
Speaker 3: This point, it's a very far fatch scenario. The scenario

495
00:32:06,840 --> 00:32:11,120
Speaker 3: I see is that the something in the judicial system

496
00:32:11,200 --> 00:32:16,120
Speaker 3: happened so fast that sometime before Republicans are locked in

497
00:32:16,400 --> 00:32:19,600
Speaker 3: in the middle of February, there's some devastating legal event

498
00:32:19,880 --> 00:32:24,080
Speaker 3: that causes a shock in Iowa, New Hampshire. That's a

499
00:32:24,120 --> 00:32:27,320
Speaker 3: pretty improbable set off. Fact. It's now We're now almost

500
00:32:27,360 --> 00:32:28,960
Speaker 3: in the middle of November, and this has to happen

501
00:32:29,000 --> 00:32:31,360
Speaker 3: before the middle of February. So it just doesn't seem

502
00:32:31,400 --> 00:32:34,360
Speaker 3: that the court system works that way. But that could

503
00:32:34,400 --> 00:32:40,040
Speaker 3: do it. But clearly his opponents they don't have the instinct.

504
00:32:40,040 --> 00:32:44,160
Speaker 3: I mean, I thought there was this moment I'm going

505
00:32:44,200 --> 00:32:45,600
Speaker 3: to forget on the first time I saw it, where

506
00:32:45,880 --> 00:32:48,160
Speaker 3: Ron Desanders was asked, what's the difference between you and

507
00:32:48,240 --> 00:32:52,960
Speaker 3: Donald Trump? If there was any hope that Desandis was

508
00:32:52,960 --> 00:32:54,280
Speaker 3: going to win, he would have answered that question. The

509
00:32:54,320 --> 00:32:56,160
Speaker 3: difference between me and Donald Trump is that I will

510
00:32:56,200 --> 00:32:59,520
Speaker 3: not be in prison on election day twenty twenty four. Yeah,

511
00:33:00,200 --> 00:33:03,280
Speaker 3: you know, damn it. Put your put your cards on

512
00:33:03,360 --> 00:33:06,040
Speaker 3: the table, stake your claim, say I'm going to be

513
00:33:06,080 --> 00:33:08,320
Speaker 3: a leader. I'm gonna look this guy in the eye

514
00:33:08,440 --> 00:33:10,200
Speaker 3: and tell him what I think of because if you're

515
00:33:10,240 --> 00:33:12,560
Speaker 3: too scared to do that, you just don't have what

516
00:33:12,680 --> 00:33:13,040
Speaker 3: it takes.

517
00:33:14,560 --> 00:33:20,760
Speaker 1: One hundred So when I look back on all of

518
00:33:21,000 --> 00:33:27,640
Speaker 1: the major political leaders of our lifetime, of our careers,

519
00:33:28,600 --> 00:33:32,480
Speaker 1: So I'm gonna, I'm gonna put Ronald Waggan in to

520
00:33:32,640 --> 00:33:36,640
Speaker 1: begin nineteen eighty. I'm gonna I'm gonna start this, but

521
00:33:36,760 --> 00:33:39,840
Speaker 1: we can go back to Jimmy Carter for the purposes

522
00:33:39,920 --> 00:33:45,360
Speaker 1: of the exercise. Who do you think of all the presidents,

523
00:33:45,520 --> 00:33:51,040
Speaker 1: of all the nominees would have been the toughest opponent

524
00:33:51,320 --> 00:33:54,200
Speaker 1: for Donald Trump to handle? I think I just think

525
00:33:54,240 --> 00:33:57,320
Speaker 1: there's one person who completely hands out. I think it's

526
00:33:57,400 --> 00:33:57,880
Speaker 1: George W.

527
00:33:58,080 --> 00:33:58,360
Speaker 3: Bush.

528
00:33:59,280 --> 00:34:01,720
Speaker 1: I don't Donald Trump would not have been able to

529
00:34:01,760 --> 00:34:02,320
Speaker 1: handle him.

530
00:34:02,880 --> 00:34:06,080
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's very that's very perceptive.

531
00:34:05,600 --> 00:34:09,720
Speaker 1: Political as a political candidate, and and Bush was always

532
00:34:09,880 --> 00:34:14,040
Speaker 1: underastimated as a political a great politician. Yeah.

533
00:34:15,120 --> 00:34:16,400
Speaker 3: He also had this kind of.

534
00:34:17,520 --> 00:34:25,640
Speaker 2: Sly subversive right and would hit him in the ego

535
00:34:25,800 --> 00:34:30,600
Speaker 2: every day. Yeah, yeah, he just uh he he was

536
00:34:30,719 --> 00:34:32,880
Speaker 2: very good with people were full of themselves and.

537
00:34:34,840 --> 00:34:37,359
Speaker 3: I are. Yeah, that's a that's a that's very good

538
00:34:37,440 --> 00:34:44,200
Speaker 3: because I think, uh, Reagan. Reagan would have protracted contrasted

539
00:34:44,239 --> 00:34:50,080
Speaker 3: Reagan's goodness of character, I guess, but but I don't

540
00:34:50,080 --> 00:34:52,320
Speaker 3: know that Reagan would be able cope with the onslaught

541
00:34:52,920 --> 00:34:56,799
Speaker 3: that he had in a Trump Reagan contest. Whereas, as

542
00:34:56,840 --> 00:34:58,400
Speaker 3: you said, George W that's very interesting.

543
00:34:58,440 --> 00:34:59,279
Speaker 1: I think you're right.

544
00:34:59,280 --> 00:35:00,200
Speaker 3: I think you're completely right.

545
00:35:01,080 --> 00:35:04,160
Speaker 1: Isn't a time you opt out a restrictive health insurance

546
00:35:04,200 --> 00:35:07,399
Speaker 1: plan to let crowd health help fit your healthcare needs?

