November 3, 2022 • 33 mins
In this episode of The Director's Chair, Michael Fullilove speaks with author and journalist Susan Glasser about next week's US midterm elections and the likely results. They discuss US political perspectives on the war in Ukraine, the Biden Administration's performance on foreign policy, and the continued influence of former president Donald Trump on US politics.
Susan Glasser is a journalist and author, and currently a staff writer at The New Yorker, where she writes a weekly column on life in Washington. She has been the editor of Politico Magazine and the editor-in-chief of Foreign Policy. With her husband Peter Baker of The New York Times she has written two books: The Man Who Ran Washington, a biography of the statesman and politician James Baker which was published in 2020, and The Divider: Trump in the White House, 2017-2021, which was published in September by Doubleday.
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Michael Fullilove (00:00):
Hello, Michael Fullilove here. In this episode, we're talking about
next week's US mid-term elections, Donald Trump and dinosaurs.
Susan Glasser (00:09):
This question of what would a Trump second term look
like came up. The image that came to mind was
that of the velociraptors in the first Jurassic Park film.
The children run terrified into the industrial kitchen. They think
they're safe and then click the handle turns and you
realize that the velociraptors have learned how to hunt their
(00:32):
prey and open the door. What Trump has learned is
how to operate the machinery of government towards his ends.
Michael Fullilove (00:41):
The author and journalist Susan Glasser is my guest on
this episode of The Director's Chair. I'm Michael Fullilove, the
Executive Director of the Lowy Institute. I'm a student of
US history and politics and an America-phile. So this week
I'm focused on the US midterm elections that will take
place next Tuesday, the 8th of November. One person who
(01:04):
will not appear on the ballot next Tuesday but will
probably have a significant impact on the election is Donald Trump.
Although he's out of office, that doesn't mean he's out
of power. Indeed, his influence continues to be felt in
the Republican Party and across the country. Mr. Trump's big
lie that the 2020 election was stolen from him persists
(01:25):
among his supporters, including in Congress. The storming of the
Capitol on January six last year continues to cast a
shadow over American democracy. For someone like me, watching that
footage last year was like seeing an old friend in
the grip of a terrible fever. And it's not yet
clear that the fever has broken. To discuss these issues,
(01:46):
as well as her important new book on Donald Trump's
four years in the White House. I'm very pleased to
be joined on the director's chair by Susan Glasser. Susan
is a brilliant journalist and author, a nonresident fellow at
the Lowy Institute and a good friend of mine. She's
a staff writer at The New Yorker, where she writes
a weekly column on life in Washington. She's also served
(02:06):
as the editor of Politico magazine and the editor in
chief of foreign policy. Susan is one half of a
dynamic writing duo with her husband, Peter Baker of The
New York Times. In 2020, Susan and Peter published The
Man Who Ran Washington, a biography of the former US
Secretary of State, James Baker. Their latest book is called
(02:27):
The Divider Trump in the White House 2017 to 2021,
published in September by Doubleday. Susan Glasser, thank you for
joining me today from Washington, D.C., for The Director's Chair.
Susan Glasser (02:39):
Well, it's great to be with you. Although I guess
I'm going to start out on a somewhat down note
by saying I can tell you pretty confidently that the
fever has not broken. So that's that's one thing we
can start out on. But, Michael, thank you so much
for that nice introduction and for having me back.
Michael Fullilove (02:56):
All right. Well, we're going to talk about that fever
and get an even sharper diagnosis from you. But let
me let me start with the midterm elections next week,
four days out. What's the mood in America and what
do you think will happen next Tuesday?
Susan Glasser (03:09):
Well, look, the smart betting, you know, is always against
the president's party. Two years into his term in office and,
you know, history and the weight of current evidence, both
suggest that things are not likely to turn out very
favorably for Democrats in the midterm elections next week. President
(03:31):
Biden's approval ratings have been underwater. That's the term of art.
But basically it means that he's got more unpopularity than
than popularity right now. In fact, it's really striking that
that both Biden and Trump in some polls basically have
essentially the same positive and negative approval ratings right now.
(03:51):
So about 42%, 43% approving of Biden's job in office
and something just over 50% disapproving of his performance while
in office. So that's a huge drag on any party.
Historically speaking, these midterm elections are referenda on how is
the president doing just a couple of years into his term.
(04:14):
And of course, we also have the situation where Democrats
at the moment somewhat tenuously control all three branches of
government here, the House, the Senate and the presidency. And,
you know, so that makes it much harder to escape
blame at a time when, of course, the U.S., like
other major economies, is suffering from a very high inflation
(04:34):
concern about rising energy prices, high gas prices at the pump, and,
you know, continuing dislocations after the long COVID pandemic.
Michael Fullilove (04:45):
Let me ask you about foreign policy. Does Joe Biden
get any credit for playing his hand on Ukraine pretty well,
contributing in a meaningful way through the provision of material weapons, intelligence, finance?
He gets good reviews for that. Does the American public
notice that or are they focused on other issues?
Susan Glasser (05:05):
Yeah, I would say it's pretty clear that Americans are
focused on other issues. The war in Ukraine has not
been a big I explicit subject of campaigning, in part
because there has been a pretty broad bipartisan consensus, certainly
in Congress, both Republicans and Democrats. There is a significant
but growing minority faction so far of Republicans followers, Donald Trump,
(05:28):
who are in that emerging pro-Putin wing of the Republican
Party who have questioned what Kevin McCarthy, who might become
the new speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, said
was the need to give a blank check to the Ukrainians.
But but overall, I would say that President Biden's leadership around.
Found how to withstand Russian aggression in Ukraine, the successful
(05:54):
pulling together of a very united NATO's coalition to help Ukraine,
billions of dollars of military assistance. That's seen as as
probably his great foreign policy success so far. But it
hasn't really factored with the voters. Whereas interestingly, the great
kind of foreign policy failure that botched and embarrassing withdrawal
(06:17):
from Afghanistan, that did seem to really, you know, be
a sort of gut punch to President Biden's administration, in
part because it undercut, I think, their claim to foreign
policy competence and even just plain old technocratic good governance.
It seemed poorly done and ill considered in how it
(06:37):
was organized and questionable even for those who supported the
overall goal of withdrawing the U.S. militarily from Afghanistan. So
that actually did seem to have a negative effect. But conversely,
you haven't seen a positive effect in how they organized
the support for the war in Ukraine.
Michael Fullilove (06:54):
And just staying on Ukraine in the midterms for a second.
You talked about bipartisan support, but there are wings of
both parties, actually, that are a little uncomfortable about the
way the war is being waged. The liberal wing of
the Democratic Party also uncomfortable with some elements of how
US is assisting Ukraine. Depending on the result, if the Republicans,
(07:15):
for example, were to take control of the House. Would
you anticipate any softening of congressional support for U.S. aid
to Ukraine?