547
00:35:08,320 --> 00:35:12,399
Speaker 1: Get started today for just fifty dollars per month. Use

548
00:35:12,560 --> 00:35:17,520
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549
00:35:17,600 --> 00:35:22,759
Speaker 1: not insurance. Learn more at join crowdhealth dot com. That's

550
00:35:23,200 --> 00:35:29,279
Speaker 1: joined crowdhealth dot com Code Warning. Well, you look at

551
00:35:29,360 --> 00:35:35,200
Speaker 1: politically right now, and obviously I'm in I'm involved in

552
00:35:35,280 --> 00:35:41,960
Speaker 1: a Democratic primary with as a volunteer, helped a friend

553
00:35:43,560 --> 00:35:46,480
Speaker 1: get started in a campaign, and I think the Biden

554
00:35:46,600 --> 00:35:50,280
Speaker 1: team needs to get out and start running laps around

555
00:35:50,320 --> 00:35:54,399
Speaker 1: the around the track politically as a matter of emergency.

556
00:35:55,000 --> 00:35:59,720
Speaker 1: But Joe Biden is losing this race to Donald Trump.

557
00:36:02,320 --> 00:36:08,320
Speaker 1: The elections last night, and the results have nothing to

558
00:36:08,480 --> 00:36:13,000
Speaker 1: do with President Biden. They do have some to do

559
00:36:13,280 --> 00:36:17,640
Speaker 1: with the issues. You do see in Kentucky, a Democratic

560
00:36:17,760 --> 00:36:22,359
Speaker 1: governor with an ability to connect in the eastern part

561
00:36:22,400 --> 00:36:27,080
Speaker 1: of the state. In Appalachia where really the opioid crisis

562
00:36:27,200 --> 00:36:32,160
Speaker 1: in the country began, Pike County, Hazard County, a lot

563
00:36:32,239 --> 00:36:35,480
Speaker 1: of coal mining countries, places where where Trump won by

564
00:36:35,880 --> 00:36:38,960
Speaker 1: where Trump won by forty points. You look at the

565
00:36:39,000 --> 00:36:45,520
Speaker 1: Mississippi race with Presley, where Democratic candidate was knocking on

566
00:36:45,719 --> 00:36:49,200
Speaker 1: the knocking on the door down there. But when you

567
00:36:49,360 --> 00:36:54,120
Speaker 1: get inside the Washington mix, you know, the blue and

568
00:36:54,200 --> 00:37:01,080
Speaker 1: the red and Washington in this moment, I as a

569
00:37:01,280 --> 00:37:04,360
Speaker 1: general proposition, you know, I think Biden has been a

570
00:37:04,440 --> 00:37:09,680
Speaker 1: good president. But I think politically, you know, there are

571
00:37:09,719 --> 00:37:14,920
Speaker 1: two things that are just self evident. The extremism is hotter,

572
00:37:15,880 --> 00:37:21,120
Speaker 1: it's better funded, it's better organized, and it's coming for

573
00:37:21,320 --> 00:37:30,680
Speaker 1: power A and b those has been effective governing, I think,

574
00:37:31,280 --> 00:37:35,120
Speaker 1: and I think that fifty years from now people will

575
00:37:35,160 --> 00:37:38,920
Speaker 1: look back at the Biden presidency from an infrastructure perspective

576
00:37:39,040 --> 00:37:42,240
Speaker 1: in a way that I mean look back at Eisenhower's

577
00:37:42,280 --> 00:37:46,400
Speaker 1: presidency and building so much of the infrastructure in the

578
00:37:46,480 --> 00:37:51,759
Speaker 1: latter half of the twentieth century. But just objectively, they

579
00:37:51,840 --> 00:37:56,680
Speaker 1: have not been able to withstand the sixty foot incoming

580
00:37:56,840 --> 00:38:03,600
Speaker 1: wave of malice profit and a BS conspiracy theories that

581
00:38:04,040 --> 00:38:10,480
Speaker 1: is commanded against them in a billion dollar entertainment industry

582
00:38:10,760 --> 00:38:15,120
Speaker 1: or a malice industry, however you want to think about

583
00:38:15,160 --> 00:38:20,279
Speaker 1: it and the ability to deal with that and to

584
00:38:20,360 --> 00:38:24,320
Speaker 1: fight through that, it'd be on top of that wave

585
00:38:24,560 --> 00:38:27,640
Speaker 1: as opposed to under it on a daily basis. Is

586
00:38:27,640 --> 00:38:30,840
Speaker 1: it going to be essential to the defense of American

587
00:38:30,920 --> 00:38:37,239
Speaker 1: democracy and the republic one year literally over the next year,

588
00:38:37,800 --> 00:38:41,080
Speaker 1: you know, through one year from now today? How do

589
00:38:41,200 --> 00:38:44,239
Speaker 1: you see that? Because because you're an exquisite communicator.

590
00:38:45,080 --> 00:38:46,880
Speaker 3: Well, look, you're talking to the guy who tried to

591
00:38:46,920 --> 00:38:49,920
Speaker 3: take who tried to reassure Andrew Sullivan in twenty sixteen,

592
00:38:50,560 --> 00:38:53,160
Speaker 3: And I'm talking to someone who's run major campaigns and

593
00:38:53,200 --> 00:38:55,000
Speaker 3: I never have. So I'm going to be very humble

594
00:38:55,040 --> 00:38:58,080
Speaker 3: about what I'm about to say because I'm speaking from

595
00:38:58,120 --> 00:39:00,279
Speaker 3: a not a great track record and against somebody with

596
00:39:00,320 --> 00:39:03,160
Speaker 3: a lot of experience. First, I think that whether Trump

597
00:39:03,239 --> 00:39:06,279
Speaker 3: himself gets this, the people around him know. Trump's going

598
00:39:06,280 --> 00:39:08,560
Speaker 3: to get forty six percent of the vote. That's it.

599
00:39:08,840 --> 00:39:12,120
Speaker 3: That's what's there for him. And twenty twenty four is

600
00:39:12,120 --> 00:39:15,680
Speaker 3: probably going to be a lower turnout election than twenty

601
00:39:15,760 --> 00:39:20,080
Speaker 3: twenty and Biden's people basically, Biden has the support of

602
00:39:20,080 --> 00:39:22,000
Speaker 3: the people are most likely to show up and the

603
00:39:22,040 --> 00:39:23,839
Speaker 3: people who are least likely to show up, and Trump

604
00:39:23,880 --> 00:39:26,160
Speaker 3: has the support of the people were somewhat in the middle.

605
00:39:26,719 --> 00:39:28,440
Speaker 3: And so they are going to be some very complex

606
00:39:28,560 --> 00:39:31,560
Speaker 3: mathematics there. But Trump understands he's got forty six percent

607
00:39:31,600 --> 00:39:34,080
Speaker 3: of the vote, or the people around him do. Their

608
00:39:34,120 --> 00:39:37,520
Speaker 3: only hope against Biden is to splinter the Democratic coalition,

609
00:39:37,560 --> 00:39:39,880
Speaker 3: which is always more facile than the Republican coalition. And

610
00:39:40,000 --> 00:39:43,600
Speaker 3: so you know, they're standing up Cornell West to peel

611
00:39:43,640 --> 00:39:46,680
Speaker 3: off in an effort to peel off some voters on

612
00:39:46,760 --> 00:39:50,200
Speaker 3: the left. They're standing up Robert Kennedy to try to

613
00:39:50,239 --> 00:39:52,960
Speaker 3: peel off some wacky voters of which there are many

614
00:39:53,000 --> 00:39:55,239
Speaker 3: in the United States. We're all related to them. They're

615
00:39:55,600 --> 00:39:57,480
Speaker 3: going to try to stand up Joe Manchin or somebody

616
00:39:57,560 --> 00:39:59,239
Speaker 3: like that to try to peel away the.

617
00:39:59,280 --> 00:40:03,520
Speaker 1: Suburban that's real, the no labels, the no labels effort,

618
00:40:04,200 --> 00:40:06,480
Speaker 1: or do you think it's all smoked, smoke and mirrors.

619
00:40:06,520 --> 00:40:10,239
Speaker 1: I mean, because it costs eighty million dollars. If you're

620
00:40:10,280 --> 00:40:13,279
Speaker 1: an independent effort to get on the ballot, and they're

621
00:40:13,320 --> 00:40:15,279
Speaker 1: either they're either going to get on or they're not.

622
00:40:16,000 --> 00:40:19,200
Speaker 1: But there's no evidence of action, only of talk. And

623
00:40:19,280 --> 00:40:22,719
Speaker 1: I just know, how do you assess that? Is it real?

624
00:40:23,120 --> 00:40:25,400
Speaker 3: I don't assess it. I'm you know, I know the

625
00:40:25,440 --> 00:40:27,960
Speaker 3: people involved, and I personally like them a lot, So

626
00:40:28,160 --> 00:40:32,200
Speaker 3: I'm hopeful that it's it's some other things are going on,

627
00:40:32,280 --> 00:40:33,839
Speaker 3: and I want to say, no labels. It has done

628
00:40:33,880 --> 00:40:37,080
Speaker 3: over the past decades some really good work in Congress,

629
00:40:37,680 --> 00:40:40,400
Speaker 3: and I hope everybody will involved say that should be

630
00:40:40,440 --> 00:40:42,760
Speaker 3: our legacy, that the excellent work we've done in Congress.

631
00:40:42,760 --> 00:40:44,879
Speaker 3: They were crucial to the passing of the infrastructure bill,

632
00:40:44,960 --> 00:40:47,400
Speaker 3: as you said just a minute ago. And this we

633
00:40:47,440 --> 00:40:50,440
Speaker 3: don't need, we don't need to muddy this record. But

634
00:40:51,920 --> 00:40:54,360
Speaker 3: Joe Manchin, I think, is thinking about it, whether it

635
00:40:54,480 --> 00:40:57,400
Speaker 3: no labels, is his vehicle or not, and all of

636
00:40:57,440 --> 00:40:59,799
Speaker 3: these things, and if you're a Trump person, you have everything.

637
00:41:00,040 --> 00:41:02,560
Speaker 3: Let's just try to find some way that Biden. Look

638
00:41:02,640 --> 00:41:06,760
Speaker 3: that Biden spans the vote, spans the coalition from Bernie

639
00:41:06,800 --> 00:41:12,399
Speaker 3: Sanders to Anne Romney. Let's so can we detach any

640
00:41:12,560 --> 00:41:15,320
Speaker 3: parts of this weird, big coalition from any of the

641
00:41:15,400 --> 00:41:17,279
Speaker 3: other parts, and if we can detach a point here

642
00:41:17,360 --> 00:41:19,600
Speaker 3: and a point there, then Trump's forty six percent of

643
00:41:19,640 --> 00:41:21,799
Speaker 3: the vote that becomes a winning hand as it did

644
00:41:21,840 --> 00:41:23,840
Speaker 3: in twenty sixteen, and not a losing hand when he

645
00:41:23,880 --> 00:41:27,360
Speaker 3: got slightly more of the vote in twenty twenty. So

646
00:41:27,680 --> 00:41:31,560
Speaker 3: I worry about those things, but I basically think that

647
00:41:32,440 --> 00:41:36,560
Speaker 3: the polling on Biden to date has been They asked

648
00:41:36,560 --> 00:41:40,279
Speaker 3: the question what do you think of the dentist? And

649
00:41:40,480 --> 00:41:43,000
Speaker 3: America said, don't love it? I don't love it. Okay,

650
00:41:43,360 --> 00:41:46,000
Speaker 3: what do you think of gum disease? Like it a

651
00:41:46,040 --> 00:41:49,759
Speaker 3: lot less? In a contest between the dentist and the

652
00:41:49,800 --> 00:41:55,000
Speaker 3: gum disease, which do you choose? People say, well, that's

653
00:41:55,120 --> 00:41:57,520
Speaker 3: the choice. I'm going to go for the dentist every time.