Susan Glasser (07:23):
Yeah. Well, as I mentioned, Kevin McCarthy, the putative leader
of the House Republicans, has already publicly said that there
would no longer be a blank check for Ukraine if
Republicans were to take back control of the House. On
the Democratic side, there's not an explicitly pro Russia pro-Putin
faction as there is in the Republican side. But there
(07:46):
was this very interesting moment just a few days ago
where about 30 members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus had
their own letter that they sent to President Biden urging
him to begin diplomacy with Russia. It seemed very off
message in the middle of Putin's latest round of nuclear
saber rattling. And at a time when Ukrainians have been
(08:07):
making gains on the battlefield, that would certainly put them
in a much stronger position. Seemed a very weird message
to be sending. And in fact, there was enough outcry
that they then immediately withdrew this letter. But I but
I think the point has been made, there's certainly not
unlimited support and there's long been a strong faction on
(08:29):
the far left of the Democratic Party that has not
because they're such big fans of Vladimir Putin, perhaps, but
has essentially long urged accommodation with Putin and Putin's Russia.
And that's, of course, part of the message that that
Putin got even after he gobbled up the Crimean Peninsula
back in 2014.
Michael Fullilove (08:49):
All right. Let me come back to domestic politics in
the United States and ask you about the shocking attack
last week on the husband of the speaker of the House,
Paul Pelosi. How has that reverberated in American public life
over the past week? How much of a shock to
the system has it been? How are Democrats and Republicans
reacting to it?
Susan Glasser (09:11):
Well, I think in part, you know, you see perhaps
you're hearing even more alarm around from independent commentators and
and Democrats about the state of American democracy. And I
think that the attack on Pelosi, horrific attack on the
82 year old husband of the speaker of the House,
(09:31):
Nancy Pelosi, who has been demonized, you know, in a
very personal way by Republicans. This attacker comes in, He
literally bashes in Paul Pelosi's head with a hammer. Pelosi
Up until, you know, was still in the intensive care
unit at the hospital, had emergency brain surgery. And rather
than the normal even kind of comforting platitudes in American
(09:55):
political life, you saw such a starkly divergent response, which
is to say that some Republicans, rather than simply sort
of saying, well, gee, we wish him well, you know,
hope he recovers soon. It's not a complicated script to follow.
You know, you've even seen some of the more extreme
Republicans creating conspiracy theories around what was happening in the House.
(10:18):
Both Donald Trump and his son, Donald Trump Jr were
spreading on social media outrageous things about the attack, caricatures.
Michael Fullilove (10:27):
Of hammers and so on.
Susan Glasser (10:29):
Absolutely. Kari Lake , who's now the front runner, the frontrunner
to become the governor of Arizona, a major state that
actually went for Joe Biden just two years ago. She
turned it into a punch line and a laugh line
at one of her rallies recently this week. And I
have to say, I listened to that clip. And as
horrific as Lake's sort of failed effort at making a
(10:53):
joke about something like this, when what was even more
upsetting to me was the response of the crowd, which,
you know, laughed uproariously. And, you know, what does it
say about the sort of brutal nature of American politics
today that you would be laughing about? You know, an
octogenarian getting his head bashed in because of who is
(11:13):
married to?
Michael Fullilove (11:14):
What's the path forward for the Republican Party? Susan, it
seems to have been almost completely Trumpified. How does it
get back to the center? Are there emerging figures who
are more traditional Republicans?
Susan Glasser (11:28):
Quite the opposite, Michael. I would say that, you know,
that is the persistent, you know, kind of hope or
dreamer fantasy, if you will, of the last few years
of American politics. Just this idea that there at some moment, surely,
you know, there will be this kind of snapback or
reversion to the mean. You know, a party that that
finds its way back to the center and accountability moment,
(11:51):
a return to the status quo ante Trump. Instead, what
you've seen is not only a Trump ified GOP, but
a new generation of Republican politicians who have taken the
lessons from Trump that are not just that are both
a style of politics in which outrage is a goal
in and of itself. And, you know, arguably there's a
(12:12):
sort of addictive bond that's now formed between Republican politicians
and the Republican electorate in which each of them craves
ever more and more stimulation. And, of course, some of
these politicians don't have some of the natural showman qualities
that that Trump has. And they seem to be the
ones who then are the most desperate to prove that
(12:33):
they can, you know, outdo him in terms of outrageous things.
And so, you know, Ron DeSantis, the governor of Florida,
Ted Cruz, the senator from Texas, neither one of them
really has very much charisma, to be honest. And, you know,
but in in many ways, that's actually caused them, I think,
to up the ante in terms of, you know, their
more norm busting, outrageous theatrics.
Michael Fullilove (12:55):
Now, look, perhaps the most dangerous of this kind of
outrageous behavior is the persistence of the big lie that
the election was stolen from Donald Trump. And President Biden
was in Florida this week warning voters about this threat
to American democracy. But as you pointed out, fully two
thirds of Republicans believe that President Biden is not actually
(13:17):
the president of the United States, that he wasn't really
elected to that office. Now, an essential element of democracy
is that the loser accepts defeat. Even Bolsonaro in Brazil
after a delay appears now to have accepted that that
he's lost. So what does it mean for American democracy
if the losers stop accepting that they've lost?
Susan Glasser (13:39):
Yeah, I mean, I think in a way, we've been
confronting this problem, you know, ever since 2020. And it's
such a big problem that people tend to want to
look away from it. And certainly, actually, that's been in
many ways the response of the Republican establishment, people like
Mitch McConnell, who aren't believers in the Big Lie and
yet nonetheless are campaigning for and supporting candidates who are
(14:01):
right now because they want the power and they're willing to,
you know, go past the boundaries of extra constitutionalism. There's
no other way to describe it. Donald Trump is the
only president in American history, not just in modern history,
but in American history, period. Never to accept the results
(14:22):
of a legitimate election and in fact, to seek to
overturn the results of an election that's just never happened before.
And two years later, that two thirds figure, two thirds
of Republicans today and that's according to the most recent
polls I just looked at today, Don't say that Joe
Biden was not legitimately elected to be president. That is
(14:42):
basically the exact same percentage as on January six. And
so American public opinion really hasn't moved at all. And Republicans,
you know, have essentially doubled down on this this big lie.
And it goes without saying that this really is based
on no evidence whatsoever. But it's important to point that out.
(15:03):
It's not like, well, there was some fraud. And there's
a question to be clear. No question, 60 different lawsuits
are looked at this. None of them found anything. Bill Barr,
you know, the right wing conservative Donald Trump appointed attorney general,
he said there was no evidence of widespread electoral fraud
that would in any way call into question the election results.
(15:27):
Trump's own campaign advisers told him he lost the election.
His family members did it. It didn't matter. And now
he has millions and millions of Americans persisting in this
evidence free fantasy.