654
00:41:58,120 --> 00:42:00,239
Speaker 3: You know. I was out for lunch a little while

655
00:42:00,239 --> 00:42:04,520
Speaker 3: ago with a friend from w Bush days. We served together.

656
00:42:05,120 --> 00:42:06,920
Speaker 3: I won't give any more clues because I don't want

657
00:42:06,920 --> 00:42:10,279
Speaker 3: to embarrass him. But he really he's known Biden for

658
00:42:10,360 --> 00:42:12,320
Speaker 3: a long time and he really doesn't like him, and

659
00:42:12,440 --> 00:42:14,440
Speaker 3: not for just the reasons that are out there, for

660
00:42:14,520 --> 00:42:17,760
Speaker 3: a lot of reasons that are based on sound personal

661
00:42:17,920 --> 00:42:20,640
Speaker 3: experience of uh, and I'm not saying this is fair unfair.

662
00:42:20,920 --> 00:42:26,040
Speaker 1: Timothy breeds contempt in politics like a few other businesses.

663
00:42:26,760 --> 00:42:31,040
Speaker 3: So he went on for some time about Biden's many

664
00:42:31,600 --> 00:42:33,839
Speaker 3: character flaws, as he had had a good view of them,

665
00:42:35,000 --> 00:42:38,040
Speaker 3: and when he finally wound himself down, I said, but

666
00:42:38,080 --> 00:42:42,160
Speaker 3: you're still going to vote for him, right, he said, obviously, right?

667
00:42:42,880 --> 00:42:50,600
Speaker 1: Right? I mean right, I but it's not inconceivable right

668
00:42:50,719 --> 00:42:54,560
Speaker 1: when you when you look out right now in the country,

669
00:42:54,680 --> 00:42:58,160
Speaker 1: because I because with Trump, this is how I explain this.

670
00:42:59,600 --> 00:43:07,360
Speaker 1: Trump a philosopher of fuck youism, and when you lower

671
00:43:08,360 --> 00:43:12,440
Speaker 1: the bar and faith has collapsed, and trust has collapsed

672
00:43:12,480 --> 00:43:16,279
Speaker 1: in every institution. And sixty percent of the country living

673
00:43:16,360 --> 00:43:20,240
Speaker 1: paycheck to paycheck, and forty percent don't have four hundred dollars.

674
00:43:20,280 --> 00:43:23,920
Speaker 1: There is no expectation. So we don't throw tick or

675
00:43:24,040 --> 00:43:27,680
Speaker 1: tape parades for our politicians who did what they said

676
00:43:27,760 --> 00:43:31,200
Speaker 1: in the last election. That's why people voted for them,

677
00:43:31,320 --> 00:43:33,920
Speaker 1: right the election. If you're going to run it on

678
00:43:34,200 --> 00:43:37,279
Speaker 1: what you did last sticks you in the past, not

679
00:43:37,480 --> 00:43:41,520
Speaker 1: in the future, which is a bigger problem structurally, right

680
00:43:41,680 --> 00:43:46,320
Speaker 1: for an eighty two year old candidate, But you have

681
00:43:46,520 --> 00:43:50,840
Speaker 1: a vast segment of the population, right that that feels abused,

682
00:43:51,080 --> 00:43:56,400
Speaker 1: right by a power class in the country, political power class,

683
00:43:56,719 --> 00:44:00,960
Speaker 1: media power class, corporate power class. A lot of people

684
00:44:01,160 --> 00:44:06,319
Speaker 1: relate to politics as the Democratic Parties their HR department

685
00:44:06,440 --> 00:44:11,719
Speaker 1: at their workplace, or the Democratic Parties the line I'm

686
00:44:11,840 --> 00:44:14,920
Speaker 1: standing on right, trying to get something done in a

687
00:44:15,000 --> 00:44:19,680
Speaker 1: local government office, right, it's the party of government, right, stickiness,

688
00:44:20,400 --> 00:44:26,320
Speaker 1: a lot of them, condescension and so when you evisery

689
00:44:27,000 --> 00:44:31,360
Speaker 1: standards and you don't really have any expectation that anyone's

690
00:44:31,400 --> 00:44:34,640
Speaker 1: going to do everything, you know, how does Trump do

691
00:44:34,880 --> 00:44:37,920
Speaker 1: delivering the fuck you to the people you're angry at

692
00:44:38,000 --> 00:44:43,520
Speaker 1: these screaming NonStop, you know, in ever increasing crescendos for

693
00:44:43,760 --> 00:44:50,440
Speaker 1: seven years, and that give some satisfaction. Now, the problem

694
00:44:50,520 --> 00:44:54,040
Speaker 1: with that is the guy who delivers the fu for

695
00:44:54,200 --> 00:44:59,640
Speaker 1: you isn't delivering better health care for you, more prosperity

696
00:44:59,719 --> 00:45:02,560
Speaker 1: for you, more security for you, a better life for

697
00:45:02,640 --> 00:45:06,120
Speaker 1: your kids. They're just giving you an FU, right. I mean,

698
00:45:06,239 --> 00:45:10,560
Speaker 1: it's like a big back, right. It It tastes good occasionally,

699
00:45:10,680 --> 00:45:12,840
Speaker 1: I guess, but you know, in the end, it's poison

700
00:45:13,520 --> 00:45:16,239
Speaker 1: and so and so. But that's who the guy is

701
00:45:17,400 --> 00:45:22,280
Speaker 1: he's not understood as such, and one of the great mysteries,

702
00:45:22,400 --> 00:45:25,839
Speaker 1: like to me as somebody grew up in New Jersey, right,

703
00:45:25,920 --> 00:45:28,800
Speaker 1: you just you sit and you watch with just astonishment,

704
00:45:29,040 --> 00:45:32,560
Speaker 1: right that this person who kind of was present in

705
00:45:32,640 --> 00:45:36,960
Speaker 1: your life from you know, nineteen eighty four on, is somehow,

706
00:45:37,719 --> 00:45:40,680
Speaker 1: you know, on the precipice of becoming America's first and

707
00:45:40,800 --> 00:45:43,960
Speaker 1: most deranged dictator. It's a it is. It is the

708
00:45:44,080 --> 00:45:47,839
Speaker 1: one thing at fourteen I would not have guessed surveying

709
00:45:48,040 --> 00:45:51,600
Speaker 1: all the figures in the cultural landscape of mid eighties America.

710
00:45:51,680 --> 00:45:56,200
Speaker 3: It's astonishing, right, So I'm I'm just going to keep

711
00:45:56,480 --> 00:45:59,640
Speaker 3: betting that as much as people enjoy the spectato of

712
00:45:59,640 --> 00:46:04,200
Speaker 3: fuck you, I just I just went. Twenty sixteen, Trump

713
00:46:04,280 --> 00:46:06,080
Speaker 3: lost the popular vote, but was able to eke it

714
00:46:06,120 --> 00:46:09,279
Speaker 3: out in the electoral college with Russian help and the

715
00:46:09,320 --> 00:46:11,640
Speaker 3: help of Jill Stein and a few others. Then he

716
00:46:11,680 --> 00:46:14,479
Speaker 3: lost the House in twenty eighteen. Then he lost both

717
00:46:14,520 --> 00:46:16,919
Speaker 3: the popular vote and the electoral college in twenty twenty.

718
00:46:17,120 --> 00:46:19,080
Speaker 3: Then he threw away the Senate in twenty twenty one.

719
00:46:19,360 --> 00:46:22,240
Speaker 3: Then he converted the red wave of twenty twenty two into.

720
00:46:23,560 --> 00:46:25,040
Speaker 1: A five vote.

721
00:46:25,280 --> 00:46:27,160
Speaker 3: Majority in the House of Representatives and just have it

722
00:46:27,320 --> 00:46:30,759
Speaker 3: down the ballot, losing four state chambers in twenty twenty two,

723
00:46:30,840 --> 00:46:36,400
Speaker 3: and then this election in twenty twenty three, where you know, Virginia,

724
00:46:36,520 --> 00:46:40,440
Speaker 3: very independent swing state went Democratic at a time when

725
00:46:40,480 --> 00:46:43,600
Speaker 3: you would not maybe have expected that to happen. Democratic

726
00:46:43,640 --> 00:46:48,440
Speaker 3: governor survives in Kentucky, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court expands its

727
00:46:48,520 --> 00:46:51,399
Speaker 3: Democratic majority. I just think the warning signs are out

728
00:46:51,400 --> 00:46:54,279
Speaker 3: there that people say, ha ha ha, I'm enjoying the

729
00:46:54,320 --> 00:46:58,320
Speaker 3: show or not. But in the end, most you know,

730
00:46:58,640 --> 00:47:00,480
Speaker 3: most of the time, people do the response when they

731
00:47:00,560 --> 00:47:03,520
Speaker 3: need the brakes fixed, Uh, they don't go to the

732
00:47:03,680 --> 00:47:08,359
Speaker 3: loudest guy, you know what. Uh When when they when

733
00:47:08,400 --> 00:47:10,799
Speaker 3: their computer eats their photographs and they have to get

734
00:47:10,880 --> 00:47:13,560
Speaker 3: the photographs reconstituted, they don't go to the fuck you guy.

735
00:47:13,680 --> 00:47:15,960
Speaker 3: They go to the guy who can reconstitute the photographs.

736
00:47:16,160 --> 00:47:19,120
Speaker 3: And most people, you know, we live lives of responsibility

737
00:47:19,520 --> 00:47:22,640
Speaker 3: and we want things to work, and we sort of

738
00:47:22,680 --> 00:47:24,600
Speaker 3: get that Trump's not that guy.

739
00:47:25,239 --> 00:47:28,239
Speaker 1: It's one of the great astonishments of the age, right,

740
00:47:28,360 --> 00:47:32,520
Speaker 1: which is you try to understand, right if the commanding

741
00:47:32,640 --> 00:47:37,400
Speaker 1: officer of the gerald Ford Steaming in the Eastern Mediterranean

742
00:47:37,560 --> 00:47:42,160
Speaker 1: acted like Donald Trump. You know, for any contiguous period

743
00:47:42,360 --> 00:47:46,759
Speaker 1: over eleven seconds, Right, he'd be immediately relieved of commands. Right,

744
00:47:46,960 --> 00:47:54,160
Speaker 1: I mean any person in a position of responsibility. Yet

745
00:47:55,280 --> 00:48:00,200
Speaker 1: we have a person who, beyond any doubt, and even

746
00:48:00,560 --> 00:48:05,960
Speaker 1: even during the follow on presidency, I think, has remained

747
00:48:06,040 --> 00:48:11,879
Speaker 1: the undisputed leading cultural figure in the United States. Now,

748
00:48:12,680 --> 00:48:16,400
Speaker 1: you know, for seven years, and that's a long time,

749
00:48:16,680 --> 00:48:21,040
Speaker 1: and it's done terrible, terrible, terrible damage like a like

750
00:48:21,160 --> 00:48:24,319
Speaker 1: a like a flesh eating necrosis to the.