Michael Fullilove (15:42):
All right. Let's talk about Donald Trump failed former president
lost the 2020 election. By millions of votes. The only
president in US history to be impeached twice currently under
investigation for his handling of classified information after he left
the White House. You and Peter Baker have just published
this important book, The Divider. First of all, I got
(16:04):
to say I am knocked over by your resilience, Susan.
If I had lived through the Trump presidency in Washington
minute by minute, as you and Peter did, I don't
think I would want to turn around and then write
the history of it. What was it like delving back
into that, reliving those moments, and what really surprised you?
(16:24):
You were very close observers of Trump's presidency as he
lived it. What surprised you when you went back into
the documents and started to talk to individuals behind the scenes?
Susan Glasser (16:34):
Well, thank you, Michael. I assure you, it was not
purely a masochistic exercise, you know, but really, in many ways, actually,
we were just talking about January six. That was one
of the reasons that we wanted to write the book
the way that we did. We felt it was very
important to look at the full four years of Trump
in the White House, which is something that no one
had done before. Many good books, of course, you know,
(16:56):
writing about Trump, but no. One, this is the only
book that seeks to sort of put the whole presidency together.
And the reason we felt it was important, and especially
once we then sort of had this whole draft together,
you can really see the through lines of so many
of these things that the Trump presidency is really the
story of this four year assault on American institutions in which,
(17:21):
you know, you you realize that January six is not
some kind of violent, crazy outlier, but in fact, the
inexorable culmination of those four years of Trump in the
White House. And so that's the story I think that
we wanted to tell. And also just knowing that there's
always more you can learn about a presidency, there's always
(17:43):
a need for a first draft, a presidency book like this.
We were able to interview, conduct something like 300 original
interviews for this book, all of them, which took place
after Trump left office and after his second impeachment. And
we were able to substantially learn, not only knew extraordinary
things that we didn't know about, but also to understand
(18:05):
better things that we might have known something about in
the course of the presidency. And so for me, I
felt like I learned an awful lot both about the
dysfunction in the Trump White House, but also and probably
most importantly, how again and again and again, he benefited by,
I would say, our collective underestimation of him. And and,
(18:26):
you know, he plays the clown. The absurdity of the
theatrics 24 hours a day often could mask the dead
seriousness of some of the attacks on institutions. For example,
the Trump's desire well-documented because he talked about it publicly
to move on from NAITO, he called it obsolete. And
(18:46):
yet our reporting showed that he actually came much, much
closer than was understood or reported at the time actually
withdrawing from NAITO. Can you imagine the situation with Russia
and Ukraine right now had Trump, you know, basically destroyed
NAITO from within before this moment, it really would have
been a very different situation.
Michael Fullilove (19:06):
All right. Let me ask you about dysfunction and order
in the White House. Let me ask you about the
adults in the room who tried to bring order. The generals,
the secretaries, the advisers who elected to serve President Trump,
knowing that they did so at significant risk to their reputation,
(19:27):
but hoping that they could control his worst instincts. Did
they succeed? Did they make a good bargain?
Susan Glasser (19:35):
Well, you know, what's very interesting is that, first of all,
I think it's important to say as a as a
White House official said to us in the course of
during the book, there are no heroes. And it's about
a very dark moral universe, indeed. You know, when the
question is, you know, what compromises were people willing to make?
Those who served? Trump was a self-selecting group. In the
(19:55):
first place, there were some national security, nonpartisan officials, I
think generals who ended up kind of standing in the breach,
in part because they came out of those institutions, whereas
others were not willing to serve. I think that there
is pretty clear evidence that they stopped Trump and constrained
(20:16):
him from doing certain things that he wanted to do,
that he came back to and back to and back to,
especially because the history of Trump's four years is of,
you know, being raging at those constraints and seeking to
get ever more loyalist and sort of slavish functionaries just
around him. If anything, the events of 2020 probably do
(20:40):
cast new light on the adults in the room and
suggest that they did actually stop him from doing things.
Whatever you think of John Kelly, the former Four-Star Marine
general who served as Trump's second White House chief of staff.
He came to loathe Trump, perhaps more than any American
White House chief of staff has ever loathed the president.
But we can't say for sure that January six wouldn't
(21:02):
have happened if it had still been John Kelly and
not Mark Meadows as Trump's chief of staff. But I
think it's fair to to say that that Kelly would
have thrown himself at the door of the Oval Office
in order to stop Donald Trump from having a five
hour meeting with election deniers like Mike Flynn and Sidney Powell,
at which martial law was discussed. They wanted Trump to
(21:25):
impose martial law in order to seize voting machines and
rerun the election in key states. Obviously a completely illegal
and unconstitutional thing rather than throwing them out of the
White House entirely, which is what John Kelly would have
done to those people. He might have had them arrested.
You know, Donald Trump sat there and listened to them.
And so, you know, I do think that there was
(21:47):
a pretty clear difference. And, you know, of course, the
other big takeaway for us from this book is that
a second Trump term would not have John Kelly. It
would not have Jim Mattis as defense secretary or H.R.
McMaster as the national security adviser. Or even people like
Bill Barr and John Bolton, who are much more hard
(22:09):
edged partisans at times even willing to do Trump's bidding.
And yet nonetheless broke publicly with him. None of those figures.
None of those figures, even with very extreme conservative ideologies,
would be acceptable to Trump in a second term because
he would be looking for a real, you know, praetorian
(22:29):
guard of people whose qualities were of complete loyalty combined
with a zeal to execute whatever the leader told them
to execute.
Michael Fullilove (22:40):
Let me ask you about the congressional committee that's been
looking into the events of January the sixth. It's produced
an enormous amount of evidence, including that striking footage of
congressional leaders under threat from the rioters on the day.
Where is it all going to end? Will it have
real consequences for Mr. Trump?
Susan Glasser (23:00):
So there are no real consequences for him in terms of,
you know, this is not this is a congressional to
House Select committee. So, you know, they don't have the
power except for the power of documenting for history and,
you know, the political powers of persuasion to publicly air
these things, which is what the hearings did. I thought
(23:20):
they were very compelling. If, as expected, the Democrats lose
the House of Representatives next week, this committee is very
likely to go out of business. Now, the members have
said that as their final act of business before the
new Congress comes in, in January, that they were are
planning to release not only a report from the committee
(23:40):
with their findings, but also all of the interviews and
documentation they have obtained. And I have to say, as
a student of January six, I am certainly eager to
see this because the hearings that we've seen have been
very compelling. But they've only shown us a small fragment
of the evidence and is thousands of hours of interview
(24:02):
transcripts and emails and text messages and documents they have obtained,
as they've said publicly and recommitted to it, that they're
planning to put all of that out there. So that's
going to be an enormous and presumably fairly damning trove
of information that will be coming out even potentially quite
(24:24):
soon about Trump and January six. Now, he does have
legal exposure in the ongoing Justice Department investigation, criminal investigation
of January six that has had a very active grand
jury meeting. So there's not only the Justice Department criminal
investigation of Trump's taking of classified documents with him to
(24:45):
Mar a Lago after he left the White House, and
many lawyers do believe that he's in quite serious legal
jeopardy for having done that. But there's also a much
more secretive grand jury investigation. We don't know very much
about it, but it does seem that they have also
been gathering evidence about the role of Trump and his
(25:06):
advisors in inciting the violence on January six. And so
that's a kind of an X factor as well. The
view is that Merrick Garland, the attorney general, ultimately will
have to make the call. It's never happened before that
a former president has been indicted. But then again, we've
never had a former president who first sought to overturn
(25:28):
our election before. And then the thinking is that we
should see that start to play out probably by the
spring of next year.
Michael Fullilove (25:36):
All right. A couple of final questions. The subtitle of
your book, Trump in the White House 2017 to 2021
is a little. Terrifying in a way, because it implies
that there might be a future volume of the book
with different years attached to it. Do you think he
will run again for president in 2024 if he does?
(25:58):
Will he receive the Republican nomination?
Susan Glasser (26:01):
Well, the dates on the title were something that our
publisher wanted to add. And it's funny, when we initially
were a little dubious of it, I think they really
wanted to underscore that it was about the White House years,
that it was a full four year history, unlike the
other Trump books. But of course, by the time the
book actually came out and it was clear that Trump
was a much more alive action, you know, kind of
(26:24):
drama in American politics, that it wasn't just a work
of history, but a present day thing. It's come to
seem a little bit more like a threat. And in fact,
there was a very nice review of the book in
The New York Times. But the very last sentence is like,
I really hope they don't write a sequel. I can
say that we're certainly not planning to write a sequel
at this time to the book, but it is also
(26:47):
definitely true that Trump is very, very actively considering running
again for president, that in some ways these multiple ongoing
legal investigations of him have made it more likely, not
less likely, that he would run, in part because he
seems to believe that it would offer him some kind
of protection or make it harder for the attorney general
(27:09):
to indict someone who was a current candidate for office
and not just a former president. Who knows whether that
is a real theory of the case or not, but
it's possible that we may know even very soon. Michael,
it does depend a little bit on the outcome of
the elections next week. Obviously, Trump would seek to claim
(27:31):
credit for a big Republican victory if, conversely, the Democrats
were able to kind of beat the odds and defy
the expectations and do better than expected. That's the one
scenario where it might be harder for Trump to go
ahead and run again. But he is certainly going to
be the overwhelming favorite to win re-election or at least
(27:54):
to win the nomination. Again, I would say an overwhelming favorite,
certainly in a general election, but definitely an overwhelming favorite
in a Republican primary contest. And frankly, it's really an
open question as to whether some of the many Republicans
who've been preparing to run for president are posturing that
they would do so. Whether they would actually follow through
(28:17):
and go ahead and run against Trump if he announces. So,
you know, he may he may basically walk in to
the nomination potentially, if he actually gets out there early
and decides to run.
Michael Fullilove (28:29):
And if he does, I mean, on the Democratic side,
it feels like President Biden will run for re-election. It's
obviously too early to say what that matchup would look like.
But do you have any sort of instincts about what
a Trump Biden rematch would look like four years after
the first one?
Susan Glasser (28:48):
Well, there would be an awful lot of teeth gnashing,
that's for sure. You know, it would not be a
calm two years in American politics. Biden obviously has a
lot of liabilities as a candidate that he even more
so than two years previously in the sense that he's
already the oldest American president ever. And he would be
(29:11):
actually 86 years old if he were to run and
win and serve till the end of his second term
in office. And I think there are a lot of,
you know, even very partisan Democrats who do not think
that that is a good idea for the country, for
Biden himself or for beating Trump and the Republicans. So
I think the flip side is that Biden seems to
(29:33):
believe that, you know, he may be the strongest candidate
to oppose Trump and fears that there is no one,
you know, who would be a strong candidate against Trump.
And obviously he beat Trump once. So he thinks, you know,
maybe I'm the only guy who can do it again.
Michael Fullilove (29:49):
All right. Last question, Susan. If you do have to
write a sequel, if Mr. Trump does run for president,
wins a nomination, wins the general election, what would a
second Trump term look like? You've mentioned that there'd be
fewer adults in the room. Mr. Trump would be less
willing to appoint them, and probably there'd be fewer adults
putting their names forward. He would have learned lessons from
(30:12):
his failures, one presumes. And in the first term, would
it be Trump Unchained?
Susan Glasser (30:17):
Well, I'll leave you with this image. We spoke with
a senior national security official who's spent a lot of
time with Donald Trump in the Oval Office. And this
question of, you know, what would a Trump second term
look like came up? And the official said the image
that came to mind was that of the velociraptors in
(30:38):
the first Jurassic Park film. And you'll remember the scene
where the children run terrified into the industrial kitchen. They.
You think they're safe and then click the handle turns
and you realize that the velociraptors have learned how to
hunt their prey and open the door. And so that
(30:58):
is a pretty chilling image. Now, the point here, by
the way, was not that Donald Trump has learned about
the nuances of health care policy or what exactly goes
into military assistance to Ukraine. What Trump has learned is
how to operate the machinery of government towards his ends.
(31:18):
He's learned about the kind of advisers he wants to
have around him, people who are going to be saying
yes and not saying no to him. And I think
it's a chilling image, but it's probably a pretty accurate one.
And the other thing is vengeance. That's the word that
(31:39):
comes to mind for me when I think about what
Trump in the White House would be. Look at what
he was like in February of 2020 after his first
impeachment trial when the coronavirus was first appearing, and he
couldn't have cared less about it. What he cared about
then was wreaking vengeance on those who had dared to
oppose him, who had testified against him from his own staff,
(32:02):
who had not voted with him on Capitol Hill. He
was all about vengeance. And I think that that's what
a Trump second term. That's a word we'd be thinking
a lot about.
Michael Fullilove (32:10):
Well, Susan, you're not exactly sending me off with a
spring in my step, but I have enjoyed speaking with
you today about Ukraine, about the US midterms, and about
the big Velociraptor himself, Donald Trump. Congratulations to you and Peter,
on the publication of this really important book, The Divider
Trump in the White House 2017 two 2021. And thank
(32:33):
you very much for joining me today on the director's chair.
Susan Glasser (32:36):
Well, it's wonderful to be with you. And, you know,
if need be, I hope you'll be offering us asylum.
They're the enemies of the people will be happy to
come to Australia if if the door is open.
Michael Fullilove (32:48):
Happy to sign off your application. Thanks, Susan.
Susan Glasser (32:51):
Thank you.