751
00:48:25,160 --> 00:48:29,399
Speaker 3: Let mean one more damage that your military, your your

752
00:48:29,880 --> 00:48:32,520
Speaker 3: scenario about Trump trying to seize power, and you asked

753
00:48:32,520 --> 00:48:33,920
Speaker 3: at the beginning of the question the military, will the

754
00:48:33,960 --> 00:48:36,680
Speaker 3: military obey him? One of the consequences, one of the

755
00:48:36,719 --> 00:48:38,640
Speaker 3: possible outcomes here is that Donald Trump doesn't destroy the

756
00:48:38,760 --> 00:48:42,600
Speaker 3: United States. He destroys the United States presidency, which is

757
00:48:43,200 --> 00:48:45,719
Speaker 3: one of the things that I wanted about my It's

758
00:48:45,760 --> 00:48:47,560
Speaker 3: both a funny but also a little scary story, the

759
00:48:47,600 --> 00:48:48,920
Speaker 3: story of the military.

760
00:48:48,520 --> 00:48:49,920
Speaker 1: Parade that Donald Trump wanted.

761
00:48:50,880 --> 00:48:53,080
Speaker 3: So he goes to France in July of twenty seventeen,

762
00:48:53,160 --> 00:48:55,799
Speaker 3: they have the big French parade, and it's something that's

763
00:48:55,840 --> 00:48:58,120
Speaker 3: in their culture. That isn't an and he says, I

764
00:48:58,200 --> 00:49:00,320
Speaker 3: want one of these, and he said, tell us the

765
00:49:00,400 --> 00:49:04,200
Speaker 3: military do it for me. That's French military culture. We

766
00:49:04,360 --> 00:49:08,560
Speaker 3: don't do that stuff for two reasons. One is that

767
00:49:08,920 --> 00:49:13,080
Speaker 3: our soldiers are heavily work professionals, and if they have

768
00:49:13,280 --> 00:49:15,839
Speaker 3: time for a stupid parade, they have time to spend

769
00:49:15,920 --> 00:49:17,640
Speaker 3: that time with their families. We're not going to ask

770
00:49:17,680 --> 00:49:20,680
Speaker 3: them to do a pointless task. And second, it's political,

771
00:49:20,800 --> 00:49:22,800
Speaker 3: and we stay very far away from all of that.

772
00:49:23,000 --> 00:49:24,759
Speaker 3: So the story of the next three years is the

773
00:49:24,800 --> 00:49:27,880
Speaker 3: military generating one excuse after another as to why it

774
00:49:27,960 --> 00:49:32,080
Speaker 3: can't give them its parade. And my favorite part of

775
00:49:32,120 --> 00:49:35,120
Speaker 3: this long running story was they say, well, if we

776
00:49:35,239 --> 00:49:37,480
Speaker 3: put military vehicles on the streets of Washington C. They

777
00:49:37,480 --> 00:49:40,839
Speaker 3: will destroy the asphalt, and Washington d c. Will bill

778
00:49:40,960 --> 00:49:43,440
Speaker 3: us and it will cost eighty million dollars, and we

779
00:49:43,480 --> 00:49:45,520
Speaker 3: don't have the eighty million dollar line in our budget,

780
00:49:45,560 --> 00:49:48,400
Speaker 3: so we can't do it. So Trump then gets somebody

781
00:49:48,480 --> 00:49:50,480
Speaker 3: to write do a paper that says it won't cost

782
00:49:50,560 --> 00:49:53,040
Speaker 3: eighty million dollars, it will cost eight million dollars at most.

783
00:49:53,239 --> 00:49:55,239
Speaker 3: And the military then leaks to the Washington Post the

784
00:49:55,320 --> 00:49:57,360
Speaker 3: eighty million dollar study that says, no, it won't be

785
00:49:57,400 --> 00:49:59,160
Speaker 3: eight million, it'll be eighty and we don't have budget,

786
00:49:59,200 --> 00:50:01,239
Speaker 3: we can't show up the and they just didn't want

787
00:50:01,280 --> 00:50:03,160
Speaker 3: to do it, and they finally and they found ways,

788
00:50:03,640 --> 00:50:06,759
Speaker 3: and finally he ended up getting a jet fly pass,

789
00:50:06,880 --> 00:50:07,760
Speaker 3: but not the parade.

790
00:50:09,640 --> 00:50:13,719
Speaker 1: Okay, ha ha ha an incredible story, get completely continue.

791
00:50:14,239 --> 00:50:17,440
Speaker 3: But on the other hand, it's kind of ominous that

792
00:50:17,520 --> 00:50:19,279
Speaker 3: if the president of the United States, the commander in

793
00:50:19,360 --> 00:50:21,880
Speaker 3: chief of the US military says give me a parade,

794
00:50:22,880 --> 00:50:26,520
Speaker 3: the military says, you know, uh, well, we'll need three

795
00:50:26,760 --> 00:50:30,319
Speaker 3: and a half years of planning just past the next

796
00:50:30,400 --> 00:50:33,640
Speaker 3: election or to deliver that. We're not going to do it, sir,

797
00:50:33,760 --> 00:50:35,560
Speaker 3: We're not going to do it like they have to

798
00:50:35,640 --> 00:50:37,440
Speaker 3: do it. But they didn't do it. And and that

799
00:50:37,600 --> 00:50:40,000
Speaker 3: was a funny example. But in the second term there

800
00:50:40,040 --> 00:50:42,640
Speaker 3: are going to be more serious examples. You know what

801
00:50:42,840 --> 00:50:45,920
Speaker 3: if the you know you're asking me can't. One of

802
00:50:45,960 --> 00:50:49,200
Speaker 3: the greatest crises in Canadian constitutional history happened during the

803
00:50:49,280 --> 00:50:52,640
Speaker 3: Cuban missile crisis. So the Prime Minister of Canada at

804
00:50:52,640 --> 00:50:55,640
Speaker 3: the times, a man named John Diefenbaker, who had come

805
00:50:55,680 --> 00:50:59,040
Speaker 3: in as a very flamboyant figure, but who went mentally

806
00:50:59,040 --> 00:51:04,440
Speaker 3: ill as probably became paranoid in a manic depressive and

807
00:51:04,520 --> 00:51:07,440
Speaker 3: he developed this intense loathing of John F. Kennedy. And

808
00:51:08,080 --> 00:51:10,040
Speaker 3: during the Human Missile Crisis, the order went out to

809
00:51:10,640 --> 00:51:13,160
Speaker 3: harden North American airspaces. In those days, you're worried about

810
00:51:13,160 --> 00:51:15,120
Speaker 3: the manned bomber that is going to come. Not missiles,

811
00:51:15,160 --> 00:51:17,239
Speaker 3: but the Soviets are going to send mad bombers over

812
00:51:17,320 --> 00:51:20,239
Speaker 3: the North Pole. And Canadian airspace is absolutely integral to

813
00:51:20,320 --> 00:51:23,120
Speaker 3: the defense of the United States. And Deefenbaker refuses to

814
00:51:23,160 --> 00:51:29,200
Speaker 3: put Canadian forces on alert basically out of spite, and

815
00:51:29,280 --> 00:51:31,440
Speaker 3: the Canadian forces to say, but wait a moment. Canada

816
00:51:31,560 --> 00:51:35,120
Speaker 3: ratified the North American Air Defense Treaty. We are integrating

817
00:51:35,200 --> 00:51:38,520
Speaker 3: these North American units. And my chain of command, my

818
00:51:38,719 --> 00:51:42,360
Speaker 3: immediate officer, is the commander in chief in Colorado Springs.

819
00:51:43,200 --> 00:51:45,399
Speaker 3: That's the order I take. And the Prime Minister can't

820
00:51:45,480 --> 00:51:48,399
Speaker 3: cut into that chain of command and override the order

821
00:51:48,560 --> 00:51:50,040
Speaker 3: because there are treaties and things like that. And the

822
00:51:50,080 --> 00:51:54,160
Speaker 3: military went on alert anyway and ignored the Prime Minister.

823
00:51:54,640 --> 00:51:57,080
Speaker 3: This is a huge deal. There's an election in the

824
00:51:57,160 --> 00:51:59,560
Speaker 3: next year, which Defenbaker then lost, in which the Canadian

825
00:51:59,600 --> 00:52:04,000
Speaker 3: public were ratified the military's in fact disobedience of a

826
00:52:04,040 --> 00:52:06,440
Speaker 3: superior order on the grounds that their argument was it

827
00:52:06,520 --> 00:52:09,000
Speaker 3: was unlawful. There there was a treaty and they had obligations.

828
00:52:10,920 --> 00:52:12,600
Speaker 3: But that's the kind of crisis that is going to

829
00:52:12,640 --> 00:52:14,920
Speaker 3: happen again and again and again, that the military is

830
00:52:14,960 --> 00:52:17,160
Speaker 3: going to find a Trump orders and some contradicts an

831
00:52:17,200 --> 00:52:20,520
Speaker 3: existing treaty that the President has not formally canceled, the

832
00:52:20,640 --> 00:52:22,920
Speaker 3: contradicts some other law. We're not going to do it.

833
00:52:23,040 --> 00:52:25,960
Speaker 3: And you can't just invoke the Insurrection Act and send

834
00:52:26,040 --> 00:52:30,280
Speaker 3: which is written in what seventeen ninety two and override

835
00:52:30,400 --> 00:52:33,879
Speaker 3: every law since then about civilian military relationships.

836
00:52:34,080 --> 00:52:35,080
Speaker 1: No, we're not going to do it.

837
00:52:35,120 --> 00:52:36,640
Speaker 3: We're gonna find ways not to do it. But that's

838
00:52:36,680 --> 00:52:37,200
Speaker 3: scary too.

839
00:52:38,680 --> 00:52:42,160
Speaker 1: The last, the last story I wanted I wanted to

840
00:52:42,320 --> 00:52:44,960
Speaker 1: share the viewers talk about for a minute, because you

841
00:52:45,160 --> 00:52:48,239
Speaker 1: you might be the only guest that will ever be

842
00:52:48,440 --> 00:52:50,960
Speaker 1: on the warning who will know where this place is.

843
00:52:51,280 --> 00:52:57,920
Speaker 1: It's Chalk River, Ontario, where the Canadian Nuclear reactor was,

844
00:52:58,239 --> 00:53:01,920
Speaker 1: where the town facility that played an important part of

845
00:53:02,000 --> 00:53:07,120
Speaker 1: the Manhattan Project, and So this summer I drove from

846
00:53:07,239 --> 00:53:12,080
Speaker 1: Santa Barbara up into Nelson, British Columbia, one of the

847
00:53:12,120 --> 00:53:16,640
Speaker 1: great mountain towns in North America, with my seventeen year

848
00:53:16,680 --> 00:53:20,360
Speaker 1: old son. We kind of came through the cooton As,

849
00:53:20,600 --> 00:53:26,719
Speaker 1: this beautiful region of British Columbia to Waterton, Alberta, which

850
00:53:26,840 --> 00:53:30,359
Speaker 1: is the Canadian side of Glacier. The Peace Park. Drove

851
00:53:30,440 --> 00:53:35,279
Speaker 1: across Montana, through Michigan and then up through the Upper

852
00:53:35,360 --> 00:53:41,480
Speaker 1: Peninsula back up into Ontario. And as we're driving they

853
00:53:41,520 --> 00:53:44,680
Speaker 1: would get up to Chalk River. I say to my son,

854
00:53:44,880 --> 00:53:47,839
Speaker 1: you know anything about Chalk River? You ever heard about?