Michael Fullilove (32:52):
The Director's Chair is a podcast from the Lowy Institute,
produced on Gadigal Land. The producers for this episode with
Shane McLeod and Darcy Milne with research by David Vallance.
If you've enjoyed this episode, please leave a review in
your podcast app. You can find all our past episodes
at our website, lowyinstitute.org/directorschair. I'm Michael Fullilove. Thanks for listening.
Hello, Michael Fullilove here. In this episode, we're talking about
next week's US mid-term elections, Donald Trump and dinosaurs.
Susan Glasser (00:09):
This question of what would a Trump second term look
like came up. The image that came to mind was
that of the velociraptors in the first Jurassic Park film.
The children run terrified into the industrial kitchen. They think
they're safe and then click the handle turns and you
realize that the velociraptors have learned how to hunt their
(00:32):
prey and open the door. What Trump has learned is
how to operate the machinery of government towards his ends.
Michael Fullilove (00:41):
The author and journalist Susan Glasser is my guest on
this episode of The Director's Chair. I'm Michael Fullilove, the
Executive Director of the Lowy Institute. I'm a student of
US history and politics and an America-phile. So this week
I'm focused on the US midterm elections that will take
place next Tuesday, the 8th of November. One person who
(01:04):
will not appear on the ballot next Tuesday but will
probably have a significant impact on the election is Donald Trump.
Although he's out of office, that doesn't mean he's out
of power. Indeed, his influence continues to be felt in
the Republican Party and across the country. Mr. Trump's big
lie that the 2020 election was stolen from him persists
(01:25):
among his supporters, including in Congress. The storming of the
Capitol on January six last year continues to cast a
shadow over American democracy. For someone like me, watching that
footage last year was like seeing an old friend in
the grip of a terrible fever. And it's not yet
clear that the fever has broken. To discuss these issues,
(01:46):
as well as her important new book on Donald Trump's
four years in the White House. I'm very pleased to
be joined on the director's chair by Susan Glasser. Susan
is a brilliant journalist and author, a nonresident fellow at
the Lowy Institute and a good friend of mine. She's
a staff writer at The New Yorker, where she writes
a weekly column on life in Washington. She's also served
(02:06):
as the editor of Politico magazine and the editor in
chief of foreign policy. Susan is one half of a
dynamic writing duo with her husband, Peter Baker of The
New York Times. In 2020, Susan and Peter published The
Man Who Ran Washington, a biography of the former US
Secretary of State, James Baker. Their latest book is called
(02:27):
The Divider Trump in the White House 2017 to 2021,
published in September by Doubleday. Susan Glasser, thank you for
joining me today from Washington, D.C., for The Director's Chair.
Susan Glasser (02:39):
Well, it's great to be with you. Although I guess
I'm going to start out on a somewhat down note
by saying I can tell you pretty confidently that the
fever has not broken. So that's that's one thing we
can start out on. But, Michael, thank you so much
for that nice introduction and for having me back.
Michael Fullilove (02:56):
All right. Well, we're going to talk about that fever
and get an even sharper diagnosis from you. But let
me let me start with the midterm elections next week,
four days out. What's the mood in America and what
do you think will happen next Tuesday?
Susan Glasser (03:09):
Well, look, the smart betting, you know, is always against
the president's party. Two years into his term in office and,
you know, history and the weight of current evidence, both
suggest that things are not likely to turn out very
favorably for Democrats in the midterm elections next week. President
(03:31):
Biden's approval ratings have been underwater. That's the term of art.
But basically it means that he's got more unpopularity than
than popularity right now. In fact, it's really striking that
that both Biden and Trump in some polls basically have
essentially the same positive and negative approval ratings right now.
(03:51):
So about 42%, 43% approving of Biden's job in office
and something just over 50% disapproving of his performance while
in office. So that's a huge drag on any party.
Historically speaking, these midterm elections are referenda on how is
the president doing just a couple of years into his term.
(04:14):
And of course, we also have the situation where Democrats
at the moment somewhat tenuously control all three branches of
government here, the House, the Senate and the presidency. And,
you know, so that makes it much harder to escape
blame at a time when, of course, the U.S., like
other major economies, is suffering from a very high inflation
(04:34):
concern about rising energy prices, high gas prices at the pump, and,
you know, continuing dislocations after the long COVID pandemic.
Michael Fullilove (04:45):
Let me ask you about foreign policy. Does Joe Biden
get any credit for playing his hand on Ukraine pretty well,
contributing in a meaningful way through the provision of material weapons, intelligence, finance?
He gets good reviews for that. Does the American public
notice that or are they focused on other issues?
Susan Glasser (05:05):
Yeah, I would say it's pretty clear that Americans are
focused on other issues. The war in Ukraine has not
been a big I explicit subject of campaigning, in part
because there has been a pretty broad bipartisan consensus, certainly
in Congress, both Republicans and Democrats. There is a significant
but growing minority faction so far of Republicans followers, Donald Trump,
(05:28):
who are in that emerging pro-Putin wing of the Republican
Party who have questioned what Kevin McCarthy, who might become
the new speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, said
was the need to give a blank check to the Ukrainians.
But but overall, I would say that President Biden's leadership around.
Found how to withstand Russian aggression in Ukraine, the successful
(05:54):
pulling together of a very united NATO's coalition to help Ukraine,
billions of dollars of military assistance. That's seen as as
probably his great foreign policy success so far. But it
hasn't really factored with the voters. Whereas interestingly, the great
kind of foreign policy failure that botched and embarrassing withdrawal
(06:17):
from Afghanistan, that did seem to really, you know, be
a sort of gut punch to President Biden's administration, in
part because it undercut, I think, their claim to foreign
policy competence and even just plain old technocratic good governance.
It seemed poorly done and ill considered in how it
(06:37):
was organized and questionable even for those who supported the
overall goal of withdrawing the U.S. militarily from Afghanistan. So
that actually did seem to have a negative effect. But conversely,
you haven't seen a positive effect in how they organized
the support for the war in Ukraine.
Michael Fullilove (06:54):
And just staying on Ukraine in the midterms for a second.
You talked about bipartisan support, but there are wings of
both parties, actually, that are a little uncomfortable about the
way the war is being waged. The liberal wing of
the Democratic Party also uncomfortable with some elements of how
US is assisting Ukraine. Depending on the result, if the Republicans,
(07:15):
for example, were to take control of the House. Would
you anticipate any softening of congressional support for U.S. aid
to Ukraine?
Susan Glasser (07:23):
Yeah. Well, as I mentioned, Kevin McCarthy, the putative leader
of the House Republicans, has already publicly said that there
would no longer be a blank check for Ukraine if
Republicans were to take back control of the House. On
the Democratic side, there's not an explicitly pro Russia pro-Putin
faction as there is in the Republican side. But there
(07:46):
was this very interesting moment just a few days ago
where about 30 members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus had
their own letter that they sent to President Biden urging
him to begin diplomacy with Russia. It seemed very off
message in the middle of Putin's latest round of nuclear
saber rattling. And at a time when Ukrainians have been
(08:07):
making gains on the battlefield, that would certainly put them
in a much stronger position. Seemed a very weird message
to be sending. And in fact, there was enough outcry
that they then immediately withdrew this letter. But I but
I think the point has been made, there's certainly not
unlimited support and there's long been a strong faction on
(08:29):
the far left of the Democratic Party that has not
because they're such big fans of Vladimir Putin, perhaps, but
has essentially long urged accommodation with Putin and Putin's Russia.
And that's, of course, part of the message that that
Putin got even after he gobbled up the Crimean Peninsula
back in 2014.
Michael Fullilove (08:49):
All right. Let me come back to domestic politics in
the United States and ask you about the shocking attack
last week on the husband of the speaker of the House,
Paul Pelosi. How has that reverberated in American public life
over the past week? How much of a shock to
the system has it been? How are Democrats and Republicans
reacting to it?
Susan Glasser (09:11):
Well, I think in part, you know, you see perhaps
you're hearing even more alarm around from independent commentators and
and Democrats about the state of American democracy. And I
think that the attack on Pelosi, horrific attack on the
82 year old husband of the speaker of the House,
(09:31):
Nancy Pelosi, who has been demonized, you know, in a
very personal way by Republicans. This attacker comes in, He
literally bashes in Paul Pelosi's head with a hammer. Pelosi
Up until, you know, was still in the intensive care
unit at the hospital, had emergency brain surgery. And rather
than the normal even kind of comforting platitudes in American
(09:55):
political life, you saw such a starkly divergent response, which
is to say that some Republicans, rather than simply sort
of saying, well, gee, we wish him well, you know,
hope he recovers soon. It's not a complicated script to follow.
You know, you've even seen some of the more extreme
Republicans creating conspiracy theories around what was happening in the House.
(10:18):
Both Donald Trump and his son, Donald Trump Jr were
spreading on social media outrageous things about the attack, caricatures.
Michael Fullilove (10:27):
Of hammers and so on.
Susan Glasser (10:29):
Absolutely. Kari Lake , who's now the front runner, the frontrunner
to become the governor of Arizona, a major state that
actually went for Joe Biden just two years ago. She
turned it into a punch line and a laugh line
at one of her rallies recently this week. And I
have to say, I listened to that clip. And as
horrific as Lake's sort of failed effort at making a
(10:53):
joke about something like this, when what was even more
upsetting to me was the response of the crowd, which,
you know, laughed uproariously. And, you know, what does it
say about the sort of brutal nature of American politics
today that you would be laughing about? You know, an
octogenarian getting his head bashed in because of who is
(11:13):
married to?
Michael Fullilove (11:14):
What's the path forward for the Republican Party? Susan, it
seems to have been almost completely Trumpified. How does it
get back to the center? Are there emerging figures who
are more traditional Republicans?
Susan Glasser (11:28):
Quite the opposite, Michael. I would say that, you know,
that is the persistent, you know, kind of hope or
dreamer fantasy, if you will, of the last few years
of American politics. Just this idea that there at some moment, surely,
you know, there will be this kind of snapback or
reversion to the mean. You know, a party that that
finds its way back to the center and accountability moment,
(11:51):
a return to the status quo ante Trump. Instead, what
you've seen is not only a Trump ified GOP, but
a new generation of Republican politicians who have taken the
lessons from Trump that are not just that are both
a style of politics in which outrage is a goal
in and of itself. And, you know, arguably there's a
(12:12):
sort of addictive bond that's now formed between Republican politicians
and the Republican electorate in which each of them craves
ever more and more stimulation. And, of course, some of
these politicians don't have some of the natural showman qualities
that that Trump has. And they seem to be the
ones who then are the most desperate to prove that
(12:33):
they can, you know, outdo him in terms of outrageous things.
And so, you know, Ron DeSantis, the governor of Florida,
Ted Cruz, the senator from Texas, neither one of them
really has very much charisma, to be honest. And, you know,
but in in many ways, that's actually caused them, I think,
to up the ante in terms of, you know, their
more norm busting, outrageous theatrics.
Michael Fullilove (12:55):
Now, look, perhaps the most dangerous of this kind of
outrageous behavior is the persistence of the big lie that
the election was stolen from Donald Trump. And President Biden
was in Florida this week warning voters about this threat
to American democracy. But as you pointed out, fully two
thirds of Republicans believe that President Biden is not actually
(13:17):
the president of the United States, that he wasn't really
elected to that office. Now, an essential element of democracy
is that the loser accepts defeat. Even Bolsonaro in Brazil
after a delay appears now to have accepted that that
he's lost. So what does it mean for American democracy
if the losers stop accepting that they've lost?
Susan Glasser (13:39):
Yeah, I mean, I think in a way, we've been
confronting this problem, you know, ever since 2020. And it's
such a big problem that people tend to want to
look away from it. And certainly, actually, that's been in
many ways the response of the Republican establishment, people like
Mitch McConnell, who aren't believers in the Big Lie and
yet nonetheless are campaigning for and supporting candidates who are
(14:01):
right now because they want the power and they're willing to,
you know, go past the boundaries of extra constitutionalism. There's
no other way to describe it. Donald Trump is the
only president in American history, not just in modern history,
but in American history, period. Never to accept the results
(14:22):
of a legitimate election and in fact, to seek to
overturn the results of an election that's just never happened before.
And two years later, that two thirds figure, two thirds
of Republicans today and that's according to the most recent
polls I just looked at today, Don't say that Joe
Biden was not legitimately elected to be president. That is
(14:42):
basically the exact same percentage as on January six. And
so American public opinion really hasn't moved at all. And Republicans,
you know, have essentially doubled down on this this big lie.
And it goes without saying that this really is based
on no evidence whatsoever. But it's important to point that out.
(15:03):
It's not like, well, there was some fraud. And there's
a question to be clear. No question, 60 different lawsuits
are looked at this. None of them found anything. Bill Barr,
you know, the right wing conservative Donald Trump appointed attorney general,
he said there was no evidence of widespread electoral fraud
that would in any way call into question the election results.
(15:27):
Trump's own campaign advisers told him he lost the election.
His family members did it. It didn't matter. And now
he has millions and millions of Americans persisting in this
evidence free fantasy.
Michael Fullilove (15:42):
All right. Let's talk about Donald Trump failed former president
lost the 2020 election. By millions of votes. The only
president in US history to be impeached twice currently under
investigation for his handling of classified information after he left
the White House. You and Peter Baker have just published
this important book, The Divider. First of all, I got
(16:04):
to say I am knocked over by your resilience, Susan.