855
00:53:47,920 --> 00:53:50,640
Speaker 1: And of course he hadn't, and I told him the

856
00:53:50,800 --> 00:53:55,720
Speaker 1: story of the nuclear meltdown that occurred there in nineteen

857
00:53:55,880 --> 00:53:59,800
Speaker 1: fifty six. And there was one guy in the world

858
00:54:01,480 --> 00:54:07,480
Speaker 1: who was deemed competent enough, prepared enough, technically proficient enough

859
00:54:08,200 --> 00:54:11,719
Speaker 1: to be able to go into that reactor, to lead

860
00:54:11,800 --> 00:54:15,480
Speaker 1: a team into that reactor and deal with the meltdown.

861
00:54:15,560 --> 00:54:19,880
Speaker 1: And that was, of course, twenty six year old Lieutenant

862
00:54:20,560 --> 00:54:24,320
Speaker 1: James Earl Carter of the United States Navy, an American

863
00:54:24,440 --> 00:54:28,080
Speaker 1: president in his one hundredth year. Do you think about

864
00:54:28,880 --> 00:54:32,280
Speaker 1: that man who was in a different party than ours,

865
00:54:32,400 --> 00:54:35,440
Speaker 1: and that part of his story, it's an incredible one,

866
00:54:35,560 --> 00:54:39,799
Speaker 1: and you kind of appreciate that generation who's he graduated

867
00:54:39,840 --> 00:54:44,400
Speaker 1: from Annapolis in nineteen forty six, George Herbert Walker Bush

868
00:54:44,520 --> 00:54:48,400
Speaker 1: born in the same year, literally one hundred years Agoeen

869
00:54:48,719 --> 00:54:53,200
Speaker 1: nineteen twenty four. These were the youngest pilots in the navy, right,

870
00:54:53,280 --> 00:54:56,800
Speaker 1: These were the young officers, you know, who fought in

871
00:54:56,880 --> 00:54:59,640
Speaker 1: the last year of the Second World War and began

872
00:55:00,480 --> 00:55:05,600
Speaker 1: the post war era the very very end of their lifetimes.

873
00:55:05,960 --> 00:55:09,920
Speaker 1: And here we sit under a grave threat. And I

874
00:55:10,080 --> 00:55:12,960
Speaker 1: just wanted to if you have any last words or

875
00:55:13,800 --> 00:55:17,000
Speaker 1: any of this very last word, thank you for doing this.

876
00:55:17,520 --> 00:55:19,759
Speaker 3: I have a last word on that, which is, I'm

877
00:55:19,920 --> 00:55:24,400
Speaker 3: very allergic to these concepts of one generation being different

878
00:55:24,560 --> 00:55:27,160
Speaker 3: or special. And I have the person I'm going to

879
00:55:27,200 --> 00:55:29,440
Speaker 3: site from my authority for rejecting this is Abraham Lincoln.

880
00:55:30,160 --> 00:55:32,320
Speaker 3: So on the night that Lincoln is re elected in

881
00:55:32,400 --> 00:55:37,400
Speaker 3: eighteen sixty four, a big band of supporters froms and

882
00:55:37,480 --> 00:55:39,759
Speaker 3: goes to the White House to serenade him, which is

883
00:55:39,880 --> 00:55:42,000
Speaker 3: how you what you did in those days. There's no

884
00:55:42,040 --> 00:55:44,560
Speaker 3: Truman balcony. So Lincoln come when he comes out to

885
00:55:44,640 --> 00:55:47,080
Speaker 3: greet them. He's on the main floor of the White House,

886
00:55:47,120 --> 00:55:50,479
Speaker 3: and there everyone's cheering in its raucous And you would,

887
00:55:50,840 --> 00:55:54,680
Speaker 3: given how close that election was, how nearly Lincoln loss,

888
00:55:54,719 --> 00:55:56,480
Speaker 3: that you would forgive him for taking a little bit

889
00:55:56,480 --> 00:55:58,880
Speaker 3: of a victory lap. But no, no, the ultimate debbie

890
00:55:58,920 --> 00:56:02,800
Speaker 3: down or an American is, does not do that. Instead,

891
00:56:02,840 --> 00:56:05,719
Speaker 3: he reads them a prepared statement, and there's one paragraph

892
00:56:05,800 --> 00:56:09,200
Speaker 3: from it that I think resonates through the years. He says,

893
00:56:09,840 --> 00:56:12,359
Speaker 3: in any and I can quote it, not quite forbade him,

894
00:56:12,360 --> 00:56:14,360
Speaker 3: but this is more or less said in any future

895
00:56:15,120 --> 00:56:18,799
Speaker 3: national trial, Compared to the men of this we shall

896
00:56:18,840 --> 00:56:21,759
Speaker 3: have as many wise and as many foolish, as many

897
00:56:21,840 --> 00:56:25,160
Speaker 3: brave and as many cowardly, as many noble and as

898
00:56:25,200 --> 00:56:29,680
Speaker 3: many silly. Human nature will not change. So let us

899
00:56:29,680 --> 00:56:32,400
Speaker 3: study the events of this time not as wrongs to

900
00:56:32,480 --> 00:56:35,880
Speaker 3: be avenged, but as philosophy to learn wisdom from.

901
00:56:37,560 --> 00:56:40,160
Speaker 1: What a perfect way to add in this conversation, David,

902
00:56:40,200 --> 00:56:41,160
Speaker 1: from what a pleasure.

903
00:56:41,280 --> 00:56:43,480
Speaker 3: Thank you for your time, Thanks for allowing me on