If I had lived through the Trump presidency in Washington
minute by minute, as you and Peter did, I don't
think I would want to turn around and then write
the history of it. What was it like delving back
into that, reliving those moments, and what really surprised you?
(16:24):
You were very close observers of Trump's presidency as he
lived it. What surprised you when you went back into
the documents and started to talk to individuals behind the scenes?
Susan Glasser (16:34):
Well, thank you, Michael. I assure you, it was not
purely a masochistic exercise, you know, but really, in many ways, actually,
we were just talking about January six. That was one
of the reasons that we wanted to write the book
the way that we did. We felt it was very
important to look at the full four years of Trump
in the White House, which is something that no one
had done before. Many good books, of course, you know,
(16:56):
writing about Trump, but no. One, this is the only
book that seeks to sort of put the whole presidency together.
And the reason we felt it was important, and especially
once we then sort of had this whole draft together,
you can really see the through lines of so many
of these things that the Trump presidency is really the
story of this four year assault on American institutions in which,
(17:21):
you know, you you realize that January six is not
some kind of violent, crazy outlier, but in fact, the
inexorable culmination of those four years of Trump in the
White House. And so that's the story I think that
we wanted to tell. And also just knowing that there's
always more you can learn about a presidency, there's always
(17:43):
a need for a first draft, a presidency book like this.
We were able to interview, conduct something like 300 original
interviews for this book, all of them, which took place
after Trump left office and after his second impeachment. And
we were able to substantially learn, not only knew extraordinary
things that we didn't know about, but also to understand
(18:05):
better things that we might have known something about in
the course of the presidency. And so for me, I
felt like I learned an awful lot both about the
dysfunction in the Trump White House, but also and probably
most importantly, how again and again and again, he benefited by,
I would say, our collective underestimation of him. And and,
(18:26):
you know, he plays the clown. The absurdity of the
theatrics 24 hours a day often could mask the dead
seriousness of some of the attacks on institutions. For example,
the Trump's desire well-documented because he talked about it publicly
to move on from NAITO, he called it obsolete. And
(18:46):
yet our reporting showed that he actually came much, much
closer than was understood or reported at the time actually
withdrawing from NAITO. Can you imagine the situation with Russia
and Ukraine right now had Trump, you know, basically destroyed
NAITO from within before this moment, it really would have
been a very different situation.
Michael Fullilove (19:06):
All right. Let me ask you about dysfunction and order
in the White House. Let me ask you about the
adults in the room who tried to bring order. The generals,
the secretaries, the advisers who elected to serve President Trump,
knowing that they did so at significant risk to their reputation,
(19:27):
but hoping that they could control his worst instincts. Did
they succeed? Did they make a good bargain?
Susan Glasser (19:35):
Well, you know, what's very interesting is that, first of all,
I think it's important to say as a as a
White House official said to us in the course of
during the book, there are no heroes. And it's about
a very dark moral universe, indeed. You know, when the
question is, you know, what compromises were people willing to make?
Those who served? Trump was a self-selecting group. In the
(19:55):
first place, there were some national security, nonpartisan officials, I
think generals who ended up kind of standing in the breach,
in part because they came out of those institutions, whereas
others were not willing to serve. I think that there
is pretty clear evidence that they stopped Trump and constrained
(20:16):
him from doing certain things that he wanted to do,
that he came back to and back to and back to,
especially because the history of Trump's four years is of,
you know, being raging at those constraints and seeking to
get ever more loyalist and sort of slavish functionaries just
around him. If anything, the events of 2020 probably do
(20:40):
cast new light on the adults in the room and
suggest that they did actually stop him from doing things.
Whatever you think of John Kelly, the former Four-Star Marine
general who served as Trump's second White House chief of staff.
He came to loathe Trump, perhaps more than any American
White House chief of staff has ever loathed the president.
But we can't say for sure that January six wouldn't
(21:02):
have happened if it had still been John Kelly and
not Mark Meadows as Trump's chief of staff. But I
think it's fair to to say that that Kelly would
have thrown himself at the door of the Oval Office
in order to stop Donald Trump from having a five
hour meeting with election deniers like Mike Flynn and Sidney Powell,
at which martial law was discussed. They wanted Trump to
(21:25):
impose martial law in order to seize voting machines and
rerun the election in key states. Obviously a completely illegal
and unconstitutional thing rather than throwing them out of the
White House entirely, which is what John Kelly would have
done to those people. He might have had them arrested.
You know, Donald Trump sat there and listened to them.
And so, you know, I do think that there was
(21:47):
a pretty clear difference. And, you know, of course, the
other big takeaway for us from this book is that
a second Trump term would not have John Kelly. It
would not have Jim Mattis as defense secretary or H.R.
McMaster as the national security adviser. Or even people like
Bill Barr and John Bolton, who are much more hard
(22:09):
edged partisans at times even willing to do Trump's bidding.
And yet nonetheless broke publicly with him. None of those figures.
None of those figures, even with very extreme conservative ideologies,
would be acceptable to Trump in a second term because
he would be looking for a real, you know, praetorian
(22:29):
guard of people whose qualities were of complete loyalty combined
with a zeal to execute whatever the leader told them
to execute.
Michael Fullilove (22:40):
Let me ask you about the congressional committee that's been
looking into the events of January the sixth. It's produced
an enormous amount of evidence, including that striking footage of
congressional leaders under threat from the rioters on the day.
Where is it all going to end? Will it have
real consequences for Mr. Trump?
Susan Glasser (23:00):
So there are no real consequences for him in terms of,
you know, this is not this is a congressional to
House Select committee. So, you know, they don't have the
power except for the power of documenting for history and,
you know, the political powers of persuasion to publicly air
these things, which is what the hearings did. I thought
(23:20):
they were very compelling. If, as expected, the Democrats lose
the House of Representatives next week, this committee is very
likely to go out of business. Now, the members have
said that as their final act of business before the
new Congress comes in, in January, that they were are
planning to release not only a report from the committee
(23:40):
with their findings, but also all of the interviews and
documentation they have obtained. And I have to say, as
a student of January six, I am certainly eager to
see this because the hearings that we've seen have been
very compelling. But they've only shown us a small fragment
of the evidence and is thousands of hours of interview
(24:02):
transcripts and emails and text messages and documents they have obtained,
as they've said publicly and recommitted to it, that they're
planning to put all of that out there. So that's
going to be an enormous and presumably fairly damning trove
of information that will be coming out even potentially quite
(24:24):
soon about Trump and January six. Now, he does have
legal exposure in the ongoing Justice Department investigation, criminal investigation
of January six that has had a very active grand
jury meeting. So there's not only the Justice Department criminal
investigation of Trump's taking of classified documents with him to
(24:45):
Mar a Lago after he left the White House, and
many lawyers do believe that he's in quite serious legal
jeopardy for having done that. But there's also a much
more secretive grand jury investigation. We don't know very much
about it, but it does seem that they have also
been gathering evidence about the role of Trump and his
(25:06):
advisors in inciting the violence on January six. And so
that's a kind of an X factor as well. The
view is that Merrick Garland, the attorney general, ultimately will
have to make the call. It's never happened before that
a former president has been indicted. But then again, we've
never had a former president who first sought to overturn
(25:28):
our election before. And then the thinking is that we
should see that start to play out probably by the
spring of next year.
Michael Fullilove (25:36):
All right. A couple of final questions. The subtitle of
your book, Trump in the White House 2017 to 2021
is a little. Terrifying in a way, because it implies
that there might be a future volume of the book
with different years attached to it. Do you think he
will run again for president in 2024 if he does?
(25:58):
Will he receive the Republican nomination?
Susan Glasser (26:01):
Well, the dates on the title were something that our
publisher wanted to add. And it's funny, when we initially
were a little dubious of it, I think they really
wanted to underscore that it was about the White House years,
that it was a full four year history, unlike the
other Trump books. But of course, by the time the
book actually came out and it was clear that Trump
was a much more alive action, you know, kind of
(26:24):
drama in American politics, that it wasn't just a work
of history, but a present day thing. It's come to
seem a little bit more like a threat. And in fact,
there was a very nice review of the book in
The New York Times. But the very last sentence is like,
I really hope they don't write a sequel. I can
say that we're certainly not planning to write a sequel
at this time to the book, but it is also
(26:47):
definitely true that Trump is very, very actively considering running
again for president, that in some ways these multiple ongoing
legal investigations of him have made it more likely, not
less likely, that he would run, in part because he
seems to believe that it would offer him some kind
of protection or make it harder for the attorney general
(27:09):
to indict someone who was a current candidate for office
and not just a former president. Who knows whether that
is a real theory of the case or not, but
it's possible that we may know even very soon. Michael,
it does depend a little bit on the outcome of
the elections next week. Obviously, Trump would seek to claim
(27:31):
credit for a big Republican victory if, conversely, the Democrats
were able to kind of beat the odds and defy
the expectations and do better than expected. That's the one
scenario where it might be harder for Trump to go
ahead and run again. But he is certainly going to
be the overwhelming favorite to win re-election or at least
(27:54):
to win the nomination. Again, I would say an overwhelming favorite,
certainly in a general election, but definitely an overwhelming favorite
in a Republican primary contest. And frankly, it's really an
open question as to whether some of the many Republicans
who've been preparing to run for president are posturing that
they would do so. Whether they would actually follow through
(28:17):
and go ahead and run against Trump if he announces. So,
you know, he may he may basically walk in to
the nomination potentially, if he actually gets out there early
and decides to run.
Michael Fullilove (28:29):
And if he does, I mean, on the Democratic side,
it feels like President Biden will run for re-election. It's
obviously too early to say what that matchup would look like.
But do you have any sort of instincts about what
a Trump Biden rematch would look like four years after
the first one?
Susan Glasser (28:48):
Well, there would be an awful lot of teeth gnashing,
that's for sure. You know, it would not be a
calm two years in American politics. Biden obviously has a
lot of liabilities as a candidate that he even more
so than two years previously in the sense that he's
already the oldest American president ever. And he would be
(29:11):
actually 86 years old if he were to run and
win and serve till the end of his second term
in office. And I think there are a lot of,
you know, even very partisan Democrats who do not think
that that is a good idea for the country, for
Biden himself or for beating Trump and the Republicans. So
I think the flip side is that Biden seems to
(29:33):
believe that, you know, he may be the strongest candidate
to oppose Trump and fears that there is no one,
you know, who would be a strong candidate against Trump.
And obviously he beat Trump once. So he thinks, you know,
maybe I'm the only guy who can do it again.
Michael Fullilove (29:49):
All right. Last question, Susan. If you do have to
write a sequel, if Mr. Trump does run for president,
wins a nomination, wins the general election, what would a
second Trump term look like? You've mentioned that there'd be
fewer adults in the room. Mr. Trump would be less
willing to appoint them, and probably there'd be fewer adults
putting their names forward. He would have learned lessons from
(30:12):
his failures, one presumes. And in the first term, would
it be Trump Unchained?
Susan Glasser (30:17):
Well, I'll leave you with this image. We spoke with
a senior national security official who's spent a lot of
time with Donald Trump in the Oval Office. And this
question of, you know, what would a Trump second term
look like came up? And the official said the image
that came to mind was that of the velociraptors in
(30:38):
the first Jurassic Park film. And you'll remember the scene
where the children run terrified into the industrial kitchen. They.
You think they're safe and then click the handle turns
and you realize that the velociraptors have learned how to
hunt their prey and open the door. And so that
(30:58):
is a pretty chilling image. Now, the point here, by
the way, was not that Donald Trump has learned about
the nuances of health care policy or what exactly goes
into military assistance to Ukraine. What Trump has learned is
how to operate the machinery of government towards his ends.
(31:18):
He's learned about the kind of advisers he wants to
have around him, people who are going to be saying
yes and not saying no to him. And I think
it's a chilling image, but it's probably a pretty accurate one.
And the other thing is vengeance. That's the word that
(31:39):
comes to mind for me when I think about what
Trump in the White House would be. Look at what
he was like in February of 2020 after his first
impeachment trial when the coronavirus was first appearing, and he
couldn't have cared less about it. What he cared about
then was wreaking vengeance on those who had dared to
oppose him, who had testified against him from his own staff,
(32:02):
who had not voted with him on Capitol Hill. He
was all about vengeance. And I think that that's what
a Trump second term. That's a word we'd be thinking
a lot about.
Michael Fullilove (32:10):
Well, Susan, you're not exactly sending me off with a
spring in my step, but I have enjoyed speaking with
you today about Ukraine, about the US midterms, and about
the big Velociraptor himself, Donald Trump. Congratulations to you and Peter,
on the publication of this really important book, The Divider
Trump in the White House 2017 two 2021. And thank
(32:33):
you very much for joining me today on the director's chair.
Susan Glasser (32:36):
Well, it's wonderful to be with you. And, you know,
if need be, I hope you'll be offering us asylum.
They're the enemies of the people will be happy to
come to Australia if if the door is open.
Michael Fullilove (32:48):
Happy to sign off your application. Thanks, Susan.
Susan Glasser (32:51):
Thank you.
Michael Fullilove (32:52):
The Director's Chair is a podcast from the Lowy Institute,
produced on Gadigal Land. The producers for this episode with
Shane McLeod and Darcy Milne with research by David Vallance.
If you've enjoyed this episode, please leave a review in
your podcast app. You can find all our past episodes
at our website, lowyinstitute.org/directorschair. I'm Michael Fullilove. Thanks for listening.
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